Poultry!

The Geese arrived, all 11 of them and its been busy ever since. We have hatchlings and 4 of the hens are currently brooding - they should be ready in probably another week or so, I'm hoping the hatch rate is good for these ladies.

Unfortunately, a snake got my broody duck's eggs, so now I need to figure out something else to do so she can raise a brood.

And we have, hopefully, a batch of Speckled Sussex, Marans and Delawares hatching within the next week, exciting times!

Kweeba!

The pup 4th from the top, Vorros, will be flying home to us on May 16th. Hubby and I are so besides ourselves!

An icelandic dog to go with icelandic sheep and soon to add icelandic chickens!

Now all we need is the horse :)

The Poultry Yard

Our current setup - this space will eventually be taken up by the Coop we are planning, complete with windows to let in light and for winter warming. We are arguing about the floor at the moment, whether to raise it up or just build on the concrete pad with concrete around the base.

The Great Poultry Adventure, Part 2

So, hubby gets home before me. He calls me to find out what he needs to do, I said see if you can put the chickens up or get the ducks in their crate and I'll help you when I get home, I'm about 20 minutes behind him. He rings off.

He calls me back 10 minutes later in a flat panic, "there are no chickens! Only ducks!".

So I ask if he sees any blood or feathers, do the ducks look disturbed? No, they are fine, just quacking away.

"Well, maybe they are in the duck crate?" "No, I can't see anything in there."

"Put the ducks up and I'll help you look when I get home", "OK, I'm going to check the trees and the pond area, just in case."

So we conclude the call and I'm driving along, 5 minutes from home now. The phone rings.

"Hello?", "The blasted chickens were in the duck crate! They are all huddled up together and upset with me because they fell over when I moved the crate!"

"Did you close the door first?" "Yes, so what do I do with the ducks? I don't think I'm up for a duck rodeo!"

"Get the other crate and herd the ducks into it, they should zip in without a problem.", "That's what you think, alright, I'll try."

The phone rings.

"Hello?", "I can't believe it, I put the crate out, stepped behind them and they zoomed right in!"

"See? You are getting to be quite the duck wrangler.", "This is less stressful than I though it would be."

I get home and everyone is peeping and quacking away quietly.

This morning, I dragged the crates into what hubby calls "The Exercise Yard", as he is spraying the Prison today *lol*. I propped the camper top open with a handy stick and got the food and water out, "chick, chick, chick, chick" and the mottled cochins come running out, eager to see something new. The smaller roosters don't want to come out so I close the camper top and leave them be after replenishing water and throwing in some food for them to scratch around and find. I let the ducks out, and then the roosters and everyone immediately gets busy scratching and searching. The ducks got some zuchini floating in the water bucket, and tonight I'll set up the little paddle pond for them. I got some free 5 gallon jugs so I'll load those on the wagon and fill them up, then haul them to the garage and have them ready to fill up the paddle pool.

I think they are quite enjoying the change of scenery :)

The Great Poultry Adventure

Hee hee, hubby is being amazingly good natured, he's a really good guy :)

We compromised and the ducks are sleeping in the plastic dog house, with another cage attached to the front to give them extra room - I put lots of shavings in but I did NOT put water in with them. I made sure everyone had a lot of water to drink once we got home and they looked none the worse for wear this morning.

The chickens are all comfy sleeping under hubby's camper top *snicker*. I put a layer of cardboard boxes down on the floor so they didn't have to stand on cold concrete, then I put down a thick layer of shavings and threw some scratch in there. Then we started the great rooster round-up *lol*. Went quite well actually, I was lifting the door of the camper top and hubby was stuffing them inside, one at a time. The RIR rooster was out first and he was actually well behaved. Probably an aberration and he'll turn out to be the rooster from hell tonight *lol* The big Orph crosses were out last of the first crate. Then hubby took a break and had a smoke while I got the duck bed ready, then he put the cochins and the americauna crosses in the camper top. Everyone was quite happy, clucking contentedly and busily scratching. I also put two 'nesting bins' in the back section, just in case. I put the waterer in (I need to put it up on some bricks so he doesn't get so much shavings in it and everyone was quite content.

The duckies, bless their little beating hearts, were scared to death but I needed them out the dog carrying crate (made sure they had water before moving them) so we popped them in the spare one while I put shavings in the dog crate, then we lashed the two together and gently shooed them into their crate.

This morning, I threw out some scratch and some pellets and the big roosters all rushed out, the cochins and smaller roosters didn't want to come out so I left them in the camper with fresh water and pellets and a little scratch.

For the ducks, I had a big bucket of water, plus a smaller coffee can with some cut up greens in it for them. This week they are not allowed access to the pond until they know where home is. Over this weekend we'll let them roam and see how it goes. I'll put the kiddy pool out tonight, I just didn't have time last night and no water available :(

Last thing we did last night was to use a cattle panel to section off the part by the pecan tree on the concrete. We put a tarp over the one side and a door on the other *lol*. I've post some pics - will have to get pics of the camper top hen house later *g*, didn't have time this morning.

Anyway, our great adventure begins!

We also are probably going to go with building a hen house and a duck house on the concrete area because we never use it. We have a large Pecan tree there which throws the smaller wild nuts which will provide shade and the extra protection provided by 2 sides of the garage should work well. We have enough room to make two separate sleeping areas that are probably 16 feet long and 10 feet wide, or thereabouts. This will be just for sleeping and protection as they will be able to free-range during the day. Also, its nice and close to the garage which has outdoor electric plugs so I can run lighting easily during the winter time AND, hubby said its not a problem if I use the bathroom area (there is a full bathroom built in the garage) for a chick and duck brooding area, which is great!

So I think hubby is actually starting to enjoy this a little - he had this little smile listening to the contented cheeps and quacks last night, after everyone was bedded down.

Did I mention what a fabulous husband I have? *smile*

Anthea - rich in ducks and chickens, in Oklahoma.

FROM KIBBLE TO RAW

IMPORTANT: Feed the correct amount for the weight of your cat. If your cat is overweight, do NOT reduce amounts as once on raw, the weight will come off slowly, and naturally, without causing health concerns. You will need to feed 2 - 3% of your cats total weight in raw. Generally its recommended to feed 10% organs, 10 - 15% raw meaty bones, with the bulk being muscle meat.

Step 1: Transition cats onto canned food

If the cats are being free fed kibble, STOP!. Pick up the food and portion out the correct amount 2x a day. Once you have them accustomed to that then you can move forward. I’d say leave them alone on their 2x a day feeding schedule for two weeks before you proceed. You may need to leave them longer and that’s fine too – you have to read your kitties and see where their comfort levels are.

Once, you see that your kitties are doing well, you can proceed to lay in a stock of canned food. Please make sure that you get good quality canned food, preferably grain-less, definitely with NO by-products or BHA or BHT.

Once you are ready to begin, grind up ¼ cup of kibble into very fine powder. The goal here is to gradually move the cats over to eating canned. SLOW is better. So, reduce their kibble food portion by ¼, add in a ¼ tsp of canned food and sprinkle it with the ground kibble.

For those of you whose cats take to the canned with no protest, you can skip this step. If not, please proceed very slowly and pay attention to what your cat is saying at feeding time. :).

Only increase the amount of canned/decrease the kibble portion once a week. Otherwise, leave it alone and observe. If a cat doesn’t want to eat, give them two weeks at the previous level - that generally does the trick.

Continue until the cats are completely moved over to canned, and are comfortable. If this takes you 6 months, that’s fine too.

So, to recap, you add ¼ tsp of canned and remove ¼ of the kibble until only canned is being eaten.

Now, and this is important, STOP! Leave them alone. Let them get used to eating canned for at least two weeks without you futzing with their food.

Step 2: Transition cats onto Raw.

After two weeks, you can add in 1/8 tsp of ground raw. I suggest Nature’s Variety
Chicken and Turkey mix because it is pretty balanced. Mix this in THOROUGHLY. Don’t get ahead of yourself and give them a dollop, because you’ll more than likely upset them into not wanting to eat.

Again, don’t overwhelm the cats (this is directed to those of you who KNOW you have fussy cats – those whose cats are less rigid in nature or younger, can go ahead with offering raw), this is very important as a cat that won’t eat is a cat who soon will be unhealthy and ill.

Keep increasing the amount of raw and decreasing the amount of canned until you have moved your cat SUCCESSFULLY over onto eating ground raw.

It has been my experience that it is not a good idea to throw a variety of foods at them during this transitional phase and it really upsets the fussy ones. So, stick to the chicken and turkey mix until they are eating raw well. Then you can buy a different protein, again, keep it ground, and give them a small piece. You may have to mix it in with the ground mix very well so they become accustomed to the taste.

As you can tell, I had a very fussy girl to deal with :).

At ANY stage in this process, feel free to offer a small chunk of meat, a gizzard, piece of liver, chicken heart, kidney, piece of pork etc. You just need to gauge how the individual cat is progressing. For instance, Bongo took to pieces of pork with great gusto, yet Tinkie took two weeks to warm up to it kibble sprinkled on canned. She’s the reason I took it so slow with everyone – and it actually paid off :).

Step 3: Transitioning onto chunks/prey style

Once you have successfully transitioned everyone to ground raw and have a bit of variety going on, then you can buy some Cornish hens or chicken breasts and cut those into very small pieces and mix those into the ground.

Again, with fussy felines, you have to go slow. Don’t forget that you are strengthening jaw muscles during this process. It took my male 5 months (he’s 10 years old) to get to the point to where he can manage to chew chicken wings without getting tired or upset.

Some of you will be comfortable having arrived at the ground raw point and that is fine. You can either buy commercial ground or make your own recipe following the “Raw Cat Food Diet Recipe Made WITH Real Bones” recipe developed by the author of the CatNutrition.org website – this is the recipe used for several years by herself and many other converts.

For those who wish to proceed onto prey-style raw, follow the same process as above. Gradually reduce the amount of ground raw with small chunks. Again, don’t get too creative with proteins, stick with one or two and work on getting everyone’s jaw’s up to strength. Keep in mind that it’s tiring to chew so always give bones after muscle meats.

Pretty soon, you’ll have your fussy felines eating raw with gusto :).

These steps are given to give you an idea of how to go about the process. It’s very daunting when old hands just throw out advice but never give you a “how-to” part :) so I hope this will assist those who do better with a ‘recipe’ approach, rather than just winging it.

Ice Storm 9 December 2007

We weathered the first round with loss of power for a few hours, a tree crashing down on part of our back fence and one of the trees in the driveway losing limbs and blocking the driveway. We had heat and hot water and a vintage gas stove so we were able to cook and keep warm and such.

Next round coming through today.