Bruce's Journal

[Baymule]

It sure simplifies matters when you can eat the trouble makers.

 

[Bruce]

You know we won't be doing that @Baymule.

@Mike CHS's "wild" turkey's northern kin


And Mint, not where she should have been. Don't know about wing clipping, maybe I can raise the the height of the gate with a wire across it or something

 

[Mike CHS]

That's a good size gang of turkeys. I haven't clipped any of our chickens wings but I assume it's the same as clipping a parrots wing which I have done plus with a chicken you don't have as much to worry about with their beaks as a parrot.

 

[CntryBoy777]

It is the same Mike, and after facing the beak of a parrot the chicken really isn't too be dreaded....Bruce, it is quicker and easier than stringing something up, hoping it works....clipping is a sure fix.....

 

[Bruce]

Today I made a more secure/easier to install/uninstall cover for the openings in the community nest box so none of the younger girls would try to roost in it.

Tonight's activity:
Whole family went to the barn well past dark.

• Removed Oreo from the upper cross bar on the alpaca stand and put a black band on her leg. Put her on the roost.
• Removed Mint from the upper cross bar on the alpaca stand and put a red band on her leg. Put her on the roost.
  
• Removed Cassiopea from the top of the coop door and put her on the roost
  
• Removed Veronica from one of the open nest boxes put a red band on her leg. Put her on the roost.
  
• Moved Trouble to the other coop. He won't be coming out early in the morning and crowing, no auto door. And if he keeps beating on some of the other chickens, he won't get out at all.
• Removed from the roost, banded, placed back on the roost
  • Angel - yellow
  • Yuki - blue
  • Mellori - blue
  • Nuit - yellow
  • Zorra - black
  • Anais - yellow
  • Clemence - brown
  • Betty - blue

Why? Because some members of the family can't tell them apart. I, on the other hand, can (though not always at a distance) and won't remember the colors

 

[Baymule]

Well that makes perfect sense. It really will help the family know what chicken is who. I knew a man with a herd of black angus. He knew every one of them by their faces.

 

[Bruce]

Closing up last night: Oreo on the alpaca stand, Mint and Cassiopea on the coop door, another girl in a nest box. I didn't bother to shine a light on her to see which Welsummer it was, I just heard her as I carried Oreo into the coop and snagged her as the second "night roost reassignment". I'm sure Penelope is running them off the roost before it gets really dark and she can't see well enough to do it. Trying to NOT keep her status as "low girl in the order" I guess.

I let Trouble out of his coop around 10 AM, he seems to be behaving himself so far today. If he starts running down the girls again, he'll be "reassigned" tonight when I close up the coop.

 

[CntryBoy777]

I have a question for ya....the hen that has been raising the duckling here....when we take the ducklung from her, will she need to be reintergrated back into the flock or will she be okay to find her place back into it?

 

[Bruce]

In my VAST experience (Zorra raising 2 batches ), she bailed on them and went right back to the flock. These would be the same girls she'd been chasing away for a couple of months.

Do your ducks and chickens mingle? I would think the duck would figure out it was more like the other ducks than her "mother" and might take him/her self "away" when s/he is ready.

 

[CntryBoy777]

Naw, they are separated, but there is fence between the hen-duckling pair and the rest of the chickens. I never got the ducks in their half of the house, so we separated her to the other half of the house when she went broody. She is acting like she is wanting back on the roost, so will probably take the duckling to the garage to finish out feathering....it is close to 3wks old now.