The Old Folks Home

[Cynthia12]

There is no with draw period--It works by not letting the cysts get the nutrition they need.

That is why the chicks need B vitamins after the treatment.

Ahh, thanks. Good to know. I know anti-biotics have a withdraw.

 

[gryeyes]

My expletive deleted neighbor declared war on me a short while ago in two separate voice mail messages. (I don't answer the phone when that phone number comes up; just added a cell phone number to my list when the wife tried that trick, which caught me.). I have had four separate people listen to the messages just because I was afraid I am too close to the issue and might be overly sensitive. All four think I should report the calls to law enforcement, even the man who heard them. There have been more than two calls, but those two included "This is war," and "You're going down."

First rally resulted in Animal Services being called for an animal noise complaint, the day the Sand Fire started. That morning, a notce was attached to my gate, but wasn't resolved until A/S was free of large animal evacuation situations. The A/S officer who returned my call apologized for the delay because he figured I would have liked to know the complaint was deemed unfounded the same day. The poultry noise was a non-issue, and the barking dog portion was also "laughable" because dogs have to be barking for 15-20 minutes continuously. Both times cited were when I came home and my younger dog heralded the sound of the gate opening..... Less than five minutes. There was NO barking whilst the A/S officer was on my road. Dooley also patrols the property every night and warns off the skunk family for about five minutes until I get him back inside the house.

The latest volley across the fence was a second noise complaint and a co-conspirator reporting my duck pond as a source of West Nile Mosquitos.

I left a message for the new A/S officer to review the previous officer's case and findings, but encouraged her to call me if she had any questions. No call yet.

The Vector Control officer who left a long, handwritten note, her business card, and a West Nile pamphlet, spent quite a while on the phone with me. She said it became quite apparent "what the real problem is" when she spent about half an hour outside my fence watching "your beautiful chickens and those hilarious turkeys" before the neighbor to my west approached her. "You poor thing," she sympathized with me.

The V/C officer loved the duck pond. "Very pretty, almost like one of those Asian bamboo types, but more rustic.". I told her it was supposed to remind folks of gold rush spumes. Ah well.

With a pump running 24 hours a day, frequent waterfowl swim sessions and goldfish which have grown quite large in the murky green water, there is NO concern about mosquito growth there. Standing water takes close to ten undisturbed days for the mosquito problem to emerge. She asked if I had any other water containers left around and I said "Of course, but nothing that doesn't suffer from ducks or geese stirring it with their bills within a few minutes.". She laughed.

Even IF I had been the Great West Nile Community Hazard, there would have been no fine or order to empty the pond; the county provides free mosquito fish and will even institute a FREE, tri-monthly application of an insecticide not harmful to livestock, pets, or wildlife which may drink from it, if the property owner requests that assistance. (I do not.)

However, I made an appointment for her to come onto my property for an inspection so she can fully document the unfounded complaint. She said she was already satisfied, I did not have to allow her access, but she appreciated my desire to make it absolutely clear *I* am not the problem.

Because the source isn't here, she will be "shot-gunning" all the residences on the road to "be thorough."

She said my two Tom turkeys were "hilarious" as they silently snuck around following her along the fence line. She said the dark one - I told her that was Nigel - is really mean to the smallest white turkey hen. The ducks are gorgeous. There are so many different kinds of chickens in my flock she enjoyed watching them. The geese are "so regal," said she.

Friday morning is the day we will walk around the property together, loudly remarking about this or that particularly amusing poultry antic. Oh, and documenting any standing water which might breed Mosquitos.

I am so relieved to know I am not the crazy one. Well, you know.... At least not about the expletive deleted, rooster & and goose-hating neighbors who have threatened to shoot or slit the throats of my geese. The male half actually followed me into the local general store to yell at me a couple of weeks ago, in front of the proprietor and several customers. That didn't scare me so they have started the "complain to the authorities" campaign.

 

[subhanalah]

My expletive deleted neighbor declared war on me a short while ago in two separate voice mail messages. (I don't answer the phone when that phone number comes up; just added a cell phone number to my list when the wife tried that trick, which caught me.). I have had four separate people listen to the messages just because I was afraid I am too close to the issue and might be overly sensitive. All four think I should report the calls to law enforcement, even the man who heard them. There have been more than two calls, but those two included "This is war," and "You're going down."

First rally resulted in Animal Services being called for an animal noise complaint, the day the Sand Fire started. That morning, a notce was attached to my gate, but wasn't resolved until A/S was free of large animal evacuation situations. The A/S officer who returned my call apologized for the delay because he figured I would have liked to know the complaint was deemed unfounded the same day. The poultry noise was a non-issue, and the barking dog portion was also "laughable" because dogs have to be barking for 15-20 minutes continuously. Both times cited were when I came home and my younger dog heralded the sound of the gate opening..... Less than five minutes. There was NO barking whilst the A/S officer was on my road. Dooley also patrols the property every night and warns off the skunk family for about five minutes until I get him back inside the house.

The latest volley across the fence was a second noise complaint and a co-conspirator reporting my duck pond as a source of West Nile Mosquitos.

I left a message for the new A/S officer to review the previous officer's case and findings, but encouraged her to call me if she had any questions. No call yet.

The Vector Control officer who left a long, handwritten note, her business card, and a West Nile pamphlet, spent quite a while on the phone with me. She said it became quite apparent "what the real problem is" when she spent about half an hour outside my fence watching "your beautiful chickens and those hilarious turkeys" before the neighbor to my west approached her. "You poor thing," she sympathized with me.

The V/C officer loved the duck pond. "Very pretty, almost like one of those Asian bamboo types, but more rustic.". I told her it was supposed to remind folks of gold rush spumes. Ah well.

With a pump running 24 hours a day, frequent waterfowl swim sessions and goldfish which have grown quite large in the murky green water, there is NO concern about mosquito growth there. Standing water takes close to ten undisturbed days for the mosquito problem to emerge. She asked if I had any other water containers left around and I said "Of course, but nothing that doesn't suffer from ducks or geese stirring it with their bills within a few minutes.". She laughed.

Even IF I had been the Great West Nile Community Hazard, there would have been no fine or order to empty the pond; the county provides free mosquito fish and will even institute a FREE, tri-monthly application of an insecticide not harmful to livestock, pets, or wildlife which may drink from it, if the property owner requests that assistance. (I do not.)

However, I made an appointment for her to come onto my property for an inspection so she can fully document the unfounded complaint. She said she was already satisfied, I did not have to allow her access, but she appreciated my desire to make it absolutely clear *I* am not the problem.

Because the source isn't here, she will be "shot-gunning" all the residences on the road to "be thorough."

She said my two Tom turkeys were "hilarious" as they silently snuck around following her along the fence line. She said the dark one - I told her that was Nigel - is really mean to the smallest white turkey hen. The ducks are gorgeous. There are so many different kinds of chickens in my flock she enjoyed watching them. The geese are "so regal," said she.

Friday morning is the day we will walk around the property together, loudly remarking about this or that particularly amusing poultry antic. Oh, and documenting any standing water which might breed Mosquitos.

I am so relieved to know I am not the crazy one. Well, you know.... At least not about the expletive deleted, rooster & and goose-hating neighbors who have threatened to shoot or slit the throats of my geese. The male half actually followed me into the local general store to yell at me a couple of weeks ago, in front of the proprietor and several customers. That didn't scare me so they have started the "complain to the authorities" campaign.

I strongly urge you to turn over all evidence and make a report of all incidences of attempted coercion/intimidation. The voice mails themselves are against the law, and they will have an arrest warrant out for whoever made the threats. (At least that's been the law in the states I've lived in)

 

[bamadude]

I thought Silkies where a little silly looking, but I just saw a picture of a Polish in the calendar competition thread. @bamadude
 I think your next breed has been discovered.

the silkies and polish have been forced on me. They seem ok so far tho. I hope my dw never sees naked necks

 

[bamadude]

I thought he said his DW had forced inspired him to get both Silkies and Polish.

u are right about that

 

[Lacy Blues]

My expletive deleted neighbor declared war on me a short while ago in two separate voice mail messages. (I don't answer the phone when that phone number comes up; just added a cell phone number to my list when the wife tried that trick, which caught me.). I have had four separate people listen to the messages just because I was afraid I am too close to the issue and might be overly sensitive. All four think I should report the calls to law enforcement, even the man who heard them. There have been more than two calls, but those two included "This is war," and "You're going down."

<snipped?>

Are you sure you don't live in Railroad Flat, CA? Sheesh! That neighbor sounds like the one I left behind! Glad the people he's nagging to are on your side!

 

[Alaskan]

 

 

Seagulls? We don't get to eat seagulls.....you do? I would think they would be oily. Hummmmmm

I was wondering why no one picked up on that one 


Those birds are for training the dogs. I guess some people might eat crow (those we have too, forgot about them in the freezer) or seagulls, but I haven't tried. I did see a TV show where they made sweet and sour crow with rice. Didn't seem half bad.

Here it is actually illegal to kill seagulls. It is even illegal to harass them.





Superchemgirl!!!!!! ARG!!! And major envy! And such glorious glorious space! You probably can't even smell the chickens from your living room!


I am with you on the no heat to the coop.


I can NOT understand how people heat their coops! I keep reading on the Alaskan groups how they heat their coop to 40 or even 55F!!! And they don't want their dear sweet chickens to suffer at all. Some "only" heat if the temps get to 20! And then there are also posts about how the entire foot froze off!


I don't understand.


1. Spending that much money on chickens makes me almost enter into spasms. I heat *MY* house only to 55F!


2. I think that good vents (lacking in many of these coops) is much more important.


But then, I live in a warm spot, I think that I have only hit -15. I gotta say, if you live where it goes to -60, yep, you probably do need to heat the coop.

Here the seagulls are often referred to as flying rats. Some species are protected, but others are found in vast numbers, especially in cities or near land fills.

I like having the option of being able to heat the coop. I insulated it, since I didn't see any harm in doing that, and because the heater I bought only cost 7 euros, I put that in there as well. I don't intend to use it, except if we get freakishly cold weather, but if it gets wet in there, I can turn on the heat to improve the evaporation of moisture in the day while the chickens are in the run. I do still need to figure out something for their water though.

Insulated coops are nice and more usable. I insulated one small part of my coop last summer (only one part, because WOW one roll of insulation and a few sheets of plywood are very expensive up here). The insulated part just stays much warmer, even when fully vented, simply because my very strong and cold wind can't rob the heat as easily.

As to water...what you do greatly depends on 1. How often you can carry water out, and 2. How reliable your electric is.

My electric is terrible, and I can usually carry out water quite often. So, we carry out water three times a day, until it is so cold that the water freezes into a solid block in one hour or less. Then I use a stock tank deicer in a black rubber horse feed pan. That stock tank deicer can thaw itself out of a solid ice block very quickly, and those flexible black rubber pans are WONDERFUL, and immensely strong. You can smack them about to pop the ice cube out without breaking the pan.

I close off parts of my home in the winter so I don't have to heat them. We've gotten about as low as -30 and the birds are still fine. They're not exactly running around and happy, but neither am I at that temp.
Is your coop attached to your house? How much land do you have?

I wanted to connect the coop to the house, but the spouse said no.

We have more than enough land for oodles of coops, except that I need to
1. Be able to see the coop from the house to be able to check on things (predators, boys having left the door open, etc.)
2. Be able to haul water to the coop in the dead of winter through blasting winds and heavy snow
3. Be able to get electric out to the coop if I need light (some breeds really need light to keep laying, and it is nice to be able to thaw the water when it is super cold)

Those restrictions GREATLY limit where I can put coops, especially since the spouse doesn't want to be able to see another coop. Makes it kinda impossible actually.

This goes a bit off topic already, but I like watching a TV show called Grand Designs, it features some pretty ambitious unique house build projects, mainly in the UK. There is an Aussie spin off too. I find it amusing when they talk about double glazed windows, and refer to them as "super high tech". Here, triple glazing has been the norm for probably 30 years, while really environmental builds use quadruple glazing. Insulation seems to be a pretty foreign concept in many parts of the world too. I think in many parts of the world people could save on their AC bills quite a lot if they would just insulate their houses to begin with. And heating would be cheaper too.

*Edit* I even built double glazed windows for the coop.

We have no AC, we just make sure some of the windows can open.

When I first moved up here, we moved into a homestead house, and one of the windows was still a single pane window. WOW!! If you had your eyes closed, you would have been certain that a large hole was in that wall!!!

Whew!!!  off to the city for one day and 80 posts, really  With all the new folks on here I think we've raided most of the other threads!

No attempt to catch up so only this, broody, I let mine go except I mentioned before she got kicked off twice a day and extra snacks in the nest.  Winter temps- here -20 F fairly common in mid to late winter, -30 possible and not all that rare, even hit below -40 without the  windchill but not often thankfully.

Do you heat your coop?

 

[vehve]

Gryeyes, hope it works out with the neighbor.

Alaskan, I was thinking of using some kind of electric solution.

 

[chickadoodles]

Quote: Thanks Lacy, I got some plain yogurt yesterday. I was just giving them some that I had here from the kids visiting and rather than throw it out I gave it to the chickens. lol
I have never been one to eat much yogurt but I always bought it for my kids, they loved it. I am trying to eat a little here and there trying to get used to it.
Thanks for the tips on how to use the plain yogurt. I will give it a try. lol

 

[chickadoodles]

Quote: That was a very good question Cynthia, thanks for asking. I was not so sure either. Thanks Ron!