We have one black Australorp hen that likes to fly over her fence and come into the back yard.  She is a wanderer.  The other day, she was in my clematis vine, trying to make a nest up on the top!  She is such a funny bird!

Tadah!  She was in there!

Here is a picture of some of our turkeys that we raised. They are absolute food hogs and gobble up the feed as soon as you put it in the bowl!

 They look twice as big when they display their feathers like that.

We waited too long to butcher them and they got really big.  The last boy was over 40 lbs when he was dressed.  He wouldn't even fit in my scalding pot!

 Here is turkey sausage all wrapped up and ready for the freezer.

 And here are 24 pints of canned turkey.  Great for turkey salad sandwiches!

We lost all our buff brahmas to an attack last fall.  We think it might have been a stray dog.  It was early in the morning and it killed all our hens and the rooster died the next day of shock.
I sold all of my silkie breeders last year, I found them not be very hardy, more work than other breeds and not very productive.
I am also selling my houdan/polish mix girls so that I can have pure polish pens.  I currently have 3 polish pens and will put up pics soon.
I wanted to explain why I no longer breed these birds.  I have removed them from my current breeding flocks.

It has been while since I have written and our little postage stamp farm has had many changes.  Life moves quickly doesn't it?  I am going to concentrate on updating my blog page in the coming weeks.

Last weekend we butchered 6 broad breasted turkeys from last year.  We put 173 lbs of meat into the freezers!  We made turkey sausage, burger, stock, soup, canned turkey and of course legs and wings for baking.  We bought 16 turkeys last year and 8 more were given to us.  This was almost too much for us.  This year I will stick to 12 I think.  I also plan to buy 24 broilers.  I am day dreaming about what breeds I cannot live without this year as well.

Yesterday, I brought the incubator back into the house for hatching season to start. Today, it will get cleaned out and turned on for testing.  I am collecting olive-eggers, polish and mille fleur cochin eggs from my flocks.  I also have 3 dozen buckeye eggs on order and they will be in the incubator soon.

I can only hatch maybe one or two clutches of chicks before it will be gosling season!  I have the 16 geese separated into breeding pens.  They are so easily upset at this time of year.  I only have to walk over near they pens and they honk like a million car alarms going off!

It is almost light now, I had better go feed the animals.

Predators and Pests

Predators 

Here is a good list of clues that predators leave, it might tell you what happened to your birds:

Pests

Mites, lice and sometimes even ticks like to live on your birds.  This will drain their energy and their health will decline. 
Here is a site that shows what the mites and lice look like and where it is likely to find them on your bird.  http://ohioline.osu.edu/vme-fact/0018.html

Treatment of Pests

I have used several things with varying degrees of success and difficulty. Most of these treatments you want to do about 3 times a year.

The first obvious choice is dusting powder.  This one is a 10 on the work scale for me because I have a lot of birds but it would be good for small flocks.  You have to catch each bird, dust it all over, (like you would dust a dog or cat with flea powder) especially under the wings and by the vent  and work it in the feathers with your hands.  You want to wear a dust/paint mask so that you do not breathe the dust.  Then you have to dust each bird again 2 weeks later to kill the bugs that have hatched from the eggs.  The dusting powder does not kill eggs.   Remember that mites get off the birds during the day, so they are in your roosts and coops too.  Dust all over the coop and roosts as well.  Her is a link to the kind I have used; http://www.twincitypoultrysupplies.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=4&products_id=64

The next product I have used is call Frontline.  It is a dog flea and tick product.  I find this a 2 on the difficulty scale and a 7 or 8 success rate.   I go in after dark and do it while they are on the roost.  I buy the Frontline at Costco, buying the largest dog size you can get. (best savings)  I squeezed the frontline out into a small bowl or container and then sucked it up with a 3 cc syringe (no needle).  I used this to drop 2 drops on banties and 3 drops on large fowl. (on the skin on the back of the neck)  Here is a link to the one I bought; http://www.frontline.com/prd_tools.asp.  I got 3 ampules for around $38.  I found that one ampule dosed 30-40 birds. 

The next product I have used it called Ivomec Eprinex.  It is a cattle product for outer and inner parasites.  So it worms your birds while it gets rid of the bugs too!  I like this product the best so far, because it does double duty!   I also use a 3 cc syringe for this and use the following drops: Lf chickens get 5 drops my goose gets 10 my Muscovy girls get 6 and my drakes 8 my bantam chickens get 3 drops my standard chickens get 4 What i like about the Epernix is it is safe to continue to eat the eggs after using instead of having to toss then.  I have been using these dosages for almost 3 years and have never had a problem.

Coops

Here is what kind of roosts I use in a large, walk-in type coop.  They are sturdy, cheap and easy to make. http://www.poultryhelp.com/barnpens5.html

This weekend we got a new goose brought to us.  She (we hope) was dumped at a park in Mount Lake Terrace (north Seattle) and was being abused by kids and dogs and starving.  And since she doesn't belong there and was making a mess, the city wanted to put her down!  UGH!   Some very nice people took an interest in her and talked to me.  I told them if they caught her and brought her to me, I would get her back to health and find her a good home (if we don't keep her ourselves).  Her name is Gertrude, we call her Gurty, the purty birdy! te he
She is very friendly, but scared of the dogs and if you carry anything (I think people tried to hit her with objects ={ so sad!) and being alone.  Last night when I opened my gate and let my geese into the other pasture, they all left her and she got very upset.  So I brought Goosey (my sebbie gander) over to keep her company and then she was happy!
She is a beautiful toulouse goose.

 Here is Gurty hanging out with Goosey and the two gray goslings through the fence.  They are fast friends.