It?s beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

[Diane CBPFC]

It?s beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

What with the Christmas competition thread closed down due to an overzealous moderator, smutty private parts comments popping up intermittently and the bitching about past gifts received.

Yup ? we are getting more and more like family every year. 

[Roger Kettle]

 

[Roger Kettle]

Talking about Christmas, Diane, we had our first snow of the Winter. What's it been like with you and have the moose/mooses/meese been in your garden yet?

[Diane CBPFC]

We had snow on November 5th and it has pretty much stayed - just about four inches and the weather has been mild.

The moose have lots to eat out in the bush still - we only see them when the snow gets over a foot. THe coyotes have been bad all summer - howing in the night. My son built a chicken coop and has chickens for the first time ever and they are probably driving the coyotes nuts being so close to a chicken dinner.

[Roger Kettle]

How do you pronounce "coyotes"?  I used to think it was three syllables, as in "Kai-yo-tiz" until I heard a guy in Montana use the two-syllable version "Kai-oats". He also said "crick" for "creek". What strange people you North Americans are.

[Diane CBPFC]

Not the ones of us that were born in Wallasey though - we are pretty normal.

I pronounce coyotes both of those ways depending on my mood.

[Elizabeth]

Diane - how many chickens does your son have? I plan to start keeping a few chickens next spring, and would be very interested in seeing the plans for the coop!! Please, Fyodor et al - no jokes about spring chickens...

[Roger Kettle]

That's just great, Elizabeth. We don't hear from you for months and then, when you DO come back online, it's because you want free advice from our founder member.
Don't tell her anything, Di!

[Fyodor]

Good to you're living 'The Good Life' Elizabeth, but don't restrict yourself to the Co-op. Tesco will give you a better post-slaughter price.

[Diane CBPFC]

Hi Elizabeth,
Yes, plans would have been nice. My son is a bit like my father in that he just has a nack of hammering a few things together and coming up with something fairly good. He used the existing base of a building that was rotting and built up from that; his dad brought him some lumber and I bought the paint for him so take credit for the cute colour.

He ordered a box of 30 chicks in the spring and he has about 17-18 now in the fall. He lost a few the first week when they got wet but don?t know why many of them died when they were older. I talked about it with the vet?s husband and wondered if I should take one in for her. He wondered if I meant to eat for supper or for  an autopsy. It really doesn?t pay to do a chicken autopsy unless you have a huge egg production.

Apparently keeping half of them alive is pretty good for your first go.

This past week I bought my first dozen eggs from him ? he only gets 1 to 3 per day ? but is very keen about the chickens ? they get fed and watered before he has his own breakfast. I worry that he may have got the farmer gene from his dad.

[Elizabeth]

"Apparently keeping half of them alive is pretty good for your first go" - I plan to have 3 to start with... . Please ask your son how many eggs I should anticipate per week from one and a half chickens...
Thanks for the picture of the coop Diane - our plans are for something a tad less palatial, but the colour IS pretty. There is a plastic coop on sale, called an egloo since it loks vaguely like a garishly coloured igloo and costs about half a million pounds (well it might as well do) but we will go for the homemade version, costing about 2/6.
Roger, you are mean - no eggs for you next spring, and Fyodor - none for you either.

[Elizabeth]

Oh, I meant to say Diane - the surroundings of your coop remind me VERY much of where I was brought up - Dalwhinnie, since you ask - I was the other inhabitant of Roger's home town.

[Diane CBPFC]

Why don't you just get six chicks? I would think that would be better as they stand in a group to keep warm. Chicks here only cost about $2 each and eggs are now about $2.40 doz. (free range are about $4 per doz) Chicken feed is expensive - we wouldn't break even if we didn't supplement with our own grain and garden bugs in in the summer. We had a bad slug problem and now we don't! That was worth having chickens for me alone. 

[Roger Kettle]

Oh, I meant to say Diane - the surroundings of your coop remind me VERY much of where I was brought up - Dalwhinnie, since you ask - I was the other inhabitant of Roger's home town.

Dalwhinnie's a TOWN???

[Tarquin Thunderthighs lll]

Why don't you just get six chicks? I would think that would be better as they stand in a group to keep warm. Chicks here only cost about $2 each and eggs are now about $2.40 doz. (free range are about $4 per doz) Chicken feed is expensive - we wouldn't break even if we didn't supplement with our own grain and garden bugs in in the summer. We had a bad slug problem and now we don't! That was worth having chickens for me alone. 

Chicken feed ain't chicken feed no more!