Reno Husker

I just found this video and I can understand the man !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCik3XBtgrs

We got a new Coolbot working right after we received it.  But after sitting unused for a year while we finished the chiller insulation etc, it's not chilling, I plugged in the Coolbot last night and all seemed good. It was reading room temp and set temp. I let it run overnight set to 41 degrees.

This morning the temp was only what was set on the remote for the LG minisplit. 68 degrees.  I saw an "ER" on the Coolbot room temp sensor. I cleaned the tip. The room temp reading is now 1 which doesn't make sense. I tried rebooting the Coolbot power. Nothing changed.

All the plugs look very clean. It all used to work.

Coolbot has a bunch of fancy videos with music etc about troubleshooting but narrators are all ladies. I'm going deaf and can't understand them.  

I can't find any Coolbot forums on the web yet.

Dan Fish wrote:So what ya do is....

Tie the dead chicken around the dogs neck. Leave it until it rots off. That dog will never go after a chicken again.

That's how them ol' boys done it.

We did exactly that with a young neutered female heeler who had killed four just for fun.

It seems to have worked. So far ... she really stank from that chicken, had to stay outside for several days.

Since then she has not been aggressive towards our flock of free rangers.

It would help for you to put your area and temp zone in your sig.  As it is, we don't know if you mean fire ants, grease ants, or giant purple moosage ants. Here in TX we don't much like fire ants in our trees, but others are OK. We just monitor aphids if we see ants.

For whatever reason, it's a bumper crop of sowbugs (aka pillbugs, roly polys) this year here on our Central Texas homestead. But we have black soil and a watered garden. The neighbor has dry rocky soil and typically his critters are different over there. For example he gets lots of rattlesnakes but we have not seen one yet here.

The sowbugs attacked our strawberries, so we're trying coffee grounds today. They also infest wherever they can get in thru cracks, such as garage and shop with big roll-up doors that don't seal completely. When I walk around outside in the not-yet-hot mornings, there are several sowbugs meandering per square yard, or more.

I wonder why we have so many. Koyaanisqatsi? In years past, we only had a few, typically hiding in the cool under objects, plants, melons.

Thank you for the replies. I will build my own. Great idea.  

I just found these guys in Canadastan, my local hardware store stocks their products, which look good ... made locally not Chyna. Their 5 gallon metal fount is not cheap but plastic ones are the same money, and here in Texas plastic gets crisperd by the sun.  I called Farm-Tuff and they can do direct sales over the web. You just need to use the email link and send your address to get a quote.

Tractor Supply galvanization is junk now, and Blackrock bought a large stake, so give these Canadians a try instead for feeders and founts!

Farm-Tuff poultry products

We were big fans of RentACoop products, especially their 5 gal nipple founts. We have a couple of those in use and they are holding up very well over the years. I adapted their spill-less feeder design to build much larger ones with PVC elbows and totes.

But RentACoop went to an Amazon-only sales model, gone to the dark side as it were, so we are looking for a non-Bezos alternative now that we are expanding our chicken operations.

We have not had good results with most Tractor Supply chicken items. The quality is so-so, and I've read that Blackwater bought a large interest recently. We prefer to patronize small businesses.  Ideally, someone on Permies has a business selling durable nipple founts.....

John C Daley wrote:Bumblefoot is basically an infection caused by the staphylococcus bacteria which enters the chicken's system through a cut, scratch, injury or a chafed and ...
Does any mesh cause the problem or just the type you have?

Our experience with any mesh under roosts has not been good. I reckon if they didn't jump down onto it, and it were small enough grid, there'd be no bumblefoot. We have brooders with very small mesh floor but no roosts to jump down from, and no bumblefoot.

Note I edited this for clarity, about how many we have and that they free range all day.

A few years ago we bought this metal siding coop build on a 16' tandem utility trailer. It is now our main coop. The seller said he used to have 300 broilers in there. I don't want to even think about that.  We have about 80 birds now, many young, and sleeping in 2 coops. About 40 mature layers roost on the X frame roosts you see, to give the birds different heights and little or no poop drop from the tops onto the lowers. We only occasionally see poopy feathers.  All our birds free range all day once old enough.

But we want to expand our operation for coming hard times. I'm building a 3rd coop, but still my wife wants more birds in this one.  See trailer and X-frame setup in pics below. The wire floor is covered now btw, because it was giving the ladies bumblefoot.

I'm thinking of removing the X frames entirely, and going to 2 levels of 8' roosts on each side with an easy walk-thru aisle down the middle. This would give us 8 roost bars total, and I could offset them somewhat to minimize poop on feathers. But I reckon there will be a certain amount of "look out below" in the mornings. They have feed and water in there, natch. 8 roost bars x 8' would give the coop 64' of claw space, as it were.

What do y'all think?

Has anyone managed to cure a chicken-killing female Heeler with the old trick of tying a dead chicken around her neck for a few days, letting it rot?

My grandpa said this worked for him.  I wish he were still here for advice. My dad eschewed all of Grandpa's country wisdom and became a city boy, so no good advice.

We have shock collars, but saw this particular action too late for it to be of use. After an evil deed is done, I won't discipline a dog other than scolding.