julia ray

YES I want to buy but you don't sell to Canadians! What's up with that. This is one disgruntled cat MEOW!!! Please open the borders. Julia

HI Everyone!

I would love some support around how to inoculate blue oyster spores today haha. My friend suggested stray is the fastest way as these spores are ready to go today  -- we would need to sterilize and inoculate. Have never done it so whatever support is welcome.

Second bag of spores are shittake and look like they can stay in the fridge for one or two weeks (friend said) to give us enough time to cut down some iron or maple wood logs and let them sit for 2 weeks. My question is how long can I keep the spores in the fridge and how short can the cut down logs sit around before being innoculated for all this to be a successful inception and fruiting.

Thank you so much!


Julia

hi there

that's really useful to hear about trapping them -- that they die of a heart attack in there. i feel bad as my chickens are not in the coop. it's winter here and they long to wander but i cannot let them out anymore for fear of losing them all. my partner built a chicken traktor but hasn't had time to add wheels so i do carry them all in - one by one and then back one by one ... it's a lot of work but i do that once in a while to give them a change of scenery and to air out the coop.

once we get some wheels on there and find some design where they could walk in and out, it'll be easier to move them around in the spring summer fall ..that's the hope anyways. i did buy the booklet from the person who's forum this is and really appreciated learning.

i look forward to growing a garden with food for them as well and getting all these moving parts working together!

so much work.

in the meantime much appreciation to all of us for the love we give to our animals and land.

Julia

Hi Jordan,

Thank you for reflecting that. Yes it hurts to open the door innocently and see a mass slaughter! My eyes initially could not register what I was seeing as I only saw our rooster silky dead at the door. Then I saw big bird our other massive rooster also dead and thought OMG the roosters got into a fight. Then I looked and saw all the dead bodied everywhere. Heart breaking. We got our first back of 10 when they were 2 weeks from a friend ... 8 easter eggers and 2 silkies who were born on mother's day. My grandmother had chickens when I was little girl but i have had no direct experience myself.

To balance out the rooster/hen situation, we sourced 12 Rhodes Island Reds from a local Mennonite community and just got those so we did not have time to bond with them at all. All the others had names. The Rhodies seem too similar to differentiate with names.

I like the idea of setting up traps now as it's going to take us a week to buy the fence we need and install it... in the meantime we could hunt down that darn weasel! All great ideas about the traps including an intentional one in the coop.

Thank you

We are going to essentially create a cage in half of the coop which is where we will place the chickens at night. The cage will be made of 1/4"squares! Thanks for the emotional support everyone.

I love the idea of a guard geese and these weasels seem to come in at night when the birds are groggy and disoriented. We did not hear a thing last night when the killing happened and we are nearby. I wonder whether geese are more vocal at night during an attack - is that what you are saying. perhaps they are during the day but would they be in the middle of the night when it's dark and the birds are sleepy and defenceless.

Though electric fence, motion light and all these things add up and makes sense --- we need to put a stop gap on the loses and it seems the only thing that does is 1/4" holes galvanized steel. I suppose I should be happy that this happened so early in the game and yes enabled us to fortify in a way that will prevent future loss.

The remaining chickens, Bernie the bird our rooster as well as 5 hens are in a cage in our hallway cooing and sleeping until we can be sure they will be safe in the coop.

Thanks again for all your support. The feedback was truly helpful practically and emotionally. I prefer to interact with real people then just listen to random people on youtube.

Julia

they made a mess inside our hallway but survived the night and are happily wandering the land again today. it's a beautiful sunny day.

yes okay i'll do that. i did some research last night and it looks like ontario weasels can slip through quarter sized holes so we need 1/2" wire mesh. we have 1" wire mesh for the coop as well the trap is 1" wire. we set the trap. it's clear the trap got activated but the weasel got out. more proof that 1" wire is just too big. gawd. what a nightmare!

What a horror show today has been! My partner fortified the coop - at least he thought he did. He went back to check on the chickens this evening at around 9pm (only an hour or so after putting them to bed as he has been fixing the coop all day) and another 3 were killed. This time he actually saw the weasel slip away.

We now have 13 killed. As a result, we actually brought the remaining 6 chickens into our house. Not sure how to fortify the coop to ensure they are safe. What blood thirsty killers they are. We have a trap set up with a killed chicken as bait. Even if he kill this one, I have lost confidence that the coop will ever be a safe place for them.

Julia  

Hi Jay,

We are 3hours north of Toronto so not a great time for this exploration at all. Glad you pointed that out. I definitely would like to explore this in the Spring in April ... if we can protect our flock until then. Today was really devastating considering each one had a name and we've had then since they were little chicks two weeks young.

My partner is currently outside creating Fort Knox!

The upside is that we now seem to have a perfect balance between rooster and hens - one rooster and 8 hens.

You use Muscovy Ducks to sit on chicken eggs?! Would you share why? We love to eat Muscovy ducks but were told they cost more to raise they to purchase so not worth it. I've not had to time challenge that notion. We would love to have expand into ducks, rabbits, goats, and a horse one day! At the moment, we have one 4 month puppy, a bengal kitten we will be breeding, 2 8 week old barn cats we bought from a neighbour we know will be great mousers and our remaining flock of chickens.

Julia

I am loving homesteading.