Tag: problems Page 1 of 2

I raised cortunix quail several years ago and impulsively bought a bunch of young chicks from a fellow vendor at a farmer’s market. So cute! So small!

I already had a brooder setup, using a watering trough plus cover plus light. Puppy pads were bedding because the first few days I like to make sure they don’t eat the bedding. Chick sized feeders, quail sized waterers (shallow and narrow so they can’t drown). They were quickly snuggled into their spot, shown the water and food, and seemed happy for a couple of days…

….and then they started dying off. Day 3-5 I lost almost half the group. No particular reason! I started asking around and apparently that’s the norm now? Seems they don’t transition to feed and once the yolk sac is gone, so are they. I do NOT remember that from all the babies I raised! I hatched out almost a hundred and didn’t lose that much…so it appears the lines are weaker now.

And the SMELL. OMG. I thought the ducks were bad as babies…but these were worse. Yes, it’s possible. Ducks smelled like wet feed, these smelled like rotting feed. And the FEATHER DUST…my allergies said no more. They were dustier than all the chickens and ducks combined. Below is a picture of the mess from two days…and not that many birds for the area. Ugh.

Found out the breeder I got mine from had lost a bunch due to power outages from a storm…half jokingly offered to sell back the ones I had left. They accepted and a day later…I’m done with quail. Experiment over.

Unless I can find a line that doesn’t have 40-50% chick mortality, and raise outside on wire bottoms, they are not worth it for me…chalk this one up to experience! A disappointing one…but last I checked they were happily being used as breeders so it worked out.

So all those videos claiming how easy quail are? They leave the hard stuff out. You’ve been warned!

Very slow hatching duck…will it make it?

By nsmar4211

On October 27, 2022

In Animal Health, Ducks, egg hatching

I somehow missed this post back then the ducks were hatching! Better late than never 🙂

I had one duck in an egg that just took his sweeet little time hatching. Problem was, the moms were stomping his egg and he wasn’t ready (note the bright red membranes). So I brought him in to keep an eye on him, using the heat from the brooder heat on him.

First coming in after I cleaned off the broken shell pieces:

A better look at him (no, I didn’t peel anything extra, this was the damage from the moms stomping him). I used some liquid coconut oil to moisten the edges of the shell where the membrances were to stop him from getting “shrinkwrapped” (membranes dry and trap the baby). Then I placed him in a small 1 quart cup with damp paper towels underneath and put him in the brooder directly under the light.

He stayed like this for 24 hours!

Caveat…always give them enough time to come out on their own. 24 hours seemed forever for this guy to just be sitting in the shell, but that’s how long it took before the veins in the shell membrane were gone! Had I tried to get him out too early, he would have probably died from blood loss. Make the conditions as good as you can and then wait…

Then…I looked over and he decided he’d had enough and gave a HUGE kick and tada!!! Freedom! I didn’t even have time to get a picture…

However, he wasn’t done yet since the umbilical cord area had not closed up (barely visible here).

I changed the paper towels and removed all the shell/membrane pieces and gave him some freshly dampened paper towels to lay on. I also placed a small amount of triple antibiotic ointment on the open naval area.

He stayed in the cup for another 12 hours until he was dry and the navel dried. The puppy pads were about to be changed in this picture…ducks are messy!

Once dry, a final inspection (including a sniff from Rudy, who never cared about baby birds oddly) and he was added to the group.

A few hours later…Can you tell which one he is? He ended up blending right in and had no issues!

Gator vs goose :( Very sad situation for all involved.

By nsmar4211

On October 13, 2022

In Animal Health, Geese, Livestock, Pond, Wildlife

WARNING: VERY GRAPHIC PICTURES AT BOTTOM!!!!!

A good sized (6 foot plus) gator managed to get into the pond without me noticing. Had I know it was there, I would not have let the geese in the yard-but they were free ranging on the property that day.

The gator snuck up on and grabbed one of my geese! Someone was outside and got me after noticing the goose flapping frantically across the pond…and then noticed the gator following it.

I ran outside and grabbed the goose out of the weeds at the pond’s edge, less than six feet away from the gator who was still coming for its dinner! Too late though…the gator had already torn large chunks of skin off my poor baby. Luckily for me, the gator stayed in the water.

After getting the rest of the flock to go into the fenced area (not an easy task while holding one of them), I took her inside to try and treat her. I sprayed her wounds with Vetericyn Wound Spray and put gauze pads dampened with the same spray over the open areas. She ended up with 2 large areas and several smaller areas down to the muscle

I then wrapped her with vet wrap to hold the gauze in place and put her in a plastic carrier with puppy pads in it (bedding would stick to the wounds). She was in the shower enclosure and I closed the door so she’d stay warm, leaving the light on for her and checking her every 20 min. I offered her a bowl of warm water with a little molasses in it, she drank about half of it during the rest of the day.

A couple hours later on one of my checks I noticed she was breathing heavily. My heart sank as I somehow knew this was the end. I picked her up and held her and comforted her the best I could, tell her what a good girl she is. She laid her head on my shoulder and calmed down…and then shortly passed away.

RIP girl…you were loved.

I hate this part of having animals.

(and no, no animal is allowed to free range any more until I figure out how to keep alligators out of a pond)

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For those who may be trying to figure out what got their animal, I’m including her injury pictures. Please do not share without permission.

Pond muck icky … bacteria good

By nsmar4211

On October 11, 2022

In Pond

In an attempt to help clear the foot…maybe two…of muck at the bottom of my pond , I’ve been using pond bacteria. It’s been over 8 months now and I think it’s helping. I say “think” because I haven’t gone in the pond in a while… but when I first started using this huge clumps of stuff would come up to the surface off the bottom. You also used to be able to sit and watch bubble going blurp blurp and then clumps of decayed stuff would float around.

After a few months of using the pond bacteria and aeration, only rarely do I get the floating clumps of ew and there are no more bottom bubbles coming up. I tried not doing the bacteria and ended up with a scummy film on top of the water….so back to the bacteria I went.

I ended up going with the one I could find on amazon because it was cheaper than anything else for the sizes that I needed. When I spoke to a couple of pond companies, they indicated that it was a good one to use (after telling them I can’t afford theirs!).

The bacteria (HERE) comes in a gallon jug. I just poke the seal (never had a leak in shipping either!) and walk along the bank squirting it in. Other types are in pellet form and you throw them in, and I’ve read about powders but haven’t found any for sale. So if your pond is gross, try out one of the bacteria offerings for a couple of months! Hopefully they keep the pricing down though…some of them are a bit high.

What magic device do I use to trim rabbit toenails?

By nsmar4211

On October 4, 2022

In Animal Health, Livestock, Rabbits

Stay tuned for the secret, magical instrument that keeps my rabbit’s nails from being the Destroyer of Human Flesh (TM)!

I will soon unveil…right here…right for you…my secret. And no books to buy, subscriptions to start, videos to watch (yet).

Are you ready?

Got your wallet out?

Because …it’s….toenail clippers!

Wait…what??? Just regular human toenail clippers?

YES!

But seriously…I prefer the heavier duty nail clippers (like for men’s toenails) to any guillotine type animal clippers. Easier to handle and they don’t slip while you’re halfway done cutting.

My current set is these from amazon…because…they’re cheap enough in price that when I lose them (and I will), it won’t be a huge drain on the finances!

So you don’t need anything fancy. Just grab some nail clippers and go for it!

Hinges and more hinges-odd solutions for tricky spaces too!

By nsmar4211

On September 30, 2022

In Home repair, Housing and confinement, Livestock

This post will be a post about posts….well, at least ones with hinges attached :). I snapped a few quick pictures to show some of the different ways I’ve attached gates to posts around the homestead.

First up is a galvanized tubing gate attached to a round wood post. I used an inexpensive (Harbor Freight) strap style hinge here. Drill holes through the tubing and put bolts with nuts on the gate side. For the post, the hinge is made out of a soft enough metal that you can bend it round with your hand or gentle taps with a hammer. The star head wood screws also help pull it in.

Next is one that was done for me. This is a gate that is simply a cut up piece of cattle panel. Another strap hinge was welded onto the panel for me. Then this time the flat part is simply screwed onto the post-this was a landscape timber so it had a flat face.

Third in the line up is another cattle panel gate. This hinge is actually designed to be welded on both sides…again, I had it welded onto the cattle panel for me and then a hole was drilled into the flat part and a lag bolt put on. As you can see, the zinc hinges start rusting almost immediately after being welded (the heat destroys the coating).

Last but not least, this required no welding at all! The gate is actually the spring base to a baby crib that I found by the side of the road. The square tubing it is made out of is thin enough that self tapping metal screws went right in. To attach the other side to an existing post with layers of fencing on it, pieces of #9 galvanized wire (fence repair wire) were put around the existing post and twisted together. This gate is a little floppier than the others, but since it only divides duck pens there’s not much pressure on it.

An odd solution to a (heated) problem- Beaded curtains for the air conditioner closet

By nsmar4211

On September 27, 2022

In Home repair

For some reason part of the intake for the central air is behind a door in my house. It’s a louvered door, which you’d think would be enough to supply airflow…but all it seems to do is collect dust. Have you ever tried cleaning between all those slats?!?! Not to mention if you happen to have the door in your hand when the a/c kicks on, it has enough suction to pull it out of your hand!

Since this summer is even hotter than last summer (high 90s for most of august with feel like temps in triple digits), I decided that I’d do something to try and reduce whatever stress on the main unit I could. Considering how much work it’s doing to pull the air in, removing the door and figuring out another way to cover the opening was one idea. So, door was removed. Pretty easy for interior doors, you just pop out the pins (carefully).

Then I had to decide…I didn’t want to leave just the opening there because there are bulky items (crockpot, pressure cooker, cooler) stored there and cubbies on the walls with lightbulbs etc. Screen door? Well, that would mean building another door and trying to match the paint…plus there’s the matter of the hinges. I didn’t want do anything that I could not easily reverse later, and changing hardware is hard when you have to match up styles that are older than me!

One shower later…aha! Beaded curtains!! Wouldn’t restrict the airflow, would only require a cup hook or two, and can’t be that expensive…right? Right?

So over to amazon I clicked. Andddd got some nice sticker shock! You want a $40 beaded curtain? You’re getting strands of…embroidery floss it looks like. Read the reviews and easily tangled strands of floss, plus they don’t hide anything at all behind it, not even a little. So I set my sights a little higher and…$150?!?!?! Too high too high! That’s “new door” territory (me building)!

Finally I found one for under $70. They had a bunch of different designs too…and it looked like there were enough beads and strands to actually block some of the view.

I was a bit concerned about how light the color looked , but decided to give it a try. The fact that it was painted like the very door that used to be there I found funny.

Color me impressed! It actually looks better in person than the picture showed online by far, and is close enough to the wood color of the house. And when you’re walking by it, you don’t see a lot of the things behind it. First picture has some sort of mist to it (phone camera was dirty) but you get the idea.

Head on view (please excuse the mess):

Handful of the beaded strings for size-they are narrow tubes but they were all there. It’s made out of bamboo but still had some weight to it. I used the included cup hooks to hang it…I originally intended to hang it with a curtain rod inside the doorframe but I either measured wrong or read the wrong width somehow and it had to go outside the frame.

I’m very pleased and after seeing it I understand why the prices are so high! No idea how they paint each bead in the round like that, someone is talented that designed the equipment to produce this! I would’ve bought another one but they went out of stock :(.

Bad nope rope…almost a disaster for baby birds

By nsmar4211

On September 21, 2022

In Animal Health

It rained…a lot ….6 inches in 3 days and still coming down. So the dogs can’t just stay outside and I end up letting them in and out a few times more than normal.

As I’m bringing them in, both of them looked next to the brooder and jump a foot back! Anything that startles the dogs is never a good thing!

So I carefulyyyyy check behind the brooder…and there in the shadows is a red and orange rope that suddenly coils up and tried to look fierce!

I don’t mind good snakes, aka nope ropes. I encourage then to hang out in the yard and am sad when one doesn’t win in a fight against a lawnmower.

BUT…..I draw the line when they go after my animals. There are enough mice and rats and even lizards, so when something eyes a baby quail I am not happy.

I managed to get the dogs inside and get help holding a flashlight to find the red rat snake.

Next thing Mr. Rat snake knows, it’s being grabbed up by a pair of rubber tipped grabbers and unceremoniously ushered out in the yard , rain or no rain.

A quick head count shows that I was right on time as the snake had not gotten into the brooder yet…whew. This snake was small enough that the wire on top would have let him get in for dinner.

It’s for these reason I try and keep some wire on hand…a grinder, tin snips, and 5 feet of 1/4″ hardware cloth later the quail had another layer of wire on their brooder. Then I did the same for the chick brooder to hopefully prevent any successful snake snacking!

Update: It’s been a month and no missing chicks of either type 🙂

New collars for mischievous baby goats with cool feature

By nsmar4211

On September 16, 2022

In Goat, Livestock

Decided to start collar training the baby goats because of how hard they are to snag when they don’t want to be caught (aka any time there isn’t food involved). As they tend to get themselves into everything, I ended up buying cat collars that have a breakaway feature. Inexpensive enough that if (when) they lose them, replacing won’t cost a fortune. Multi colors to tell everyone apart, although they are pretty obviously not the same. We’ll see how long these last!

The little cat head is the breakaway feature.

(Update: Two days. They lasted…two days. Still looking for two of them….Time for plan B.)

Fearless little problem brats got out again. And more!

By nsmar4211

On September 9, 2022

In Funny, Housing and confinement, Pig

I walked outside and noticed a slight problem…instead of pigs in their pen, I had goats in the pig pen??? And not a pig in sight! Below are the caprine (goat) culprits, Molly still inside and Bambi already chased out. Seems the goats have figured out how to shove hard on the pig pen gate and slide through.

But….where are the pigs???

I went back to the site of the original crime and not only had they gotten out in the same spot, they made it bigger and pushed the post I had in several feet away. Talent!

But…still no guilty looking pigs…until I walked over to the side of the main area and found these two. One contentedly making herself a digging zone and one pretending she belonged out. Looking on from the door of their pen are Bambi and Lizzy (for once, Lizzy didn’t cause any problems). Sigh….

So, once again utilizing magical objects aka pig treats…I lured the girls back to their pen.

This time…I put in a piece of cattle panel in front of the tree stump and wired it to the sides. They are strong but so far not strong enough to bend a cattle panel. Means they lost a foot off that side of the pen though… once the weather cools off I’ll be working on a new area for them that’s bigger.

Badddd piggies!