Bettacreek - New home? Plus a pic of some of the ladies here

[FarmerDenise]

With the jammies, try on a pair a size or so larger. If they still fit in the waist, I mean stay up, and are just too long. All you'd have to do is hem the legs to make them shorter. It wouldn't even have to be that pretty, because who is really going to look at the bottom of the leg. You can always say it's a new fashion trend.

 

[Bettacreek]

Lol. Then you'll see everyone doing it! Oh, wait, nevermind, nobody sees you in your jammies anyways! Lol. I'm sure I could figure something out even if the waist is a little bit big. If you have any ideas on bringing in a waist temporarily, let me know, lol.

 

[FarmerDenise]

you just fold it over and sew it. I like to sew it flat against the fabric a second time, so it doesn't stick out and is more comfortable. You can do this in the front, back or the sides. The front is often the least conspicous, if there is no fly. You will just end up with a bit of an unofficial pleat. Unless you want to get real fancy and sew the edges down a whole lot further.

Here is another explanation. Lets say you are going to take it in at the side. If you want to take the waist in 2 inches, you fold the pant at the side seam, then sew a seam lenthwise one inch in from the edge. You need only to sew over the elastic part. I usually sew it down and up. Then you fold the 1 inch piece of fabric toward the back of the pant and sew the edges onto the back part of the pants, so it lays flat. If you sew down and up, you can tie the ends of the thread together so they don't unravel.

Kids have this nasty habit of having a major growth spurt right after you have bought them some nice new clothes or shoes. I always hated it, when my DD outgrew some really nice outfit I just bought before she even got to wear it more than once. Being able to sew saved us a lot of money.

 

[Bettacreek]

I HAVE EGGS!!! After a LOT of stressing out over free-loading birds, I FINALLY have eggs! I went to check on my buttons and TA-DA! There was an egg right in the middle of the cage. I scarfed it up and checked the rest of the cage. Five more eggs BEHIND their box! I have two golden red breast hens, a wild hen and a golden red breasted cinnamon hen, so, the eggs behind the box must have been there yesterday and maybe the day before. I made a point to show them to my coturnix hen, lol. Maybe she'll get the hint. She's outside, so I was honestly expecting eggs from her first.

I threw out the first two batches of guinea eggs. I think the last batch is all duds too. I think their roo is one of the ones that disappeared.
I did hatch out ONE lonely chicken. The other egg quit probably a day or two before it was supposed to hatch.

I have a few other updates. I've started my feed trials for the rabbits. First I went through 2lbs in 3 days, then 3lbs in two days, lol. I am now starting to get low on hay though. I'm going to see if I can bargain for 2-3 bales at the auction on Wednesday. I'm pretty sure that I'm going to be putting legs on my cages. I just don't think that I want to attach them to the porch, because their piss stains the wood.
I have five, yes, FIVE coturnix roos that will be going to the auction. I picked out my favorite roo to keep. He has three white flight feathers and he's a brown roo. My sole hen is a golden, and my largest roo is golden and is only 3 grams heavier than my favorite brown roo. I'll take the 3gram loss in weight, since I would lose 25% of my chicks/eggs if I bred golden to golden anyways. I'm just shocked that I'm stuck with only one hen and six roos.
I've been trying to figure out exactly how to keep the button quail. I want a wire bottom, but everyone says that it's bad for them. I just want a way to easily clean their cages without having allergic reactions, spending a fortune on expensive options or giving them heart attacks with each cleaning.
Andy and I finally got around and built the first soap mold. I haven't had the chance to try it just yet, but we need to get screws in the bottom for a better hold/seal. We used nails because the good drill was at work with his brother. We didn't want to use the other two because one is WAY too strong (we used it to put screws into concrete, lol) and the other one is just a junky drill that is quite tempermental. We didn't want to take any chances. But, it's done and can be used once I get around to it. I just want the screws in for a more permanent hold.
We also got the brakes on the car, plus new rotors. That ran $220. Then we changed the oil in it (Andy paid for that, not sure what it was, but probably $20), and now it's going for inspection tomorrow morning. That'll be $60. So, $300 for the car.

 

[Bettacreek]

I'm amping up my critters. I've decided to get a small group of ducklings, a turkey or two and chickens. We already bought four chicks (three cornish x's and a barred rock roo). I'm going to buy either a pair/trio of ducks or a group of ducklings at the sale, and will be scoping around to try to trade for some turkey poults. The turkeys will be slaughtered as soon as they come of age. The ducks, I may keep a breeding trio, but the rest will be slaughtered. The meat chickens will also be slaughtered. The barred rock roo may stay, but only if I can find some good cornish hens for him.

 

[Bettacreek]

I added four more meat chicks to the crowd. My two turkeys come in on the 15th, and I swiped myself down to 2 pekin ducklings on the 23rd. I am on the list to take home any extra pekins that come in (or if anyone cancels). I hope to raise them, keep a breeding trio and then put the rest in the freezer. I'm also scouting for an adult breeding trio. I love duck meat, and the more the better, lol.

Meaties and the barred rock roo

Coturnix quail pair. Golden hen and brown roo. You can see the buns in the background, lol.

Here's the rabbit setup, with the coturnix pair on the very end. I ended up cutting the fourth section off and just put the quail there instead.

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

Love the chickie pics!!

Neat set up you have going on there!

 

[Bettacreek]

It's nothing special really. Just a three unit cage. Each section is 2'x2'x18" with 1x1" wire and .5x.5" wire on the bottom. I threw the cheapest tarp ($5) I could find on top and clipped it with clothes pins. It's wired down with tie wire in the one corner because the wind kept ripping it up. The doors are kind of rigged, I don't like the way they're set up. The two only have two pieces of wood on them, instead of four like the one on the right. I dislike that because it's just wire there, which catches on the sides when I try to open it. I have two pieces of wire at the top corners, which hangs the door, and two pieces on the bottom that tie it to the door frame. It's a total pain in the arse to get into the cages. I'm also working on getting my tush back to Lowes to get some 2x4's to get them off the ground. I just need to figure out how I'm going to get the quail cage up with the rabbits, without using too much wood and still allowing the feces to drop through. Next I need to work on duck and turkey pens. :/ Making cages absolutely sucks.

 

[Bettacreek]

Hit the sale today. It was a last minute idea, I just said last night, "hmm, you know, I might hit the sale tomorrow". I went, and came back with 42 eggs and 8 coturnix. There were no ducklings, only goslings, and the adult ducks were all calls and scovies. The 8 coturnix include five roos and three hens. One is a light colored rosetta hen (maybe a red, I'll have to check) and two regular brown hens. Two roos are rosetta, one's a tux and the other a hefty sized brown. I'll be keeping all of the hens of course, and will weigh the roos. I'll keep whichever roo is heavier, which will probably be my current roo. One hen (the brown that was with the nice brown roo) had laid an egg while in her box. The roos will probably go back to the auction. 18 of the eggs are barred rock. I'm stunned at how small they are. I thought barred rocks would lay a jumbo egg. The rest of the eggs are duck eggs. They're "mixed", and there are some that are massive and others that are about the size of a regular chook egg, so I'm not sure if they're going to be mixed breed or different breeds. Either way, it'll give me some experience at the very least.

 

[Bettacreek]

I hit the sale today. It was a last minute idea, I just said last night, "hmm, you know, I might hit the sale tomorrow". I went, and came back with 42 eggs and 8 coturnix. There were no ducklings, only goslings, and the adult ducks were all calls and scovies. The 8 coturnix include five roos and three hens. One is a light colored rosetta hen (maybe a red, I'll have to check) and two regular brown hens. Two roos are rosetta, two tuxes and the other a hefty sized brown. I'll be keeping all of the hens of course, and will weigh the roos. I'll keep whichever roo is heavier, which will probably be my current roo. I may also keep a rosetta roo. One hen (the brown that was with the nice brown roo) had laid an egg while in her box. The roos will probably go back to the auction. 18 of the eggs are barred rock. I'm stunned at how small they are. I thought barred rocks would lay a jumbo egg, these are all banty sized. The rest of the eggs are duck eggs. They're "mixed", there are some that are huge and some that are chicken egg sized. I'm not sure if they're going to be mixed breed or different breeds. Either way, it'll give me some experience at the very least. Duck meat is delicious either way. It's been a long time since I've touched duck eggs, I forgot how waxy they feel!