Hobbit

Wow that’s a LOT! Goodness. At least it’s the same amount of work for Dad no matter how big the clutch is (I think).

No need to apologize! Even at the time I recognized it was hilarious. I fully enjoyed going up to the desk at the ER and saying, “My chicken pecked me in the eye!” Actually, the nurse that treated me that day ended up moving next door to us a few years later. She was like, “Oh, I remember you!” 😅 Haha a contact probably would have saved me! 😄 Hey, for all the quirks that come with it, I LOVE having an engineering-minded husband. (He’s in computer science and math now and can’t honestly call himself an engineer anymore.) I tell all my friends that engineers make great spouses! 😊

Got it. I thought that was the case. I really want to get some mates for my current honeys, but I’d like to keep that bright yellow color. These just seem to pink for me. The “sunset” honeys from this thread don’t seem quite right either, though… *sigh*

@jwcarlson speaks truth! And your post reminded me of something VERY important: Do not let your chickens stand on your shoulders because they will probably peck you in the eye! How do I know, you ask? Well, on my birthday a few years ago, I went and let the chickens out in the morning, and our buff Orpington Fluffy jumped on my back, as she usually did. I decided to try to get her to roost in the tree, so I angled up to a branch and she crawled up to my shoulder. Well, I was looking at her, and she looked at me, and went PECK right past my glasses. I got to spend my birthday in our local ER basically blind. I never knew eyes could make that many tears! Thankfully corneas heal really fast and I was back to normal in 48 hours. About broody hens: Our buff Orpington Fluffy goes broody every summer. It’s very hard to break her of it, but it’s possible. Unfortunately they don’t eat or drink much when they go broody, and for her at least, she never snapped out of it on her own. We’ve had to create a “broody jail” out of a dog crate. It makes them sad but it works. Of course, giving them chicks is the BEST. Fluffy is a GREAT mom. We just buy some chicks, go out at night, put the chicks under her and take the eggs out, and voila! It’s a little touch and go sometimes—she did start pecking one of the babies once—but we just took it out and snuck it behind her and all was well. Ahh I love engineer husbands. 😄 My dad is a civil engineer. If he could visit for more than three days at a time, he’d love to do something like this. My own hubby did his undergrad in a mechanical engineering, so not as good for drainage systems, but still awesome for construction help. In the fall, feel free to throw pine needles and leaves in there. They LOVE scratching through leaves, and it will help a bit with the moisture. I’ve actually found that my chickens will fight and squabble over the top roost and it becomes a reason to fight. 😛 If I was doing it over, for my small flock, I’d stick with one roost. But each flock is different. Yes! The heat’s way more of a concern than the cold. I also put a fan in the window of my coop in the summer. The coop has a white roof and is mostly under a pine tree, which also helps. Absolutely agree. We had to butcher two australorp roosters when we got straight run chicks from an auction and the both turned out to be males that were horrible to our hens. What I will say is that they taste pretty bad once they’ve fully matured. I don’t know if it’s the testosterone or what, but we tried our best to find a way to use them… but not even our cat would eat that meat. 😝 Still, like you said later, it makes you really think about where your meat comes from. If I’m not willing to know and care for an animal before I eat it, then what business do I have eating meat at all? Speaking of noise… one of my birds is singing the egg song. 😄 In my flock, the loudest noise is actually the “I NEED to LAY an EGGG!!” squawk. One of our birds seems to have a bit of trouble laying… that or she just really doesn’t want to go to the nest box, like a kid who doesn’t want to use the potty. I’ve even stuck my finger up her butt to see if she was egg bound, but nope. (The weird things we do for our animals…) In terms of diseases, the only thing I’ve had to treat for is parasites. It’s not hard, especially if you’re used to medicating fish. But basically, there’s only one FDA approved medication for chickens, and it isn’t going to cover all your bases, so you may need to branch out and get horse or goat meds and dilute them. I’ve done that twice. I just soak the medication in pieces of bread. Oatmeal would probably work even better! The hardest part is finding a way to feed one chicken at a time so everyone gets the right dose. 😄 I’ve had chickens get seriously injured twice. Once, something grabbed Goldie through the fence at night (they weren’t trained to sleep in the coop yet) and she ended up with a huge head wound. Since there was exposed flesh, I got some Well-Horse Resin Wound & Skin Remedy so it kind of coated and sealed everything. I also used some Vetericyn Plus, which seems to help prevent infections. Most websites will recommend Blu-Kote but it seemed to really sting her, and it stains everything. She lived in our bathroom for 48 hours but she was so depressed, I went ahead and put her out with the flock. After hovering over her for about half an hour and poking any chicken that just looked too close at her wound, they started to ignore her, and I never had an issue with the birds pecking it. The other injury was recent, when Puffy lost a claw. I noticed her sitting in the garden one day and discovered she’d totally severed it off. I have no idea how it happened, but I actually just let it be and it’s healing on its own. Chickens are pretty hardy. If you ever need to do something to your hens, the easiest way to catch them is by grabbing them by their legs and hanging them upside down. They calm down after a few seconds, and then you can put your hand under their breast and turn them upright again. Then wrap them in a towel. If you have them wrapped for long enough, I think the heat eventually calms them down.

I e been feeding my pleco babies green beans for a while now and they love it! Mine don’t have nice food bowls but they don’t know any different. And my mom pleco seems to ALWAYS have an egg belly… do you think she’ll produce fewer eggs if she’s not with the male? I want to give my male a break but I don’t want her to get uncomfortable. Maybe in need two males. 😬

It reminds me of @Streetwise’s tanks!

I can’t stand male fish that are aggressive to the females. Any platy boy that gets too aggressive with mating—chasing too much, nipping, etc—gets pulled from the breeding tank. I won’t have it!! This is why I don’t think I could ever do CPD’s. What else frustrates me… oh. How heavy water is. 🙃😭

@PineSong giving them up is hard at first but it gets easier! Eventually way easier than trying to keep them all. 😆

I’m going to put my money on all females based on body shape. If one colors up, let us know! 😃 @Henry Li I know Aqua Huna has honeys, but they call them “gold honey gouramis” and to me they look a bit rosy and less bright yellow than regular honeys. I’m not sure if that’s just the picture though. @laritheloud I’ve been meaning to ask if you know whether “gold honey gourami” usually means something slightly different in terms of color morphs.

So sad to hear about all your losses. It’s been a rough run for a few people here. I’m glad you have some eggs on the way and some new fishies coming in the mail. And how exciting to have a variety of pleco babies! Is the plan to trade them in somewhere?

Ugh I’m so sorry for your losses. 😞Still, I don’t think this was a bad idea—with the information you had at the time, it was a really cool idea. Can’t blame yourself for something you didn’t know (and couldn’t have known). ❤️ I feel like if you couldn’t keep these guys alive then pretty much no one could.

Mine definitely seems to be influenced by current. Most of it grows where my powerhead is blowing on it, with the sponge intake that’s full of mulm after a few days. It’s getting a constant supply of organic carbon water. 🤪 Well I don’t use CO2 😬and I don’t gravel vac but I have two yoyo loaches in my tank 😬😬 I hope I’m not screwed. 😅

Oooo looking forward to this update. I have a huge BBA problem in my main tank right now… 😛 I’m sure it has to do at least partially with the dissolved organic carbons so I’ve been trying to keep on top of emptying the powerhead sponge. But I know that won’t be enough to actually kill the stuff. Also wanted to let you know that I’ve finally taken the plunge into dry ferts! You told me about them probably a year ago and it’s been in the back of my mind ever since. I got some calcium, potassium, and micro mix from Green Leaf Aquariums to use in my platy grow out tanks where the bio load is super high. I feel very fancy!

I was just wondering the other day if Ursula Flerken had eaten anything recently! So sad to hear about Acrobat’s passing.

I’m guessing it’s either a female, or a male that hasn’t started growing his whiskers yet… but weird things do happen! Only time will tell.

It might help a little, but I doubt that clipping a few inches off a dozen or so wing feathers makes much difference. I agree. The wing feathers aren’t the warm ones. It’s that down that keeps them toasty! I just went out to our coop this evening to pull out a bird and clip her wings. Puffy is our resident wander bird. She loves jumping the fences into our neighbors’ yards. She can get over the three foot and four foot fences no problem. Last year she could still get over them even with clipped wings, but I’m hoping this year she’s a bit heavier and less nimble. Our neighbors are trying to re-grow grass and she’s NOT helping… 😬 Unfortunately she’s not scared of their dog and their dog doesn’t care about her. 🤦🏼‍♀️ But I do tell all my neighbors that if a chicken gets out and the dog kills it, that’s not their fault. I will never blame a dog for killing a chicken. Awesome! I can’t wait to see pictures!!! You’re going to LOVE your birds. Do you know what breed(s) you’ll be getting?

Thanks, both of you! I turned the thing sideways and it seems to be working great! As a bonus, I caught about ten baby plecos when I went to wring out the filter. 😄

Hey all! Does anyone know if it’s okay to turn the coop’s powerhead sideways? I have a sponge over the intake that I constantly need to clean, and it would be a whole lot easier to take it on and off if the intake was sideways instead of under the powerhead itself. Is it okay to just turn the whole thing 90 degrees?

Some of the internet is a bit stingy when it comes to their requirements for housing chickens. I have six birds in a 3x8 foot coop and I would not want to add any more, even though they’re only in there at night. The poop builds up fast. Believe the sites that say 3 foot per bird for standard size breeds! Your coop looks absolutely gorgeous! My favorite part is the big door on the side. It looks like you’ll be able to put a wheelbarrow right up to that door and just rake all the dirty bedding into it. 😍 Give that plywood floor a good coat of paint so the poop doesn’t soak into the wood and everything slides out nicely.

@Sweet T something is off about your strips. Each square should be a consistent color. There’s a chance the water may be running or droplets may be splashing from one pad to another. I made a video about that for another member some time back to show how the colors change if the pads cross contaminate each other. @James221077 That color you’re getting for the GH means your GH is way higher than the scale they used for the card. The more blue the GH pad, the lower the GH; the more pink the pad, the higher the GH. You apparently both have 300+ GH, but yours must be WAY over 300!

After many attempts and experiments, I finally landed on something that seems to work and be sustainable without much effort! All it is is a jam-sized ball jar, some aquarium gravel, a few pieces of oyster shell, and some baker’s yeast. I have six other jars that I keep ready and stocked with a tiny sprinkle of yeast. Every 48 hours or so, I… Pour out half the water in the current culture dump the rest of the water along with the rocks into a new jar. It immediately looks cloudy and gross! swirl fresh water in the old jar to clean it a bit and pour that water in the new jar too put the old jar upside down to dry I switched to a fresh jar about 12 hours ago. The culture looks clear and teeming with paramecium, and the water quality is 👍 The gravel provides a surface for beneficial bacteria to establish, so my fry aren’t getting poisoned every time I feed them. The few pieces of oyster shell (maybe only two or three granules) keeps the pH stable. And now that the culture’s been going for long enough, the paramecium who like yeast have totally taken over. My sister’s sourdough starter was what inspired me. She has to split it and re-feed it every week. Plus it got me thinking about yeast as a food source. Handy, clean, easy to store… what could be better! When I looked into it I discovered Keeping Fish Simple on YouTube uses yeast. I just implemented a way to keep the culture going. I started the culture with some aquarium water and a few squirts of mulm. Nothing fancy! There you have it!

I know Angelfish are a popular choice if you’re culling very small fry, and turtles if you’re culling juveniles. I’ve also heard of people using African dwarf frogs. I think it’s a fine method, personally. I like the idea that their life is being useful in some way, even if it’s just for food. And since fish usually eat their prey in one big gulp, there seems to be minimal suffering. ❤️

My male started acting male-ish before he quite had bristles. I can’t remember if they were just barely visible, or not visible at all. I remember thinking the female was not impressed with this awkward preteen who couldn’t even grow a real beard yet! So be sure to inspect the nose closely and maybe wait a few weeks to see if you see any stubble.

So glad he’s home!! ❤️❤️❤️