The_Black_Log Foler
Stock Pals Senior Vice President
- 43,606
- 40,370
Just ordered some silkies to be delivered in October. I dare not make my ornamental chickens soup. Will have like 4-6 solid egg layers tho.
Homesteading and Hobby Farm/Ranch
- Thread starter Kiroy
- Start date
- 2,716
- 2,996
If you are serious, the trees that I planted years ago that i've been happy with that are least maintence and drop the most fruit are White Sapote, Star Fruit and black Mulberry. Peaches? Take too much maintence for me.
The_Black_Log Foler
Stock Pals Senior Vice President
- 43,606
- 40,370
I’m at about 35-40 different kinds of fruit trees/shrubs. Some are same fruit different variety.
Actually all 3 of my peach trees are blooming. One has tiny peaches. All are low chill hour Florida varieties 100-200 hours.. No sapote yet.. Have a Kari carambola that will go in the ground in 2 months or so. Have dwarf everbearing mulberries, a Pakistan mulberry and just got a Thai dwarf mulberry that I’m propagating. The Thai is taking off like crazy.
The_Black_Log Foler
Stock Pals Senior Vice President
- 43,606
- 40,370
- 2,716
- 2,996
The_Black_Log Foler
Stock Pals Senior Vice President
- 43,606
- 40,370
9B. If you wanna try peaches do Florida prince, tropic beauty or tropic snow. All are low chill hour varieties. 9b central Florida is a good zone/area to be in - you can get away with lots of low chill hour varieties of peaches, persimmons, pears, etc.. Also like a million varieties of cold hardy avocado . Currently have 3 myself.
You can get away with some more sensitive fruits like mangos, papayas etc if you find/create the right microclimates and also find the hardiest varieties. Currently have a pem seng mum, Julie and manachanok.
Bananas are great if you don’t mind them looking like shit after a freeze. They’ll come back no problem. Make a banana circle and pipe all your grey water into it. Throw some sweet potato slips, taro, and pigeon peas in the mix. Max yields
Kharzette
Watcher of Overs
- 4,914
- 3,563
In the house!? I'm terrified of mites and chickens often have the worst kind. The kind that can hibernate for years, lay 300 eggs each and 90% of the hatched are female.
- 1
- 2,716
- 2,996
Emus.. and only a few at a time for their first couple weeks of life, then they go out.
- 1
BrutulTM
Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.
- 14,429
- 2,213
Our chickens got mites once when I was a kid. Little black specks everywhere crawling on the nests, roosts, etc. Definitely made your skin crawl when you came out of there.
- 1
Sludig
Silver Baronet of the Realm
- 8,983
- 9,286
Ya, lasted as short as a time as I could manage, quickly was apparent the issues. If it was all nice solid softball poo's maybe...
We were almost thinking for aminute the donkey didn't do it, as maybe it's a molt but she seems to pull out a decent amount of her own feathers, at least with parrots they can go a bit crazy and pluck awayl. While she's been grooming, she's picked up at her one scab a little bit. Got a fair number of feathers coming up already, had her out in the pen today rather than cooped up and she was running around like crazy for a while. Got her first time with a giant kiddy pool. So hoping we can finally get past the cold and she can stay out in spring temps.
Not sure how cold she can handle with the bare rump, while she somewhat tolerated my old coat, the lightweight horse blanket she was running from pretty much immediately.
Burns
Golden Baronet of the Realm
- 6,077
- 12,255
You may have already mentioned this, but do you have an enclosed pen/barn for them? I vaguely remember, from when I was a kid, some of the farms (horses mostly) I visited would have heat lamps running in each pin if it got too cold for the (young/smaller?) animals. I think they had them up high, with a metal shroud/flange over them, to keep the animal from bumping them, and any flammable material away from the bulb. I was in grade school at the time though, so I could be misremembering.
Sludig
Silver Baronet of the Realm
- 8,983
- 9,286
A lot of the ones I've seen I believe are intended for them to huddle near, but not enough to keep a room of any size warmer hardly, maybe would do trick of keeping it near 32f. She's got a 4x6 room and I built a mini fence around the slave heaters. On 20f nights the 2 heaters where only managing to keep that tin shack at 45f after I sealed up all the major draft points.
40s was fine at least with the coat, wish I knew if she'd handle closer to 32 ok or not. Weather's much nicer now which I hope it holds but have a before freezing day predicted a week out.
- 1
Kharzette
Watcher of Overs
- 4,914
- 3,563
It depends alot on the species. All birds have mites (just like all humans have mites) but some are worse than others.
The ones that got bad among chickens have been sprayed so much over the years that they are immune to most stuff. Those are like evolution sped up 1000x because they mutate like crazy. Females don't even need fertilization. If there are no males around the eggs are just a clone of the mom, but with more dna copying errors.
Back when I was dealing with them there were 4 chems that would kill them. Bifenthrin (which was banned), Conquer, beta cy, and and and... something else I can't remember.
There's probably some newer stuff that works though.
Insect mites can get even crazier. Like some species are born pregnant. Very lovecraftian.
- 2
The_Black_Log Foler
Stock Pals Senior Vice President
- 43,606
- 40,370
So my first order that I could get soonest from Meyers comes in March. It’s a golden laced polish, blue Cochin, and dark Brahma. Any other chicken-bros rocking these breeds?
Saw a golden laced Polish a few weeks ago and knew I had to have one…
lurkingdirk
what are your go-to egg laying breeds? I need to snag a couple. Wish I could do what you’re doing with multiple coop/run and harvesting broilers.. One step at a time I guess.
Saw a golden laced Polish a few weeks ago and knew I had to have one…
lurkingdirk
what are your go-to egg laying breeds? I need to snag a couple. Wish I could do what you’re doing with multiple coop/run and harvesting broilers.. One step at a time I guess.
The_Black_Log Foler
Stock Pals Senior Vice President
- 43,606
- 40,370
BrutulTM
Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.
- 14,429
- 2,213
I was about 6 years old at the time. Don't remember any particulars, just how I felt looking at all those bugs.
I have replaced most of my alfalfa hay ground with a 3 grass/3 legume mixture and I will get it all done eventually. I'm also working on implementing regenerative grazing but we need a lot of infrastructure to put it in place. I have done a fair amount of cross fencing of pastures but I'm scheduled to put in 4 new wells and about 13 miles of water pipeline and another 13 miles of permanent fence which can be connected to temporary electric fence to further chop up the property. I'm also burying 4 train car oil tanks on high ridges to have 30,000 gallons of water in reserve in case a well breaks down. We also chose to do all the work ourselves which might be a bad idea but we have gotten pretty fast at putting in barbed wire fence and we're getting better at the pipeline. I'm going to build a trailer this winter to unroll 2000 foot rolls of 2" black poly pipe which should make things go quite a bit faster.
- 2
Sludig
Silver Baronet of the Realm
- 8,983
- 9,286
Almost wondering if Emu plucked herself though it would have been rather rapid. She's just grooming the area excessively, picked up her 1-2 scabs a bit and looks like may be leaving mini bruises on the skin from trying to strain the feathers that arn't there. And seeing a few fly off here and there. Does have a good dozen of new ones sprouted and coming in, so not sure if itchy from new growth or just her worrying it, or possibly mites or something driving her crazy though I don't think I've seen any real sign. Need to look at some kind of poultry drench perhaps.
The_Black_Log Foler
Stock Pals Senior Vice President
- 43,606
- 40,370
Nice. Legume mixture is way to go. Nitrogen fixing. Will really help enhance that soil