Possible Sick Baby Chick?

I LOVES my baby chicks!

I don't think I've had time to post about our recent acquisition of baby chicks...so I'll start there. Isabella's 7th birthday was fast approaching and I wanted to get her something she'd remember. Five White Leghorn baby chicks from the local feed store later...mission accomplished!

I purchased five chicks, an inverted feeder, an inverted waterer, a heat lamp, a 5 pound bag of chick starter feed (since they were out of the 50 pound bags), and a cardboard box. Total was around $56.

I was told they were two weeks old when we got them and that they were all "for sure" layers. The girls loved, LoVeD, LOVED them...as did the neighbor kids. I'll upload a video of them playing in the backyard once the video completely uploads to YouTube.

Now, eight days later, Wifey texts me at work and says one chick is acting funny. With it's head tilted to one side, it keeps running into the wall of the plastic tub. I should explain that after about five days in the cardboard box, the ammonia smell was overwhelming. The girls had changed the newpaper out at least once but the smell remained, obviously soaked into the cardboard. So, Wifey retrieved a plastic storage tub from the garage and swapped out the chicks into the tub. Whomever says that chickens don't smell or make much noise, and there were more than a few of you, must not have kept them indoors.

My studies of Joel Salatin revealed that he uses a carbon based substance and admits he spends more revenue on carbon than most farmers. He puts it down in the chicken coops on the floor to combat/reverse the ammonia buildup and says that because of this, his coops don't stink. It is a non-issue with us...I'm just sayin'!

Does anyone know what carbon item he uses?

I asked Wifey to take "wobbly" out for some fresh air and see how he does. And here is the video of aforementioned "wobbly chick":



 She is very vocal, you know, as far a "quiet" chickens go.  Like any over-educated person would do about the situation, I googled it.  "Chick running into walls" led me to a forum discussing quail babies running into walls. The recommendation there was to add electrolytes to the water.

Any ideas forlks? Is he dainbramaged from the ammonia levels? Should we be bathing them? I have thrown a little bit of green grass from the front yard in their box to give them a little variety/freshness.

Thanks!

~OJD

I've Made my Case...

Shooting with my dad and cousin
Tim at our family farm.

Well, as mentioned in an earlier post, I have been recently pondering homesteading back in my native state of Oklahoma. A recent trip home for Christmas led me to our old family farm in Hennessey where I was able to show my girls a great time.

A few months after returning to Arizona, I began my usual daydreaming of homesteading.  That's when I put two and two together and realized that all that family farm land is just sitting there. Why don't I ask my aunt and uncles if I can homestead there?

After encouraging comments on my post, I decided to write a letter to my uncle. I explained how Wifey and I had been practicing our homesteading skills over the past three years in anticipation of someday moving to a homestead of our own. Our problem was always that we weren't quite sure WHERE to go.

I told him why we'd like to homestead there and a few ideas about homeschooling and gardening. I didn't get too deep into farm animals other than saying I'd like to have a few. We'll see what he says.

I'll let you know. Thanks for the encouragement everyone.

~OJD

How and Why the US Government is BUYING Up All the Ammo

We've all noticed that the ammunition simply isn't on the shelf lately. Most of us started prepping our ammo supply long before this happened, however, we're still affected (or is it Effected, always mixed that one up) by the shortage because we have to PRACTICE with our guns to stay proficient.

I wrote a recent post about how to get ammo from your nearest gun range even if there is a shortage. That being said, we still need to keep our eye on the ball. Tonight, I came across an interesting radio show by Dr Savage whereby a caller identified himself as both a Licensed Weapons Manufacturer AND a Government Contractor.

He explained what is going on regarding the "IDIQ contracts (Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity)"whereby the government is buying large amounts of ammo from his perspective:

"What Homeland Security is doing here is they are issuing a contract to BUY UP TO that amount of ammo IF they want it.  They're probably NOT going to buy it but by ISSUING the contract (and they're going to issue this contract to more than one ammo maker)...so that they can control the amount of ammo on the commercial market at any time. If they go to the ammo manufacturer and say 'Give me 50 million rounds, give me another 30 million rounds' they can use this to control the market. In their contract (between the manufacturer and the government) it stipulates in there that when the government calls and says 'Give us another quantity', everything that they make HAS to go to the government PRIORITY ONE before any of it goes to the commercial market.

So when they (the government) gets nervous, all they have to do is use that contract that they have in place to say 'Give us some more, give us some more.'"

I didn't understand the gravity of the stories telling of ammo manufacturers REFUSING to sell to the government until I heard this idea. I thought the makers where just thumbing there noses at the government. Now I understand that the manufacturers are onto the government's plan to stifle public supply.

Here is the list of manufacturers that are NOT selling to states, counties, cities, or municipalities that are blocking sales to citizens but not their own employees (like police):

http://www.thepoliceloophole.com/

We need to support them and buy our supplies from them. I have also had good luck shopping at my local Walmart between 7 & 8am (when they stock their shelves from deliveries the night before) and picking up ammo. On a recent trip to Utah, I picked up about 15 boxes of .40 caliber from the local Sportsman's Warehouse (several trips, both me and Wifey due to limit of three boxes per SKU).

Hope this helps some of you out there. Keep stocking up and practicing.

~OJD