Animals & Birds
Showing the single result
Comments are closed.
Farming with the land in Pictou County, Nova Scotia, Canada
Farming with the land in Pictou County, Nova Scotia, Canada
Showing the single result
Comments are closed.
Sona Weber
Hi Ned, I received my Vermihut 🙂 Thank you! I’m excited to learn how to raise worms and have them make rich compost & worm casting amendment for my garden. The 3 worm bins are not long enough to rest on the included wood blocks so the tray can easily slide out. They end up sitting directly on the tray. I’m planning to add a couple of pieces of wood connecting the 2 blocks so that the bins can rest on those and allow the tray to slide out. I wanted to let you know so you can make the bins a little longer for that sized tray.
Sincerely,
Sona
Ned
Thanks for the feedback Sona, though I’m a little bit confused about what you’re saying. It makes me think that perhaps you have the tray sideways? A picture would help me understand!
Regards,
Ned
Lindsay R
Hello, great article with helpful information! We just got our first set of keets and I’m wondering if chick starter is enough for them alone. I’ve read some places they need a turkey/wild game starter. But I’m not sure if it matters?
We only got our keets yesterday but I haven’t really noticed them eat anything or any disturbances to their food area which lead me to think they aren’t eating.
RSF
Hello Lindsay, sorry for not responding to such an urgent matter quicker! Yes, we use chick starter but any starter will likely do! There are other things to consider, but a big one is that you want no pellets (too big for them little ones) and you don’t want anything like extra calcium for laying eggs like the lay pellets have. Our local feed store only carries the chick starter, and have even stopped carrying the grower for our meat birds unfortunately. I would have to read the labels, but I would suspect that the turkey or wild game starter has a higher protein and would likely be more ideal for the guinea keets than the chick starter because of that.
As for not eating right away, most animals have a little bit of a time with stress, a crystal product called stress-aid to add to their water has been in our repertoire before, but they really should be eating almost all day every day from hatching. If they aren’t, then yes a great place to start is with new food. If they’re super new, like days old, then they won’t be as hungry – and I’d even argue they shouldn’t even be sold until they’re at least a week or so old. A trick we do to get them to know it’s food, sometimes, is to put their beak into it. This is especially important for them to start figuring out water OR if their feeding trays are tricky to get into in any way.
Visy Umayam
Hi,
Could I please get a copy of your book electronically? I am very much interested in learning more about fruit trees propagations. My email address is shown below.
RSF
Hi there Visy, I’m unsure which book you’re looking for electronically! If I have it, I’ll see if I can get it to you.
I wish I had my own book to sell you or give you electronically!
Michelle
I just got my first little babies last week. When can I give them them the treats like mealworms?
RSF
Michelle, considering they would normally be grazing the earth floor right from birth if they were left to hatch outdoors, I would think at any time they are ready!
Lori Mortimer
Hi, can I use my pruning clippings for scions? If so, do I start them asap or store for a few months?
Thanks.
RSF
Hi there Lori,
That is exactly what you use for your scions for grafting. Keep in mind there’s clippings that are more ideal for using as scions than others.
Generally, a few things that come to mind: water shoots are not used as good scion wood, the tips of the branch you cut for scions is not used, grafters want 1 to 2 year old segments of the branch, you want about 3 buds on the scion section you’re using, and you want wood buds not fruit buds.
For bench grafting, you do not want to graft until later in the early spring. You want to aim to have about 4 weeks after grafting where you keep the freshly grafted new trees in some kind of medium that keeps the roots damp and in a place that keeps them cold and dark so they don’t start to shoot buds (if this happens, you’ll have transpiration loss which could cause them to die). This lets the new graft union heal before sending energy into new growth. Then you plant into soil once the ground thaws. So, your scions you cut now should be kept cold, damp, and dark so they remain dormant and alive in preparation for grafting – a medium like sawdust works and they can be wrapped in plastic wrap to retain moisture.
Hope this helps.