Recent content by Owingsia

We live in Saluda VA, our chickens hate the snow! All 50 of them! The last snow storm none of them would come out and touch the snow. I thought maybe if I took a rooster our and put him in the snow and he was ok with it they would come out. I picked up a roo and placed him in the snow about 10...

I have a policy on possums. 1. Shoot on site!

Rodents, lizards, and anything else small that moves stands no chance with my girls. I once cheered on a mouse thinking it was going to actually get away. They chased that poor thing (a gaggle of 8-10 hens) about 1000 feet before they caught it.... then I felt sorry for it!

I use most for my fruit trees. I did a hole and thats were it all goes, into the ground. Excluding hearts and livers. Often times I have a small fire going and I will put the hearts into butter sauce and after all is said and done I cook them up and eat them. The dog loves chicken feet. He is...

IMHO the organic label is a joke if you are not selling in the supermarkets! People can come see my birds out and about (most see them as they drive by on the highway anyway because the birds are always in the fields). I sell them at the local farmers market when I have enough to sell. I sell...

Dogs like that dont last long out here. We had two German Shepard's that were roaming 10-15 miles out from the owners home. They took out 5 of our chickens and our neighbors goats (8 goats in one night. ripped open the pin). We called animal control to report the issue and found out the laws...

Mine free range on grass and woods. They make great meat and eggs.

Personally I use a 6 inch fish filleting knife. I keep it very sharp. I dont need to change out anything with this knife. I slit the throats with it and process the chicken with it. It cuts tendons etc... I lope the neck off with a pair of pruning shears. (Neighbor uses a hatchet: Not to kill...

I have 55 gallon barrels that can be filled with feed from the local mill. Lately I have been doing the following. raise to 6 weeks on 20% feed and then let them have at the goat feed (Goat feed is running about 20c a pound here wile chicken feed can be more) We raise Cornish Cross. I...

Ours go into the goat field with the goats. We love watching them romp around. They do not truly free range with the "wild" hens. I say wild because other than the sleeper coop (even some of them roost in trees near the coop) they spend their days running around our 5 acre wood and going to the...

Agree, ours have access to feed 24x 7 for the first 3 weeks and then taper off to two feedings a day and whatever they scrounge up. A lot of people look at them and say "uh those are dumb birds" I remind them what their cute little ookie wookie layer hens look like at 3-4 weeks. Then I get the...

We raise free range CX all the time. I have never had any issues with them. They are wonderful birds. Yes you have to treat them correctly just as you would with any bird. People would have problems with any breed that gets used in mass production. It is not the animal at fault here but the...

I free range Cornish x and we had neighbors over for dinner. They could not believe how good the birds were and asked were we got them. My wife started laughing so hard because of the look I was giving them. I finally said we have over 60 laying hens outside right now running around and another...

Oh I agree we had to learn the hard way in a few cases with ours. We assumed they were like every other chicken we had raised... wrong. Great birds and I agree I love to watch them waddle around. I had a friend say "Look at that poor bird it cant move" I told him to stick around for feeding time...

I get mine locally from a guy I know but he says when he is short he orders from out of state has no issues. I have found CX are nasty when confined etc.. and like the link states they do take adjustment but are great birds. I have two right now that will be processed this weekend. I wanted to...