First Run of Cornish Cross Meat Birds and Super Excited!

[holm25]

I wonder if Ralphs DW decide to beat on him a little to get rid of his cold.

 

[duluthralphie]

Thanks for your concern Holms, but I am doing as well as can be expected with a terrible plague can do.

My wife says she forgot to get my schnapps, then accused me on whining. The nerve of her..


I have been out to the chickens a coupe times, they listen to my legitimate health concerns without judgment and rudeness.

The guineas finally left the coop today and are sitting on my artistically stacked pile of scrap iron. ( another thing my wife complains about).

Ole left the coop and went to the scrap iron pile for a few minutes, Ed refuses to leave his home.

The CL's are getting use to their new home and ventured 2 feet away from the coop. The snow still has them spooked. BUT I found they are tame and like to be touched, so I petted them a little while explaining to them why I may be succumbing to this disease. They gave me their best wishes....

Ernie was out trying to woo the new girls through the fence. Ray seemed to not care.

The CLs are such dainty birds smaller than my EE's even.

Nameless appears to be upset with his turn in fortune and his new name. I just do not need him anymore with the addition of Ed and Ole. I do think the name "Sunday Dinner" has a nice ring to it.

 

[JessicaThistle]

Chickens are so wonderful to talk to about things. They are so understanding and feel for you no matter what. Too bad people can't be as wonderful as they are. Lol!

 

[Fyremelody]

Linda -- Totally fertilized? Yay -- but not so much yay on no chickies

Ralph -- I'm an editor. Reading typo is my job. Heh. A missing 'L' is nothing compared to some of the crazy, unintentional word-swaps I've seen. Get better. I've a nasty respiratory too, and it's not fun at all.

Jessica -- Wait, new business? Tell me more! That's the sort of egg production I'd love to be doing, but I'm having trouble finding buyers as it is for some reason. I too have launched a new business venture though. It's a heritage breeding / sustainable living joint effort with my dear friend down the road. We're building our website now; I'll share when it's live. But that's the reason why, at the moment, I have more birds inside the house than out. UGH. Darn weather. I need my coops built yesterday. Glad to hear Sunny is doing well. I just love the personality of Lulu, Lola, and Lori. Such interesting birds, and I can't wait to see what they produce. Two weeks!

MM -- Re: Mass Homicide. The only room I can keep the incubators in and keep the cats/dogs away from them is on the north side of my house and is extremely drafty. A cold northern blew in and dropped the temps to low nineties. When I managed to bring it up, the northern stopped, I was asleep, and it was well over 102. All chicks that were healthy and hardy on day 18, save for the Polish and 2 banties, died.

Going to my first-ever chicken swap tomorrow. So dangerous. LOL. Excited though to get the new Lavender Orps and a nice Black Orp roo for my ladies. Very very excited. Hoping someone brings some nice gold-laced Polish to the swap as well. Though maybe I shouldn't hope that either. Heh.

 

[Fyremelody]

Ralph who is Nameless? Chuckle.

And it's so true chickens listen better than anyone! Mine are listening to me gritch about the two little leeches (some doctor put them in my arms and told me they were my children eight and nine years ago; surely he was wrong) who live here and occupy space and seem to believe they don't have to do anything except watch cartoons.

Guess they'll see how fun Mom is when we go to the swap and they find a bird they want and I say "Oh, sorry, remember that bedroom floor? Yeah, no."

 

[duluthralphie]

"nameless" is an extra rooster I kept last fall, I had Bert, Ernie, Brutus and Rick. Nameless was a just incase the others died.


Brutus and Rick died, So I was down to Nameless and Ernie. I really wanted Brutus and Rick,,,,sigh...... Anyways I got two roosters from a guy on the MInnesota thread and bought the trio of Crested Cream legbars... So again I am rooster heavy.

Ed is suppose to be a ameriuacna (however that is spelled), he is suppose to have blue egg gene.. He is beautiful he has a home here for a long time, unless he dies, he is huge..

Ole is a partridge chanticleer another great bird, who is here forever.

Then Ernie who is a black australorp so he is here for my BA hens...

Last is Bert who is my CX rooster, a his mates died, I am giving him rainbow Girlfriends....

That leaves Nameless without a home or a job. He is a production red, or RIR or some mutt... Nice looking bird just does not fit in here anymore.

 

[JessicaThistle]

Melody: You are preaching to the choir when it comes to your talk about leeches. The aliens had stolen my adorable sweet children some years ago and replaced them with these barely recognizable, ungrateful, lazy, back talking, pigs who I guarantee were not mine. After many years of barely tolerating them and stuck with them because there is no such thing as orphanages around here anymore, the aliens so kindly returned and took back those good for nothings and left me with a larger, older version of my adorable sweet children. And then, guess what? One moved out since he is now 19. The other is still here but is 18 and who knows with girls when she will say see-ya. We are left with the final one who I really hope the aliens leave alone as I don't think I could stand another 6 years of another replacement.

My new egg biz. It is an existing egg business and I sell eggs at 6 local specialty food stores. Oregon has pretty easy egg handler licensing laws but there are special egg washing room requirements and a few hoops to jump through. Currently the chicken farm is about a 50 minute drive one way from my house. So I am taking this lovely commute each day to care for my chickens and collect eggs. This is on top of the everyday already scheduled chaos. It is currently a little after 10 pm and I just finally finished for the day.

I hope to bring my first pen of chickens home from the farm early this coming week. I am purchasing a large chicken run type structure from someone that will house the first group temporarily until we can build a tractor for them. There are about 120 5 month old pullets in this group. At least 4 of them have started to lay. I will post a pic tomorrow after the guy delivers it here. This pen will become the grow out house I think.

I am so excited to finally see some progress! The parts for the largest chicken tractor have been delayed more than a week already and we aren't getting proper communication from the supplier. I am so irritated. They better hope I don't pick up the phone and call them. So far just my hubby has communicated with them. They DO NOT want to have to talk to me about this. I have been known to blow my top with suppliers that can't pull their head out of their rears and do their job. Plus, they have been paid. No excuse. Yep, I become a fiery redhead when need be.

 

[mountain mom]

Melody- So sorry about what happened! But yay for all the new beauties today! Lavender Orps!
Those leeches of yours sound familiar! What is wrong with all the doctors?! My leeches are 9 and 5. The 9 year old is especially unrecognizable.

We are warming up here. Finally! Fingers crossed it lasts a while. I need a break from the freezing.

Ralph- Sunday Dinner has a nice ring. Does nameless get along with everyone? I can't remember. But I guess if you want all your fertilized eggs to be from the other 3, then maybe he doesn't fit in.

I found some Legbars at the feed store... they want $60 a chick. I told them if nobody buys them and they get too big (they don't keep pullets or hens), and they want to lower the price, I will get them. I really have my hopes up here.

Well, I am off. I am being forced to go on a family hike. I actually love hiking, I just have not met my quota for coffee yet.

 

[duluthralphie]

Nameless seems to get along with everyone.

There is a person looking for a rooster on the Mn thread, hopefully they will take him. He is too nice of a bird to just eat, but nice birds need to be eaten sometimes too.... I would just prefer he go somewhere else. I am such a softy, it makes me sick.


$60 a chick??? Wow.

 

[holm25]

I love this roo. He is good to the hens. Except he ripped the back of a Barred Rocks comb off. It was an accident.

Glad you are doing well Ralph.