Recent content by BackyardAR

  1. BackyardAR

    Should I order 100 meat chickens?

    Having just started with meat birds and having to do it all myself I definitely think that your number should be most influenced by how much real help you will have processing them. I've cleaned all sorts of animals growing up so I know how. Still, by myself, plucking, gutting, the whole nine...
  2. BackyardAR

    Yellow fluid in meatie...

    I processed the first eight or so of my meaties over the past few days. The had food taken away at least 12 hours prior but had water and a fresh patch of grass. Yesterday I picked one out because he wasn't sitting flat in the tractor. Had one leg cocked out. I was always scared of the flipping...
  3. BackyardAR

    Meat Bird Feeding Experiment

    By alfalfa pellets do you mean rabbit food or something else?
  4. BackyardAR

    Sneezing but no discernable discharge

    Just as an update to this, my meaties sneezed for three to five days, no discharge, and now they are all fine.
  5. BackyardAR

    Sneezing but no discernable discharge

    What I've read about that medication is that you shouldn't use it on meat chickens because it causes problems in the muscle tissue. One post mentioned something about an "enlongated mite" that can get into the nasal passages and give these kinds of symtoms too....
  6. BackyardAR

    Sneezing but no discernable discharge

    I noticed for the first time yesterday when my 4.5 week old meat birds were eating that several of them were sneezing. It got my attention, but they didn't otherwise appear stressed or to have any other symptoms. Granted they breathe heavily all the time and lay on their big butts to eat and...
  7. BackyardAR

    Moving those meaties outside

    I put mine out in a tractor last nig and put a heat lamp in one end. They did great. We have a cold snap coming, but at worst I think it will be high 30s.
  8. BackyardAR

    Rooster injuring hen

    I have one male and one female white leghorn. They are five months old. I had been keeping them separated but put them back together a few days ago. The rooster began trying to mate with her immediately. That night I noticed the back, unattached, portion of the hens comb had been cut off. I...
  9. BackyardAR

    Dead layer

    So I'm down to just one layer now. Started with six unsexed, only two were pullets and were doing well up until they started to lay. One laid very well, sometimes even two a day, a few skipped days, many double yolks. The other laid what I called lizard eggs. Uncalcified, or barely calcified...
  10. BackyardAR

    Moving those meaties outside

    That same midweek cold snap for you will give us a low in the upper 30s. (arkansas). So with heat lamp(s) in the tractor, and only 24 birds you think it will be ok temp wise? They have a fair amount of feathers for 3 weeks+, but fuzzy heads and bellies still.
  11. BackyardAR

    Moving those meaties outside

    I know all about reducing the brooder temp by five degrees each week until your birds are "fully feathered", but these meat birds (my first) are growing and developing nearly twice as fast as my egg layers did. At what age do Cornish X meat birds generally become fully feathered? Nights here...
  12. BackyardAR

    Soft eggs from one hen

    Well, I haven't identified the hen yet but I have figured out why I sometimes get two good eggs in a day. It happens after a day where I get no good eggs, so I think it's the good hen dropping two during a 24hr period. Looks like I am going to have to get rid of my other hen. :(
  13. BackyardAR

    Soft eggs from one hen

    I have two white leghorn hens that have only been laying about three weeks. As soon as they started I switched to Layena and started mixing oyster shell into their food. Only on one or two occasions did I get two calcified eggs. Normally I get one good egg in the nest box and a noncalcified egg...
  14. BackyardAR

    snakes in basement>??

    I was standing in my Dad's basement about two months ago and started hearing a strange rasping sound. I looked up into the rafters to see a 5 foot+ Black Snake sliding down inside the cinderblock wall. Yes, there *can* be snakes in your basement. They're in there looking for mice typically...
  15. BackyardAR

    White Cornish

    Thanks for all the information everyone. Glad some other people got some use out of the thread as well.
See more
Back
Top Bottom