Recent content by kev_n_jena

Quote: Those were my thoughts also. In the Philippines, chickens get fish bones fed to them everyday. Our chickens are on full feed 24/7 so they're never overly hungry. I fed them table scraps at the same time as the blugills. I cut a couple of them in half and the chickens went after those...

Hi All, My wife and I came home from a canoe trip on which we caught 6 bluegill. We had intended to clean them for eating later but that didn't happen:D. I left them in the fish basket and put it in one of our rain barrels. The next morning only one bluegill had survived. I put it in our 100...

Well, we bought 24 bags of layer feed and 10 bags of cracked corn. That's enough to feed our chickens for 5 1/2 months. With the feed we already had on hand, that will take us into May if we can keep it from spoiling. We were paying $8/40 lbs. so we just cut our feed cost in half! We feed...

The feed is 16% protein crumbles. The sale is for the grand re-opening of a Farm & Fleet in Urbana IL. They have some incredible deals. Today is the last day of the sale. Check out the sale flyer. http://www.farmandfleet.com/promotions/flyer_detail.aspx?fid=531&p=5

I'm picking up twenty 50lb bags of Agrimaster Layer Poultry Feed for $6 ea. tomorrow. They are on sale at our local F & F store. I'm actually considering 40 bags instead of 20. My only concern is how well it will keep. Do you think layer feed will spoil in 5 months when stored outside during a...

We sell about 2 doz. per day for $2.50/doz. with carton return. My wife has a customer gold mine at work. For the past two months she'd been behind about 20 doz. and could never catch up. Since our pullets started laying more regularly (2 doz. per day) she was down to about 6 doz. on her...

20 today, our highest total yet. One cage with 16 hens produced 15 eggs! The next batch of pullets just started laying. We have a total of 36 hens. Mostly RIR

Nice Setup. We're in Illinois also and getting ready to convert a 12 x 16 shed for chickens. We're thinking about doing a covered run 16 x 30. One question I have for you is, how do you water in the winter? Does your water freeze every day December and January or does your compost keep it...

Around here it's called hardware cloth. Hardware cloth will rust and break after several years especially where the galvinization gets scraped off. I have some 10 yr. old cages that need repaired, mostly where manure sat on it and where salt blocks were hanging in rabbit cages. Kev n Jena

I wanted to update this post. The tractor is working like a charm! Our pullets are laying in the nest box perfectly. We have 16 hens and one rooster in the tractor and we regularly get 13 eggs per day now. I move it around the pasture everyday when I get home from work and the first thing the...

Quote: I really like this one, keep it mind its for warm weather. It's about as large as I could make while still being able to move by myself. It measures 12' x 8'. The one below is pretty nice but it was difficult and time consuming to build for it's size. It measures about 5' x 8'.

Hi All, We estimate our RIR's to be 16 1/2 weeks right now and we just got our first egg July 5th. I was very surprised and didn't figure we'd get one until mid august. It's possible they're a week older than our estimate but that's it. 17 1/2 weeks max. Some had a tiny amount of feathers on...

Thanks for the replies. Our plan is to stuff the nesting box with straw before the girls start laying. That's what we do on our other cage and it seems to work pretty well for us. If needed we might add some more wood on the nestbox for shade. As far as rain. I'm not too worried about the hens...

I buy mine at Menards although I'm sure any home improvement store would have them. The ones I uses are 8 inches in diameter with 1/2 inch diameter bearings. They only cost about $6 each and have hard rubber tires. When I mount them I use a 1/2 in. dia. bolts and support both sides of the wheel...

Hi All, I wanted to share our new favorite tractor. It's a warm weather unit for spring, summer, and fall. We'll move the hens to the soon to be converted chicken house before the snow flies. The tractor measures 12' x 8' with a nest box that's about 36" x 18". It has 2 roosts that are about...