We find them so much better. They're not pumped full of junk as well as water. In reality, they're the same birds as the ones in stores, just raised in very poor conditions.
If you feed high protein, then yes, they'll start having problems. We just did some that were 12-14 weeks old and they were running around their fenced area like nothing. We have ours in a tractor and then an electric poultry net around it to give them a big area to forage. Some of ours foraged...
We too use a hoop house tractor. Super simple and cheap.
Look up Cog Hill Farm on youtube. He made a temporary house out of cattle panels and t-posts. He takes it down when he's done.
Haha, it's a strange one. It hatched and a few hours later, I thought it was still wet under the mama. Then the next day it fluffed a little but was somewhat bald. I think it's possible the other chicks might have picked his random head feathers (no many of them) and made him look more bald lol...
My broody hatched 5 babies last week. All are normal fluffy chicks except this guy...what in the world?? It came from a medium brown egg...
Roosters we owen(ed) that could have fathered it:
Americauna
Olive Egger (all black with grey neck)
Blue splash red Wyandotte
Hen breeds we own that lay...
We have 6 kids, so we aim for 2 chickens per week. Last year was our first year and we ordered 25 just to get our feet wet. This year we got 80 and we're still processing in batches and lost some early on so we'll have a total of what we did later in a few weeks.
Next year we are ordering 115...
We raise CX and have tried Rangers as as well. We thought about heritage breeds but honestly they take a long time and more food. Therefore cost was more.
We put our CX in a tractor surrounded by electric fence. These birds are all over the place getting bugs and scratching. they do lay around...
:frow I'm close to both of you guys! Outside of Woodville on the Livingston side off 256. I pass Barnum all the time going to Lufkin!
I have australorps and they handle the heat as well as my other birds. We also have orpingtons, wyandottes, welsummer, maran, faverolle, EE, red stars, brahma...
So my broody chicken hen was sitting on 6 turkey eggs due to hatch today. 2 days ago she broke one.,a huge chunk of shell off and even a bleeding spot, but membrane is still solid. A small hole where the bleeding was. I candled and it was still moving and appeared to be trying to internally pip...
I had 4 WG I got from McMurray. They were supposed to be pullets and 2 were roosters. Those two are mixed with my Red Ranger meat birds now and I have no clue which ones they are anymore. My 2 pullets recently got eaten by my dog :hit:hit:hit
But, they were reddish, all 4 and they had...
Thanks! We are about to fire it up next Sunday. So we'll try one extension cord (we bought good ones), I saw in the book the more you use the less the power is. We will also see about switching out the spring! If that doesn't work, we'll get a new motor.
The little guy hatched out an hour ago! Unfortunately he's the only one that made it. But I have a broody hen on 7 turkey eggs due to hatch tomorrow. So when they hatch, I'll stick him under her. She's always let me give her additional chicks in the past with no problem. I don't think turkeys...
No, so far it's been holding steady at 78%. I pulled back the heavy shelf liner and it made all the difference! Before I lockdown my next batch, I'll probably cut some wire or something to fit over it.
Well, I have it up to 77% right now and I see a little more progress with this guy. I did have shelf liner on the bottom that is a heavy weave. Earlier I wondered if it was inhibiting humidity and pulled half of it back. Seems to be holding at 78/77 now. We live in SE Texas so we're usually...