I got a few hens last night and one is different in a lot of ways from any chicken I've ever seen. The most noticeable thing is her personality. She is friendlier than any chicken I've ever seen. Now I'm not new to raising chickens. I've hand raised flocks that adored me and would follow me...
My Boer Doe developed scours about a week ago. I brought her down to the house and checked her over. I only noticed her dirty back legs and tail. So i cleaned her all up and while doing so noticed she had perfectly normal stool at that point. So i watched her close every day and she seemed fine...
It's day 19. 3 of my 21 eggs must have been talking to each other through their shells and hatched a plan. They started pipping at 3am. 1 is out, yolk sack fully absorbed and healthy. Other 2 are still just peeking at the world. This is my 4th generation in my personal flock and never had one...
This is by far my most loathed part of meat chicken raising. I've been hand plucking my whole life whenever plucking needed done.
This year I'm thinking of building an automatic plucker cause I've had enough of wet feathers stuck between my fingers. The way i have it worked out in my head is...
I talked to the girl at TCS and she said they were a cross between Production Red's and Standard Laying hens (Whatever that means.) They are supposed to get heavy but not as heavy as Broilers, not experience the health problems, lay well, and Butcher into good meaty birds. Haha the holy grail...
So i have been coming to Backyard Chickens for years, getting tons of information and learning a lot but never posting. Having learned much over the years by trial and error, being inventive and of course from here I've added a few tricks to my chick raising tool belt and thought i would share...