We have 125 hens about ready to start laying, so we need to get them their next boxes!
We have been going back and forth with making or buying. We want a roll out nest box that is easy to clean.
We can get a 10 box unit for under $300, the good thing about that would be it would all be...
Tonight we grilled one of our Cornish X.
So I raised an animal, slaughtered it, processed it, and cooked it.
(And it was GREAT!)
Now I feel like a farmer!
So yesterday I was wondering how long is OK between killing and gutting.
We did them strictly one at a time, but how long could I leave one in the cone?
Does it make a diffrence on plucking speed?
So if it takes 20 minutes from kill to gut is that to long? Trying to think of ways to...
So today when we processed our five week old Cornish X Roos, two of them had some greenish coloring on the skin/flesh near one of the wings? The inside of the birds looked normal, no problems I could see.
One of them fell out of the killing cone (cut down traffic cone.)
A Bruise, or...
So tonight when I do my roos, I am planning on giving them an ice water bath to chill them, but not to brine them.
But I keep a lot of produce in my fridge and do not have a large cooler to keep them in for 3 days, so I was thinking of vacum packing them and then aging them in the fridge in...
So my meaties are now 7 weeks old. I got their age a bit mixed up and thought it was only 5 for some reason. So I weighed one of the roos today, I mean they looked big, but what do I know. He was not the biggest roo and was 8-1/2 pounds. NO WONDER he looks so big! I did not weigh the...
I have 8 Cornish Xs who are a little more then 4 weeks old. Yesterday I finished their chicken tractor and moved them into it from a brooder which was getting much to small.
This part of the country is pretty wet, rain, rain, everyday it seems and yesterday was no exception.
The tractor...
So a couple weeks ago I finally processed my 25 old laying hens.
It was quite a bit of work... I watched a few videos on line (one by Cutler Family Farm was best) and it LOOKED easier. I did skin them rather then pluck them...
But my question is are meat birds easier to do? Is there a...
Wow, today I got 10 Cornish Rock chicks from TSC. They are my first meat birds.
In the past years we have probably had 100+ laying hens and are now running a group of 150 (4 weeks old). I am used to them in the little chick phase, cute, curious, and a bit nervous. Open the brooder lid and...
So we are a bit beyond "Backyard" at this point, but since this is where I started my chicken raising journey 7 years ago I thought I would come back with this question.
Next week we are getting 100 Dekalb Amberlinks and 50 Black Austroputs. This will be the basis for our new egg flock. We...