Thank you for sharing! I will definitely try that technique. It reminds me of high school dissections but I like the idea of how clean it is. Thanks for photos.
Sandy
In California, I was paying $5.25/lb for pasture and organic fed chickens but now that place doesn't have them so now I'm paying about $6.80/lb. I just ordered 20 meat chickens to raise this summer myself. I have done it before and should be able to keep my cost around $5/lb.
Sandy
It's interesting to see someone else doing suburban meat chicken production. I typically do 10-15 meat birds when I order a new batch of laying hens. I have a very secure 10'x 20' pen for my layers but this time I need to raise the meat birds out of the coop because my layers are only a year old...
I am curiously reading this thread because I have 5 Cornish X hens from McHurray right now that I am raising with my new batch of laying hens and I ordered 15 Red Rangers for August when I get back from vacation. I didn't get the Red Rangers this time because my friend wanted 10 RIRs and we...
I teach very low income high school students who are either first generation or second generation from Mexico. It is so refreshing to talk to them and many of them have lived in a home where they had to go outside and get (okay, kill) the chicken for that night's meal. They understand where...
Thanks for the info on Ivermectin. I already had it for the cost effective heart-worm prevention on my dogs, so I didn't need to spend anything to treat my hens. I noticed some mites on one of the girls' eggs yesterday.
Sandy
I was checking the coop in the morning to see if it had leaked after some rain, and there he was, about an 8" long opossum, pecked to death, with blood everywhere, about an inch thick, and no face left. He must have thought he found the gravy train with the eggs, but little did he know that my...
Now that my girls are 12 and 15 weeks old, they have begun eating just about anything. They do love the protein items, but they also love grass and weeds tossed in, broccoli, beets, and dark leafy greens. When they were younger, they only liked grass seeds, but now they like just about anything.
I wasn't planning on transitioning to laying feed for another month or so, since I still have a 50 lb bag of starter for my 10 pullets. 8 of them are 12 weeks old and 2 are 15 weeks old. One of the 15 week pullets, a BR, has started to exhibit some "getting close to laying" behaviors such as...
My neighbors do the same thing, they keep the rooster in the garage until a bit later in the morning. I can hear him faintly, but I have chickens also, and love the sound. We also have an alley behind us, so that helps cut the noise for the neighbors. My neighbor on the other side has a...
I ordered the Ornamental Layers collection from MMH in April. So far, I have 3 roos (1 cochin, 1 polish, and 1 EE) out of 25 and the FRC was a roo (buff laced polish). I gave half the chicks away to a friend and she hasn't mentioned if any of hers were roos. So I'm right on the edge of the...
I ordered the Ornamental Layers, which is slightly different but I got:
2 Buff Cochin (1 turned out to be a roo)
2 White Cochin
1 White crested black Polish (my favorite)
1 Silver laced Polish (turned out to be a roo)
1 black spanish
3 Ancona (or maybe Cuckoo Marans)
1 Fayoumis
1 Phoenix
6...
The middle chick looks a bit like my mystery black chick when she was a young one, that I still am wondering about (now 11 weeks). I'm leaning towards Spanish.
Oops, I just saw feathered feet on yours...now I'm not sure.
Sandy
My WCB polish pullet is extremely friendly and curious. Some of the larger breeds are starting to pick on her so I'm giving away several this weekend. I also ended up with 2 polish roosters out of my batch of "pullets" so they're going on Craigs list shortly. The roos are more aloof but the...
Thanks so much for mentioning the broom method. I think that will be the way for me to go to get rid of the giant EE rooster that came with my pullets.