Adorae’s Family Flock and Farm

[Adorae]

The chickens are all roughly 9 weeks old and are getting big. Even though I'm not ready for them to be outside full time, I am working on transitioning them to it because there has been a lot of feather plucking going on. On the 19th, my mom will be up to help me finish up the area I want to range them in and I will feel much better about them being outside.

It looks like I have a trio of the Dark Cornish. Even though they aren't much bigger than the Lakenvelder, they are considerably heavier. I would almost say they are heavier than the Columbian Rocks, who are currently the largest. I'll be getting exact weights next week when I get my scale and container to hold the chickens in while weighing them.

I feel like it's safe to assume that I have 2 Lakenvelder pullets, and one for sure Columbian Rock Pullet. I really hope that I have 2, but I am not holding my breath. Pretty poor luck there, 1/6 being a pullet. I plan to use the best CR cockerel over a lot of the meat pullets to create my meat bird stock.

Once they all hit 20 weeks I will know for certain which are pullets and which are cockerels, and then I will determine which cockerels get to stay.

 

[Adorae]

So the chicks are 10 weeks old now. They get to go outside every day to free range. Everyone seems to be doing okay. I figured out a way to start weighing the birds I want to use as the basis for my meat chickens.

The Naked Necks average weight was 16.9oz, the Dark Cornish were 16.4oz, and the average for the Columbian Rocks were 19.06oz. There's a significant difference in the weight of the cockerels and pullets in all but the Dark Cornish.

I'm going to record weights at 10, 14, and 18 weeks. The 18 week weight is the weight I want to cull the next couple of generations, so I will pick the boy I keep from that age. I will still record the weight on the day of processing, around week 20. Ideally I will eventually be able to start culling at 14 weeks, years from now..

The Columbian Rocks look large, until you pick them up and they are all fluff, while the Dark Cornish are the same size as the Lakenvelder and the Whiting True Blues, but have some heft to them when you pick them up. The Dark Cornish are actually pretty athletic birds so far, and are very good at not being caught to be picked up.

Hands down the Lakenvelder and the Fayoumi are doing the best free ranging. They are quick to investigate when I flip boards over to show them the bugs and are first to explore new areas. One of the Lakenvelder boys is starting to crow, and it's pretty cute. It sounds like a rubber chicken.

My next time off I will try to get a roost built for the chickens, they try to roost on just about anything in the coop, which is Tiny pallet wood, and I'm sure it's hurting their poor feet. On top of that I am finishing the vents and siding on the coop. Then I'll get to look at the trim to finish water proofing the structure.

 

[Adorae]

So we're at 11 weeks now for the chicks. Had a busy weekend with family in town, so the update is a bit late.

Everyone is looking really good, and doing well free ranging during the day. They are starting to come up to me when I walk up to the coop.

I've ran into a few problems in the last weekish time frame. I cleaned out the waterers and ended up cracking them both a tiny bit at one of the nipples each, so I had them leaking without realizing it. I repaired them with some super glue and they seem to be okay. It's disappointing that the plastic is so fragile. The other problems is that we had a bad wind storm and it actually ripped off one of the coop windows. I need to take it to go have it repaired, but I have hardware cloth covering the opening for the time being.
It works out in the end because the temperature has gotten really hot and the open window helps with the air flow.

I'm hoping that this weekend I can get the hook and eyes installed on the other windows, along with their hardware cloth so the air flow will be much greater with all windows opened.

The Lakenvelder are looking really good. I've been a bit surprised about their size, while they aren't the size of the Columbian Rocks and the Naked Necks, I wonder if they will be bigger than their 5lb grown rooster size.

With the weather getting so hot, it's been hard for me to get out there and work on the coop. Things will likely slow down until the weather starts to cool off. Hopefully we'll get all the rain we're suppose to get soon so the grass will perk back up.

 

[Adorae]

I'll get some new photos uploaded soon of everyone. The boys are starting to get a bit aggressive, biting the necks of what I assume are the pullets, I've seen them grab a silkie, but no one has tried mounting. But that might be because all the pullets keep running away.

The worst perpetrators are the Naked Necks and the Lakenvelders. I haven't seen this behavior in the Columbian Rocks, or the Dark Cornish, or even Pita, the only WTB cockerel.

Everyone is roughly 13 weeks old. I was going to wait until 20 weeks to start processing, but if the boys keep messing around, I'll see about moving it to 18 weeks, or sooner if the girls look like they need to be rescued. Right now though, everyone seems to be skin, bone, and feathers, even the Dark Cornish don't have much meat on them yet.

Next week I will be weighing the NN, the DC, and the CR for their 14 week weigh in.

 

[Adorae]

Everyone is now at least 14 weeks old.

Here's a couple group photos of them getting treats.

I am so surprised about how pretty the NN cockerels are. It's almost a shame they aren't staying. But they gotta go, because they are turning out to be bothersome to the pullets and have been pulling out a lot of neck feathers.

The Lakenvelder cockerels will be going as well, but the Faouymi will get to stay for now. He's not been much of a bully and being a smaller bird, he's not really effecting the feed bill. I like his pattern, his awareness, and his early development. He might have a place in my meat bird genetics.

Pita had lightened up considerably. Luckily Pumpernickel, the blue pullet is still dark.

It's so pretty how everyone's black has such a green sheen to it.

 

[Adorae]

I forgot to mention that I weight some of the boys to get an idea how they were gaining weight.
Columbian Rocks - 3.9lbs & 4.12lbs
Naked Necks - 3.96lbs & 4.3lbs
Dark Cornish - 3.7lbs

Then for fun I weighed a Lakenvelder and Pita, the WTB to get an idea how much they weigh.
Lakenvelder - 2.58lbs and WTB - 2.94lbs

The Dark Cornish and Lakenvelder roosters look about the same size, but the DC cockerel is over a lb heavier. The Columbians and the NN look to be similar sizes and their weights are reflective of that.

It's really hard to tell the Columbian's apart from one another, so that's why I only weighed 2 of them. however I will get weight from all of them in 4 weeks when they are all 18 weeks old. At that point I will need to look them all over carefully to determine which one stays. I know there's one with a weird comb that should go, and another seems to have an issue with their tail, it is tilted down instead of up, and I would like to remove the poor boy that took forever to get his feathers in. Even after removing those, I will have 2 left to choose from.

 

[Adorae]

Oh man, I hadn't realized that it's been over a month since my last update. I keep planning out posts in my head, but never get around to getting them on here.

So this last Saturday I had Kevin, a work friend, come over and show me how to process the chickens. We managed to remove 2 of the Lakenvelder and 1 Naked neck cockerels from the flock.

The Lakenvelder averaged 3.62 lbs and the Naked Neck was 5.46 live weight. They were nearly 20 weeks old. I have a few pictures of the chickens enjoying their last day and then a picture of the Naked Neck after he was skinned.

My work friend killed the Lakenvelder by stepping on their necks and pulling the heads off. I killed the Naked Neck and that ended up being an ordeal. I Tried to slice his neck, but I didn't cut deep, enough so I had to cut him a couple more times. Then I just felt bad and left him in the kill cone to drain out, only was I was walking away he managed to flop himself out of the kill cone and Kevin went ahead and put him out of his misery. My sister was there also to help with the kids while we were working on the chickens, but the kids ended up napping the entire time.

I spent a lot of time that night watching more videos and planning how I can do it better going forward.

Tomorrow I will be making chicken and dumplings with them, and I will be sending 1/2 the leg quarters to a friend who plans to smoke them.

 

[Adorae]

Oh man, it's been a very busy couple of months, so I am way behind on updates. I'm getting eggs now! I believe these are from my Columbian Rock pullet, and possibly one of the Lakenvelders.

I have processed all of my extra cockerels except the final 2 extra Columbian rocks. I am spending some extra time evaluating the 3 of them to decide which one is staying.

My final count when I am finished will be 1/1 Columbian Rock, 1/2 Dark Cornish, 1/6 Whiting True Blue, 0/3 Naked Neck, 0/2 Lakenvelder, 2/3 Silkie and 1 Egyptian Fayoumi.

23 chicken total. I really don't count the Silkies though, I still am planning to give them away to my mom when she gets her coop together.

 

[notabitail]

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Oh man, it's been a very busy couple of months, so I am way behind on updates. I'm getting eggs now! I believe these are from my Columbian Rock pullet, and possibly one of the Lakenvelders.

I have processed all of my extra cockerels except the final 2 extra Columbian rocks. I am spending some extra time evaluating the 3 of them to decide which one is staying.

My final count when I am finished will be 1/1 Columbian Rock, 1/2 Dark Cornish, 1/6 Whiting True Blue, 0/3 Naked Neck, 0/2 Lakenvelder, 2/3 Silkie and 1 Egyptian Fayoumi.

23 chicken total. I really don't count the Silkies though, I still am planning to give them away to my mom when she gets her coop together.

That must be eggciting!
Maybe let the hens decide on the cockerel? See which one they like the most and keep that one.

 

[Adorae]

Another set of updates. I've been sick for about 8 weeks now, and finally on the prescription drugs to get better.

I ordered a couple Coronation Sussex because I really love the color and pattern. They were started pullets and able to be outside on their own. I have them in the hospital coop now while they acclimate and get a bit bigger. The rest of the flock is on layer feed, and I think they need the extra protein from the all flock until they are a bit bigger.

I'm getting 6-8 eggs a day so far. I'm averaging roughly 5 dozen of eggs a week. A couple of my WTB are laying green eggs. I've already spoke to Murray McMurray about it and they have given me a store credit. I might get something from them this next spring.

Something else that is weird is that most of my pullets seem to be growing spurs. I haven't had a lot of time to really figure out what to do about them, or if I even need to do something. I haven't figured out if I need to do anything with the boys spurs right now either.

My wonderful neighbors are moving. They are an older couple and have decided that their property is too much to deal with. They have roughly 20 chickens, a mix of cream legbar and french marans, and have moved them over onto our property. I'm not too interested in the marans because they have an issue with a lot of meat spots in their eggs, but I can make use of them. Some of them are pretty birds and I can throw them into my egg layer flock to increase my colors for my egg basket.

I've been trying to figure out which chickens I will be buying this next year and I would like to do a few hatches as well. When I get that list solid, I will share it.

As far as the coop goes, I installed a automatic pop door and haven't done much else. Between being sick and the baby not sleeping I really don't have any capacity. I'm hoping that I'll start feeling better soon and I will need to work on winterizing the coop and getting the 2nd side prepared for next years chicks.