Skip - it always feels good to be back on track. Congrats on your new reds and
here's hoping they are all pullets. I have one and she is pretty funny and quite
tame. She's the only one that lets my 6 y o grandson catch her every time.
Thanks, Kelly. It really doesn't matter much to me at this point if they are pullets or not. I have 2 1/2 acres here, so space is not a problem, and we are in an extremely rural area, and with each of the two roosters I have had in the past, the one that WAS very loud didn't seem to bother anyone at all. As a matter of fact, only one neighbor ever said anything to me about that one. He mentioned that it was comforting to him to hear the rooster in the morning, he heard him as he was sitting out on his porch having his coffee, and it reminded him of a Duty Station he had in the Philippines, and I guess those were GREAT times for him.
THAT rooster had me posting on a thread in this forum about "your rooster flogging you today." It got so bad that I finally had to catch him and I was planning on sending him to Freezer Camp, not because of the noise, but he would come after me every time I was in the back yard, he was just plain mean, and I raised him from a day old chick. I wound up giving him to another neighbor, and he gave me several pallets as an after thought, so all in all it was a good trade.
Boy Skip, sounds like quite the year of trials and tribulations. I'm not sure my wife would let me start a new flock after all that. Heck, I'm not sure I would want to start... Nah, nevermind. I would have been down there that same weekend buying new chicks. I'm hoping one of my new Marans is a rooster, but he has to be a quiet and docile one if he's going to stick around. I can't have him waking all the neighbors up at all hours of the night. I'm not lucky enough to live in the middle of nowhere, so my neighbors are a concern.
And you can ramble any time. I love reading other peoples' stories.
We've been getting about 10 eggs from our 2 girls each week, so I can't complain. Knock on wood, there hasn't been a single day without at least one egg. They are still smallish, but that's ok. All in due time. I'd rather smaller eggs than the unhealth, who-knows-what eggs from the store. And these are such a beautiful tan color!
Thank you. As you can see, I don't post too often, and I try real hard to never post a one liner, I am just not interested in looking at the number of posts on my Avatar, but I do tend to ramble a bit (or so it seems to me).
This morning I am sitting here, I just watered my fodder, and the water is dripping down eight levels of Barley Grass, and the chicks are awake, and they are chirping and scratching, so it sounds sort of like I am in a gentle rain out in a forest somewhere, and all is good with the world.
My first chick experience was a year ago this month and things were a LOT different then than now, but I had bought two groups of ten each last March and May. Of all those I have nine survivors, and I guess they were really traumatized with the two attacks, I am just starting to get eggs again. I was getting worried that I would have to buy some of those eggs you mentioned (at the store), but have managed to hold off.
I have to rebuild the indoor brooder I had, but that lumber has all gone to other projects. I will have to build a brooder (again). I had NO IDEA yesterday when I went to town that I would be bringing home five little babies, but now this will get me started on a few things I need to get done here, new brooder box (but not take this one apart - I plan on this year having meaties, six a month and will need the brooder box to raise them) and build a new coop and run to isolate those meaties. And of course build a fence around the entire chicken area to keep out my sisters dog(s).
I had a great bunch of gals laying white, multi-colored brown and green eggs last Summer, I only hope that I can get back to that. People at work that used to count on me to bring eggs on Thursdays are STILL asking me when I will have eggs again. A lot of them are still dropping off egg cartons, I must have a stack of close to one hundred egg cartons just sitting there on top of the frig, nothing to put in them (yet).
Sometimes I will get only one egg in a day, and most days nothing. My GF says it is the Barley Grass that stopped production, but I still maintain it was the trauma of having half their sisters wiped out that terrible day. One day (only) last week I got five eggs in one day, THAT was eggsiting, but that hasn't happened again (yet). By the end of summer I will probably be back to selling eggs again, and I am REALLY looking forward to that.
As for your "smaller" eggs, I have a Golden Brahma Bantam that gives me these beautiful well formed eggs, perfect in every respect, but they are half the size and weight of any of the other girls eggs. And they are DELICIOUS, I don't even send those next door or package them for sale, they may be small, but they are DELICIOUS as I said. It takes three of them to make an amulet, but I am happy with that.
Enough ...
Skip
