Chickens for 10-20 years or more? Pull up a rockin' chair and lay some wisdom on us!

[nwfl]

Quote:
i am reading this to my husband as we are driving to check out 22 birds a woman wants to unload. we are laughing so hard we arent safe to be on the road! we started silkies for asian customers that requested them. and my man did make one of those crazy coops in the beginning. hes rebuilt it 3 times and cant understand how people can stand it. the only resident is a white rooster who will be a chinese christmas centerpiece soon.

 

[nwfl]

Quote:
I have no idea which is easier on the bird, but the way we do it is we have a cable with a slip loop hanging in the plum tree. I catch the bird, hang it by it's feet in the slip loop, take my kill knife and firmly grab the head, extend the neck and very quickly just remove the head. In about a minute it's bleed out and I dip it and start plucking.

my husband is from washington dc. never was around farm livestock except petting zoos in his 20s when taking nieces. i was culling some mean birds and needed help with a huge rooster. i handed him the large knife and said just slice here. he had the head in his hand and it started moving, eyes, mouth, etc. he flung it far and we both laughed till we cried.

 

[Patsy29332]

What a wonderful find! I took my time and read all the posts so far! Finally caught up to the current post! Such a wealth of knowledge! Thanks for this forum, BeeKissed! And thanks for all the OT's taking their time and sharing their wealth of knowledge and practical tips! Now I need to go back thru and copy off some of this for future use...I will definitely be checking in here every day I am on BYC!

 

[galanie]

Quote:
I have no idea which is easier on the bird, but the way we do it is we have a cable with a slip loop hanging in the plum tree. I catch the bird, hang it by it's feet in the slip loop, take my kill knife and firmly grab the head, extend the neck and very quickly just remove the head. In about a minute it's bleed out and I dip it and start plucking.

my husband is from washington dc. never was around farm livestock except petting zoos in his 20s when taking nieces. i was culling some mean birds and needed help with a huge rooster. i handed him the large knife and said just slice here. he had the head in his hand and it started moving, eyes, mouth, etc. he flung it far and we both laughed till we cried.

I can so see that! Too funny!

 

[uncle clem]

Quote:
Welcome aboard, clem. Is your lone goose lonely? Mine always get very distraught when I get down to one........Pop

Lollipop,The goose hangs out with the brown kackey ducks amd half mallards,even tries to fly with them when they head for the pond.She trys to make friends with the pekins but they dont like her and chase her away. Unc Clem

 

[flocksalot]

For those of you that have clay soil there is an awesome way to amend it by adding horse manure and sand. Especially if you want to grow root crops in it. Every year in the fall I decide where I will be planting my potatoes and make a line of horse manure down the row. In the spring when I till it in the soil is very loose, but if not I will add some sand to help it loosen. The ducks go through and dig out all the grubs with their beaks and at the same time help keep it loose. I get awesome root crops this way and I have some terrible clay soil. So bad that if you don't get it at the right time in the spring it's like walking on marbles until the next rain or even longer. I keep thinking we should make our own mub brick buildings out of it.

Now if I could just teach the horses to do the deed in the garden and in a straight line I would be good to go.

 

[Mommy 2 Wee Ones]

Quote:

I need a pottery wheel.

Am going to plant my potatoes in homemade chicken wire tubes I saw on youtube.

I am going towards no till gardening, figure when the season is over, I can dump the compost/mulch out of the raised beds and spread over the garden area & try to build up the soil that way.

Was going to also try doing sections of the front yard with compost/mulch, and plant dutch clover, and see if that will help the goat burr issue. Was told & read that goat burrs do not like healthy soil.

 

[flocksalot]

Quote:

I need a pottery wheel.

Am going to plant my potatoes in homemade chicken wire tubes I saw on youtube.

I am going towards no till gardening, figure when the season is over, I can dump the compost/mulch out of the raised beds and spread over the garden area & try to build up the soil that way.

Was going to also try doing sections of the front yard with compost/mulch, and plant dutch clover, and see if that will help the goat burr issue. Was told & read that goat burrs do not like healthy soil.

I hear ya about the clay! Adobe here we come. Come to think of it the next time I want to add a coop I could do mud brick. Of course my husband would have a fit, but that's never stopped me before. Helps keep his blood flowing that way. Just thought I would mention it as it's a very old timer trick to loosen soil and it works like a charm. When I was teaching my son, then three, to plant potatoes we put them in the same bed as the strawberries so they had a soaker hose on them. He had red pontiacs as big as his head! And a whole lot of them too. We only peeled one potato for dinner. Course I think that where he planted them was pretty much horse manure only, but hey he got great potatoes out of it so he was very happy. My carrots come out nice and long and almost straight up and down, and I get the best sweet potatoes too! I have three horses and am still always looking for more manure. The more the merrier I say, but I have hugh gardens and am landscaping with fruit around the house too.

I hope your chicken wire potato bed works our I tried some bag things and was very disappointed. What potatoes I got were small and the work from watering was just too much. They just got too hot sitting out side of the ground. I do tons of self watering containers for parts of my gardening. I prefer to do things like lettuce or greens and peppers and tomatoes do awesome in them. When I lived in an apt. that was my only choice for gardening and I can grow just about anythin in a pot, but still prefer to plant most things in the ground as I like the way they come out that way. It's funny to think of how my deck always used to look. It was pretty, but it was still a jungle.

 

[Mommy 2 Wee Ones]

Yea BYC is Back!

 

[galanie]

Yea BYC is Back!

I just had to give you the thumbs up just because we can now lol. yay!