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

[EMantooth]

Will kid's plastic Easter eggs work? Should they be filled with sand or something to make them heavier?
I've gotten so many great ideas over the last few days reading all of this!
Thanks everyone!!

 

[speckledhen]

Quote:
Yes, that's what we did with our first hens, just filled the eggs with sand/gravel from the property and superglued them shut. With my bantams, I got a bag of small wooden eggs from Hobby Lobby and spray painted them with some glossy almond paint we had here.

P.S. I've had the same plastic eggs we started with six years ago, so at least, these did last.

 

[Gold Griffin Chicken Mom]

Modern plastic Easter eggs do not last long. Used to be plastics didn't have to be biodegradable.

Now is the time of year to start watching for eggs. Dollar Tree used to have stone eggs, but hasn't since I've had chickens again and wanted stone eggs! Two years ago I found a pink salt shaker egg at a drug store. I filled it with candle wax to give it weight. That worked until we had all those 100 degree days in a row. The wax started oozing out the stopper hole...

My father's best fake egg was a glass salt shaker that was vaugely egg shaped. I know it was in use from 1973 to after 1985! Dad said FEELING like an egg was more important than looking like one.

 

[jvls1942]

we use golf balls.. chickens are not so smart.. color does not matter..

Years ago we had a fake egg mae out of some sort of rock.. looked like marble.. vey glossy.. somehow it got lost on the floor.. I found it a few months later.. the chicken feces had eaten it about half away..

 

[r4eboxer]

I have a question for the OT, I have been trying to read this entire thread and have not made it through yet. If this has been asked and answered just let me know. I will come to it eventually.

I am assuming those that raise chickens and have done so for many years eat them. I am wondering a few things about your freezer birds.

Do you sell them in the community? If so how many do you sell? How many do you consume for your family? (immediate and extended non sale birds) How many members of your family do you have? If you do sell are you concerned about someone coming back on you in a case of food borne illness? ( I know that food borne illness in most cases has to do with the person cooking the food) I figure any poultry killed and processed by a small farmer is more safe than that of the big industry. I have many reasons for this belief so I won't elaborate.


How many do you send to freezer camp a year?
What is your average monthly grocery store bill? How much has raising chickens (or other livestock) reduced your food bill (human bill not animal feed please)

I want to know this information because I have started homesteading and raising animals for my families’ food. I am so glad beekissed you started this thread. I suppose it's my WV attitude to not keep chickens as pets but I have always been amazed when I read a thread about chicken clothing. I always wonder how that egg fits into those diapers and what kind of mess it would make.

Oh and now I am not so embarrassed about my coop. It is just made from stuff we had around the homestead (with a few purchased boards) My roosts are tree branches and it's not got a drop of paint on it anywhere.

Ok that was more than just a question, but when I think of all the OT's I think farmer; farmers eat and sell what they raise. I want to know how the OT's do it and then I want to copy them.

 

[Gypsi]

r4eboxer,

You are on the right thread, and you have a LOT of reading to do. I would copy and paste into a wordpad file the parts you need, I think you could build a chicken farm off of this thread. I did the first 10 pages, they aren't everything, but there is a lot in there.

(i paint the inside of my coops for sure, makes them easier to clean, gives bugs and mites fewer hiding places, and a rodent glows in the dark against a bright white background.)

Gypsi

 

[r4eboxer]

Quote:
I am on page like 23 and I am starting to see part of the 'farming'. I just haven't read yet where anyone sells their meat birds to the public. I see where eggs are sold but have not come to selling meat birds or how they work around the USDA.

I don't clean the walls of my coop so paint won't help.

I plan on using Guieana, cats and other animals to control pests. I'm not a fan of painting, My family room needs painting first and I doubt I'll get to that anytime soon.

 

[Gypsi]

When you teach your dogs and cats to catch mites, let me know how so I can pass that on to mine.

 

[wsmith]

I spent some time re-reading all the posts during the Christmas break.

My family raised chickens until I graduated High School, and I was an active participant in the operation. We are now getting back into the chicken scene... I can't count how many chickens I have processed, fed, hatched, etc as a teenager. During that time, we processed an average of 30-50 chickens each year, some bottled and some frozen. Never bought chicken in a store until after high school. No flavor, scawny, etc. We raised mostly Plymoth barred rocks, some Aracauna, and black polish for the humor factor. Those were some WIERD chickens! The Polish didn't last long at our place, they weren't profitable.

r4eboxer,
Though I'm not really an OT, I have done a little reasearch into selling eggs, and meat processing. Most states have their own laws, rules, and regulations concerning meat and eggs, and I only researched Colorado. In Colorado unless you are licensed by the state, you may not process and sell chicken meat. Period. You may process your own and consume it. Eggs are a different story, and states vary greatly on those regulations.

We estimate a grocery bill drop of about 600 per year raising chickens. That being said, that doesn't include expenses incurred by raising chickens...........

I would like to add my thanks to beekissed for starting this thread, and to all those Old timers, the possessors of infinite wisdom, for contributing and helping educate all of us.

There are a lot of things I know, but more that I don't know, and I appreciate the OT's input. Not everything works for everyone, but their experience can assist in shaping our own operations, helping us to learn from the past, and not repeat mistakes.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Quote:
If it makes you feel better, here is my ladder in the grow-out pen.

I can't tell you how much my grocery bill drops. There are only the two of us, and out of one chicken we get maybe two meals, maybe three, maybe one is a lunch instead of a full meal. Maybe one is chicken in a casserrole instead of breasts and drumsticks. We get 4 or 5 pints of chicken broth per chicken. It all depends on whether the chicken was a pullet, cockerel, hen, or rooster. These are mixed breed dual purpose chickens from hatchery stock. There are too many variables in my situation versus yours for me to give you any dollar amounts.

The USDA is probably not going to be your problem unless you are selling across State lines or you have a pretty big operation. It is your state, county, city, homeowners association, farmer's market, whatever local laws and rules that count, and they can be way different for each of us. You can start with your local health department or maybe county extension agent, but be careful. If you talk to a state official, they may not care about local requirements. Local officials should but do not necessarily know or care about state requirements. It will probably take some work for you to find out what you are dealing with in your specific location but that is a local issue, not a Federal one.