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

[chickiemomy]

along the foraging line -- am working on a chicken jungle gym for the covered run for winter days -- put in a large willow limb, downed but not hauled off by beavers yesterday afternoon. The chicks stripped the willow leaves off the stray branches in one evening - now I'm expecting asprin laced eggs! hey - a new market? organic eggs from willow fed chicks for your organic hangover cure!

 

[thedragonlady]

w/respect to deer - thx for the nite-guard suggestion dragonlady - found it on amazon & will give it a try. concerned the deer may become habituated to it over time - they're not very timid - but maybe it'll spook them long enough to get them redirected to someone else's trees! They're just now coming back through this fall- so will get it set up soon.

the blood meal works -only way I have any raspberry plants at all - garlic capsules sort of worked - so moth balls may work also -- our problem in this area is constant rain - washes everything down - we don't have downpours in the winter - more like constant drizzle. I'm a California girl at heart - but lived here for 40+ years - the damp really sucks, as does the constant winter gloomy gray, early darkness... SADS anyone??? okay you can stop feeling sorry for me now ;-)

we have a big dog who marks the entire yard (but is in at night) & that has had no effect - even tho he chases them off when he's out in the daytime.

I just move my Nite-guards along my fence a foot or two every month, and vary the height up and down. Not a nibble. They eat at the neighbors!

 

[coloradogal]

I only have 5 new baby chicks that are still in the incubator but will come out tonight. Is there anything I can use other than the 250w red light that will keep them warm?

 

[Briezeechicks]

That looks like an old kerosene, or propane brooder hood to me.

Don't know about the kerosene or propane part, but Bryan just brought down the electric brooder hood from the barn rafters for us to use in the layer coop. It looks almost just like that, except it is square (four-sided pyramid), and has 4 ceramic receptacles for light bulbs. We are to implement it as soon as he can get it re-wired (for safety's sake). Wouldn't want to set our chicks on fire!

Brie

 

[neopolitancrazy]

That looks like an old kerosene, or propane brooder hood to me.

I agree, my father used to use these to warm baby pigs. somehow we wound up using them on large orders of baby chicks one year. Ours ran off butane, though.
Angela

 

[smyers32]

It sure does. What is really sad is that many think that this is a mutually exclusive concept...that you cannot have chickens for food and still name them, treat them kindly and give them a good, content life.

This reminds me of growing up with a flock of sheep. Every year we had a dozen or so lambs, hauled them off to market and kept one for our own table. We always named them, and one year 'Snowy' was the keeper. So mom would call us for dinner....."Kids! Dinner!! We're having Snowy-burgers!"

Never gave it a second thought as a kid, but now it does seem a little....I dunno...twisted?

Forgot to add: Sorry this quote is from HUNDREDS of pages ago. I'm leisurely reading it all from the beginning

....maybe I'll be caught up by next fall

 

[bruceh]

I only have 5 new baby chicks that are still in the incubator but will come out tonight. Is there anything I can use other than the 250w red light that will keep them warm?

where are they being booded? any light bulb should work. does not have to be red. it also does not have to be 95 degress. they do need to be kept warm.

 

[Briezeechicks]

This reminds me of growing up with a flock of sheep. Every year we had a dozen or so lambs, hauled them off to market and kept one for our own table. We always named them, and one year 'Snowy' was the keeper. So mom would call us for dinner....."Kids! Dinner!! We're having Snowy-burgers!"

Never gave it a second thought as a kid, but now it does seem a little....I dunno...twisted?

Forgot to add: Sorry this quote is from HUNDREDS of pages ago. I'm leisurely reading it all from the beginning

....maybe I'll be caught up by next fall

Ha! Ha! Ha! Bryan says they always named the ones they were going to eat. Off the top of my head, I remember him talking about Sir Loin, TeeBone, Brisket, Mutton, Ca Brito and Burrito! It is kind of twisted, now that you mention it. But he says that with names like that, when Mom said "Sir Loin needs his rations increased, or "Mutton has a cut on his nose that needs tending," They always knew that they had something to do for that animal. Get in, Get it done, Don't, linger and play with it or make a pet out of it. It was just their constant reminder of the purpose of that animal. He said their food animals were treated well, tended well, always had every need attended, but they were not handled any more than necessary. If it didn't have a name at all, or a cutsey name, they could play with it all they wanted. Pretty good system for kids I think!

Brie

 

[smyers32]

"Sir Loin"

 

[Beekissed]

I've always been a bit different with my kids and the naming of the food animals. We always tried to come up with names that suit their personality and we don't avoid giving them extra attention, just like all our other animals. Food animals have the same quirky personalities and beauty as the "pet" ones and so we just accepted that fact and rolled with it. It didn't make it any harder to butcher them later, as there was always one or the other of us that weren't quite so emotionally involved and could do the deed.

The only one I could not do was my ram lamb, Mo Fats...he was just one of those sweety, moochy sheep that always wanted to have his head on you and wanting to be close to the shepherd, though he was not bottle fed or coddled in any way. My boys didn't have the same relationship with him, so they butchered him while I was at work. It's not always easy but I tend to develop natural attachments to some animals, not so much to others....but if they were raised for food, they all go the same route in the end.

Such is life and I embrace the heartache of killing certain animals the same as I embrace the loving of those same animals. Makes everything you do so much more real and alive when you have those contrasts in life.