E's flock - chicken math is real! (and working towards sustainable meat bird flock)

[imacowgirl2]

Ended up with 12 total from the incubator — 11 buff Orpington and 1 mystery chick that is obviously an incident of one of the hens still carrying sperm from an incorrect rooster…the baby has buff on its head and some of its back, but then is yellow with black spots on the rest of its body, so I’m guessing one of the California White roosters got to that hen.

Dude tried to stand again yesterday and today, so he is making progress, albeit slowly.

Confirmed B14 and Lady Babushka have fertile eggs, so Truck will be going back out with the roosters tonight and we will continue to collect eggs from them for setting.

 

[imacowgirl2]

My cousin kindly added 3 Whiting True Blue roosters to his Murray McMurray order for me for beginning of May. Plan will be to breed those to our Leghorn hens for some chicks that will lay blue eggs, and to some of our brown egg layers for green egg laying chicks. Then hopefully next year we can get our hands on some WTB pulleys to also have those.

 

[imacowgirl2]

Some more current pics of the mystery chick…

 

[aynesidea]

Some more current pics of the mystery chick…
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Looks like a sparrow, hahaha!

 

[imacowgirl2]

Meat bird babies today…I can no longer pick them up with one hand!!

6 weeks tomorrow.

 

[imacowgirl2]

This week I start construction on the new meat bird coop and run. In a perfect dream world, I will have a broody meat hen almost constantly and they will raise numerous small batches of chicks for me all spring, summer and fall. In order to facilitate this, I need a rooster in with those hens constantly so when they go broody they have fertile eggs…and I also have less tolerance for predator loss with the meaties, so giving them their own run will accomplish both objectives — give me a place to have the roosters and hens together and give me a secure space for my meat babies — those birds just won’t free range at all. The ideal I’m working towards is something like Grandmas of yesteryear would have done — have birds in all stages of growth so every time the freezer gets low on chicken I can just go butcher a couple of the biggest ones out of that flock. I’d rather butcher a few here and there than spend all day doing birds, especially since I don’t have a lot of help with the butchering — its easier to do 2 or 3 at a time instead of spending all day doing 9 or 10.

 

[imacowgirl2]

DUDE IS WALKING!!!!!

E has been telling me this week that she has seen him stand and take a few steps here and there…but when I went out to garage this morning, not only was he standing but he walked across his crate, and was standing every time I saw him. When I put him out in the front yard, he even wing danced a hen who came close and tried to breed her, so no more hanging out in the sunshine in the front yard with the hens for him!

Until today I really didn’t think there was any chance of recovery…while I hoped for it, I really thought he would probably leave his crate on the way to freezer camp…but looks like he will be returning to the bachelor pad — when the other NH roo moves out into the meat bird coop, I think I will probably give Dude his own side of the rooster pen and then put the young cockerels in with him when they are a bit bigger, until after the 4-H show, at which point we will eat the ones we will eat and fully integrate the ones we are keeping and Dude can just be the rooster that teaches them their manners until they are big enough to integrate.

 

[imacowgirl2]

Ordered supplies for the meat bird run last night, construction starts when we get back from nationals. I will probably start with the run as that is easier to do alone and will also provide a larger area for Dude to be during the day.

 

[imacowgirl2]

Busy day today…chicks that were in the brooder moved out to the coop.

Forgot to take “before” pictures, but I started on the meat bird pen today. First thing this mourning drove posts then got the run fence put up - Dude very much enjoyed being outside all day. Once I put him up this evening I managed to get all the netting up over the top too! Had to have the hubby trim a few branches first, and had to make a supply run to Menards for 5 gallon buckets, 2x4s, and quickrete to make posts to hold up the netting, but it’s all done.

Tomorrow I will start on the coop…I need to get the cattle panels yet, but instead of using boards on the bottom, I think I’m going to use pallets, and then attach the cattle panel at different heights on each pallet to account for the hill. I also changed where I’m putting the coop — original location has lots of sticker bushes that I didn’t want to dig out.

As a result of the coop location move, I also had to move the compost pile, so also did that today.

Now I need to figure out what kind of fast growing plants I can plant in the top of the post buckets for the chickens to enjoy…

 

[imacowgirl2]

Picked up Nasturtium seeds last night for the net support buckets for the meat bird pen and the one in the layer pan.

Annnnnd the picture below shows why we can’t have free ranging baby meat birds: they are greatly enjoying their new netted run — while a hunting hawk screeches and flies around overhead No predator savvy-ness…none! (I’ll maybe forgive Dude, the rooster, for his lack of predator awareness too…he had literally just been put out, so he was very hungry)