First Run of Cornish Cross Meat Birds and Super Excited!

[duluthralphie]

Sunny's birthday was August 4th and she has laid eggs. Oregon weather is very mild though unlike where you live. Not to mention that most people would never keep CX to laying age.

We really are a silly group of folks here.

LOL I get told that all the time, I even met a guy in TSC today in the chicken section. We started talking and he said he was getting CX's but knew they only had an 8 week life expectancy.. I corrected him.


BTW Bert and his gals are out enjoying the mellow weather today it got above freezing here.

I went to get 4 bags of wood shavings at TSC. I came home with 2 bags of treats (100 lbs) a bag of game bird feed for the turkey hens and Guineas and a bag of scratch for Bert....forgot the darn shavings!

 

[Double Kindness]

My hatching is going AWFUL!
Out of 40 eggs set, 3 hatched, 1 pipped but took 40 hours to progress, so I helped it and it was messed up.

I seem to be losing eggs during lockdown

I sold 4 of my chickens today, moved them around, and my bf tore out the boxwood trees so I can move the blueberries and hydrangeas

 

[Double Kindness]

Btw the vet that does the crow reduction surgery is like the vp of the ccl breeders assn.. fwiw

and these are my 3 little hatchlings

 

[JessicaThistle]

Ralph: That is the story of my life!! I go to the store for milk, spend $80 on other stuff and forget the dang milk. I'm too young for this really. It's stupid!!

Hi Double Kind! Nice to see you back! Sorry you are having trouble with hatching. I don't know anything about that or I'd give advice. Your babies are absolutely adorable though.

I would love to find a vet in my area that does crow reduction and humane caponization. Instead, I just had to give away two of my beautiful roos. It really does feel like giving away my kids....wait no, it feels worse than that. hahaha! But really, my two beautiful boys are going to what I think will be an absolutely happy home! They will each have 10 lovely ladies to watch over on 5 glorious acres. 3 happy kids to haul them around and give them goodies.

I was so worried when I posted on Craigslist that the dogfood mobile would be harassing me to take my beauties off their hands. I sure do wonder how quieter it will be in the morning.

 

[duluthralphie]

Ralph: That is the story of my life!! I go to the store for milk, spend $80 on other stuff and forget the dang milk. I'm too young for this really. It's stupid!!

Hi Double Kind! Nice to see you back! Sorry you are having trouble with hatching. I don't know anything about that or I'd give advice. Your babies are absolutely adorable though.

I would love to find a vet in my area that does crow reduction and humane caponization. Instead, I just had to give away two of my beautiful roos. It really does feel like giving away my kids....wait no, it feels worse than that. hahaha! But really, my two beautiful boys are going to what I think will be an absolutely happy home! They will each have 10 lovely ladies to watch over on 5 glorious acres. 3 happy kids to haul them around and give them goodies.

I was so worried when I posted on Craigslist that the dogfood mobile would be harassing me to take my beauties off their hands. I sure do wonder how quieter it will be in the morning.

Your mentioning your boys reminds me, errr Did I mention Bert can crow now?

He has the sweetest little crow, it is so funny coming from him. Also he has a girlfriend besides the CX's. This morning I went to let the CX's out of the pen and a little partridge EE was in there with them. The little vixen spend the night with Bert.

Later, this morning I looked out at them and Bert and the two CX pullets were outside and my little white rock was with them. It was so funny four white chickens, three looking like giants and the poor little white rock looking like a dwarf.

(can I say dwarf here? Or is it midget? I am so behind the times. I hate getting old and not knowing what is correct and what isn't any more) Anyways it gave me a chuckle to see Bert impressing the gals.

 

[duluthralphie]

Oh,. I forgot to mention, I got 26 eggs from my 30 pullets yesterday after my mishap the day before. They must have forgiven me.

I did feed give them extra BOSS and bird seed, I even bought them some "commercial" scratch from TSC I felt so bad.....


2 of the 26 eggs were in a lean too I have. I noticed a chicken go into it and went to investigate. I had 3 chickens in there. one was on a stolen nest with 2 eggs in it. Another was in a milk carton looking all comfy. I think she planed on making that her home.

The eggs were not frozen or cracked so I knew they were good. I used them last night to make a coating for chicken fried steak.

I think one of barred rocks gave me 2 eggs yesterday. In the morning she was on the nest and I got an egg out from under her. She refused to leave the nest. Then last night way after dark she was on the nest when I locked up. I thought she was broody and all of a sudden she lifted up and dropped an egg. So I took it too. She still refused to leave the nest.

Ethel was not so forgiving to me. She told me off again and refused to go into the coop until dark. I had to make two trips out to lock them up because Ethel would not go in early. None of the other turkeys are using the coop, but I did not dare lock her out of the coop after locking her in it for a day. The wrath of Ethel would have been unbearable.

 

[mountain mom]

I do think I am getting an egg from Pearl each day! There was one on the floor under where she roosts. Not broken, and very oval. Then later this morning she was trying to fit herself into a nest box.... I may have to take a divider out. She is quite a plus size chicken.

Pearl was hatched in September... I wonder why your "babies" are not laying yet, Ralph. I have also heard of late fall CX never going into lay. But I would not consider July to be "late fall".
It sounds like Bert is becoming quite the stud muffin!
What did the guy who you corrected in Tractor Supply think? I bet he was pretty surprised!

I am so glad you found a happy home for your two boys, Jessica! Imagine all the early morning rest you will be getting now.

Double Kind- I wish I had some hatching advice. I do not. Good luck with the next round! How are all of the other chickens and ducks doing? Did your one hen ever get better?

 

[duluthralphie]

The guy at the TSC store said he would have to think about raising the CX's differently.

I had a woman here to buy eggs yesterday, she asked if we sold processed chickens too, We told her we had some to sell. I told her I had heritage and traditional DP birds and Cornish Crosses I raised slow to become larger juicier tender meat. My DW then opened the freezer and showed her a processed DP and a CX. The CX she happened to grab was labeled 10lbs 11 oz. She just said " oh my word it's like a turkey". I guess you had to be there but it was funny.

I am not sure if she will buy any or not. I have my price on them at $2.50 a pound and I will not change it. We eat them and love them enough to not care if anyone buys any. Any less than $2.50 a pound and I do not recover alcohol related processing costs.








Now on another note. I have been writing a book, memoir or whatever you want to call it. I have quite a bit of it done. I would like to share a portion here just to get feedback, if that is ok.

Thanks Jessica for letting me post this in your Bar and Grill....


.......................I loved pigs, they are sweet lovable and only want to be scratched on the belly. Pigs took the place of riding horse when we were kids. My Dad hated horses, said he had followed too many horses growing up plowing and working the fields. He refused to even allow a horse on the farm.

Because of his negativity to horses we tried riding other animals. Cows seemed to be a natural choice. Big, dumb not too fast and looked kind of like a horse, if you squint a lot and have imagination. Our cows normally would come to the barn around 5pm everyday for milking. We had about 160 acres of pasture, of that 80 was wooded swamp. It was spread out over four 40's. ( a 40 is quarter mile square for those of you wondering) This meant the cows could be ¾ of a mile or more from the barn. On those nights the cow did not come back, my brother and I would have to go get them. That would mean up to a 3 mile walk for us, because and I cannot emphasize this enough, my Dad refused to let us have horses!

We hated this. Luckily it was only in the summer when the days were long the cows stayed out. Most days it was just hot and miserable. The rainy days were even worse. We lived on sand, the poorest sand possible was the pasture. The only thing that grew were weeds a weedy grass and sand burrs. Sand burrs were the bane of our existence back then. They would grab onto socks, shoes legs and anything else. When we went to pull them off we got stickers in our hands and fingers. I know your wondering what this has to do with chickens, let me tell you. It has nothing to do with chickens, it simply is to show you how rough and tough our young lives were and why I relate better to animals than people. By the way, chickens are an animal, so I guess it does have to do with chickens.

One fine day and I do not remember when, my brother and I got the bright idea of riding a cow back to the barn instead of the walking back. Now let me inform you a little about cows. While having a brain the size of a pea, like a horse does, they are smart enough to know they do not like to be rode. Our cows were tame, we could walk up to almost every cow in the pasture and pet it, talk to it and even jump on it's back. So we did.

Now it never dawned on my genius brother or myself that reins are an essential part of horse riding. Another difference between cows and horses is the mane. When riding a horse bareback without reins the rider grabs onto a handful of mane. Without the mane one is lacking an essential component of bareback riding. You may think of a cow as being a slow dumb animal, you would be half correct, slow is not the word to use on a cow that suddenly has an 8 -10 year old on it's back. The good thing is they ran towards the barn. If we were lucky we would go most the way to the barn with them. Most of the time we were not lucky and had to run after them to try and get on a different cow.


Now the next cow was already on a dead run, so slowing the cow to jump on her back was a real feat in animal mastery. More often than not we ended up face down in a cow pie enjoying the view. If you were lucky there were no sand burrs in said cow pie. A little known fact of life, sand burrs love to grow in cow pies.

We were happy boys though we had “horses”, of course the fact we only rode them a fraction of the way back was immaterial to us, we had a horse!

This went on for most of the summer that year. Now what could possible ruin such a perfect relationship as we had developed with our trusty steeds. It was my Dad that ruined the relationship. I happen to get on a smaller cow one day and rode it all the way to the barnyard. When my Dad saw me riding my trusty cow at a full gallop and holding on for dear life, he came out of the barn to greet me.

Well, the greeting was not exactly what I expected. My Dad was the quintessential expert in four to six letter words. I heard all of them, he was not a happy father. I suppose you are all thinking he was concerned about my brother or my safety. He was not. The first thing out of his mouth was, “ Do you want to break that (four letter word inserted here) cows back? She cannot hold your weight, of course I probably weighed less than the milking machine suspended from her back everyday did, but to Dad that did not matter.

My name was mud, I was lectured for an hour I am sure. I was threatened with a reddened bottom, life was not good. He then turned to my brother who was walking back to the barn because he had fell off his cow, and said “ Did you ride a cow too?”

My brother may not be the brightest light in the room, but he could see what was going to happen and said. “ nope, I have never ridden a cow, I told him not too but he refused to listen, I knew you would be mad at him, but he did not care”.

I was thrown under the bus without even knowing a bus was coming! I never rode a cow after that, I may be dumb but I was not stupid enough to ride another cow.

However, Dad's rule was ride no cow! He never said ride no pig. A loop hole in the edict........

 

[Clucksandgiggle]

 

[JessicaThistle]

Mountain: Yes, happy that two of the boys found a good home. The new chicken lady sent me this pic of the boys getting to play a little tune on the piano at their new home. I think they will be spoiled.



But alas, the two remaining roosters that I have made darn good and sure that I would not get the peaceful morning that I was hoping for. I can't win. I really need sleep too right now because I came down with a nasty cold from these weeks of overwork, stress and sleep deprivation. Ugh!

Ralph, we can always count on you to keep us entertained here at the Bar and Grill!