First Run of Cornish Cross Meat Birds and Super Excited!

[duluthralphie]

Day 10...HOLY CRAP do these birds grow....twice the size of the egg layer chicks....have 9 of the 11, 3 are smaller sized, (hens ?) A 6X9 tractor is in the works.

Yeppers, they grow fast. At a month they are the size of a "normal" bird a 5 months...

 

[mountain mom]

Hey there everyone! Welcome to the newbies... excellent job answering questions!!

We had an emergency processing on Friday. 3 birds could not walk all of the sudden. I thought it might be heat, but they were worse the next day.
I got all set up and was just going to process the three... until I cut off the feet. Sinuvitis. I knew the rest would likely end up with it before too long. So at 5:00 in the evening, we processed all 18.
The 3 with it were pretty small, but the rest of the birds were decent. We had 13 roosters and 5 hens.
We had everything done and cleaned up before 7:30!
Beverage of choice, since it was insanely hot, hard cider. Then a stiff vodka tonic for our late dinner of BLT's.
We were rushing to get everything done, so we didn't weigh. I will get a final weight of meat when we get them ready for the freezer.

Thanks for the owl advice! I have been putting them in every night still.
Dinner is getting so big it is really hard to force her. Getting hit in the face with her wing is like a wet towel snap. And the claws. Anyhow, if you get the two smaller ones she is obedient and follows. She doesn't like to sleep alone.

We were at the neighbors house yesterday, celebrating our independence, and guess who showed up...
Banshee flew over the fence, ran through the pasture, dodged a dog, and came to say hello. After he checked everyone out, flew back home. It was hilarious!

Ralph- Ethel's babies are so precious!! Glad she had a successful hatch!
Sorry to hear about your EE.
Jessica- Cinnamon is so pretty!

 

[duluthralphie]

Sinuvitis.. is a new one to me. I looked it up looks gross.

I happen to be switching between hard cider and mikes right now, the cider does taste good. (Holm do not try it ever, I heard if you are under 30 it will stunt your growth)


Turkeys do not like sleeping under cover. last night I went to put the babies away and I had about a dozen baby turkeys roosting on top the tractors with JJ and gang. The funny thing is, I told them they were too young and prodded the group with my lathe to move inside and they all jumped down and walked towards the door like a group of sulking teenagers.

They were all mad but none of them fought or resisted they just went inside like they were suppose to. It amazing birds can have body language too.

 

[JessicaThistle]

Mountain Mom: Did you mean synovitis? I was not familiar with the term you typed, so I googled it and came up with synovitis, which would make sense. Probably good that you just processed them all.

The high temps have been very unfriendly to Sunny. I went to check on everyone on a particularly hot day and found Sunny sneezing and panting so hard that she was gurgling. It freaked me out! We have an air conditioned garage so I hoisted her up and put her in the garage. Within about an hour she was back to normal and much happier. Now, if she is outside and hubby goes into the garage, guess who comes waddling along to go in to the cool garage. She has been sitting in there for the hottest parts of the day and is one happy girl.

We are carrying along on getting our second chicken tractor built. It is tough with 100 degree temps to work outside. Poor hubby. We hate racing the clock to get things done. It is really stressful. I wish our county compliance officer would return phone calls or emails. We are still not sure how she can send us a letter to remove chickens without actually being in actual physical contact with us and then just not actually physically contact us when we try to talk to her to find out what our options are. It is very frustrating.

 

[duluthralphie]

Mountain Mom: Did you mean synovitis? I was not familiar with the term you typed, so I googled it and came up with synovitis, which would make sense. Probably good that you just processed them all.

The high temps have been very unfriendly to Sunny. I went to check on everyone on a particularly hot day and found Sunny sneezing and panting so hard that she was gurgling. It freaked me out! We have an air conditioned garage so I hoisted her up and put her in the garage. Within about an hour she was back to normal and much happier. Now, if she is outside and hubby goes into the garage, guess who comes waddling along to go in to the cool garage. She has been sitting in there for the hottest parts of the day and is one happy girl.

We are carrying along on getting our second chicken tractor built. It is tough with 100 degree temps to work outside. Poor hubby. We hate racing the clock to get things done. It is really stressful. I wish our county compliance officer would return phone calls or emails. We are still not sure how she can send us a letter to remove chickens without actually being in actual physical contact with us and then just not actually physically contact us when we try to talk to her to find out what our options are. It is very frustrating.

Bureaucracy at it's worst.

First take care of Sunny, keep her cool.

Your plight is why I am anti zoning rules. If people would just not worry about that others do on their own land life would be so much better. One snooty horse person who thinks her horse poop doesn't smell is going to cause you all these problems is just not right... Off my soap box..

On my soap box again, I bet if you had "too" many horses she would have not said a word... Off the box

If the chickens are healthy and we know they are happier than living in a 3'x3' cage, why get involved. Good luck on it all. I hope you can get your larger acreage.

 

[JRNash]

My turn on the soap box!! People thinking that their rights supersede your rights and " Political Correctness " are at the root with whats wrong in America today.People like your neighbor Jessica bring out the very worst in my medicated personality.Off box

I know what you mean about racing the clock and high temps.I over did it friday and have been flat on my back for two days now. Keep an eye on Sunny and your husband as well as yourself,heat injuries are permanent.

 

[JRNash]

Ok folks I've got a question that's been rattling around in my noggin.I have 6 female CXs coming in my order.It's allways been my intention to try and get them to breeding age.I know that I will have to restrict the calorie intake. My question is, for how long?? I will be ordering more Cx in the fall. These first 6 are my trial run. The odds will allready be stacked against them as we are experiencing high 90 degree weather and triple digit heat indexs on cool days

 

[kippycoo]

MM Good that you were able to get them processed. Sorry you couldn't grow 'em as big as you'd hoped. Too funny @ Banshee!

Sunny sounds like a smart bird. I'd hang out in the garage too. It rarely gets to 100 here. I can't imagine working outside in it. I hope you can get your dream farm. Your tree cutting neighbor sounds like a pita!

JR stay cool and get better quick.

your birds arrive healthy!

If we order meaties we have to put the order in for next Friday to get them for August. I'm wondering how many to get. We live out in the country on a 1/3 of an acre in a corn field. We have 10 kids at home plus ourselves so there is no way we could grow too many. I don't mind buying another freezer. It's mostly space in the yard and time. As a teen I helped a neighbor process a couple geese so I know what that is like. We have to build a coop for the egg layer chicks. Sadly I had to cull one. It was sleeping all the time, had a deformed leg, couldn't poop (never did so not pasty), and a herniated belly button. I feed it vitamin/sweet water only for it to perk up and make sad little sounds. Ugg. That was hard to do! Dh is a big softie so I can't ask him. All the meaties would become pets lol. I was out of grapefruit juice so had a gin and tonic instead of my favorite a gin/fresca/grapefruit. Sigh! Not totally sure I'm cut out for this.

Oh can I raise a couple turkeys with the meaties?

 

[JessicaThistle]

I know, Ralph and JR!! It makes me so mad! You think to yourself that you are going to buy your little house out in the country and do what you want with it just to find that your county has already determined what you are or aren't going to do. Everyone in my neighborhood bought their house with that dream and no one around here is following the zoning laws. Do I care? Heck no! We are all just desperately trying to make a living in our little piece of paradise.

All of you would think we are great neighbors. We always help our neighbors when we see they need help. We are always pleasant, never complaining about anyone around us. We want to be left alone just like everyone else. I am not one to give two toots what my neighbor is doing. As long as there is no abuse and nothing dangerously illegal, I don't care. I can't believe someone cares so much about what we are doing. So much so that they would try to destroy our business. It is so sad. I don't even know what to think.

Anyway, on to chicken talk. JR - always ration your CXs food. Sunny gets fed once per day and whatever she can hunt down. She is still ginormous and needs to be in he air conditioned garage while the other hens are fine out there eating all they want. The temps will be tough but mine all made it last year. Just offer lots of shade and lots of cold water.

Kippy: Mine all became pets too. That's one reason we kept Sunny. However, the point was to fill the freezer. Hubby had a hard time culling them and I couldn't do it. Yep, I was a big baby. I am getting better at making the call these days though. When you have a lot of chickens, you find keeping them in ICU too long is way too much work. They very rarely recover and it's easier to cull them off and move on.

 

[JRNash]

That's actually a relief in a sense. Beings I'm dealing with a few slow growing breeds Im hoping to treat them all the same