First Run of Cornish Cross Meat Birds and Super Excited!

[JessicaThistle]

(Can I still come on here now that I have sold my CX's?)

Of course you can Linda! Always!

I regret to say that I may not get to raise any CX this year. We may have a driver for our sprint car this year and my hubby has put together a rather grueling schedule with a considerable amount of travelling. Unless I can strategically fit them in during a period where all of the races are close to home, I may not get to.

I guarantee I will still be here giving advice to newbies and poking fun at Ralphie!!

Nice to see you back Mountain Mom!! Maybe you are right that my girls just don't feel cold enough to go inside. We don't have snow but it has been super cold. It got down to 12 degrees last week. But there is 15 of them in there including the rescue babies. Maybe there are radiating enough heat from all of the scratch I threw them!

Val: Sunny had a broken toe nail a little while back. When I found her I saw blood drips on the ground and followed them to her! She had blood all over her! It freaked me out thinking something had attacked her and then I found the toe. I snatched her up and hauled her inside to the bathroom. She was UNIMPRESSED with standing on the bathroom counter while I cleaned up her foot. She must have whacked me at least 4 times with her wings trying to escape the awful doom she felt I was causing her. After the cleanup she healed up fine and we've had no problems since. Chickens sure have a way of making a mess of themselves and becoming drama queens when we have to clean them up!

 

[Fyremelody]

Jerry was rather unimpressed with being held for a half an hour with cornstarch on his foot too. He tried to escape my hold a good four times, at least three of which involved starting all over again. Oddly enough, I was standing right in front of him when he did it, although I have no idea *how* he did it. One moment, he was normal. The next, he was bleeding...all in the two minutes it takes for me to top off his food and change his water. Dumb bird. LOL.

He didn't get the mess of it though. That would be my boot. Which looked suspiciously like I'd dragged out the hatchet. The lesson I took away from this was to promptly invest in that Quick Stop stuff for dogs. Cornstarch might be cheap and handy, but it takes far longer than the bird has patience for.

Glad Sunny is good! That must have been frightful all over white feathers.

 

[JessicaThistle]

I don't know how she did it and basically by the time I found her with the issue, she was clotting already. Ugh, she was a mess. I'm really glad her white silkie friends didn't get messed up from it. When I found her, she started telling me all about it and of course, assuring me she was fine. My daughter claims I speak chicken. I guess after 10 years of taking care of people with alzheimers and a stint in mental health, I don't need words to know what's up.

I swear though that I have seen more blood from Sunny than any of my chickens! About two weeks ago, I went out to do the regular bedtime routine, which includes feeding Sunny and the silkies. I saw their feeder and it was smeared all around all sides with red, it certainly appeared to be blood. When I looked at Sunny she looked like she had spots of dried blood on her. WHAT NOW?! The only thing I could find wrong was bruises on her comb.

I believe my fiesty white silkie, Tweety, had something to do with it. She rules the silkie run and can get pecky sometimes, with the older hens too. She doesn't take much guff. I believe she pecked at Sunny's comb, made her bleed and while Sunny ate from the feeder, her comb spread blood around the sides. It is amazing that a 1 lb chicken can cause that damage to a 15-20 pound one. It just goes to show you how docile CX really are. Especially since it is a consensus that silkies are the most docile. Hmmm....I think not.

 

[mountain mom]

Welcome back MM.... We (cough,cough,cough) ahem, missed you.


Rick decided to make a liar out of me tonight. I went to lock them up and Rick was on top of the nests. Not on a roost but off the ground. BTW it is beneath his dignity to be petted. So, I petted him.

Freedom rangers and Dixie rainbows are the same bird aren't they?

The one so expertly roasted by me was a black sex link. I color coded my rooster carcasses when I packed them so I would know which breed was which and the better eater.

Freedom Rangers and Dixie Rainbows are basically mutts with all the different breeds they have in their blood. I was told they are different kinds of mutts, but I would assume they are pretty similar. In fact, I think Freedom Rangers are a brand name.
I don't have much comparison, since my Dixie (which was not a breed I had actually purchased, just accidentally received), is white. She looks a bit like a CX and grew a lot faster than the other chicks. Her disposition is SO much nicer than the Rangers we had though.

Will you do BSL again? I love our CX, but would like some bigger thighs. I don't want to do Freedom Rangers again. They were not very nice birds.

 

[mountain mom]

Hi everyone, I'm happy, happy ,happy. I bought a kill cone to process the 8 Cobb 500 hens. It hasn't come in yet but I heard of an old fellow that really really needs for chickens for eggs. These 8 girls have been going through the molt and will start laying again soon. So I sold them to him for $3 each. Giveaway prices but what the heck. Getting rid of the aggravation of these oinkers is a win-win. Now I don't have to worry about getting a boat for them in that lake that I call a coop. It's rained almost 5 inches in 2 1/2 days.

He was so pleased that they were so big and healthy. I told him I feed the fermented feed and I've never seen a more bewildered look on his face. He throws out "some chops" . I told him he had to do more if he wanted to actually get a good supply of eggs. Hog feed is about the same price and is 13% protein instead of 8% like corn. The brand I buy says it's for agri animals with a picture of different animals including a chicken.
Yes, he loved them and how nice they looked.......until I took him over to show him my prized White Plymouth Rocks.

Super funny. He's dying to get some when I start having chicks. I'm going to raise every fertile egg I can get my hands on. Everyone that has come out to check out the chickens has left me their number for me to call. I'll have two separate lines and can get some good bunches going. The Bob Blosl rock pair has the silver gene and all the pullets can be mated with a New Hampshire to get sex links. Premium ones. And the XW poultry rock trio is shaped so good that mixing the two will make some gorgous birds So I'll be breeding 3 separate lines. Blosl, XW, and the mixture. Gotta order some toe punchers.

Now that it's stopped raining, I plan on having my handyman put down some bags of soil around the new coop. It's on a slope and all the rain has just come blasting through. What's even worse is the fact that the fellow that build it for me only put plastic on one side of the A frame 12 x 12. The open side got even more rain that just kept trickling to the covered side. I know that the Cobb's will be happy. They loved it here. No doubt about it especially since I'd been letting them roam out for a few hours a day. Happy birds. George will also put on the 3' tall hardwire cloth I bought. That's about the extent of my spending this month so next month he will do the tin roof and get the roost ready for my Isa Brown's coming the first part of next month.

Not going to talk about my gardening plans now but to say that I'm gearing up and getting supplies. Woohoo!!! I feel so good about this coming year. I think it's going to be a banner year for all of us. (Can I still come on here now that I have sold my CX's?)

Linda- you sure will have your hands full!!! Sounds exciting though!

 

[duluthralphie]

Freedom Rangers and Dixie Rainbows are basically mutts with all the different breeds they have in their blood. I was told they are different kinds of mutts, but I would assume they are pretty similar. In fact, I think Freedom Rangers are a brand name.
I don't have much comparison, since my Dixie (which was not a breed I had actually purchased, just accidentally received), is white. She looks a bit like a CX and grew a lot faster than the other chicks. Her disposition is SO much nicer than the Rangers we had though.

Will you do BSL again? I love our CX, but would like some bigger thighs. I don't want to do Freedom Rangers again. They were not very nice birds.

I will not do BSL again. They are too hard to process. Their feathers seem to be superglued in. They also have lots of deep dark imbedded feathers to dig out. If you skin the birds they might be ok. I was not impressed with their size, I think they are basically a layer and the roosters are just excess baggage. They do taste good though.

My Dixie rainbows, or whatever my hatchery called them are great birds. I love them, both hens and roosters. They are friendly and clumsy so fun to watch.



The chicken behind the turkey is Rick my rainbow rooster. He is a very large bird mainly in the legs and rear end!

This is the webpage I ordered my birds from, They are just called rainbows by them. They say 5 lbs, Mine were a lot larger than that. BUT I did raise mine 19 weeks before processing.

http://hoovershatchery.com/baby-chicks/brown-egg-layers/rainbow-straight-run.html

 

[duluthralphie]

Wish me well, Time to venture out, collect rent from the girls and let them outside.... I am putting it off because it is 18 below here today, and to add to the fun we have a breeze!

Hopefully, I will survive my chores and talk to you all later.

 

[Fyremelody]

We have some of that nasty weather moving in. Nowhere near that cold, but close enough for me Good luck. Don't turn into a Popsicle! Though from your last photo, you have some idea how to thaw out. I could subscribe to that sort of hot cocoa!

 

[duluthralphie]

We have some of that nasty weather moving in. Nowhere near that cold, but close enough for me Good luck. Don't turn into a Popsicle! Though from your last photo, you have some idea how to thaw out. I could subscribe to that sort of hot cocoa!

I would most likely turn into a popsicle instead.

Drinking that is not for amateurs, It is like drinking a bowl of mint flavored ice cream with chocolate chips in it only better. And it goes great for Breakfast too!

 

[mountain mom]

It was so incredibly cold this morning. Not Ralph temps, but zero is chilly where we are. Then the wind started... by 3:00 it was 55 degrees! Can you believe that? Insane weather.
I was considering a little snort of schnapps to keep myself warm once we returned from the grocery store, but it was not in the least bit necessary!

The dang chickens still refused to leave the coop. Tomorrow is supposed to be nice too, so I am going to shoo them out against their wills.