First Run of Cornish Cross Meat Birds and Super Excited!

[mountain mom]

I gave away 3 and a half dozen eggs to friends last week, I was getting so many I could not sell them, THEN the strike occurred and I am getting hardly any. I had one woman want 6 dozen on Saturday, another 3 dozen on Sunday, a guy wanted two sunday I had one for him. and Then yesterday a woman wanted 2 dozen and I only had 10 eggs. 5 of which she went out to the coop and watched me gather.

Holy Moly! It really doesn't get any fresher than that. Are they wanting them to hatch or eat? It is neat that the one guy now has 10 little Rick babies!

Do you have a light in your coop? I am headed out today to hook up some Christmas lights. Hopefully within a few weeks we will have eggs again!
I have a black light in there for added warmth on really cold and windy nights. Do you add any heat in the winter? I just worry. It doesn't make it like a sauna or anything, but it takes the bite out of the air. I started using it because the minute the gals started molting, the temps went below zero for a few weeks. I was so worried their little neckid bodies would freeze!

Anyhow, I don't want to replace the black light with a normal light bulb because it will heat things up more than I want. So, Christmas lights it is.

 

[Morrigan]

My hens have finally started up with the laying again. After weeks of 1 egg/day, I got 6 eggs from 11 hens yesterday. Including one from my hen who hatched out in August.

My husband and I also finally butchered the 9 meat rabbits we had been raising. It was an emotionally hard task, and I'm glad it is done.

 

[duluthralphie]

MM. beings I am a lazy no good jerk, I just have a heat light hanging in the coop on a timer, it is 5 ft from any of the birds so they get no heat off it. I have it on a timer to start at 4:30 am just to increase the length of their day.

I add no heat because I know the birds can handle the cold, if they have a little wind break. I do not want the extra heat because it allows the air to hold more moisture, moisture is my enemy up here.

Rick could be a Daddy, or it might be Ernie or Nameless. I have no idea. I really wish I had not shot my easter egg rooster! But then he is much better behaved in the freezer. I have another being saved for me by a guy on the Minnesota thread that lives in Hermantown. So my next trip to Duluth I will have a EE rooster.


Butchering rabbits is a terrible job , emotionally. My daughter still tells me it warped her for life. When she was about 8-9 we had rabbits, I went to butcher them and they wanted to help, I figured all kids should see where meat comes from. She says it stunted her growth as a human. However, I think it made her a better person, I always thank the animal for its sacrifice to my family, ( I know it is corny, but I think no life should be taken callously) She learned that.

Enough of that sad stuff, I hope the rabbits taste great!

 

[holm25]

Ralph do you have a light in your coop?? I know we have more hens but we have been getting thirty some eggs from 56 hens yep we have less hens one was let out with the turkeys and never came back bit she is still alive I see her tracks

 

[duluthralphie]

Ralph do you have a light in your coop?? I know we have more hens but we have been getting thirty some eggs from 56 hens yep we have less hens one was let out with the turkeys and never came back bit she is still alive I see her tracks

Yep I have a light, we must have posted over each other, I was getting 24-28 eggs out of 30 hens, now I am getting 5, I think it is the cold.

 

[JessicaThistle]

People have suggested to me that I should raise rabbits for meat. Heck No! I think it would traumatize me killing them too. Killing the cx that I raised for meat is traumatizing enough, which is why I make my husband do it. However, I did have to cull two baby chicks that were not well and I still have flashes of that horror sometimes.

 

[lazy gardener]

I hate this computer! It is slow and hard to type on some letters skip when pressed, others print two letters at once, It takes me way too long to type!

I am afraid to tell my wife I need a new computer as this one is not a year old. I cannot help but to think, that Maybe, when I spilled pea soup on it, it might have messed it up somehow. I know if I get a new computer she will go ballistic about my getting a new fish house. I decided I need one next winter.

Mine was doing that. I think replacing the key board only cost $15. and it's as good as new.

I just have a heat light hanging in the coop on a timer, it is 5 ft from any of the birds so they get no heat off it. I have it on a timer to start at 4:30 am just to increase the length of their day.

I add no heat because I know the birds can handle the cold, if they have a little wind break. I do not want the extra heat because it allows the air to hold more moisture, moisture is my enemy up here.

I really wish I had not shot my easter egg rooster! But then he is much better behaved in the freezer. I have another being saved for me by a guy on the Minnesota thread that lives in Hermantown. So my next trip to Duluth I will have a EE rooster.

That's a lot of wattage just for light. I'm using a 7W CFL. I'm really enjoying my EE roo. He's such a character, and always has an opinion about everything going on around him.

 

[duluthralphie]

Mine was doing that. I think replacing the key board only cost $15. and it's as good as new.

I have a laptop, It would take replacing the keyboard on it or getting a new one, I will suffer through..lol

 

[Morrigan]

People have suggested to me that I should raise rabbits for meat. Heck No! I think it would traumatize me killing them too. Killing the cx that I raised for meat is traumatizing enough, which is why I make my husband do it. However, I did have to cull two baby chicks that were not well and I still have flashes of that horror sometimes.

I was actually more attached to the CX than the meat rabbits as I thought that they had more personality and I was their main caretaker. But, my husband did the "dispatch" on the meat chickens, with me then helping with the plucking and butchering. For the rabbits, my husband was really attached (he was their main caretaker) so I volunteered to do the "dispatch." That is the first time I've killed anything other than fish and insects and it was hard. I think it would have been as hard, if not harder, for me to do the dispatch on the CX. I still think that humanely raising animals for food is the right thing to do, but boy, butchering day is no fun at all.

We are having our first rabbit for dinner tonight, so I'm hoping it's good and it was all worth it.

 

[LindaB220]

Oh NO!!

I wish you a speedy recovery. My daughter's family has been battling this. I have avoided them since Xmas. I love my grandkids but they are petri dishes full of disease!


Maybe you can use this to jot down all your one time "college adventures" you were going to share with us. I am thinking this would make a great movie if we can get Hollywood to sign on.

Now I have to admit something, I, the genius I am did something stupid yesterday...

We have nasty weather up here now, The thermometer said it was 10 degrees yesterday, a virtual heat wave. There was some wind and a new inch or so of light snow yesterday morning. I went out to collect eggs and open the chicken door yesterday morning.

I have a double door system on the coop for humans. I have a small grain storage area before entering the chicken area. The chickens bunch up by the human door watching me like little hawks until I open the human door then they rush through the human door and either go outside through the other human door or try to hide in the grain storage area. It is a daily game with them, I actually enjoy it, it gives me a chance to pick up the birds pet them and scoot them out the door.

Yesterday I left the second door into the chicken area open while collecting eggs and opening the chicken door. I had about a dozen chickens run into the grain area and then outside, except,,,,,,,

They bawked ( misspelling intentional ) at going outside, new snow!! HORROR!! They run around on snow all the time, it never bothers them, they have not seen the ground in 3 months but NEW SNOW! NO WAY are they going out. So I started scooting them out. I gently pushed them all outside.

I should have realized how dumb this was, but I can be oblivious to the obvious. rick was throwing such a fit when I locked him outside, I relented and let him back inside. Which meant picking him up and carrying him into the chicken area, of course this dissed him and he protested this too.

The chickens went to the south side of the coop out of the wind, I filled dog dish with black oil sunflower seeds and they started munching. Life seemed good.

Now I have to tell you one of my greatly trained hunting dogs is a pain in the back end area of my jeans. She has food issues. She never thinks she is getting enough food. She eats chicken food before and after recycling by the chickens. She will eat in the chicken feeders side by side with the chickens. I feed the chickens household scraps. Some of those craps are things we do not want the dog to eat, So yesterday I decided to try and keep the dog out of the chicken food/fence. I have a gate in the fence large enough to drive my bobcat through, it is about 10 feet wide. I have left it wide open for months. I decided to close it leaving only 6 inches open, in hopes the dog could not get inside. I failed twice.

The dog managed to get through the 6 inches. The chickens could not get through the 6 inches. How a 100 pound dog can get through 6 inches and a 4 pound chicken cannot is beyond me. when I went out to lock the coop last night it was dark and chilly. My wife and I were discussing the cold, I was trying to convince her was not all that cold out. Now it is time for me to make a confession, nothing as juicy as MM's college days but I do not like long pants on my legs, so I wear a one piece cardhart insulated coveralls when I go outside in the cold directly over my undies or long johns. I was in the house all day yesterday and had no long johns on. When it was time to go outside to lock up the chickens, I grabbed my coveralls and started to put them on. My wife then stopped me!

Then the witch, however witch was not the first word to come to my mind, dared me to go outside in my undies to prove to her it was not that cold. I had no choice, I was trapped. After 40 some years being married to her, I knew I could not let her win.


So out the door I went in my skivvies, into 10 below temps with 40 mph winds. I get to the coop and I see one hen behind the plywood leaning on the north side .I scooped her up and took her inside, I notice I am short chickens in the coop. I look outside the coop and see a dozen birds huddled against the south wall of the coop, too dumb to find the gate! So I the genius was out there in my skivvies freezing my gonads off, picking up chickens one at a time bringing them into the coop and setting them on a roost.

To make matters worse, when I set the last chicken into the coop, a chicken on the high roost decided to crap. Beings I was bent over, it hit my butt went down my leg and into my boot.....

I am hoping to learn to ignore my wife in another 40 years.

I hope the chickens are okay.

End of my sad saga.

Late seeing this ,but I gotta tell ya, Ralphie, it was the best evah.....

Chickens were giving you a little payback on all your mistreatments lately. Especially the crap. snicker.
Armed war has been going on in my household for the last week and I tell you I'm tired of it. Evidentally, my incessant hoarding of things for the chickens, ie orange juice jugs, etc. along with the insisting of saving the old food in the fridge has caused a big blowup. Brought about by the fact that Aimee would never bring me the dog clippings from her grooming shop for my garden. I'm banned from the shop and nobody spoke to me for 3 days. Not worth it folks, I'm living with them. Even thought I financed the house and shop on my land (which I had to give to them for insurance purposes) I'll be getting coffee grounds from starbucks and using shredded paper and leaves and odds and ends for the compost. Will not be dog clippings. Nor will I insist on bring the "rotted food" out of the fridge. (Just table scraps folks). Pulling back for my own protection emotionally. Sorry for the downer post.