FLORIDA!!!!!ALWAYS SUNNY SIDE UP!!!

[NewbeeDoo]

That's awesome! You're gonna love his birds. The feed that he has is his concoction. It's not certified organic, but has no hormones or pesticides. We were looking into organic feeds, but they are very expensive. He told me that he has had great success with his feed and his birds give him about an egg a day. I purchase 100 lb bags for $30 I believe. It is a ride for feed, but the hens love it & their egg shells are nice and hard. There's plenty of calcium in the feed, so there's no need for oyster shells. I believe it also has 20% protein. If I could find local organic feed I'd probably consider it, but until then I'll keep taking a ride up to Mark's.

Thank you soooo much for this info!! I'll have to ask him about it for sure!

 

[kwol]

So this afternoon I murdered and processed my first chicken!!

I am not sure yet how i feel about that but my kids come home from work with buckets and buckets of chicken wings.. they really need to help me with this some time..

Wilson is now in my refrigerator.. Gee they are much smaller under those feathers...

But Wilson had to go he was a leghorn x ameraucana roo that i just could not rehome and he was causing so many fights in the batchelor pad.. It's really quiet in there now.. Wondering if it will stay that way..

I am not sure if I can do this again, i hope it's easier the second time..

I can sense your feelings in your post. Gives me some apprehension about how it will feel when mine stop laying and we do the same, althought that should be a couple years. My husband talks about the killing, I think I can handle the processing, but I may have to give the carcass away after that. I can just imagine sitting at the table, chewing and thinking about what I'm eating...
Of course we only have 4 hens and they are more like productive pets than livestock to us at this point.

 

[Overoberyl]

Hey everyone, I'm selling my SFH flock, just have too many breeds and need to downsize a bit. I have three cockerels and two pullets that are about 6 months old, and three pullet chicks that are 2 1/2 months. I can sell them all together or in two pairs and a quad, but I won't let the pullets go by themselves. Please pm me if interested. Thanks

 

[anderson8505]

So this afternoon I murdered and processed my first chicken!!

I am not sure yet how i feel about that but my kids come home from work with buckets and buckets of chicken wings.. they really need to help me with this some time..

Wilson is now in my refrigerator.. Gee they are much smaller under those feathers...

But Wilson had to go he was a leghorn x ameraucana roo that i just could not rehome and he was causing so many fights in the batchelor pad.. It's really quiet in there now.. Wondering if it will stay that way..

I am not sure if I can do this again, i hope it's easier the second time..

I wish I could bring myself to do this! I keep ending up with 70% rooster hatches! Free Polish cockerels anyone???

 

[Overoberyl]

I wish I could bring myself to do this! I keep ending up with 70% rooster hatches! Free Polish cockerels anyone?

It does get easier. The hardest part is finding the time to do the processing. If you don't have a helper, or a plucker, or have trouble getting the scald temp exactly right it can be fairly time consuming.

 

[cmom]

Quote:

I wish I could bring myself to do this! I keep ending up with 70% rooster hatches! Free Polish cockerels anyone???

I wish I could too. Maybe some day. My DH tells me I should process some of mine but I just become to attached to them and can't do it. I think I could eat them but just can't kill them. I have a friend that said he would but I have to go away when he does. Maybe some day...

 

[Runawaylobster]

I wish I could too. Maybe some day. My DH tells me I should process some of mine but I just become to attached to them and can't do it. I think I could eat them but just can't kill them. I have a friend that said he would but I have to go away when he does. Maybe some day...

This is me!!! I can pluck, process and eat without a problem (well i say that but we haven't actually eaten Wilson yet) It is killing the animal
that i have a hard time with. In terms of time killing is a very small part of it.. and the processing is the worst time hog. Even so
killing for me is the bad part.

I think the thought process that got me through it was that I am very far from vegetarian and i was feeling hypocritical that i was
happy letting someone else do it for me at the chicken factory and i felt that if i eat chicken then i should own the act.
Whether that is really true or not I don't know but it does help.

I could have used some moral support though for sure (I don't have a DH to do stuff) it's
pretty much self service around here.. but if I did have a DH i'd be more than happy to let him do it...so maybe i am really just
one big hypocrite.. LOL!!!

Well, I have 16 roosters right now, and only room for 3 or 4, so somehow I have to do something about that..
I also think that unless giving them away is a charitable act (eg: a family who needs the food etc: ) or perhaps as a gift to a friend,
then i should not give them away freely, because a) I have raised and fed them and b) it probably hurts the market for
people who rely on the income from it.

wow.. what a day of deep thought!!!

 

[CrosStitching]

One of my pullets is sneezing. She is about 12wks. She is only sneezing about once every 5 min and has no other symptoms. All other behavior is normal. Should I just watch her?

Help Please!

 

[anderson8505]

Help Please!

Isolate her with only water and observe her for a couple of hours or so. Any runny nose? poops okay? drinks water? If sneezing stops with just water, it could be she inhaled some feed dust. Usually if something is really wrong with them you'd see discharge from the nose, hear gurgling noises, listlessness, sitting puffed up. How old? Did you get any new birds recently? If you got them all at the same time from the same place and no other birds have been around them--including wild birds, and no other people with birds have been around them, it's likely that everything is okay.

 

[Bangarang64]

update:
It's 2 pm on day 21 and the zipped egg is still moving but hasn't fully hatched yet (commence nail biting).
However,
One egg almost literally exploded with no pipping or zipping that we could see to reveal chick # 2! Yup a whole other egg that showed no evidence of anything happening just decided to bust onto the scene beating out the partially hatched one for second. I didn't know they could do that.



You can still see the zipped egg over there on the left.

Update:
We had three hatch inside the incubator so far. We also had two hatch outside to the broody hen for a total of 5 babies as of 3:30 pm today. We introduced the inside chicks to the momma hen and she took them without a problem. They are doing fine, and very, very happy to have a warm mother instead of a heating fan!