Hello from the middle of Missouri!!

[Newbie_mom]

Hello there! I’m a new mom all around!! What does that include? Well, let me tell you the story…
3 years ago after Covid had kinda died down a bit and SOME things were opening back up and things were starting to get back to normal, my mom gets a call that her friend had taken a tumble and was in the hospital and her daughter needed help taking care of my moms friends kids. So the next day my mom and I headed to Oklahoma to grab 3 kids we didn’t know very well so we could help in any way we could. We ended up staying a couple of nights in Oklahoma and finding out my moms friend had end stage cancer…it was everywhere…she lasted a grand total of 2 days after we got the kids back to Missouri where we live. My mom and I ended up falling in love with the 3 kids and keeping them. Fast forward 3 years after a good adjustment period for all of us we ended up adopting my sister’s puppy and getting baby chicks!

The chicks are about 3 or 4 months old, not sure what kind they are, my mom decided she wanted exotic hens so she found a website and ordered her chicks. Ended up losing one unfortunately but have 9 very healthy wonderful chickens! I love how sweet they can be! Right now we just have our layers, we want to eventually get some meat hens but I have to figure out how to not fall in love with every baby that comes through this house…chicken or not lol!

A little about me, well I live in the middle of Missouri, I’ve lived in MO my whole life, had chickens when I was younger but don’t really remember that…I went to school to become a chef so I love to cook and bake! As I said above I’m a mom to 3 wonderful kids that were just dropped into our laps!

Really glad I found this site to help me out with at least ONE of the new mom things lol!

 

[DobieLover]

Hello and welcome to BYC! Glad you joined.

 

[KCGirl]

welcome, you'll find a ton of information here, and an amazing community.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

WOW, what a story! Congrats and welcome! I'm a Moussourian too now (13 years here, originally from Denver by way of NM and AZ). Now live in SE MO. Meat chickens are a little different from layers and you can harvest as early as 4-5 weeks with 8 weeks being about optimal. They're kind of pathetic by then, too heavy to walk much and you know you're doing them a favor so ... for me anyway it's not too hard to have them processed. We don't do it ourselves, DH and I got into it late in the game (I'm 70, he's 2 years younger), so we take them to a nice Mennonite lady who charges us $2/ea to do the deed and dresses them out beautifully for us. You might have a meat shop near you that will do it, or there are YouTube tutorials. There is a baking thread here you will enjoy, under Hobbies I believe, called Any Home Bakers Here? So glad you joined! Bless you for taking those kids in!

 

[BigBlueHen53]

@Newbie_mom are you near Centralia? My grandson attends academy there.

 

[chrissynemetz]

Welcome to BYC! We're glad you joined us!

 

[Kenneth Zweerink]

Welcome to BackYard Chickens. And a Big Hello from Eastern Nebraska!

 

[pennyJo1960]

Welcome to Backyard Chickens. This is a great place to explore and hang out. Have fun chicken math keeps going.
What a wonderful story you have.

 

[Newbie_mom]

@Newbie_mom are you near Centralia? My grandson attends academy there.

Yes, I am close to Centralia, hope they like it there!

 

[Newbie_mom]

WOW, what a story! Congrats and welcome! I'm a Moussourian too now (13 years here, originally from Denver by way of NM and AZ). Now live in SE MO. Meat chickens are a little different from layers and you can harvest as early as 4-5 weeks with 8 weeks being about optimal. They're kind of pathetic by then, too heavy to walk much and you know you're doing them a favor so ... for me anyway it's not too hard to have them processed. We don't do it ourselves, DH and I got into it late in the game (I'm 70, he's 2 years younger), so we take them to a nice Mennonite lady who charges us $2/ea to do the deed and dresses them out beautifully for us. You might have a meat shop near you that will do it, or there are YouTube tutorials. There is a baking thread here you will enjoy, under Hobbies I believe, called Any Home Bakers Here? So glad you joined! Bless you for taking those kids in!

Thank you so much!! It’s been one heck of a ride! But I wouldn’t change a thing!! I personally don’t know much about meat chickens yet, we’re just getting the hang of these ladies we have now! As of right now we have actually found a wonderful Amish gentleman that has chickens that he has already processed and dear lord they are huge, very cheap compared to what you can get in any store, and very good, we still have a bit till we get to that point ourselves. Thanks for the baking thread suggestion!!