Hello!
I've been using this site for a year or two when ever it comes up on a google search and I thought it was time I join
I live on a small farm (<10 acres) in Northeast Ohio, and started keeping laying hens a few years ago. Our layers are a mix of orpingtons, comets, RIR, bared rock, a black sex link and a home grown hen of the black and a RIR rooster.
I found out in 2009 that I carry a gene linked to breast cancer and this motivated me to eat a healthier diet. I EAT WAY TOO MUCH of this healthier diet... but that problem is for another website! (MyFitnessPal)
As I've improved my diet I've struggled with the whole meat issue. I finally decided that meat, wine and chocolate (not in that order) are vital parts of my life and I need to find ways to make these parts as healthy as I can! To this end, I'm working to use venison for the bulk of my red meat and this year I am raising chickens for meat to assure my white meat is healthy and responsibly raised.
I selected breeds I could use to replace and add to my laying flock: Orpingtons, Marans, Easter-Eggers, Wyandotts, and Buckeyes. And a few I could possibly select as a rooster for my flock to breed my own meat birds for next year: Brahma, Cornish, Sussex, and Delaware. To better control the quantity and diversify the sources, I purchased eggs from eBay and incubated them myself. BAHAHAHAHA! What a bad idea! Hundreds of dollars later and massive amounts of carnage of chicken fetuses due to incubator errors and stupid human errors and so on... I now have about 80 birds between eight weeks and one day in age, and a rediculus amount of equipment. Ironically the best incubator is one I made myself using a cardboard box, foil, a heat lamp and a thermostat rigged from a germinater mat.
I'm in Soooooooo deep!
I've been using this site for a year or two when ever it comes up on a google search and I thought it was time I join
I live on a small farm (<10 acres) in Northeast Ohio, and started keeping laying hens a few years ago. Our layers are a mix of orpingtons, comets, RIR, bared rock, a black sex link and a home grown hen of the black and a RIR rooster.
I found out in 2009 that I carry a gene linked to breast cancer and this motivated me to eat a healthier diet. I EAT WAY TOO MUCH of this healthier diet... but that problem is for another website! (MyFitnessPal)
As I've improved my diet I've struggled with the whole meat issue. I finally decided that meat, wine and chocolate (not in that order) are vital parts of my life and I need to find ways to make these parts as healthy as I can! To this end, I'm working to use venison for the bulk of my red meat and this year I am raising chickens for meat to assure my white meat is healthy and responsibly raised.
I selected breeds I could use to replace and add to my laying flock: Orpingtons, Marans, Easter-Eggers, Wyandotts, and Buckeyes. And a few I could possibly select as a rooster for my flock to breed my own meat birds for next year: Brahma, Cornish, Sussex, and Delaware. To better control the quantity and diversify the sources, I purchased eggs from eBay and incubated them myself. BAHAHAHAHA! What a bad idea! Hundreds of dollars later and massive amounts of carnage of chicken fetuses due to incubator errors and stupid human errors and so on... I now have about 80 birds between eight weeks and one day in age, and a rediculus amount of equipment. Ironically the best incubator is one I made myself using a cardboard box, foil, a heat lamp and a thermostat rigged from a germinater mat.
I'm in Soooooooo deep!
