Welcome, Winddancer. You're not far from me. I live in Longview, which is 22 miles SSE of Urbana, Champaign County, almost in Douglas and almost in Vermilion County.
I started with one white Leghorn ~ 7 years ago. She passed away and I bought a clutch of 6 RIR's from the Arthur small animal auction. 5 were roosters which I sold at auction, and I kept the hen. THEN, I bought 10 chicks from Chick Days at Farm & Fleet. Since then I've acquired free Welsummer and EE roosters, over the last few years. DH and I decided we wanted both eggs and meat, so I learned to butcher, as well as incubate eggs. I don't like any animal inbreeding, so my youngest layers are RIR x Welsummer/EE crosses. I have 15 of them, and I get 9-13 eggs/day, 1/2 of which are olive green on the outside and baby blue on the inside of the shells. I also picked up an unrelated EE rooster in November, when I sold 1/2 of my young layers, @ $4.50/bird. Somebody bought them all, and spent $65.00 for 15 hens just starting to lay. Not too bad, since they didn't have to feed them for 4 months.
I replace my layers every year, now. We incubated ~ 60 birds last year. I especially like to butcher the 2-3 month old roosters bc I skin my birds and they are both easy to butcher and very tender. Almost all the older birds have been butchered/frozen or eaten, but I decided to keep one of last year's free roosters, and buy HIM 5 EE pullets from "Chick Days" next month. I didn't want him to freeze outside, so I kept 3 of the older hens so that they could hunker down in the "turkey house" which DH and I made. The base is a wooden pallet, it stands about 4 ft high, is open to the north, but 3 ft from an outbuilding. I also cut an old, rubber, horse mat for the floor. It is very cozy for the 3 of them, and I lined it with pine shavings and straw. The 3 hens will either go to my friend who wants to start with chickens this Spring, or to freezer camp.
I have found that waiting until after the winter starts to butcher older birds gives them a layer of fat which really tenderizes their meat. AND, older roosters, cooked slow are very meaty even if they are not meat birds.\
BTW, I live on a 5 acre, 100 yo property, with the horses in the back yard, and a nice, big barn for storage. We, too, have a rotten coyote problem.
I started with one white Leghorn ~ 7 years ago. She passed away and I bought a clutch of 6 RIR's from the Arthur small animal auction. 5 were roosters which I sold at auction, and I kept the hen. THEN, I bought 10 chicks from Chick Days at Farm & Fleet. Since then I've acquired free Welsummer and EE roosters, over the last few years. DH and I decided we wanted both eggs and meat, so I learned to butcher, as well as incubate eggs. I don't like any animal inbreeding, so my youngest layers are RIR x Welsummer/EE crosses. I have 15 of them, and I get 9-13 eggs/day, 1/2 of which are olive green on the outside and baby blue on the inside of the shells. I also picked up an unrelated EE rooster in November, when I sold 1/2 of my young layers, @ $4.50/bird. Somebody bought them all, and spent $65.00 for 15 hens just starting to lay. Not too bad, since they didn't have to feed them for 4 months.
I replace my layers every year, now. We incubated ~ 60 birds last year. I especially like to butcher the 2-3 month old roosters bc I skin my birds and they are both easy to butcher and very tender. Almost all the older birds have been butchered/frozen or eaten, but I decided to keep one of last year's free roosters, and buy HIM 5 EE pullets from "Chick Days" next month. I didn't want him to freeze outside, so I kept 3 of the older hens so that they could hunker down in the "turkey house" which DH and I made. The base is a wooden pallet, it stands about 4 ft high, is open to the north, but 3 ft from an outbuilding. I also cut an old, rubber, horse mat for the floor. It is very cozy for the 3 of them, and I lined it with pine shavings and straw. The 3 hens will either go to my friend who wants to start with chickens this Spring, or to freezer camp.
I have found that waiting until after the winter starts to butcher older birds gives them a layer of fat which really tenderizes their meat. AND, older roosters, cooked slow are very meaty even if they are not meat birds.\
BTW, I live on a 5 acre, 100 yo property, with the horses in the back yard, and a nice, big barn for storage. We, too, have a rotten coyote problem.
