INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[jsummers]

I have an African grey--not as showy as an eclectus, but he is lots of fun.  Huge vocabulary, some of which I'm ashamed he learned from me! 

I have one, not sure of the measurements but can get them if you're still looking.  I had planned to use it on the deck so that Artoo could go outside, but my chickens are free ranging (not the original plan) and I don't want to expose him to anything.

My heart is with you. 

I pmed you

 

[Faraday40]

I have an African grey--not as showy as an eclectus, but he is lots of fun. Huge vocabulary, some of which I'm ashamed he learned from me!

A friend had a very spoiled African Grey. He owned his own business & would often bring his bird into work. (Had a whole cage set up there too!) The only bad part was all the time the bird spent in his truck while driving. Poor bird learned some bad language during those stressful Chicago rush hours! Now the parrot has a very colorful vocabulary & swears when it drops its toys or isn't allowed out of its cage.

 

[browncow15]

This was a painful day for me but had to make this choice..
RIP my BP (Big Pig) Today was his "Bad Day" I have posted him for a breeder on several sites and FaceBook. Offered him for free to the original breeder, my vet. He actually wanted him but has 2 boar hogs already. Too heavy for me to use with my sows, largest sow here is about 200 pounds. Huge feed bill for a boar I can't use safely for my sows. I kept him a month longer than I should have, food consumption for this large a hog is expensive. Hard decision because he was a gentle fella, but showing male aggression to DH and nephew. Not ok, so it was time.

My personal thank you @racinchickins
facing my BPs bad day. Never taking on another hog so large to process ourselves, cuts were so huge putting in the fridges  to cool down. Will be weighing the main cuts to estimate final weight. Largest hog I have processed yet. Using the standard measurements, he was estimated 479lbs. I had a lot of trouble finding the proper cuts dividing the carcass and took several hours longer for me than it usually does to process.

I will miss him so much, pretty friendly for a boar around women. He was challenging my DH and nephew the last few weeks if they were any where near me. I watch close any livestock, waterfowl or poultry we keep and if they repeat any aggressive acts, they will not stay. BP chose to be aggressive to any male members of our household.

 

Sorry about BP you have him a great life though! I'd like to help process a pig sometime, it seems like a more daunting task than a chicken!

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Quote:
Thanks! I really loved him. Aggression is a dangerous thing. I could do most anything with BP, and probably never would have had an issue. his vaccs were just a no biggie and I didn't have to restrain him. I make sure I have a lot of interaction with any larger livestock. Daily no matter what and if they are uncomfortable with strangers that's a concern also. Charging at my DH and nephews on several occasions told me we had to face reality.

Its not too bad usually to process a pig. This one was an emotional thing, and It was hard letting him go. also so huge and I kept "underestimating" and made mistakes. Made cuts too short of the joints won't go into a lot of detail, pm if you want more info. I will let you know in the spring, I have 2 barrow that will be having a bad day then. Will be going to help @racinchickins when he does his first 2. Its not harder, actually easier if you calculate the amount of food going into the freezer! I normally prepare a 300 pound hog in 5 hours. My best on chickens was 10 in the same amount of time, around 75 pounds finished. I still continue to keep a large variety of poultry and livestock so my family enjoys an ever changing variety in our menu. The reality is its almost more beneficial to invest the time more into livestock, and the finances to keep them. The honesty is I really love all the types of birds I keep. My lavender orpington just steal my heart.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Ground up some of the pork, and made true "ham"burgers tonight. I am very happy, relieved to report there is no "boar taint" in the meat. This was a 16 month old boar, but was never bred or exposed to sows. I had talked to other folks that kept boars, and called my vet. Most said yes, there will be taint but my vet felt since he had never bred he would be ok. He was right! I called him tonight and thanked him!
So we are working on our breakfast sausage and summer sausage now. DH smokes the rolls, and then we freeze them up and make sandwiches etc. as we defrost a roll. I omit a lot of the curing salt so we can let my parents enjoy the sausage also. Since we don't have a smoke house yet a lot of the hams will be smoked summer sausage and ground up.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Egg report! here is the birds still laying using natural light and free range setting.
Sumatra
White leghorn
Lavender orps
Brown chinese geese
Pekin ducks.
Midget white turkeys.
so not hatching until late winter but those mentioned are laying well.

 

[ChickCrazed]

So someone on here(can't remember who) said that I should not expand the number of breeds I have 12-15 depending on if you seperate by color or not but instead pick like 4-5 or so and focus on those now some of mine are uncommon some arnt but I've been concidering trading them all for 3-4 rare and endangered breeds any thoughts on this another thought was just to add to what I have untill I could be concidered the next green fire farms or something like that

I think you need to decide what your end goals are. You have mentioned several times that you want to have a hatchery, there are several successful business models out there as far as hatcheries are concerned.

You mention Greenfire Farms, emulating their model is not just adding rare and endangered breeds. Greenfire travels all over the world and is the ORIGINAL importer of the rare breeds they carry. They spend tens of thousands of dollars importing these rare breeds. The cool thing about this model is that for the first year, they are the ONLY ones in the country that has these breeds, so they have NO competition and can get away with charging hundreds to thousands of dollars a chick. They also have to do this from a business standpoint in order to recoup their original investment, because each and every customer they sell to becomes competition in year two. There would be SUBSTANTIAL money involved in trying to emulate their business model, but they are also able to sell straight run and are not left with a ton of males. They also, I'm sure, sell at less of a volume than the typical hatcheries, so there is less work from a logistical standpoint, they just make a lot more money per chick.

In my opinion the standard hatcheries (Meyer, Ideal, Murray) don't give two craps about quality and people know this. Several of the major standard hatcheries have been caught selling MG positive stock, and their birds tend towards being aggressive because of the loose breeding standards. They continue to have customers because #1 they offer a HUGE variety of breeds, so it becomes a one stop shop for people and #2 they are able to sex their chicks with 80-90 percent accuracy, so their customers are able to avoid dealing with a huge number of unwanted roosters. The investment here comes from #1 coop space for 50 plus types of birds, #2 professional incubation providing the ability to hatch thousands of chicks a day and #3 the logistics of handling and planning for thousands of orders a season across many different breeds. The ability to sex is RARE, it is very difficult to do. If you guarantee 80-90 percent accuracy, your customers will expect refunds if they get more roosters than expected. If you sex your chicks you also need to figure out what to do with the hundreds to thousands of male chicks you hatch. Professional hatcheries have been known to grind live male chicks up to sell to dog food manufacturers. It is one of the reasons I personally would never buy from one.

Another business model is the SandHill Conservation hatchery model. They only carry threatened or endangered species. They do not sex their chicks, have strict minimum orders and a really terrible and strict customer service model. But they state upfront that they are in it to save rare breeds and are only a business secondarily. They work towards breeding quality and HEALTHY birds. Quality is key, and it takes years to get your birds to the point of quality.

Or you can look towards a smaller breeder/hatchery like Akers Hatchery in Salem Indiana. They carry around 10 breeds. You can tell they only do this part time because they are not active on social media and rarely update their website. They do it for the love of the birds and for fun. They are also wonderfully transparent and welcome people out to their farm. If customers will be visiting your setup you will need to put a lot of effort into providing a clean and professional looking setup. This also costs money.

You need to decide your goals and build your business slowly and carefully. I recommended starting with a few breeds and get a handle on how to breed for quality and improve upon what you have. If you are churning out crappy birds without offering the selection and sexing of the standard hatcheries, you won't have good word of mouth and will struggle to get repeat business. If you go towards rare or endangered you also need to know how to breed for quality. Build your foundation and a business plan for where you want to end up. No matter what direction you go, if this is going to be a business and customers will be seeing your setup you need to invest in very high quality coops, at least two pens for each breed you carry so you can do selective breeding to improve your birds. This is one of the reasons it is recommended to start small, coops are expensive.

You also need to build a website and start building a brand and customer base. Your business can then grow as you add breeds.

 

[Indyshent]

Thank you @Indyshent My children have been playing dress up for over an hour and are still having a blast. Also the pants fit other than one pair. Thank you very much.

Always welcome! I had a blast shopping for your family and watching them run around, all excited over their gifts!

 

[Hholly]

Hi everybody. I'm looking to get rid of my 2 aquariums if anyone is interested. I have a 55gal complete setup with some plants, driftwood etc, and a 45 gal tall, complete setup. I also have some nice fish (angels, Denison's barbs, small Plecos, Cories, Bosemani Rainbows, Synodontus eupterus that I would let go with the tanks or would rehome if anyone is interested. Please PM me.

 

[daskhan]

Hello I read you reply and I do understand these things I just second guess myself a lot and have a million things running through my head at one time. I have been pumping atleast half my paycheck every paycheck into my birds so I do understand there is a high cost atleast at first I'm building quality coops (atleast I think I am and will post pictures when done) my current plan is to be a breeder style hatchery were I have a lot of breeds but breed for quality not quantity when I get larger I hope to hire people who have an understanding of the breeds they care for and limit the breeds they care for I have already hired soneone to help with the day to day and he is choosing his breeds now the rare and endangered breeds I represent come from gff and all have a specialist careing for them they all are cared for by fancy chicken farms and the rest by Kelevra farms( my brand) I thank you for your concern and help but I have a plan and would like to try it out and currently the two farms are closed to visitors websites are not up and fully functional because I'm picky... I've mentioned also wanting to move to a larger facility so that I can increase amount of pens and free ranging space.. I also plan to limit each pen to maybe 5 hens and one roo depending on breed.. I hope to figure out this coming spring/ summer which way we truely go.. A business grows slowly and I think a lot... I've already contacted contractors and have varying offered none I'm satisfied with