Looking for help brainstorming for next year

[tickens33]

Hello all. For anyone who hasn't seen my posts before, I keep chickens on a property about a half hour drive away, and have kept up with this for 15 months. This setup has drawbacks, but I can't keep chickens in my backyard, so this was my best option for gaining these skills. Our 5-10 year plan is to build our forever home(stead) on the property where the chickens currently are.

I have been feeling a little burnt out on commuting to take care of livestock, and I received a lot of wonderful thoughtful advice on my most recent post, regarding how to wind things down for a break. Sometime between now and the winter, I'll likely be sending some flock members to a friend's farm and some to freezer camp.

I'm already thinking ahead to next year, and was hoping some of you might enjoy helping me brainstorm the next phase of this project. The folks on this forum have been incredible sources of advice and perspective so far, and I'm hoping some of you might find it a fun exercise to consider how you'd go about it.

I am trying to consider the best way to go about things next year to maximize yields and fulfillment, and minimize stress.

My thoughts so far:

• We already have plans to make changes to our setup-- more cameras, more redundant food and water sources, more run space..basically just more resources all around to minimize the required maintenance and therefore the required travel.
• We've had big plans to have the chicken coop roof collect rainwater for the birds, and might try bringing that to fruition next year as well, if anyone has perspective to offer on that.
• We might also build an isolation coop and/or some kind of small tractor to make separating birds less of an ordeal, if anyone would like to share their experience with that type of setup.
• I have been considering doing exclusively meat birds next year, because it would give me a break from the commute between cycles of raising and culling, and then there would be no issue deciding what to do when winter comes. But I'm not sure how doing meat birds would work remotely. We let our current flock free-feed, but my understanding is with meat birds, we'd have to automate the feeding..? Does anyone have any breed recommendations for meat birds that might do well with such a setup? I have been looking at freedom rangers.
• Is it possible to raise runs of meat birds at the same time as laying hens, or would they require totally separate structures?
• Alternatively, is anyone familiar with a breed of laying hens that start laying much earlier than a heritage breed without being genetically unhealthy? Part of why I'm hesitant to do layers again is all the time, effort, and expense before we would actually be able to get eggs.
• Separately from the above, does anyone have experience with a laying breed that does not seem prone to broodiness? We got Buff Orpingtons without really understanding the implications of a broody-prone breed, and it has turned into a big headache to safely break broods from a distance.

Disclaimer that I have of course started researching all of the above myself, but nothing beats advice from people with experience! Hopefully folks find this fun to consider.
So..If it was you, commuting to your chickens, how would you go about it?

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

The bigger the better. More feeder options and water are all great. I use buckets unless I have young chicks. It's easy to fill up a bunch of buckets and pans with water. You also could set up a system where you collect rainwater off the coop, and it goes into a barrel, than from there using a gravity type of system where whatever you use for them to drink out of stays full.

Meat birds do well with being raised in tractors which are moved as necessary.

I believe leghorns are great layers that are still considered heritage.

 

[tickens33]

The bigger the better. More feeder options and water are all great. I use buckets unless I have young chicks. It's easy to fill up a bunch of buckets and pans with water. You also could set up a system where you collect rainwater off the coop, and it goes into a barrel, than from there using a gravity type of system where whatever you use for them to drink out of stays full.

5 gallon bucket with nipples has worked great for us, we've had the same nipple bucket since before the winter, and it's stayed in great shape and keeps the water really clean!!

Meat birds do well with being raised in tractors which are moved as necessary.

Based on your experience with meat birds, would you imagine they could be left unattended in a (predator proof) tractor for 3+ days at a time?

I believe leghorns are great layers that are still considered heritage.

I actually haven't looked into leghorns very much because a lot of my reading has been on dual purpose birds, so maybe I should spend some time learning about production breeds too.

Thank you for taking the time to reply!!

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Based on your experience with meat birds, would you imagine they could be left unattended in a (predator proof) tractor for 3+ days at a time?

I've personally never raised meat birds. I would think if you provided enough food and water they would be okay. Perhaps a gravity feeding system. If you are raising Cornish cross than they generally are processed at 6-8 weeks.The water could be done with nipples on barrels of water. There is the first few weeks where they need extra heat. Not sure how that is managed.

 

[kattabelly]

Based on your experience with meat birds, would you imagine they could be left unattended in a (predator proof) tractor for 3+ days at a time?

Tractors are usually densely stocked and that works because the birds are getting moved onto fresh ground daily or even more often towards the end. The only way you could avoid them laying around in their own poo and knackering the ground would be to either keep them in very small groups, or use a much larger than usual tractor which would make it difficult to move.