Meyer Hatchery Chicken pics anyone??

[Briggadane]

Gotcha! We'll have to check out RK and Spencer Feed sometime, we usually go to TSC and Grace Brothers in North Royalton. Have you heard of Cedar Crest Farms? We got local feed from them last fall. I was so happy to find local, organic, soy-free feed at reasonable price without the extra shipping. Now they are just non-GMO with soy so we went back to Countryside/New Country Organics. Shipping sucks but they are still cheaper than Hiland Naturals in Kilbuck before shipping. I know by your signature you're not quite as picky about organic so I thought I'd mention them, nice people.

LOL. I figure if ice cream, fast food and Hostess havent killed me by now, non-organic is fine for my poultry. I dont worry about eating that ear of corn at a picnic, and could care less if hens eat it too(yep, your LOCAL fresh corn on the cob is a GMO!). Even the amish are using GMO now. So dont rely on "Amish made" to mean non-GMO. Pretty much the only food we now get non-GMO is "heritage" or "heirloom" breeds/types. I am totally against Canola oil, though. I wont let it anywhere near my family or animals. I figure GMO for disease resistance is one thing, making a poisonous plant into one we can consume is another.
Fortunately, the birds all get out and eat in the yard everyday, so the quantity of made made feed is a lot lower than the nature made feed they consume daily. I will likely change feed when the snow covers their food source. But I'll likely try to figure out how to make my own.
If you want a good laugh, one day go buy a 4" marrow bone, let them eat out most of the middle, then pack it with peanutbutter/birdseed mix, and freeze. After a couple hours, pull it out and give it to the flock. Its a riot!

Spencer Feed has a really light bedding. Unlike the box stores type where I keep getting splinters that go through the soles of my sandals.

There is also a feed mill in Sterling I need to revisit soon. They custom make feed to spec. It used to be a lot cheaper than commercial feed, and it had no fillers or preservatives. They dont have my old order on file anymore, so I'm gonna have to go and redo it.

I will be checking out Cedar Crest too. They have lots of ads on Craigslist.

 

[autumnhearth]

We don't buy all organic food ourselves but a good portion of our produce and meat comes from Fresh Fork Market, a Cleveland based CSA that works with family farmers, a good portion of which are Amish. There is a growing movement within the Amish community to return to organic and non-gmo as they are educated. FF products are always non-GMO and organic when available. Meat and eggs are all pasture raised.

We did a tour of Wholesome Valley Farm and got to see the pigs foraging for turnips (FF has amazing bacon and pork), the cattle out grazing and the chickens free ranging. Of course they are provided with supplemental feed which is non-GMO.

We also did a tour of Keim Family Dairy who raise Guernsy cows, their milk is sold through Wholesome Valley and Fresh Fork. We helped harvest their corn and watched it being processed, the cows also graze on pasture. This is the whole milk we buy its slow pasteurized rather than ultra-pasteurized like Organic Valley and the like that are shipped all over the country and have a longer shelf life but less nutrients. Fresh Fork also sells Stutzman Farms grains and flours, they are all organic.

The sweet corn available through FF is organic but it's only offered for a few weeks. My understand was that most sweet corn is still non-GMO but most feed corn is GMO, I forget the percentages but a lot less of the foods we directly consume are GMO, its more the crops for lovestock, except for soy which sneaks its way into just about everything processed. We did learn something interesting on our tour of Mitchell's Ice Cream- there are no large apple orchards in Ohio that are organic, so they source from a good family run orchard that uses the bare minimum of pesticides then wash them thoroughly.

Not trying to preach at all, organic is expensive and the label doesn't always mean what it says. But the above goes to show that all is not lost. We have a small flock so we can justify the price of organic feed, when we move and expand I would also like to grow some of our own grains and mix our own feed. We currently grind the whole grain feed so it is fresher. Oddly enough our girls don't like corn on the cob or large pieces of corn in their feed or scratch, they pick it out! But they are fine with it ground down or frozen on a hot day.

 

[Briggadane]

Too cool Autumn. I love visiting Amish country. I also used to go with hubby when he collected milk from dairy farms and took them to different processors. It was very educational. I never realized the antibiotics in a cows milk was tested so thoroughly. Too bad they don't test for hormones to the same degree.

My step father is a farmer, and to get crops subsidized, he has to grow certain types of crops at certain yields. In order for farmers to make any money, they are almost forcing them to use GMO seeds. It sucks.
I'm not sure how many people realize sweet corn that's not modified has a very short availability time frame. Most sweet corn found outside that time is usually prematurely picked field corn. You can usually tell by how starchy it is to eat and how much longer it takes to cook.

I'm going to have to start collecting poultry feed labels now, so I can decide on what to feed for winter. I started researching DIY food, but chickens don't tolerate the tweeking needed for that...

 

[autumnhearth]

18 week pics!


Snow the White Rock


Pema the Light Brahma, so serious


Cornelia the Welsummer


Cora finally lost all her long juvenile tail feathers. I remember a year ago when Amelia lost her tail I was worried she wouldn't grow it back, lol.


Snow


Pema and Snow by the new fencing keeping them out of the mud behind the garage
Hard to capture Pem's fabulous Brahmaness


Here have a Dorking


And a Baby snuggle selfie for good measure

 

[Finnie]

Your girls are looking fabulous!

Love the long tail on Victoria, too. Is that one of the defining features of the Silver Dorkings?

 

[autumnhearth]

Your girls are looking fabulous!

Love the long tail on Victoria, too.  Is that one of the defining features of the Silver Dorkings?

Thanks. It is yes, low full bodies, long tails and extra toes We didn't account for her tail went we built our nest boxes so it often looks ragged, especially since she sits on eggs a bit longer and I go to check on her and have to tuck her tail back in.

 

[hyzenthlay]

Those are some lovely pics, Autumnhearth! The first pic of Snow is especially pretty, and they're all getting so red in the comb it looks like you might start getting some eggs from the young girls soon!

I'll have to try to post 8 week and 3 week pics (respectively) of my chicks. The older girls are just about past the worst of the gawky juvenile stage and are looking quite pretty now, I think. The three week olds are still cute but their feathers have really started to come in, and I am now about 99% certain the Welsummer is a cockerel. I'll probably post a set of "pullet or roo" pics for final confirmation, but then I think I'll have to bite the bullet and list him on Craigslist asap. It's sort of fun to think about having a roo, and watching this little guy grow up to be big and handsome, but roosters are verboten in the city. I have to keep telling myself that. No roos.

 

[Poultrybonkers]

I noticed I lost all but one of my speckled sussexes. I lost my splash wyandotte 2 mixes my leghorn a glw hen and a few others all together 15 died. From moving. So I wont be posting the rest only my wyandottes will be posted on here from now on.
Heres whats left.

 

[hyzenthlay]

Pandapaws, I'm so sorry to hear about all your losses. That's really sad.

I hope the worst is over and that everything will be better going forward. Your wyandottes are looking nice.

 

[hyzenthlay]

Ok, not a full weekly birthday picture update here, but a few choice photos from today. As I mentioned, the babies are three weeks old this week. I don't think there's much doubt about it, but this Welsummer chick (formerly Hazel) below is a roo, right? If not, I'd think it must be the most masculine pullet ever.




And a group shot, where you can catch a glimpse of Narcissa (BO) and Nigella (BA), with the BLRW in the far background.




And here's she who has not yet been named, the BRLW. I think these shots pretty accurately capture her color. Sooo, what do we think? Will she be dark blue, or black? The breast and hackle feathers seem pretty black, but some of the wingtips and tail feathers are dark gray.

And finally, a few pics of my 8 week old ladies--not the best shots, but the best I could get on a cloudy day in their makeshift run, which consists of a puppy pen covered by a waterproof drop cloth, with that PVC pipe standing in the middle for a tent pole (it gives them a little more headroom, but more importantly keeps the rain from pooling in the middle of the cloth "roof"). They only stay in there during the day, and come back to the basement at night--I'm concerned about predators, especially with them still being pint sized I'd imagine even the neighbor's cats could do some real damage. We really need to get the coop expansion finished--hopefully this weekend, if the weather and kids cooperate.

Violet the Dorking is really gentle and calm and pretty, with such long, fluffy feathers--this pic doesn't do her justice.


Petunia the CM came over to check out the camera--she's cautious but curious and still fairly approachable.





Delphine the Ameraucana wouldn't come close, so this is the best I could get of her. She is by far the smallest of the 8 weekers, about pigeon sized. At this rate I'm worried she'll never grow big enough not to fit through the bars of our yard fence. She is very pretty, with a good beard growing in.