Michigan Thread - all are welcome!

[snowflake]

Raz, what is your secret sauce method of picking up and handling a roo? Ours is an aggressive flighty one, and we need to put vaseline on his legs (scaly mites). It's a major ordeal to corner him and grab him.

ALWAYS get them at night when they are on the perch

 

[RaZ]

beautiful boy!!!lucky you, You Know you need to build for chicken math

12 x 8 is the plan. That's good for 24 maximum capacity. I have 14 hens w/ 1 rooster. I thought about going 12 x 12 but that added another $350. Staying with the original plan.

So my chicken math is good. I'll just stay here and encourage / enable others.

 

[rachelsflock]

Tractor supply almost got me again today. They had GLW pullets and welsummer pullets. I kept myself in control and didn’t buy them. Got home and was texting DH, congratulating myself on NOT buying more chicks and HE says, “well I would have gotten them. I’ll check on my way home from work and see if they still have them.”

I have 34 chicks in my growout coop(most of which I will be selling next month). I have 19 more coming the first week of April, and here is my darling husband stopping to get MORE chicks when at the start of the year HE was the one who wanted me to get 10 ISAs and 6 of something else and that was it.


Now, if those chicks today would have been $1/ea, I would have gotten a bunch.

Let me tell you a story. Once, in the fall, my mom went into her TSC (in nashville, tn) to get some rabbit feed and thinking of maybe getting a few layer chickens. The guy working there that evening was sick of keeping chicks/ducks and offered to sell all the chicks to her for 34 cents a chick if she took them all. And that's the story of how my parents went from 6 to 104 chickens in 15 minutes. And they weren't all straight run and only a small percent wound up being cornish cross, and culling cockerels and cornish didn't make nearly a dent in the population they thought it would so now they're having to slowly sell down from numbers not worth keeping track or risk getting egged out of house and home, and birds only go for about $8/hen, which is ridiculous.

Moral of the story: If you want low prices, come in late to your feed store late summer/early fall, get to know the staff, but never take 98 chicks. Also, $1/chick is a very reachable threshold apparently, lol. Oh yes, and be careful, it's a chick filled jungle out there.

 

[1muttsfan]

 

[gladahmae]

You mean I should have a long term plan in case I don’t manage to sell off some of these chicks! Preposterous! On all seriousness, chicks around here never go cheaper than a buck each, and we dont have many hobby breeders. I think a 4-5 county area is mostly served by 3 tractor supply stores and one FF&H. I got around 60 chicks on the last week they were having chicks last year, and sold them all within a week. Hopefully things go somewhat smoothly this year for my plan. If not, I have meat tractors I can use in a pinch.

 

[wcbpolish]

Let me tell you a story. Once, in the fall, my mom went into her TSC (in nashville, tn) to get some rabbit feed and thinking of maybe getting a few layer chickens. The guy working there that evening was sick of keeping chicks/ducks and offered to sell all the chicks to her for 34 cents a chick if she took them all. And that's the story of how my parents went from 6 to 104 chickens in 15 minutes. And they weren't all straight run and only a small percent wound up being cornish cross, and culling cockerels and cornish didn't make nearly a dent in the population they thought it would so now they're having to slowly sell down from numbers not worth keeping track or risk getting egged out of house and home, and birds only go for about $8/hen, which is ridiculous.

Moral of the story: If you want low prices, come in late to your feed store late summer/early fall, get to know the staff, but never take 98 chicks. Also, $1/chick is a very reachable threshold apparently, lol. Oh yes, and be careful, it's a chick filled jungle out there.

LOL. Sounds like something that I would do!!! Wife would KILL ME. But I could probably hide 100 chicks for awhile on the farm without her knowing (She doesn't visit the barns too much)

 

[SillyChicken]

T Dean, I sent payment for the beetles (paypal - from Cake Charms)!! Sorry I didn't see my email yesterday. Hope you see this!!

 

[chickflick]

Looks to be a pretty day today.... Too bad is still so muddy. Can't do much. My fingers are itching to get in the dirt!
TSC in west Lansing didn't have any EE's. So, I came home with nothing. Have to check on Charlotte

 

[wcbpolish]

T Dean, I sent payment for the beetles (paypal - from Cake Charms)!! Sorry I didn't see my email yesterday. Hope you see this!!

Got it. I have a heat pack. I have to transfer the demestids to a different container, add something with moisture, and send them out. I hope they make it well. I'll stop at the PO on the way home.

 

[RaZ]

Got it. I have a heat pack. I have to transfer the demestids to a different container, add something with moisture, and send them out. I hope they make it well. I'll stop at the PO on the way home.

Sliced cucumbers work well for keeping moisture in live critter shipment. I learned that from a breeder in Texas when they shipped chicks to me. I'm not sure how it would be with demestids.