Mini-van-coop-fire evacuation-mobile, PREDATOR BREAK IN!

[BeulahBreezes]

WOW!.........Hope you are all well and SAFE!
~Beulah

 

[Hummingbird Hollow]

Oh no! Tell him what my momma used to tell me - shush your beak!
If nothing else, they are about the size of cornish hens at this point...
Speaking of which, how are you processing them? Are you taking them somewhere or doing it yourself? I'm sure your plans are totally in the air at this point until you find out about your house so I apologize if this is an intrusive question.

I had always planned on doing the processing myself, hoping to stay detached enough from the Freedom Rangers to be able to do the deed. Now...who knows. I can't imagine slaughtering and butchering 35 chickens in my sister-in-law's driveway, and I wouldn't have a place to store them even if I did. Soon they may be too big to transport safely, so I should plan on relocating them soon, but am not sure where that might be. One of the secondary drawbacks of our new living conditions is that the chickens are considerably higher maintenance and I'm in and out of their part of the garage multiple times during the day and the young ones are getting friendlier and run towards me instead of running away in panic they way they did a week ago. Having gone through such great lengths to keep them alive and safe it is going to be doubly bizarre to end their lives, but what on earth am I going to do with 35 more chickens, especially since about half will be roosters. I may have to just give them away. Don't know. If you have any ideas or suggestions, I'm open.


Here's one of my little roosters-to-be taking a happy dirt bath in a potted plant, in the garage, having kicked out most of the bulbs that were in it.

 

[HorseCrazyy]

Wow great idea!

 

[mynamesjenelle]

Aww such a happy roo! That's kind of why I was asking - I want to help someone process so that I can get an idea of what it's like and whether I could handle doing it to birds I raised. I like to THINK I would have no problem with it, but there is some hesitation in my mind for sure. If it helps at all, I've read that birds raised for meat get pretty miserable if they grow to an adult size because their bodies are too heavy for their legs. I don't know if this applies to freedom rangers but you might be doing them a favour to not let them get too big.

I found this a couple days ago that might help. They give you the option to help for a discount or just let them do it all. Based on their website they are up by where you are evacuated to I believe: http://cosprings.craigslist.org/grd/3079725217.html

 

[jrsckn]

Speaking from my own first experience, I'm at 4 weeks on my first batch of CX and after reading about how nasty the birds are, I didn't think I'd have a problem but what they don't tell you is that they are the friendliest, cutest little birds (despite being stinky). It won't be as easy as my first deer but I'm gonna do it anyway.

Good luck on your decsision and caring for them until their time is up.

 

[Hummingbird Hollow]

Thanks Jenelle, I just sent them an email asking if they might have the room to foster 35 6-week-old Freedom Rangers for a month or so. I purchased the Freedom Rangers instead of going with the CornishX meat chickens because they are supposed to be much more healthy and active...more like "normal" chickens. They take longer to reach processing weight, but supposedly I could actually keep a few pullets as layers if I chose to.

 

[flewdacoop]

cool hope yall stay safe

 

[Hummingbird Hollow]

Just got an email that my mobile coop-evacuation mobile and its occupants will be on the 5:00PM News. thedenverchannel.com.

We had a camera crew here earlier this morning:



Here's the photographer filming the inside. The tarp on the front windshield is to try to keep the morning sun from heating up the interior too much.



This could be pretty silly folks. We'll see what the final edit looks like.

 

[HorseCrazyy]

Wow so cool!

 

[Debs55]

post a link please!