My first Fox attack that ended in a kill

[Steemroo]

Shells, not sure if I can do Cornish rocks either - very weird birds. Was just telling Mygirls it was an option - and - this is the weirdest part - they are totally natural in that there are no chemicals or modern genetic engineering. Just old school hybridization taken to the max. But they are freakish - nature can be very freakish. If a person can take em, they are good eating, but not what you get from a 12 week old top heritage breed, as you know.

Yeah, some breeds don't make great meat - some do. Understand about plucking - under a minute is darn fast!

Mygirls, next time just leave it in the trap shaded - for maybe 24 hours.. Right, you don't want to make it suffer.. Well, good luck with this. Can you borrow a few rounds of 22 ammo from someone?

 

[Steemroo]

Also with Cornish rocks, a small batch is minimum $2 a chick. They don't die if you restrict feed for part of the day - that's a new approach people use to stop the heart attacks! So weird..

But to get a 5 lb dressed carcass I'm giving 14 pounds or so of feed, assuming 2 pounds of guts lost - it may be more. And $2 may be too low for a small order.. With postage is probably $3.

Okay, lets just say a 50 pound feed bag per 3 birds. I'd pay about $18 for that where I live - so I'm paying ( 2 plus 6) $8 for a bird I can buy, on sale (and its on sale often) for about $6 at the store, no plucking or slaughtering needed. The same breed. Fed the same basic stuff.

So Cornish rocks only pay if you can pay $1 a chick and get feed cost down to about $3. I can't do that here.

Old timers made chickens find much of their own food.. We feed our layers a lot of grass & weeds, but we still have to use bought feed.

 

[Mygirls20]

Mygirls, next time just leave it in the trap shaded - for maybe 24 hours.. Right, you don't want to make it suffer.. Well, good luck with this. Can you borrow a few rounds of 22 ammo from someone?

Ya I had the trap in the shade but the fox would have been in there for almost two days by the time my friend got here. It also started to snow and was getting pretty cold. This fox is super stupid and I even found a ton of his tracks this morning in the fresh snow he circled the trap a few time (which wasnt set) and even tried to dig near the entrance like he wanted in. I think my friend was going to give me a box of ammo. So when I get everything I will handle it. At least this showed my hubby that this fox would never stop and was a real problem. My husband thought by trapping it it would scare the fox and he would never come back.

So glad this at least got to prove him wrong and now he will have no say in the matter

 

[Steemroo]

Understood. Like we were saying earlier, we have empathy - even for a bad fox. So this is never easy. Husband gets it now - all seems good.

We've never had domestic ducks - well' briefly, ages ago. They grew up and flew off!

Anyway, what do you do when your pond freezes??? Do they jus manage til it thaws?

Also I'm from the South - ponds rarely froze.. We had domestic collards - yes collard ducks - cuz this thing can't spell mallard -- iIRC.
Do muscovies fly?

 

[Mygirls20]

I was thinking a sinkable heater like they use to keep horses/cows water from freezing it would keep the pond from freezing but I dont now if they would use it the water would still be super cold lol

Cant you clip ducks wings so they dont fly away? probably geese to?!?!

 

[ocap]

Ok, was hoping you'd get to asking about ducks! THE best duck for meat, IMO, is the Muscovy! I had 2 drakes, & one was a total bad-a**! He was the first farm animal we butchered. Hubby & I plucked him by hand after scalding. Took a few hours, but I didn't mind. Well, that bird got roasting in the oven, & I couldn't believe the aroma! OMG, it was so good! He was about 7 months old & still tender and tasty! Like a cross between the finest roast beef & veal. When work is done on our ponds, I am so going to order more muscovies & breed them! I would never have to buy veal in the store again with these ducks around! They are also known to love eating flies! We had Rouens once. (Like mallards on steroids!) but had very little meat on them, & not very tasty. They are good for algae and slug control, though. Those are the ones I have experience with anyway.

here is a video that has a modern chicken plucker as well as a scalder

I was amazed at the number of chickens per hour
These machines are available to rent

 

[Shellz]

Ah yes, Steemroo. Heard of folks raising the cornish X like pastured birds. Can be done - I just don't want to! Besides, variety is the spice of life! We enjoy watching all the pretty birds on the few acres we have cleared. Had thought about growing grains for their feed as well, to limit feed store ration. Requires more land that would be illegal for us to clear. We get a big tax break for including 15 acres as conservation land. Oh well.

I sure hope you get some ammo, Mygirls20! All you need is one lousy bullet!

My ducks, when I had them, weren't wing clipped. With Rouens, not a problem. Their bodies are too heavy to get much lift! The Muscovy females CAN fly, but if you feed them a little something in the morning and again at night, they shouldn't stray. Mine never did. I kept them in a duck house with a small fenced yard attached to it during winter. I didn't have anything to keep ponds from icing over. So I got one of those big, deep black rubber water tubs & kept it in their yard. The tub kept ice free on sunny winter days. In morning, just turn over & whack the ice out! Refill with buckets of water. Worked great! Don't worry about water temp with grown ducks! As long as its free of ice, there's nothing to worry about! Their feathers are amazing at insulating them from cold! I've seen a swan family recently on a lake with just a small patch of water that wasn't frozen over yet.

Yes, you can definitely just clip a wing or both on ducks. I've just never done it myself, but I can see in some situations, it may be necessary. There's pics on the web somewhere of someone doing it.

 

[Mygirls20]

holy cow I want one over 400 birds in 2 hours. I want to go work there for a day so I can learn to be that quick

 

[ocap]

holy cow I want one over 400 birds in 2 hours. I want to go work there for a day so I can learn to be that quick

i have spent hours watching polyface farm video(s) on youtube. the one thing that stuck in my weak mind is that they have not bought seeds or fertilizer in 50 years. must be due to the amount of livestock feed they buy

 

[Shellz]

Polyface farm is awesome! I want to sign up for a guided tour! We make 1 or 2 road trips to the states & hubby is willing! Going to look them up. Hope they're not booked up in August already.