my first meaties raising experience-with pictures now 1st post:-)

[sonew123]

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how many did they order? curious is all

25

nice start-I got 26 in my order of 25 and all are healthy still...I plan on taking more photos of them today and pray my dang scale showed up in mail--I am dying to know the weights on these birds!

 

[sonew123]

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gavin do you have a wizzbanger? for feather plucking?/ the tub kind??? how do you plan to de-feather your birds for processing? by hand?

 

[Dacy Meadow Farmer]

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gavin do you have a wizzbanger? for feather plucking?/ the tub kind??? how do you plan to de-feather your birds for processing? by hand?

Actually, my buddy and I just purchased a brand new stainless steel tub style plucker. He called me the other morning and said there was one on ebay. I looked and it was stainless steel so they price seemed really low to me. It ends up that it is a guy in Florida that imports them directly from China. No bells and whistles, but it is powerful, good size, and stainless steel. He normally sells them for $899, but this was the first one he listed on ebay so he put a low price to generate interest ($809) I asked him if it was cheap China crap, but he said it was a solid product and that he uses one himself.

So we will see, we might of found a good plucker for a good price. It will be here next week! Now I need to find a stainless steel table. I'm really excited about it.

 

[Dacy Meadow Farmer]

Here is a link to the plucker we bought.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Powerful-Chicke...008?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f028c2a88

Seems to be a lot more pluckers on ebay lately. They're catching on.

 

[sonew123]

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Gavin-are you going to process chickens for people like you said? The traveling unit??? hmmm---nice plucker-wish I could afford one or justify one:-( if I was doing large quantities like you have in mind I would but like now with only 26 birds-not feasable--not even for 100 if I had them...There was one for 399$ and it looked good. Id love to make one and I probably will seeing as my DH is very good about rescuing items -he's a contractor and clears out alot of stuff and winds up saving alot of wood for me Im looking for a washing machine I can build my own red-neck plucker barrel It would be worth it if I only had to spend 200$ or so Hey that reminds me will you send me a bill for the hamburg and such-I can pay you ahead through paypal???

 

[sonew123]

Can I just say these gals are wearing me out!!! Ok so I thought Im going to put them in the tractor today for good--wellllll...what wound up happening was I have aHUGE metal wrap around fence-movable...SO I carried 2 birds at a time ( 13 times) from the coop to this fenced in grassy area-they loved it-12 hours in it! Throughout the day Dh and I meant to get the safe coop area set up for them but things happen...and we wound up emptying out the garage-the side that the birds havent taken over. DH is building me 6-8x5 floor to ceiling breeding pens-so Of course I helped him all day-all we got accomplished was 75% emptying it out-Im happy about that. sooo now its dusk and my meaties are peeping to sleep in the big coop. we thought hmmmm what the HE!^ are we going to do. So I have a run hooked onto my brooder coop that NEVER gets used anymore-and there was a duck house hooked onto it-so 2 by 2 I carried all the meaties into this area and put them all in duck house-3 x 8 and locked them up for the night with a waterer. Im whipped and my back aches because the run height is only 4 1/2 feet tall! I said to DH what the heck were you thinking building it that short? the run is 12 x 20 so this is where these guys will remain until the end-when they outgrow the duck house we will secure the run roof ( chicken wire) and make it predator proof! I have learned so much from raising these guys and how unpreparred I was! You have to understand everyone I have alot of predators and a typical PVC or other type of trator would never do-theyd all be gone by morning.

Scale never came in mail today again day 20 after paying for it!!! EBay!

I think Ive decided to hold onto my 15 meaties for a few mroe weks and not process them at chickenstock but let everyone else process there's ( Or ill do it for them I just dont see these gals dressing out at 5lbs or more...do they have a major growth spurt at a certain point--they are 3 1/2 weeks old now?

 

[sonew123]

OK more photos ops guys
soaking up the sun

This is the run that they will remain in until processing-I will add hay and DE 3x a week to keep smell down-I will try and rake it down as much as possible like a kitty litter box before I add hay

Im going postal if that scale doesnt show up come MOnday!

 

[LovinMyPeeps]

Ok so meaties arent exactly the most attractive birds are they?? jeepers...

 

[stanglover2001]

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Why don't you contact the sender on Ebay? We've never waited that long for something before, I'd be worried they lost your order.

 

[willheveland]

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No they're not. But, they taste really good.

Will