New with a lot of questions

[pdirt]

 

 

I have seen that some people cut the corner out of a feed bag and trim the rest to use as a restraining cone. If you intend to hang it on a wall rather than hold it, some recommend cutting the bottom of a 2-gallon bleach jug.

I found I didn't like cutting throats. For me, it seemed it took too long for them to die. And some breeds had prolific pin feathers around the neck, making it quite difficult for a quick slice...it was more like sawing, and this was with a very very sharp knife.

What worked was first shooting the bird in the back of the head, point blank, aimed at eye level with a cone-pointed pellet or .22. It was instant "lights out", which seemed more humane to me. Then I chopped the head off and hung the bird on a noose on one leg for a bleed out. If I was going to pluck, after the hot dunk, I hung back on the noose for easy plucking. I placed a tarp under the hanging birds to catch most of the feathers. Mind you, I had never butchered an animal other than a fish before, so my inexperience may show here. But after several birds, I wasn't happy with the neck slicing and was glad to discovered the head shot. Apparently, this is the same method as "pithing", where the brain is scrambled by a carefully aimed stab through the mouth to the brain. It's just using a bullet rather than a knife.

Man, I wouldn't want to try to hit the head of a bird with .22...especially in my garage where I butcher-can you say ricochet?
The jugular cut is easy if you get the knife blade between the feather shafts down to the skin before cutting.
This tutorial shows exactly where to cut, but I guess it would be a slower death with more death throes movement.

I did the shooting in soft dirt behind the barn...no ricochet. I also used a pellet gun...less power than a typical .22, but lethal nonetheless.

Thanks for that link. Very well done tutorial. A couple thoughts: the author used cornish cross and they were only 7 weeks old. I've never done a CX and the youngest chicken I've done was 19 weeks. Could be a difference of breed and/or age. In the photo, that CX had very few feathers on the neck. It was hard to tell, but I also couldn't see much for pin feathers either. Much of the slaughtering I did last fall was with roosters, different breeds, all around 19-22 weeks and wow they had a lot of pinfeathers. I just couldn't get my knife in between them all. It was easier with the females. I also didn't care for watching them slowly die. The other note was the author mentioned washing off blood and poop from the birds first before scalding, to reduce the bad smell from scalding. Interesting...I never once noticed a bad smell during scalding like I had expected. But then again, none of my chickens had poop on them because they weren't cornish cross.

 

[pdirt]

I agree with darina, wow, that's some information you got there! Thank you.

I will have the freezer space soon, I've got one chest freezer and am getting another specifically for chickens, I will be doing a mix of whole and cut-up chickens but I will keep the carcasses for making stock for different dishes.

As for the kill method, I was going with the old hatchet and chopping block, has that fallen out of favor for any reason?

I like the 16" box idea, I'm not into waste, but many of my materials are re-purposed, so I'll have to see what dimensions I have and go from ther

The floor in the barn where the coop for the layers is going is dirt, I was thinking of putting concrete down but have also considered gravel. I was thinking concrete for ease of cleaning, in the lower section of wall I can place a 4" pvc pipe with enough sticking out that I can put a cap on it to prevent predator intrusion, then when I clean I can place a bucket (or something) and simply hose everything out the pipe and compost it, any reason I would not use concrete?

Since you have a dirt floor to begin with, look up the Deep Litter Method. DLM basically is using your dirt floor as a compost pile. Poop and bedding material get broken down by organisms in the soil and the chickens keep it aerated by scratching. You just place more bedding material down every week or two. It requires quite a bit more of bedding material, some say up to two feet thick by the time you clean it out. But rather than cleaning it out every day or week or even month with a concrete floor, you just clean it out once or twice a year. It's a bigger job to do the clean out, but hey, you only do it twice a year at most.

It depends on your preferences. But it might be worth looking into DLM before you pour some concrete.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I use the hatchet and chop block method, but with a twist. I drove two large nails to form a Vee and put the chicken’s head between them. A very light pull keeps the head still and makes it easy to hit the target. The main reason I do it this way is that I grew up handling an axe or hatchet. I’m confident it only takes one stroke for me to do the job. If you are not familiar enough with a hatchet or ax this may not be the way for you. As long as it is swift and sure I don’t see any benefit of one way over another. You just want it to be a way that you won’t flinch or close your eyes and injure the chicken or yourself. They do need to bleed out.

What you want in a coop floor is for it to stay dry or dry out very quickly if it gets wet. A wet coop is a dangerous coop from a disease standpoint. Also a wet coop will stink. As always there are a tremendous number of different ways to do this. If you keep all water out, have a material that absorbs the moisture in the poop, have your population density low enough that the poop doesn’t build up to a level that keeps it from drying out, and have decent ventilation, about any bedding material will do. In this situation it really helps to remove the poop under the roost or as a second choice regularly mix it with the rest of the bedding. That area can build up pretty fast. A droppings board under the roost can really help with that and give you some really nice poop for the compost. As always there are a lot of different ways to go about a droppings board.

If moisture gets in it needs to get out. The moisture can come from rain blowing in through an opening, groundwater if your coop is in a low spot, the chicken’s poop, or maybe your waterer is spilling water. With good ventilation and if the source of the water is stopped, a coop can dry out fairly quickly, especially if you or the chickens rake the bedding. Some bedding will be worse than others at holding moisture. If the coop floor is such that water can drain out and the water has a place to go that can help a lot. If you go with a concrete floor, I’d slope it to a drain so you can get the water out.

Mine is a dirt floor with wood shavings on top. I built mine by closing in the end of a 12’ x 60’ shed. I hauled in enough dirt to make sure the floor was above any ground around it and put in a swale on the uphill side to make sure no water can run into it. I have a lot of permanent ventilation but occasionally some rain or snow does blow in when the wind is from a certain direction. It dries out pretty well just from the chickens scratching and with the ventilation. Occasionally I start to get a whiff of smell but mine doesn’t get that bad before it dries back out. That odor can be a big problem though if it doesn’t soon dry out.

My droppings board is a simple piece of plywood. It’s actually the top of my built-in brooder. I do not add shavings, sand, PDZ, or anything up there, just the plain plywood. Depending on how humid the air is and how dense the chicken population is, I scrape it once every week or two and put pure poop in my compost. Others certainly do it differently. About once every four years I clean the coop bedding out in the fall and put it on my garden. By spring it has broken down enough that I can plant in it without a problem, but my winters are not so cold the ground stays frozen and my winters are wet enough that there is plenty of moisture for it to break down. I don’t have experience in colder or drier winter climates so I can’t comment directly on that, but I think people a lot further north than me clean their coop out in the fall and put that on the garden to break down over winter and it works great for them.

For the poop and bedding to decompose in the true deep litter method you have to have enough moisture for the bugs that break it down to live. I don’t have that much moisture except when I get those rare rains or snows from the north, which does not happen often in my valley. When I take it out it is not compost. It is finely shredded wood shavings and powdered poop which still needs to break down before it goes on my garden during growing season.

 

[pdirt]

 

[Strangecacti]

Well I cleared the old coop area, lol, this place has been occupied for over 100 years, no one in my family remembers having chickens in the barn so it was over 70 years ago that this space was in use. I have a 15' x 8' area to work with...so hard to not get dumb and fill it with as many chickens as it will hold...I have a large garden, and of course there are always various vegetables that are bad, so feeding them to the chickens is part of my feed plan, I've seen a couple lists of things to not feed the birds, I was wondering about preserving the excess and being able to feed them veggies during the winter. Dehydration? Freezing? I've built ways to keep the forage fresh into my plans but everything I can do to keep the feed bill down is good news to me.

I'm set up to produce sprouts for winter consumption, any suggestions on the kind? I was able to purchase bulk untreated seed from Rocky Mountain Seed Co., but they went out of business as I understand it and I have not been able to find a good supplier since.

I'm questioning my fencing, I have 4' tall fence and am quite certain that most chickens can and probably will pop right out of it, I'm considering ways to cover the run or just discourage them from going over the top, any suggestions?

 

[lazy gardener]

Electronet or deer fencing. I vote for the electronet b/c it can be moved around. Deer fencing will do the trick, but becomes a tangled mess when the weeds grow up through it. Electronet will need to be moved now and then to mow the fence line, but it's not too difficult to manage that.

 

[Strangecacti]

Got my chicks, It's been just over two weeks now, I was at Rural King (a farm supply store for those who haven't heard of them) I had all my materials for my brooder box except for some hardware cloth. As I was going through the store I could hear birds and thought it was odd that there were baby birds during the winter, then it dawned on me: Chickens!

I bought 20 Rhode Island Reds, and 5 Black Australorp. I got them home made the brooder box and in they went. A couple days later I was back at the store and got 6 ISA browns, a couple of the RIR's weren't doing very well, undersized listless, and I decided to get some extra in case I lost a few. Only lost one of the reds, we tried with her and gave some extra attention, but to no avail. They are all doing well, there is one I am concerned with she is about half the size of the others. She isn't showing any signs of distress or disease other than having pasty butt, I just keep clearing it for her. She eats drinks and shows all the behaviors as the rest.

The coop is nearing completion, I have the run on hold for a moment since the ground is frozen solid but the project is coming along well.

 

[lazy gardener]

Sounds like you're doing great. Enjoy. Occasionally, there will be one that is destined to not thrive.

 

[Strangecacti]

Thanks! Right now I'm having an issue with heat for them, the heat lamp bulbs keep going out. Not sure if there is a solution, other than the obvious one...which is to keep buying bulbs. Lol. they are Havells 250 watt bulbs. I have a little space heater (I think it's called a "My Heat" heater) designed for small spaces that I'm trying to incorporate into the brooder box, but they are already trying to roost on any thing available, the feeder the waterers and I need to find a way to use it without it being inside, I don't think they would enjoy me taking a power saw to the box and cutting a hole etc...the brooder is in the old utility room which is unheated so it's downright cold outside of the box. Here in southern Illinois it will be Georgias' weather one day and Canadas' the next. They are feathering out nicely, A couple of the RIRs' scared me when I first saw the patches of red feathers that had come in, looked so much like dried blood I thought they were picking on one another. I'm uncertain how old they are and how old they need to be before letting them into the coop. It will be 5 weeks that I've had them in the first week of March. What will I be looking for to indicated their readiness? Size? Feathering?

Not sure of how to add pictures to a post but I did add them to my profile, I believe they are public so feel free to take a look.

 

[darina]

How are things going? I saw the pictures of your chicks on your profile page, and (at the time the pics were taken) they look to be close to two weeks old. Here is a little blurb from another thread that might be helpful:

They usually sleep together at that age. When they are cold they will sleep in a pile close to the heat source. When not cold they sleep in close proximity but not on each other.Having a much cooler area for them is good. They will feather quicker and be able to go to the coop sooner. Ideally they will sleep in the middle of the brooder, not under nor far away from the heat. If they are never near your heat source your brooder is too hot, drop the temp slightly. As they get more feathers they are more able to control their body temperature and become more tolerant to a colder temperature. Mine were outside in the coop at 5 weeks with nighttime temps in the low to mid fifties. .

Of course you want to gradually allow them to adjust to the drop in temperature, usually people recommend day olds and 95 degrees then lowering the temp 5 degrees every week until you match the outdoor temps. I think they are close to being ready to move out, depending on the night temps where you live. Here in the North I have 8 week olds that I bring in at night, because last week the overnight low was 17 degrees and there are only two of them, so they have less "huddle power."