New with a lot of questions

[lazy gardener]

If you're processing your own, I'd recommend only raising 10 the first time around. I'm incredibly slow: even after processing quite a few, it takes me 45 minutes to completely process a single bird, and that's with hubby wielding the axe. I agree, if I could find some one good to process for me I think it'd be well worth the cost. By the time I do the set up and clean up, then have to deal with the attendant mess of feathers and guts, and the attracted flies... It might be worth it to pay someone! I think of all the things I'd rather be doing on a nice summer day... floating across the lake in my kayak, being at the top of the list... instead of being up to my elbows in chicken guts.

 

[Mrs. K]

With 25 straight run chicks, approximately (kind of, sort of, maybe) you could get 12 hens / 12 rooster..... give or take, and some might die. I think I would add a dozen meat birds to that.....

So in about 2-3 months, you will have 12 meat birds to process - 1st go around.

At about 6 months, the dual purpose birds will be ready to begin processing, another 12.

I think this is a very doable plan, you will gain a lot of experience, and I am pretty sure that at the end of these 6 months, you will decide to do some things differently..... at least I did.

Mrs K

 

[Strangecacti]

The issues for the slaughter are not a problem for me, I have the privacy, the knowledge of butchering, and most of the equipment. My plan for butchering is 5 birds/day. Even on days when I work I get up early and do things around the farm then work in the restaurant at night. Disposal of the waste from butchering is easy enough as I can just bury it in the woods. I have a large cast Iron cauldron for scalding, and plenty of brick to make a fire pit for it. I need restraining cones, but I have a bit of time before that is an issue.

On the subject of roosters for the layers: I need to keep them separate from the girls and from each other? Out of sight from the hens? I was thinking 2 roo's for keeping the bloodline from stagnating. Not needed? Or would I need to buy a roo from an entirely different breeder to ensure different parentage? Not sure of how badly inbreeding effects chickens in the short term.

I am starting in the barn, cleaning and clearing the space the space for them, and making endless plans for the layout, I would like to get it right the first time. In planning for the nesting boxes, 12" x 12" x 12" boxes are the quotes I've heard, and that I only need one box per 3 hens. Right? Wrong?Seems crowded to me.

Also I'm drawing up a brooder, and planning on purchasing or making an incubator, I will probably buy one and make a second one that suits my needs as soon as I know my needs, lol.

 

[Mrs. K]

The flock master, or your top roosters stay with the flock all the time for breeding, pecking order and limited flock protection. They do tend to pay attention for possible predators, but not till they are over a year old. A good flock master is a joy to have, a rotten one can be a dangerous nightmare, especially to smaller women and children.

Generally, the rule of thumb is, 1 rooster/ 12 hens..... kind of sort of. Too many roosters, or the wrong roosters, and you have a cock fighting, over bred hens, and a lot of tension in the flock.

A good rooster - manages the flock dynamics, finds food for the girls, keeps an eye out for predators, does the wing dance, keeps younger cockerels in line, and does not attack humans, is fertile, and adds good characteristics to the flock. Most of us, try and get at least some of these traits, few of us get all of them in a rooster. Personally, I think you get better roosters raised in the flock under a broody hen.

Roosters that are juveniles can be raised right in the flock with their pullet flock-mates, up to a point. If you have a flock master, as in an older established rooster, they can stay very close to 4-5 months. At that time, puberty begins, and depending on the roosters involved, fighting can start. Some fight once, and get the pecking and breeding order established and are good to go for long periods of time, others it can be a daily fight, or even a till death fight. This is the time that you need to separate these roosters away from the laying flock. These are the ones that will be meat. Merely separating them with a fence will NOT work, as they often will fight bloody through the fence. These are the roosters that need to be out of sight and sound of the hens, in a rooster pad. They will calm down, and put on weight. If they are not free ranged, they will be more tender.

If you incubate chicks, then you have to do things differently. The laying flock will kill these chicks if introduced too young. Many people firmly suggest not adding them until they are very close to full size chickens at about 4 - 5 months old. Some pen these growing chicks, next to the layer flock for a look but don't touch. Aart has a set up, which is rather like a one way gate, after a period of being next to each other, he puts this gate in place, where the smaller chicks can go in with the big girls, but can go through a gate that is too small for the big girls to follow them. Personally, I hate separate groups, and am for getting them in as soon as possible, as in I like the dynamics of a multi-generational flock, but I always use a broody hen which will just not fit your purposes.

As to your layers and roosters. The more of a closed flock that you have, the higher quality of birds you need. What would be considered imbreeding in people are common practices in chickens. You want to limit the genetic pool to the positive traits that you want. This produces a standard, and with a little luck, your birds will become more and more consistent with time. Most people on here are hobbiest. They are more interested in color of feather and eggs, and production is not a big issue. However, the standards of the breed have been established in order to maintain high quality birds that do meet production in eggs and weight with the least amount of cost. Over time, with a closed flock, if you do not pay attention to breeding, you will lose both egg production and dress weight of birds. But you are talking a long period of time, as in a decade. Maybe sooner, if you really start out with poor quality chicks.

Closed flocks are a worthy goal, but generally need some flexibility. Generally in the beginning of chicken raising, the idea of a closed flock is to keep disease out. However, it is an accepted practice, that one can incubate eggs from somewhere else or buy day old chicks from somewhere else and be safe. As closed flocks get older, more established and one is producing beautiful close to standards chickens, sometimes fresh blood can improve vigor of the chicks. But you are a very serious breeder at this point.

Mrs K

 

[Ridgerunner]

Yeah, you’ll work out your own schedule on the butchering. How you butcher will make a difference. Do you want to keep the carcasses whole or do you cut it up into pieces. Things like that. Have you considered freezer space? Do you have room for a lot of chicken? That’s one of my limitations when I have the freezer filled with veggies form the garden.

You can manage your chickens many different ways. There is no magic ratio of hens to roosters. You can have the same problems whether you have one rooster and 4 hens or one rooster and 24 hens. You can keep roosters separated from the hens or let them run with the hens. You can keep one rooster with the hens or keep more than one rooster with the hens. If you go with more than one, your space requirements increase quite a bit but many people do it. I always recommend you keep as few roosters as you can and reach your goals. That’s not because you are guaranteed problems with more roosters, just that you are more likely to have problems. With your stated goals and size of flock, one rooster should be enough, but some people like to keep a spare around.

All chicken breeds have been developed by inbreeding. For all practical purposes all Grand Champions at chicken shows have been developed by inbreeding. It is really difficult to improve or even maintain the quality of your flock without inbreeding. Inbreeding is not a disaster but it does need to be managed. You lose genetic diversity by inbreeding. If you are enhancing a desirable trait, that is good. If you enhance a not desirable trait, that is bad. One problem with losing too much genetic diversity is that a flock can become less fertile, possibly develop health problems, or develop qualities you don’t want.

There are many different ways to maintain genetic diversity in a flock. Most hatcheries will use the pen breeding system. They might keep 20 roosters with 200 hens with no control over which rooster breeds which hen. The randomness of that mating maintains genetic diversity.

Some breeders use the Spiral Breeding technique. It requires a lot of good record-keeping but they basically maintain three separate breeding flocks. The pullets and hens stay with their assigned flock but the males are systematically rotated among the flocks. If you are really good at this, you can keep a flock going indefinitely without bringing in new blood.

A twist on the Spiral breeding is when two or more different breeders are going after the same goals and trust each other. Every few generations they swap some roosters to bring in newer blood. There are all kinds of little tricks to all these methods.

A standard model used for thousands of years on small farms is that every four or five generations you bring in a new rooster to gain genetic diversity. You lose a lot of any traits you may have enhanced, well not lost but your breeding program often suffers a set-back when you do this. To a certain extent you are starting over. This is basically what I do. I’ll get some chicks this year and raise them so next year my new flock master will be a totally unrelated Buff Rock.

One big key to this is that you have to be fairly ruthless about picking your breeding stock. Carefully select the ones you want to breed and don’t allow any that don’t meet your goals to breed. Any with flaws or defects are simply not allowed to pass those traits to future generations in your flock. To me that means physical, behavioral, egg laying, and other traits. I accomplish that by eating all excess chickens, male and female, but you don’t have to do it that way. Come up with your own way to not allow them to breed. If you are careful about this you will see a general improvement in your flock in just a couple of generations.

The general recommendations for nest boxes for full sized fowl is a minimum of 12” x 12”. That works but I prefer them bigger. My stud spacing was 16” so that made for easy framing. If you cut an 8 foot 2x4 or a sheet of plywood into 16” pieces you don’t have waste. Mine wound up 16” cubes.

It is not unusual for me to see 3 hens in one nest at the same time, even if I only have 8 hens total and the other nest boxes are empty. The larger spacing allows them to fit better instead of a hen literally laying an egg on top of another. They manage that and it makes for cute photos, but still……..

I also let my hens brood in the nests. The baby chicks that first hatch often climb on top of the hen but eventually fall off. If the hen is sitting close to the edge of the nest box, the chick might miss the nest entirely and fall out of the nest. Even if it falls from a few feet up it won’t physically hurt the chick, but it cannot get back in the nest and you have a problem. You can certainly get by with 12” nests but my personal preference is larger.

A general recommendation is one nest for every four laying hens. That’s for the 12” nests. If the nests are larger you can get by with fewer nests. You’ll find that whatever you do they normally prefer the same nest anyway so you wind up with most of your eggs in one or two nests, but for 12 hens I’d go with a minimum of three nests anyway regardless of size. A fourth one should not be necessary but if you are in the mood you are prepared if you decide to expand your flock. One time you might expand your flock is if you are raising replacement pullets and you want to determine how they are laying before you select which ones to keep for breeding and/or eggs.

Some people use a community nest box. You can do a search to get details but it’s basically a 2’ x 4 ‘ nest with no dividers that can accommodate maybe 25 laying hens.

I know I’m not giving you any specific ways to do any of this. There are a whole lot of different ways that can work. What makes it so complicated is that it is so easy because so many different things work.

 

[darina]

Wow, my head is swimming from trying to read those last two posts! So complex. This is good to note, from Mrs K.

"Over time, with a closed flock, if you do not pay attention to breeding, you will lose both egg production and dress weight of birds. But you are talking a long period of time, as in a decade."



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.

 

[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.

 

[aart]

Quote: 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.

 

[Strangecacti]

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 there.

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?

 

[aart]

Mrs. K and Ridgerunner have many years experience and convey that experience well...two of the best advisors here for sure.

Many folks use the chopping block / hatchet method......
........cone / jugular cut work well for me as I work alone in my garage and that's just the best suited to my site and abilities, homemade cone with bucket close underneath.