NY chicken lover!!!!

[marquisella]

Feeling so accomplished today!!! Seperated out my bresse into their own breeding pen today..now that the new girls and old are hopefully all laying and the roo showed signs of interest...I pulled them from the group barn!!! Ill give them 3 weeks to clear unwated sperm from the CCL roo and then save for a week for myself and pop into bator!!!! FINALLY...I had a gorgeous roo last year of age and out of nowhere just died..he was huge too..then had to spend all Summer hatching to get another roo from buying eggs or swapping for them...my goal is to hatch out 25-30 maybe 40 butcher all but the two best roos in September..keep another 5 of the best girls and either butcher out or sell the rest of the girls...

Next...seperating out the marans

How do they taste & dress out? And at what age can you process them? I don't seem to have good luck with the Marans, they are always tough....

 

[wny egger]

i just spent 3 hrs cleaning my coop ..a little warm weather and i get all giddy for spring ..man what a chose ..

i am going to thin down my flock ..i'll have 5 columbian wyandottes that are a yr old this spring and are laying ..not sure what to do with them ..i hate to just give them to someone and not no they are not just going to eat them ..any ideas would be great ..thanks ..

 

[sonew123]

Well heres the thing...ive only had 1... It was amazing...then it was my mission to get some breeders..which took me a year but I got them..then the roo died ruining my year of butchering..so I had to order freedom rangers this Summer..I fed them the way I was going to feed the bresse..normal baby food for 6 weeks then add soaked feed in goats milk, fodder,free ranging to some degree.

They were amazing...so ill be raising these in the same manor..slowly and patiently...all hatched by April 1st..butchered 5 months later or sooner of needed. I can tell you when I picked up my 5 girls and rooster just now to move them...all of their breasts were nice and thick not boney whatsoever...they are 5 months old. The hens are great layers as well

 

[sonew123]

This past summer I also had 5 extra roosters growing out with the freedom rangers..
Cuckoo marans
Splash marans
Black copper marans

We ate one the other night and he was great...I pull them out of freezer and put in a large tupperware bowl of salt water where I keep it for 4 days...cook it on 300 for 3-4 hours depending on weight...delicious!!

 

[Aria]

pharmchickmom. Thanks for asking. The Silkies are doing fine. Went down and
checked and discovered that the two that died...WERE ELDERLY CHICKENS.

MY husband doesn't recognize the chicks like I do. He excells at the Coop Chores.

They are nice and "round" no feeding problems. In fact I have been giving them veggies
and apples. Today some crackers mashed. They always get extra food. Had leftover
veggie stew and shared it with the Silkies. Not sure if we will be hatching this season????

Would prefer to add a different chick to our flock. Thinking about going to Chickenstock.
Regards, Aria

 

[boskelli1571]

i just spent 3 hrs cleaning my coop ..a little warm weather and i get all giddy for spring ..man what a chose ..

i am going to thin down my flock ..i'll have 5 columbian wyandottes that are a yr old this spring and are laying ..not sure what to do with them ..i hate to just give them to someone and not no they are not just going to eat them ..any ideas would be great ..thanks ..

I'm sure if you put the word out, someone will 'take them off your hands' at Chickenstock...

 

[rancher hicks]

I agree with you on the 3' drifts. I have been mulling and mulling this chicken thing. I have a HUGE barn in which I can renovate and use for as many chickens as i need. However, it is a little ways from the house. And oddly not a single outside door opens to it.

Then, i had purchased a garage from the Amish that is 10' x 20' which i thought about turning into a chicken house and run also...maybe having two chick locations.

All I know is Spring can not come soon enough. My house is filling up with chicks & I can not seem to find the perfect sized and shaped grow out area for them.

Well now next year you need to set up some hoop coops with lights to keep them in. Once they get pretty feathered out toss them in a hoop. Hoops are easy and good for temp housing. You can of course set them on the ground but make sure there is hardware cloth a bit down under.

Hoops make great runs too. So you can attach them to the back of your garage thing. Kind of like this. My run is just covered with poultry wire since they don't sleep in there at night. The coop part is covered with hardware cloth.

One thing I will do is dump some gravel in the run. I think it will keep things a bit drier like my other runs.

 

[Purpletie3]

Rancher...those look great. I think we are going to try and make a few anyhow by bending the top rail for chainlink. The benders are sold on JOhnny's that I am looking into right now.

 

[pharmchickrnmom]

Well the snow has begun to fall here after much anticipation all over the news and internet. Im glad that I got through my shifts this weekend and am home being domestic while it comes. Its nice being greeted by a chorus of crows from all the boys when they hear me open the door of the car to get out. All I have to say is hello cheeps and everyone answers happily.

Havent seen any eggs yet from my silkie pullets. Eowyn has started laying again and I am getting itchy to load up the brinsea. I like to shoot for the first week of march so that I can do back to back hatchings of them. Better odds the more you hatch of getting what you are looking to keep. I will only do one fully loaded genesis bator full of my heritage rir eggs this year, unless I get some interest from others about getting some. I processed last years culls at about 14 to 16 weeks and they dressed out nicely. Froze some and canned the rest. Been eating them all winter. I canned some chicken soup made with them as well and its very tasty.

Aria--of course us chicken mommys would know who is who and how old,etc! I am sad you lost your older hens but they had a good life with you. The stress of the cold may have been the catalyst to whatever was up with them before they passed. Glad to hear the little piggies have good weight on them!

Ta for now.

 

[Pyxis]

Well darn it I lost another Legbar pullet to the cold. This time she had a heat lamp to go under and just didn't, don't ask me why. Well, guess I'll be picking up some eggs in the spring or if I'm lucky a nice breeding trio. I do still have my little white pullet though and since I wanted to focus on the whites anyway at least I have that going for me. Funny that the white one seems to be hardier than all the others. I also lost my older cochin rooster and one of my older buff orp hens. The rooster was five and the hen at least four so they were starting to get up there and I guess the extreme cold we were getting for a while was just too much for them. I swear if we could have one weekend without snow I would dance for joy. It's always Sunday too which is when I work.