This is one of the gardens I've been working on. I put potatoes and pumpkins in 3 other smaller gardens, and I also stuck some pumpkin seed in the compost to see what will happen. I have peppers, cukes, and tomatoes in the beds along the house. I still have 1 section of potatoes and a row of sunflowers to plant. We've remulched around our fruit trees too.
I like to put in hilled rows too. Makes it easier to use my weed wacker cultivator attachment in between the rows and not have to worry about throwing dirt all over the plants. Looks good tab.
I've been trying to get everything done around the mad dash spring/summer is with all the events (school, family, and friend) that are taking place. The last one was a cook out at my brother's in Rochester where he told me I'm going to be an aunt.
yes and no. The RIR are brick red and the Rooster does not have black on his breast. They are huge and sweet. I can split the flock. It needed. They are last year hatch and the year before. Mostly last year hatch.
@Cydney83 Rhodebars are beautiful, I would love to have them but my chicken math is already getting the best of me lol. I'm sure you won't have any trouble selling them.
I caponized several batches of roosters in 2013 - wasn't too bad, considering I don't do well with blood (unless I'm processing, then I'm fine). Even when I made mistakes that I thought would be fatal, they pulled trough! But, the hardest part was actually being able to get the "sperm sack" out without breaking it. Because I had several break, I ended with mostly slips, even though most "seemed" to be like capons. When I later processed them, I found at least part of a sack left. There was one or two that were full capons, and they had more meat, plus a little fat on them - and that's with not feeding them a "broiler ration". I kept a few over the winter, as they were too young/small in the fall to process. Once they were 9+ months old, they started chasing hens, and later hatched chicks that looked to be the offspring of those "slips" ! They ended up going to a neighboring farm for "bug control", but they didn't lock up their coop at night & they got killed by predators.
Didn't have time to caponize any in 2014, due to moving. Haven't caponized any this year, but I have quite a few that I could "refresh my memory with".
I'd be willing to do a demo at Chickenstock, but I'd first want to practice again, and not sure if I'll have the time this week with all the other projects.
That thread is very helpful. I will bring my tools & am happy to show landmarks on a bird if someone has a 6-8wk cockrel they r bringing. I've only done only 10 birds so far and I did lose one on the table when he flopped at just the wrong time. I'm not as fast & efficient as I'd like to be.
If we are going to do demos we probably want to schedule them at certain times. I remember last year Baking tried to do one but there was never a set time, and it never happened because we weren't able to get everyone together. Honestly it felt like there ended up being no time for it, so if there are going to be demos we should probably schedule them in, like we do with the auction, so that we know they'll happen.
