***OKIES in the BYC III ***

[Kassaundra]

I'm ready to try it with a pellet gun. I hated doing it with a knife. I looked on amazon for pellet gun and OMG it's crazy! You can get exact replicas of famous firearms. Nuts. Do you have a pistol type? how do you restrain the bird?

I have the rifle type, I didnt' think the pistols had enough velocity. Mine was 100 dollars at wally world and has 2 diff barrels a .17 and a .22.

I secure in a home made type killing cone that sits low to the ground for aiming.

 

[lonnyandrinda]

Iced in here, no power. Incubator is a loss. Someday I will have a generator. ...

 

[TaraBellaBirds]

Woke up this morning to the ice - sure looks pretty on the red berries - will have to try to get pics! We've lost a few large branches - but so far, no fence damage - thank goodness! Too much rain has flooded the lavender silkie coop - so the young roo is in with the paint silkies (who have managed to stay quite a bit dryer). The larger porc roo, lave and black hen are now in the garage until they get dry - then they will go into a front porch kennel until their pen dries out.
Speaking of the garage - somehow - it opened at some point last night. I have about 1500 gallons of water in there - so I think that helped keep the temp from dropping too far - but it was in the lower 50's. The silkie chicks are in the garage as is the incubator. The chicks were ok, but in a pile... the eggs - the incubator temp dropped to 93. Hopefully it wasn't for that long - and we are only 3 days into the incubation - so hopefully we can recover. Got the temp back up within the hour using hot water and some supplemental heat to the garage. Now if the trees (and our fence!!!)l and our power, can survive the rest of this ice!

Artsyrobin and Nanakat, sorry to hear of your losses - they both sounded and looked like some amazing hens.

Yes, love to see pics. We are expecting snow fall and had a bit of freezing rain but not like OK!

 

[TaraBellaBirds]

I have the rifle type, I didnt' think the pistols had enough velocity. Mine was 100 dollars at wally world and has 2 diff barrels a .17 and a .22.

I secure in a home made type killing cone that sits low to the ground for aiming.

I never thought of using a gun. We use a cone and just slit throat, it sounds brutal but the birds barely move. They are already fairly comatose from being upside down and the cone controls the final twitches. My DH might be more into using a gun, he isn't crazy about blood and the gutting parts (that is all me

). My father using a small hatchet and that was far to brutal for my taste and I about lost it when it didn't happen on the first blow

Where do you aim?

 

[Kassaundra]

I never thought of using a gun. We use a cone and just slit throat, it sounds brutal but the birds barely move. They are already fairly comatose from being upside down and the cone controls the final twitches. My DH might be more into using a gun, he isn't crazy about blood and the gutting parts (that is all me

). My father using a small hatchet and that was far to brutal for my taste and I about lost it when it didn't happen on the first blow

Where do you aim?

back of the head base of comb pointing to the beak. I restrain and put upside down in killing cone type fashion and shoot point blank. Mine are never that docile hanging upside down, they are still alert and looking around. I really dind't like the hands on part of slicing, and found it harder to get a deep enough cut, and feeling them swallow when I held the head to make the slice.

 

[Ksane]

Iced in here, no power. Incubator is a loss. Someday I will have a generator. ...

Wrap it in towels and say a prayer. We've got one of those huge whole house generators when the power went out this morning it came on but the transfer switch isn't working so no power came on in the house. Thankfully og&e had the power back on within an hour. My husband's out there now working on it.
I will NEVER hatch in the fall again. Not 50 chicks in 6 hatches anyway :-/ I've got 6 wk old Silkie babies in the RV (toasty warm though!) 2 mo old babies on the enclosed deck with a heater and heat lamp and 3 mo old babies in a 10x10 kennel with a big wooden doghouse with a heat lamp triple secured in it. Never again in the fall lol

 

[TaraBellaBirds]

Beautiful - and so round....they remind me of the yeast rolls from Golden Corral!

Or the cheddar biscuits from Red Lobster

 

[bardies]

now i'm getting hungry!





head roo in the background with hen- barred rocks - in a not so icy spot

 

[mjgigax]

oh, by the way i forgot to ask how old are they?  yes, they are so cute and sweet 

They are just over 1 year. They will start laying again in Feb. and lay 4 to 5 little eggs a week

 

[mjgigax]

...

Iced in here, no power. Incubator is a loss. Someday I will have a generator. ...[/quote Bummer!