City - I'm headed home. After I get everyone fed I'll take some pictures. I hope there will be a few more babies in the hatcher.
Soldier Fly Info., neat. An old farmer at a sale told me about his low-tech approach to upping the protein for his birds. He puts pieces of whatever his hounds kill into 5 gallon buckets and suspends the buckets inside his pens. Holes about the size of a quarter need to be drilled in the bottom of each bucket before putting "parts" in. Flies do their thing, maggots grow, and gravity pulls them out the holes and onto the pen floors, where the chickens go crazy. The old guys claimed it reduced his fly problems because most of the breeding occurred where the maggots would be consumed as soon as they could move around. He claimed the smell was easy to get used to, and he also said it reduced his feed bill substantially. I'm not sure about the smell part,
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They do, and they are. Just something about their carriage, very majestic. They are typically laid back, easy in the hands. Very easy to tame down too when you bribe them with treats.
They (the standard sized ones) are around a pound to 2 pounds under on the males and about a pound under on the females. Standard requires 6 lbs cock, 4 lbs hen.
They (the standard sized ones) are around a pound to 2 pounds under on the males and about a pound under on the females. Standard requires 6 lbs cock, 4 lbs hen.
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Has she ever laid an egg before? Sometimes they do that at first when they're just coming into lay.
When my hens go broody, they let me know by screeching their fool heads off at me when I reach in the next box. They may also peck at you, and fluff all their feathers up to look big and scary.