Oregon

[Suzierd]

Woot!  I am sure I will be a happy Grandma and bore you guys to death with all the pictures!  lol.

Looking forward to seeing them! Never boring

 

[Tammy N]

OK who all sells eggs Fertile eggs ?

I have Organic eggs and chickens , 3 tom turkeys and some Quail. But i am also wanting to use my Leahy and Darn it Patron is just 1 roo amongst 12 hens and i am gonna set him up with my 3 best hens next week .
But that wont be enough to fill the Leahy
4

Let me know and if anyone needs me to hatch something for them . my leahy holds 1000 eggs Tammy

I am wanting to buy Eggs if i can get them local with out shipping .

 

[StephieSky]

I am wanting to buy Eggs if i can get them local with out shipping .

Question for you - a bit off to the side but you seem to have a lot of experience hatching and raising chicks, etc.

How much more difficult is it do you think to successfully raise a chick from day two in comparison to adopting a hen who is already nearly mature?
Say a pullet that is 7 to 9 months compared to the days old chick? I have no experience with chickens other than the two I have and its been a rocky road so far. I do want to have a small flock of 7 to 9 hens and 1 roo next spring though if everything goes as planned. Selected for personality traits more than anything else. A roo that will have some protective instincts towards the girls and a mix of hens. Again, any breed or mutts is fine with me (as they'll be pets) and I'm just wanting nice chickens that know the meaning of flock harmony.

 

[bigboy70]

One of my Americana's has been in one of the nesting boxes for about 20mins and she is making this honking sound as well as panting a little bit, We just cleaned out the coop today and and put all new bedding and she has it all around her. The nesting box is pretty cool. Also the Rooster we have doesnt seem to want to leave her alone. Any help would be great

 

[Tammy N]

I have so many Older People in the 60-80s that i do just that for i raise chicks to 2-3 months and Sell them
Right now i have Austrolorps 6 months just started laying Fed Organic and 7 of them for sale,.


I also have Dark Brahmas My Main Breed i am working on chicks 8 weeks old many Pullets for sale Meat and egg Dual Purpose

I have Marans too many for me and about 12 out of 15 that hatched are Hens 7 weeks old dual meat but lay the darkest Eggs The eggs i got from Zanna here on BYC where the Darkest i had ever seen Beautiful and i am new the hatching with the Leahy incubator used to be 4h leader and now getting back into chickens rabbits Turkeys and Quail.

I grow my own organic food and my cats and dogs too.

Extra roos Other then this Amazing EE That is Blue i feed to myself and my animals

Tammy

 

[Tammy N]

Quote: The Brahma is the Most amazing Personality i have ever known in a Chicken . My roo Growls at preditors and snuggles in my arms like a baby. even my 4 yr old Niece can hold him .

 

[TurtlePowerTrav]

Quote:
Brahma's and Orpingtons are both VERY docile breeds. My wife was attacked by a rooster as a child and did not want a rooster when we got chickens. I did a lot of research and got down to these two breeds. I got a Splash Orp cockerel at 16 weeks old. He was so gentle and not aggressive. Good flock watcher too. He was on the huge size(13lbs) so I re-homed him to a larger flock. I now have 8-9 growing cockerels including Silkies, Olive Egger, Splash LR Wyandotte, Wheaten Marans. The Silkies I have for breeding, the others are flock protectors and a color project.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

How much more difficult is it do you think to successfully raise a chick from day two in comparison to adopting a hen who is already nearly mature?

I have so many Older People in the 60-80s that i do just that for i raise chicks to 2-3 months and Sell them

I think there is a reason someone can sell a pullet at Point of Lay for so much money. As much as I love chicks, I don't really love all the responsibility of brooding them. I'm now delegating that job to the hens, which means we'll have a lot of mutts as our next batch. This is SO MUCH easier, and I don't have to sacrifice any of the cute.

I had wanted to introduce a few more special breeds this spring, but except for slipping 5 Cuckoo Marans under a hen with a fresh hatch, I couldn't get the timing on that right and just didn't want to do the raising myself.

 

[Tammy N]

Quote: That High ? LMAO

40 bucks a Dozen 6 may hatch 2 or 3 of those are Roosters Food Organic for 2-3 months Hmmm That Much Not to mention Lights , water MY time .
WOW Maybe you dont appriciate it but why do people expect others to just Give them things Its a curse now adays . I also have to Incubate the eggs the incubator runs on electricity and was not cheap so Maybe saying That Much money i might make a dollar or 2 . So really Im not charging any more then a Hatchery,

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

That High ? LMAO

40 bucks a Dozen 6 may hatch 2 or 3 of those are Roosters Food Organic for 2-3 months Hmmm That Much Not to mention Lights , water MY time .
WOW Maybe you dont appriciate it but why do people expect others to just Give them things Its a curse now adays . I also have to Incubate the eggs the incubator runs on electricity and was not cheap so Maybe saying That Much money i might make a dollar or 2 . So really Im not charging any more then a Hatchery,

If you're making money on chickens I need to know your secrets.

I'm afraid to do the math to figure out how much money I'm losing on every dozen eggs I sell, and I'm not even using organic feeds. I'd love to use organic feeds, but just can't justify the extra expense with so many chickens. I can't do "certified organic" as the rest of the farm isn't certified, so wouldn't feel right about selling my eggs for what people who offer "organic" eggs are asking even though charging $6 to $8 per dozen is probably closer to what I'm paying for everything that goes into keeping chickens (excluding coop construction costs), and even then it wouldn't include labor.

I feel pretty good about offering farm fresh eggs to people for about what they'd pay for the "naturally nested" eggs from the grocery store as I really believe in everyone having access to food they can feel good about (and the eggs are delicious!). But it isn't sustainable so eventually I'm going to have to do some number crunching and get more real about my expenses and prices. There is only so much money I can spend on making myself "feel good."

If I only had a few chickens I'd be buying at least GMO-free feeds. It is what I had intended before I got started with chickens, but I bought way too many chicks at first (seriously, how do people just get a few chicks/breeds? ... I simply couldn't choose!) and had a lot of start-up expenses and also couldn't really believe my hens would ever lay. And it isn't ethical to raise chicks on standard feeds, then switch to organics/non-GMOs later and then tell the customers the hens are fed organic.

I've been working with a local feed supplier to see if we can come up with something a bit more non-gmo/organic and am learning a lot about the options. Like, with turkeys that need to be started on a high-protein diet it is very difficult to source a quality feed in any case, and even more difficult to source a non-GMO or organic feed because the protein sources don't test out to be as high-protein as they claim to be. Also, I was told "organic" soy protein is not sustainably farmed. Other protein sources introduce other issues. I tried really hard to start my turkeys on non-GMO feeds this year, but was advised against it ... the reasons why make sense to me as I've had all the conversations, but how do I explain that to the customers who can buy organic turkey at the grocery store and therefore want to get some from me for half the price of store-bought?