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I'm planning on picking up a few more girls next month. I just got my first EE and Black Star and they are giving me an egg a day, well almost every day, love it! I was hoping to find a couple of BR and maybe a BO or two. I am really not set up to raise from peeps so I am hoping to find some around a year or less. Any help out there?
 
There's not many businesses, large or small, that sell POL (point of lay) pullets of various breeds like that. The only place I know of sells only red sex links, and they have their beaks so badly mangled to prevent feather picking that they are useless (IMO) for backyard chicken keepers.

I am planning to raise up some chicks this summer and try selling them near POL. Last year I sold some as a favor to friends for $15 - 20, and I'm pretty sure we made nothing on those. This year I expect to charge $25 - 30 per hen. If we end up keeping them, we can make that off their eggs in a few months anyway, so I won't be selling them cheap. I've had many people asking if I have half-grown pullets to sell, I don't know it they will still be looking when I have them or not. I'll be raising the breeds I want to breed from next year anyway, and essentially be selling the culls/extras.

The other way is to watch Craiglist and Pennwoods and jump on any deals for hens. You won't likely get the breeds you want, they might be older than advertised (are you sure you can tell their age) and no longer laying well, and them might even have a disease that could infect your existing birds, but they will be cheap.

You really should raise them from chicks, it's not hard, most would argue it's the most fun part, especially if you have kids (or grandkids). With chicks, you can get the breeds you want and you can raise them to be people friendly.
 
AnneInTheBurbs said:
Agreed a nice fodder system would be great. I'm not sick of white, just sick of the terrible cold.
I'm glad I'm not the only one. I'm scared to open my coop this morning. Next year I will definitely have a better run set up for them as well. Newbie mistakes!
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I did learn that chicken math thing pretty quick though.
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I just had a conversation with hubs about our options with the extreme cold... We had tracks coming up from the woods to our coop this morning, turned out to be 2 sets of tracks that converged - deer from the woods and probably stray cat that walked around the chicken run. I went out to investigate when I replaced the chickens frozen water this morning (they HAVE learned to eat snow for water when the water in their coop is frozen!) and noticed Romeo's comb is looking more frostbitten
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Turns out the black schmutz on it last week was just some kind of schmutz as it mostly came off in the last few days, but now the skin of his comb is definitely gray-ish... not just on the tips, but down farther on his comb. I feel terrible, but even on these ridiculous cold days he and the girls have been outside, it doesn't seem to bother him at all. Hubs and I talked about putting a light out there for tonight, but he is opposed to anything electrical for fear of fire. I am going to untangle the rope for the run door so I can at least close that overnight and I secured the tarp around the back of the coop so that it was tighter and can seal up the drafts better. We are going to add more bedding tonight too, I'm not sure what else we can do. I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who is worried about their chickens in this cold... I was feeling like a bad chicken mama.

So, everything that is black/gray on his comb is going to atrophy and fall off? Poor boy, he was so handsome. I should have made him a chicken hat, I wonder if he'd actually wear it? LOL
 
bobrut said:
I'm planning on picking up a few more girls next month. I just got my first EE and Black Star and they are giving me an egg a day, well almost every day, love it! I was hoping to find a couple of BR and maybe a BO or two. I am really not set up to raise from peeps so I am hoping to find some around a year or less. Any help out there?
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I have several girls who are near their POL. 3 are olive eggers (should be anyway) and 2 are SLW/Marans. I was planning to sell them after they start to lay (I want to see their egg colors lol). They just don't fit into my breeding plans and it looks like the extention that we wanted to build to the coop this year is going to have to wait since our old house (we rent to my cousin) has decided that it can't wait one more year to have a new roof :(
 
I'm so disappointed. We drove down to get a few gallons of raw milk at the farmers market today and found out that they're out of milk until sometime in march :( I know they have to dry them up until after they calf but I'm going to pout about it anyway :/

in chicken news, I set another 7 Marans eggs today ;) my incubator is getting full again lol
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Now how about some pictures of 3 week old babies :)
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This is my Rhodebar pair. Rosco, the rascal and Cleo.

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my friendly little welsummer (I think he's a roo :( )

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shy little CCL. I'm thinking of naming her Sky

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the Ameraucanas with Cleo in the background. She wanted to be in the picture too. She hitched a ride on my arm while I was getting the others out lol

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And a few of the Marans. I wasn't going to get them all out. They're the most stand offish in the brooder. I'm seeing a lot of bigger combs in them. It's looking so far that at least 6 may be boys but maybe more.

I'm hoping the weather breaks soon. At least the temperatures. These guys are very much outgrowing their brooder in here. I want to move them to the big garage brooder but I don't think the heat lamp can heat that spot warm enough yet.

Ok. I'm done thread hogging ;)
 
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Auroradream26 said:
I'm hoping the weather breaks soon. At least the temperatures. These guys are very much outgrowing their brooder in here. I want to move them to the big garage brooder but I don't think the heat lamp can heat that spot warm enough yet.

Ok. I'm done thread hogging
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Love it! That's a nice little flock from the box of eggs I sent off what seems like ages ago.
 
Bettacreek said:
I know this doesn't help you NOW, but you can freeze milk. I have stores of sheep milk in the freezer to hopefully hold me over until I can milk again.
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YES! We freeze milk all the time. We actually buy 10 gallons at a time from our favorite farm when we come home to visit, freeze it in my step-dads deep freezer and then drive it home. It's so nice to be able to go grab a frozen gallon of milk whenever we are getting low. The first few months of the year are rough because we don't make many trips back home and end up running out of frozen raw milk (like right now) and have to keep up with buying it from the store.
 

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