Raising chickens for a while, but not this many!

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TheRealDane

TheRealDane

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A year ago my family and I bought 5 acres in Grand Bay, AL and started homesteading it. We started with about a dozen black Australorps, a couple turkeys, and 4 mallard ducks as well as a handful of guineas.

That has grown to about 126 birds altogether.

47 chickens (35 hens <blacks, reds, barred rocks, leghorns,> 7 roosters, 5 new barnyard mixes)
19 adolescent Muscovy
4 Muscovy Ducklings
4 Mallard adults (2 Drakes 2 hens)
9 Mallard chicks
3 Adult Standard Bronze Turkeys (2 hens, 1 Tom)
12 Turkey chicks
5 Geese
8 Pekins
7 Guinea adults
8 Guinea chicks


That doesn't even cover the 2 Sows, 1 gilt, one boar, and on barrow in my hog pen as well as the 13 piglets just born a few days ago or the 3 Silver Fox Rabbits we have.

So, we have a farm going on in our back yard. What I want do now is to move towards hatching out my birds just like we've born our piglets.
 
Hi :welcome

Glad you could join the flock! Your flock as certainly grown from what you first started out. 5 acres sounds fantastic and I can understand why your flock has grown so much. I too would be just the same with that much land.

If you are thinking about hatching some eggs from your bitds this article is a must read > https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/hatching-eggs-101
It has lots of info on everything you need to know about incubating and hatching eggs. Wishing yiu the very best of luck with your growing flock and other animals. Be sure to ask any questions that you may have, everyone here to help and very friendly.

Enjoy BYC :frow
 
Welcome to BYC. Glad you decided join our flock. The rapid multiplication of your flock is not surprising. Very few BYC members are immune to "chicken math." :o) Please feel free to ask any questions you may have. We are here to help in any way we can. Good luck with your large flock.
 
welcome-byc.gif


Glad you decided to join.

Feel free to ask any questions you may have.

Sounds like you have a great selection of poultry!
 
Thank you all.
When it comes to the basics of keeping my chickens alive and healthy I've pretty much got that covered. When I've had them before it was always a small flock of about a dozen or so and we just kept them as pets and egg layers.
Now, I'm looking at doing it larger scale to feed the family as well as maybe sell backyard eggs and chicks and such in the community. Plus, there are all of the other benefits of chickens like manure and such.
So, I'm starting to explore bigger housing, incubators, fodder and fermented feeds, and all of that.

I started with about a dozen blacks, I think. Then, a few friends would drop off a bird or two when their kid decided it wasn't cute any more. Somehow, I don't even remember, I ended up with a Barred Rock rooster. A friend's wife was over the crowing so I ended up with his RIR. Then a couple months ago, a hatchery near Waynesboro, MS sold off its hens early because of a big early order for Mallards. So, I went up and bought 15 Prod. Reds so now the RIR rooster has girlfriends.

At that point, I had the Blacks, the RIRs, a BR rooster (no idea where he came from,) a Leghorn rooster (him either) and three other roosters of some breed... I have no idea.

Then I saw someone locally who was selling her 6 Barred Rocks so that gave me a 4th breed because with the Leghorn rooster were also 6 leghorn hens hat I don't remember where they came from either.

Well, back when I bought the blacks, I also picked up 4 mallards and two turkeys who turned out to be hens. The Mallards were 2 drakes and 2 hens.

My brother got his friend to hatch out some Mallard eggs so we have 12 mallard chicks in the brooder now.

I also bought guineas a year ago when I bought the blacks and I let them free range for insect control. When the guy incubated the mallard eggs, he also incubated some guinea eggs. So, we have 8 guineas in the brooder.

THEN... I had read about Muscovy ducks and I bought more 4 chicks at the feed store and two Pekins.

Well, within the next two weeks I had acquires 6 adult Pekins from two different people.

THEN... my daughter is an aide on a Special Needs school bus. She's 21 and pretty awesome.
She had a parent come out to get his son one afternoon and had Muscovy following him. She told him I had ducks. He asked her if I wanted any. She asked how many. He said, "All of them."

He lives on 3/4 acre and had two Muscovy hens and an drake. In less than a year he had 35 Muscovy, no grass and a horrible stench.
We went to get them, some of them hit the bayou but we got 19 Muscovy.
Muscovy can be vicious. They have toenails that can cut through chainmail.

Ohyeah... two days ago I finally found a Tom for my Turkeys so hopefully we'll have some more Turkeys soon.
A few weeks ago I bought 12 turkey chicks because I didn't want to be turleyless. Then I found the Tom. My hens are in season so I'm hoping and praying. Chicks and all, I have 15 Turkeys.

beyond that, we have 5 hogs, a castruated York, a female York, and 3 Large Blacks. I'll never do York again. I love the Large Blacks. My Black just gave birth a few days ago. Then my York gave birth 2 days later. I didn't intend for the York to get pregnant, but here we are.
So, that's 13 piglets and 5 hogs.

Oh yeah.... I also bought 5 geese and two Pekin ducklings before I bought the adult Pekins.

Today I got 3 ancient cast iron bathtubs to make duck ponds out of.

NOW..... I gotta find a way to grow my own bird food before my wife whoops me.

Plus... I've always had small flocks. I didn't consider the fact that keeping 126 birds healthy is a lot more than 13.

I want to learn to incubate (yes, believe it or not) and those sorts of things.
 

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