Texas

[lovingmyhens]

I finally sold most of my roosters! After some cautious perusing through Craigslist and Facebook (I just couldn't make myself post an ad to sell them on a site I wasn't sure about), I found a Facebook group. I wasn't looking to get rich or anything, but I needed money to fill up the feed canister and web design freelancing pays when the job is all done.

Well, I posted about a week ago about wanting to sell the worst of my roosters (keep in mind that I've been trying to sell them for ages!). Yesterday, I got the first response that wasn't "Do you have any laying hens?"

The guy bought all five roosters! He has upwards of 60 hens and his only rooster was getting old. His set up was good, he had a huge pond with geese and ducks, he had goats and a great pyrenees.

I gave him a pretty good deal of 5 roosters for $25 because the boys were making my hens anxious. It'll buy enough feed to last about 3 weeks (or longer because those roosters were eating loads!). Now, I have 3 that I definitely want to keep and 3 I need to process. I can't wait to check out the atmosphere tomorrow. I was getting tired of seeing so much mounting going on.

Let us know what it's like today!! So glad you were able to get them to a place they will be happy.

 

[granthamkk]

I’ll need to get out tomorrow and take a photo with everything cleaned up. I wasn’t able to get one today. The garage looks better now too. I’m going to paint it to match the brick. I can have them color match my brick. I found one in the yard from when the house was built. Forty-six years after the house was built I found a left over brick. What are the odds?​

Looks great and so glad you found the brick! I've always wanted to color match something, just never had a need.

 

[gameandmore]

I am new to this so i dont know the best sites but someone in a gardening thread recommended rareseeds.com. I went on their site and order a free catalog last week and am waiting for it to come in.

Thanks I just ordered mine

 

[henless]

I am new to this so i dont know the best sites but someone in a gardening thread recommended rareseeds.com. I went on their site and order a free catalog last week and am waiting for it to come in.

I got my catalog from them last week. Loads of heirloom seeds and great pictures. I'm trying to decided which ones I want.

Good Morning Fellow Texans!

I see where some of you are wondering what you can plant this time of the year. I found a really neat site that will e-mail you every month and tell you what can be planted for your climate zone.
Check it out:

http://www.gardenate.com/

Lisa

Thanks for the link! This will be very helpful once I get my raised beds up.


Morning fellow Texans. Cold this morning. Yesterday was so nice up in the 70's. Have a great day all!

 

[LBejaran]

Let us know what it's like today!! So glad you were able to get them to a place they will be happy.

It's so calm. I still have several roosters (about 8). The ones I'm keeping are an Easter Egger, a half-blind Australorp, a mutt who I'm keeping more as a pet, Rizzo the Frizzle, and possibly a giant Brahma rooster (but I'm not sure yet because I have two grey Brahmas that just don't have any distinguishing rooster features).

The last three roosters (all mutts) don't know what to do. The hens are running the place again, so I don't even care. I might try and sell them later, but it's likely that they'll stick around until I set up a processing area.

I might sell Rizzo, though, if someone locally has some cochins they want to breed. I was gonna breed him with Mama, my little partridge Cochin, but she's still depressed from when she lost her chicks last year. I'm not sure that she'll lay anymore eggs for us, but Dad loves her way too much to let me sell her. But if she perks up and goes broody this year, I will try and get her some quail eggs to hatch! That would be interesting!

 

[showbarnmom]

That's a lot of good food.  Do you ration it out or is it free choice?   Are your birds too fat?   That can effect laying.  How old are they?  I am getting eggs from most of my (nearly) 6 month olds and my old ladies (5 years old) are laying too...that is, the ones that do still lay.

I leave out the layer crumble free choice in their run. They go through about 5lbs a week. Maybe 5 days at fastest. The rest I feed measured amounts each morning while feeding the horses. Some of the birds are "well loved" but none are overly fat. I can still feel everything without much pressure.

My youngest that's laying is about 8 months and the oldest is about 3 years. Most are show rejects from breeders, about 30% came from people who started with hatchery stock and bred out from there.

Everyone molted nicely, and it's been fair here for a week.
(Sorry for the total post and run yesterday)

 

[txnative]

Thanks, TexasLisa, for the link! I've been a failure at planting gardens the last 2 years, so maybe the emails from that site will help me actually get something to grow this year!

 

[TammyTX]

I leave out the layer crumble free choice in their run. They go through about 5lbs a week. Maybe 5 days at fastest. The rest I feed measured amounts each morning while feeding the horses. Some of the birds are "well loved" but none are overly fat. I can still feel everything without much pressure.

My youngest that's laying is about 8 months and the oldest is about 3 years. Most are show rejects from breeders, about 30% came from people who started with hatchery stock and bred out from there.

Everyone molted nicely, and it's been fair here for a week.
(Sorry for the total post and run yesterday)

Is the coop in deep shade? I thought maybe they haven't been exposed to the extra minutes of sunlight since time change....

Do they have calcium (oyster shell) free choice? ...or do you crumble up their dried egg shells to feed back to them?

I'm stumped after that.

 

[bnjrob]

I just took a chicken to the farm vet my dog/cat vet recommended. It didn't cost much. I think the office visit was $33.50. If the chicken is important to you, you might consider it.

That's about what an office visit usually is, I think my husband's employer has their office visit set at $35. My husband has had people ask if he will see chickens, but so far no one has actually brought any chickens in to see him. He does see quite a few other kinds of birds though - three "parrot" type birds in one day last week.

 

[bnjrob]

Good Morning Fellow Texans!

I see where some of you are wondering what you can plant this time of the year. I found a really neat site that will e-mail you every month and tell you what can be planted for your climate zone.
Check it out:

http://www.gardenate.com/

Lisa

If you grow under plastic, you can grow just about anything this time of year. I actually had to go buy some new seedlings of spinach, kale, and broccoli - the bunnies have been eating mine that I planted in November. I worked the garden yesterday with the nice weather, and opened up the hoops to find something had made a "bed" in the dirt - right next to one of the water-filled milk jugs that I painted black and put into the garden for nighttime heat release. And of course the kale closest to the jug was pretty much decimated like they just snuggled in and snacked all night.