The Moonshiner's Leghorns

[ColtHandorf]

I wasn't getting notifications!

But do you? Do you really?View attachment 2840377

I love this gif.

No.
Do you understand what lurking is?
I feel Ron White said it best for you....
View attachment 2840815

F words.

HOW DARE MY NOTIFICATIONS TAKE A DAY?
THIS CALLS FOR BLADES.

Hoping that actively commenting means I'll get notifications again. If not, I'll join arms with you. This is ridiculous.

It's Mother Nature keeping me in check.

Perhaps they are friends?

I have a chick house and they've still overflowed into the barn and my garage.
I'm about to put plastic down in the spare bedroom.

Me waiting for someone's response...

Replace the trash with chickens.

It was everything I'd hoped it would be.

I collect and hold my eggs in 30 egg plastic flats and set every 6 days ideally. I turn them when I can. I try to three times a day every 8 hours but sometimes I end up only doing it once or twice a day.

Have you thought about prowling the Facebook and the Craigslist for people getting rid of the Little Giant egg turners? I keep some on baker's racks in the laundry room and that's what my eggs stay in. They get automatically turned while they are stored.

 

[Painted Calls]

View attachment 2843661
I wasn't getting notifications!
View attachment 2843663

I love this gif.

View attachment 2843665

View attachment 2843666

Hoping that actively commenting means I'll get notifications again. If not, I'll join arms with you. This is ridiculous.

View attachment 2843675 Perhaps they are friends?

Me waiting for someone's response...

It was everything I'd hoped it would be.

Have you thought about prowling the Facebook and the Craigslist for people getting rid of the Little Giant egg turners? I keep some on baker's racks in the laundry room and that's what my eggs stay in. They get automatically turned while they are stored.

Ugh the Fantasia pegasus!!!

 

[ColtHandorf]

Ugh the Fantasia pegasus!!!

Best part of Fantasia was Beethoven's Pastorale. The dinosaur number was pretty cool too. But his face perfectly summed up my feelings about notifications.

 

[Painted Calls]

View attachment 2843714
Best part of Fantasia was Beethoven's Pastorale. The dinosaur number was pretty cool too. But his face perfectly summed up my feelings about notifications.

Yes!!

 

[The Moonshiner]

I keep chicks anywhere from 3 weeks to 6 months. Some can be culled at hatch based on color and other physical traits such as comb type. When they are very close to desired traits, I keep them longer until I can tell for sure just how close they come to the desired feather and body traits. AI cull hens that lay brown eggs. I culled one hen that had excellent feather color with nice silver laced traits, but she had a leghorn tail.

I use 50 to 70 gallon tubs as brooders usually with 30 to 50 chicks per tub with a heat bulb and water and feed. I put the waterer up on a block of wood so the chicks are less likely to get in and drown or otherwise muck up. Chicks stay in the basement in the brooder until they are about 3 weeks old at which point I have an outside building with a chick cage that can hold up to 150 chicks with a couple of heat bulbs.

When chicks are 6 to 7 weeks old, they go out free range but with a closed room for nights. I keep feed in front of them at all times.

Another thing to know about is feed effects on hatchability. Higher protein feed can improve hatchability up to a point but it has negative long term effects on the hens. It is best to feed high protein as long as the hens are laying and drop back to lower protein feed when they stop laying.

So from 1 to 3 weeks they're in 50-70 gallon tubs.....
What are those? Like Rubbermaid totes, plastic stock tanks, or? How many do you normally use?
From 3 to 6 or 7 weeks they go in the chick pen.....
How big is it?
After that they free range with night time lockup....
Do you not lose many to predators?
What % of protein do you prefer for when laying and when not? What about the chicks? What protein % do you use for them?

 

[Sapphire Sebright]

I agree, but you seriously underestimate how difficult it is to even get a single pic from him. An whole video is going to be torture. If I ever make it there I'll just film him constantly. We'll make like a mini documentary style video.

I can come down with some scalpels to... help... encourage...?

 

[Miami Leghorn]

9

We'll make like a mini documentary style video

A lot of channels start out with a walkthrough and then little by little start releasing the details of what was seen in the original video.
A trailer so to speak.

 

[Painted Calls]

9


A lot of channels start out with a walkthrough and then little by little start releasing the details of what was seen in the original video.
A trailer so to speak.

I hear you.

 

[DarJones]

They are rubbermaid for the most part though I have a couple of heavy duty tubs that were given to me and don't have a brand name stamped on them. These are from Walmart. I think 2 of them are 100 gallon, 2 70 gallon, 2 50 gallon, and I have 1 30 gallon that I use for small hatches.

The chicken pen is 3 ft by 8 ft by 3 feet high with a door that opens in the middle so I can reach to either end. It is 1/2 inch galvanized wire mesh with a wooden framework. I can put up to 150 chicks in it at a time so long as they are no larger than a 3 week chick. I start pulling out the larger chicks around 6 weeks. It is very important to have 2 or more heat bulbs with this setup as the chicks will pile up which can kill them. With multiple bulbs, they spread out.

There have been few problems with predators. I lost a couple to a fox and a couple of young chickens were taken by a hawk so far this year. I can ignore losses of 4 birds.

I feed 27% to chicks (chickens only, turkeys get 30%) and 22% to hens that are not laying. When they are laying, I feed all they can eat whole kernel corn along with 30% feed as much as they want. I could increase chick growth rate a bit with higher protein feed, but it can be counterproductive with large fowl chickens. They can grow faster than I like which affects their body shape and feather colors. For laying chickens, the common 22% feed is not good enough IMO.

I bred a high protein corn a few years ago that I love to feed to my chickens when I have it. I put 5 gallons of corn in a bucket and fill it with water. Two days later I pour it out for the chickens. The chickens gobble it up like candy. This corn is high enough protein that free range chickens increase egg production about 10% as compared to 22% commercial chicken feed. The reason is that my corn has much more natural methionine than any commercially available hybrid corn.

 

[ColtHandorf]

A trailer so to speak.

Like this...

Only better.