The Old Folks Home

[ozexpat]

I can taste the bunny stew

 

[chickadoodles]

Good looking birds. I finally snapped a few pictures while doing the morning chores out in the yard. Haven't had much time to take pics lately as I've been trying to secure a job for the summer, and finally yesterday I got an offer and accepted it. But today is a holiday, and Karin is away somewhere in the middle parts of the country, competing with our older lab, so I did all the animal chores today and even remembered to grab my phone with me, so here goes.

First I emptied the compost, more on that in my compost thread soon. Just had to share this pic on how lovely the cooked stuff looks.


Then the cuter things.




Those bunnies are gaining size quite nicely. They're about 5 weeks old now, they were born around April 10th. They sure like to eat, we gather almost 2 gallons of fresh greens for them every day, and they go through about 3 cups of my own feed mix, plus they have free access to hay and get some carrots or apples every once in a while too.

Then the chicks. They weren't very cooperative photo models this time either, but here goes.














In the first and the last two pics you can see the chick that is pretty clearly a cockerel, but the rest seem to be girls. I'm not seeing a tuft forming on their heads yet though, so we might not be getting green eggs from these, but we'll see.

Nice job on composting.

Love your bunny's and chicks and their momma is also very pretty.

 

[chickadoodles]

SCG here is a side by side comparison of the Buckeye and Chantecler

Each every bit of 10#'s

 

[vehve]

Oz, they're starting to look like a protein source more and more each day, and not just something incredibly cute and fuzzy. Karin just mentioned the other day that she was sitting and watching the bunnies, thinking how we're ever going to slaughter them, when one of them turned it's butt against her and stretched it's leg a bit, and her first thought was "Mmm, roast...". After that she didn't worry anymore.

Chicka, thanks. Their biological mommy isn't featured in the pics, she's off working somewhere on her own. But the adopted mommies are starting to look decent again too, Emma has finally gotten her feathers back (the Sussex), and Wilma has been molting a bit too and is starting to look healthier. Eemeli even mounted her the other day, and she's starting to look more red again, so I think she may resume her egg laying duties soon. If my gender guesses are right, we should be up to overproduction by August again. If one of these birds decides to go broody this summer still, I think we might need to hatch out a few more chicks just to have enough birds to get through winter in case we lose a couple again, like last year.

 

[superchemicalgirl]

The three whit turkey are Sweetgrass they will all start getting their colors in and the last one is a Bourbon Red.

Great! The sweetgrass are very pretty. Figured the last was a BR.

SCG here is a side by side comparison of the Buckeye and Chantecler

Each every bit of 10#'s

Most excellent. I love how they look like game birds but don't act crazy like the games. I have a couple cornish that are giant spastic creatures. Every single one of the girls is broody right now, though.

Vehve, really nice looking compost. When you make a full report, link to it, please.

 

[vehve]

@superchemicalgirl have you missed the most happening thread of BYC, my hot composting thread? You're in for a treat, almost 100 pages on composting.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/900637/hot-composting-with-chicken-bedding-and-garden-waste

 

[superchemicalgirl]

Thanks for the link.

Hate to say this but after BYC moved to the new format I stopped looking for new threads. I'm only on this one due to invite. The only other thread I'm active on is Maine.

 

[vehve]

SCG, yeah, for some reason I'm not finding myself on all that many new threads anymore either, although I do stumble upon one every once in a while.

 

[Puddin Fluff]

vehve - Great pics! I just love the color of your adult birds. Will the chicks have the markings like that or are they from another line?

 

[vehve]

Puddin, the chicks are mutts, so it's a bit of a surprise. This is the parent stock. She's an olive egger Heinz 57, he's a SS.