The Old Folks Home

[microchick]

Y'all are saying all this great stuff about ducks and I'm like sitting here with my eyes clamped shut, fingers in my ears going Lalalalalalalalalalalalalalal.........

Yeah, when I saw that scene on TV where the 'sexer' was sitting pulling chicks out of a brooder, turning their little bottoms up, check, if it was a pullet it went into another brooder. If it was a cockerel, he casually tossed the poor little thing over his shoulder by a leg into this big funnel with the voice over talking about the 'grinder'..... shudder. I let out a little strangled scream and told my husband that those innocent little cockerels had just struggled their way into the world and he....he... Poor husband just signed and said..no, you cannot adopt them all.

It was a pretty traumatic thing for a rooster lover to see.

Speaking of cull roosters. DH was standing looking at my 25 odd bantam cockerels I have and he absently said. You really need to cull some of these boys.....all the while he is biting off pieces of apple from one he is eating and sharing it with the hopeful little beaked faces that are watching him. I usually just say that I'm not hungry enough to eat one of my roosters but if I had to I could. He then points at one and asks me what his name is. "Indy" I'll respond. He will point to another. "C.C." I'll say. "Maybe this one?" he'll point out one near the fence. "Oh, no, not that one. That's Lord Percival! He's special!" By this point in time, DH is rolling his eyes and asking me why he is special. "He's a Pea comb!" I proclaim. "He's going to father lots of pea combed chicks for me so I don't have to worry about frost bite any more!"

At this point in time DH will remind me not to name them if I have to eat them but I have all of them named......He stops, shakes his head and retreats to the house without another word.

Smart man my husband.

 

[CapricornFarm]

It may be that they only feed them this while they are in those tight packed finishing feed lots CAFO's for only six to eight months.
I knew our condensed whey was going to a place for animal feed, I didn't know what for, I imagined probably for the protein added to dog food maybe?
I was shocked when the driver explained it. Like I said everything that's food, snack or candy, packaging, plastic, boxes, five gallon pails, gets shredded in a mixer, supposedly they filter out the plastic (I don't believe it), add our 40% solids condensed whey, mix it up, spread it on a drying floor, dry it out, bust it up and load it on trailers for beef feed. Mmm yummy.

That is reprehensible! And then they probably wonder why they get sick!

 

[microchick]

that is so very true now even those of us that do not abuse or get other meds from other Dr.s... or on the street I could just see it now me with my cane and dark glasses my BF beside me so I don't trip

I hear ya Penny.

I'm having to buy my RX pain medicine out of pocket because my insurance will only pay for 28 per month.

Ibuprofen is hard on your heart. Tylenol your liver and kidneys. Aspirin will eat a hole in your stomach. I told my doctor that if it would control my joint and back pain I'd strip nekkid, paint myself purple, stand on a hill, sling a dead chicken over my head and sing 'Yankee Doodle" at the top of my lungs. I had the chicken and a big bottle of blue coat that sorta looks purple when it gets on your skin so I was set.

He said he didn't think it would come to that. That's a shame. I was going to have DH film it and send it to my insurance company with a letter stating that having tried all NSAIDs available and resorting to VooDoo without proper pain control could I PLEASE have my Ultram now?

I doubt if it would have helped.

 

[CapricornFarm]

I

came back from my Doctors appointment needed to refill my pain med thought I was entering fort Knox it was awful like I was some gutter junkie he was really trying to get me to go to aleve ? tylenol? what take 8 at a time

It is crazy how they don't want to prescribe medications any more. Most otc meds barely handle a headache, they are not going to touch serious pain. Hugs

 

[CapricornFarm]

I hear ya Penny.

I'm having to buy my RX pain medicine out of pocket because my insurance will only pay for 28 per month.

Ibuprofen is hard on your heart. Tylenol your liver and kidneys. Aspirin will eat a hole in your stomach. I told my doctor that if it would control my joint and back pain I'd strip nekkid, paint myself purple, stand on a hill, sling a dead chicken over my head and sing 'Yankee Doodle" at the top of my lungs. I had the chicken and a big bottle of blue coat that sorta looks purple when it gets on your skin so I was set.

He said he didn't think it would come to that. That's a shame. I was going to have DH film it and send it to my insurance company with a letter stating that having tried all NSAIDs available and resorting to VooDoo without proper pain control could I PLEASE have my Ultram now?

I doubt if it would have helped.

Oh man, i can't tolerate Ultram! Makes the room spin and i write backwards! Not one i want to try again.

 

[chickadoodles]

I think if I had tame ducks that's what would happen. I would have all these huggable ducks! I also want turkeys SO bad. I love turkeys...always have. But I think I already know none of the darn things will ever make it into the oven. I'll end up hugging them all and making pets.

I picked up one of my cull roosters yesterday...I've never handled this fellow. He fell asleep in my arms. So I'm stuck with a dozen plus cull roosters that are goofy pets. I should be raising awful, wicked roosters so I don't have trouble getting rid of them.

Turkey are the only birds I did make any money on. I did raise 2 broad breasted that we ate. The rest I sold or sold the poult's or eggs. I only got what the hatcheries charged for my poult's. I did not charge a lot for any of the birds I sold really. Pretty reasonable compared to most. But the turkey I raised to sell or sell the poult's I handled and made them very friendly so people could handle them easily. I taught them to come when I wiggled my fingers and they loved getting their bellies rubbed! lol
To me they were more fun and very smart! I had one trained to ride my wagon and another to walk on with a harness.

 

[microchick]

Oh man, i can't tolerate Ultram! Makes the room spin and i write backwards! Not one i want to try again.

Tylenol 3 does that to me plus I dream in colors Crayola hasn't invented yet.

Ultram just makes the pain go away for me. Aspirin will take the edge off but I have to take 8-10 a day to get even a fraction of the relief the Ultram gives me. I finally had to cut back to 4 a day after I hemorrhaged from a laceration. I began to worry about what would happen if I fell hit my head and had an intracranial bleed.

 

[chickadoodles]

A duck statue!

That would be very bad.

 

[chickadoodles]

Penny I am so sorry they treated you that way.

It's the new laws and regulations. It's terrible for us that need pain meds.

 

[Beer can]

Turkey are the only birds I did make any money on. I did raise 2 broad breasted that we ate. The rest I sold or sold the poult's or eggs. I only got what the hatcheries charged for my poult's. I did not charge a lot for any of the birds I sold really. Pretty reasonable compared to most. But the turkey I raised to sell or sell the poult's I handled and made them very friendly so people could handle them easily. I taught them to come when I wiggled my fingers and they loved getting their bellies rubbed! lol
To me they were more fun and very smart! I had one trained to ride my wagon and another to walk on with a harness.

I think turkeys are much friendlier than chickens.
We raised the BB whites once. Toms were around 50lbs dressed. We should do it again, just cost so darn much for poults. I've thought about getting into breeding them and selling poults locally myself, but not sure if I would care much for doing all the 'work'.
I've often wondered how the growth rate would be with a heritage Holland white Tom over BB white hens, then I could just let them do their own 'thing'.
I don't like cornishX chickens, I'll eat them but don't like raising birds that look/act like they want to die before processing. But I have nothing against raising BB turkeys. They don't seem to have any health problems and get around just fine, just the Tom's get to big to hop up and get 'jiggy with it'
Guy I work with has a friend who lives near Philadelphia, she gets $80 each for them for thanksgiving , organic/free range, they pick them up and she doesn't even process them.