The road less traveled...back to good health! They have lice, mites, scale mites, worms, anemia, gl

[aoxa]

And that's what I'm looking for, beautiful blue eggs like yours! The EEs were a happenstance from another BYC member; had about 15 from one to three months old at a very nice price if I took the boys too. Some are EExEE, a couple EExblack australorp and some EEx lavender orpington. Several roos in there. I'll only keep a roo from a EExEE breeding and will cull out the girls as necessary. I'm afraid I was under the impression that EEs came into lay earlier, layed better and sometimes with bluer eggs than pure Ams. So I'll see how it goes. As each age group comes into lay I will try and tag the earliest layer of blue eggs and will consider those to be the ones to breed from. I have also thought about looking around to find some pure Ams that lay nice blue eggs but are show quality for my 4H kids, but think I'll hold off expanding for at least a year.

My EEs came into lay between 20 - 26 weeks old. Not too bad.

My EEs lay bluer eggs than my pure Ameraucana bantams, though not as good at the consistency. I have quite a few EE x BR and hope they will lay better because their father is from really good lines of layers.

Your EE x Black Australorp should be better than EE x EE for laying.

Though any blue laying EE crossed with a brown layer will only lay brown or green eggs. You'd loose the blue by doing that. If you want to cross them out to a higher producing breed, yet keep the blue - do it with leghorn. That should really improve the laying!

 

[aoxa]

I so wish we could do this here

Our minimum mill order is 2,000 pounds. Uh yeah.. where the heck would I store that amount of feed?!

The cost difference is $100, but the storing and the people I would need to unload and store it would not make the prices worth the trouble.

Also note that I purchase locally grown feed as well, but it is bagged first.

Well...I thought $300 was crazy but a TON IS REALLY CRAZY.  I'm blessed here, I see.

is it $300 dollars or 300 pounds? It's not really a dollar a pound is it?

 

[Leahs Mom]

is it $300 dollars or 300 pounds? It's not really a dollar a pound is it?

WHOOPS! I MEANT 300 LBS MINIMUM...NOT $300! I'll go back and fix that in the post!

 

[delisha]

I am involved in the hatch along on BYC. This is the first time I am trying to hatch shipped eggs. The man who sent me the eggs shows RIR's and AM's. I ordered the RIR and he threw in one show quality AM egg. One.blue egg and I hope it hatches.

 

[aoxa]

is it $300 dollars or 300 pounds? It's not really a dollar a pound is it?

WHOOPS!  I MEANT 300 LBS MINIMUM...NOT $300!  I'll go back and fix that in the post!

Thank God! That would be outragious

2,000 pounds costs $550. That is a lot for one go. Not to mention you'd need a forklift to get that giant feed bag (yes it comes in one feed bag!) off the back of the truck. Also would need a silo to store it, and that's another cost.. Not going to happen.

I have a friend who grows his own grains. He sells it for $10 a 50 pound bag. I can't remember what is in the feed, but he mixes it 50/50 with layer and feeds it that way.

 

[texasmomma]

Just wondering what you are feeding your chickens?

I feed soy and corn free. The first feed I got had corn in it, but I don't really want that either. I hate the wheat, too, because I am allergic to it and have to be careful to wash my hands, etc. after I feed the chickens. My younger girls like to "help" with the feeding as well, and so keeping them out of it isn't a joy either.

Anyway, I get my feed from Azure Standard. They are a co-op and the organic feed I have to choose from is Rogue, Blue Sky and the one I am currently using, Cascade/Magill Ranch. The two soy free have peas instead of soy. It took a while for mine to get used to the peas, but it's a lot better fermented. It is at least twice as expensive as the regular feed, but one reason that we are raising our own chickens is to have more affordable organic food.

There is another local company that also sells a soy free, but not corn free feed, but it's even more expensive than the shipped feed from Azure. I plan to stretch my feed with sprouts when I get that going, but that may take a little while longer.

 

[stonykill]

Soooo sorry Stonykill....I dread my first dead bird..... we all know it's coming one day.......

thanks. Far from my 1st.... still sucks. And I need to butcher my favorite drake after taking care of the girls

 

[Pullet Surprise]

thanks. Far from my 1st.... still sucks. And I need to butcher my favorite drake after taking care of the girls

Sorry

 

[Leahs Mom]

I also buy untreated sunflower seeds, and organic grains by the 50 lb bag. I sprout all the seeds/grains but only to the little tail stage and throw them on the ground when I feed them. They get some sprouts every week but not every day.

For this winter I've sprouted 2 times to the grass stage and put them out. They eat that over a couple day period of time. I've only done that 2 times and I will probably do that during the winter to add a little green to the diet.

So far I have NOT added the whole seed/grains to my FF. I always sprout those separate. They sit on my counter in the kitchen and they're no big deal to maintain. I'll have to stick a photo in sometime but for the "tail" sized sprouts I just soak them in a large salad-type bowl in a strainer sitting inside the bowl When I drain out the water, I stick a canning jar lid ring in the bottom of the bowl and put the strainer on top of it. Rinse 'em at least 1x/day, toss 'em up in the air from the strainer to turn them, then put it back in the bowl with the strainer sitting on the canning jar lid. These take about 2-3 days and they're ready to go.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Interesting volume note:
When I first started FF I noted that the 6 birds ate 50 LBS FOR THE MONTH OF OCTOBER an OUTRAGEOUS AMOUNT for 6 birds!

They were eating this even with the added sprouts.

Then, for November, they reduced their own intake to about 1/4 - 1/3 of a 50 lb bag for the whole month. I didn't do anything different - just gave them what they would eat and waited until any extra was gone.

I'm thinking they were getting ready for winter and self-regulated in November. Think that's good theory?