Washingtonians

[justbugged]

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This so explains what my problem is.

 

[justbugged]

The Freezer camp was very successful. Jess and Natalie made it here, and we had a quick bite of lunch. We then got busy and for the most part we had no problems with getting the birds processed. The kill part got left to me, but I believe that it sometimes takes a bit before we can wrap our minds around that part of chicken processing.


We will be finishing up our meat birds next weekend. I wasn't able to get the last 6 of the meaties done today. We got a total of 11 birds done in the 3 or 4 hours that we had today. Jess's boys were wonderful kids, and seemed to enjoy learning about the process. At least we didn't traumatize them for life. lol


So if anyone is interested in processing meat birds for the freezer, we are open to having another Freezer Camp 101 next Saturday or Sunday. Just PM me and I will send you the address and time. DH will be home this coming weekend, so the class should be better organized and faster paced.


The chicken plucker work very well, so we will be using it for the last 6 birds.

 

[SweetSilver]

Oh, Lordy, a plague on all these cockerels. No more straight-run until the girls are old enough to just let the neighbor dispatch some of them or something. I thought they understood that. Anyway back to that plague..... why aren't any more cockerels dropping off mysteriously????

**** teenage boys.

The girls agreed to let go of Fred and George, the Weasley twins. Both identical bantam Partridge Wyandottes (hatchery). Both very sweet, but I'd rather give away our current top-guy-bantam-cochin, but his coloring is rather dull, or our gorgeous little beardless ee cockerel, Mr. Green Jeans. I like the Wyandottes.

Anyhow, if anyone wants to relieve me kindly of some more of these boys, I would greatly appreciate it.

I hear crickets. Is that perhaps the beginning of the end of summer? Or the resounding silence in response to this request?

ETA: guess I can't write "****" either. Crap!!!!

ETAM (Edited To Add More): Maybe "crap" comes with the territory. (More crickets. ****!)

 

[KMoran]

Hi guys just stopping in to see how everyone was doing. I hope all is well with everyone. Very busy on my end. My kids were really sick for about 6-8 weeks and when they finally got better I started getting really sick well low and behold baby # 4 is due Feb 4th.

Morning sickness is a killer tho... UGH... On the chicken end most of my girls are laying and were getting 6-8 eggs a day. YAY... My hubby butchered 5 of our broilers today... And I have to say Red Broilers are a lot different the Cornish Crosses. I am not sure how I like the yellow skin... kinda seems icky to me.. LOL... Anyway I am over 800 post behind so I hope all is well with everyone. Hello to all the newbies and I hope everyone is enjoying their summer.

 

[FirewifeJess]

Hi guys just stopping in to see how everyone was doing. I hope all is well with everyone. Very busy on my end. My kids were really sick for about 6-8 weeks and when they finally got better I started getting really sick well low and behold baby # 4 is due Feb 4th.

Morning sickness is a killer tho... UGH... On the chicken end most of my girls are laying and were getting 6-8 eggs a day. YAY... My hubby butchered 5 of our broilers today... And I have to say Red Broilers are a lot different the Cornish Crosses. I am not sure how I like the yellow skin... kinda seems icky to me.. LOL... Anyway I am over 800 post behind so I hope all is well with everyone. Hello to all the newbies and I hope everyone is enjoying their summer.

Only thing I remember from reading back is this, congrats!!!!!!!!

Freezer camp was good. Yes, I chickened out on the killing; my stomach flopped and I almost threw up watching the first one. That's a city girl for you I guess. I think I did a darn good job processing though, got pretty good toward the end! I did 5 birds, including the 3 I brought. Let me tell you, Buff Orps are very, very tough skinned, strong, and hard to process! Doh! Talk more later, DH is outside burning and I want to go visit with him.

 

[TerrorBird]

Does having a rooster make your hens more distant? I once had an Appenzeller rooster who was a very high-strung yet charming fellow. He would notice that I was visiting my girls and do his very best to draw them away from me (he'd pretend he found a treat). Is this something that all roosters do, or is it just an issue with the high-strung guys? We had to get rid of him because my hens just followed him around all the time.

 

[RaZ]

That is so true. I remember one of my professor told us to question everything we were ever told. "Trust no-one" he said. So I don't. I'm not sure I even trust me half the time.

"Lies, **** lies, statistics". It can prove anything.

So, the number of backyard suburban chickens raisers has more than doubled in the past year. Insanity in suburbia has more than doubled in the past year. So, does raising backyard chickens in suburbia cause insanity, or does insanity cause people to raise backyard chickens in suburbia?

We'll never know!

My stats prof is one of the best in the country. He says that anything can be correlated to something else if you throw enough numbers at it. So suburbia chicken insanity is directly related to hemlines of skirts in Chicago. Or so I'm told.

Freezer camp was good. Yes, I chickened out on the killing; my stomach flopped and I almost threw up watching the first one. That's a city girl for you I guess. I think I did a darn good job processing though, got pretty good toward the end! I did 5 birds, including the 3 I brought. Let me tell you, Buff Orps are very, very tough skinned, strong, and hard to process! Doh! Talk more later, DH is outside burning and I want to go visit with him.

Congratulations.
I would like to learn how to process my own birds. I had 2 young roosters that needed to go to freezer camp, but there was no one nearby to show me how to do it on my own. They went to a commercial processor and state regulations prevented me from seeing (learning) how it is done. Given some more time, I'm sure that someone could have trained me on the proper techniques.

 

[nikki1]

WOO-HOO!!! First egg tonight! And my sweet little pullet even left it in the nest box, despite being out free ranging. What a good girl! I don't know who left it, so all the girls got an extra handful of mealworms.

Yea, chickens!

--Nikki

 

[Hinotori]

I haven't had that issue with any of mine, but other than the roosters not wanting me to pick them up, they all would come up and take treats themselves and tell the hens when I stepped outside "here she comes! she might have treats!" I've only had silkie and silkie/EE cross roosters, though.

If this 14 week old ameraucana cockerel stays like he is, I will either never have another breed, or get sick of the lovey doviness. He likes to come up and gently peck my leg and beg me to pick him up. He's so happy just sitting on my leg watching the world go by while I pet him. We'll see what happens when he discovers girls.

 

[KMHunter]

Does having a rooster make your hens more distant? I once had an Appenzeller rooster who was a very high-strung yet charming fellow. He would notice that I was visiting my girls and do his very best to draw them away from me (he'd pretend he found a treat). Is this something that all roosters do, or is it just an issue with the high-strung guys? We had to get rid of him because my hens just followed him around all the time.

I experienced something very similar last year when I had a rooster. It changed from the girls running to me to kind of making their way to me if the rooster wasn't telling them to come back. And I felt I had to watch him watching me.He was nice, but stand offish and scared of me. I don't have that rooster anymore. I do have another cockerel now and I am interested in seeing how things change this time.
He is a Salmon Fav and so I am expecting a little nicer, calmer experience. We shall see.