Weight Statistics for RIR,BR,Ameraucanas

[jsmonasmith]

Well my birds have had an interesting couple of weeks. First my dogs got ahold of a chicken and had it entirely eaten before I went out to check on them in the morning(they finally seemed to be getting the idea that they would die if they chased my chickens, guess I was wrong). Then we bought a piglet to raise for pork, he is being kept in the same barn as the chickens but on the other side of a wall. Well the chickens just started roosting on top of that wall, and you have probably already guessed it, 2 of them fell over into the pigs side. When my wife went out she heard the still alive one squawking it's head off. She thought it was being actively eaten and rushed in to find it fine, but all that remained of the other was feathers, I guess it's not a total loss since it will be converted to bacon anyways, but not ideal. I really need to do something about all of my "pet predator" issues. The dogs are now confined to the back yard and I need to build a ceiling in my coop to keep them out of the rafters. On the bright side the chickens seem to be going through a growth spurt. I have no idea why, but they have just taken off. I will be slaughtering soon, so I will take live weights and processed weights. The only changes I can think of in feed are that I began feeding Purina Layena since I will be keeping a few layers, and I had a bag of white flour that got bugs in it. I fed the flour to them in their feed just to put it to use. I wonder if the flour, being made for human consumption, has more nutritional value than the chicken feed? I have some old wheat flour, I might feed that to them and see if they spike again. They are all getting nice large red wattles now, so hopefully they will start laying soon. Has anyone tried feeding their hens liver to boost or encourage egg laying? I ran across this idea somewhere and I have some deer liver which I can't stand, it'll either go to the chickens or the grateful dogs.

 

[jsmonasmith]

My Chickens are at 22 1/2 weeks now. I'm down another RIR and an EE now because my new piglet apparently likes fresh meat(live meat actually). I'm working on a Whizbang right now. I'm rigging one up with stuff around the house- 1.5 hp motor from old pool pump, free barrel from old business partner, thick sheet metal for plate from job site extras, and last but not least 1/4 inch air hose cut to length and twisted onto screws for plucking fingers(hopefully it works). I still need to come up with bearings and a shaft(I think I'm just going to use 1" steel pipe), and I'm going to run the shaft directly with the motor and put a dimmer switch inline to control speed of motor. For scalding I figured out that my hot water heater puts out 148 degree water when it's turned all the way up, no burners or fire for me, just hook up a hose to the outlet valve on the tank and run into a bucket, presto.

At 22 1/2 weeks the results are as follows-
RIR: Low weight-3 lbs 8 oz, High weight- 4 lbs 14 oz, Average weight- 4 lbs 1.5 oz =83.97%
BR: Low weight-3 lb 5 oz, High weight- 4 lbs 6 oz, Average weight-3 lbs 15.5 oz =81.41%
EE: Low weight-3 lbs 3 oz, High weight- 4 lbs 1 oz, Average weight- 3 lbs 12 oz =76.92%

I changed feed to "Farmers Best". Not the best feed really, but definitely the cheapest.