- Apr 1, 2012
- 1,135
- 18
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GOT A STORY FOR YOU
my husband's oldest son called yesterday to give dad a head count on how many sons/grandsons would be coming up for the hunting opener. They all live south of us, between just north of Milwaukee to just southwest of Lannon. Anyway, then he asked to talk with me (aka chicken lady). First off, some background. He and his wife (both never had chickens or any livestock nor family had ever) decided they wanted chickens. Why? Not really sure except wife is convinced the country is going to collapse so maybe that was the motivation. Also, I guess they have a neighbor down the road (they live in a sort of country subdivision) that raises organic chickens for sale and thought it looked easy. So, hubby did a nice job of converting his ice shanty into a coop (he's a very handy carpenter) tho his design could have had some tweeking, and a nice high fence run into which they place one of those fisher Price slides left over from? for the chickens to play on. In the meantime they had purchased a dozen streight run chicks from their local feedmill and were brooding them in their basement (nice little setup). One was straddle legged from them using newspapers without litter (didn't mention to them that was a no no when I found out-why make them feel bad when it was too late anyway) and unfortunately didn't contact me in time to tell them it was "fixable" and how so that one eventually died. (insert rolling eyes here). So now they have 11 that turned out to be 8 roos and 3 hens!
Did I mention these are Black Stars most likely from sunnyside ? Did you also catch that he built A (singular) run? Told him back when he discovered the "ratio" that he should split his run and separate them (didn't). He said he was going to butcher the roos at the end of summer (also didn't, but in his defense he had his "patch" on the roof at end of summer turn into having to rip off the entire center, including replacing all underlayment and the support beam because the skylight over the kitchen located in the center of the house had been apparently leaking for a long time and went unnoticed until major damage had been done and they have been basically living in the basement til the upstairs renovations are finished).
Anyway, he wanted to know why they weren't getting any eggs yet (these chooks are now 5+months old). First I asked if he still had any roos. He said he still had all of them because he hadn't gotten around to butchering any yet. He also added that his 3 hens wouldn't come out of the coop. I took a very deep breath and said quietly, "YOU THINK? You're running a POULTRY HOUSE OF PROSTITUTION!!!! Those 3 poor little girls are scared to death!!!!
After he finally quit laughing,
, I calmly explained to him that at least 7 of those guys needs to go to freezer camp and he needed to get light, explaining why, and possibly night heat because of the size and structure of coop combined with only (hopefully soon) 3-4 birds in it, if he wanted eggs and still, mostly because of the trauma and stress these poor girls have been thru, would probably not get eggs now til spring. He will be up here in a couple weeks and I think I will send him home with one of my good chicken books (probably the one called "Raising Chickens for Dummies"-actual title- hehehe, I got used off Ebay) and hopefully one of them will read it. I also hope I get the chance to sit down and talk with him about what he's feeding, etc. to get them streightened out BEFORE they get more chicks in the spring (which they plan to do).
......vickistillsmilingandshakingherheadandwonderinghowshemanagedtomarryintosuchafamilyofcityfolks..........
my husband's oldest son called yesterday to give dad a head count on how many sons/grandsons would be coming up for the hunting opener. They all live south of us, between just north of Milwaukee to just southwest of Lannon. Anyway, then he asked to talk with me (aka chicken lady). First off, some background. He and his wife (both never had chickens or any livestock nor family had ever) decided they wanted chickens. Why? Not really sure except wife is convinced the country is going to collapse so maybe that was the motivation. Also, I guess they have a neighbor down the road (they live in a sort of country subdivision) that raises organic chickens for sale and thought it looked easy. So, hubby did a nice job of converting his ice shanty into a coop (he's a very handy carpenter) tho his design could have had some tweeking, and a nice high fence run into which they place one of those fisher Price slides left over from? for the chickens to play on. In the meantime they had purchased a dozen streight run chicks from their local feedmill and were brooding them in their basement (nice little setup). One was straddle legged from them using newspapers without litter (didn't mention to them that was a no no when I found out-why make them feel bad when it was too late anyway) and unfortunately didn't contact me in time to tell them it was "fixable" and how so that one eventually died. (insert rolling eyes here). So now they have 11 that turned out to be 8 roos and 3 hens!
Anyway, he wanted to know why they weren't getting any eggs yet (these chooks are now 5+months old). First I asked if he still had any roos. He said he still had all of them because he hadn't gotten around to butchering any yet. He also added that his 3 hens wouldn't come out of the coop. I took a very deep breath and said quietly, "YOU THINK? You're running a POULTRY HOUSE OF PROSTITUTION!!!! Those 3 poor little girls are scared to death!!!!
......vickistillsmilingandshakingherheadandwonderinghowshemanagedtomarryintosuchafamilyofcityfolks..........
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