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Book said:
Let us know how the testing goes! If we wear plastic bags on our shoes can we see your chickens? (we asked the lady yesterday if we could see her chickens and she said she doesn't allow it for biosecurity reasons. Very smart! I wish I would have thought of the plastic bag thing then! LOL)
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I personally don't mind. Most of the chickens are kept in a large pen with sheet-metal siding, and you can easily view them without your shoes getting to them!

But even aside from that, if there's a chance you could bring a disease into my chicken area, then it's probably already here in some form or another. That's why I vaccinate all of my chickens for Marek's. Pending the outcome of the testing, I may start vaccinating for mycoplasma and coryza too. At least that way mine may be carriers and have it for life, and any chicken actually added to their pens will get it and carry it, but their offspring WON'T. That's the advantage of vaccinating for those two diseases. So it would be safe to sell eggs and chicks - as long as I never let the chicks near the parents (unless I plan to keep them).
 
So it has been confirmed as of this morning - I have a broody Sumatra again. Two consecutive nights on the nest, and not up roosting with the others, means she's on them for a while. The only time I have seen her get up is when I feed them in the mornings - because she knows those other hens will snatch that food up if she doesn't get to it!

She's got six eggs under her right now, although laid across three days' time. Here in a bit, I'm going out with a pencil to mark the ones she is sitting on, so I know which ones to remove after that. I'm going to give her a chance to hatch them out. I didn't before, because I was selling sumatra hatching eggs. But now they're all going to the fridge, so I may as well let her hatch them.

Maybe then, I won't lose the chicks!

And this also happens to be the one sumatra hen who was almost always taking a dust bath in the big pan of diatomaceous earth. So at least I know these babies won't have any sort of mites, fleas, ticks, etc.!
 
OMG, OMG, OMG, OMG! YAY!

I did it!

The stupid fox killed off every single EE hen I had, including the one half-bantam EE who was laying light blue eggs like the large fowl, but came from a tiny bantam hen (I'll never figure out how, I'm sure...)

Anyway, I was really hoping that hen (while I had her) would breed with the frizzle roo that I had. I wanted a bantam frizzle EE!

Well a few days ago when the turkey poults hatched, one of that hen's eggs also hatched. It's mostly black with some white down, but today I noticed the feathers are coming in... WITH AN OUTWARD CURL! It's being housed with the turkey poults in a brand new brooder, away from all other chickens (and quite frankly, still locked in the closet of my room where the incubator is). So there is a VERY good chance they won't get sick like some of the others have, and die off young!

So Skeeter has a grandbaby, somehow, with a teeny tiny bantam hen, and it has FRIZZLE FEATHERS!

And also in the same brooder with that little one and the turkey poults is the first egg to hatch from Skeeter and Brownie, since losing both of them! Skeeter can never be replaced. But I have his babies, and they are going to be AWESOME!


Although in the big pen outside (and about 3 months old now) is a black and white cockerel with dark red spots all over it, and a black and white pullet - both Skeeter's offspring with Brownie. So it looks like his replacement in the breeding program has been found already (although, as mentioned before, he can't be replaced in my heart).

But this little frizzle EE is just icing on the cake right now. This is the happiest I have been about my chickens since losing my boy, and I've needed it!
 
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We did the deed today. 12 red rangers butchered.

I am SO displeased with their size!

I think I didn't start them on the higher protein feed early enough and I could only get 18% protein this last bag. I also wonder if I need to find a more easily accessible feeder type than the regular round one I used.

I think I'm going to order 15 cornish cross :-/ We're going to go through these guys in no time because I'm going to have to cook 2 to get the amount of meat we should be getting off 1.

On the plus side, our system worked well. The equipment all worked great. My husband and friend did the evisceration with me giving directions, but I actually only cleaned the gizzards. I'm recovering from strep and a sinus infection and was woozy from the antibiotics and my stomach was so nauseated. Next time he and I will probably try to do it ourselves. It took about 3 1/2 hours from start to finish.
 


This is what we made the ducks to keep them safe at night from predators. It was simple enough and moves around the yard every other day. (Is duck poop going to kill the grass?)

We are making a little house for them to put in it but till it is done I put the big dog cage in there. Course it rained the food got wet, and I saw the flaw in the design. The house part should fix that though and give them more shade! We are putting up movable fencing so that the ducks and chickens can free range during the day and just go into the coops at night to be safe.
 
ChristyinGA said:
We did the deed today. 12 red rangers butchered.

I am SO displeased with their size!

I think I didn't start them on the higher protein feed early enough and I could only get 18% protein this last bag. I also wonder if I need to find a more easily accessible feeder type than the regular round one I used.

I think I'm going to order 15 cornish cross :-/ We're going to go through these guys in no time because I'm going to have to cook 2 to get the amount of meat we should be getting off 1.

On the plus side, our system worked well. The equipment all worked great. My husband and friend did the evisceration with me giving directions, but I actually only cleaned the gizzards. I'm recovering from strep and a sinus infection and was woozy from the antibiotics and my stomach was so nauseated. Next time he and I will probably try to do it ourselves. It took about 3 1/2 hours from start to finish.
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The cornish rocks are the ticket for meat birds. All they do is eat. I am keeping the two hens with hopes I can hatch an EE cornish mix batch. They will eat you out of house and home though. I was going through 2 60lb bags of feed a month. After I processed the 2 huge roos I haven't had to fill the 30lb feeder in over a week.
 
pr0wlunwoof said:
The cornish rocks are the ticket for meat birds. All they do is eat. I am keeping the two hens with hopes I can hatch an EE cornish mix batch. They will eat you out of house and home though. I was going through 2 60lb bags of feed a month. After I processed the 2 huge roos I haven't had to fill the 30lb feeder in over a week.
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It also just occurred to me that we only had 3 males and the rest were females. We had about 3 that had a fair amount of meat on them. I think I'll order all males next time, too.
 
ChickDancer said:
OMG, OMG, OMG, OMG! YAY!

I did it!

The stupid fox killed off every single EE hen I had, including the one half-bantam EE who was laying light blue eggs like the large fowl, but came from a tiny bantam hen (I'll never figure out how, I'm sure...)

Anyway, I was really hoping that hen (while I had her) would breed with the frizzle roo that I had. I wanted a bantam frizzle EE!

Well a few days ago when the turkey poults hatched, one of that hen's eggs also hatched. It's mostly black with some white down, but today I noticed the feathers are coming in... WITH AN OUTWARD CURL! It's being housed with the turkey poults in a brand new brooder, away from all other chickens (and quite frankly, still locked in the closet of my room where the incubator is). So there is a VERY good chance they won't get sick like some of the others have, and die off young!

So Skeeter has a grandbaby, somehow, with a teeny tiny bantam hen, and it has FRIZZLE FEATHERS!

And also in the same brooder with that little one and the turkey poults is the first egg to hatch from Skeeter and Brownie, since losing both of them! Skeeter can never be replaced. But I have his babies, and they are going to be AWESOME!


Although in the big pen outside (and about 3 months old now) is a black and white cockerel with dark red spots all over it, and a black and white pullet - both Skeeter's offspring with Brownie. So it looks like his replacement in the breeding program has been found already (although, as mentioned before, he can't be replaced in my heart).

But this little frizzle EE is just icing on the cake right now. This is the happiest I have been about my chickens since losing my boy, and I've needed it!
Click to expand...

Awww! I'm so happy for you.
 
You all know I don't usually mention a new chick I'm excited about, without posting pictures.
But I figured I would also get some updated photos of the turkey poults, since they are all living together. I'm semi-excited about them too, but I ended up with only two. Three hatched, but one died within the first 24 hours. The other two are doing fairly well though - they've learned to eat, drink, and they're staying warm and mostly separate from all other birds here. Mostly...





After a failed attempt, a turkey poult comes in for a close-up.



Maybe too close?



Here's my little frizzle EE! Look at those puffy cheeks!!



Mommy was red and black. Daddy was almost all black. I am thinking this one will follow with being mostly black, but we'll see!



"Hey do you think this will fit me?"
"No, it makes you look fat"




Wait, there's FOOD on it!



The Skeeter/Brownie baby is on the left. The Skeeter grandbaby with frizzle is on the right. Here you can see the frizzle feathers really poking out from its side though!

Miracle tries to make friends with the new babies. I'm surprised she came this far into the front yard to see them! Normally they don't walk more than 10 feet from the house in the front yard because of the cars (they don't like the cars).



Hope also begs to be let in so she can meet the new babies! Sorry Hope, that cute face trick doesn't work on me!




I'm SO living the muffs on that little black one!



The geese actually pushed the pen inward so they could get to the chick feed!



Miracle is still trying to make new friends with them!



"Hey, dude, you have toilet paper still stuck to your butt."



You can JUST barely make out the skin tags on their foreheads that will later grow down across their face and beaks.




The whole group together



Miracle wants in to meet her new friends SO BAD!




Another good shot of the outward-curling wing feathers.



Here it shows better on the wing in the top of the photo.



The turkey poults could care less about the food crumbles. One wanted mealworms, the other wanted ants!



One of the female pekins wants to know what the hell these dark things are!



Poking heads through the wire to get to the ants!



He must have found another ant.



This is the one that was all about mealworms. Screw the ants, just feed him more mealworms!



They both kept trying to eat grass though.



Left is mealworm guy, and on the right is the ant chaser. The ant chaser never took to the mealworms, just like mealworm guy never took to the ants!

I tried to get a pic of this one chasing a mealworm, but the worm wasn't very visible.



And another group photo.



Turns out the turkeys are INCREDIBLY LOUD in the brooder. They have squeaky high-pitch chirps, and despite being with each other right now, they keep making loud chirps like they are lonely. I really hope they don't keep that up when the lights go out!
 

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