AL - Recording baby steps: Newest Addition

[urban dreamer]

It's 84 today here! It feels sooooo good!

 

[AL]

Oh I LOVE cold weather..... I figure I can put on more clothes than I can take off (legally).
Until this past December I was living in a single wide trailer I paid $1500 for... no heat, no AC, no stove. I got my brand new trailer in December, the week before we had a record cold streak (13 days of below freezing). My friends laughed because I would say "Woo boy it was cold last night! I cranked that heat up to about 56...."

But I don't like that it is getting cooler so early this year when I am actually trying to have a garden. I keep going out and begging the little squash and pea plants to pick up the pace!

HEHE I went to my folks today for lunch and told them I reckon I need to get more chickens with all of these folks wanting eggs!!

 

[AL]

OMG


I have just ordered 25 cornish rocks.

My friend and I were talking on the phone about how we could do the scalding, plucking etc - just not the actual kill. Her boyfriend was in the background shouting "I'll do it! Grew up eating mama's chickens!"

So.... help?
What kind of pen do I need to build for them? I assume I will still have to brooder them for a couple of weeks or more if it is cool weather? Didn't y'all say they stink? How old before they are butchered? The Ideal site said 6wks but I thought I read 10-12 here?

HELP!! I have officially gotten way out of my league!!

(should be interesting telling my parents I have to put 25 "creepy meat" chickens at the barn... in their backyard. Gulp)

 

[TanksHill]

You go girl!! Nothing like jumping in with both feet. I am sure the others will chyme in really quick on this one.

What I know.

I have seen many brooders posted around here. Plastic swimming pools, horse troughs, old trailers. All have the same thing in common. Lights to keep them warm, food, water, liter for easy clean up and bedding.

I think the trick is to find something you have an make it work for you!!

good luck,
g

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

* beaming with pride, hands AL "The Golden Feed Scoop" *

carry it well, my friend.


whooooot!!! thats the way baby!

here is where our creepy meat is hanging out now:
http://adventuresinthegoodland.blogspot.com/2010/10/fall-winds-up-before-it-winds-down.html

works great. they started out in a box for 2 days then moved here. we have a heat lamp hanging over the pool and they can be under it or move away.

i'm headed to town this morning...so back later. but check out FD, FF, and Bee's methods for raising creepy meat. and Lori has a heck of a tractor!

you're gonna do just fine, honey! yay!!!!

 

[lorihadams]

Our first brooder was a swimming pool with hardwire cloth zip tied around it. We rigged up a heat lamp....it wasn't pretty but it worked. Now we have a nicer truck bed brooder...pg 154 of my journal.

As for a tractor....there are lots of different ways to do it. Google chicken tractor, pictures

Get a cup of coffee and browse.

 

[AL]

Oh mercy.... I lay in bed last night thinking I have finally lost my mind. ME... ordering meat chickens. ME!??!

I broke the news to my folks this morning.... my dad is still laughing. Jerk. and my mom said she helped my grandma process chickens one time and it was a very long time before she ate chicken again, so don't ask her to even wash them up. LOL

Thanks Gina - I guess I expected them to be some kind of franken-chicken that may need something different. I have to remember they are still day old chicks (nope.... better to think of them as franken-chicken that I am treating like day old chicks )

I am so humbled.... the golden scoop..... I just.... speechless

Lori - I read your journal most everyday. I love the truck bed brooder!!

As far as after the brooder, how does this sound (other than confusing)? My current chicken yard is easily over 300sqft and "L" shaped. They are only in it as they pass through to the henhouse to lay or roost (I let them out in the morning to run my backyard). I was thinking of closing off the short leg of the "L" and then all we would have to build is a coop for the new chickens?

So I was thinking I would get my friends BF to just help me build a little house that is big enough for a kiddie pool - I can put them in the pool, zip tie the hardware cloth and have a brooder light for the cool nights. Then when I can let them in the yard, I can just take out the pool and put some litter in to help with warmth?



I don't even know what or how much to feed.... I see about them eating too much and growing too fast.....
I am NEVER this impulsive and unprepared.

So... off to feed up and gather eggs, got the equine vet coming to check Skye so I need to catch her (not difficult).


----
Vet just called re: Buford, my 14yr old dog. She said his kidney values are kind of elevated. We are going to try a couple of things - antibiotics etc. This old dog is a darling.... sigh

----

I have to get horse feed (for Skye - well stocked for Buddy) and chicken feed so I will ask around and see if my folks there have any info for my new adventure. Then home to read.... and read.... and then read... about creepy meat chickens.


Y'all are a bad influence

 

[lorihadams]

awwww bless his heart....I had one that looked just like him! They are seriously just the sweetest dogs.

The only thing about the meat chickens is that they a) poop a lot and b) tend to hang out where the food is. You will need a way to move them out of the poop or remove it. You will either need to put them in something that they can be made to move to new grass in or move the feed every day and force them to stumble their chunky butts over to it. Seriously.

Mine are doing well....just cut up grass and clover and stuff from day one and sprinkle it over their food so they get the idea that they can eat it as a food source....otherwise they will just sit and stare aimlessly at the yard wondering when the "food lady" is gonna show up again.

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

I am NEVER this impulsive and unprepared.

thats 'cuz all this self sufficiency stuff is like crack. you cant just do a little. why i bet in a year there will be a cow standing out there. next to the goats

;-)

and my family is STILL laughing at me. they cant hardly believe what i'm up to

 

[lorihadams]

YEP! What she said!

I was looking at almond trees today! Can I also tell you that I'm REALLY excited for my kids to be old enough to do 4-H.....