Bettacreek - New home? Plus a pic of some of the ladies here

[Bettacreek]

We had ten eggs yesterday. Today started off with two eggs. I let the two roos out to run the yard today. The big boy was being good, until the kids and I came in for breakfast and George stayed out to watch the birds. He thought he'd test George out. After about a minute of him trying to flog him and George flopping him, the big roo decided that he wasn't big enough to take George on. I guess we'll see how he does when the ladies are out. I plan to keep them in there for a few more days yet. I don't know what I'm going to do about eggs. I don't want to go on an easter egg hunt every day, but I want them to free-range. Less crap for me to clean up and happier, healthier hens. George picked up some shavings from the forestry department at work two days ago. That saved me about $45 in bedding! I am keeping the buttons in the brooder. I'll buy another one when I start hatching again. It's just not worth the hassle of building a new cage just for them. I'm waiting for them to start laying some darned eggs. Other than feed, water and cleaning, I pretty much ignore them. Other than tiny babies and when they lay, they just don't strike any interest. They're skittish so if you breathe loud they have half a heart attack. Not my cup of tea.

 

[Bettacreek]

My garden is finally starting to look a little bit better. Everything is starting to slowly recover with the fence up. I still only have one pepper, but it's starting to pull the plant down it's so heavy. The two romas are getting closer to harvest every day, though two tomatoes won't do much. I still have a ton of tomatoes that are starting and still dozens of blossoms, so I think I might actually get to can something from the tomato plants! I also checked my broccoli today. I haven't really done much with it since I planted it, but it's starting to get heads! I'm really excited, because I was beginning to think that they'd never turn into heads! The new laying hens have either started to slow on production from the stress of moving, or they've found a new nesting site. All of the eggs I've found today were in their room nesting spot, but there weren't many. None at all in the nest in the bushes. I'll have to wait and see if I find them hanging out in a new area. The cornish cross are at five weeks. They're starting to look more and more like dinner! It'll be nice to butcher them out and save on the feed. The 200lbs I bought a week and a half ago is getting low. Looks like it's about 100lbs per week right now. I'm sure that'll only increase with them growing bigger and bigger, but I only have three more weeks! I still haven't found any grain though, which really sucks. Hopefully the ladies start picking up with laying soon and some never stop. I'm debating on hatching some eggs out, but I just don't think I'd have much luck with selling at this time of the year. Everything just drops off with sales until spring. I think my game plan for now is to just hang onto eggs and sell them for eating purposes, then start putting them into the incubator in time for spring hatches. The first few weeks of sales are usually pretty good with chicks, then it drops. Over winter, with artificial lighting, I should have plenty of eggs to eat to hold me over while I hatch out the fresh eggs. Then when the sales of live chicks start to drop, I'll be able to start collecting fresh eggs for breakfast again. The cornish cross hens should start laying in Jan or Feb, if all goes well. I'll eat the first pullet eggs, then start hatching their eggs out for a new batch of meaties... hopefully.

I've also found out that the birds were a huge PITA to get inside because I was trying to get them in earlier than they wanted to go to bed. Last night, I was being too lazy to take the boys to the grocery store, so I waited until George came home and went alone. I didn't get the birds in before I left and by the time I came back, it was dark. I pulled in to an empty yard, thinking that I was going to have a hell of a time finding everyone. I went to open the door and George was in there, with all the birds! He said they all were waiting to be let in (the door had gotten closed somehow) and all he had to do was open the door and fill the feeders and waterers! So, that's what I'll be doing from now on... Just forget about getting them to bed until they're ready to go to bed. Now I just need to get the nipple drinkers and two five gallon buckets to make new waterers that the ducks won't slop in and I think I'll be able to fully enjoy all of my birds again!

There's a sale at Giant for pig butts at $1.99/lb. They didn't have any when I went yesterday, so I'm going to wait and go again tomorrow and hopefully get a few pounds. I'm HOPING to get about 20lbs, but I'm not sure if I can fit it into the budget. I figure if I can a bunch up, it'll make some nice and easy dinners... And pulled pork sammiches sound like heaven right about now! It's hard to find any meat (besides chicken) below $3/lb, so I want to get as much of the pork as I can afford. I hope another red meat sale comes up so that I can stock up on that as well. Hopefully enough time passes from this sale until a red meat sale comes along so I can save up enough to get a decent amount. Hunting season cannot come soon enough! It's a shame the boys cannot get tags, because having more than two deer would really help. Two deer will help though, so hopefully I at least tag out. Too bad George doesn't hunt!! That'd be two tags there! We haven't been out fishing much lately, but I would love to get some more fish. As of right now, there's only enough fish for one kid to munch on. I won't eat it, but it's healthy meat and the kids will eat it, so I'd like to get some of that laid in. For $35, the entertainment and food is worth it. It's not as much of a gamble as hunting is, though I think this year I'll actually have better luck with hunting, especially without the silly camp rules of no does. My brother doesn't give a crap what sex we harvest on his plot. He's also talking about getting goats. I told him he'd be better off getting sheep. He wants them basically to munch away at the 14 acres of dandelions and weeds. I figure that the sheep will do a better job on the kind of stuff he has, plus they're more useful in his circumstances... He would really only need to attend them a few times a year, unlike a goat, which you'd have to milk twice a day. The sheep, just let them breed, sheer the wool and sell or butcher out the lambs once a year. Plus, the males aren't worthless like goat bucks are. Around here, you can get a goat buck for dirt cheap. Usually like $5-$20 at the auction. They aren't much use for our area, as nobody around here eats goat meat (and neither one of us has any interest in trying it). The only thing you can really do with a buck is breed it and you really only need one for that. Sheep, on the other hand, the males can be eaten or even raised for the wool, and they sell for about as much as the little lady lambs do.

 

[Bettacreek]

Out of curiosity, I weighed some of the cornish x again today. At 2lbs, I was like, there's NO WAY they are going to hit 6-8lbs in three weeks. Until I went back through my records and noticed that they've gained 6.4 times their weight in less than three weeks. Going from about 5oz, to 2lbs in 19 days. I still need to do some checking to see if they're on par with free-fed, non-free range birds or how off they are.

ETA: I guess free-fed cornish x should be about 4.5lbs for males and 4lbs for females at this age. :/ I'm actually quite disappointed. I knew they'd be smaller because of the free-range, but come on, less than half of what they "should" be?! And that's with going through about 100lbs of feed right now. The laying group was only eating 3lbs of feed per day, and that was when they were locked up and not getting to forage for their own feed, so I know that the majority of that feed is going to these fat bastards, and I'm not getting much of anything in return with body weight.

 

[donrae]

Have you posted pics of your cornish cross anywhere? At five weeks they should be LOTS bigger than that, like double that size. Even with free ranging, they're too small. Makes me wonder if you really have meaties. I've seen folks on byc think they had cx and turned out they were leghorns. You might want to throw a pic up for someone to look at.

 

[Bettacreek]

These are definately cornish something. They've got the compact bodies of a cornish. They're actually about the same weight as my 4 month old leghorn roo. They could possibly be a cornish x mixed with something else, but I'm 100% sure. They came from the auction, but I honestly doubt that someone had white cornish birds to breed with another white breed to create 100% white crosses, since the white cornish are actually apparantly pretty rare. I'm honestly wondering if I either got one of the slower growing strains or if I'm free-ranging them too hardcore.

ETA: I looked back at their 2wk weight and compared it to the weight of the free-fed cornish x guideline... They were 1/3rd the size that they should have been at that age. I didn't weigh them to start out with, so I have no idea of their day old weight.

 

[Bettacreek]

That god forsaken rooster hit my last nerve today. My oldest came running in the house, crying, screaming that the mean bird got Trippy. I went running out, not sure what to expect, since Tripp wasn't anywhere to be seen, and I couldn't hear him. Finally found them around the garage, and the roo was STILL attacking him. Poor little Trippy, trying to fend him off with a tiny little stick. I kicked it TWICE before it stopped. The second time, it turned around on me, realized just who was putting a foot up his arse and decided to run. Trippy was bleeding, but wasn't too bad. Had a cut on his lip, one on his forehead and a few on his hands. Thankfully he wasn't flogged in the eye or something! We tried for about half an hour to catch him, then I finally got the bow out. First shot was through the window and missed by about an inch. Second shot, he wasn't so lucky. The bow isn't sighted in at all and I was using a field tip, but fortunately I'm an excellent shot with a bow, WITHOUT sights. Especially since I only had one arrow, lol. Anyways, I hit him in the leg and finally was able to catch him, cut his jugular and hang him up and butcher him out. He's resting in ice water now. Tomorrow I'll cut him the rest of the way up and can him for quickie dinners. He's a lot smaller without all that fluff to him, but still about the size of a small turkey hen.
The leghorn roos didn't waste ANY time. Before he was even gutted, they were chasing the hens around and breeding them. I had not seen any of them actually breed a hen, so I think they had been cut short before they really ever got a chance, because of the big roo. Ah well, now I can hatch out pure leghorn chicks AND have 2-3 dinners.

Trippy is doing fine. Just minor cuts and he'll probably be bruised up a little tomorrow. He was actually pretty brave, trying to fend that rooster off. They're both very excited that the big mean rooster is dead and that we're going to eat it. Talon wants to eat the heart. They got a pretty good anatomy lesson as well. I just hope that the leghorns decide to be good boys. I think the one will be more aggressive, but he's going to auction next week. The one I plan to keep has been extremely docile and gentle, so hopefully he keeps that up, even with the main roo gone.

 

[SSDreamin]

to Tripp. What a brave boy he was!!

We had a rooster that attacked my (then) 6 year old brother. We had chicken for dinner that night Nobody cared either; the stupid thing was constantly chasing us kids

 

[Denim Deb]

Can't say I blame you. Glad Tripp is OK.

 

[Bettacreek]

It's one thing to go after George or myself. The fact that he went after one of my babies is what did him in. ESPECIALLY the fact that he wouldn't stop, not even with getting kicked. I'm usually very gentle with my birds, I love them all (well, except that rooster) and treat them the best that I possibly can, and consider them all to be pets, etc, etc. However, when I kicked that roo, I MEANT it. I put some force behind both boots to the arse, and the fact that the first one he didn't care about, and the second he turned to flog me? It freaked me out that he was that driven to be that aggressive towards my kid, that kicking him didn't even phase him. He was a gorgeous rooster, and I really thought he was going to fit in here. After a few tussles with me and one round with George, he was doing well. I wasn't nervous about going near him anymore and the kids played around him on a regular basis. I thought all was going well. I guess I have to look on the bright side of things. We'll have some "free" meat for a few meals, plus the leghorn hens will be laying pure leghorn eggs after a few weeks. Plus the kids won't be nervous about the big rooster anymore. PLUS a "hands-on" anatomy lesson.

 

[Bettacreek]

I have a Kitchenaid mixer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so excited that it's not even funny. A little while ago, there was a commercial on and I said I wanted to get one eventually. I haven't been able to find one on ebay that I could afford, and even the ones on CL and the other classifieds were too expensive. Well, tonight he went shopping and decided to spoil everyone. The kids got two new tv chairs (we just got new furniture from my sister's boyfriend and we're getting rid of their favorite chair) and a cool laundry basket thing that'll hopefully inspire them to USE IT, and of course, I got the kitchenaid stand mixer. At first I thought I misheard him or something, but he's like "you said you wanted one, didn't you?" Like, well, of course I wanted one, but I wasn't expecting to actually get one anytime soon!!! I mean, really?! The cheapest I've seen is $150, used, and they're typically around $170 in used condition. Now I have a brand spanking new one. It's solid metal, so it should stand up to the test of time. I'm DYING to make a bunch of stuff now. I have recipes printed out that I just haven't gotten around to making because of the time and PITA-ness of mixing dough. Now I don't have to worry about it! So, tonight I'm making banana bread and tomorrow morning it's pancakes, then some cookies and some more breads.