Chickens! Ducks! Turks! Oh no!

This is Maggie with one of our Giant Cornish X Rock Crosses that we raised our first year. These chickens are very good at weight gain, and at eight weeks the average dressed chicken is at least seven pounds...a very hefty chicken! The only thing wrong with these chickens is that they grow so fast that they can develop severe leg problems. That leaves you two choices: either you process them at eight weeks, or only feed them at certain times of the day...like during the night after they come in from foraging all day. Personally, I did not like these chickens  much because of the leg problems stated above, and because I believe in safe, humane, and sustainable systems.  

This is the first brooder I had. (I'll post a picture of the new brooder later.) Some people think you have to have an expensive, elaborate brooding system, but when it comes right down to it, all that a brooder consists of is a heat source (it has to keep the chicks at least 90 to 95 degrees F), a watering system (no, not just a bowl...chickens love to get into everthing), a feeding system (make sure that the chicks can't get into it or tip it), and a waste management system (which can be as simple as taking out the chicks and replacing the wood chips...but that is stressful for you and the chicks).

This was our prize chicken, coming in dressed at 10 lbs and 13 oz!

One thing that Dad has talked about his childhood (''way back in the old days'') is when they would butcher a chicken for dinner and that when they plucked it the smell was horrible. Well, with 25 to 50 chickens ready to go into the freezer, what were we going to do? Easy!  The feedyard is owned by the amish and they were more then happy to tell us that there was someone in their community that butchers all sorts of fowl for $2 a chicken, $3.50 a turkey, and $4 a duck.  (Ducks have to be coated with wax to remove the feathers...which is why they cost more to butcher.)

Mmmm....!

                                     

 ...And this is Buttermilk (the name probably came from the mottled look???). Buttermilk was raised with our first batch of broilers (meat birds) and a layer (or so we thought...at first we called him Henrietta and later called him Henry for obvious reasons). Neither of them went to the great chicken yard in the sky as the broilers did that summer.

 The bowl that Buttermilk is in is also our dog's water bowl! What is not shown in this picture is that it's drenching rain outside and that poor Henry is wet to the skin. Thankfully the picture was taken in the dog days of August. The reason the ground isn't wet is because of the heavy foilage above them. Even after months of calling Henry ''Henry'' he wouldn't budge, but when you yelled Henrietta, he would bolt toward you!

These are our Freedom Rangers...all 50 of them! From the start I raised chickens in batches of 25 because of the small amount of protected forage available to me. But when my twin sister Lizzie decided to stop raising goats, the 80x80ft (almost a quarter of an acre) pen made of 4''x4'' goat wire was just what was needed to allow the chickens to roam during the day completely protected. At night, we put them into two hoop house chicken tractors that were easy to build, light weight, and big (a good advantage especially with 50 chickens).  This protected them from the foxes, raccoons, opossums, etc.

The two pens are made of 2x4s screwed into a square or rectangle, 2''x4'' fencing (high enough to stand up in), and rabbit wire a foot high all around the perimeter. Why rabbit wire instead of chicken wire? Easy...raccoons, opossums, and other animals can bite through the chicken wire and get to the chickens. The newest batch of chicks ship on the 18th of April, so I'll be sure to post a picture of them when they arrive!        

This is Tom, one of our turkeys. One day at the farmer's market we passed by the animal section as we always do, and one of the amish sellers was selling 4 week turkey poults. Well, I had really wanted to raise turkeys for some time so Mom let me get three: Tom whom you've met, and two hens named Dick and Harry! We should be going to the farmer's market soon to buy 6 more to raise this year.  

They're Here!

                           

Our 50 Freedom Rangers arrived weeks ago and have gotten so big since then! All survived the trip safe and sound. They cheeped all the way home!

This is the newer brooder that I built last year when I raised 50 chicks for the first time. At the bottom of the brooder you can see the opening for the debris trays. This brooder is large, measuring in at 8'L x 30'' D x 18'' H. The first day all they did was sleep...after all, spending two days in a cardboard box is exhausting!

This is a picture of the chickens at two weeks. When the the warmer weather first came, I let them go out for a few hours each day to develop a taste for grass (yes, they really do have to develop a taste while they're young or they won't like it as much).  

This is a current  picture of the chickens, during the 90 degree heat they all congregate around the trees in their pen.

Earlier this year we had an Opossum attack and kill three of our chickens, so I was unable to do but pen the chickens up and wait for the opossum to walk into our Have-A-Heart trap.
Well after a week and no sign of the Opossum, I started letting the chickens go out again when I was satisfied that the opossum was gone. 
So during that waiting period I looked up on the Internet how to combat predators and practically every one  up there said that French Guinea Hens are the best at protecting a flock. I started checking with all the amish in the county and everyone was out of Guinea keets
!(Keet is the word for guinea chicks). Well yesterday we woke up to find three fully grown guineas in our yard, we checked with our neighbors to find out who they belonged to but nobody came up as the owners. So now we have three free guineas and better yet half an hour ago we picked up 6 jumbo pearl keets on freecycle!