Friday, June 3, 2016

Chicken Updates





It was another nice day today if you were a member of the Small-Hold livestock community. About the perfect temperature of not too hot or too cold but no sun to speak of which causes the chickens a bit of a disappointment. Every time I would go out and start working on something it would rain but not enough to drive the critters into the barn, just enough to make it unpleasant for those of us without protective wool, fur or feathers.

After about an hour of attempting to wait the light rain out I gave up and just worked on little things inside the barn. This meant I got to spend some time with the newest members of the chicken flock.

Setting up the large coop and barn for chickens was about the smartest move I ever did around here. You see my mother, and to an extent my wife, love all animals. They cannot resist them and unless I keep a constant vigilance there is no telling what might turn up around here when I am not looking. I usually try and pay attention to the little verbal clues they drop during casual discussions about things and put the nix on them when they are heading off in the wrong direction.

I know they were making plans to add a tom turkey once that I managed to put a stop too. A miniature donkey was hinted around at and the whole peacock thing comes up occasionally. However the chicken thing kinda fulfills this need with them and ends up getting critters that actually have some worth around here.

Believe me it could be bad if I didn't put a stop to it.

Over the course of the last few months we have lost about five hens and, well, I dispatched Rocky the Rooster. The new rooster seems to be working out very well but then again so did Rocky until he didn't. I must say though this new rooster is much easier on the hens and smaller so they can kinda keep him in line themselves some too.




Our unwanted losses have all been the old Red Sexlink hens we bought last year. I been watching them and those hens are old I think, much older than they were said to be and I haven't seen one of them laying in months. Not that it bothers us really as egg production was second for me anyway as I really was looking for more bug control than anything else. However we have lost about five of the old girls and only one to an accident the other four just sort of laid down in the corner and died from time to time. Never showed any illness they just seemed to get tired one day and find a spot to go to sleep and never wake up.

So we had room in the coop and someone around here made the choice to bring in more chickens.

Eight new easter egger type chicks showed up last week. I got a feeling it was a team effort by the Small-Hold Women folk. They are about half grown and I wondered if the cats might show some interest in them but so far they haven't. They really are not much smaller than Chicken Burger our Hamburg hen really so I wasn't too worried about them. The other chickens appear to tolerate them and there hasn't been any trouble and no lost half grown chicks either.

The "peepers" as I call them pretty much stay together and have been using the low roost for themselves and rarely venture out of the barn yet. Trouble is you know they are not all going to be hens so we have that looming over the future. Still they are kinda cute and getting use to humans (like me) being around pretty quickly. The first couple of days they disappeared into hiding holes faster than a coyote when I held up a rifle but today they barely flinched when I would walk by.

I figure with the normal chicken attrition rate it should help keep the women-folk's animal shopping addiction satiated and pointed in the right direction.

No more goats, donkeys or anything else we don't need.

I hafta admit though I do kinda miss that goat I ended up taking care of for a few weeks last Summer. She was a hoot. I get regular updates on her from my co-worker though and she is now his favorite too and apparently just gave birth to a couple of kids this Spring.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!!!!


24 comments:

  1. We have only lost one old one recently but have several more that are doing nothing but eating and giving the rooster something to jump on as they are big and he seems to like old big hens. Gives the young ones a break if nothing else, maybe old ones don't run away. After 16 years, animals have stopped being cute so the girls say no when asked if we want a new one. Lots of eggs this time of year.

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    1. Sf - I actually saw one of the sex links laying today or at least she was in the nest.

      My mother will never tire of cute animals. She gives them all sorts of human mental qualities and such. It's a terminal bambism for her.

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  2. Ha. I too have put my foot down this year on the acquisition of any more animals (except bees - I still grab swarms wherever I find them!). I've said no to rabbits, no to goats, no to turkeys, and NO! to another dog. All because I've got NO more time or energy to be taking care of all these beings that everyone else wants to have, but not take care of themselves. If I need a cute baby animal fix, I'll go down to the coop and cuddle some of the new chicks (the second setting hen hatched hers earlier this week, and two more hens are still setting). Then mama hen will peck the crap out of whatever body part she can get to and I'll give back her chick and that'll be enough cute new baby animals for me.

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    1. XL - No broodiness detected here yet. I keep hoping though.

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  3. Me and my husband say no to each other, which keeps a balance as to what animals we have here and what we do on the smallholding. Most times it works. Most times an argument does not arise.

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    1. Vera - It doesn't help that the women folk here have an never ending supply of friends who would love to dump their unwanted animals off on us.

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  4. My wife has zero love of animals so the only reason we have any is because of me. The girls keep on for pigs so that might happen next year as well. As for chicken we got 20 more the other night so now have far too many!

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    1. Kev - I bounce pigs around from time to time. The women-folk around here aren't interested in useful animals usually. They go for the rare, exotic or extremely cute.

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  5. I love animals. I do have plans to get some goats. I wanted to get a horse, but hubby said no. I'm the one who takes care of the critters. I'm ok with that. I have 10 hens, 2 cats, 4 dogs. Think we are doing good there.

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    1. J&M - HUbby is a smart man. Horses are nothing but HUGE money drains and destroy pastures faster than an oil spill. The big one we keep getting is more and more stray cats it seems.

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  6. Rabbitts, small space needed and good meat and fur.

    Exile1981

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    1. Exile - I never have acquired a taste for rabbit. I am sure when I am hungry enough though.

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    2. We used it in place of chicken... till the price skyrocketted. Now we are raising our own, but our herd is small but growing quickly.

      Exile1981

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  7. PP - even though we both love animals and would love to have chickens, goats, sheep, donkeys, llamas - neither one of us wants the responsibility of building the infrastructure to keep them all safe, we have absolutely no pasture even though we own ten acres so we would not be able to feed the animals, we don't want the responsibility of calving, lambing, milking, feeding, etc.

    we have wild rabbit that people here love giving to us, jam can hunt moose and deer and we have fish and seafood coming out of our eyeballs. so we just have always agreed to not try to "homestead" but to try and be as self-sufficient, food-wise, instead.

    then there is also the matter of butchering. jam has no trouble hunting where he actually has to go and hunt and field strip, he loves fishing and has no problem whacking the fish as soon as it is in the boat for a clean kill.....but neither one of us can see ourselves caring for a little baby something until it got too old and then we'd have to butcher it. i'm not saying it's wrong - it's just not something that we have the constitution to do. and if SHTF - we are already off of milk, and between one deer or moose a year, plus all of the readily-available fish/seafood, and the food we grow and can ourselves....i think we'd be pretty ok without any farm animals.

    and i am glad you are finally putting your foot down with the smallhold women and their desires for additional animals that you end up having to take care of!

    sendign love! your friend,
    kymber

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    1. kymber - If I had the sea next door and could go catch my dinner every day I wouldn't be messing with animals either.

      As far as my foot down goes they usually don't listen anyway but they do know when I tell them I will stop caring for and doing all the things they don't want to do if they bring another one home... I mean it :)

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  8. We are lucky to have found this small farm with good usable space for livestock. Ralph and I both want to have our own home grown food and we know this entails butchering and work.
    Sometimes it is hard not to get everything we want......beef is the hard choice. I love it and so does Ralph but store beef is just not that good any more. However with just two of us an entire beef is far too big so smaller animals are better. We still debate getting a couple of calves, usually after we buy beef, then we get over the urge!

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    1. Fiona - Someday when the horses are gone I plan on raising a bit of beef each year. I try and NOT do my own butchering though. I did it far too many times for my own taste when I was a kid and teenager and these days I find it much easier to just pay someone to do it for me. I still have all the equipment if I have to start doing it myself again though.

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  9. PP,

    Admit it, you like having the animals around as well!!!!

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    1. Sandy - I like the eggs!!!! And the lamb-burger!!!!

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  10. Easter eggers are so much fun. I kinda wish we still had some, but I like having only one breed (which I actually don't have and now that a couple of them have gone broody who knows what we'll end up with.)

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    1. Leigh - My mother loves the easter eggers. She also loves the red sexlinks because they live on her porch but those old girls don't lay anymore.

      I wish we would get a broody hen.

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  11. Did you know that all fried chicken in Kentucky is KFC ??? Think about it???

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  12. At our place my lovely wife is the voice of reason. So there is a long game of me talking about what we will get next before she finally breaks down and agrees. We have chickens, rabbits, and bees. Goats is what I am currently working to convince her would be a good idea. Target date: next year. :)

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