More Chicks Man
If you watch the show, The Soup, you will catch the reference in the title. I love that show.
Anyway, it is spring and one of the rites of spring is to replenish ones flock of chickens. Last year if you remember I got 24 chicks of which there were four roosters. The four roosters went to the freezer, I sold ten mature hens and I lost two hens to a neighbor dog leaving me with eight.
First year hens lay all winter as long as they have enough light. I built the chicken house with a large window. It was a window that I had left over from one of the additions I built. The inspector didn’t like one window near a bath tub because it wasn’t tempered, so I replaced it and I used to former window in the chicken house. Notice I haven’t called it a coop; it’s a house.
My present flock will slow or stop egg production next winter when they molt, but these new hens will lay all winter so I’ll be able to continue selling eggs next winter.
Last year I visited Kicki’s urban farm and she had one really beautiful hen. It was a golden laced Wyandotte. I wanted some of my own and I saw that my local feed store had a few of them, but they were the silver laced variety. They will be stunning, none the less. These chicks would have been totally sold out by the weekend, so I got four even though I wasn’t ready for them. Once I got them home they huddled together for warmth while I set up their box with food, water, pine shavings and a heat lamp.
It’s really nice to hear them peeping away, though I’m sure I will quickly tire of that. By then I’ll have a spot for them in the chicken house where I store the feed. I can’t mix them with the flock because the other hens would kill them. They will be under a heat lamp for about six weeks, and they will be laying by August.
posted by The Guy Who Writes This at 4:00 AM
16 Comments:
Didn't it say somewhere "Thou shalt not covet they neighbors Wyandotte?" Or something like that.
Hey, remember how you can only have 2 eggs a week? Extras can come to Chez Auntie and Uncle B if you need to offload some. Your eggs are awesome
it's that time of the season! i have 25 each chukar's and pheasant under the heat lamps now. interesting side note about heat lamps, i have to use red heat lamps (as opposed to white) so they don't kill each other when they are old enough to do so.
Should have some bobwhite quail in the next few days as well.
Chicken house huh? With windows?? Well...that brings about the memory of another story from the Moose.
Long ago in Africa, it was the tradition of the local tribes to have a common chief and the tribe that possessed the throne had the privilege of having the chief come from their tribe. A rival tribe was not happy with the choice of chief and they decided to stage a raid and capture the throne so that they could have one of their own as the leader. They planned it carefully and set fire to one of the grass huts as a diversion. As luck would have it, the grass hut they set on fire contained the throne and it was destroyed. Hence the origin of the saying....people who live in grass houses should not stow thrones. Bwaaaaaaaahhhh!
Moose
Darev, I covet a lot of stuff I'll never have, but these chicks were OK. I'm spreading the wealth of beauty.
Auntie, they are my hens eggs, not mine. I'll get some to you.
g, I once put some pheasant in with chickens and the chickens cleaned their clocks. I'm sure the comparison in size will be bad for the chukars.
Moose, you need a blog...
I would love to raise chickens.
But long ago after dating Liz for long enough I asked if she would marry me.
Her answer:
"On one condition; NO CHICKENS!"
I was overjoyed. But then I thought for a moment...
"Well I have one little stipulation of my own" I said.
"If you ever get the notion that I should not ride motorcycles, its curtins!!!"
30 years later we have never had a chicken on the property and I have 6 motorcycles in the garage.
:-;
Gearhead... a bike will get you through times of no chickens far better than chickens will get you through times of no bikes(or something like that); a wise woman indeed.
Guy... would you believe white eggs are rare up here? Brown, brown, brown everywhere with sturdy shells.
Gearhead, That was 30 years ago. Maybe she's reconcidered. They are as interesting as your present live stock with none of the problems.
Mike, that's a good sign that they aren't using factory hens for production. Some people think there is something wrong with brown eggs, but there is no difference other than the type of hen they come from. It's freshness that matters. Most eggs in the grocery store are several weeks old before they get to the shelf. I should do a post on eggs.
i'm still pondering what to do with the chukars. they don't play nice with anything. i'll keep everyone in their respective bins until they can all kick each others asses.
then darwin can take over.
And this from a creationist?
Lotta chicken operations here. Only difference seems to be shell texture. Maybe it's the hen type? Never really thought much about it except when living elsewhere & seeing higher prices for brown. DOH!! Some folks will fall for any gimmick.
Hen type determines the egg color. If they have red lobes they have brown eggs, pale lobes hens have white eggs. The shell have a direct correlation to calcium intake. I make ground up oyster shells available to them and I have good hard shells.
moose cracks me up
loopy
darwin was created.
I have some Silver-Laced Wyandottes in my chick box right now, along with some Delawares (cool looking, and cooler genetics -- they're heritage) and a couple Australorps. I like the green scheen on the Australorp plumage.
Seems black-and-white will be the theme next year for my flock.
B
g,prove it.
BPaul, My flock is black and white as well with the established birds being Barred Rocks. I hope to add color next year.
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