the crooked little chicken house

“I always thought Bobo was kookoo for having house rabbits, but here I am with one of my own. She's a cutie and the teenage kittens seem to like her. Need to potty train her though, LOL...

Turkeys need to be culled. The hen turkeys square off with the roosters, really freakin' weird.”

“got eggs from the bantams...cute.”

“8(
still no eggs for me”

“My neighbor is having trouble dragging feed out to her chickens in the winter, thru the snow, so she is getting rid of them. Now if she would just get rid of a foster dog or two I would be happy.”

“Three ducks in the freezer, one in the oven.”

“Someone around here has lost a rooster, and he's wandering around nearby. He sounds like a pretty big one, too.”

“caught the neighbor dog inside the fence the other day.”

“Got 42 guinea eggs offa Ebay, about 23 hatched ..... for some reason I'm down to 13 ...... but them 13 are going strong! Varied colors.

Have 3 turkeys, the red bourbons, but not sure if I want to keep them.

What's a good cost-effective fencing system for goats? I have some large areas that I don't really want to weedeat, a few goats would be good. Also, I'm thinking about getting a pound dawg to keep in with the goats, anyone have experience with these?”

“Durnit, copper stuck me fer 70 in a 55 this morning. $210 I thank he said, first time the kiddies have seen blue lights in the rear-view. Oct 3 it's off to court, believe I'll take a "education day" and let the kids see what happens to speeders. My first in about 18 or 19 years, grrrrr.”

“There goes the goat fence.:)”

“lmao !!!!!!! good'un hd”

“ouch!

my nephew used a three strand electric fence to keep his pig in, wonder if that would work for a goat? I'm interested, since we want a goat.”

“Well twig, I have a pretty decent coyote and fox problem here, and as well, I plan to keep the chickens there.”

“Austin informed me last night that his teacher said it was okay to bring in a chicken and a duck. I said cool, when? He said tomorrow - just like that.

So this morning we dug out cages and he caught 2 ducks and 2 hens, and we carted the whole mess into school. Each kid was assigned an animal and had to write why it made a good pet. There were turtles and hamsters there, and tomorrow we may be bringing in the rabbit for someone else. I also offered the parakeets.”

“we want a goat.”
twigeater
8:39:30 PM
9/21/11

You called, Miss Babelicious? ;-)”

“Got too close to my electric fence, got zapped good thru my glasses. OWWWW!”

“I got eggs! 3 so far...FINALLY!

I'M A FARMER, I'M A FARMER!”

“haha Stovie, how are ya!

critters at school went over awesomely well.

called the farmer that bought the pig last fall and asked if he wanted the damn turkeys and roosters. I just want calm little hens and EGGS! I might keep one or two roosters to watch over the flock, but those turkeys eat and eat and eat!

Farmer said Charlotte had red and white piglets...awww....”

“Farmer and wife picked up the turkeys last night and most of the roosters...the grain bill should go down now.”

“I'm about to cull some roosters, hope they aren't too tough. Anybody hot advise on plucking them and stuff? I've never done it but I can gut a deer with the best of them.

I've also looked into selling the hackles for tying dry flus for fishing. It's interesting
I'm up TP 41 birds and averaging 2.5 eggs per day”

“2.5 eggs, huh? Does that count bantam sized?”

“I only have 1 datum hen and she's not laying yet”

“Hackle production and sale are a highly specialised industry with specially bred poultry. Ordinary, barn yard hackles won't do the trick.

Doug”

“Scalding to pluck, dip in boiling water you have brought outside, cannot remember how long now 8-15 seconds, may be able to research that. I used my dutch over for this. I started skinning mine after so many years of smelling wet chicken, not a good smell like wet dog.:) I hung mine by wrapping wire around the knees and hanging them from a tree limb or similar object. Start a small cut around the knees so you can grip the skin. Pull, you can figure the rest, don't forget the crop, cut it loose from the neck area.
Duane”

“Farmer was real interested in the roosters, I mentioned I wanted to get rid of them. Then Austin said he wanted to keep the "indian" one. Not sure which one that was, but we still have 3 or 4 left. We gave him the plymouth rock bantam, the Americauna and one each of the speckled sussex and buff brahmas. I should have kept the Americauna as he was agressively protective of the hens. I've seen feathers around since, so I wonder how long the flock will last. Getting eggs again though, that's good!
Farmer also said he'd take any hens that stopped laying when I wanted to get rid of them. I asked what he was doing with all of them and he asked if I really wanted to know. (yes, I would not have asked otherwise) I said I assumed the turkeys were going in the freezer. Still don't know what he's doing with the other birds.

After having meat birds, the regular birds seem woefully thin - hardly worth bothering to dress. I read that wax in the water helps and it did. Still stinky to dip them though.”

“So much fun, self sufficiency. :)My apples are giving me a bad time, slow to ripen this year, I'll have to beat them pretty soon.:)
Duane”

“Strat you've got 41 birds and getting only 2.5 a day? That's terrible. I have 11 layers and am avg'ing 5 or 6 a day.

And forget that dipping nastiness. Cut the legs and head off, the easily skin it, feathers and all. With a few small cuts here and there, the skin pretty easily rips cleanly off the body. Toss the crop back to the other chickens, yum!

I rented a tiller yesterday, a front tine one, that you walk behind...... ooooowwwwwwww, I hurt today.”

“About 11 years ago now, I sprung for a Troybilt Pony, no more going to town and getting diseases in the garden from it. My spuds have been disease free for quite a while now. Handy also, use it when you want. So nice, some of the garden I can do like the ads show, one handed. The ground looks purdie when done.
Duane”

“The clay in our yard is so heavy ans clingy that the smaller tillers bounce off and the heavier ones can overheat.”

“Apedude, my birds are all yearlings and only 5 hens are laying age. Some are only 2 months old. I rekin by this spring I'll be swimming in eggs.

That's for the cleaning tips. I can gut,skin, and quarter a deer in 45 minutes so how hard could a chicken be?”

“Chickens flop more than deer. If you want to scare a rooster bad, do the deed close to where he can see. Talk about going off!”

“how many eggs you get depends on the age of the bird - hens start laying at 5 months. If you aren't finding eggs at that age, either you need go on an egg hunt, or you have an egg eater.

I don't skin the birds, because the skin seals moisture in the meat while cooking. Even if you cook in the roasting bags, it helps and you can feed the cooked skin to the chickens.”

“Haha dwane!
Twig, that's kinda what I was thinking about the skin.

I don't I've got egg eaters but I could have some rouge layers. OH I think my Banty hen layed one yesterday because we got a tiny egg, smaller than a golf ball.”

“We went to a UCAN (Urban Chicken Advocates of Nashville)last night. This group is trying to get the laws changed so you can raise chickens within the city limits of Nashville.

We had been thinking about raising a few chickens. I contacted my local councilman and asked if we could raise them. He told me that to raise chickens in Nashville you have to have 5 acres of land. The UCAN group is trying to get that changed. They have a facebook page if anyone is interested in looking at it.”

“yeah I find eggs in strange places all the time, plus I found a nest of 16 eggs out in the front yard my first year with chickens.

often the first egg of a regular sized hen is round and small, then gets more oval and bigger as she lays more eggs. My bantam hens lay oval shaped eggs, just smaller.”

“Our chickens always lay in their nesting boxes, it's the guineas that I find a huge batch of eggs somewhere in the woods or down off our hill. I steal all but about 5 and they'll keep laying there. One at a time, one per day, I put golf balls there. After about 5 golf balls, I then can collect all their guinea eggs, and they'll not catch on and change their nesting location. Sometimes the chickens will begin laying in this unauthorized nest as well, hehe.

How many layers you got Strat? I have about a dozen Cuckoo Marans and some French Copper ones, and a Blue Copper one (hope it's a she) that should begin laying toward the end of this month.

Chickens do cook better with their skins on, but I just hate the boil/dip/pluck method so much, that I can do without skin to cook. Particularly now that the cool is coming on, chicken soup is good for the soul.”

“Esker, good luck. People should be allowed a right to self sustainability, within reason of coarse. I believe the Fayetteville ordinance is you're allowed 3 hens and no roosters. I thinks it's reasonable, Luckily I live outside the city limits”

“that's a good strategy, naked. I take all the eggs, then they don't lay there again...”

“stratdood, that sounds like what they are trying to do here. You can have 4-5 chickens and no roosters at all. I am just waiting to see what happens before we invest in a coop.

Speaking of coops can any of you post pictues of your coop”

“Yeah, I figured that out by not feeding the coons, yotes, weasels, possums, and all the other lovely varmints that love aigs. Guineas are real quick at switching laying spots too, and here the fun waned fast on hunting them down. The kids just plain stink at finding their nests..... no detectives in my bunch I'd say.

Ewker, keep your eye out on Craigslist for schytty travel trailers. (Heck, free old pop-ups would be great too, if you don't have coon issues.) I picked up a 16-18 footer, with good wheels, which is harder to find in POS travel trailers, for $65. Got some dry-rot on the inflated tires, but I was thrilled that they STAY inflated, hehe. Eventually 2 used tires will be 25 each, so I'll sooner or later be doing those. But...... me and the kids are going to bust everything outa it, I'll prolly get 20-30 bux from the metal outa it. Get some old, or scrap lenolium to lay in it, and voila, a dang wonderful, and movable, chicken coop. I want to keep the poop for garden/orchard/vineyard use..... when I eventually get those things.”

“There's gotta be a redneck joke about that travel trailer for chickens.:)”

“Ewk, I'd post pictures but I don't think I can do that on TT”

“I had a buddy with an old 8x8 playhouse that he was gonna tear down because his kids are old now. I hauled it to mu house on a big trailer. I framed it, put siding on it,
Insated it and put in plYwood walls and floors, built and pen around it, 12x12. Built 14 nesting boxes and some roost. It frosted here the lAst 2 nights and I put an 80w bulb in there and it stayed pretty warm.

Got 3 more eggs today”

“Chickens are affected by the light, if you provide artificial light, keep at it or if the bulb burns out or whatever and you dont' replace it, the chickens will go into a moult. One year my neighbors across the creek had their power out for over a week and he worked for the power company and their chickens quit laying while they moulted. They sold eggs, having over 50 hens I believe.
Duane”

“Holy cow..... Er uh chicken! I've never heard that one Duane. I couldn't really come up with a better solution to keep them warm. Maybe I'm worried about it too much. How do you do it?”

“Holy cow..... Er uh chicken! I've never heard that one Duane. I couldn't really come up with a better solution to keep them warm. Maybe I'm worried about it too much. How do you do it? What about one of those red heat lamp bulbs, would that be better?”

“With what I believe just the cold of winter, chickens slow down on their egg production and the shorter days. The two or three hens I always had, I could see little slow down and for me, if any reduction was not a big deal and I only sold eggs when I had extra. Since my neighbor had steady clients, she had to keep her production up, so with so many hens, any reduction she could notice right away. A small coop that you could close up at night would help your birds, that way they have a small area to have to heat up. A heat lamp would work, but I'm thinking there is still enough light to keep them active. If you have no power outages, it would work, providing more light, longer. The cost was not worth it to me, but with a larger flock, that could be overcome. Personally, I only worried about them when it got below zero and then only noticed the roosters comb getting damaged by the black on it. Buff Orffington or something like that, are bred for the cold. My grandparents in MN never did anything for their chickens and it gets colder there than CA where I live. Back in the early '70's, I tried raising domestic quail and the instructions for them was to provide additional light as their offspring would be sterile if not enough light was provided. Might be worth reading up on, on how chickens are affected. That's all I know, just info from my neighbors who now live in Hawaii.:)
Duane”

“From what I've heard from the old guys, steady egg production requires about 16 or 17 hours of light, any regular light will work. I have my coop on a timer, so from about 7 to 12 the light comes on, just a simple 40 or 60 watt on a dang long extension cord. Another thing affecting egg laying is the water intake. In the winter they normally reduce drinking, particularly if you leave the water at natural temps, which is what I do. In WNC it don't that often get so cold that I have to keep a heater under the water. I'd bet some ppl around here do tho. I just have a few gallon jugs out on the back porch, and I take hot water out to them. It mixes with what's frozen or crusted over and the chickens use that time for heavy hydration. When it's real cold, I'll do that both at lunchtime when I let them out and again in the evening when I put them up. Our produce guy's mom mixes chili powder or some such into their food to increase water intake, she swears by it. She buys cheap spices at the Dollar Store.

I don't think it ever hit zero here the last 2 winters, altho I've had some very minor comb damage on occasion.”

“I use heat lamps in the winter, I'm not feading anything that isn't a pet that doesn't give back. Got a one to one egg ratio all winter using a 250 watt red bulb off an outdoor plug.”

“Yeah I'm not in it for the glory, I just wanna take care of the poor critters. They're so stupid and all... Yet they outsmart me on a regular basis....odd”