Friday on the Farm

[trystinn]

Hobo takes his job, such as it is, very importantly. He waits until I fill the poultry water bucket in the laundry room sink (the spigots are covered in insulating caps, or rather they were until the ducks ate it. And the replacement cap), then he follows me outside. I hold the gate for him, then gently close it behind him. He'll use the doggie door, but its not his favorite.

The ducks gather outside the main coop, quacking madly for breakfast starting at about 7am. Hobo sits safely up on end of the house, ears pulled back. He's afraid of the ducks, with good reason. Even at his extreme size, they outweigh him. As I let out the big chickens, they race out. I throw two huge scoops of food, trying not to hit Hobo or the opportunistic Bassets. I unplug the heat lamp and grab the still warm eggs. Hobo by now has moved around to the bantam coop and is waiting for me, again. He doesn't want to get in the middle of the feeding frenzy. Chickens go after my toes, they will go after his.

We walk in to the bantam pen with a scoop of feed. I let out the bantams and they race over to the feed bowl. Hobo doesn't mind the little chickens, so I don't worry about this. Today, the broody Mamma Spot has come out to eat so its a good time to check on her eggs. I encourage Hobo to come out of the pen and he's so obedient he's like a dog. We walk around back to the coop and I open up the nesting box trap door.

Today is a sad little duty. Wendy has abandoned her eggs, so I now have to throw away the frozen eggs. Hobo wants nothing to do with this, so he's leisurely laying down on the property line rise. I gather the cold eggs and pop them in the now empty water pail. I can see the darkness of the partially formed chicks through the thin shells. Very sad. I grab a marker out of the main coop and mark Spot's eggs, so I'll know if someone decides to sneak in more eggs. Someone is. There's 14 in there!

As I walk back towards the house with my bucket, I tap my leg and call for Hobo. It takes awhile as he's arrogantly watching the flock eat. A few more calls gets his attention and he trots over, kangaroo-hopping. I scoop out kibble for him, toss a scoop for the poultry who followed us in desperate hope and feed Libby who is most displeased. Scarlett is sitting on the porch rail, hiding behind the cat kibble bin. She's in full molt, looking horrid and miserable. She's too embarrassed to let me pet her so we're both pretending I haven't noticed.

All in all, a good morning's work - 40 minutes.

Comments

[singingnettle.livejournal.com]

Heh. I am sure Minnow would love to herd chickens.

I'm planning to buy a place in a year or so in one of the several towns or cities that allows residents to keep poultry. Then I will probably have lots of chicken questions for you. :-)

[tryst-inn.livejournal.com]

If I may recommend, start researching now! You'll never regret sorting things out ahead of time in preparation, especially when you have plenty of time to arrange and re-arrange.

I have a spreadsheet of major chicken breeds, if you send me an email address. Its very thorough - broody ability, temperament, color of egg shell, production ability, type of chicken (layer, meat, dual, etc.)

I'd recommend three things to start out:

Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens (must have, great reference guide, you will need this forever)

www.backyardchickens.com - my ID is TrystInn (creative, eh?) - the coops, pens and bulletin boards are BEYOND fabulous for resourcing and inspiration

A workshop or poultry tutor. Now obviously, you got me to call in a mad panic 24/7. But its hard to beat hands on, if you haven't already. The Grange and 4-H have workshops and resources. Chicken folks are the very best people out there and we love talking and sharing our passion. Hell, you could probably put up a notice at the local feedstore "Help, I want to get chickens! Be my addiction counselor" and you'd get a dozen responses inviting you over for a tour! Also, some 4-Hs have annual Coop Tours - you will find chicken people are very inventive about making coops from EVERYTHING. We're cheap (pardon the pun) and we can renovate anything. Store bought coops are fine for starters, but you can renovate a VW bus into a gorgeous coop. :D

[singingnettle.livejournal.com]

Neat--thanks!

Yes, I've joined a group that does workshops on urban farming, and after we at least get the push done of finally unpacking and moving into our house, I'll start researching what we'll actually do when we own a piece of land.

[singingnettle.livejournal.com]

(I suspect keeping chickens in a tropical climate has some very different issues from keeping them in Western WA. For one thing, they're massively prone to West Nile Virus and mosquito-borne encephalitis here...not to mention that your chances of having them picked off by an alligator, boa, or python are a lot lower in WA! Coyotes and raccoons--yeah, we haz 'em here, too. We need a watch llama.)

[tryst-inn.livejournal.com]

Honestly, you may be better off with a watch emu. They do better in the heat than llamas. There's a lot of FL folks on BYC, we can network you there. :D

You'll need DE as a preventative and you'll have to vaccinate. Poultry pox is HUGE out there. Once you have it, you pretty much have to kill off your flock and burn your coops down. :(

[singingnettle.livejournal.com]

Huh. Golly. Lots to learn.

[tryst-inn.livejournal.com]

Emu = big, angry chicken. You can usually pick them up for free on CL from desperate folks once in awhile. HUGE big eggs, sell them as novelties. Dunno what the heck they taste like, probably make decent crafts projects. I'm thinking birdfeeders.

Lemme check my contacts - I've got a military wife chicken buddy there who can fill you in on keeping poultry in the tropics. You won't want big fluffy birds - you want lightly feathered, warm-origin birds. I'm thinking you want layers, as I recall you're both Veggies? And you'll want a few Silkies for cuddling and brooding for you.

[singingnettle.livejournal.com]

I've had emu. It's more like red meat than poultry. All that great big muscle.

No, we're not vegetarians. But yes, I might be able to learn to look at animals as food, but I think no matter what, some of them will have to be pets. :-) We had time-share chickens at the cottage last winter--they kept coming over because they used to live there, and they were probably laying eggs in the yard somewhere--and they were very pleasant animals to have around. They would come to the gate and stare at it to let me know they wanted in, and they would follow me around softly clucking and conversing, and they would stop dead and listen in apparent bliss if I sang to them. They were good company. One, sadly, was killed by someone's free-roaming dog recently. Poor dear. The pair was very devoted to each other, and the remaining hen must be lonely.

[tryst-inn.livejournal.com]

I tend to look at chickens as a life cycle animal. The first 6 months they are pets. At 6 months, when they are mature, they are layers and mothers (or fathers). For the next year or two, we watch them live their lives. Obviously, we re-home a few in that interim. At 3 years or thereabouts, its towards the end of their laying years and its time for freezer camp because what lies ahead is painful cancers generally.

[singingnettle.livejournal.com]

Huh. I didn't know that they start developing cancers by the time they're three or so. Very interesting. Do they develop cancers because they've been so inbred?

[tryst-inn.livejournal.com]

That's a good question and I'm afraid I cannot answer it as my background isn't in science.

What I've read is that we've bread layers for near-daily egg laying (essentially every 26 hours, if provided with 16 hours of daylight or equivalent light). Having bred specifically for increased production, later health problems after fertility drop weren't accounted for. And sadly, likely weren't a concern. You just can't afford to pay to feed them after the drop off.

Figure it this way: 50lbs of feed goes for roughly $13-15 pounds a bag, you can get it cheaper by the ton if you can store it without vermin or mold infestations being an issue.

Egg crates can be gotten pretty cheap in volume, or free if you can scrounge (I give discounts for returns). Figure $4.00 a dozen for free range eggs.

So:

For every bag of feed, you gotta sell 4 dozen eggs to cover your ladies' feed to be even. That's not really giving you any eggs, but you can likely sneak a few in there because you're feeding the ladies kitchen scraps and some local plants will do a lot of the feeding, too.

Now, likely you want a rooster. They are pretty and sometimes quite charming. And they are very protective of your ladies, so they guard your investment. So you gotta pay to feed him and he's bigger and is more active, so that's a bit of a drain but he's worth it. Because he makes new ladies for you. And laddies you can sell or barter. :D

How long your feed lasts is going to depend on how many chickens you have, what size they are, how much greenery and insects are available, etc. But that's the basics for cost, there. With 1/4 acre - no more than 10 standards (if congenial breeds) would be my recommendation. You can squeeze a few banties in there, too.

It doesn't take in to account shell, DE, dust (which is a preventative and entertainment), the occasional worming, upgrades and maintenance to your poultry building, pen, etc.

I can go on and on, so I'll drop off here :D :D :D

[singingnettle.livejournal.com]

What do you think about "heritage" breeds? Do they tend to have a difference in health?

[tryst-inn.livejournal.com]

Depends a heck of a lot in the breed you're interested in. Right now, the swing back to heritage generally means they are grotesquely inbred (which can make for bad health, but its really going to depend on the hard work of the breeder) and poor producers (layer, meat, dual purpose). Now, that said - Rhode Island Reds, Rhodies, ARE heritage and from a good breeder are excellent flock birds - great producers, good overall health, friendly, stable and beautiful. Go for PQ (pet quality) as SQ (show quality) won't lay as well, they never do.

Also, remember - in America heritage means the Colonies - so the breeds brought over were cold and rain tolerant. Not necessarily what you want for Florida. My spreadsheet will show you what is cold/heat tolerant. You will likely need a fan for summer, though you can easily make a home solar panel to run one from soda cans. There's plans on BYC to make this, last I checked.

But because heritage can be rarer (some are on the endangered species list), they can be very high priced comparably so good for sales if you want to get into that - which I don't recommend for newbies or at your size of property.

That said, because heritage breeds are on an upswing hatcheries are trying to breed them in crazy numbers, so the price could drop and has for many (Hamburgs are so cheap you cannot give them away). So quality could suffer. You can always test out breeds, sample packages are good for that - you'll want peaceful, stable, gentle, friendly chickens that do well in captivity and that free range well (I'm assuming you want to free range?). That's not going to include a lot of heritage breeds in that list. But it will include Rhodies. :D

I have two. I'm crazy nuts about them. I will always have Rhodies as the backbone of our home flock. I'm hoping to breed some blue ones as part of a project this Spring. :D

[singingnettle.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I want a bird that can kick the crap out of me!