Growing babies

Its amazing to me how quickly babies grow (both my own son & my pets).

Over the years, I've raised rabbits, chickens, sheep, horses, cows, pigs, hamsters, & mice.  One thing I have not ever had an interest in, is goats. lol but that has no bearing on my subject matter, I was just throwing that in there as a freebie.

When I was still pregnant, everyone told me "They grow so fast!  Don't underestimate or take the time with him for granted while he's small and not moving around the house on his own!"   I didn't really believe them... but they were all right!  My son is growing so fast...  When he was born, he was 8lbs 12oz.  A nice (slightly above) average size baby.  He's now 20lbs... so in 6-months he's put on 11lbs give or take.  I'm a bit amazed. 

My baby chickens on the other hand, I knew they grew fast.

They are 1-wk 4-days old.  Their tail feathers are coming in, their flight feathers have almost come in fully.  They are in a concrete milk tank with 3-foot walls, they're obviously not going to be getting out on their own, so I gave them branches, sticks, logs with & without bark & grass to play with.  They have discovered, that if they perch on the logs and flap their wings that they can "fly" but being chickens without all their feathers, especially their tails, they get no where and most of them land on their faces.  It is one of the funniest things ever!!  :-D

When I bought my Americauna/Easter Eggers I didn't care what colors they would be, I just wanted them because of the colored eggs they would produce.  Customers pay more for blue & green eggs, not to mention the rainbow assortment makes the kids happier.  They all think it's really awesome... which it is, but I haven't gotten all of the "colored egg" layers I would like to own yet. 

I'd still like to get my hands on some (1-5) Marans, and at least 1, possibly as many as 3 Welsummers. Oh well, someday maybe. :-)

Egg Sales

Upon contemplation that I will be getting between 2 & 3-dozen eggs from my pet's, I am thinking perhaps I will pull one of my pallets apart & use the reclaimed wood to make myself a "Farm Fresh Eggs For Sale" sign to place in the yard.  How else would people know I have eggs available for them to buy?

I also am thinking of putting a sign down by the mill so when people come in for tours they will know too.

Of course as my supply increases there is a high probability that my demand will increase as well.  I already have enough people who want eggs at church to take care of a good 20-dozen per week, and if more people knew about the ability to get eggs when they'd like perhaps I could even place more than that.  My mom is kind of feeling overwhelmed with the prospect that I would potentially be selling that many eggs every week.

Then of course there is the fact that I would still have Rick's eggs to place every week, so potentially I would have 40-dozen every week, more if they don't all sell from the week before... yuuuuuup I'll be putting a sign out by the road... and probably an advertisement on Craigs list or something.

Beepla's are 1-week old!

We made it through the first week with only one mortality!  I call this an achievement as I've never raised chicks before (my sister did it last time & lost one as well).   Here are some photos of the babies, and there are duplicates of the same bird, but some of them were not cooperating lol. 

A dark Easter Egger

 Bella a light easter egger

 A suspected rooster (the buff orp)

2 light easter eggers.  They like the wood I gave them to sit on

 Silver lace wyandotte

 Jersey giant

 Biggggggggggggg Stretch!! 

 Can't forget the other leg!

 One of my 3 light brahma's

 A look at how the light brahma wing is developing (it's under developed compared to the other chicks)

 overview of some of them.  2 Jersey giant on right side, 4 easter eggers on left

 Dark easter egger

 light easter egger

 One of my australorp

 Buff orpington

Roosters & putting food up

I'm not terribly thrilled, but I believe perhaps I have close to 4 roosters... which means I will need to decide to either butcher them out, find new homes for them, or keep them away from each other.  Oh loveliness. :-P

My husband thinks we should keep them all, build 4 pens, and let each roo have his own "harem".  I think that sounds like a lot of work, and it will be hard enough to keep one rooster from going mean... but to have 4??  Goodness gracious.  The only upside would be if one went mean I could butcher him out without any guilt trips about not having another roo.  Either way we may end up with quite a bit of chicken for the freezer, and will probably end up canning a whole bunch as well just because its kind of "rip & dump" in a way.

My better half was raised in a home that rarely uses canned items unless they can be purchased in the store.  I on the other hand, was raised by a homestead mom who puts food up every year, and strives to be self-sufficient.  It's only been recently that D & I have embarked on this homesteading adventure for ourselves, and although he wasn't thrilled with helping me put food up last fall, I think he may have eaten all of the food he helped preserve.  Which is great, but it means we need to put a lot of food up this year again.

 

This photo was found at: Secrets of Mom 

RIP: First beepla has died

While sitting in church this morning my sister texts me to tell me that while checking on my baby chicks she's found one curled up in the far corner that has died.  The other chicks didn't seem to care two hoots about it, but there are drag marks as if it knew it was dying and tried to get away from the others.

When I brought them home, one of the Americauna's had jumped out of my hand and landed on the ground really hard.  I was keeping an eye out for one of them to have problems, not one of my black jersey giants.

I'm disappointed, and have to make the assumption that this BJG was either weaker than the others, got pushed out from under the heat lamp for a little bit too long, or just got too weak for whatever reason.  I also have to keep in mind that death is a part of life and all that jazz.

Photos of the goings on today

The fluffy butts got moved into the milk tank/milk house today.  It took a little bit of doing, and for awhile I thought it might not work because of the broken door I had to fix that wasn't going back together very well, but it worked out good and they seem a lot happier. 

I gave them a log to "roost" on, or rather learn to roost on, because they can hardly hurt themselves if they roost on something like that log initially.  They seem to like it...

Can't forget photos of some of the adults. :-)  Mom likes the coloration on the ISA Browns, but I'm not overly impressed.  Their temperaments are good, and their egg laying abilities are good, but the colorings are too similar.  I can't tell the difference between them without their leg bands, and sometimes they're too far away to see their leg bands.

Jethro is of course NOT a chicken, but he's adorable, and was enjoying the sunshine none-the-less so he got himself featured in today's post. :-) 

Article annoyances

I read an article yesterday titled "Things you should know before getting chickens".  Although they were mostly on track they were missing key information, had generalized some information that shouldn't have been generalized etc. and it really made me think that I could have done a better job.  It may be prideful, but there are just some things that should be included if you're going to choose that title for your piece.

When articles like this are written it frustrates me because someone has been paid to write this, and it's a piece of crap.  Writing articles that spread false information, mis-information, or information lacking "guts", that is then passed off as being truth only make it more difficult for the little guy who may not know what they are doing.