Further Musings On Chickens
 

Just a bit of an update for those who are interested.

The bantams are doing quite well. Both my hens are now laying and I'm starting to give some thought towards having them hatch some new chicks for me.

Their parrot cage has worked out pretty well. The floor isn't the best, though. It's half inch by several inch mesh, fine for birds that mostly fly but not the greatest for ground birds. Once in a while a big poop won't fall through. 3/4 inch square mesh would be the best, I found some aluminum expanded metal while clearing my property that I think I'll use to upgrade. After trying a number of litters I think ground corn cob like Kay Kob is the best. It is siftable, absorbs moisture quickly which keeps down stink and is large enough that it doesn't tend to scatter as much as the wheat based litter did.

Other than that a dust bath is very important to their psychological well being. I use a small platic box with a bantam sized hole cut in one side and a little of the corn cob litter for them to bathe in. I put the top on the box to cut back on the ammount of litter that gets thrown around when they're playing in their dust bath.

I bought them a small parrot toy with multi-colored wooden balls and a bell. One of the hens particularly likes pecking at it. I tried a parrot swing out on them but they had no interest. On the other hand they go absolutely nuts for a cuttlebone. It helps keep their beak trimmed and is an important source of calcium for the hens which are now laying. We also reguarly give them little bits of fresh fruits and vegetables left over from our meals, they make very happy sounds and pace back and forth anxiously in the cage when they know its coming. I take them outside once in a while and they like it but they are primarily indoor chickens and are quite content with their life.

We have found that we don't want eggs as much as we want meat. The two bantam hens can pretty much keep up with our egg demand. Unfortunately I have discovered that even many traditional farmstead chicken breeds that used to go broody have had that bred out of them, like my Rhode Island Reds, for instance. I could probably get the bantams to sit on the RIR's eggs but I think I'll go for a known broody meat or dual purpose bird instead. I have heard that New Hampshire Reds were bred more for meat and will go broody, but most of the hatcheries I've called have not seemed to confident about the broody part. Right now I'm looking at the Plymouth Rock and Orpington groups, known broodies. In fact I've a little barred rock chick I'm raising right now to try out. I have another that was mixed in with the barred rocks, could be a buff rock or a buff Orpington, don't know quite yet. Even if the new birds don't lay as well as my Rhode Island Reds I'll still have more than enough eggs.

While I'm thinking of it, broodiness has been bred out of the Ameraucana line as well. I wanted to cross with the Ameraucanas for egg color and comb but it would probably be better to do this with the Auracana instead. The chief problem with the Auracana is the lethal gene, which was bred out of the Ameraucana line. I suspect that since it has been done once already I should be able to keep the comb, egg color and broodiness while losing the lethal gene. In the meantime I can accept a slightly higher chick mortality rate as this will be running as a side project rather than my main meat operation.

I am sticking with breeding my roo, who I now believe to be a New Hampshire Red rather than the closely related Rhode Island Red. Whether he comes from a broody line or not he is the friendliest, smartest, bravest and strongest rooster I've ever seen. He can fight off a racoon, takes excellent care of his girls, but I can pick him up and pet him. He'll even follow me around like a puppy some days. He was adopted, I wish I had bought his brothers at the same time.

The new chicken tractor design has completely eliminated all predation worries as I expected it would. The half inch mesh really helps out, greedy hands can't pull feathers through the wire anymore and have lost all further interest. Since this design was optimized for egg production I'm still going to transition over to the A frame concept I described elsewhere as it is better suited for meat production. I have one complaint with the 1/2" hardware cloth, while it's fine for small or medium sized predators I suspect it wouldn't fair so well against larger animals. While that isn't a big concern at the momment I will be replacing the hardware clotch with expanded metal on the A frame.

I was able to verify that my oaks will produce acorns every year rather than every other year so I'll make the most of the harvest this time around. I have read up on the nutritional qualities of acorns and on paper they seem like a perfect chicken feed. I'll try raising a few chicks on nothing but ground acorn this fall and see how they do. If they put on enough size I'll dress one out and cook it up for the ultimate test.

While I couldn't give you an exact figure I can tell you that pasturing my birds during the day does have a noticeable impact on feed consumption. In fact just keeping them in the chicken tractor over grass makes a difference.

Re: Further Musings On Chickens
 

I've had Rhode Island Reds, Buff Orpingtons, Barred Rocks and Black Australorpes. The Aussies were broodiest, but still only a few of them went broody each year. They are big meaty hens and lay a lot too. We had 2 so broody (we kept no rooster so they were sitting on eggs that would never hatch) we were afraid we might lose them before we got the broodieness broken up.

It is too hot where you are for Light Brahmas, who are huge meaty birds and the broodiest birds of all I have had. But they would die in your heat. They are great up north and sneer at snow.

Re: Further Musings On Chickens
 

I've been wanting to raise chickens for a long time. As soon as I get me some land, I'm all over it.

Can you recommend some good books and/or websites for info about raising chickens? I'm interested in both egg and meat production (of course, insect control is a nice side benefit).

Re: Further Musings On Chickens
 

A good place to start is,

www.feathersite.com

Also,

http://www.backyardchickens.com/

You should be able to get the gist of it through those two. It isn't very hard. You might want to raise one or two hens where you are right now if you have a yard. If you don't a couple bantams in a parrot cage are easy indoors. If you socialize them when they're young they're very tame and friendly, they make good pets that provide useful benefits. A trip to the edge of town out to yield a feedstore selling individual chicks for a couple bucks each. They'll usually have them seperated by sex already. Hens are easiest and quietest so it's probably good to start there.

Re: Further Musings On Chickens
 

We started raising chickens back in May. Built the house, they free-range now. Cost of feed had gone down tremendously since they started free ranging. The should start laying in the next couple of weeks. My bride and kids think they're the coolest thing ever. They're all very friendly. I think they're interesting animals, but I sure will be glad when we start getting eggs.

We have:
4- red star hens
3 - Dominique hens
1 - ugly hen (I think it's a mix)
1- Red star Rooster

SilverJeep

Re: Further Musings On Chickens
 

I found a place that has Rhode Island Reds that aren't a production strain.

http://www.sandhillpreservation.com/

Re: Further Musings On Chickens
 

We have 20 chickens. Five New Hampshire Reds, Five White Leghorns, and ten Araucanas. Raised them from 1 day old chicks starting in May. It was a banner day when they finally moved out of the kitchen into the yard. It was too cold at nights up until a few weeks ago to put them out. They took to the coop the second night. The first night I had to put them in it and shut the door. Now they have figured it out and go in by themselves at dusk. So I just come along about 8pm and shut the door.

Today they were so cute. It has been drizzling all morning and I went to throw them some watermelon rinds and they were all huddled in the coop looking out the door. I didn't think they had the sense to do that. Of course, they come out for something important...like food.

I had figured some of them would die, so I got plenty extra. But none have died. One got pretty weak at 2 days, so we fed her sugar and water with an eye dropper until she gained strength. After a week she was right in with the others at the feeding trough.

They sure are fun to watch.

Re: Further Musings On Chickens
 

I've purchased excellent chicks here, and their site is fun and informative.

http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/

Here in a hot climate I will order 25 female Australorpe chicks (sexing is imperfect and I will get a rooster or 2) when we decide to refill the henhouse. If I lived in a cool or cold climate and wanted meat and eggs I would get straight run Light Brahmas. But we make pets of them and just eat the eggs.

Hens lay most in spring and least in very cold weather. The Brahmas are great about laying well in winter though they lay a lot less than the Aussies. Aussies often lay an egg every day for months and months. They actually lay better than the commercial layers, but the bigger body means they eat a little more so that fraction of a cent of cost makes skinny light birds the layers of egg factories.