Chickens on the homestead

[NH Homesteader]

Thanks everyone. We'll try to catch her this weekend and see what we can do!

 

[Beekissed]

Since my hatches didn't go well this spring, I'll be perusing the ads for free and/or cheap roosters and spent hens for winter soup meat this year to augment the ones produced here.

Monday I'll be going after 16 production red hens someone is selling for $30...I'll try to get them to come down on the price, but it's still a great price for that many hens.

She says they are still laying 8-9 eggs per day in that flock, so while they are penned and their meat is cleaned up in flavor, I'll likely be able to get extra eggs there also.

Most PR hens have a nice, heavy carcass, though not anywhere near my WRs and WR mix birds, but still heavier than most production layer breeds.

As the month progresses and even into October I'll be looking for such deals, accumulating free and cheap meat as I go along until I get enough canned up for winter.

 

[Beekissed]

I wish you lived closer, I have 6 I would give you so I don't have to deal with them!

And I'd take those off your hands in a jiff! You don't want to eat them yourself?

You'd be amazed...or maybe not...at how many folks feel just that way. They have retired hens they don't want to kill, but they need an infusion of new layers....so, what to do with the oldsters? Usually I can pick up whole flocks of hens for $1 ea. and roosters for free. That's meat I didn't have to feed from chick to adult, so it makes me pretty happy.

I just feed them for awhile on fermented feed and free range until their meat tastes better than the commercial feeds they've been eating renders it and then they get canned into a jar. It's a mercy for many of them, as they start to have reproductive issues around 2 1/2-3 yrs of age.

 

[Beekissed]

Oh I worry about those other germs too! Lol I know my chickens are pretty clean but they're chickens!

Yeah silkies.. They're good at dirt!

Side note- can I ask a chicken health question here? I have a hen with one swollen toe. The rest of her foot is fine, no limping, no bumblefoot signs, good appetite, etc. What are the chances it's something other than bumblefoot? We don't do intensive chicken doctoring here. Sorry chicken, she was due for the stew pot 2 years ago but we saved her because she was pretty (yeah... I know)...

Was wondering about your hen with the toe thing...any changes since treating her?

After getting these spent hens this past week, I can fully see why you see a HUGE germ fest when seeing chickens....these birds were absolutely filthy, they stank like dead things and had poop balls encrusted on their toes.

I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around eating such a thing, though I know they will clean right up after a month on free range living...but, for now, they are incredibly filthy, germ ridden beasts. I can't imagine eating an egg that came out of one of these hens....the dogs are feasting on the eggs as of now. Gonna have to get a lot cleaner looking and smelling, eat a lot of FF and free range a long while before I'd partake of anything that came out of one of them. Ick.

 

[NH Homesteader]

Hey chicken folks, I have a novice question (even though I've had chickens for 5 years... Oops)... What is the proper ratio of hens to nest boxes? We've always just thrown a random amount in a coop, which evidently has always been too many since they mostly aren't used. Anyway now we have 3 roos so 3 separate pens, and one of the coops isn't huge so I don't want to use up roost/hang out space for unnecessary nest boxes.

 

[NH Homesteader]

Thanks! So less boxes will work for me.

 

[Beekissed]

I keep 3 for a flock of 12-15 and usually one nest is never used...it varies as to which nest is not being used, but rarely are there eggs in each nest each day.

 

[Hinotori]

The 2 top metal nest boxes are the favorites here. I've seen more dominant hens pull others out of the nest box because they wanted that one

 

[Beekissed]

Amen...that's exactly what it feels like. Like completion of a circle. Just feels right.

That dense spider nest is usually funnel spiders, which show up at my coop near the end of summer and into the fall. Make huge(for a spider)dense funnel shaped nests....good for catching all the other nasties in the coop, so I let them stick around as long as they aren't in my way.

 

[treerooted]

Mmm, could be, it was so hard, thick, and stuck to the nesting box I couldn't remove it; at least not fully. And as far as I can tell it's an old and unused web. The barn coop came with the property and obviously hadn't been used for a long time.