sdwolfden
Power Conserver
Just ran acrossed this thread and thought I' through in my two cents. My SO, Marie, has been pestering me for sometime to get some chickens, so this spring I caved in. My landlord was no big help in detering her since he is now too cripled up with old age ailments to keep chickens himself. He offered us an old shed he had used for chickens quite sometime back. After refurbishing the coop and building a yard, enclosed do to predetors around here, we were on our way. Since I raised chickens umpteen years ago, I was recruited to go buy the chicks, day olds from our local farm store. We desided on some DP's for eggs and some Cornish Crosses for quick meat birds. When I got there I ended up with 6 Barred Rock pullet chicks, 12 Cornish Crosses and what was supposted to be 12 straight run Buff Orpingtons, actually ended up with 11 Buff hens and one Aricana that happend to be in the same brooder tank that kept running into my hand when I tried for the buffs.
Trying to keep this short, 11 CC ended up in the freezer within 10 weeks, the largest tipped the scale at some 11 and a half pounds. We lost two birds, one CC to a heart attack and one buff to over crowding one cold spring night when we didn't lower the brooder lamp. We now have 17 little ladies producing 12 to 14 eggs per day in late November. Being "old school", we mix our own layer feed from a recipe I learned from my parents when they were on the farm with a few modifications. We buy 50lb bags of COB (corn, oats and barly) and mix in 5 lb. fish meal (60% portin) and 5 lb. mineral suppliment. We also feed free choice calcium along with "reconstituted" dehydrated alfalfa since we can't let them free range. They just seem to love it. Our latest addition is a rooster we got from our rancher freind. I think he is some sort of RIR cross and his name is "Shanghia". We got him in June and after some initial getting used to time, he fits right in with the girl. We are hoping that our aracana goes broody come spring and we will let her sit on a clutch and hopefully, we won't have to buy too many replacements.
If I knew how to upload pictures, I'd show the girls here. I guess it is something i'll have to work on.
Trying to keep this short, 11 CC ended up in the freezer within 10 weeks, the largest tipped the scale at some 11 and a half pounds. We lost two birds, one CC to a heart attack and one buff to over crowding one cold spring night when we didn't lower the brooder lamp. We now have 17 little ladies producing 12 to 14 eggs per day in late November. Being "old school", we mix our own layer feed from a recipe I learned from my parents when they were on the farm with a few modifications. We buy 50lb bags of COB (corn, oats and barly) and mix in 5 lb. fish meal (60% portin) and 5 lb. mineral suppliment. We also feed free choice calcium along with "reconstituted" dehydrated alfalfa since we can't let them free range. They just seem to love it. Our latest addition is a rooster we got from our rancher freind. I think he is some sort of RIR cross and his name is "Shanghia". We got him in June and after some initial getting used to time, he fits right in with the girl. We are hoping that our aracana goes broody come spring and we will let her sit on a clutch and hopefully, we won't have to buy too many replacements.
If I knew how to upload pictures, I'd show the girls here. I guess it is something i'll have to work on.
She features some of my content but that blog belongs to a lady from over on BYC that started it and built it in less than 2 wks time, got 2 sponsors and over $160 in giveaways during that short time. She's great! 
She is a writer/journalist that took an interest in natural chicken keeping and decided to start compiling some info on it for a blog site because the threads on BYC are so big. 
