Cooler Temperatures Welcome

High temperatures and humidity have not made for a very good first year with chickens.  The groups, chats and blogs have been super helpful.  I'm glad I have only a few chickens, comparatively, but it still seems like too many on some days.  The chicken's are ok now that temperatures have dropped, but humidity is on some days unbearably high.  One day this week everytime I went out the back door my glasses completely fogged up.  Probably because I keep the house too cool.  I do that because I lose a lot of energy and begin to feel nauseous when I'm in humid air for too long.  The airconditioner keeps the house a lot drier.  As a result the garden has suffered from neglect.  I'm not giving up on it for the future but for now it is still difficult to spend mornings out there with toddlers in the house.  They will get older and it will get easier I'm sure.
This spring I bought a straight run of chicks, because of this I have way too many roosters.  Even though they are not fully mature they can be quite a handful.  We watched them a lot trying to determine which ones were the worst.  One evening, July 28th we decided to try our hand at processing one, get a system started and see how it goes.

So here we are.  Nervous? yes.  Could we back out of this? no.  Once you have a livestock, you cannot turn your back on it.  It doesn't matter what kind it is.  So better pull on those boots, get the gloves and get on with it.  We actually caught and processed the wrong one.  Catching it was so hard.  But that's ok really because I'm not trying to breed chickens.  All the roosters are eventually going to the same happy place.  It has been many years since I last processed a chicken, 34 years exactly.  So yes I'm nervous, I also wanted to try something different to what we did at home when I was a kid. 

I want to use a cone instead of a chopping block.

Here is a picture of our little rudimentary set up.  The homemade cone attached to the end of an old homemade sawhorse.  A piece of plywood straddled across two smaller sawhorses and the old kitchen trash can.  The hose is conveniently nearby.  Two very sharp knives and a bucket you can barely see, under the cone and one not visible for the hot water.  We used hot water from the house and boiled a smaller pan of water.  We used a thermometer to check the waters temperature.  At this age I've read that it should be between 140 - 150 degrees F.  We had a rope hangin in the barn door.

Here's me holding the lucky guy.  This was our first.  He dressed out at 3lbs 5oz.  Not too big for this kind of chicken, but not too bad either.

Little bit skinny. But not too bad.  Tasted good too though not as tender as I had hoped.  But that's what you get for having flying running chickens, and giving them lots of room to do so.  The flavor was great.  I think we'll have to experiment with the actual cooking of the birds to find the best way.

16 Weeks Old

It has been such a busy time.  The fourth of July came and went.  All my kids from all over with their children came to visit.  Raspberries came and went.  Jam was made.  Beans began to ripen, jalepenos and eggplant followed suit.  Good times all around, even the exhaustion was resemblence of good times.  I thought I would be able to give my son a taste of homegrown chicken while he was here but that didn't happen.  To start with I totally suck at catching chickens.  My favorite man in the whole world, Mark, became sick and needed care.  So it turned out great for the chickens, they get to live longer.  Good thing too, I discovered when I finally managed to catch one and weigh him.  He was 5 lbs at 15 weeks and again I weighed at 16 weeks and still came up with 5 lbs.  Good thing I can't take a picture of myself trying to catch chickens.  Probably not a very flattering thing.  I've been reading about how to cook homegrown heritage chickens and the proper way to handle them before and after slaughter. I will add a post to share the information on that. 

Serious Mr. Rooster.

Ruler

Come on we can share this thing.

Alright, we'll see who's boss.

I am the boss.  Cock - a - doodle - doo!

Aren't I beautiful?  I know I am.  I'm a buckeye.

I'm beautiful too.  Mama said I was.

Me too.

The July heat has been a serious issue.  I've been busy trying to keep them hydrated and cooled off.  Ice bottles in the afternoon water.  Watermelon in the late afternoon.  Temperatures in the upper 80's at bedtime.  Still I was worried about the poor things.  One afternoon I noticed some blood in and around some poop.  I asked on the AmericanBuckeyeClub, a yahoo group, about it.  The advice I got was closer to a disease called Coccidiosis.  That was scary.  I learned from the Chicken Health Handbook that Coccidiosis will run through the flock in 5 - 7 days.  I was also advised to get them back onto the medicated feed.  I thought and thought about all this.  Very stressful.  When I went to the feed store I found a pint of Corrid.  This is the medication, amprolium, which is in the medicated feed.  I bought it just in case.  Good thing to have on hand.  I also found a packet of vitamins and minerals for chickens, in a powder form.  I didn't buy the medicated feed.  When I got home I replaced their water with vitamin and mineral boosted water.  I also began putting a mixture of molasses and garlic with olive oil and water in the morning grain.  I mix it up and spread it out for them.  They love it.  My reasoning is saying that, if they are strong they will beat this sickness if they have it.  I have not found any more blood but I am watching them carefully.  They seem fit and healthy.  Running, flying, eating, drinking, fighting.  It has been three days now since I found the first clue to sickness.  I will watch and see if there are other symptoms before I treat with medication.  So far none.  It could be that one ate something it found in the ground that was sharp.  It could be due to dehydration from this unbearable heat.  By next Thursday I will know.  So for now I am fortifying them with vitamins and minerals.

Very hard to keep the coop cool.  Mark put in a fan to draw the air out.  But the air being sucked in is hot and heavily humid.  It rained this morning, hard and so far the air is much cooler than it has been.  We are looking forward to a week of cooler temperatures.

13 Weeks

13 weeks old now and looking good.  I just had them tested by the NPIP, will have to wait on one of the tests but the other one is instant and clear.  Yay.  Lots of crowing going on now in the mornings.  Some are sounding professional and others are still trying to get it.  We had a couple of very hot weeks.  Very stressful for the birds but this week has cooled down by 15 - 20 degrees, F.  Gives me a break from the worry of keeping them cooled. 
Some pictures of my chickens at this age:

relaxing
in the
shade
in the
heat
of the
day

Cockerelle

Pullet

Big beautiful Buckeye Cockerelle,  he is so friendly and mild mannered and growing so big.  I would like to keep him but he may be too tall and he has crooked toes.  I may keep him anyway.  Not sure.  He would make a great pet.

11 Weeks Old

So I didn't take pictures at 10 weeks old.  I had a lot going on between all the rain.  But I did take pictures today.

This is a pecking block I added to give them something else to do.  They were suspicious of it at first so I put some grain on it and sprinkled it around on the ground.  Gradually they pecked their way up to it and checked it out.  This picture shows a rooster and a hen.

Here they are relaxing in the morning shade on the outdoor perch.  The feed is in the gazebo and the water is where it stays shady all day.  They eat more outside now than they do inside so I have to fill it more often.  They have graduated to turkey grower which has 20% protein and no medication.  It is in a pellet form which they seem to like better.  It also works better in these type of feeders.  With the powder feed I would have to shake down the feed several times a day, I don't have to do this withthe pellets.

They took care of this watermelon rind and now they play with it.

Congregating on the gazebo roof.

Buckeye roo at 11 weeks old.

Buckeye pullet at 11 weeks.  Beautiful birds.  Very big.  They are also friendly and calm.

I am concerned about two of the Buckeye roos.  They are a little slower feathering, especially on their backs.  This was exposing the fluff of their saddle feathers drawing attention to themselves.  When I noticed others going up to them and removing the fluff, which is by the way an entire feather, I panicked.  I tend to do that when I see something strange going on in the flock.  I immediately wrote a letter to Ann who forwarded it to Jeff who wrote back to me concerning the goings on in my chicken yard.  When my husband got home I alerted him to the goings on as well.  I looked up chicken jackets on http://www.hensaver.com/ and ordered two.  I also went out and purchased a pecking block to help distract them.  I went over and over with Mark plans for a chicken tractor so we would have alternate housing should the need arise.  At first he really wasn't into the tractor idea but I managed to find a small video of one on Garden Girl TV's website and showed it to him.  I am absolutely useless when it comes to relaying to my husband what I want.  But he totally got it when he saw the video.  Huge thanks to all of you out there posting pictures and videos of your chickens and their happenings, including lodging.  Now I'm going to post pictures of the two Buckeyes in question.

It isn't that the others are being mean.  I'm not seeing it that way.  It is that they are always taking care of each other.  If one has a piece of shavings hanging on it another will kindly remove it.  Sometimes a bit of grass or something hanging out of it's mouth etc.  To the others this looks like somethings wrong and they kindly remove it.  I've been watching these two for several weeks since their is another Buckeye roo who's back doesn't look like this.  The back feathers neatly cover the tail feather fluff.

So this is what I've been concerned about.  Skin is beginning to be exposed.  Since the chicken is a dark brown a small droplet of blood isn't as obvious as it would be on a white chicken.  But to me this is an all alarm alert.

This is what the back of the other one looks like. I believe this is normal.  This is a beautiful bird but he doesn't like to be photographed.  A little afraid of the camera I think.

9 Weeks Old

A lot going on this week.  We added another 160 feet of electronet to the chicken yard for a total of 320 feet of fence.  This way they have more shaded area and lots of new ground, weeds, extra bug territory etc.  When I looked out at them the area just didn't seem big enough for them now that they have grown so much and it was getting pretty worn down.  Now it goes way way back and it is wider at the front.

Recently in my last post I mentioned opening up the back of the coop to let more air flow through.  This is what it looks like now.  We used hardware cloth.  The tarp keeps the rain out.  We have had a lot of rain.  It hasn't smelled badly in there since we did that even on a really hot day, try 95 degrees F in May.

It's really hard for me to get good pictures of my birds.  I think it's great and so I click.  In the time it takes to click, a split second, they move.  So next time I try to be really quick and I forgot to focus.  I think they are beautiful birds though.  Obviously, otherwise why all the pictures.

                                                                                     

This one is my favorite. He comes running up to me and follows me everywhere, checking out what I'm doing. He has even let me pet him.

This one is a big one.  A big cockerelle.

So yesterday we made more changes to the coop.  We shouldn't have.  They were in a panic at bedtime.  Totally stressed.  Mark was picking them each up and stroking them, cooing to them.  Actually, I couldn't believe it, he was so concerned.  They were fine this morning though.  Mark had made a new perch and it was pretty big.  Awesome perch.  But we had to move stuff around to make it fit.  We should have done one thing and waited a couple of days to do one thing more etc.  Monday we enlarged their outside area and moved things around so Tuesday moving stuff around in the coop was a bad idea.  Mark felt like he had bonded with them and after said to me, "So you're going to make me put them in the slaughter cones, aren't you?"  Whew!  I felt bad after he said that.  But I will never make him do that.  I just read where a couple got a bunch of chickens for meat purposes but they ended up keeping them or giving them away because they simply couldn't do what is needed to get them into the freezer.  Now I'm wondering if that will happen to us.!!!!!!!

This morning: June 3, 2010, I'm out there early and I needed to tighten the red string strung over there yard because the heavy rain soaked it and stretched it down to the ground in some places.  Some of the chickens followed me to the back.  They like to walk around with me.  Some of them stayed at the front end of the yard where the water and feed are.  I heard a funny noise coming from the coop area so I stopped what I was doing and looked around.  In a minute I heard it again only it was louder.  And again.  Then I laughed, how cute, one of the roos was trying to crow and each time he tried it sounded more like a big boy.  So cute.

May 2010

Five Weeks Old

A lot of changes have been going on.

Everyone has almost all their feathers now.  I'm noticing a distinct difference between the two sexes.  I've actually been noticing it all along but now it's becoming clearer to me.  Things which told the difference when they were little, but since I didn't know anything about the differences I've just been watching.  So I'm going to point out some of these differences here in these pictures.

The one on the left has a long full feathered tail and it's comb is still unformed.  The one on the right has almost no tail or very short but it's comb is already forming.  I'll find a better picture of both.

The one on the left I'm assuming is a little hen.  The one in front on the right a little rooster.  The ones I'm assuming are hens have full feathered bodies and tails but the roosters seem to have been putting there energy into growing the comb and wattles.

The picture on the right shows more feathers and tail.  The one on the right much less feathers and barely any tail but a comb already becoming obvious.  These two pictures taken at three weeks old.

Chickens are getting so big.  I love how my husband keeps working on the coop and anything else involving chickens, instead of mowing and other stuff he normally does.  I'm thinking he really likes the chickens.

Here's some more pictures at 5 weeks old.

Ok, so that's not chickens, that's our cat George.  He had a couple of encounters with the electronet so now he's resigned to watching from the playcenter.

Picture on the right shows how they are all wearing bloomers.

Six Weeks Old

They are taking care of the grass and weeds. 

Look how big the buckeye is!  Here is a little gazebo to shelter the water from the hot sun.  Ever since we built it we haven't had any "hot" sun.  That is what happens.

very curious about the camera

Beautiful at six weeks.  Mark made a roof over the doorway to help the door not swell so much with the rain.  We have had mostly rain.  The chickens don't seem to mind if it rains, they just love being outside.

Indoors, roosting and napping.  Curious again about the camera.  They love the attention.  If they only knew that I was writing about them and that there pictures were all over the internet.  They would be so proud.  They might be too proud and expect diva treatment.

Oh, wait, they already do expect diva treatment.  The first night I removed the heatlamp they made such a fuss, I put a regular red light bulb up.  They were OK that night.  But since then they have made a huge fuss everynight about
the heatlamp being gone.

I had to rearrange some things in the coop because they decided to sleep in the corner.  Problem was the corner was only big enough for one and everyone was piling in.  I moved the feed cans next to the big door and made a corner big enough for everyone. 

I started giving scraps to them.  Not too many at first, but they love the scraps so much that everytime I head back there they all come running, prepared to fight for whatever I throw over the fence.  I am careful not to give them any heavily salted food as I did read that too much salt can make them sick.  I gave them some cooked pork scraps. I was just curious.  Lasted in the pen about 3 seconds.



 Seven Weeks Old
I haven't been able to get any pictures yet this week because it won't stop raining.  The chickens don't care but I have to be careful not to let the coop shavings get too damp.  They have gotten used to the regular light bulb now.  It gets dark at nine o'clock now and so I go out about 8 - 8:30 and close the windows in the coop, fluff up the bedding, check the water and spend a little time with them.  Then I go back to the house to take care of things there and at nine o'clock I go out to the coop again and everyone is inside and in their corner.  That's when I shut the little door.

Eight Weeks Old

My babies are getting so big.  They are about halfway to the maturity age.  On the left is a picture of my buckeye hen.  I am guessing that because there is no comb growing yet and her tail is showing some black on the tips but not so dark as some of the others.  On the right is a little roo posing for the camera.
A buckeye rooster on the left, see his comb growing, he is darker in color and has lots of fluffy tail feathers.  On the right a little hen checking out the camera.

A cockerelle on the left again a pullet on the right.  (I think those are the correct terms)  They get excited when I come out to see them and pose for me.

Guys can get so serious.  Doing the stare down.  On the right a rich green color in the tail feathers.

Taking a stroll, a cockerelle. And a pullet foraging.  They are filling out nicely and the cockerelles seem to have caught up in size with the pullets. 

Notice the red string.  On Friday I saw a hawk swoop down and try to get one of my chickens.  The chicken flew threw the netting and the hawk got caught in it just for a minute.  It got away ok and the chickens huddled squawking in the coop.  They were extremely anxious.  The one who went through the fence, flew back through and on into the coop.  I didn't see it do that because I was watching the hawk who was sitting up in the tree.  It didn't have a chicken and I didn't see any chickens wandering around.  They didn't come out of the coop again until I finished tying red string (it is actually knitting yarn) across the yard.  Then they all relaxed and ran out and all over.  As if they felt safer with the string.  I'm not even sure it works but it made them feel better and I haven't seen any more hawks.  Yesterday we opened up a wall in the coop and covered it with rabit hutch wire.  Half inch squares.  Now I don't have to close the little window at night because it is gone.  It had only mosquito netting on it and I didn't feel safe leaving it open.  The opening should allow the breeze to flow better through the coop.  It was getting very hot in there and I felt that the chickens little lungs were in jepardy during the day.  Soon Mark will make a wooden door with the same kind of screen - rabbit hutch wire.  The mosquito netting gets closed up quickly with chicken dust and needs to be closed at night even though it is warm enough to be left open.  A racoon could quickly tear through this kind of netting.  Yesterday the air in the coop had gotten very hot, over 90 degrees and stale.  I made a shelter from the heat outside for them and put food in it and closed the coop door to keep them out of it until Mark came home and could help make the open side.  (help !!!!!, actually he did the job and I helped him, lol)