I am getting chickens!

ben62670

I love hanging with my chickens. Something as simple as watching them scratch at the leaves digging for bugs is fun and relaxing. They are so easy to care for, and the stink is minimal. The Pooh will be great for the garden. I can't believe how much the price of produce has gone up. Some of the people I talk too say that the return is not worth what you put into it. Take into the consideration that I do not use any chemicals to spurt their growth, and the bug eating they do I am very happy with them. You have to consider the price of free range eggs, and meat into the factor of what it cost to raise these birds. I only spend about $10 a month on these little guys, and it is worth it:) In the last few days they have been digging little nests in the leaves. I hope this is a sign of getting ready to lay:)
Ben

BaggedLancer

Have you trained them to attack yet?

ben62670

BaggedLancer wrote: »

Have you trained them to attack yet?

NOT YET:mad:

Actually I have been hand feeding them. I am glad I don't have any feelings. I wouldn't want to feel bad when I whack a few:eek:

george daniel

Ben,, I buy all my eggs locally from a small farm,, beautiful brown eggs,, no chemicals/perservatives that I'm aware of,, and like everything else,,prices have gone up,,1.75/doz,,went by yesterday and got two dozen,, waited until she went out to the coop and gathered them,,ocassionally get a double yoker,, who know's,,, you might be the next " egg man ",,,,

I am the Walrus

John30_30

Our French oudan got nabbed last Monday or so. I think it was a raccoon, since they're active now. Feathers everywhere. Found the half-eaten carcass on the roof, sans head, chest, guts.
Then I thought I heard the little bugger get back on the roof a few mornings ago, likely looking for the rest of his picnic. Nervy, very nervy.

ben62670

I lost two, but I think it was hawks. No feathers nothing.

John30_30

Well, we'd had that bird and our austrolo-something a good 5 years, and they were both Show-reject adoptees.
The oudan was a nervous, cranky bird, and she pecked our little white silkie basically to death. The coon left her scalp with a bonnet of those feathers on the ground.
The survivor chicken is the good-natured one. She's got an eye like a hawk too. I toss a cherry tomato in their pen from the garden 20 yds away, and she's on it like a golden-glove shortstop.
Good glove, no bat.
They do have personality, even if it's not much.

ben62670

I love my chickens! Silkies are so cool. I might just get some for the oldest. She is five:)
Ben

John30_30

ben62670 wrote: »

I love my chickens! Silkies are so cool. I might just get some for the oldest. She is five:)
Ben

Go for it. I'd bet both your girls would like it. That white we had was so friendly, she'd sit on your feet. They lay itty-bitty half-size eggs. But I guess you already knew that.:D

ben62670

Yeah those silkies are sweet. I love those feathered slippers:) Very nice bird:):)

NJPOLKER

Ben I am sitting here laughing. You are one f'ed up fellow. I am not sure why I find this chicken thing so funny but I guess its because I can just picture you there with your Ruger Blackhawk hanging over your shoulder using silver IC's and a beer in one hand and a crossover in the other just waiting for a trespasser/varment. I think 240 grain semi jacketed hollow points make excellent medicine for them.
Drew

ben62670

Na dude I actually rarely drink, but I R a redneck:) BTW it's a Ruger Redhawk stainless steel model;) With a matching scope:):) A 44 magnum is quit the anti varmit gun.

Sherardp

I lived near a Japanese guy who owned like 50 or 60 of them. Lets just say in the summer time, the smell made you not wanna be outdoors. So glad I built the house out here and moved. Great eggs though................not sure if its worth the trade-offs or not.

ben62670

Ah the stink is minimal. I only have 8 of them so its not a big deal. Wet plus hot equals stink, but they are free roaming so the pooh is dried up pretty quick. A lot of pooh in a small area smells like baby diarrhea, but I take care of that right away.

ben62670

SON you got me going again! I want some o those bullets!

shadowofnight

ben62670 wrote: »

Na dude I actually rarely drink, but I R a redneck:) BTW it's a Ruger Redhawk stainless steel model;) With a matching scope:):) A 44 magnum is quit the anti varmit gun.

I wish I could use my Super Redhawk off the back porch like some of you guys...closest to that would be that I can drive 4 miles out of town to my buddies ranch and get a good eating hog with it though

These are fun to shoot in your 44mag in the house though... http://www.midwayusa.com/eproductpage.exe/showproduct?saleitemid=257438&t=11082005 rubber bullets powered only by primer power...NO gunpowder.

shadowofnight

ben62670 wrote: »

SON you got me going again! I want some o those bullets!

They are reusable too....just take 50 of your empty 44 cases...mark them so you will never reload them ( If you are not a reloader...disregard ) because you are gonna drill the primer flash hole to 1/8 " ( A small punch will knock out the old primers easily ) .

You can buy a hand primer at Midway too ( Get primers locally though...expensive to hazard ship them ) and put new primers in and push a rubber bullet into the newly primed empty case with your fingers...have a blast shooting them...to reload collect the rubber bullets up and repeat above...really easy.

NJPOLKER

ben62670 wrote: »

Na dude I actually rarely drink, but I R a redneck:) BTW it's a Ruger Redhawk stainless steel model;) With a matching scope:):) A 44 magnum is quit the anti varmit gun.

I was laughing too hard when reading all the posts to remember its a REDhawk and not Black, which I perfer the double action over the single action. You gotta grow some large varmits down there. We grow them large here too but they have two legs.

mrbigbluelight

I don't know why, but in all the discussions regarding chickens, the question, "Can they take a donkey punch ?" has not been raised.

John30_30

Ben, we left the coop door open last night when there were thunderstorms, hail, & tornado warnings. I told my wife don't go out in that, any smart varmint will stay holed up.
It did until things cleared off, then it got our last bird. :mad: Wife doesn't want any more, wants to put a shed there. We'd had those 2 for 4-5 years, then boom.
I'd send you the new 40# hamper of feed we just got and the water-drinkers, but I think that would cost more shipping than it's worth.:eek: We'll put it and the coop on free on Craigslist.

ben62670

That really sucks dude. I do love my chickens. Easy to care for, give you eggs, eat lots of bugs, and really entertaining to kick back and watch. Today was another really crappy stressful day. I went out back and just messed around with my chickens. It was nice. One bad note. My daughter had a little side note on her daily report saying that she was flapping her arms like a chicken:D It wasn't the chickens that taught her that either:o
Maybe you convince the wife to let you get a couple Silkies:)

BTW never toss a chicken straight up. They come down quick, and bounce:( If you throw them out at an angle the come down nice, and easy:)
Ben

John30_30

Yeah, I dropped the ball on that one and got outsmarted by either a raccoon or a neighborhood tomcat. I think my wife would go for it come spring, but she's got in in her head that winter coming on is a hardship for them, but mainly that that varmint has developed a taste for chicken now. She didn't want me to put up that coop on craigslist, so maybe we'll see. Heck, I put a porchlite inside for when the weather gets really frigid. You got one in your chickens' coop?
Yeah, I know, probably not, but your birds probably have SDA-1's to make up for it.:D

Silkies are great as pets, but I like the normal size eggs too.

Never had a reason to toss a chicken, so I didn't know any of that.

ben62670

Doesn't get cold enough for the need of any heat here. I have 8 of them, and they cuttle up. The coop is a wire cage with an igloo style dog house in it. It actually works real good. The top comes off, and it is real easy to clean. I just bang out the pooh in the planter bed, let it dry out in the sun, and slap it back together:) I will need to do something soon though. If I want them laying eggs, and laying them where I can find them;) As for the flight test I wanted to see how far they could go with a little boost. Well it depends on the launch. I think they might enjoy the flight if done properly. I know I like small planes, and always wanted to try hang gliding. I think they may look at other birds that can truly fly and are jealous. I also think I need to get out a little more, and talk to people:eek: I have Polkies near, but not close:( I have found a church though, and the people there are real nice.
Ben

John30_30

That's decent. I usually just picked the chicken potty up and put it in old plastic Folgers cans. Toss them on the garden or mulch pile periodically.
My wife figured out the birds like shredded paper for nesting, so she'd just bring bags of it from her job. After one layer got pretty rancid and ripe, just chuck the whole mess into the mulch pile where it breaks down. Definitely good gardening material.
The trick about finding the eggs, I don't know. For birds, they were pretty good at finding new hiding places in a small area. They'd flap up into the mulch pile and bury their eggs in there because the stuff was warm from decomposing. Nice try & bonus points for using Nature's incubator...
Shnott too shnabby for bird-brains!:eek::D

More than once we'd think they'd taken a sabbatical from egg-laying only to find a stash of a few dozen getting, erm, rather ripe! Give 'em cracked corn for the extra egg-laying carbs, but I guess you know that.

I dunno. I still feel like an idiot for not going out that night it was storming. She wants to just give the rest of the feed to the wild birds when it gets cold. They got maybe half of it anyways, over the years.

ben62670 wrote: »

I also think I need to get out a little more, and talk to people:eek: I have Polkies near, but not close:( I have found a church though, and the people there are real nice.
Ben

p.s. Watch out about that talking to people stuff. They're not trustworthy like chickens!! :eek:

Jus' kiddn'. Hope you enjoy the church folks.

ben62670

I get "deer corn" at WalMart for $8 40lbs;) Also for the extra calcium I pulverize all my egg shells to the point they don't look like egg shells. You don't want the chickens eating their own eggs;) I wish I still had my shredder. It was a small office style I gave to my buddy in FLA. It would have been perfect. Free range eggs are now about $4 a dozen.

John30_30

Ben, how crazy is this? Last night, early morning around 4, my wife hears some thumping and crashing around outside. She goes out later and sees the remains of our 2nd bird- the one a varmint got 2 WEEKS AGO on the roof.

We had checked up there. That thing brought the leftovers back from somewhere for a last meal on our roof. Even crapped some scat up there. Kinda crumbly like.
I've read about badgers and such taking an attitude like that, but they live up North, not here- do raccoons pull that kind of shenanigans?

ben62670

That's weird. I know coons like to clean their food if they can. That is just weird. I have a chicken on the loose for a week now. IT won't come back, but it won't leave either. IT was 25 last night, and it is fine. I have tried baiting it, catching it, and I even took a pop at it(I hit it). I figured I would rather eat it than a dog or something. Also I don't want any animals getting the taste for fresh chicken. BTW it is the biggest of all of them. It must be the all you can eat worms in the woods. Well I see it every morning. I think I can even hear it laughing at me:mad:
Oh well the next time it comes into my yard it is going in the pot!

ben62670

So I am looking out my window, and see a chicken laying down in the corner behind a tree. I don't think much of it so I go to another window to see where his buddies are. Can't see them. So I go out to see a pile of feathers, and a hawk on top of one of my birds. Well he got one, and that's it. I doubt he will be coming back. I am way to sick today to deal with this kinda crap. The one pretty cool thing is that the chickens were all huddled up, and sought cover. 4 of the chickens were tucked under a bush, and I am guessing that the hawk pulled, or scared one out. Well my chickens are locked up in their pen for today.

ben62670

Warning. Link not suitable for all...
Well I hear the chickens squawking away out there so I get up and head out. Damn possum is messing with my chickens. The best weapon quick to grab was my fishing spear. The spear is 5 feet long with a rubber band to propel it. Well I got the SOB first shot. You can see the tips sticking out the side. I had to whack him with a hammer a couple times. The spear doesn't kill them, but it does a fine job of keeping him under control till I could whack him;)
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh83/ben62670/DSCN1400.jpg?t=1235270052

Early B.

Ben --

I'm gonna invite myself over for Sunday dinner. I got a hankerin' for possum stew!