That Blozzz

One part of raising chickens I hate the most is winter. The water is frozen everyday and if you do not get the eggs fast enough, they are froze. I have one hen who lays her egg on top of the nesting box so it always freezes. We get temps below zero all the time so it is hard to keep going in the cold.

The one thing the winter does not do is seem to harm the chickens. Every morning when I go out to thaw the water and check on them, they are waiting at the door with excitement to see me. I guess that is one of the joys that keeps me raising chickens. they have such unique personalities that they warm a cold heart even when it is 20 below zero.

This winter is hardest though because the temps vary so drastically that the chickens or I can get use to the cold.

How are the chickens in your coop doing?

We decided that the banties were more work than their value. They were cute and fun to watch but with winter coming, it was hard to find a warm place to keep them. The big chickens stay nice and warm in their chicken house but I had a separate area for the banties in the big barn. This area was getting too cold and I decided to give the four banties away. My neighbor said she wanted them so I took them over after dark.

The only reason I got them in the first place was because Karen thought they were so cute and her cousin hatched some out so Karen wanted them. Of course, I was the one having to take care of them. My big ones are easy because I have one huge water container and I can just run hot water over it and thaw it everyday after it freezes. It was a pain to have to do that and then have to thaw the little water container for the banties.

Though they were cute, I will not miss them because I prefer my big chickens much more.

Goodbye banties, hope you like your new home!

Do you raise any farm animals?

I am not sure how long you have been reading my blog but I wrote a blog post a while back about one of my Spring born chicks had a twisted beak. I called her twisty and did not want to kill her because she was healthy and was eating fine.

She became the friendliest chicken right down to sitting on my shoulder. I was often annoyed by her antics that including jumping on my back anytime I bent over. One thing was sure, when I went and opened the hen house up for the day, she was the first one to meet me at the door.

That was before this morning! I went out to let the chickens outside and no Twisty. She is missing! I can find trace of her anywhere. I called the neighbor, who also has chickens, to see if Twisty went over there. I searched all over my property and there is no sign at all of her. Normally if a wild animal gets one, you will see signs. This is part of raising chickens and I am use to losing chickens but Twisty was a special chicken. At times, I wanted to ring her necck; however, I hate the fact that I have no idea what happened to her. I guess Twisty is gone for good and the Chicken Coop will never be the same!

Remember back in the summer when I told you all about Rooty the Wimpy rooster. well he is all grown up and no loner a wimp. He looks good though.

Rooty is a pure Araucana Rooster.

Of course, he is the only rooster, there is the crowned prince, Strut. He is a banty rooster and he is a cute one too.

Both roosters are friendly and show no signs of aggression. I hope you like my little chickens!

I have been quite busy and have not had a lot of time to blog. It has been a while since I have sit down and wrote about my chickens. I am still busy raising chickens and it is loads of fun.

I am now at 24 hens and one rooster of the full size chickens and I have 3 hens and one rooster of the bantam chickens. I was getting 12-15 eggs a day but as of the last few days, I am only getting nine eggs a day. This is ok because I am having a hard time finding a steady market in which to sell the eggs. I am trying to get to the break even point where I can supply my family with eggs and the excess can pay for the feed. The last month I have just about paid for all the feed with egg sales so it makes raising chickens cheaper.

I am preparing for what looks like a possible very cold winter. We have already received sub-freezing weather here and it is not a good sign for what is to come. I and hoping to get the chicken barns covered good for the winter and i am hoping have more chickens together will keep them warm. The banties are alone just the four of them but they sleep huddled up. I hope this will keep them warm and safe all winter. They have all gained some extra weight during the garden harvest season so that should also help keep them warm.

Around the rest of the homestead, I am preparing for winter by cleaning up the garden and getting the house winterized. Over the weekend, I installed plastic to weather proof the windows and I cleaned the furnace and vents. I still have to get the plow on the ATV and get it in good running condition to be prepared for the snow.That is about all that is happening right now. What are you doing to get ready for winter?

I have shared with you the going story of Rooty, the use to be wimpy. rooster. Well I have culled most of his competition and now he has discovered his manhood. He is climbing in any hen in site and when the one the last four other remaining roosters go near his hens, he defends them with force. I guess it just took a little longer for him to grow up than the rest.

Well I have culled 12 roosters so far this year and I have four more that I will be culling or taking to a swap meet in September. Rooty will be my only rooster that I keep. I ended up with 18 hens. I had nineteen that made it to almost laying age but I found one dead on the coop floor. It looked like she broke her neck. I assume she fell off the roost and I blamed my rowdy roosters so that is why I ended up culling seven this week.

It was just Karen and I this week so she was stuck holding the head out for me to chop it. You should have seen her with her head turned and eyes closed. It was funny but at least she got out and helped me. She also helped me pluck the feathers. I did the meat carving and she did the meat cleaning and it took about a half hour per roosters. I have been so busy that I have not had much tome to do much including getting pictures of the chickens put up on the blog. Tomorrow, we are leaving for a cabin for week so it will have to be next week. I will have no Internet access so that means no post for at least a week.

From my coop to yours, have a great week and be sure to drop me a comment to let me know my readers are still there!

If you have been reading my blog, you should have read my post about Rooty the wimpy rooster. This is another story about him. By the way, he has started to crow but he is still a bit afraid of the other roosters and some hens.

The other night, my wife and I went to the chicken barn to close in all the chickens for the night. When we went into the barn, Rooty was on the roost with a couple of the smaller hens. One of the older hens from last year was pecking at the younger hens. We watched Rooty take his wing and wrap it around the little hens to protect them from the older hen. We tried to get the camera but as luck would have it, the batteries were dead.

I have never seen such a thing from a rooster. I have seen hens protect their own young but never seen a rooster shield some younger chickens before. It was so cute and though Rooty is still not tough, he showed that maybe he is a protector of the weak. That is the joy of raising chickens, you get to discover new and interesting things everyday.

Rooty is a pure Araucana and he will be the only rooster I am keeping from this years chickens. I have listed some of the other roosters on Craigslist and I will be sending what I do not sell to the freezer via the axe.

Like the cute story of Rooty? Leave a comment to share you own chicken stories!

Well the days of the little chicks are just about gone. I just purchased my last bag of grower feed and starting next week I will put them all on layer bits. The culling of the roosters went great and I learned a lot. We ended up slaughtering five Roosters which gave us an abundance of meat for seven people. I ended up giving away a whole chicken to my brother in law.

The plucking was not bad and I learned that between 142 degrees and 145 degrees was the ideal for scalding. One of them we scalded at 132 degrees and we ended up with a lot of pin feathers to scrap out. The meat was very tasty. It was a little on the tough side but we think that was from the muscles because our roosters are free range and get lots of exercise.

Getting rid of the five roosters have calmed down the flock a lot. There is a lot less fighting and when there is a scrap, it is just minor and not deadly. I have about ten more roosters that I am going to either sell or cull because I am only keeping the hens for eggs. I might keep Rooty (the wimpy rooster) because he is not related to any of the rest but I am not sure.

Well that is all from my chicken raising for now. Have some chicken stories to share? Please drop me a comment or two.

Today was the first of the culling for the season. We slaughtered and dressed five Roosters today. It was the first time I actually did the killing and cleaning. My cousin Kenny came over and taught me how to gut them and dress them. I was trying to bring a little calm to the chicken yard by eliminating some of the more aggressive Roosters.

My sister and her husband are coming for a visit so we are planning a big chicken barbecue tomorrow. We split the chickens in half and are marinating them in a sauce called State Fair dressing. The roosters were just under 16 weeks so they should have a great taste.

One of the parts of today I did not want to do was to kill the hen I told wrote about a few days ago that the dog attack. The first two days after the attack it seemed fine; however, either it was attacked by the rest of the chickens or it ended up with an infection because it could not get up. I separated it for a couple of days to try and save it but it was getting worse. I hate to see any animal suffer so I put it down today.

That’s it for now from the chicken coop. Please feel free to drop me a comment or two!

This has been my first year raising chickens from chicks. As you may know from my previous posts, I had several chicks hatch out this year and now they close to maturity and the roosters are driving me crazy. I had to rescue Rooty my wimpy Aracauna Rooster last weak but now they have found a few other targets to abuse. The roosters will get one of the wimpier roosters and pin them down and just attack till they draw blood.

I decided yesterday to let them all run in the larger pen to see that will alleviate the problems. This has not helped and they are still attacking the weaker ones. Yesterday, I had to rescue Rooty again because they had him pinned under the block I use for the water container. Tonight I separated another wimp into his own cage.

I have decided it was time and Saturday I will be slaughtering at least four roosters for a chicken barbecue on Sunday. I am culling off the wimpier ones except my pet Rooty and I am culling at least one of the more aggressive ones. I am hoping that once the wimpier ones are gone, the other ones will at least fight back so they will settle down some. I will let you all know how it goes.

Anyone else every have the same problems with a group of roosters? Please share your experience.