Beautiful Life of Zig Zag Zoom

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!

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!

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.

Yesterday my wife turned her back for a few seconds to fill up the water dishes for the chickens and one of our hens flew over the fence. My chow chow (the one on the header) attacked the poor chicken. By time I got out of the barn my wife was screaming and the dog had a mouth full of feathers.

The chicken disappeared and I was not sure if it was seriously hurt or not. There were feathers everywhere but no sign of any blood. I waited and later in the afternoon when I checked on the eggs, there was the hen back in the chicken barn. She seemed to be ok except she is missing all her tail feathers and her back feathers.

She is the only one that flies out of the pen and I am not sure why because the pen is quite large with plenty of weeds and grass to eat. I guess maybe she will learn her lesson and stay where she belongs. As for the dog, he is spending a whole lot more time in jail (his chain link dog pen).

Yesterday I had to do a rescue of one of my roosters. It is a pure Aracana rooster and he is a wimp. One of the other roosters from this year’s batch attacked him and had him pinned under a board in the barn. I had to break the board free to free him. I decided to take him out of the same area as teh new chcikens and put him with last years’ hens. He got beat up by them too.

He is a beautiful rooster but he has no courage. He tried to get back in with this years chickens so I decided to try it and three of the chickens attacked him really bad. I had to take it out again and put back with the hens. He seems healthy and is quite big but I am not sure why they are all picking on him. I had already decided prior to this that he was the one rooster I was keeping to breed with but now I am not sure. I will have to see if he starts to get along with the next couple of weeks. He is 14 weeks old so maybe he will get some courage as he comes into his own.

On the note of roosters, I am hearing another crow from the barn so I will soon be able to confirm at least two roosters plus the one I rescued which is not crowing yet but has a definite rooster tail. I am counting what I think is

All this years chickens are growing like crazy. Many are almost full size.

The first batch is thirteen weeks old and the second batch is 10 weeks old. In the picture, you can see my last year hens and in the background you can see this years chickens in the fenced room. As you can see, they are just about the same size.

So far I still only have one rooster crowing and he crows all day long. You can see him sitting higher than the rest on his water container.  He faces the neighbor right next to us and starts at 4 am. They must love us. I think I have about seven roosters all together but one can never be sure until they all start crowing. The Barred Plymouth Rocks are hard to tell because the hens have full combs and are almost as large as the roosters.

The little banties are starting to grow but not very much. They are going to be quite small. They are not as pretty as the large chickens but I am hoping they will grow out to be better looking. I will have to get some pictures for you to see.

Thats all from the chicken coop for now.

There is always food scares in the news. The latest was tomatoes. The problem is that our Government is trying to regulate small farmers while allowing the big companies to pass on tainted food to the consumer.

This is why many people are returning to the old ways and raising their own food. The advantages are that you know what is going the ground or what you are feeding your animals. Growing a garden is no longer just about saving money. It is now a matter of health.

I started raising chickens last year but I am thing of expanding into raising a pig and a cow. Of course, our wonderful Government is trying to regulate us small hobby farmers to protect the national food system. We are not the problem, it is the large feed lots and large food suppliers who are causing the unsafe food supply. I know my chickens are safe and the eggs I get are very healthy and safe.

If you are in a situation where you can not raise your own food, buy local from farmers who care about their farms and are not just trying to make the quick buck.

Yesterday I was out in the barn with my neighbor and we were trying to determine what was roosters in my batch of chicks this year. All of a sudden one of the chicks let me know that he was a rooster. He let out the cutest little crowing.

The surprise part of the whole thing was that it was one that I would have pegged for a hen. It was one that looked like a barred rock and everything I read, the hens have shorter combs as a pullet and black streaks on their legs. Well this little rooster had a little comb and black streaks on his leg. No I am more confused than every on how to sex them. I thought I had all the roosters picked out but I was wrong.

I am heading to the feed store today to try and get some leg bands to mark out the roosters when I find them. I will be getting rid of all the roosters in the fall. We plan to fill our freezer.

Another bit of news from  the old homestead is that thanks to my neighbor, we discovered we already have a nice patch of Rhubarb growing on our property. We got some roots from Karen’s cousins this year and planted them for next year. The neighbor came over yesterday and thought the old owners planted some Rhubarb several years back. She showed me where she thought it was and sure enough, we have three big bunches. YUM YUM.

That’s all the news for now. If you have news to share, feel free to drop me a comment or two.