Beautiful Life of Zig Zag Zoom

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?

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.

Our silly cousins did it again. They hatched 10 Bantam eggs that they got from a guy they know. They have no idea what breeds they are and the have no plan to keep the chickens. Guess who is taking some of them? That’s right, it is me. My sill wife, who was a chicken hater when I first started raising them, has decided she wants four of the smallest ones.

She started by only wanting two but her cousin Darlene suckered her in. She gave told Karen that the four smallest ones are friends and does she really want to separate them. It worked so we will be bringing home 4 more chicks. I still have to pick up my other 10 from Darlene next week. That will make a total of 41 chicks this year. Geez, I must be crazy.

I am still trying to sex the first batch and trying to decide what to do with the roosters. I might raise them for meat. Another options is to take them to a small animal auction we are going to on May 18th. The third options is dropping them off at a local farm or just lets them free range. He takes all you have and lets them have free run of the farm. I will let you all know when I decide.

I would love to hear from other people who raise chickens. Drop in and leave a comment and if you have a blog or website, leave that in the spot on the comment box and I will visit your site.

Thanks to all my readers and I see the traffic increasing each day. I am planning a small give away in the coming weeks so please check back for that.

A couple of days ago I brought the baby chicks home. They are four weeks old today and growing like crazy. They are active little creatures who try to climb my legs every time I visit their pen.

Our cousin Kenny decided I could have his first batch of chicks so I now have 27 chicks and 10 more at his house which are just a week old. I am trying to figure out how to sex them. They are mostly Barred Plymouth Rocks. I have read as much as I could find on how to sex them but I am still not sure which is which when it comes to pullets or cockerels. If anyone knows for sure how to determine the sex at four weeks, please leave a comment and let me know.

I have been quite busy getting ready for Spring. My brother in law and I built a new addition to the chicken coop. We built chicken wire covered rooms both inside and out to accommodate the chicks till they are old enough to mix with my older hens. I am busy planning the garden and waiting for my neighbor to get the garden tilled. It has been unusually hot for this time of the year. We have been in the 80s most of the last few days. That is June weather normally here in the North Country of New York.

What do you have planned for the Spring? Leave a comment and let me know what is happening with you.

Our cousin Kenny has been hatching eggs for us and yesterday was hatch day. I gave him 11 of our eggs to hatch and out of that we had 9 chicks. They are so cute! Eight of them are black and one is yellow with brown strips. I am pleased that I had such a high rate of hatching.Kenny hatched 21 of his own eggs and he got as of last night 11 hatched and four that had peck holes in them. Below is some pictures of the new babies.

This is what is left of the babies former home. Mine were the blue shells.

This is all the little babies but one. We had one still in the incubator waiting to dry off.

This is the chicks sitting on their food.

Nine of the eggs I gave Kenny were a cross between a Plymouth Rock Rooster and Arcauna hens. Two of the eggs were from my neighbors flock and they were a cross between and Aracuna Hen and who knows what rooster since they have several breeds. I believe the yellow may have come from one of those two eggs.

I just took 14 more eggs to be hatched so we will see how many more we get.

Please leave a comment and let me know what you think of the baby chicks. Also wish me luck that they are a majority of hens.

I am in the processing of planning my gardens for the spring. I have all my seed catalogs and other information spread out on my desk. I love to get a jump on planning so when the work begins I am prepared for it.

This year, I am planning start a for profit pumpkin patch. Last year we did some experimenting and I grew some rather nice looking Jack-o-Lanterns. This year I am expanding and dedicating a little over an acre to just pumpkins.  We have all the manure we need between our chickens and my families Alpacas, so the main cost will be seeds and manual labor. I am hoping to make a small profit the first year so we can expand in the future. This will be our first for profit farming venture and I am hoping to make it a great season.

I would love to expand into other connected adventures and I am thinking of creating a flea market on my 85 acres.

Well that is what I am up to on the old homestead. Be safe and enjoy the New Year.

As always when you are dealt a rotten apple, say “That Blozzz” and move on to fresher fruit.

I started raising chicken this past summer and it is fun and everyday I get nice fresh eggs. They are one of the easiest animals to raise and require only minimal care.

I allow them (except) in the winter to free range on a nice fenced area. One of my first concerns was that they like to fly out of their area. I had thought of clipping their wings but I watched and only one of the breeds I have fly out and they stick right in the main yard then fly back in shortly after. Because of that fact, I decided to forgo the wing clipping.

Chickens do need to have food and water at all times and if they do not have access to small rocks, you need to add grit for them to be able to digest their food. They also need a safe shelter to protect them from the elements and other animals. Any place will do, I use an old shed that was built on to my main barn.

If you plan to hatch the eggs you need a rooster. If you are just using the eggs for food, hens do still lay eggs without a rooster but they will not be fertilized. I chose to get a rooster even though I do not hatch the eggs. I thought he would be good protection when another animal comes around.

At times, I feel that getting a rooster was not my best idea. He protects too well and in the fall I went out to the barn with shorts on and he attacked my leg. Let me tell you, roosters can do damage and they do hurt. I was lucky he just got two good cuts on my leg before I kicked him off. He was headed to the guillotine before my wife convinced me to give him another chance. I pardoned him from death row but now I have a 2×4 handy and he has learned who is the real boss of the roost.

The one thing I learned about raising chickens is that if you read too many books, you will spend all your time worrying about problems. I have one good book and use it as a reference guide. Otherwise, you can learn everything you need to know by just doing it., it is really easy.

Collecting eggs must be done daily. If you have new hens expecting to start laying (approx. 23 weeks from birth), make sure you look everywhere for the eggs. I made really nice nesting boxes and the older hens have laid their eggs in them. I have two newer hens who just starting laying and they laid everywhere. The first bunch of eggs, I found on a high shelf in the barn (12 in all). Then I found them under an old wood stove. Now they lay on the floor in a corner. I guess they do not like the boxes I made. Well at least they lay in the same place everyday now.

The chickens love treats and they eat many scraps like apples, apple peelings, pumpkins (chopped up), tomatoes, zucchini, and more. They for some reason do not like broccoli or any of the cabbage family.

The downside of raising any animal is the winter. The last few weeks it has been in the teens down to below zero and it is a pain to change the water everyday and collect eggs when it is so cold. The chickens also hate being cooped up but that is part of the life.

My farm is also a no kill chicken farm, they are here for eggs and as pets. We are looking at raising for meat in the future once I get some experience in doing so.

This post should give and idea about raising chickens and I will include future posts on the topic.

Remember when the manure in life gets too much, just say “That Blozzz”, and move on !

I just wanted to tell a little about my life. I live on an old farmstead in Northern New York. I own 85 acres of land and I raise chickens for pets and for eggs. I am a stay at home husband as of last week and I spend my time working at the old homestead and working on the Internet.

This is all shared with my wife, my dog, and living with us is my 79 yo mother.

I truly live the good life. To get up and breath fresh air and to be able to venture into nature without the problems that many experience in the big city is truly a great thing.

Are there things I give up to live this type of life? Yes, I can not get high speed Internet and our dial-up is so slow that at times I want to throw the computer out the window. We are also in an extremely cold region where below zero is a common thing during the winter months. Three to four feet of snow on the ground most of the winter is also not uncommon. Driving 30 miles to get to any kind of descent store or restaurant is common day event.

However, at this point in my life, I would have it no other way. It is all about quality of life and how you enjoy that life.

Stay tuned in the homestead category to see more about my life on the old homestead.