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!

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.

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.

We decided that it was time to move our four banties from the house to the barn. They just turned three weeks old and they are quite feathered so we decided to put them in a bigger cage in the barn. The kitchen was starting to smell of chickens so we needed to make the move. I placed a 40 watt bulb in a heat lamp because it got down to freezing here last night. They seemed perky today so I guess they will be ok.

My two Araucana hens are still not laying and I am not sure why. It has been a while since they laid an egg and I can see no signs of health issues. I may have to cull them or get rid of them if they keep not laying. The rest of the chickens are doing good and the chicks from this year are still growing quickly.

That is all from the coop. Any stories from your chicken coop?

I mentioned in one of my earlier post that one of the chicks this year has a crossed beak. We have thought of culling it but it seems to eat fine and is growing as good as the rest of the other chicks. It has become super friendly and I have nicknamed it Twisty.

Yesterday, I went out to let out the chicks and Twisty flew at me and landed right on my shoulder. I have never seen a chicken do that and thought it was crazy. Last night when I went out to shut them in for the night, I was bent down to try and get them to all come in and Twisty flew up and landed on my back and ran up and down my back.

Now the little thing is so crazy that it jumps right into the feed can when I walk in the coop. I guess it must have learned that to survive with a disability it must be braver than all the rest of the chickens. My wife and I was laughing last night because we said it is so crazy that none of the others will pick on it because they are scared of it.

Unless the beak becomes a major problem as Twisty grows or it turns out to be a rooster, I believe that Twisty will have a life long home in the family chicken coop.

Other news from the chicken coop:

The four bantam chicks we brought home last week are growing good. They are still in a brooder in our kitchen and they are super active. Every time we do anything in the kitchen, they are right at the little window watching us. They are cute little buggers.

The second batch of Plymouth Rocks we brought home last week (including twisty) have finally fit in with the first batch of chicks and all 36 are growing like weeds. Of course the first batch is growing much faster than the second. Kenny said the first batch was hatched by the moon cycle and old timers say they will grow faster and hardier. I am not sure if that is true but the first batch at the same age was twice the size of the second batch. Kenny hatched a batch for himself at the same time as my second batch and they too are growing slower than the first batch. There may be some truth to the moon thing.

I have two of my older hens who have quit laying. They are my one year old Araucana hens. I can not figure out why they are not laying. It is odd because they both quit about three weeks ago and have not laid an egg since. My five barred Plymouth Rocks are two years old and they are still laying regular. They all seem healthy and the Araucana hens still go into the nesting box but they leave me no egg.

Anyone have any idea what might be wrong?

Well that is all the news right now. Feel free to leave a comment or two to let me know I have live people reading my blog.