Fatjay picks up chicks!

[fatjay]

Only real concern is feed. Feed prices are going up, which affects chicken prices. Used to be 1.99/lb but now is 3.99/lb for boneless chicken breast. But feed used to be 12.99/50lb bag and now 22.99/40lb bag. I'm going to make a section of my garden and green house revolve around self producing home made chicken feed. Sure it's work, but what isn't? I have to work for the money to buy the feed. And any time I can take out a middle man, I jump on it.

First egg ready!

Looks good so far...

Just about ready...

Tastes like egg. Which I guess is a win?

 

[Alan W.]

Thats outrageous for feed. I am paying $11 for 50 lb of layer mix at the feed mill.
They mix their own.
Surely somewhere you can find a feed mill that grinds their own feed.

 

[Yander]

Eggs look good @fatjay ! You don't get an egg that orange in the store without paying the big bucks, even then, hit or miss.

I buy the cheap layer mix $16 for 50 and keep out oyster shells and let them free range for about 5 + hours a day. So far all of my eggs are very hard shells, harder than store bought. And they are very orange and starting to get to a large egg size. Some are still a little small. I'm getting between 6 - 7 eggs a day out of my 8 that are laying. I have others that should start laying in the next few weeks although winter may have an impact on that.

How do you guys get your chickens to lay in their boxes? I have all of them laying in the boxes except one stubborn hen who lays in a corner of the chicken house. Not a big deal but her eggs are always dirtier.

 

[Jstpssng]

I believe meat birds need to be harvested at 10 weeks. My wife wants to start getting Cornish broilers, so we've talked about it, but haven't committed to it yet. For me, it sounds like a very busy day butchering and cleaning chickens that I would rather spend doing something else. I'm also not seeing the cost savings compared to buying them at the store compared to buying the chicks, then the cost of feed for 10 weeks, and a full day of labor cleaning them.

In my experience, the first eggs tend to have super soft shells. After a week, the shell gets harder and they don't break as easily on you. I've had them crush just by picking them up. They will lay pretty good as long through Fall, then slow down in Winter, then pick back up again in the Spring. Average is every 30 hours they lay an egg. So you might not get as many one day, then extra another day. It's never going to be the same every day. After 2 years, they slow down. By the time they are 5, you are pretty much done getting eggs.

A chicken that lays eggs is almost worthless to eat. They just don't have very much meat on them, and the older they get, the tougher the meat becomes. Butchering roosters is also pretty much worthless if you wait past 10 weeks. It takes about 4 months for them to turn into the devil. We always wait for that to happen because we're always hoping for one that isn't pure evil. It happens, and we have a few that are really nice. But I've killed hundreds that where horrible. We've tried pulling the breasts for dog food, but it's not really worth the effort. Better to just shoot them with the 22 and dump them in the burn pile.

I prefer raising the Freedom Rangers. They don't start dropping dead after 8 weeks so if you don't have time to do them all, you can start out with the roosters, putting a few broilers in the freezer; then if you can't keep up you will eventually have some big enough for boneless breasts. They're docile birds and also free range better.

This year when I should have been killing I was down with a bad back. I started looking in the freezer and really didn't need 24 birds anyways; so ended up giving most of them away to an Amish family with 18(!) kids. I did put 2 in the freezer, and 5 hens are in the henhouse making eggs.
I meant to save a rooster just because I enjoy hearing them crow; but in the flurry of grabbing chickens and tossing them into the crate I neglected to save one out. I have kept roosters for over a year, they don't seem to get the way those from other breeds do.
They do develop feet problems though.

 

[EddieWalker]

I'm curious what you are going to grow to make your own chicken food. I've thought about doing this too. I have plenty of land to dedicate an acre or 2 for this, but I've held back because I'm not sure I can do it for less then what I'm paying for feed. Right now I'm paying $12 for a 40 pound sack of fancy scratch. I feed my ducks, geese, guineas and chickens this. I know that I can save a lot of money if I buy one ton sacks of feed, but I don't have a good place to store it. Once I finish my barn, that will become a priority. Same for my goats and future cattle operation.

 

[fatjay]

Where are you paying $12 for 40lb? Here it's $24 for 40lb. I havne't figured out what I'm going to do for DIY feed yet. I will look into it more in the spring when I get ready to plant. I want to determine my consumption first.

Chickens are cranking out eggs. Outpaced my consumption so I'm handing them out to family. Everyone's happy and healthy. I'll build a couple swings to see if they like them.

 

[jyoutz]

Eggs look good @fatjay ! You don't get an egg that orange in the store without paying the big bucks, even then, hit or miss.

I buy the cheap layer mix $16 for 50 and keep out oyster shells and let them free range for about 5 + hours a day. So far all of my eggs are very hard shells, harder than store bought. And they are very orange and starting to get to a large egg size. Some are still a little small. I'm getting between 6 - 7 eggs a day out of my 8 that are laying. I have others that should start laying in the next few weeks although winter may have an impact on that.

How do you guys get your chickens to lay in their boxes? I have all of them laying in the boxes except one stubborn hen who lays in a corner of the chicken house. Not a big deal but her eggs are always dirtier.

I bought some fake wooden eggs and put them in the boxes. This tends to entice them to lay in the boxes.

 

[fatjay]

I bought some fake wooden eggs and put them in the boxes. This tends to entice them to lay in the boxes.

I used golf balls. There are 6 boxes, they lay in 3-4, but they also sleep in 2.

 

[dodge man]

That’s a lot of chickens, looks like a cluster cluck.

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

Just stumbled onto this thread. We try to keep about 5 or 6 chickens. This group we have is laying good, but they won't go into the coop at night, they jump on top of it. The previous broods went inside anytime the weather gets cold. These don't. Dumb clucks. This group is the "least tame" of all our broods. I wish we'd spent more time handling them when young. Our first batch was so tame, they just kind of squat beside you if they knew you were going to pick them up.

I buy the feed that claims high omega 3 nutrients. Also supplement with chicken scratch. Right now they like the scratch, but I purposely limit it so they eat the pellets.

We let them free range during the day. We have lost most to neighbors dogs getting loose. Fortunately they have moved. And new neighbors are trying to keep their dog from eating them. We don't do roosters. No noise is nice. If we hear a frightened squawk, we bolt out of our seats to go try to save them.

Our coop is inside a covered 10x10 dog kennel. On most warm nights, we just shut the kennel's gate. Cold weather gets their coop door shut too. I have a small heating element that plugs into an aluminum light fixture that is like a parabolic shell. It only uses 60watts.

Our dog and outside cat are totally cool with the chickens. I have killed 3 chicken snakes (at least) that got into the coop. Everything likes chicken right?

Anyway thanks for documenting your build and cluckety cluck journey Jay.