Good Morning! <=2017

[redninja]

I can get those Franken chickens from a poultry farm a couple of km away when they empty their barns (5 barns, 22,000 in each barn). They are the runts, so much smaller. He usually has 500-1000 left after trucks are loaded.
They keep them 5 weeks. 15 days on medicated starter, 12 days on grower and 8 days on finisher.
Pullets go to KFC, roos go to Swiss Chalet.
They have a batch for 5 weeks then barns are empty for 5 weeks.
I got about 40 in the spring, some to go to science research and some to sell at Mount Forest.
At least they had plenty of food, water and fresh air the last 2 weeks.
Planning on doing I again for the fall MF.

[JimW]

I hear ya Sandy, I am going to order another small batch 10-15 to raise in the fall. I bought a few finished Cornish Xs from a person at work last fall, her's did very well, her dressed birds were huge 10 pounds plus, even with the 4 of us we were eating chicken for several days each time we cooked one of the birds. I plan on raising them in a chicken tractor and move to fresh grass every couple days and maybe process them at 6 weeks so they are not so big.

Well looks like I am down 2 guineas and 2 hens, found bodies of 1 guinea and 1 hen, live traps set with fresh bait, see what the morning brings. The one hen that is missing without any trace was my only year old Mottled Houdan hen, now I have 2 houdan roosters (year olds) and 10 six week old houdan chicks, hopefully I get a good number of pullets.

Adding to my ornamental birds tomorrow, picking up 3 Impeyan pheasant chicks, 1 of 2 pheasant species on my want list.

Have a good night.

[Maximus]

Morning y'all!

Beautiful morning but it's about to turn incredibly hot and uncomfortable. Productive day yesterday, but still didn't get everything done. Grass cutting fell into today and a few other things that needs to be completed.

Got a new swing for the deck. A futon swing so I can take my afternoon break from work and read my book and NOT have a nap! Gotta finish getting that put together. Thankfully Lou is coming to help with that :)

Josh has a friend over since 6:30 this morning, they're out in the garage working on a piece of heavy equipment. These two will save us thousands of dollars. Josh is gifted when it comes to mechanics and his friend is right along side of him. Great kids, great head on their shoulders and they're going places!

Josh and Lou's other son are taking Lou out for dinner for Father's Day. Interesting change for me, as the 'burden' has usually been out on me. Burden because he isn't my father and their lack of effort for him annoyed me. I gave them both a talking too and they're on the ball this year. Phew!

Mel, (daughter) celebrates Father's Day for me as well. I was a dual parent with her and this is her way of appreciating the struggles as a single parent with an absent loser for a 'father'. Tomorrow when she's off work, she's making dinner for us and we'll sit on her front deck and talk for hours, right into the wee hours. she's a great cook, thanks to her mom!

Well, I think my ducklings know how to spend a hot day. Swim!!! They were so tired by the end of the day when I carried and snuggled each one to the coop, with chest rubs all the way, cocoa, the chocolate Muscovys head flopped over and it went to sleep. Omg! I wanted to cuddle and sleep in the coop with them LOL!

Finally picking up the bee hives Wednesday after 8:30pm. Sooooo nervous but also very excited.

Well, I'm off to do a few things, then cut the grass. Let the sweat start rolling. Ugh!!

Morning coffee on the deck and soaking in my scenery. The sun is working hard to lift the haze.

[Seastar]

Happy Fathers Day to all the fathers present or fondly remembered.

[JimW]

Good morning, off to a slow start today. Heading out to pick up some more feed and a few birds. Caught a raccoon in the live trap last night.

Have a good day.

[ross]

Good one Jim , catching at least one a week here . Luck

[WLLady]

Happy fathers day to all the dads out there!!!

[baronrenfrew]

Jim: Meat birds from Freys: don't they charge $20 per order as a delivery fee?

If you restrict food to some degree they will slow down in growth.

We kept them to 10 lbs, we'd freeze some as legs n thighs or cut in half to get smaller portions. We found the summer heat would kill many, especially at night as they'd crowd together to sleep; so we'd get chicks in July and butcher in Sept.

Factory farms also run lights 24/7 so they grow fast. i read a recent article how they'd have big losses at power outages as they'd pile on top of each other in the dark, so they cut the lights for short periods so they wouldn't be afraid of the dark.
We're gonna get some this year and i am building mobile tractors, i hate cleaning manure so this way i won't have to.

[JimW]

QR_BBPOST Jim: Meat birds from Freys: don't they charge $20 per order as a delivery fee?

If you restrict food to some degree they will slow down in growth.

We kept them to 10 lbs, we'd freeze some as legs n thighs or cut in half to get smaller portions. We found the summer heat would kill many, especially at night as they'd crowd together to sleep; so we'd get chicks in July and butcher in Sept.

Factory farms also run lights 24/7 so they grow fast. i read a recent article how they'd have big losses at power outages as they'd pile on top of each other in the dark, so they cut the lights for short periods so they wouldn't be afraid of the dark.
We're gonna get some this year and i am building mobile tractors, i hate cleaning manure so this way i won't have to.

baron, not sure about the delivery charge. I will have to take a look at my invoice, I placed the order for the Artisan Gold Turkeys, just added the meat birds to add something to the order, so did not pay much attention to my invoice.

Picked up my 3 Impeyan pheasants this morning, well started chicks over a month old, very excited.

[Maximus]

Geeze Jim, we are all over you with these cornishX lol!
We all want you to take the plunge and report back the secrets to your (hopeful) success