Poultry Talk Ontario (pto.ca)

Just starting a new thread for 2022 - I will lock the old one but you can still read it.

mornin folks....Happy New Year 2022...

Happy New Year everyone!
My ducks are laying. LOL. we haven't actually gotten really into winter except maybe in the last 24 hours....and they're laying up a storm! HAHA. I'm just glad the ducks are contained to a pen where we can find the eggs, and the girls, so hopefully no one sits in covert this year. and please no ducklings in february!
We also have one hen running around the barn-she's 50% welbar 50% light brown leghorn-and very pretty, and impossible to catch. She has one chick that has managed to survive - not stepped on by the horse, or eaten by 3 barn cats, or frozen, or drowned in the water dish....and that thing is growing like crazy (and i suspect a cockerel of course.....). Given the change in weather i'm sure he will feather out in short order!
Here's a feather filled new year for everyone!

I read this and I was wondering why they could not keep the chickens longer (processing window for meat chickens is a week or two maybe?) or maybe give them away (maybe safety issue)? "At a slaughterhouse in Quebec, the worker shortage became so extreme in recent days it opted to euthanize thousands of chickens that couldn't be processed."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/labour ... -1.6305189

That is appalling. Thanks for posting.

I answered my first question. It's an 8 week growth cycle My chickens take 6 months to lay an egg! It feels like 1 year but it's always around 6 months While looking for info I found out 1 million chickens were euthanized due to a strike in Quebec. The world's gone crazy

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/202 ... ckens.html

What a terrible waste! And if anyone thnks CO2 is a kind type of euthanasia they need to see it happen. They pant and gasp for breathe because their respiratory system is geared to aattempt to stimulate breathing when the CO2 level is too high. Hideous.

Frosty snappy -14 morning here. Flurries, no wind. I am supposed to ride a horse a couple miles today as it changes homes. Will be bareback (as per my childhood) if I do, you stay warmer. Just havent decided if I will jam out on it or not. Save it for another day. Getting to be a real candyass.

No article yesterday. I perused scientific papers for about 4 hrs, and couldnt find something that might be worth posting, so I just didnt. Might today. Will see.

Anyone got a couple Marans hens and a couple blue egger hens they would part with for a few shekels? I won't go thirty pieces of silver. The diverse colours in my egg carton are disappearing with home grown mutts. Thinking Kenya might help on the EE front, and maybe TomK on the Americaunas? Bayvista? Please let me know and we will see what we can do for transport over the next while.

Morning all! yep it was chilly down this way....and it's snowing pretty hard out there right now too. ah, just makes the driving that much less boring HAHAHA. No spare chooks here Farrier, sorry. got out of marans a while ago, i do miss the dark brown eggs. most of my girls are laying a bit better with the lights on. Finally found a few heated buckets that are actually heated...seems to always be a chore going into the cold part of winter. At least it's only 8 weeks of colder stuff and so far not like up north! our corn is finally coming off now that the field is frozen. 2021-the year of neverending MUCK.

Morning, freezing here this morning. Chickens were like ' close the door lady, it's cold' they got hot oatmeal, eggs, roasters soybeans for breakfast. They gobbled it up and when and sat on their perches. Sun is coming up, nice and bright clod as #%$. And what's with the puppy bouncing around looking for a walk......