I had a rooster eat a couple of young columbine shoots a couple of years ago in the spring...he’s still alive and well, although vet references say columbine ingestion will affect poultry cardiovascular health.
We located a homesteading family in eastern KY that raises and trains their bull terriers to hunt rat, weasel, mink, ermine, mole, etc - their flocks are secured with fencing and the only casualties of birds are crows in the gardens. Some area farmers, landlords, and contractors have hired their...
We're in Rockcastle County.
Have a varied flock now of chicken and guinea, but looking to get back into lavender ameraucana breeding. Nice to meet y'all! :)
We are renovating an existing 8x12 coop on a property with a creek running long and close enough to count for weasel threat prevention. We will be using 1/2" 16ga hardware cloth to line the interior window, vent, subfloor/wall and roof/wall junctions before installing roosts, nest boxes, birds...
We got our first batch of X's on Feb 25 - just when I think I'll be able to turn them out, we're supposed to have a FRIGID week here in Kentucky. Grrr.....we have 23 in a brooder downstairs in the unfinished bathroom and OMG the stink! We're changing out pine bedding every other day at the...
We have four Swedish Blues in the brooder now - ordered from Murray McMurray. All four are timid, but will come get treats from my hand. Ordered one to be a drake. We have a 25,000 gallon koi pond that has just been sitting there with no fish in it, and we wanted something to help with the...
Crystal Creeks is where my stock came from originally (through Little Wing <3)...I should have my breeding pen built within the next month. Both Ranger and Cash (Lav and Split, respectively) are active with their four Lav/Split girls, and two are already laying the prettiest pastel blue eggs...
I've got four Blue Swedish babies coming next week, first ducks ever. They came highly recommended for their temperament and personality...we're excited! I have a 30,000 gallon koi pond sitting empty, full of algae...rather than spend hundreds stocking the pond with koi, we're going to try...
I always brine mine after the cull/processing - it pulls the excess blood out of the tissues that didn't completely drain out during the slaughter (even with a kill cone you still have some areas of the bird's anatomy that allows for pooling to occur, like the wings for example). Hope this helps!
You might be able to contact one of the devs at Android/Apple apps market to see if they'd be able to do something like that. They do it for everything else under the sun, I'm surprised no one has thought of this yet! Great idea.
From what I've gathered both from these forums and from our local Chicken Man (guru) - once egg-layers are over 12-14 weeks old and begin sexually-maturing/mating, you could let the meat sit in the fridge for over a week and it still wouldn't matter. About the only way to "tenderize" their meat...
RE: Toe/Web punching - that's a nifty system in order to keep track of the bloodlines! We've just used colored zip ties (now bands) to differentiate who's from who's lineage/breeding. With six right now, I don't have to carry around my color-coded list to know who's who, but I'm certain that...
All our boys had jewels as large as a human male's. We couldn't get over how big they were. I don't know if there was something wrong or if that's "standard" size for roosters that are sexually mature - but all ours were the same way. Australorp, JG, EE, BO - all of them were like that. The...
After several weeks of egg-per-day laying by our three guinea hens, laying has completely stopped. Happened the day after our evening temps dropped to below 55. We found it odd as the chickens are still laying, even with a few of them starting to go through molt. They've always laid in the...
I do consider myself very lucky - not just in the breed bloodlines I received - but also in the fact that they came to me via mail from a couple that wanted to see my son have his passion fulfilled and it's done wonders for our relationship. We can connect now in a way that we never could...