Took a wet drive to the feed store and picked up a couple more bags of feed. The young NH chickens finally got brave enough to go through the coop and into the outdoor run this afternoon.
@Rick589 , are you planting onions this year? I found this list of disease resistant onion varieties from Cornell University that might interest you.
https://www.vegetables.cornell.edu/pest-management/disease-factsheets/disease-resistant-vegetable-varieties/disease-resistant-onion-varieties/
Home Depots often have cull lumber available at 70% off the retail price. I've bought lots of lumber that way that's perfectly fine for building a coop and run. From what I've seen, Monday morning is a good time to check for cull lumber.
It started raining here a while ago, but almost no wind. I spread half a straw bale out in the RIR run, found an egg the RIR hen laid yesterday. The other four 18 week old RIRxNH pullets should start laying soon.
Really need to start planting some seeds. And put up a high roost bar for the...
Nice!
The young NHs are quick and try to get out the door whenever I go in, but haven't been successful yet. 4 of the 5 NH hens laid eggs today so far, and the RIR hen in the other run was building herself a nest.
Still raining. Been raining all day long.
The older NHs are getting along well with the young ones. They've been in a see/no touch situation for at least a couple months so they kind of know each other already. Plus their mama is one of the old ones so they're related.
Still deciding on whether to sell the four point of lay pullets and...
I rearranged chickens at 5:30 this morning. Now all 14 of the full blooded New Hampshire hens, pullets and cockerels are in the big run. The RIR hen and the four RIRxNH pullets are in a separate run.
@ValerieJ , I don't know if you ever found your cheese curds, but I saw that the IGA here might (at participating stores) have them, and they're on sale through today.
Cute chicks. What breed are they?
I finished putting the compost on a couple of my raised beds. There are two more raised beds that need weeding, leveling and adding compost to. Someday.
Finally got the two 5' X 15' raised beds prepped and ready for planting. Today I leveled the soil in them and topcoated both with a 2 inch layer of compost.
Big rain is coming over the next several days so it'll wash some of the compost nutrients and microorganisms down into the soil.
I processed two NH cockerels at 40 weeks and the carcasses weighed right at 5 pounds each, skin off. The RIR hen is more aggressive than the NHs, but the RIR cockerel never caused problems.
I have two 17 week old RIR over NH cockerels that look like they'd process out at 4 or 5 pounds already...
I have feed-store New Hampshires and had a pair of RIRs, but the RIR cockerel was processed after he fathered a batch of RIRxNH chicks. Still have the hen for the time being. I have a younger batch of chicks that are straight NH.
For meaties my plan is to breed for size by pairing the largest...
It's nice not obsessing over a bunch of seedlings this year. If I get a smaller and/or later harvest it'll be a fair exchange for the time and effort saved by not starting seedlings in the house.
I've been focused on my chickens anyway, having 24 now spread out in four age groups. Trying to...