Consolidated Kansas

[Oatbucket]

what do you all do with your chickens after they stop laying? Do you eat them? I'm such a critter nut, I don't think I could eat my own hens. Maybe sell them to someone else to eat? Or not.

Some of them we offer for free and are very clear on their age. Some get eaten. And a select few get to retire here and spend the rest of their days bossing the younger ladies around.

We would love to see pics of your coop when you get a chance, it's always interesting to see other people's projects. I have 3 Boer goats here, at least till Weds. & then the buck will hopefully be leaving. My two does are pregnant & due soon so we will have our first little kids. I had not intended to raise goats but we decided awhile back we would like to try some goat meat so I got the buck. But now he has served his purpose & he can go on to do his thing with someone else's herd. You're smart wethering those goats because mine is intact & he is a real pain to deal with. He's been in rut so the smell has been anything but pleasant around here lately. I hope you have the goats fenced away from anything you don't want eaten because they for sure will eat just what you don't want them to, take it from me. They are really good for brush control & that's what I originally got mine for. We have 5 acres where we didn't do anything with it & it has gotten really overgrown down there. The first area we fenced they cleaned it out in nothing flat. We're working on getting posts up now for another section & then we have one more bigger one to do next year & it all will be fenced to keep all of the sheep & goats in. I got hair sheep to raise for meat & we will be taking our first lamb to process this fall. We have one more that is growing out for later on as well.

I'm envious of your house remodel too because we have materials sitting around here to do things that have not gotten done. I told my DH we need to start working on those this winter when he's not working on fence. He tends to put off things if he really doesn't want to do them, but these things need to get done.

Wow, that's crazy about the tomatoes, ours were a total bust this year other than just a few cherry tomatoes. My neighbor down the hill had a year like you though & she brought me a bag of tomatoes yesterday. I love home grown tomatoes so that is a real treat.

I'm sorry about your loss, that's always a hard thing.

Maybe with the garden about to it's end & the other things you can breathe for awhile. You need to tell us about your books so we can read them. I'm an avid reader & have a kindle that I love.

We always have lots of cats here, I wish we didn't have quite so many but we haven't been able to get the females spayed as of yet. I just gave away 5 kittens last week to someone wanting barn cats so that reduced our population some. We don't have a lot of problems with mice like other people do because these cats keep most of them cleaned out. We see them with big fat field mice all the time.

Well I got my walk in closet project done last night, whew! That was way more of a project than I originally thought it was going to be. I have bags & bags now of stuff to take to Goodwill. That has needed to get done for a very long time. I hadn't planned on doing it right now, but I'm glad it's done. I have to go out today & see if I can fix the doors to my pens on my breeder coop. The eye bolts that were holding them up failed eventually & the doors have been sitting on the ground so I got bigger bolts & I hope that will work for awhile at least. It's always something around here that needs to be done. Yesterday I took some pieces of old tin off the top of my one pen out there & got a tarp put up over most of it. I didn't have enough tin to cover the whole thing so it was kind of a haphazard thing. I have one more I need to do that with as well but it's not an easy task because I had to get up on the ladder & with my knee like it is it really scares me to do that. I fall enough as it is without falling off of a darned ladder.

No, it's never easy. She was ready to go though, she said it was her time.

I write epic fantasy (dragons, magic, classic good vs evil) and young adult paranormal. Here is my website if you're interested. They are all on Kindle. I have a professional website as well, but this one has my blog on it. https://adtrosper.wordpress.com/

 

[DLC Eskies]

Hello everyone!! It's been a busy few weeks for us here. We went through and organized all the boxes and totes that got stuck in the garage when our stuff got here and took a bunch of stuff to Goodwill. I took 1 of my dogs in to be spayed and have a fatty mass removed from her leg. She is so hyper though, she ended up ripping the stitches out of her leg. So we've had to keep her sedated and separated from the rest of the dogs.

My chicks are doing well. They turned 4 weeks yesterday. I discovered yesterday that 1 is developing a cross beak. I'm not sure if I should trim it now or if I should wait and see if it wears down faster once I move them outside where she'll have more/better things to rub it on.
Most of them have started to develop small combs except for 1 who's comb is much larger and is starting to turn red.
We've been taking them out on field trips to the yard for about a week now. They love chasing and catching crickets and grasshoppers and then chasing each other, lol. They are too funny.

Finishing the coop took a backseat for the last couple of weeks while we were downsizing our household goods. But we'll be getting it finished this week cause I want/need to move the chicks to it by the end of the weekend. They have quickly outgrown their brooder, lol.
All that's left to do on it is put some hardware cloth around the run fence and put the netting on top of the run.

Here's a few pics. The pics of the chicks are about 1 1/2 weeks old. I'll post newer ones as soon as I can take some.

 

[Trish44]

Oatbucket thanks for the link, I'll have to check that out.

DLC Eskies that is a cute coop. Your chicks look like they're doing well.

 

[DLC Eskies]

I was able to get a few shots this afternoon. Here they are:

 

[Oatbucket]

Hello everyone!! It's been a busy few weeks for us here. We went through and organized all the boxes and totes that got stuck in the garage when our stuff got here and took a bunch of stuff to Goodwill. I took 1 of my dogs in to be spayed and have a fatty mass removed from her leg. She is so hyper though, she ended up ripping the stitches out of her leg. So we've had to keep her sedated and separated from the rest of the dogs.

My chicks are doing well. They turned 4 weeks yesterday. I discovered yesterday that 1 is developing a cross beak. I'm not sure if I should trim it now or if I should wait and see if it wears down faster once I move them outside where she'll have more/better things to rub it on.
Most of them have started to develop small combs except for 1 who's comb is much larger and is starting to turn red.
We've been taking them out on field trips to the yard for about a week now. They love chasing and catching crickets and grasshoppers and then chasing each other, lol. They are too funny.

Finishing the coop took a backseat for the last couple of weeks while we were downsizing our household goods. But we'll be getting it finished this week cause I want/need to move the chicks to it by the end of the weekend. They have quickly outgrown their brooder, lol.
All that's left to do on it is put some hardware cloth around the run fence and put the netting on top of the run.

Here's a few pics. The pics of the chicks are about 1 1/2 weeks old. I'll post newer ones as soon as I can take some.

Love your coop! And your babies are very pretty as well.

 

[chicken danz]

what do you all do with your chickens after they stop laying? Do you eat them? I'm such a critter nut, I don't think I could eat my own hens. Maybe sell them to someone else to eat? Or not.

I was just letting the old ladies live out the rest of their lives and retire. Many of them die when they get older as well. I had some wonderful older brahma girls who had been such awesome birds I though they could just stay forever. But in reality I needed to reduce the feed bill and they were no longer laying. I ended up selling them as baking hens. I knew I would never butcher them myself. And they had led a good long life. I was starting to loose one every now and then so I thought it best they were used for food....just not for me. I have also taken older birds and used them to make meat and broth to feed the dogs. But those were some I wasn't fond of like the brahmas.
I do butcher boys and eat them but I usually have those that will be butchered picked out ahead of time so I don't get tempted to get attached to them. I've got a handful of them right now I really really need to butcher. They're huge beautiful birds that were slated for being for butcher when they hatched but that doesn't make me enjoy doing it.

Hello everyone!! It's been a busy few weeks for us here. We went through and organized all the boxes and totes that got stuck in the garage when our stuff got here and took a bunch of stuff to Goodwill. I took 1 of my dogs in to be spayed and have a fatty mass removed from her leg. She is so hyper though, she ended up ripping the stitches out of her leg. So we've had to keep her sedated and separated from the rest of the dogs.

My chicks are doing well. They turned 4 weeks yesterday. I discovered yesterday that 1 is developing a cross beak. I'm not sure if I should trim it now or if I should wait and see if it wears down faster once I move them outside where she'll have more/better things to rub it on.
I have some birds with beak problems. I don't cull them because of it but I don't ever let them become breeders. They just live with the laying flock. I figured if they survived they could just hang around and lay. However recently I nearly lost one of them who I had become quite attached to. She was born without a top beak and had a "girlfriend" hatched about the same time that had a third beak. (the third beak never grew but her top beak grows too long. I have another with a scissor beak that is young yet but other than that would be a beautiful pullet. Any way to get to my point. Recently I discovered that maybe I had not done them such a great favor by allowing them to free range and live with the egg Layers. I found one of them when she had a spasm of some kind and nearly died. I treated her and pulled her out of near death. But the problem was one I never even thought of. She had poultry lice everywhere. I checked and sprayed every bird on the place and the only ones affected by lice were the three with beak problems. It occurred to me that since they can't use their beak like normal they can't pick mites and lice off themselves.
Trimming won't fix a scissor beak by the way. You will have to continue to do so for the life of the bird.

 

[DLC Eskies]

chicken danz - I know trimming won't fix a scissor beak, I'm just thinking about her comfort and ability to eat.

 

[spree56]

Loving this weather & I think the girls are too. Trying to get some things done around my little coop & run. How about you all?

 

[sharol]

Slow around here. I guess everyone is busy with fall chores.

My building is a process. Today the handyman came and installed the windows and offered to install the pop-door for me. No problem. I am thrilled with the windows. They are snug and can be opened nearly all the way (at an angle from the bottom to let in air in the summer, or just open a little bit for ventilation in the fall and spring. Of course I'll put hardware cloth on the inside frame when I get through painting tomorrow or Sunday. The insulation was taken off of an outside wall of our house when we renovated it 10 years ago, and is really good quality (and free). Some of the fiberglass stuff had to be bought, but I was pleased with myself remembering the older sheets.



It is supposed to be the same color as the house, but as my DH says, it looks too orange. Oh well, at least it is in the same color range.



This was the back (south side) before the windows were in.

If I can con, er.. convince my DH to do the fence this weekend, I think I can have birds in there by the middle of the week. Once they are moved, I'll do the fall cleaning on the other coop (it has gotten really nasty in there with 26 birds living in a 6x8 coop.)

I'm just glad the weather is cooperating.

 

[Trish44]

sharol the coop is looking good so far, congrats on getting the windows installed.

The weather has been really nice to get things done outside. I got my other tarp on the top of my big pen yesterday & that was a big accomplishment for me. I suffered for it later but I'm glad it's done. I still have a couple of things I want to get done in the next couple of days.