Heritage Farm Chicken

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oh oh oh. I have stepped in it. My original purchases turned into 88 chickens, and this year have added 7 americahunas and one more sebring. Also my second of three batches of ~25 leghorns is hatching today and both hatches so far are good, 22/23 and now almost all 28 of #2. Welsummers are going into the incubator next week and the barn conversion is blown up with hired stall cleaners (looking still....lol) and the entire antique barn for a coop.
 
It is time for a mid-summer 2020 update. I hatched about 150 chicks this spring/summer, Ameraucana, Leghorn, and Welsummers. So now we have over 130 layers (some immature still) and around 40 roosters/cockerels. With a hatch rate very species dependent (1 of 10 blue laced red sebrings hatched), it averaged 90%. It took one 6 foot and two 8 foot stock tanks as brooders, and my barn now has about 700 sq ft converted into coop. 6 foot fencing is about 1/3 done with 700 linear feet up. (Two big pastures need to be enclosed for winter management....). Of 80 birds in the pen for a year, only one flow over. I thought that the third time I caught her and clipped her kept the problem under control, then I found a nest with a dozen eggs in it. The barn no longer leaks having 5 digits put into the roof and a 550 sq. ft. pole barn on one side. Have lost very few birds (one) to unknowns, and predator losses were due to foolishness in assuming the 8 cockerels would roost high in the loft to avoid you know what. They hung around the hen's door all night for a week... :( It seems naming the farm's ops on the historical family name here (which is not my name, grandma was in the line) might not be what I want to do, so "Chicken House Poultry" seems like my favorite option. Also, I might loose my farmer, so I am looking for an organic farmer to plant and harvest it, all I have is Class 1 tillage equipment, nothing mechanized.... Except a two row horse drawn planter......
 
Manhen said:
It is time for a mid-summer 2020 update. I hatched about 150 chicks this spring/summer, Ameraucana, Leghorn, and Welsummers. So now we have over 130 layers (some immature still) and around 40 roosters/cockerels. With a hatch rate very species dependent (1 of 10 blue laced red sebrings hatched), it averaged 90%. It took one 6 foot and two 8 foot stock tanks as brooders, and my barn now has about 700 sq ft converted into coop. 6 foot fencing is about 1/3 done with 700 linear feet up. (Two big pastures need to be enclosed for winter management....). Of 80 birds in the pen for a year, only one flow over. I thought that the third time I caught her and clipped her kept the problem under control, then I found a nest with a dozen eggs in it. The barn no longer leaks having 5 digits put into the roof and a 550 sq. ft. pole barn on one side. Have lost very few birds (one) to unknowns, and predator losses were due to foolishness in assuming the 8 cockerels would roost high in the loft to avoid you know what. They hung around the hen's door all night for a week... :( It seems naming the farm's ops on the historical family name here (which is not my name, grandma was in the line) might not be what I want to do, so "Chicken House Poultry" seems like my favorite option. Also, I might loose my farmer, so I am looking for an organic farmer to plant and harvest it, all I have is Class 1 tillage equipment, nothing mechanized.... Except a two row horse drawn planter......
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:th
You really are a true "Chickeneer"!
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