End Of "Flockdown"

 The joy it brings me to have my chickens outside again during the day can't be understated. 

Part of me wants to rant about shed of 40,000 birds being the reason we have to have these restrictions. But to be honest I'm just happy they can all be out and about, eating a more natural diet and enjoying themselves.

I think the first day they were out I've never heard them being noisier! And they went everywhere, not sticking by their pens like I thought they would. Already had to tell two off that were in my workshop!

I know there is a far greater chance of predators, but I do just love having them outside. 

Who else loves seeing their chickens free range?

Chicken Cull

 This posts contains pictures of dead animals, if you don't like that then please don't click to read more of the article. 

Despite the bad weather this weekend just gone we needed to prepare the chickens for the avian flu lockdown. This meant lots of shuffling of chickens to different pens and the processing of 6 cockerels.

Broody Hens

Argh! Like buses, broody hens always seem to come at once. The irony of these four hens from my breeding pen of four Indian Game hens is that if they're all broody none of them are laying any eggs! 

 Also not sure sure the nest box can take them all in there at the same time! It must get pretty warm.

With broody hens I tend to leave them pretty much alone but I do chuck them off the nest once a day, I even do this when they're sitting on eggs, as they sometimes won't look after themselves by feeding and drinking properly. Also lets them do a big poo away from the nest - which is a good way to help keep things clean. 

Anyone else have too many broody hens at the moment?

Yet More Chicks!

We're certainly taking advantage of having our own breeding flock at the moment! More eggs hatched this week.

From 25 eggs we had 25 hatch but unfortunately two chicks weren't good. but that's still some great odds. A dry hatch is the way to go, no messing with water. Switch it on and forget it until it's time to get them from the cradle 2 days before.  

These are all Indian game and the plan will be for most of them to go in the freezer unless anyone wants to buy hens. So for once I'm hoping for lots of cockerels! 

The 6 juveniles hatched out 3 weeks ago got moved into another pen, we had to borrow a heat plate for a few more weeks but they're not using it much. 

They've been loving the grass, and so spend a fair bit of time squaring up against each other - does this mean more males I wonder?

 My youngest has been spending hours just watching the chicks. It's funny as we hatch so many sometimes the children don't pay that much attention once they're hatched but this time they've been out their loads. It's nice now they're all at an age I can trust them with them as well and don't have to watch them constantly. 

Poultry Out Of Lockdown!

So this week the poultry could come back out and free range! Woop! 

It hasn't been too bad as I have lots of pens, but I was desperate to get the ducks out of the polytunnel! 

6 Chicks Hatched

Now I would have preferred a better hatch rate but considering the incubator jammed and it was some days before I realised it wasn't turning I'm surprised we got any! So we had 7 hatch, one unfortunately had to be dispatched but the 6 that are left seem healthy and happy. 

No matter how many times we hatch chicks out I'm always excited. These are some pure breed Indian Game, after setting up the breed flock last year (and doing some miles to do it!). 

 

We'll have to see what we get from this batch. The hens they came from are mixed colours run with a dark coloured cockerel so it'll be interesting to see if there is much of a mix. We might put another set of eggs in the incubator straight away to hatch some more, as these are much slower grown than Ross Cobbs we will need to keep some hatching through the year to supply us with meat. 

Anyone else hatching eggs at the moment?

Butchery Day

 This post contains pictures butchery of poultry, so if you're not someone who wants to read about that then I'd suggest you skip this one.

Theh boys from our Indian Game x Colobian Plymouth Rock crosses we hatched out last year have reached around 24 weeks of age and it was time for them to join freezer club. 

Throw Back To Chickens in 2009!

These photos popped up on my timeline today and I thought I'd share them with you all. 

Some earlier chicken keeping. 

After I had left the family farm and my wife and I we living in a little village just outside Evesham. This was a time before children and I honestly have no idea what we did with out time! 

We had a good sized garden that I was slowly turning into a farmyard! The rescue hens we originally got were in the small movable ark (the one I fixed up last year in fact) but were slowly destroying the lawn daily. 

Straw For The Chickens

With this Avian Flu lockdown we've been having it's been tricky to keep the chickens clean with their much reduced pens sizes.

I've been using my wood shavings from my carpentry, but I only produce so many and they do soak in far too easily with all this wet weather we've been having. 

So I put in a message to a farming friend to see if he would be happy to sell me a few bales of straw.

Meat Bird Crosses - 5 weeks (ish)

 Growth is way slower on my Indian Game x Colombian Plymouth Rock meat birds when compared to Ross Cobbs but they are such different animals.

Also although growth is slower, at 5 weeks they're only half way through their second bag of feed - Cobbs would be on the 5th by now.

And just a picture of on of my Indian Game cockerels - they're just built like units! I love this breed. These pen is pure breeds and I'm hopfull to get some really good birds from them next year. 

What meat crosses would you like to try? 

Meat Crosses Hatch

This year we've been plagued by bad hatch rates, I've kept changing my methods but I think having posted eggs really doesn't help things. 

These chicks are from our own eggs, with a Indian Game cockerel over some Colombian Plymouth Rock hens. 

What a difference in hatch rate!

Pasture Pen Nest Box Upgrade

The bucket nest boxes I originally put in the Heras Panel Pasture Pens never really worked very well, They just weren;t quite big enough and could cause hens to break eggs. But because I used these pens more for grow outs it didn't matter too much and I changed the one I used for the layers into a bigger nest box like the one in this post. 

Currently I have all three of these pens with potential laying hens in. So it was time to upgrade the last two pens to have proper nest boxes, which can even stay in when raising meat birds in there as well. 

Poultry Tour!

We have lots going on with the poultry on the smallholding at the moment. 

I've made some new pens, repaired old ones and seem somewhere near organised with it all so I thought I'd do a video showing you all round our birds and what we're planning to do.

Indian Game Chickens In Their New Pen

The young chickens we hatched out in February moved into their new pen this week.

The new pen is huge and so far they seem to love it.

Chicks At Three Weeks - Sure Don't Grow Like Ross Cobbs!

 This is a terrible picture but these guys are so jumpy and quick on their feet it's hard to take one!



After having Ross Cobbs for the last few years I can't believe how slow growing these are in comparison, shows how long it's been since I hatched some of our own here!

Not Buying Supermarket Eggs Again!!

If you've read this blog over the 8 years I've been writing it you'll know that in that time I've kept a lot of different chickens (never over 50 though - just encase Defra is reading this!)

And I do normally get some ex-commercial hens each year as my layers. But this year they forgot to ring me!

New Chicks!

I completely forgot to post about the chicks we hatched out the other day! 

These hatched out the Monday last week (17th). A mixture of eggs we got from an extremely lovely couple from Abergavenny who keep and show many breeds of chickens.

A Chicken-ey Sort Of Sunday

The girls and I have been looking at all different sorts of chickens that we'd like to hatch out.

The Meat birds from last year - Ross Cobbs

We've had ex commercial birds for the few years (probably 5 or 6 to be honest!) and they've done brilliantly for a second year of laying for us, so long as you know not to keep them past when they rapidly go unproductive. But it's not given us a self sustaining flock.

New Incubator

The children and I have been talking about hatching eggs this year. The last couple of year we seem to have missed out as we've not had any broody hens at the right time. 

So getting an incubator would solve that problem and allow us to hatch as and when we wanted. I know it's far easier to use broodies when you can. Broody hens are, and I think always will be, the easiest way to hatch out chicks, but they're not without they're problems and egg numbers can be limited.

Children Learning Through Helping

I met the specialist for my jaw today, my wife came with me and mum came over to look after the children. He seems happy that my teeth are meeting up again and he seems hopeful that I might avoid surgery. I have another appointment next week, but it's still looking like two months of no solid food!

When I came home Grandma was with my eldest showing her how to sew on her new sewing machine. They'd picked a pattern for a toy dinosaur and were busy putting it together. It was lovely to listen and watch them working together.