I have 3 chicken pens and a chicken house. The pen I have the baby chicks in about 4 feet tall and 8 Ft long and 4 foot wide. The other 2 pens are dog pen that were bought at the local hardware. The wire on these two pen has a heave wire fence and I have covered the top with common chicken wire to keep cats and other predators out of the chicken pens.
The adult chickens are in one pen and the bantie that hatched a week ago is in the house, the other young chicks are in the pen that has chicken wire around it so the young poultry can not get out and other predators can not get in.
The 9 chicks that hatched on April 17 are old enough to go into the one dog pen having reached a size that they can not get out of the pen.
Also they were bigger than the other babies and tended to push the young babies away from the feeder.
today I took a pillow case and crawled into the 4 foot height pen and crawled around and caught the larger 9 birds.
I thought I had 5 pullets and 4 rooster after looking at them close up I think one of my pullets is a rooster .So the count is 4 pullets and 5 roosters I think.
I placed the 4 pullets and the one that I am not sure about in the dog pen and pulled the heads off of the 4 roosters that I was sure about.There is no need to keep feeding roosters that I don't want to keep.
I have accomplished my goal until I find it necessary to move the chicks around again. I only have 20 of the hatchery chicks left since I lost so many. I plan to keep most of these until next spring and try to raise some of the fancy breeds my self if I can keep the 20 alive.
The hen in the house with her 15 babies is doing a great job and all these chicks will be heavy chickens. I will keep all the pullets out of that bunch so in January I will have heavy chickens laying again.if I am lucky I might have 7 Pullets in that bunch.
One thing about losing so many of the hatchery chicks it makes me value the roosters as well as the pullets.
You should have been here to see a 68 year old woman crawling around trying to catch the wild birds. I don't keep chickens for profit. I keep chickens to have something to get out of bed for in the morning. Everyone needs a reason to live and this is my reason.
3 comments:
One of the reasons I quit letting the banties sit is, I got tired of all those roosters. I chopped some heads off...it sort of made me ill. I took some roosters down and turned them out by Galla Lake near Larry's shop. They became coyote food or hawk food. I guess i am not much of a chicken raiser. I just did not ahve good luck getting pullets. I hope you do. If you get 50 50 I think you have done very well. I kept a buff bantie I bet 3 months thinking I had a hen...low and behold another rooster appeared.
I am getting 3 to 7 eggs a day. I wish I had never got those game hens. I hate them all they do is sit and they want to sit more than a bantie...which is a lot.
I wish I could have been there to help you with your chickens.
Your chicken pens look great - is that the fencing that you posted your son and grandson putting up a while back.
That is just what I could do with up my allotment to keep all the pests out!
I totally agree with your reason for keeping chickens - I feel the same about mine and being self sufficient in as much fruit and vegetables and other things as I possibly can.
It keeps you active, and a lot of pleasure - and we get to meet like minded people don't we.
Well done you Patsy - using a computer and having hobbies really broadens the mind.
I bet this time last year you never dreamt that you would have 'friends' albeit it cyberspace ones, all over the world.
Don't ever stop.
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