Chickens Day: The First Year February 19, 2019 @goldenoakfarm

Our bantam chickens back in the late 60’s – early 70’s

The worst predator in the 1970’s: our English Springer Spaniel Cricket

Our first year raising broilers was a steep learning curve. While I’d had chickens as a child, this was a whole new ballgame. First and foremost were the predators. How were we going to deal with them, both 4 footed and aerial? There were a whole lot more of them now than when I was growing up.

While there had been lots of chicks when I was growing up, their care was strictly delegated to the momma hen. So chick care would be all new.

And when they reached a size big enough for Freezer Camp, could I do that work? After speaking with a goodly number of people who sent their animals out to be butchered, we quickly realized that sending ours out was not something we wanted to do. But I had been raised that you took an animal in to be cared for to the best of your ability until it died of old age. This was going to require a major change of mindset.

Our first chickens were STRICTLY going to be meat birds, I was informed. But we didn’t want “to put all our eggs in one basket” and have only 1 breed. So our first mistake was to select 25 Cornish Cross and 25 Barred Rocks and 25 New Hampshire Reds.

White Cornish (growing faster than feathers) and a New Hampshire Red, same ages

We very quickly, and disastrously, found out you should never raise Cornish Cross with heritage birds. We lost ⅔ of them that year, pretty quickly. They have entirely different feeding requirements, housing and activity requirements, and life spans.

All the chicks needed a higher protein feed. We tried several but to no avail. A Professor of Poultry helped us through this awful time. He suggested feeding any kind of animal protein we could find, daily, at ¼ oz/bird/day. Once we started this the dying tapered off.

We’d planned to raise them as Joel Salatin does, in a 10’ x 12’ pen moved daily. We quickly realized that the Cornish would have been fine in there during their 48 day lifespan. But the heritage birds would not mature until 11 weeks later, and there was no way 50 heritage birds would do well in that space.

The Cornish do not move very far from their feed source. They don’t really move much at all. The heritage birds were all over the place and as they got older and more bored in the tractor pen, they started picking the Cornish, who just let them. In 2 hours it was a blood bath.

We got the Cornish out of there (there were only 10 left) and put them in the brooder enclosure. They only had a couple weeks left until they should be big enough to butcher. They would not mind closer quarters, less distance to feed trays.

It was obvious we’d have to figure out another safe, contained way to raise the remaining 40 heritage birds. They had a minimum amount of space they needed per bird, we had to take predators (land and aerial) into consideration, and they needed a minimum amount of protected space at night.

Because we had the cows with calves (who were very defensive) we opted to try chicken wire. It was lightweight and we’d be moving it every 4 days. We selected plastic step in posts to hold it up, as they were lightweight also.

For overhead we went to Acme Surplus and bought really cheap rope as it was a prototype. It came in blue, green, yellow, and red. So we called it the Circus Tent. Spaced at 5’ or less along the edges, hawks could not get it. So we had room, as the pen measured 40’ x 40’, and overhead protection. It all could be moved in an hour.

Taking what we’d learned we needed from using the Salatin pen, and trying to improve on it, we designed this coop. It was all metal, predator proof. It was vented in back. It had enough roost space and a floor we hoped would be clean. Plenty of room for feeders and a waterer. It had 4 wheels to move more easily.

At night we had electric netting INSIDE the chicken wire, all around the coop, and on a dedicated charger. So the birds were safe.

In regards to the butchering, my husband did the icky bits and I was regulated to cleaning before and after, and washing, weighing, and recording info. I got through it ok.

We were able to do 10 birds at a time, so we had 4 butcherings to do. We discovered it took us 3 days, 1 to prep the butcher shop, 1 to do the work and cleanup, and 1 day for recovering afterwards, as we both have chronic illnesses.

We had a problem that we didn’t solve until the following year. The birds would get under the coop and we’d have to chase them out to put them to bed. In the morning, while they were still locked up, we’d move the coop to the new position. (The coop was moved daily so there wasn’t too much nitrogen buildup.)

First pullet egg of 2014 with last of old layer eggs in basket

On the morning of September 26th, my husband, in the rain, pushed the coop back, and then came in the house with his hand full. In it were 2 little pullet eggs. The roosters had been butchered first, and we’d gotten 2 of the 4 lots of birds done. All that was left was hens.

I, of course, had been told, NO LAYERS! So I shrugged and said, “Yeah, so? They are dual purpose birds.” He wandered off.

A couple hours later he comes back and nonchalantly asks, “How hard would it be to build a coop in the barn?”

Half finished coop October 2008

So we spent the first part of October building a chicken coop and pen at the barn, instead of finishing the butchershop we desperately needed.

The remaining 20 hens, a mix of Barred Rock and New Hampshire Red, got a reprieve. But what we didn’t know was they had not read the memo.

The Professor told us, IF they laid after the disastrous year they’d grown up in, it would not be much. And once the light got less, they would stop laying. But no one told them.

By the end of the month we were getting 15 – 18 eggs a day! My little dorm fridge in the cellar was packed. I looked into old fashioned storing methods and decided to try waterglass. I put 23 dozen eggs down in these crocks. They stored perfectly fine until July 2009. I think I lost 2 – 3 dozen.

They had not been stored totally correctly. You should not store eggs that have been washed, and some of these had. I suspect those were the ones that went bad.

We also acquired a pet hen. She was a real escape artist and loved supervising all activities on the farm. Her name was Ernestine “Ernie” and she survived the predators, etc for 9½ years.

By the end of the year, I’d found a farm stand to buy my eggs. The hens laid really well until spring. It turns out the red heat lamp we used to keep their bell waterers unfrozen (that they supposedly can’t see) kept them laying all winter. Once it was warm enough to be off, they stopped. So we have supplemented their light with a 60 watt bulb since then.

So we made it through that awful first year, with help from the Professor and an Oregon feed mill owner. And we’ve been successfully, some years more than others, raising meat birds and layers ever since.

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