The Chicken Whisperer
 

I rescued a chicken a couple of weeks ago. Long story. About the last thing on my mind was having chickens. But they are really pretty cool animals. So... you can't have just 1. Bought 3 more, Campines. Stripper names for the two hens, Mercedes & Porsche and Elvis for the rooster. Foggy is the name of the big gal. She was supposed to be a rooster so I named 'him' Foghorn Leghorn. Well about 20 eggs later she's a gal so Foggy it is. Oh, and of course you need a chicken coop. I purchased plans on line and modified it to a double wide :D. Added a bit of Americana to the back side of the coop. I know I got issues. Adding a run now. A few pictures...


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1250645203.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1250645282.jpg
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http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1250645392.jpg
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http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1250645482.jpg

i will never show you a picture of my hen slum. you are the master! (build me one!)

Amazing coincidence...I just picked up two chickens today!








http://www.nibbledish.com/public/ima...hicken-004.jpg

oh, buck...one word..."sunscreen" :D

It was a fun project. That's my brother helping. He's the carpenter. I just learned and took orders, lol. Yeah sunscreen is your friend.
I rememebrr you saying in another thread something about your chickens getting into your garden and it was dinner time for them!

I've been entertaining the idea of chickens for a while (and goats). I need help too.

$.69 cents a pound for a whole fryer at the store, you won't find me gutting and plucking feathers for that amount no matter how much better the meat may taste.

Now a whole pig or beef cow/steak on the hoof is another matter.

the cost of your coup just cost you a bunch of chicken on the grill too!

Nice work, almost too good for a chiken! Careful, some homeless from New London might try to squat in that coop.

Looking good Buck Man.

Wow. That is built better than my house.

We are up to about 20 chickens now. We have been into chickens for about 2 years and love the fresh eggs. Our first batch of chickens we also got 10 meat birds. Although my wife could go from clucking to oven in 10 minutes it was still tons of dirty work. It is easier and cheaper to buy the processed chicken from the store.

Speedy:)

What kind of egg production do you guys get, per chicken per month let's say?

They lay about 25 eggs each hen, per month. But that is in peak production. It trails off after a few years as they get older. And when the winter days get very short, it can go down to zero.

Eggs from hens that run around and eat bugs and stuff are much different from store bought eggs. Much deeper color and more taste.

Egg production also depends on the breed of chicken. Leghorns are some of the best egg layers and lay white eggs. This is why egg producing chicken farms employ leghorns. Other breeds of chickens lay less but can have more personality and lay different colored eggs, brown, speckled, yellow and others. We only have a couple leghorns. Most of our chickens are of other heritage breeds.

Speedy:)

My neighbor at the place in Ireland has a lightweight 5 bird portable henhouse about 4x8 with an open bottom.

He moves it around the lawn and they clean up the bugs as they go.

The eggs are great

When I was a kid my great-grandfather would buy about 500-600 chicks every year. Of course we'd lose about half to the hot Alabama heat right away. The remaining chicks would be allowed to grow, reproduce and do whatever else they were good for, like lay eggs.

Then, after I'd named about half and considered them pets would come slaughtering day. I still vividly remember my great-grandmother - not so much my great-grandfather - with a hatchet chopping off heads while around her feet danced and flopped headless birds.

Then, if this weren't bad enough, the cleaning would begin, then the freezing. Follow this with every day, Every day, at least twice a day, we'd eat chicken until they were gone or the next batch of chicks came home.

Fried chicken; baked chicken; boiled chicken; stewed chicken; roasted chicken; barbecued chicken... you get the picture, right?

Couple all this chicken eatin' with eggs Every morning, usually fried, and boiled eggs sometimes throughout the day, and I - after I no longer lived with them, they were next door to our house - would not touch eggs or chicken for years and years!

It took me until late adult-hood to get to the point where I would eat chicken again. Even today I have to be in the mood for it, and the mood only comes around once or twice a month at the most!

Eggs? No, not if I can help it.

With memories like that it's no wonder I'm so screwed up.

I remember my grandma chopping a chicken's head off with a hatchet. She held it by the neck and draped it across a root of one of the big Magnolia trees in their yard.

Then she let go of it and jumped back and let it flop around until it bled out and stopped moving.

Then she dropped it in a big pot of boiling water... that loosened up the feathers so they could be plucked.

What I don't remember is how she caught the chicken.

Anyway, I turned out fine... what part of what you said do you believe affected you... and how?

BTW, Mark... awesome chicken coop. *thumbs up*

I kinda thought I had seen the red-with-white-trim thing somewhere before, and lo and behold, I have.

http://i518.photobucket.com/albums/u...ORNLEGHORN.jpg

We had chickens as well. My motheer did the head choppin'

Draw a straight line in the dirt. hold chicken, place beak at once end of line so it looks down the line. Your kids will be amazed at how you've hypnotized a chicken.:D

:confused:

Oh, I was just joking when I said I was screwed up because of the Chicken Trauma... like most kids it was my crazy parents that messed me up! :eek:

Come to think of it, I don't remember how she caught the chickens, either. I do remember the boiling water. Maybe that's where my great-grandfather came in. He must have been the Chicken Wrangler! :confused:

Sounds like we had similar childhoods as far as chicken cleanin' time goes. Glad you're OK!

Mark, that coop is impressive!!

my grandpa's chicken catching technique invovled drinking beer while he watched a five year old me chase them around the yard. a five year old versus a chicken is sort of a fair fight. but eventually i'd get one.

My wife and one of the daughters are into chickens - all kinds of chickens. We must have a dozen different breeds.

I really like your henhouse. My next project is something similar.

consider ducks. eggs taste about the same. and five times the personality of chickens.

Are ducks as productive in egg output as chickens? Are they easier/harder to take care of - need a pond? Messy? Noisy?

Can't easily buy duck eggs, so that would be a nice thing to have.

My son would like a goose, because he likes the b-i-g eggs. No way, I say.

Emus are what he's looking for. Huge eggs.

i know mallards don't. but a quick search says that other breeds are very productive.


Read what she had to say (thanks Jill for the nod!)
A side note about our ducks, since folks are asking. We have Khaki Campbell (or just Campbell) ducks. A breed of domesticated duck kept for its high level of egg production. The breed was developed by Adele Campbell of England at the end of the 19th century.
The egg production of the Campbell breed can exceed even the most efficient of egg laying domestic chickens, with the breed laying an average of 300 eggs a year.


ducks are generally a lot more self reliant and survivable than chickens. smarter too. you can see distinct personalities. they can get by without access to a pond. but i would get at least a kiddy pool. they become pets. and the temptation to re landscape the yard to accommodate them is overwhelming.


geese are just mean. hyper territorial. i've seen one beat up a german shepherd.

only downside of the fresh eggs; you cannot hardboil them. the membrane is so strong they are not peel-able.

will i need a tablesaw to build a coop like that? ;)

No, all you need is an old VW carcass... it can be adapted using just a handsaw, some scrap lumber, and some imagination.
:D

I've heard of Army bases using watch-geese with better results than dogs. The additional benefits were self mowing and fertilizing...

Nice job on the coop. Use a mask when cleaning it out, those birds breed some nasty germs.
Wish I had the lawn for three or four hens. I got the saw, I got the bugs.

my chickens really up'ed the outside cockroach population. food, craap, stuff like that. bummer that hens are not nocturnal. it would be a cornocopia of free food if i can get them together.

That's an awesome chicken coop!

We had one blow in (literally) during a "monsoon season" storm. It insisted on hanging out on our window sills, knocking over my wife's potted plants and eating our baby cacti. And tormenting our cats.

Then it moved to our back patio and took up residence on our Weber grill, covering it with a lovely coating of droppings.

My wife grew somewhat fond of it, so we named it "Chickenhead" (Denis Leary reference).

The thing turned out to be more effort than it was worth (value was negative, actually, with all of the broken pottery), so we finally gave it away to our pool tech. Had I not been a vegetarian at the time I would've put it to better use. :)

Thanks everyone for the comments. Like I said it was a fun project. I won't be eating any if them, not my thing. I consider them kinda like a good girl... A friend with benefits ;) The eggs you pervs!!!!

Before boiling, try piercing the wide end with a needle - no more than an eighth of an inch. That should break the membrane and allow a little water in under the shell. Worth a try.

Mrs Trek :)

Vash, you make any thousand year eggs?

Anybody ever make Scotch Eggs?

Google it... I dare ya.

birds are neat until the start crapping all over the place. almost lost my desire to hunt (and of course eat) ducks when a buddy decided to go all 'self sufficient off the grid' and raise chickens, ducks and i forget what else. just an awful, awful smell.

however, if anyone does opt to get into ducks i'd encourage you to band them as it is a kick to pick one up and see a band.

Hey Mark - long time no talk. Thought you would appreciate this clip - embedding is disabled so you'll have to click on the link. NSFW - from The Devil's Rejects.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zd1KfrlI0mU&feature=PlayList&p=02DED46C444 FADE1&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=12

Mark, you are a nut. :)

That sounds disgusting...