The other night I learned more about GPS in tractors (thanks Bruce Endress for the lesson!) so my friend Renae and I are taking one more step into farming. We decided several weeks ago to raise chickens this summer.
The chicken wire covered pvc and irrigation tubing is our "chicken tractor". Our chickens will be pseudo-free range as they will be out on grass and we will move them every couple of days in the "chicken tractor". We have started with 20 and may be down to 19 already as one appears to be a bit more than traumatized from being mailed from Pennsylvania, getting unloaded at friends house, being picked out by Renae, driven to her house, and slid into the holding pen.We will keep this in the barn until the chicks have feathered and then move the contraption to the back part of Renae's four acres.
The lady we got them from suggested solar lights to keep the chickens calm and help with keeping out predators.
Another idea given to us was to use a red light to give the chicks a pinkish/reddish color. If they see blood on another chick they will peck it to death so the red tint protects them in case they get scratched and bleed. Who knows? We're pretty much buy whatever people tell us we need.
It was kind of neat when I was telling my dad about about our wild-brained idea that he had a transportable coop when he was a boy that he moved around their yard.
I'll no doubt post updates on my blog if you're interested.
6 comments:
Oh my goodness. Chickens to eat? My chicken story is one of the neighbors bought an Easter chick, then let it go in a field behind the house, another neighber "rescued" it and brought it to our house, since we were "the farm" in the neighborhood. We had the chicken in one of our little sheds, and went on a 4 week vacation. When we got home, we discovered that our chicken had grown into a crowing rooster, and had been crowing every morning at 4:30 am, much to the disturbance of the neighbors. We took him out to Dave's shed, where he was apparently eaten by coyotes, as we never saw him again. I hope your chickens fare better than ours!
I am NOT going to tell Mike about this, because he's wanted to raise chickens for quite awhile now. I can just see ME being the one out behind the poolhouse reaching under chickens for eggs or cleaning up after them or doing any number of the necessary jobs. More power to you!
These are broilers so in 12-13 weeks we'll be taking them off for their intended purpose although right now they are just too cute think about eating.
Renae has talked about layers, but I don't think I'm up to reaching under a chicken for an egg. I think we'll see how these 3 months go before we think about a long term chicken commitment.
Can't say it sounds like fun to me, but "to each his own". You'd think one of us would've been smart enough to guess that you might be using the chicken-wire to build a chicken coop, right? Enjoy watching your little chicks grow.
We would have chickens in a heartbeat if our village allowed it. Instead every Sunday morning we take care of about 200 chickens at a farm. They just started laying this week and production will ramp up so we'll be gathering 100-200 eggs each time we visit. The kids absolutely _love_ reaching under the chickens for eggs.
Didn't Uncle Perry have a chicken too? I thing there was a vacation story involved with his chicken as well. Anybody want to post the details on that chicken?
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