Getting some chickens

[RED333]

So I had to build a tractor!

Made to move around the yard.

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Wheels to roll on.

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[Garufa]

Can you grow fried chickens in that?

[RED333]

Can you grow fried chickens in that?

Yes and no, ya know the rest.

[smokin45]

Red  Thats a palace of a coop!!  Hope you get a lot of eggs   :cool: 

[gunwhatgun]

Cool! How many chickens are you getting? We have a few and it is great.

[Parker's Safes]

Check out FarmTek. They sell nipples that you can install in pvc pipe or the bottom of a bucket. These are great for watering your chickens as they just peck at them and get their water. These are better than a bowl since chickens seem to enjoy relieving themselves in the bowl of water. Freezing is the only drawback I have found. They are cheap and you can run as many as needed in a line of pvc pipe gravity fed from a 5 gal bucket.

www.farmtec.com

[rugerla1]

Great job, that is sweet!

[PackinMama]

Very nice! I recently got a few chickens and I love them. I'm wondering though....where are your nesting boxes? Also....what is that gray pipe along the bottom front of the tractor for?

Edited June 19, 2013 by PackinMama

[Caster]

Call me when them layin' hens quit layin'. I got a deep fryer and a few gallons of peanut oil...........

[Dolomite`s Breezy]

wer are contemplating getting another batch of chicks and guinea hens and a pet turkey or 2. Just cant get into gear with it..

So many other projects  and that doesnt leave much time for the pets right now..

 

I had Buff Orpingtons and they laid bunch of eggs all the time..Turkeys.. when they are tame and spend time with you.. they are about the neatest things to watch and interact with.

[RED333]

Very nice! I recently got a few chickens and I love them. I'm wondering though....where are your nesting boxes? Also....what is that gray pipe along the bottom front of the tractor for?

The boxes are not built yet, the pipe is for the axles and wheels to slide into so it can be rolled around the yard.

 

I had Buff Orpingtons and they laid bunch of eggs all the time..Turkeys.. when they are tame and spend time with you.. they are about the neatest things to watch and interact with.

We saw a mommy and her hatch lings the other day, they are wild, there had to be 12 to 15 little ones.

Edited June 20, 2013 by RED333

[Dennis1209]

It's a life changing event, you'll never buy store bought eggs again. AND...

 

When a severe winter snow / ice storm with accumulation is on the way, you never need to rush out and get milk, eggs and bread. Just the milk and bread  :rofl:

[Timestepper]

Good looking chicken tractor!

 

We've raised various breeds of Bantams for a couple of years now and had six full-sized Rhode Island Reds for a while (until my wife sold them because they were cannibalizing our younger banties). No room for a chicken tractor on the side of a heavily timbered ridge, so I had to build a permanent structure, but made it big enough for chickens, roosts, nesting boxes and sealable storage areas for both chicken & goat feed. Made the exterior chicken run critter proof with enough room for a rabbit hutch in one corner, then added a 3'-6"X8' divided hutch/rookery to the East end. (Later added a goat shed onto the other end complete with sleeping shelf, but that's another story.)

 

Love our little Banty eggs! Rich and tasty and the shells get crushed and put right back into the chicken feed to lessen the need for calcium supplements/additives. Only problem we've had since we got rid of the RIR's is when I was in the hospital for a couple/three  weeks in March/early April: My wife was spending as much time as possible at UTMed with me & couldn't take care of the two-leggeds as much as usual. As a result, we had nine hens go broody and ended up with a total of twenty five new chicks. Natural attrition and a feral cat (we open the run and let them free-range during the day) have reduced the total to about fifteen spring chicks which should start laying in a couple of months.

 

With me being disabled for the foreseeable future with zero income, our little banties have been a genuine blessing, although I honestly never knew how many different damn ways there were to fix eggs! :lol:

 

...TS...

[RichardR]

Pickling eggs are a good way to preserve any surplus eggs, I use same recipe as I do for my dill pickles, its quick, easy & they can be stored w/out refrigerating.

[Dennis1209]

Pickling eggs are a good way to preserve any surplus eggs, I use same recipe as I do for my dill pickles, its quick, easy & they can be stored w/out refrigerating.

 

Also heard coating them in mineral oil, then putting them back in the egg carton and storing them unrefrigerated in a cool dark area will keep 9-12 months. Haven't tried it though?

[Timestepper]

Also heard coating them in mineral oil, then putting them back in the egg carton and storing them unrefrigerated in a cool dark area will keep 9-12 months. Haven't tried it though?

 

Vaseline works better than mineral oil, but the best thing is just not to wash them in the first place. Granted, no one really wants to see an egg with a little shicken chit smeared on it, but the fact is that unwashed eggs have a natural coating that's a better protectant & preservative than anything we can smear on them.

[RED333]

Vaseline works better than mineral oil, but the best thing is just not to wash them in the first place. Granted, no one really wants to see an egg with a little shicken chit smeared on it, but the fact is that unwashed eggs have a natural coating that's a better protectant & preservative than anything we can smear on them.

Learned me something today, THANKS MUCH!!!

[RED333]

Pics of my girls

Black Australorps

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Golden Comets and Ameraucana

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[JAB]

Vaseline works better than mineral oil, but the best thing is just not to wash them in the first place. Granted, no one really wants to see an egg with a little shicken chit smeared on it, but the fact is that unwashed eggs have a natural coating that's a better protectant & preservative than anything we can smear on them.

 

Yep.  A couple of years ago I came across this older article from Mother Earth News where they tested some of the various, supposed methods of preserving fresh eggs.

 

http://www.motherearthnews.com/real-food/fresh-eggs.aspx?PageId=1#axzz2XFQPbUuB

 

Excerpt:

 

[5] Unwashed, fertile eggs packed in dry sand or coated with vaseline and stored at room temperature keep a little longer-but not much-than unwashed fertile eggs that are just left lying out at room temperature. Washed, unfertile eggs exhibit the same characteristics ... with all storage times running a few days less across the board.

I have a few Bantams - only a couple of hens and one rooster - as well as one White Leghorn that came to me from a friend who passed last year.  I actually got three White Leghorns, originally, but only one is still around.  My Bantams were given to me by a farmer who also has a few game chickens running free-range with the Bantams so I think they are actually a Bantam-game cross.  I think the hens (not the rooster) killed two of the much larger Leghorns.  The Leghorns were really good layers and I'd like to have two or three more good layers like them.  To my thinking, if I am going to fool with feeding and taking care of three hens then I had might as well feed and take care of five or six and get more eggs but since I have limited space I worry that the Bantam/game hens would kill any new additions, too.

Edited June 25, 2013 by JAB

[JAB]

Pickling eggs are a good way to preserve any surplus eggs, I use same recipe as I do for my dill pickles, its quick, easy & they can be stored w/out refrigerating.

 

Pickled eggs are good.  Pickled Bantam eggs are even better because they are bite-sized - you can just pop the whole thing in your mouth.

 

I don't even get as complicated as using a dill pickle recipe.  I just add a sprig of fresh dill, a whole garlic clove or two, some whole peppercorns and slices of jalapeno or habanero to the eggs in the jar and then pour heated, pre-diluted vinegar over them.

 

I usually do fairly large batches so I put them in pint canning jars or large jelly size canning jars and can them so they don't have to be refrigerated until opened.  They will keep for a good while if canned properly.  I haven't made any in a couple of years - I think it will be about time when my peppers come in this year.  I will admit that the last time I made them I screwed up.  I was trying to get fancy and experiment with different vinegars so I did some with balsamic vinegar.  They tasted good but the vinegar turned the eggs black.  It was hard to get past that so some of them went to waste.  Luckily, I didn't do a lot of them since it was an experiment.

 

My mom hasn't made any pickled eggs in a while.  I don't think she likes them all that much but she used to make them for my late father and me.  Her method is ridiculously simple but makes really good pickled eggs.  Her method is to wait until all the pickles in a jar of store-bought dill pickles have been eaten, pour the solution from the jar into a pot and heat it a little, pack the eggs into the empty pickle jar, pour the heated solution over them, put the lid on and keep them in the fridge.  Works really well.

Edited June 25, 2013 by JAB

[RichardR]

We really enjoy pickled eggs too, delicious little bastedeggs that's for sure.

I like using bantam eggs because I can fit more of them in each jar & honestly the bantam eggs aren't the best eggs to use for traditional uses like ingrediants in recipes or even breakfast stuff like served sunny-side, over-easy, omelettes or scambled because it takes so darn many of them, they are much better suited for making bite-sized hard boiled &/or pickled eggs IMHO.

Besides my bantams were never really great layers, sure they laid overy other day fairly regularly but not as regular as my standard sized breeds, and not anywhere near as good as my Red Star hybrids used to, which laid an egg a day every day even when other breeds slowed down, even through the winter months!.

[Timestepper]

We really enjoy pickled eggs too, delicious little bastedeggs that's for sure.

I like using bantam eggs because I can fit more of them in each jar & honestly the bantam eggs aren't the best eggs to use for traditional uses like ingrediants in recipes or even breakfast stuff like served sunny-side, over-easy, omelettes or scambled because it takes so darn many of them, they are much better suited for making bite-sized hard boiled &/or pickled eggs IMHO.

Besides my bantams were never really great layers, sure they laid overy other day fairly regularly but not as regular as my standard sized breeds, and not anywhere near as good as my Red Star hybrids used to, which laid an egg a day every day even when other breeds slowed down, even through the winter months!.

Oddly enough, I like banty eggs for the very reasons you don't (although I agree wholeheartedly that they make make fantastic pickle eggs). But with only my wife and I, if I decide to cut a recipe - which calls for 1 egg - in half, I just use one banty egg. And true, you do have to use a bunch of them for breakfast type meals (my usual breakfast is six banty eggs sunny side up), but our little hens are great layers - if we don't get 10 or 11 eggs a day, it's because we couldn't find a couple. And our banty eggs taste so much richer than our Rhode Island Reds ever did, despite the fact that they were both free range. Plus, as I've already mentioned, we grind the shells and mix them right back in with the chicken scratch to lessen the need for calcium supplements. And with a light in the hen house, they've always produced through the winter as well.

 

:hat:

[RichardR]

TimeStepper,

Winters down here are a lot shorter & much milder than they are up in Indiana, so that probably makes it a little easier on the chickens to keep laying year round.

I'll have to remember to take that into account when I build another coop & run, since I don't have to worry about sub-zero temps & snow piling up several feet and such.

My current house is within city limits though so it'll have to wait til I can move out to the out-skirts.

[JAB]

While it generally does take more Bantam eggs to make a good breakfast, I do find some advantages to them, as well.  I generally like my eggs over-easy with the white part cooked but the yellow nice and 'runny'.  I find it easier to flip Bantam eggs in the skillet without busting the yolk.  It also seems easier to cook the white more fully while leaving the yellow runny.  Finally, there sometimes seems to be a slightly higher yolk to white ratio than with normal eggs but I might just be imagining that.

 

It is kind of funny to see the eggs in the nest.  The Bantams and the Leghorn all pretty much lay in the same nest and the Leghorn lays much larger eggs.  In fact, one of the Leghorns (I think it was one of the two that died) laid eggs that were so large that when we put them in egg cartons that once held XL store-bought eggs the lid on the carton wouldn't even close.  Biggest danged chicken eggs I have ever seen and they were consistently that large.  I actually have to wonder if she didn't end up getting egg bound and if that is what killed her.

[Dennis1209]

Have a question?

 

Where do y'all get your chicks / chickens to start your brood, mail order or locally?

 

Around here chicks are only available in early spring at a couple of places like Rural King. The majority are "straight run" and some sexed Production Reds and that's about it. Would like to get some other breeds but I'm hesitant about going on-line and ordering them (transport).

 

P.S. Speaking of the egg, on occasion I'll get an egg twice the size if AA large. Have to handle it with kid gloves because the shell is so thin it usually breaks just picking it up. I like the double yokes also but, out of maybe the last 1,500 eggs, only two were doubles.

Edited June 25, 2013 by Dennis1209