I'm really developing an irrational hatred towards chickens. We have a lot of chickens. Too many. We need to butcher to make room for next years laying stock and, of course, we do need to eat. But I'm just hating everything about chickens so much right now. I just can't seem to get up and get things done.
We've got about 50 birds, 5-6 of them are roosters. The roosters start crowing around 4 a.m. I hate them.
I tell you, I do NOT need 46 eggs a day. We don't actually get that many, but some mornings, when collecting the eggs, it feels like there's a hundred or so. We candled the eggs under mama hen yesterday. Out of the 17 she's sitting on, only 4 were duds. The rest look good and alive and I imagine that within a week, there should be 13 little chicks bopping around the barn. I do not need or want 63 chickens. (Yes, I'm actually counting my chickens before they hatch.)
As soon as I can set up a separate coop for the couple of chickens we have that go broody, they will be moved and given some eggs to sit on. So there will be more replacement birds. We only need/want about 10 hens, 2 roosters. We're gonna end up with closer to 20 hens being kept simply because we need to keep younger birds and there's a few that just aren't on the block. Broody hens get a pass because I don't want to pay for an incubator or mess about with heat lamps. Mamas do that work for me. Beep Beep gets to stay, of course. She's moved in with the goats now, by the way. That's 3 hens so far. Then we've got the Silkie hen and her man. I'm not one to break up a couple. Basically... I'm gonna be up to my elbows in butchering and canning for the foreseeable future.
Yay.
But first - I HAVE to plant the gardens. I'm late. Maybe not for Canada weather, but if I'd been on the ball, I could have planted a month ago and had a head start on our very short growing season. *sigh* Maybe next year.
I know very little about chickens - at least living ones. My husband was raised with them and was unimpressed. He said that they truly made a mess. So I understand them not being your favorite animal.
ReplyDeleteI would hate to do them in myself, but for nearly anything that begins crowing and wakes up at 4 am better hope it can out run me.
PK - Messy is an understatement. I'm not a fan of "doing them in" myself either, but I figure if I'm willing to eat them, I should be willing to do that part too.
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