Nice work!
I’ve processed… a lot of chickens when I was young. I definitely didn’t like it at first. But once you get the hang of it, it’s quick and easy. And fresh chicken tastes amazing compared to store bought/frozen.
I’m vegetarian now, but sure I could still clean a bird with my eyes shut
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I’m hoping to just raise all my own meat/hunt on my land. Otherwise I’d probably be vegetarian too. I figure if I’m willing to go buy a chicken sandwich I should be willing to clean a chicken.
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I know you didn’t ask this at all but if you want to not have to change that water like a million frickin times to keep it clean I would get a bottle feeder. I taught my chicks to drink out a bottle feeder by simply picking them up and pushing their beaks against the ball a couple times. They figured it out quick after that.
Also I would recommend getting an electrolyte and probiotic additive for their water and put it in a separate bottle and changing it daily. I had guinea chicks the year before and lost quite a few before I found out about these. Didn’t lose any chicks last year and I think it was because of these.
I’m sure you could find these locally too
Chicks figuring out the bottle
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I appreciate the advice! We have electrolytes for the chicks. we bought it yesterday to try and save the one chick that we ended up loosing. Everyone got it yesterday. All the others are looking good and growing abit faster than I had expected!I feel the same way. I’m a chef by trade and I’ve been studying sustainability for years now. I finally have the space to start practicing it!(and not just with weed hahahal
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The absolute best animal fertilizer you can use is rabbit and alpaca. You could walk behind a rabbit, catch his dropping in a cup and spread them around any type of plant while it’s still warm. I’ve actually gathered it while still warm cleaning the cage wearing rubber gloves. I would mash it up in my hands to pulverize it and turn it into the top of the soil around a plant. The NPK of rabbit poop is 2.4-1.4-0.6 AND they are delicious to eat as long as you don’t name them. I raised full size Rex rabbits for meat for about 4 years and never had prettier plants in my gardens. One cup EWC + one cup crushed rabbit poop + one cut Coast of Maine Stonington blend compost all together in a tea bag and put into 3.5 gallons of RO or distilled water in a food grade 5 gallon bucket with an air pump and big air stone. Let it bubble for 24-36 hours and top feed it to your plants.
Everything above is just my personal opinion from my experience.
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This is an awesome thread!
I live near Detroit they have lots of pheasant in the city. 
I want to grow my own chickens but need to figure out a way to make it happen.
This thread has a ton of insight already, thank you all for sharing!
Shag
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Here in the South those little tiny chicks with a #4 circle hook through the skin on their thigh and tossed into the bass pond are fantastic bait. I’ve been told this, I don’t know from personal experience.
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It s a lot of fun, and honestly a lot easier than I was expecting. I just have fill up the water and feeder a couple times a month and clean out the coop for compost. Otherwise they mostly take care of themselves. Much less involved than these dogs I keep collecting 
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My daughter is allergic to rabbits or else I’d get some of those too!
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I was down to 6 hens this winter so it was time to hatch some new. I use to hatch and sell many breeds, had a small hatchery with an automatic incubator and would hatch around 600 at a time. I’m now just hatching barnyard run chicks…just like my grandparents ran. I’ve got 39 eggs in my homemade incubator now due to hatch the 17th and had 9 hatch 2 weeks ago. I plan on saving the hens and butchering the roosters about Cornish hen size
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When I had a farm we had a large coop for a variety of chickens. We also had a few pair of Sebastopol geese and a flock of Muscovy ducks. The geese were there to serve as alarm/protection in the barnyard. We kept the ducks around to eat flies. We had a horse breeding operation so there was plenty for them to chow on!
About them being too rapey… Whenever I’d walk by and the ducks were doing their thing, I’d remind them to “keep it consensual”.
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This is a pretty good book. Of course I don’t really implement anything from it because I’m lazy, but I think it’s worth reading.
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I raise 15 layers and about 120 broilers per season. The broilers are in a large open air coop, straw for bedding but it gets so matted. I think a mixture of straw and woodchips could work well. (That’s what I’m trying this season) Layers are free-range, and their coop is some old grow rooms in the back of the garage.
Trying to get the broilers out on pasture this season if we can afford the fencing and build some ‘chicken tractors’.
One of my layers is sick right now so she’s living in the house with us. She’s feeling better though 
and caught a mouse when we put her in the poly-tunnel.
- I’d pile it up and get it to 130F, turn. Do that a few times to make sure you’ve killed any pathogens, then if you want a living compost, let it sit for at least a couple months. Or use it right away as more of a nutritional compost.
- Mentioned this one above but straw and woodchips is what I’m trying this year. The woodchips will take a little longer to break down, but it would not hurt using this compost with woodchips. (Becuase of all the N in chicken poo)
- I use more industrial breeds becuase it’s what’s available to me and cheapest to raise. Lohmann layers and Meat Kings (Meat Kings, I think are ethical if raised properly)
Hope this helps,
-greenbeans 
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Buff Orpingtons
Rhode Island Reds
Silver Laced Wyandotte
Just added 10 Praire Bluebell Eggers
I use straw as bedding. I have been using a 5x5x5 compost bin for about 6 months and haven’t used any yet. Worms live in the ground surrounding the coop. I grab them and throw them in as snacks.
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Can’t use chicken manure without HOT COMPOSTING or you’ll have to age it hella long and even then it’s not the best poop on the planet honestly. But hot compost that poopiedoo with a bunch of carbon-rich organic matter and you’ve basically got a perfect start to an outdoor soil amendment or an indoor potting soil. Gotta balance it all out of course, but if you’re starting from chicks you’re gonna be doing a bit of balancing anyway.
I have several breeds of chickens, I love my laughing chickens the most. Sadly, they got broody hella early and 4 out of the 5 chicks that hatched died in the first week. The one that’s left is doing well, for now. A bit scared to be too hopeful at this point.
Good luck with the lil ones!
When they are grown up, watch out for Scaly Leg Mite. Almost all chickens get them sooner or later if they get old enough to catch it, and it’ll cause them great pain in their feet and eventually it can render them immobile, leading to death if nothing is done. Worst part about it is they even live on skin tissue so the only thing eradicating the fuckers, especially if they happen to have leg plumage, is a systemic anthelminthic called Ivermectin. 
No registered use for chickens, and one should use it sparingly, since it’s deadly to chicks and only a drop in the neck or a fraction of that in the drinking water or on some feed is needed per bantam or smallish chickens, 2 drops for large chickens. On the other hand, they are protected from re-infection for months so the infestation can actually die out, leaving their poor paws enough time to heal and their lives to improve, which, in my book, is what chicken keeping is all about. People do say vets advise not to eat or feed them back the eggs they lay for 10 days after treatment.
Those eggs CAN be composted in the hot compost heap.
Lots can be found on hot composting online, and it can be done a hell of a lot faster than normal composting; Best part is, it doesn’t shrink in volume like regular composting and leaves you with a very fine compost that’s akin to potting soil mix. If done right, when done I bet you could grow a pot plant in the heap without doing anything about it, just plant a seedling and be done with it.
Though, I haven’t tried that, yet! 
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I love all the bird love that happened today. Every day I wake up and have a dozen eggs, and that’s plenty to give a few away.
It’s beautiful really, lol just look at it 
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Svart Honas! Theur skin and meat is black too!
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Fucking metal.
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I have lots of pine needles around that I was thinking of using for the chicken area to see how that works. I also plan on composting directly into the pine needles and not have a wood floor.
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