Chickens

[Paula]

Hey Growalot have you ever eaten any of your chickens/rooster?

[growalot]

yes I use to buy 25 rock Cornish straight run and when they got to a good weight butcher them....I'll be honest....gutting and cleaning a chicken...can put you off chicken meat....they are just the nastiest smelling things going...and I don't care how clean you keep them ...their insides stink...lol

Not to mention the occational one that would break free from the killing funnel and the hassle of trying to catch the headless thing before it spewed blood all over...they can run a surprisingly long time with out a head....freaked the kids out the first time it happened....lol

[Paula]

i was thinking more about your layers. I have before but they were tough and i gave right back to the girls. I was told to boil long time and will not be tough. I just got done cooking him and he seems like he will be tender.

we loved going to my grandfathers because he would cut heads off for us. lol

chickens are dirty birds but good

Edited July 29, 2012 by paula

[growalot]

Yes Paula I've used them for meat in soups and stews only...never any more...I buy boneless skinless chicken breast when on sale ....cheaper and so much easier...It is the only chicken meat we eat now...still have the laying chickens and one rooster because Mr.B. likes to hear him crow.....but our neighbor now has chickens and a rooster...We can hear his rooster just as well as our own and they are 1600ft away...so once ours passes...no more....lol

[Pygmy]

Those older birds make the best stewing chickens. They have a rich, full , buttery flavor, much more than the fryers you buy in the store...They are certainly NOT for frying or grilling though..

Stewed chicken and bisquits with GRAVY of course...Homemade chicken soup. They are the best.

They are also very good canned. back in my former life when I had chickens ( for 35 years) my ex-wife and I usually canned up a few quarts every year..Very good, very tender, very convenient. Just open a quart jar and heat it up..The gravy or soup stock is right there in the jar..

Damn, I miss having chickens..I always loved having them around...<<sigh>>....

[growalot]

They are expensive to keep now....

[MuzzyLoader]

I have an Amish buddy that hates to cut the heads off his wife's chickens... so when I go to their house she usually asks me to chop a few so she can get 'em canned.

They do smell... but like Dan says, they do taste good (even the little eggs from the inside).

[Gthphtm]

Haa,haa .I that just struck me funny,chickens with no heads running around and some still kackeling.When I was a little kid,my mother would leave me at my grandmothers,when she would go to work.She had a few different type of chickens both meat and layers.Also milk cows.She sold milk,eggs and meat.The meat chickens were de headed on a wooden chopping block and set free to die.

[landtracdeerhunter]

Talking chicken- Here a strange thing. Not a sitting hen this year. Young, middle aged, old. Didn't hatch one chick. Never happened before. Blame it on the year? Gona have to call Murray- McMurray.

Edited July 29, 2012 by landtracdeerhunter

[Lawdwaz]

One of the wildest places I've seen was an chicken farm loaded with laying hens. What an operation. It would almost cure you of eating eggs. Almost......

[Paula]

when i had my 2 goats my egg money paid for them to eat mostly and all chicken feed i might need and i have bought chicks with the egg money. i had some egg money i saved and bought a shed and made it into a coop that i wanted. i like having them. LOVE when they run, when they lean forward to run looks like they are missing arms. i have 4 month old and they are the best they are like little jets when they seem me lol. they are dirty and i think if more people knew about them they wouldn't eat chicken or eggs , like lawwiz said

Edited July 29, 2012 by paula

[Elmo]

Some completely novice questions from a city slicker. Wondering if it's possible to raise chickens in an urban setting.

1. Are there any breeds that don't make any noise? Mainly interested in egg production but if neighbors complain, it'll put an immediate end to this idea.

2. Read some where that you don't need a rooster to produce eggs? Is this true? Did I doze off when they were explaining about the "birds and the bees"?

3. Do the chickens need to be bought indoors during the winter or do they stay outdoors in their roost?

Thanks in advance.

[Guns&ReligionCop]

Not to mention the occational one that would break free from the killing funnel and the hassle of trying to catch the headless thing before it spewed blood all over...they can run a surprisingly long time with out a head....freaked the kids out the first time it happened....lol

DOn't cut the heads all the way off when they are in the funnel, pull down on the head and slit the throat and hold the head until it stops kickin then cut it all the way off

[Paula]

I think all hens make noise, you don't need a rooster to make eggs, they are to fertilize the eggs. you can raise chickens in any setting, they grow up not knowing any different then what they have, give them an inch once they always want it that way after that. Happy healthy chickens will lay eggs good. I chose Rhode island reds because they can handle the cold and are good to eat. I do have other breeds and have never any die from the cold. I get green, blue and different shade of brown eggs, RIR lay brown lrg to jumbo eggs. I suggest getting at least 6 if you have the room to share so no one complains

Edited November 19, 2012 by paula

[shawnhu]

Had a rooster in a few houses behind us and would crow frigging early and I sure as hell wanted to shoot it if I knew where it was!

Think someone got to him before me, haven't heard him in a few months now.

I don't believe hens make too much noise, had one in the house for a few days. Never really knew it was even there until she started smelling. Laid and egg every day.

[landtracdeerhunter]

Hens can make as much or more noise than a rooster, except they don't crow. One hen gets to cackling, and the whole works get in the act. This also happens when they lay an egg. Remember, chicken manure stinks, LOL. I'm getting bronze turkeys next year at $8 a pop, straight run.

[Elmo]

Thanks Paula. By noise I mean the infamous cockadoodoodo that goes on during sunrise. So if I buy a batch of 6 hens who have never been introduced to a rooster in their lives, they'll still lay eggs even without doing the dirty deed? My dad has a townhouse in the city so the yard is tiny. I'm guessing 15 feet by 10 feet (rough guess) which he currently uses as a vegetable garden.

Edited November 20, 2012 by Elmo

[fasteddie]

When I was a kid , my mom would buy a couple of live chickens and my dad would remove their heads with an axe . It was funny to watch them run around .

I was telling a friend of mine about it a couple years ago and he got upset . He said , "you hold their legs and let them flop but not run around because they would run into things and the meat would get bruised" . I thought , big deal !

[Pygmy]

Yes, Elmo, they will lay eggs...

And hens will make a minimum of noise, compared to a rooster.

You will still have to deal with chicken poop, though...

[Gthphtm]

Elmo,Meat chickens that you buy in the store never leave the cage.The less the move the more weight the gain.I had Laying hens ( no rosters) when the got old enough they laid eggs and I had an area about 10' x20' fenced in all around + the top,because we have a problem with Fox in our area.The coop was about 4' x 6' raised off of the ground.Had them till they stopped laying and gave them away.Now I have a few ducks3 females and 1 male,they just started to produce eggs.One of the females makes mor noise then the male.The are in the same coop and fenced in area.

Edited November 20, 2012 by Gthphtm

[Paula]

Chickens are messy as hell and can be loud, like to shoot them sometime. You can use the poop on garden, the way i understand this years poop on garden next yr. we have 2 gardens so i just put it on one not being used this yr. chickens don't need a big area just make sure they aren't cramped. i have 21-25 hens and i let them out first light always, one thing to know is less light less eggs

[Jennifer]

I'm a bit of a chicken nut, I admit.

When my hens get to singing the "egg song"-- the sterotypical buck-bagawk-- it's louder than my rooster. Just a warning that hens can be loud.

Some breeds are genrally less chatty than others. Whenever getting into any critter, research is in order. Some breeds are not as cold hardy either, but many do great in our winters. I never provide heat as it actually makes it hard on their systems to go form warm to cold, back and forth, each day. Just keep their water from freezing over so they can get fresh drinks.

The manure smells but no worse than a dog's... what you put in is what comes out. With no disrespect intended, some of the commercial, cheap chicken feeds on the market are not the best, and makes the manure smell much worse than it has to. Like dog food, it can have a lot of junk filler. If you want to raise birds on the cheap that's fine but I am really picky about what goes into my food.

It's best to compost the manure for at least a few months so that it cooks down some-- otherwise you can burn your plants with too much nitrogen. After it cooks down it's great on gardens. I can tell you the grass and weeds that grow downhill from my chicken run is the most lush, green grass (and weeds..) I've ever seen!

If you want better production all year, folks often provide lighting in the winter so that the birds have a longer photoperiod, which causes more egglaying. I prefer to let mine go through natural cycles, as I prefer less eggs over many years (rather than a ton of eggs for a year or two then a burnt out hen..).

Heritige breeds and good genetics will give you more production and larger bodied birds, at the cost of slightly slower growth.

Hens, like many other species, ovulate just fine on their own. Roosters only fertilize the egg.

As in all things, these are general observations, and your mileage may vary. They are all individual birds and can have a lot of personality. I take a lot of joy from them.

[Elmo]

So the hens will lay eggs without a rooster but since the eggs aren't fertilized, they won't hatch? Never knew. Learn something new each day.

I guess my dad has enough to raise a few hens. He's talked about wanting to do so before but lets see if he's willing to re-arrange his vegetable garden to fit a coop and if the neighbors won't through a fit from the noise and smell.

Edited November 20, 2012 by Elmo

[Jennifer]

Keeping it clean goes a long way toward odor. One thing that has saved me a LOT of work is to create a poop board. Don't laugh, it's really useful. Hens tend to do something like 60%+ of their business while on the roost in the evening/overnight/early morning. I cut a flat piece of chipboard and put it about 6" below the roosing board and covered it in flashing, it cost me perhaps $8 to make. Then I just use a drywall scraper ($4) and scrape the waste into a bucket each morning, and dump the bucket into the compost pile.

That worked well for a year, but I got tired of scraping frozen poop in the winter, so I modifed the poop board so that it has 2" walls on each side, and fill the whole thing with Sweet PDZ (this is a horse stall freshener, I get mine at Tractor Supply, get the grains and not the powder), and now I can scoop the dropping out with a cat litter scoop. It clumps up like cat litter and has no odor. Really easy and takes me maybe 3 minutes in the morning since I have only 7 hens. I have had people remark that my coop area doesn't smell at all because of this.

Hope these ideas help!

[Elmo]

Thanks jennifer. The odor is definitely one obstacle to be considered. My dad owns a townhouse and he rents out the bottom floor and they might complain but your idea sounds great. If diligent cleaning and kitty litter will eliminate that then it's this may work. Spoke to my dad about it and he likes the idea but if he goes ahead with it, it's probably best to buy the chicks during the spring I'm guessing.