Cleaning the chick brooder tubs

So here I am, literally shoveling (*excrement*) out in the shed.  Other than the minor annoyance of having grabbed the wrong shovel - the narrow tree hole digging shovel - I was wondering briefly just why.  I certainly cannot be the only person the have ever wondered, "Why am I shoveling (*excrement*)?" while dumping shovelfuls into the muck bucket.

Of course, the answer quickly followed my question.  It is the same reason I scoop out the cat's litterbox.  I very much enjoy having the little monsters around.  Let's face it, the brooder tubs are about as close to being housebroken as my chicks will get.

I do look forward to when the chicks are feathered enough to move out into tractors, and the tubs come out of the shed to air out as the shed also airs out ... that will last about 8 weeks though.  I already have an order for new chicks shipping out of Missouri on April 13th.

Juveniles and week old chicks

We played musical chick tractors this morning, moving Beardie and the pullets into the bigger tractor, the two barred/mottled cockerels into the old dog crate (our original tractor!), and the three remaining cockerels into the triangle tractor.  The two in the dog crate have a date with destiny (and likely dumplins) come Sunday or Monday.  I am going to try the milk-soaked scratch experiment with these two, since the previous two Cornish-Rocks were a bit too old to be able to tell much (plus my neighbor feeds her chickens differently than we do).

2 cockerels, awaiting their date with destiny

rearranged juvenile tractors, behind the electric fence

Finally, a few chick pics, since I have had these cute little monsters for a week now.

red broiler chicks at one week

Ideal hatchery gold-laced Wyandotte chicks

More new chicks again

Yes, I bought some more new chicks yesterday ... well, in addition to placing my order with Cackle Hatchery out of Missouri for mid-April.  Yesterday I drove out to Alachua County to purchase three-week-old Wyandotte chicks from Eight Acres Farm.  I met Luanne, who is a nice and personable lady who is truly enthusiastic about her chickens.  She breeds for the blue-laced red variety, and since the blue gene is an incomplete dominant, that means she ends up with black-laced or splash(white)-laced along with the desired blue.  I bought her black-laced from a recent hatch, nine in total although two have single combs instead of rose combs.  More on that after pics.

9 black-laced red Wyandotte chicks

another shot of my new Wyandotte chicks

OK, about the single comb culls here ... Luanne told me that when folks were developing the blue-laced red variety, they outcrossed to single-comb Rhode Island Reds to get a darker red.  It occurred to me on the drive home: Why not use the rose-comb Rhode Island Reds?  Well, reading around last night I found my answer.  Apparently, for every rose comb RIR there are a good ten single comb RIRs, so it is a simple matter of availability.  The two single comb chicks will either be layers or dinner, depending on gender.

For the other seven ... I have some high hopes.  Pullets will eventually be crossed with Feyd, to give the chicks better body with his coloring, while the best cockerel of the group will end up with the best of the hatchery pullets.  It is a bit of a "shortcut" of sorts, bringing in some nice-bodied stock to get a more Wyandotte looking build.  Call it vanity if you will, but I want my Gold-Laced Wyandottes to be easily recognizable as Wyandottes.

Sure fooled me

Apparently, I do indeed have four pullets and an Easter Egger cockerel in the triangle tractor ... just not who I thought!  Beardie is now growing a couple of sickle feathers and a comb.  Beardie is also not a Spangled Russian Orloff as I thought, since his legs and feet are now more of a greenish-slate color, and he is only muffed and not truly bearded.  My neighbor Maria had mentioned that if any in the triangle was a cockerel, it would be Beardie, but all the rest of the chicks were pullets.

The good news is that we have an Easter Egger cockerel to perpetuate the fun blue eggs in the laying flock.  The downside is Beardie will certainly not be going broody.  The take-away lesson here is I certainly need to train my eye more!  I was so certain Beardie was a she.  Keeping chickens keeps you humble.

suddenly, Beardie looks masculine

Beardie and Penny, whom I originally thought a cockerel

Wyandotte and red broiler chicks

They're here!  Bouncing balls of fluffy cuteness cheeping and peeping in the brooder tubs in my shed.  Twenty-five gold-laced Wyandottes and twenty-five red broilers, eating and drinking amiably with each other right now.  My neighbor Maria ordered the "surprise special" and has five with a poof of feathers on the top of their heads, so she will have some fun growing out a handful of crested chicks.  Here are my little chicks:

close-up of the GLW and red broiler chicks

all 50 of the new chicks

My friend Lynn who lives two towns up the highway ordered 12 red broilers and her husband wanted 75 assorted clean-legged bantams.  That was quite the noisy drive up to her place!  LOL  Those two being the way they are, they not only gave me a generous tip "for time and effort and front door delivery," but also sent me home with a mess of mustard greens, some kale, and a feather-legged bantam rooster that was given to them a while back.  In between chickening chores, a name for him popped into my mind: Elf.  Along with being red and iridescent green-black, he has a certain mischievous glint in his bay eyes ... especially when he looks at the red hens in with Feyd.

out of focus, but shows his colors

Elf, our new bantam rooster

Tonight, Elf will move in with the Eileens, while Corey and Mula come out for a small honeymoon suite.  This shuffling of birds has a couple purposes: Corey is most likely full sibling to the Eileens, and I prefer to go no closer than kissing cousins right now.  Mula and Ninny lay the same shade a tan eggs, and I'd like to tell them apart as I want a couple chicks from Ninny but not Mula.  Mula is also noticeably more light-bodied than Betty or Ninny, and often stays up on the roosts to avoid Feyd the feathered tank.

Final part of today's chicken chores: slaughtering those two Cornish-Rocks my neighbor traded me for the barred juveniles.  The nuggets were 12 weeks old yesterday, and I could tell they were failing on the inside.  One had fluid around its heart, and both has fluid around the surprisingly small gizzards.  Their livers were paler than my previous batch of nuggets, but whether that is a function of internal deterioration or the difference in feeding styles is uncertain.

What is certain is that these will probably be our last Cornish-Rock birds.  The very same genetics that give them astoundingly rapid growth is the same genetics that doom them to an early demise - they outgrow their hearts in particular it seems.  They pretty much need to be slaughtered before 12 weeks old.

I have the 25 red broilers to see how they grow up in comparison, health-wise.  CRs are supposed to be slaughtered at 5 and 8 weeks old, while with red broilers the earliest they are supposed to be ready is 12 weeks, and do not have the internal health problems associated with the CRs.  I will be putting that to the test, and am toying with the idea of keeping a trio or quartet to explore the genetics involved.  I did email the hatchery to ask, but got back a vacuous and vapid non-answer in response.  I will at least keep the best pullets to cross with the Wyandottes to see what results.  My goal is to get to the point where I can hatch my own meat birds, instead of ordering them.

Getting ready for new chicks

I am so excited ... I received an email last evening saying the chicks had shipped, so they may be here tomorrow morning!  Cute, fluffy, peeping little cheepers again - I love it.  This morning I swept out the shed, then moved the brooder tubs back in and spread the pine shavings.

there really are 5 pullets in this shot
2 are going for a bug at the very bottom of the pic

brooder tubs ready to go again

the 5 remaining assorted cockerels

The 12-week-old chicks out in the tractors weren't feeling very cooperative with the picture idea.  First they were all lounging in the shady part of the tractors after stuffing their crops on lunch, then they would not hold still and I felt lucky to even get all five in each pic.

Attempts at winter gardening

OK, first of all, the disclaimer.  I will never be considered as even the county's best gardener, much less the world's.  Despite my apparent "black thumb" I still keep trying, in the hope I may eventually get enough experience and eventually know-how to overcome an utter lack of talent.

Now that is out of the way, here are my latest attempts:

• Transplanted Bonnie Winterbor Kale starts from Lowe's, right next to the chicken coop.
• Transplanted Bonnie Greek Oregano into the garden box by the parsley from spring 2013, that the swallowtail caterpillars tried to strip this past fall.
• Scattered more rainbow carrot seeds from an unopened packet of Ferry-Morse rainbow mix ... as I emptied it, I noticed on the back it said "Sell by 12/13."  Oops.  I'll see if anything comes up.

Now for a few pics.

greek oregano and parsley from spring 2013

winterbor kale, with turnips and collard from 2014

my best mustard greens plants, Florida broadleaf

sugar peas, a few icicle radishes, and three carrots
(plus weeds and the newest compost bed/pea patch-to-be)

I do have some more mustard plants, but the three or four in the box pictured are downright impressive, and I am hoping to get seeds from them.  There are just about enough pea pods on the sugar peas for a nice skillet-full of stir fry.  The spinach transplants are still alive, but not doing anything impressive there.  I may resort to a bit of chemical fertilizer so we can have a few salads.

Oh, of course I have three or four yellow pear cherry tomato plants going great gangbusters ... this is all from that one plant I got the spring of 2013, and they just keep coming back.  It is almost up to weed status, which is hilarious as I cannot keep mint alive, but my least favorite variety of tomato constantly reseeds itself.