[Food] Production - Poultry (was Backyard Chickens)

[smallpoxgirl]

Don't forget if need be eggs will keep 18 days at room temperature, so long as they have not been refridgerated. That is how a hen can lay a nest full of eggs before sitting on them to hatch a whole brood at once.

They'll store at room temp a lot longer than that. I almost never put mine in the fridge. Have kept um for months that way. After a while they'll dry out and kinda shrink inside. You can prevent that by rubbing a little vegetable oil on the shell.

[Tanada]

Don't forget if need be eggs will keep 18 days at room temperature, so long as they have not been refridgerated. That is how a hen can lay a nest full of eggs before sitting on them to hatch a whole brood at once.

They'll store at room temp a lot longer than that. I almost never put mine in the fridge. Have kept um for months that way. After a while they'll dry out and kinda shrink inside. You can prevent that by rubbing a little vegetable oil on the shell.

How do you keep them from getting infected by decay bacteria for so long?

[smallpoxgirl]

How do you keep them from getting infected by decay bacteria for so long?

Haven't found that to be a particular problem. I mean they're designed to sit under a chicken's butt for a couple of months without spoiling.

[CarlinsDarlin]

Thanks for the great storage tips everyone! These have all been most helpful. I'll have to try several starting tomorrow unless I end up with a customer or two lol. The ladies are certainly producing enough to pay for their food these days (I have 12 doz ready to sell now) - but the customers have slowed for some reason. My guess is because it's warmer weather, and many people don't like big breakfasts when its warm.

Since we can store a bunch... Anyone got good marketing advice? I dont mind storing them, but I dont want them to take over lol. I'll have 59 hens old enough to lay by the end of July or the beginning of August. I need to sell a LOT of eggs .
Kathy

[Tanada]

Thanks for the great storage tips everyone! These have all been most helpful. I'll have to try several starting tomorrow unless I end up with a customer or two lol. The ladies are certainly producing enough to pay for their food these days (I have 12 doz ready to sell now) - but the customers have slowed for some reason. My guess is because it's warmer weather, and many people don't like big breakfasts when its warm.

Since we can store a bunch... Anyone got good marketing advice? I dont mind storing them, but I dont want them to take over lol. I'll have 59 hens old enough to lay by the end of July or the beginning of August. I need to sell a LOT of eggs .
Kathy

Best idea I can come up with, get ahold of the local Salvation Army or homeless kitchen and donate any eggs that get to be too old for sale, at the same time they will be encouraged to get the word out for you. Also look for a local flea market/farmers market where you can spread the word. In the fall talk to the local person in charge of the school cafeteria and talk up 'organic eggs' for the school food programs.

[FarmCat]

I don't know anything about chickens firsthand YET, but here's an interesting factoid that I read in a book from my library. Chickens lay one egg approximately every 25 hours. Each day the egg arrives an hour later. They keep this up until the egg would arrive after dark, and then they take a day off. The theory is that this sequence clues a bird in as to when they have laid enough eggs to start brooding their clutch.

[CarlinsDarlin]

Tanada,
Thanks for the suggestions. I especially like the idea of selling to schools - one school in particular. My graduating class at my high school had 24 people - the largest in the history of the school to that time . It's a charming little country school where my nephew is now attending ABC Preschool. I'll give them a call tomorrow, to see if they'd be interested for the fall. (School's still in session till the end of this week).

FarmCat,
Interesting! Thanks for sharing .

Today I got another one of those goose-egg-sized eggs from one of my White Leghorns. That's the second one in as many weeks. The egg is literally so big I could not fit it into a Jumbo egg carton. I wish I knew which hen was laying those - I'd make sure I let some broody hen sit on a few and make sure that hen didnt end up in a stew pot when I cull them out later this year .

Kathy

[Tanada]

Tanada,
Thanks for the suggestions. I especially like the idea of selling to schools - one school in particular. My graduating class at my high school had 24 people - the largest in the history of the school to that time . It's a charming little country school where my nephew is now attending ABC Preschool. I'll give them a call tomorrow, to see if they'd be interested for the fall. (School's still in session till the end of this week).

FarmCat,
Interesting! Thanks for sharing .

Today I got another one of those goose-egg-sized eggs from one of my White Leghorns. That's the second one in as many weeks. The egg is literally so big I could not fit it into a Jumbo egg carton. I wish I knew which hen was laying those - I'd make sure I let some broody hen sit on a few and make sure that hen didnt end up in a stew pot when I cull them out later this year .

Kathy

I will bet you a virtual buck it is a double yolker!

We used to get then fairly often, we ate them ourselves because some people are freaked out by them. In essence one of your hens is making siamese eggs, if it were fertilized and allowed to proceed to hatching it would probably be deformed and/or a two headed chick.

Crack a few of the big ones to check before you decide she is a prime hen.

[smallpoxgirl]

In essence one of your hens is making siamese eggs, if it were fertilized and allowed to proceed to hatching it would probably be deformed and/or a two headed chick.

Crack a few of the big ones to check before you decide she is a prime hen.

Am I missing something? Think about what people would pay for two headed chickens!

[CarlinsDarlin]

Think about what people would pay for two headed chickens!

Smallpoxgirl,
(.. .as I clean the iced tea off the computer screen...) I literally laughed out loud when I read that I'm sure my husband thinks I'm nuts, now lol. Thanks.

Tanada,
Thanks for the good advice. I had thought they might be double yolkers, but it never occured to me that chicks from the eggs might be deformed.
Kathy

[k_semler]

In essence one of your hens is making siamese eggs, if it were fertilized and allowed to proceed to hatching it would probably be deformed and/or a two headed chick.

Crack a few of the big ones to check before you decide she is a prime hen.

Am I missing something? Think about what people would pay for two headed chickens!

...Brought to you by Dr. Doolittle. Also the creator of the Pushmepullu:

[CarlinsDarlin]

You know, even as a young child, when I first saw that movie - I always wondered how that thing used the bathroom.
K

[CarlinsDarlin]

Today we got the first of three new ducks with babies that will be joining us. The 4 babies are one week old today, and their mother is very very protective of them! We built a short (waist high) addition to the duck run to house the mother and babies. It't 4 feet wide and 8 feet long, covered on the sides and top with chicken wire, with a barrel filled wit hay (on its side) for their sleeping space. For now, the other (teenager) ducks cannot get in with the mother and babies. When they grow enough, we'll cut a doorway between the two pens and let them mix with each other. Ducks grow very very fast (compared to chickens, anyway), so it won't be long before they'll be able to be in the larger run.

The other two duck hens are still sitting - but one has already started hatching her babies. As of this morning there were 7 hatched, with 4 more eggs to go. We should get that mother and babies in about 2 weeks (Lord knows where we're going to put them all - we'll figure it out, though.) The third hen is sitting on 10 eggs. We could conceivably have a LOT of ducks by the time this is all said and done. Carlin's going to hate me because of all the construction going on around here lately (if he doesn't already! )

Several folks have already asked if we plan to sell ducks. The answer, of course, is yes. I'm thinking not only will I be able to get some small income from my hens' eggs (chicken and duck) and goat milk - but some live animal sales as well.

It was a good day here.
Kathy

[Golgo13]

I know that when you crush up the used egg shells to feed back to them (cause it gives them extra calcium so they form harder egg shells) they should be crushed and baked first. Baking them gets rid of any salmonella that might be in the egg shells.

I've been told not to feed them back the shells because they could start eating their own eggs.

[Tanada]

Here at the henhouse...
We've sold so many eggs lately that I have less than a dozen in the fridge. I guess the selling comes in spurts. I need to learn not to worry about it. It seems that everytime I end up with a few extra dozen and start worrying, then everyone wants eggs at once, and before its all over, I end up turning folks away because I dont have enough to sell. That should be remedied in the next two months as the babies begin laying.

The predator problem seems to be increasing around here. Though so far (knock on wood) none of the chickens have been harmed, once again yesterday morning there was a ruckus by the chicken pen, and I opened the door to find someone's cat (or a feral cat) out by the coop. The chickens were raising all kinds of hell, but it ran off without incident. Still, the 22 rifle stays near the back door, just in case.

I have two more hens who have started getting broody - one who was broody with the last batch and one white leghorn. White leghorns generally are not good setters, so I'm glad to see her setting. I left a few eggs under them yesterday which I marked with a pencil, so hopefully in a few weeks we'll have some more babies.

Finally, I have a question for anyone who might know. When I was digging up a row of potatoes the other day, the question occurred to me - what garden plants are unsafe for animals to eat? The potato plants were composted, as will be the tomato plants, since I know both are poisonous. But are there others? I'd hate to be trying to give my animals a treat and end up poisoning them - so if anyone knows of any plants other than tomatoes and potatoes that I shouldn't be feeding them, please let me know.
Thanks,
Kathy

We never had any problems with Feral cats attacking grown chickens, though they do love chicks. Our problem was dogs, and half the time they were our own dogs to boot.

As for the garden waste feeding routine, we just threw all the weeds in and lets the chickens pick and choose, none of them got food poisening so I assume they could tell what was good to eat for them.

[Pops]

We made some chicken nuggets yesterday. I was a little disappointed at the amount of meat on both the Orps and Sussex cockerels. I think we’ll build another pen and let them grow to broiler size.

I’ve been skinning chickens for quite a while but these had so little meat that the rest will probably need to be cleaned the old fashion way. BTW here is a description of sot of the way I do it: http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/grim79.html

I picked these breeds as they are supposed to be dual-purpose and good mothers but I may need to get a larger breed rooster (I have a freebie from McMurray hatchery that is some bigger) to make meat birds.

Oh and I also need to make a new cone as the first one was too small.

[Ludi]

It takes awhile to get used to the different amount of meat on "old fashioned" chickens versus Cornish Cross (store chickens). I end up using chicken as more of a flavoring than a major ingredient in anything, because you don't get much meat from one chicken, and it is much more "chickeny" tasting than store chicken anyway. I skin mine, plucking just seems too difficult, and usually boil them then pick off the meat, then reboil the bones for stock.

[UncoveringTruths]

that'll stop the bugger for good.

If it's gotta enough time to dig like that, I would stake-out the chicken coup the following day, as he will be back until it finds a way in. A well placed bullet will stop that bugger!