Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Three chicks are coming to stay...
Tomorrow, in theory, we will have 3 more Chooks - Hiline(sp?)X Isa brown (?Sp). This will be a good thing because at the moment we only have Mrs Black - Nev's very feral chook who has never been in a cage, let alone a chookabago. She's very unhappy and intimidated by it and by being alone. She even found my presence a comfort but I really suck at crawling around the Chookabago going cluck-cluck, even for Blackie. So we bought an automatic waterer today, and a latch, and 20Kg of laying pellets. With winter looming we may be being optimistic. Anyway, a new adventure, doubtless with new disasters awaits!
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Sounds like quite an adventure, for once one I am glad I am not being involved in. Well as long as they don't get sick then even I could get excited about chickens. But I have no intention of becoming close to a kind of animal I am so fond of in a more processed form.
ReplyDeleteHiline X Isa brown? How many names is that?
These ones are pretty much just egg-layers (hiline and Isa Brown are two strains of chicken bred to be good regular layers), Pad. Starting (and perhaps finishing?) point. In theory they should each lay at least an egg every second day - assuming Nev's chook gets in on the act, that's 14 eggs a week - more than we really need most of the time.
ReplyDeleteSo, how many chickens do you need to be able to eat eggs and birds?
ReplyDeleteAnd I found out why my other comment disappeared--I can't comment from my work computer. Sneaky of them.
Lisa S. in Seattle
The baseline requirement for eating birds is either a source of chicks or a rooster. If you have the latter I reckon 12-18 would be enough. But roosters are noisy, and fertile eggs are an issue. We may get to ordering in day-olds and growing them through. One day. One adventure at a time.
ReplyDeleteAccording to my father, my grandmother used to get a number of chicks in the spring, raise them during the summer and fall, then eat them during the winter (this was in upstate Wisconsin during the early 30s).
ReplyDeleteLisa S. in Seattle
I am encouraged to keep some egg laying chooks myself now !
ReplyDeleteAfter a couple months you'll stop hearing the crowing at 4 or 5am. :)
ReplyDelete