As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
My niece was saying she had eggs in the incubator. All well and fine, except what do you do when the lights go out? I know they had "fire" incubators back in the day, but most people would end up with cooked eggs and how many people do you know who are going to be tending a fire for 21 days. Yes it was kerosene, and I suppose now propane would work, but again.......if you just invested time like I have in a decade in breeding hens that set on eggs....makes life so much easier.
I have been busy entering new blood into my lines which will set or add size as I started again with Sumatra and England Games. I dislike Games as they are wilder than hell. My Sumatras are tame which is not good for them as things will eat them.
I bred in some Red Broiler as I kept one rooster and his hens bred and added some size. Still waiting on the nesting part, but the dominant rooster beat the hell out of two other roosters that ended up dead. TL's Grandpa would have liked that as he raised fighting roosters.
What I was moved to do in this fake Bird Coof and chicken more expensive than beef with eggs being golden in price. was to get some chickens that laid eggs a bit more. Stephanie asked about why our chickens do not lay, and it is because they are not built for laying eggs. A chicken only has so many eggs in their sack like a woman does. When you get a modern laying breed you get lots of eggs the pullet year, then less the second and it drops off the third year and more after that.
I like Wyandottes for this, but I am not going to mess around with picking 25 to 100 eggs a day and then sell them for 3 bucks a dozen. To get me a 1000 bucks, it would take almost 100 dozen eggs. That is allot of forcing eggs out of 20 birds or 50 eggs to a chicken in 60 days, do that in a year and you might get 6000 dollars, 52 weeks at 12 dollars a bag of cracked corn and 624 dollars in cost for around 5400 dollars of washing shit off of eggs and that is still below poverty level.
Have had enough of nigger wages my entire life with my hands covered in shit.
So we ordered Brahmas and Americanas. Thee Americanas lay green eggs. They will add new blood and hopefully start setting when crossed. The Brahmas are semi meat birds, semi egg birds and have feathers on their feet to get shitty or keep the birds warm in winter. All are docile enough and that is the point in I want tame chickens and not have to be chasing them like the English Games.
You are really running out of time in preparing for next year for the prices. Everyone always says, "Yeah I got a guy who has eggs". The egg heads here are already tapped out and I honestly do not like people who sell eggs. I don't quite get idiots paying for farm eggs, when the same feed in an egg factory produces the same eggs, but people pay more for "range eggs" which again are eggs that are what the chicken eats and chickens eat lots of protein on the prowl from dead cats, to ticks, to worms to beetles. Nothing wrong with that, but damn the old man used to feed coon carcasses to the chickens as they like fat and protein, and when they rot, the eggs taste strong as hell.
Worst eggs I ever ate were spring eggs on full corn, and some carrion as the ration. Damn it cured you of wanting to eat eggs for the rest of the year. You are just better off eating some oats or now they stick that damn soybean in for tasteless eggs. You can tell allot about what a hen is pecking on by the colour of that yolk.
So now I have to breed in setting characteristics into these Green and Curry chickens. That takes awhile. The breeders bred in non setting birds from the Mediterranean in the Minorcas, Leghornds, Anadulsians and all those skinny big combed tall chickens. Idiots go nuts in thinking they are robbed of eggs if they don't whip one out of that hen every day. Laying every day, means no setting and the chicken is burning their life away in making eggs.
I actually feel guilty eating our eggs as I see a baby chick in each one I crack open and regret the life lost. I am though just better off with seasonal egg laying. They keep well enough if you do not wash them. The mother never put them into the fridge......like a 90 degree porch and we always ate those eggs and never had them rotten or for that matter dehydrate. Never liked eating eggs in summer anyway really due to the ripe yolk taste.
We are in the poopy but phase with the Brahmas. Is from stress in shipping, so they turd up the poop hole and you have to soak that off as a chicken that can't shit dies. Out of 25 we had 5 which were a problem, now it is down to one after a day.
The hint is that maybe people who could have a few chicks as hens, probably should have them. Just understand that hens like sex and if you do not have a rooster they will sit at your feet for breeding. Not much you can do about that, unless you have a rooster, but is odd why more people don't have them Anacona type big white egg chickens as they don't eat as much as the heavy breeds, but they are flighty and there is something nice about a fat hen not scratching your flowers out.
I actually like baby chicks, even with the several times daily tending them. Like all babies. My sibs are real shits in none of them give a damn about any of that stuff we were raised with. Me I relish being with baby animals. It was always the one nice thing about them when they were not dead.
Lots of things will disappear in time, and you just won't be able to get things that you always thought would be there. Is why I was investing too much time and resources all my days in preparing for what is coming.
The thought has come to me that I'm going to put a gate and barbwire on the place we are at , like at my Grandpas. Do not really want government types or stragglers having an open road up to the place here. Be more work in fencing it all in, in another half mile, but I will appreciate it. The birds certainly will.
Nuff Said
agtG
