We moved the meat chickens into the field today. Just one month until butchering! They need to get their fill of yummy grass! I really have no idea what I am doing, I hope they are warm enough, I put the heat lamp in there and a box, we made a wind barrior and roof over part of it. Plus the grass is so tall, it should act as a wind barrior and insulation too...maybe??? anyway, we'll see how huddled together they are in a bit. We used all scap wood we had laying around...not the most cosmetically appealing thing we've ever built, but as long as it keeps them in and predators out and keeps them warm enough (out of the wind), it should be fine. =)
I really hope the butchering works out (ie: I am not tramatized by it!) because we have done all the work of getting things set up for these 25 birds (well 23 now, we lost two) it will be much easier to do again. It is a lot of time though...feeding twice a day, new water in two waterers twice a day, new sawdust when they were in the stall in the barn...etc... But if we started later in the summer when it was warmer out, we could probably just have them in the field the whole time and that would be way easier...a great experiance if nothing else! =)
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Hey Sara! I love chickens - aren't they fun when they are babies, and isn't it nice to know that you'll be eating healthy wholesome meat? And butchering isn't so bad. Skinning them is the easiest way to go, if you don't care about having whole chickens to roast, etc. Plucking is a pain! :)
ReplyDeleteI wish my backyard could accommodate a flock of chickens - maybe someday!
Oh yeah! Aaron wanted me to ask you if you were planning on keeping the skins on or not. He said 25 chickens would be a lot for us to pluck in an afternoon, but if you wanted to pluck some and skin most, that might be the way to go--or skin 'em all! Just something to be thinking about.
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