Chicks, Cornish Cross, and Layers. Oh My!

We've been busy chick rearing. The first flock of pullets are almost layers now at 13 weeks, outside in their temporary home.  We did end up with two roosters.  Both are Welsummer.  I'm sure I can rehome one rooster.  The other rooster is a dwarf.  Not sure there will be a new home for him to go to. 

Mid April, the 30+ Cornish Cross rooster chicks showed up.  One had splay leg that we caught early in the first week.  We were able to hobble his legs together to bring the one "lazy" leg back underneath his body in alignment with the other. Took about a week of this, and readjusting for his growth to get the hip to grow stronger.  So far, he is doing great.  The CX are all out on pasture now.  Hoping the better weather holds out. Not too hot, not to wet, and not too windy. They should be ready for us to start processing in about two more weeks. 

In the meantime, we picked up 30+ more day-old layer chicks the first week of May. They are doing well.  About three weeks in, I discovered that one has scissor beak (cross beak).  It is pretty pronounced but she seems quite capable of eating and drinking.  She is a pushy little gal, if she is a gal.  Fingers crossed.  I really don't need another rooster that I can't get rid of. This group is mostly Delaware, some Lavender Jersey Giant, Americana (a slightly different version of Easter Egger), and a few Amberlink. 

The plan is to rehome about 15 of these newest chicks, and keep the rest for a secondary flock over the winter. That will give us two flocks, each with about 15 layers, We still sell farm direct eggs in the neighborhood, and with the price of eggs in the grocery stores, our customer base keeps growing.  I sense that once people realize how much better fresh eggs taste, they keep coming back.  The 13 hens we currently have, can't keep up with the weekly egg demand. 

And this is the Scissor Beak with a friend. 

 

 

Pullets are Outdoor Ready But we are NOT

The young Laying Pullets are more than seven weeks old, and all are definitely ready to go outside. Unfortunately, we don't have everything in place yet. So they will stay in the garage for another week or so to give us time to get their coop ready. We will keep two or three of each breed and rehome the rest after about 10 weeks. Rhode Island Reds, Barred Plymouth Rocks, Easter Eggers, Gold Comets, Welsummers, and Lavender Orpingtons. The Welsummers were the strongest survivors of this brood and we have a lot of them. Unfortunately, they are not the best layers, but they are typically sweet hens.

The 19 reserved pullets are all with their new families.  One day after three pullets went to their new home, I was contacted by that new owner advising me that one of the new pullets escaped and they never found her. I could feel the despair in the message. So, that was very sad news.  The person wanted a replacement of that breed, but we don't have any spares of that particular breed.  They didn't want the breed that I do have lots left over. Sad turn of events.  The rest of the reserved pullets went to their new homes by the end of the day, on Monday, two days ago, without any additional incidents.

31 Cornish Cross Delivered Today

We had much better luck with the Cornish Cross chick order. The delivery was made from the hatchery located in the Midwest, in less than 24 hours!  All chicks were alive. Some are wobbly though, one definitely appears to have a form of hip dysplasia or spraddle leg.  

When they first arrived, we gave them plenty of warm water to get them rehydrated.  About an hour later, we gave them food and the majority of the chicks were all over that.  They are, for the most part, thriving. 

We do have one that may not make it. He won't eat or drink. I have given him access to watery food with mashed egg yolk added in, and some Poultry Cell vitamins but I just don't think he is going to survive. The one with spraddle leg may also not work out.  Cornish Cross need really strong legs to grow.  Especially since we raise ours out in our pasture after three weeks of brooding, and they have to be able to move, stand, walk, and run. So will do our best to help these little fellas, but it may not work out.  (Update 04/29/25 - Initially, both chicks were getting stronger, but the smallest one stopped eating or drinking, and constantly kept getting pastybutt. Washed it off every few hours and his coordination went down hill quickly. He died 4/26. The hobbled one did get strong and sturdy enough to have the hobbles removed two days ago. He's back in with the crew and seems to be doing quite well.  Walks like a duck, but doesn't fall down. )

Trauma Never Heals?

It's been a rough bird week.  So, yah.... the chicks are five weeks old, and these are the most traumatized and stressed-out brooding flock I have ever worked through.  I'm hopeful, as they get older, that they will settle down, but that may simply be wishful thinking considering we are five weeks in and they are hyper sensitive to sounds, lights, and each other. They are quick to attack one another for the slightest of offenses... I have one chick that developed vent gleet which I have to assume is due to the amount of stress she feels.  Some of the chicks have no tail feathers left because of the bullies... It's not just one bully, it's a lot of bullies. 

I have put the one with gleet in an isolation box inside the brooder which takes up precious floor space, but I don't know how else to tend to her extra needs. I have been adding probiotics to her food and giving her a dose of extra vitamins every day. She has grown back six of the tail feathers that was just a "nub" a few days ago. I have ordered some yeast infection treatment from a homeopathic source because getting antibiotics through a vet is nearly impossible around here. Plus, the cost of the bill would be, to say the least, cost prohibitive. I think I would be dis-owned for paying $200 for a vet and antibiotics to care for a $25 chick.... So..... Big Sigh.  (Update 04/23/25 - The homeopathic treatment seems to have helped. She is back in with our flock at this point and working on becoming one with the flock.)

We have the Gimpy Hen, who twisted her leg trying to pry herself under the water fount.  We have her isolated in a small pen situated next to the main laying flock.  She can get around, but is stiff.  She's still determined to lay an egg everyday, even though she really should just be resting.  What's a Mother to Do? (Gimpy Hen healed and is back with her group in a much better state, physically and emotionally.)

Then, tonight, Diego, the duck, escaped the pen and got herself stuck IN the netting trying to get back in. Don't know how long she was stuck there, but as soon as we were able to get her unstuck and back inside the fence, she went straight to the pond for a big, long drink of water. So I'm guessing she had been there for more than a few hours.... UGH! 

Earlier in the day, I went out to clean out one of our "transition" quarantine coops only to discover that the floor was covered in mold and mildew.  A leak in the roof that I didn't realize was there.  I had the floor covered with rubber mats, but obviously, the leaking roof had been dripping full tilt in this very wet spring we are having. I washed/bleached everything down, but the flooring, being a chip board, is fully degraded.  So we need to get that fixed by this weekend.  I will need a place for the forty pullets that will be six weeks next week. That transition coop was going to be our option for the two Gold Comets that we keep in isolation from the rest of the flock, since they are bratty and bossy, and I want to sell them in the next month or so. The 2 Comets are in our Large Summer Grow Out pen that can easily hold 25 full sized hens or 50 pullets. So, yah, the Comets are using WAY too much space for their actual needs. Their accommodations need to be downsized.

19 of the pullets will be going to their new homes in two weeks, leaving us with 21 pullets for another five weeks to figure out which ones to keep for ourselves.  All the left overs from the 21 are already spoken for at 10 weeks.  It is amazing how easy it is to sell chickens this year! I keep getting contacted by previous customers from the past four to five years, asking if we have birds for sale!

Have another 30 pullet chicks reserved for the first week of May.  Hopefully, that brooding flock will be much less stressed on delivery.

The first photo below is the pullet in quarantine, and the rest of the photos are the 19 that are reserved for people in the area wanting young pullets. 

The Struggle for Life: Some Make it Through, Others Do Not.

Chicks have been delivered by the USPS all across the country for over a hundred years. Chicks can survive without food or water for about three days, and the Postal Service typically delivers chicks in the 48 states in about 48 hours.  However, with the current changes in the USPS rules, and delivery processes being slowed down, the life and health of a chick is put at stake by these new standards. So it goes.  I am going to need to change my expectations of a safe delivery from one of the few no-kill hatcheries within the US.  There are several no-kill hatcheries on the East Coast, but I had found one in the Mid-west that had been able to get chicks to me within 48 hours.  This year? Um.... Big Sigh. 

The weather didn't help.  I normally order chicks for delivery the last two weeks of February. That was a "no go" for this year.  Weather had the Mid-west battening down their hatches and the Postal Service was not accepting live animal deliveries of any kind during those weeks.  The first week of March, our chicks were shipped out one day before another big cold front swept that area. The chicks were shipped not from the Mid-west, but from a different hatchery, from the South, with no heat pack and no gel packs in the event of a delay or cold temps.  Harsh Reality. While normally, the chicks would have arrived early Wednesday morning, instead, they arrived late in the morning, like almost mid day, ON Thursday. 

Five chicks had already died en route. We lost another fifteen within 24 hours of arrival despite our best efforts to save them. Four more died over the next week. Some of the survivors were slow to recover, while others bounced back within the first 24 hours.  But each day, it was emotional to find another lost chick, day by day.  

Typically, the first weekend after the chicks arrive, the older grand kids come over to help us do health checks. We did the best we could to protect the kids from having to see or handle the ones that we suspected were going to die soon, but yah, they are instinctively drawn to the ones who are the most vulnerable. 

All in all, the majority of the chicks made it. We have 40 healthy chicks and half of those are already reserved for local backyard farms. 

To make up for the lost expense and the potential revenue of the chicks that died, we have placed a new order for early May with a hatchery closer to us. Granted, it's not a no-kill hatchery, but we need to find some way to supplement the lost funds that we count on to help pay our property taxes. Ordered 30 layer chicks for that May group, and then ordered another 15 chicks for the second weekend of July. Ordered some rare breeds because we can sell them for a little more than the common breeds even though it costs us the same amount to raise them. So, hoping for the best. 

Now, on to the gardening.  We purchased two more fruit trees for the mini orchard.  This month, we planted two dwarf cherry trees. 

The raspberries that we planted in large tubs last spring survived the winter. That's good because I was really dreading the thought of having to plant new ones for the fourth year in a row. Granted, we took extra precautions to cover them with crop blankets this year, but of course, that blew off in the first of the strong east winds that came in right after the freeze. UGH. Yah, need to find a better option for that. 

Last fall, we dug up the compost out of the bottom of the kitchen waste compost pile, moving the uncomposted pile to a new location to continue it's breakdown. We also keep a chicken and duck compost pile that we fill with the straw and shavings we remove from the coops. So, we did a "Lasagna" compost over the rainy fall, winter and early spring months. We took a couple of old plastic garbage cans that we had attempted to "store" chicken feed in, in the garage that the rats chews holes in the bottoms to access the feed.... UGH. So putting those cans to better use since the rats had already created the holes in the bottoms, we piled layers of garden soil, dead leaves, kitchen compost soil, and poultry compost soil. We did this three times.  Around mid winter, we stirred/turned it, and yah, it looks sooooooo good! This spring, I dumped some of it into the bottom of some planting pots, and filled the top with potting soil. Have some Tomatoes and some Bell Peppers starting in the pots in the green house.  Fingers Crossed. Also have some lettuce and some herbs in the green house too. Those always grow, no matter the soil. 

Moved the duck pen closer to the house around the two raised garden beds.  They are having a wonderful time out there. Rats followed them up to that area though.  Not happy about that. The rats dug big holes/trails from the duck coop up under the green house, so I have rat poison in the green house.  These rats are too big even for cats to kill. So, I have no qualms with poisoning them.  We also have a big rat trap, but that's it's own process to set it up, stage it and entice rats to it. For now, let's hope the poison thins them out. (Update - rats are too smart for the poison. Need to come up with a better plan.)

Another positive is the fact that Diego the Duck did not get bumblefoot this year! Woot! Fingers crossed she doesn't get it, in all this mucky mud. But normally, by now, she would have it.  Watching her closely. All our ducks are laying eggs now, and we have plenty duck eggs for all our duck egg customers. 

That's about it for now. Spring has Sprung and it is wet wet wet and slog slog slog around here. Fingers crossed for no late frosts like we had last year.

Life can be a Gut Punch Sometimes

Since my last post in July, we went through a bit of a health crisis last summer, but the scars are mostly healed.  We cut back on some of the daily chores for sanity sake. Gardening kind of went into a lull, and we sold off a few of the hens. Posting and taking photos was the least of my priorities.

Currently, we have 13 hens and four ducks in total, and are selling eggs (duck and chicken) like they are going out of style.  We have one duck that, all winter long, lays an egg every day, while the other three are waiting for warmer temps. We have nine chickens that are consistently laying eggs almost daily. So, yah, the rest are slackers. On the plus side, Spring will be here very soon, and the other egg layers should start to produce again. 

With the Avian Flu hitting the US really hard this winter, the price of eggs are high and in short supply. We don't have a shortage, just a higher demand than typical.  We have customers on "wait lists." In the meantime, the price of chicken feed keeps going up. Thankfully, we have a good group of understanding customers who have stayed with us, and our flocks have remained fairly healthy and good producers this year. 

We have 90 chicks on order this year.  60 of the chicks should arrive next week. (This changed, and drastically as explained in the next post.) The rest of the chicks should arrive in April. Will try to remember to post the new chick photos next week. No, we won't keep all.  We thin out the flock to keep a mostly cohesive group of good layers.

In and around all that, we got a decent dusting of snow yesterday and today. Some areas also received freezing rain. That missed us, probably because of the strong East Winds that were howling through, sometimes, at 50 mph. Temps were in the mid-20s most of this past week, with windchill temps dropping down into the single digits, which is cold for this region of the PNW.  But, today, the temps are warming, the snow is melting, and when that's solidly happening, our birds will be much happier. 

The ducks, sometimes known as Silly Ducks, seemed to think that by hunkering down in their kiddie pool yesterday, that they would stay warmer, despite the strong winds buffeting them around in the pool.  We had to force them into their coop to get them to out of the freezing environment.  The coop, actually, stays pretty warm inside, when they are in there on the straw that we have layered thick for them.  The water bucket is on a special water heating pad, to keep that from freezing, and we made sure to provide extra feed so that they can eat whenever they feel like during the storm and resulting cold weather. One of the ducks tends to develop foot issues every spring, after all the frost and frozen ground events.  So, I have supplies ready to treat that, when it pops up again this year.  For now, they are locked inside their coop until the snow melts. (Update - she did not get a sore foot this year!)

The hens are seemingly a bit smarter. They are staying up in their house, up off the ground, except to eat or drink water.  I have straw around their feeder and waterer to protect their feet when they do leave their housing. We did put wind blocks around two sides of their pen to minimize the amount of snow blowing into their pen. While the snow in the field is only about three to four inches deep, the drifts up against their pen is closer to six or seven inches.  Thankfully, the snow only got inside from the north side of their pen, giving them plenty of space to move around without needing to step into snow and freezing their feeties.  I've been watching their combs closely, but I don't think the temps are low enough to do any damage at this point.  Thankfully, this year's snow event wasn't as nasty as last year's. 

Late Start on Garden, But... July, 2024

I had planted tomato and bell pepper seeds in February, but the tomato starts all died back by April. So I planted seeds again, in April, for tomatoes rather than trying to find the starts locally, because, 1) I had the seeds, and 2) it can be difficult to find quality starts of German Johnson or Purple Cherokee around here.  So my guess I will be green housing the tomatoes in the fall. 

I have changed up a few things from years past.  Rather than try to grow carrots in the garden this year, I planted them in a tub so that I can keep them shaded all summer long until the cooler fall temps kick into gear.  The garden bed has been tooo hot the past few years. I lost my garlics again due to the heat this past week.  I dug them up yesterday, and, will attempt to salvage what I can. But I think I will be growing garlic in tubs from here on out rather than plant them in the garden. The summer weather has just been too hot for them. 

I had about 10 blueberries... had, because the critters have eaten them all.  I did get a couple of ripe raspberries off the new plants I put into tubs this year.  So that's going better than my attempts the past few years to grow raspberries. First time in four years of attempts to grow raspberries. Not too hot, but too many ground pests that burrow into the roots.

No apples this year. Spring weather was not conducive (too much rain) for pollination purposes. 

The seven cherries have been eaten by the birds.  But hey, we actually have cherries starting to grow on that darned tree! 

Yah, it's just been that type of year. 

I planted a bunch of corn (on time), and only about 25 survived due to a rascally vole that keeps trying to undermine my corn attempts.  The weather, actually, has been just right for corn this year. But, yah, pests. So I'm trying an experiment. Corn in a tub.  I will mound up the corn when it gets a little taller.  I normally plant one seed every foot, but trying this "three in a mound" to see if we can get a decent amount of corn by planting in tubs.... If it works, that will be our future strategy. Gardening around here is such a pain! 

Finally have the new raised garden bed set up.  I threw every packet of old seeds of basil, parsley, cilantro, radishes, bunching onions, and dill into the garden to see if they would even come up.  Hey, they did better than I expected.  The radish seeds were more of a hit and miss, but we got a few radishes to come up.  The bunching onions are sprouting too, looking more like grass at the moment, but hey, I won't complain as I did not expect them to sprout this late in the season. 

And, so, yah, the garden may not be master gardener quality, but it kinda is working this year. 

PS - did not take photos of everything discussed in this post.