5 Roosters = Soup

Last night we took our 2 remaining turkeys and 5 roosters to the processor. The roosters were all Barred Hollands from the batch of heritage breed chickens I ordered in the spring. I had high hopes for the heritage breeds but the Barred Holland is not a winner in my book. The roos are very aggressive, much like the Barred Rock rooster that we gave away to our neighbor last year because he was beating up all the other birds. I watched them for quite awhile during feeding and the Holland roosters would grab feathers out of the other birds for no reason at all. The Buckeye hens were taking a real beating because they are so docile. I'm very happy with the Buckeyes and the Buff Chanteclers so far, more on that some other time.

I googled how to cut up a chicken and studied several of the results. Last time I attempted to cut up some hens it didn't go well. This time I removed both legs and both wings, then I cut the birds through the ribcage on each side. I discarded the back and neck and kept all of the other pieces to make canned chicken soup with. The five young roosters yielded 5 quart Ziploc bags of pieces. I removed all of the skin except that on the wings so it will be easy to pick the meat off later.

BTW, the computer is fixed (at least for now) so we're now back to regular programming. I've been a little unplugged from technology this week and strangely enough, I'm enjoying it. I've been trying some new organizational techniques to help me stay on track around here. So far, so good. Staying on top of things is so much easier than constantly trying to catch up but it still takes a lot of time.
Have you ever canned soup? Cut up chickens? If not, what are you canning or preserving right now?

Well, We're Back

Very long, but covers the last 2 days...

So we did have a good vacation, it was just shorter than we wanted. We visited Shipshewana on Tuesday. It was nice but the flea market was mostly junk. I heard it is a lot better earlier in the season. The little shops were neat to visit. I thought it would take 2 days but we were ready to leave well before lunch time. We stopped by McGrew Tractor Parts. Brian walked around and looked at tractors and equipment for quite awhile. I was happy as a clam knitting in the truck. I even found the Dave Ramsey Show on the radio.

We drove over to Michigan City and somehow drove right past all the hotels, well within a block of them, without realizing it. We ended up downtown and then we drove along the coast for a long time. We were having fun but it was like something out of a movie. There was nothing for miles. Then we found a sign for the town of "Dune Acres". It was more like Green Acres. There was a nice little town clerk in a sheriff type uniform and you couldn't even get to the actual town because the roads were private. Yet it was in the woods/dunes so not very fancy.

Anyway that guy gave us a map and we found our way back to the hotels in Michigan City. We went out for a nice dinner and stopped at a little ice cream shop for dessert. Today is my birthday so that was a nice way to celebrate. Brian wanted to get me something but I talked him out of it since there are 3 different knitting classes I plan on taking this fall and those are expensive. That'll be a nice present. :)

So then things took a turn for the worst. We got a call about 8 AM this morning from our neighbor. He said one of our ram lambs wouldn't eat and was just laying around. We talked about it and considered our options and finally decided we should go home. We got back around 2:45. The ram was flat on his side and breathing heavily. Unfortunately it was the ram we planned to put in with our ewes for breeding this weekend. After calling our normal vet (out of town) and a backup (out of the office) we hauled the ram to a third vet.

The vet gave him a poor prognosis. We opted for blood work which showed that our ram's kidneys were failing. At that point he was suffering and so we had the vet euthanize him. It was very weird for me to be on the other side of that. Usually I'm the one reassuring the owners while they say goodbye, not the one petting the animal and feeling so bad!

At first the vet thought he was afflicted with clostridium toxicity. We vaccinated him against the disease but I don't think we ever boostered the vaccine so he may not have been protected. However, after doing bloodwork the vet said it was much more likely that the ram ingested a toxic substance from a plant or his feed. Clostridium would have affected the liver and not just the kidneys.

We're at a loss as to what kind of toxic he may have ingested. He is fed hay that we personally cut, baled, and stacked. All of the animals get hay from the same field and are fed the same corn. All of the sheep get the same pelleted supplement and his came from a fresh, dry bag with no mold. Both of our ram lambs have been in a box stall so they were not even out on pasture where they could have chewed on a poisonous weed.

Also, one of our 3 turkeys died while we gone. No obvious reason. I've always heard turkeys were hard to keep alive but these ones were pretty much full grown and have been fine.


To top it all off, when we arrived home after disposing of the ram his new marking harness and halter had arrived and were waiting on the back step. I guess I'll put it away for another year. We'll be taking our flock to another farm for breeding this year.

I'm sorry to be such a downer. Tonight I told Brian I think I'm ready for a vacation - ha ha! On the bright side, our neighbors did take good care of everything while we were gone. Someone even mowed our lawn! That was a great welcome home gift. :)

I took a walk around the farm to remind myself how good we have it. That's were the pics came from.

Poultry Update - Cattle Panel Shelter - Pics

Well, the eggmobile sits empty. Part of the reason we finished it when we did was because the rooster was getting so mean I could hardly get the eggs anymore. Once the birds were out on pasture I could easily gather them at least once a day. Sadly, the hens must have learned to eat their eggs during that week when I wasn't collecting them very often. I first culled the rooster and one hen that I suspected as being the culprit. Unfortunately, the eating continued and we were forced to cull the remaining 5 hens. I am very glad that this happened with such a small flock and not the large one that I hope to have in the future. Lesson learned here: no matter what - get those eggs!!

So, now we have around 121 chickens and no eggs! I haven't decided yet if I'm going to buy a few layers to get us by or just get our eggs from a friend for now. If I bring in new layers now I'll have to mix them with the heritage breed flock when they start laying. If I don't get any now then I'll have to stop trying to build a future client base by handing out free eggs.

The heritage birds moved from our basement to a small brooder in the garage to the old laying flocks quarters in the garage. The colored rangers went directly from the basement to the laying flock quarters then to the cattle panel shelter just in time for the heritage birds to follow. We could have turned one of the two brooding lights off by now except two of the colored rangers have developed pretty nasty sores on their tails so I have them in the small brooder as sort of a hospital pen. The one with the worst sore died this morning, I'm hoping the other pulls through.



The heritage breed chicks are doing great. We had a power outage last week so I brought them in the house to keep warm. Despite my efforts they all piled up and one of the Buff Chanteclers was dead in the morning. The remaining birds are thriving in their new, spacious quarters. You can read more about the breeds I selected and why in my post about that.

I took out some dry straw for the colored rangers in the cattle panel shelter. They've been out there about a week but I only let them out of the shelter and in to the fence this weekend. The electric net has to be working well in order to contain them. Otherwise they can put their head through and push right out.

See the one sprawled out there in the middle? They sure are good at making me think something is wrong. He was just relaxing, of course.

This morning's rain showers tore part of the roof off. I secured it with more baling twine. Pretty fancy! :)

Happily lounging on the fresh, dry straw after I repaired the roof.

I need to have a better feeding and watering system in place for next time. This big feeder from the eggmobile is the only way I can keep food in front of these buggers.

Some prefer to scratch around and explore.

Napping peacefully.

He's trouble, can't you tell!

Here you can see the different colors. Most are dark red but there are some light, almost buff, and some with this neat pattern.

The turkeys are right at home in this small chicken tractor. We found two of these on craigslist and paid $15 total for them.

Aren't they cute!? They really are the sweetest birds I've had.

How are your birds doing? Have you ever tried pasture raised chicken? I am so excited to taste it, although I am really worried about preparing it and working with whole chicken since that will be new to me.

A Few Turkeys!

Last year at this time I brought home some chicks from the feed store so I could gain experience with egg layers. After having them all year I felt confident enough to order some heritage chicks that will arrive next month.

I think that someday I would like to offer turkeys to our customers, especially around the holidays. Of course I want to raise a heritage breed but they are very expense and usually have minimum order requirements. I've heard turkeys are much more fragile than chickens but have never raised them myself.

So...today I brought home 3 Bronze White turkey poults from the feed store. They'll be good to practice with and maybe we'll even have our own turkey dinner next winter! In the meantime I'm just going to enjoy how cute they are and pray that the cat does not break in and eat them since they are currently living in our basement. I'll keep you posted on how this project goes! Any turkey advice to share?