We had a rather rough July on the farm. I lost over half of my flock to a couple of raccoons and some possums. I reinforced my run, and set bunches of traps. I even lost my beloved rooster, Wesley. Thankfully, I had done a hatch out and have his son, who is almost an exact replica of him. I even lost half of the chicks that I had gotten from Ideal poultry back in the spring. Now, we are working on rebuilding the flock.
This morning, I got to go to the post office to pick up some Rhode Island Red chicks that I ordered from Mt Healthy Hatchery. I ordered 10 straight run. (Because after everything, I was left still with no Rhode Island roosters) They always toss in an extra chick, so I have 11. I got a small order because I need to get them grown out and moved outside before I have My hip replacement surgery next month. Once I'm healed up and ready to dig back in, I'll work on replacing other parts of the flock. However, I will probably wait to do that as we get our new housing built. We have an entirely new plan.
So, the new plan is a rather fun one. We are going to be building hoop houses, and will be using the kennel panels to close everything in. Eventually, it will all be in one big enclosed square. The ducks will get to be out in the middle every day, and I will have 1 house of birds out at a time. I plan on rotating them through the day. When each house is out, I'll go in and clean that house, and inspect it. I will so inspections of every house, every day, but you can do a better one without the birds attempting to help.
We have finally made a firm decision on the breeds we plan on to get our small hatchery up and off the ground, and I can tell you we had a lot of discussions about what I wanted and what Frank wanted. We did come to an agreement however, because some of what I wanted will happen, just not right away due to needing to get started in general. So, we will be doing Buff Orpington, Rhode Island Red, Tetra Tint, Red Sex Links, Delaware, and White Leghorn.
Once those are established, we will add Black Australorp, Koo Koo Marans, Dark Brahmas, and Light Brahmas. Eventually, we will add other breeds, but we have to take it one year at a time.
Now, I want the Dark Brahmas in honor of Dot, my one chicken that was truly a pet. She had honor status because she was one of the first. She passed away back in June, and unfortunately she passed in front of me. I still watch for her every time I introduce new birds, because she was always the first to greet them and let them know, she is in charge. I'm not certain what she would have made of the ducks.
Well, I shall end this for now, as I always fear I'm rambling on a bit. I'll talk about the rabbits in another post!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment