Jersey Giants in the Coop

Old bedding composted, coop hosed out and whitewashed with diatomaceous earth slurry.  The Jersey Giant chicks are in with their nightlight (heat lamp) and all snug.  I am leaving the coop closed up for a couple of days to give them time to adjust before turning them loose in the run.

Old Girls Retired

Moved on to better pastures. Time to clean everything and move the Jersey chickens outside.

Joizy Chicks are here

The next crop of chicks has arrived from My Pet Chicken.  Six Jersey Giants who are vaccinated and supposedly all female.  The current crop of murder birds, I mean Rhode Island Reds, will have to be rotated out over the next month or so.  Since the new birds are from Jersey, they may arrange for the old ones to have an "accident," probably involving dumplings.

Jersey Giant Hen

Under the heat lamp

Wadda you lookin' at?

Chicks at 2 days from John Duncan on Vimeo.

apis mellifica

http://duncanbees.blogspot.com/

Rooster gone to roost

Processed the rooster today. First bird ever processed. I thought I might take pictures, but it got visceral really quickly.

1. Catch rooster
2. Zip tie legs
3. Hang from a nail on a tree
4. Catch rooster
5. Bungee cord legs
6. Hang from nail on tree
   
7. Cut its throat
8. Bleed out
9. Cut its head off because the bleed out did not cause said rooster to expire
10. Scald
11. Pluck. Pluck, and then pluck some more
12. Eviscerate
    
13. Feet off
14. Rooster in the pot to make stock. About as far as I am willing to go with the first bird.
15. Sleep past 5:45 am
    

Spring Cleaning

I cleaned out the coop today. This entailed the following activities:

1. Build a compost containment unit for the old wood pellets. Finding four congruent spots to drive fence posts and that would result in a symmetric compost pile is quite the challenge in North Stonington. They call it Stonington for a reason. I had left over fence from the run construction and picked up fence posts at Home Depot yesterday.
2. Go to Home Depot and buy dust mask and a big ass shovel for the scooping.
3. Remove old wood pellets to compost pile.
   
4. Clean straw out of next boxes.
   
5. Liberally apply a slurry of diatomaceous earth and water to everything inside the coop.
6. Spread left over slurry on the coop floor and wait for everything to dry.
7. Spray inside of coop with an anti-parasite spray. Sprayed birds, too. They are looking mangy.
8. Add new wood pellets and straw for the nests. Place water and feeder back into the coop.
9. Open the pop door so the chickens can enjoy their newly cleaned home.

Not fun, but it was time. Next time will be easier as I will already have the compost pile and hopefully won't have to spray the birds. Chickens don't like to be caught, let alone sprayed with medicine.

Laying Schedule

The one laying hen lays her egg at ~8am every day. That is also the time the light turns on in the hen house. I hope the other four, when they start laying, will hold to her schedule. It is nice to go out at 8:15 and pull a still hot egg out of the nest box.

We got an extra large egg the other day. My son Jack took one look at the over-sized egg and told me that it was double yolked. I scoffed, having never seen a double yolked egg. He, of course, was right. Dads are dumb. :P