New Chicks Get The Chop

Back in December we went down the track of raising chicks to see how they would work out compared to us purchasing grown chickens nearly ready to lay.  I blogged about this back in May - New Chicks On The Block. 

5 of these 8 chicks were roosters.

The process was relatively stress free and our broody hen took to the new chicks well, however .. the down side of this was we ended up with 5 roosters!!  Not a very productive turnover if we were aiming for more laying hens.

It was time to change the plan of attack.  We decided to keep the roosters until one of the hens became broody again which took until September.  Time to see if our eggs were fertile.  Success ... 2.5 chicks hatched!!  I say 2.5 because one of the chicks didn't quite make it out of the hatching process.  Then we lost another of the new chicks when it drowned in the small water container.  I was starting think raising chickens from fertile eggs is more hard work than I thought.

The roosters have proven to be more than a nuisance than anything else, and I wasn't keen to keep all five roosters considering they are quite agressive towards the hens.  So, given my mum wanted feathers for her korowai, we decided to enter the next stage - The Stock Pot.

My mum & husband plucking, while my siser watches on

The birds themselves were enormous and although going through the process of "putting them in the stock pot" wasn't something I looked forward to doing, it is part of the journey we have chosen to take on the Ponderosa.

We still have 2 roosters left and we plan to keep them until after christmas at least. It still doesn't resolve the issue of having more laying hens for next year, but that's for another blog I think.

Happy living people!!