Re: stopped laying

From: Darkginger (darkginger_at_darkginger.com)
Date: 01/23/05 

Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2005 16:00:56 +0000

sustag wrote:

> Hi Jo, you are in Mayo aren't you? Or was it Sligo?

Hiya Ute - nice to hear from you, yep I'm in Mayo - I've not been
around the newsgroups for some time due to 'puter glitches, but am back
now. You're right about soon being inundated with eggs - although I'm
still getting an average of 4 a day, when you only eat 2 a day they soon
mount up! I started the Atkins diet back in August, so am making
crustless quiches on a regular basis, which helps use some of them up,
but it's getting to the stage where I'll be giving them away at work again.

This is the year when we finally stop being wimps and get some chooks
for meat. I no longer trust even the 'certified organic free range'
stuff in the local shops (anyone else read 'Not on the Label'?) so have
decided that I need to learn how to kill a chicken, because at least
I'll know that the ones I'm eating have had a good quality of life and a
humane death. My sensibilities regarding the matter are neither here nor
there - if I can't kill it, I shouldn't be eating it (beef cattle, pigs
and sheep excepted - not sure they'd appreciate my lack of skill with a
gun!). Time to toughen up a bit (and perhaps invest in a half bottle of
vodka or something to steel myself to the task - took me a bottle of red
wine before I killed my first lobster!). Luckily we have a friend who is
an expert chicken despatcher, so hopefully he'll show me the way when
the time comes.

Our daffodils are coming up here too - about 6" for the ones in tubs,
and around 4" for those out in the field. The 100 crocus bulbs I buried
are being a bit shy, but I expect they'll pop up soon. We had the first
hard frost of the year last night - chickens' door was frozen shut this
morning when I went to let them out, but they seem happy (and warm)
enough. Just had to go and tempt them back onto our property when I
found them on the other side of the (admittedly quiet) lane we live
down.I speak good chicken by now, and just have to make a few clucking
sounds and they come running - so funny to watch as they flap towards
you! I'm still amazed by how much of a gentleman our rooster Charlie is
- he clucks at little bits of food, pointing them out to his 'angels'
but not eating until they've had their fill. He looked a bit sorry for
himself durng his recent moult, when all his tail feathers fell out -
but he's back on form now and looking good. No idea what breed he is -
bit of a mongrel, but the girls are RIRs.

Any suggestions as to what we should be looking for as far as meat birds
go, and how to integrate them with a laying flock? I'm a bit confused as
to how you would manage to have a continuous supply of birds at eating
age, without ending up with excess cockerels. Or do people just kill at
a given age and then freeze the birds? If so, then I need to buy a
bigger freezer. Also, do people hang their chickens at all (I mean the
meat, not as a method of dispatch!), or is chicken meat not usually hung
for any length of time?

Still planning on ducks, initially for eggs, and since we had our field
cleared last autumn, there's now plenty of room to dig a pond for them -
first task of the spring, when it gets here!

I probably should have started a new thread for all the questions above,
but I never intended to write so much - just one thought led to another.
Situation normal!

Hello to Clare from here (and it's not a long, long way, really, is it?)
Oh, and on that subject, if you ever get any spare Marans, or know an
Irish source of them - please let me know!

Jo

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