Well, I have juvenile chickens coming out of my ears and no place to put them really. I built a cattle panel house and the turkeys are now in it...and I have started on a second one for a grow out pen for the juvenile chickens, but I felt yucky for several days and have not completed it. I let my hens hatch some chicks and I sold 50 of them, but I probably have fifty more that I need to sell. They are barnyard mixes and people want full blooded chickens! Since they wanted full-bloods, I bought the hatching eggs and tried to hatch a bunch of chicks. My hatch is finishing up...it was not good. I set about 120 eggs total and ended up with 27 chicks. Most of them are Marans, I did get a few Blue Laced Red Wyandottes, 1 Speckled Sussex and 1 Jubilee Orpington. It was not a total failure, but I am disappointed about the Jubilee Orpingtons the most.
I am trying to integrate some roosters back into my main flock so I can use the rooster coop for young chickens. It has not gone very well, only two are out of it and they have been busy. I have far too many roosters and need to get rid of some, it would be nice if I could sell some...but, we may just be having a lot of chicken and dumplings this winter! Our Polish chickens are getting picked on so badly that they need their own area too, a lot of them are boys...I have learned my lesson...no more straight run chickens! I believe that is how hatcheries get rid of their males. When you hatch eggs it is a pretty even split on getting males to females...I got 1 female and 4 male Polish from a hatchery, even with hatching eggs, I got two females to 4 males! I have just had to high of a ratio for males! I need females so I just hatch more eggs and end up with a few females...but even more males. They can be rather mean and I will call it aggressive towards the females. A whole lot of my poor hens are bald from being over mated. Even though I made chicken saddles for them, the males have torn a lot of those up. I need to remedy that and lock a bunch of them up and process a bunch for the freezer.
I did not plant a big garden this year, all the rain we have had and all the chicks I hatched pretty much kept that from happening. I have very little planted this year and have gotten very little out of my garden, except some strawberries and blueberries. Those plants are not that big yet. This years fruit off the trees was pretty much a bust too...what fruit there was, was eaten by bugs and birds. I still have grapes on the vine, but they aren't ripe yet. I will have to invest in bird netting next year...my only apple that formed was eaten by birds and they got the few plums off of my new plum tree too. I am waiting on peaches, but a lot of those shriveled up and look like prunes. I think all the rain we had damaged them. I have no tomatoes yet and even if I had green beans...it would be hard to tell with all the weeds in that garden. My corn has not flowered yet...I see no silks. I have some onions...little ones...that is about it. I just don't have the energy some days to get everything done I want to do.
I will work on the grow out pen today, I think. I need to get my babies out of the shed...it is getting far to hot for them in there.
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