Sold My First Chicks!

With broody hens you eventually get chicks...since I had fourteen broody hens...I have a lot of chicks.   I let them go broody so that I could sell the chicks, bad thing was...people want full blooded chicks not barn yard mixes.  I ended up selling 50 chicks for $100.  I had more chicks hatching every day, still do actually.  I still have three hens sitting on eggs.  I have four hens in the "Broody House" sharing 12 or 13 chicks too, one of them is sitting on eggs that I had in the incubator for awhile.  I went on eBay and purchased more hatching eggs...I got Black Copper and Blue Marans eggs, Jubilee Orpington, Speckled Sussex, Salmon Favorelle from a different line, and Blue Laced Red Wyandottes...and I got some African Geese eggs.  I have them all in the incubator now, except the first batch of goose eggs was smashed to bits and the man sent me another batch wrapped much better the second time...they go into the incubator today.

I will have to move the turkeys out to their pen soon...it is actually the pen I am using for the Broody House.  They grow quickly, kind of like the ducks and geese.  I had several turkeys that had leg issues, spraddle leg is what it is called.  One turkey had it and I tried to fix it, worked on him for a few weeks...it steadily got worse.  The poor little things leg joint swoll to three times normal, it's foot turned backwards and its hips were not aligned properly, it could not walk any more.  We noticed all the other turkeys using him as a pillow, he wasn't eating much either and we discussed putting him down.  I got mad at the other turkeys because of them laying on top of him...I say him because of the size and his little tail would fan out like the big boys...he would sing to me when I picked him up.  I felt so bad for him, I brought him in the house and bathed him to get all the poop off of him and set him up in a brooder by himself.  Crew was going to put him down, I told him nature has its ways...if he survived I would be in shock...but would have taken care of him the way he was.   He died during the night, but at least he was in the house, not covered in poop and being abused by the other turkeys.  I love all my animals and it hurts me when any are in a bad way, I do the best I can to try and take care of any issues that crop up.  At the moment I have a hen with possible Bumblefoot or a bite on her foot that is on the back porch, 3 female ducks that have started limping and have one swollen foot each...probably from running from the boys trying to mate them and one female duck that has an issue with her neck from the boys grabbing her.  I am going to have to separate them or get rid of some males...I have 9 females and 8 male ducks...it is a problem for the girls.  I do have the 4 girls separated and getting a rest from the males, we are going to inspect them and try to determine how to help them better today, two of them have cuts on the same foot...we need to figure out what it is from.

I will probably be playing musical chicks today, moving the young chick brooder to the back porch, taking the chicks from the broody hens and moving them to that brooder, moving the turkey's to their house, try to integrate the chicks in the swimming pool brooder into the grow out pen.  Try to get a roof on some of the breeding pens and put additional small 1/2 inch hardware cloth on one...for another grow out pen.  I may not have time for it all...but I will do what I can today.  I need to start on the duck and goose pen too...since I am using the one I originally built for them as a turkey house.  And since I have goose eggs in the incubator...I am gonna need a bigger house for them.  

In the mean time, I got a few things planted...but not near what I need to get planted.  The rain made it impossible to use my large gardens, and now I will have to till again because the weeds are taking over.  I am going to have to get some large black plastic sheets or something...that way I can cook the weeds, the geese, ducks and chickens are suppose to eat that stuff...but it grows way to fast for them to keep up.