A Chicken in Every . . . Cage

I've mentioned in the past that the kids raise 4-H chickens. We don't participate every year {because I don't need 25 birds every year} but the last of our flock died last year. As part of the 4-H poultry chain, we get 25 baby chicks in the Spring.

They are "Cinnamon Queens" and each batch contains no roosters. Roosters can be ordered separately but we opted out of owning any. The kids start out with the chicks under lights and in small cages. Then the chickens are moved to the bigger cage.

The goal is to raise the biggest, healthiest chicken you can. Ty has taken the bulk of the responsibility in the care of the chickens. So when it came time to show them at the fair, he got first pick. We arrived at the fair grounds are were shown the chickens' home away from home for the week. We backed up the van and unloaded our birds.

We were very fortunate that Daddy could leave work to come help us. The whole taking things to the fair ordeal ended up taking about 2.5 hours. Sadly, he had more work to do and headed by to the shop for a late night when we finished at the fair.

Kent helped the kids carry their 3 chickens to each pen. The one rule of receiving poultry chain chicks is that you must show a pen of three at the county fair. Our kids split one order of chicks but they were all able to show a pen.

After dropping the chickens in their cages, we checked out the other animals that had already arrived. We were quite surprised to see llamas! There were also goats, various chicken breeds, horses and lots and lots of rabbits. I think the rabbits out numbered all the other animals 2 to 1.

The kids enjoyed walking around looking at everything and checking out the competition. They don't have the biggest chickens, but Mom and Dad have only helped transport chickens and purchased feed. Every feeding and watering was done by one of the children. We're excited to visit the fair later this week and see if we have any blue ribbon ladies.

Before we left, each one of the children received a Livestock Exhibitor shirt courtesy of Greenway Equipment, the John Deere dealer in our area. The boys all but their shirts on immediately. The livestock exhibits have greatly improved since the first year we participated and it's a very nice change.

Old McDonald Had A Farm . . .

This year , we are participating in the 4-H poultry chain. We had great luck in the beginning with our chickens. Normally, we lose several baby chicks but this time we made it about 5 weeks before tragedy struck.

The chickens had been living in a cage in the garage. The kids had done a great job feeding and watering them. We left home for a few hours one afternoon and when we returned, I spotted three dead chickens lying on the floor.

During the afternoon feeding, an official count was made and we discovered that 7 were actually missing. An animal (we're guessing a dog) pulled them through the cage. Either it got full before it ate all of its prey or we came home too early.

That weekend we readied the larger pen. We had older {larger} chickens in it a few years ago but the holes in the chain link are large enough to pull a young chicken through. We installed chicken wire and sheet metal around the bottom. The chickens seem to be growing well and adapting to their new home.

 

These two weren't much help in the process but they looked cute. :-)

I'm glad I'm not a chicken

The egg on the left is a fairly normal occurrence from our chickens. The middle egg is what most of our chickens lay and the last egg is from a friend's chicken. The friend's chicken lays what are typically sold in a grocery store as large eggs. Most of our chickens lay "jumbo" eggs and one chicken likes to out do them all.

This extra-extra large egg is a little over 8 inches around vertically . . .

and 7 inches horizontally.

Compared to a large egg at 6.25 inches vertically . . .

and 5.5 inches horizontally.



Just one of those everyday things I wanted to document. ;-)

Chicken Wrangling 101

We no longer have a dog and our neighbors don't have loose pets (most of the time) so Kent determined it was safe for our chickens to be "free range". When the weather isn't terrible (ie rainy - which hasn't happened much the last few weeks), Ty lets the chickens out after he feeds them in the morning.

They roam the yard freely all day and after nap/quiet time, he feeds them again and puts them back in their cage. They eat bugs and fertilize the yard. :) Right now all of our chickens are hens so they don't bother the kids when they play. It's kind of like having a dog that doesn't like any attention. We really enjoy having the chickens and the fresh eggs they lay. They are more regular layers when they get out during the day.

Most of our 13 chickens are more than willing to return "home" with little effort. However, there seems to be about 3 that never want to go back in the cage.

They can get in the horse pen much easier than their jailers, so often a chase ensues.

We have determined that most days it's much quicker to let Ty put them up by himself.

Life's not always fair

and sometimes life happens at the fair.

Madisyn and Ty have been raising chickens as part of the Arkansas 4-H poultry chain. Each 4-H'er can get chickens (we had to purchase ours but not all counties require that) and raise them for the fair. Because Madisyn and Ty aren't old enough they can only show on the county level.

After the chickens has blood pulled, they were sorted into their new homes for the week.
Madisyn and Ty are each showing a pen of three and a single chicken. The judging is today and we will find out how they did on Saturday or Sunday when we go to pick them up.

4-H Chickens Gathering Supplies 4/4

Madisyn and Ty are expecting some baby chicks any day. Taking care of chickens requires certain tools and supplies. We gathered the feed and shavings. Since it is their project, they unloaded the car.