Cock-a-doodle-dinner

I think I'll go to Mansfield on Friday and have Cock-a-doodle-roo done in. I sold 4 of the pullets yesterday so I am down to 6. When Roo goes I'll have the final 5. I'll be sad to see him go. He isn't noisy but he does crow. At least he has the decency to wait until about 7am to do it. He is also the least skittish of the birds. He will let me pick him up with minimal thrashing and complaining.
Also I think I'll go back to the gallon waterer rather than the 3 gal behemouth I have now. The 10 birds got even the big waterer dirty very quickly. I was hoping that since it was larger and they couldn't roost on top on it or get on the cinderblock it rests on the water would stay cleaner longer. But no such luck. I think it will be better for the girls to fill the waterer more frequently anyway. I didn't go on the weekend trip any way so I think I can probably sell the big mamma jamma waterer.

hearding chickens

I can hardly believe haw fast these things grow. they are 11 weeks old this week. After having the coop in one place for a month I decided it was time to clean it. I put an ad on Craigslist and this man came and scooped all the poop for me! I got a clean coop and he got free poop! I love that. So all it really took was Kevin & me moving the coop then moving it back and adding more shavings. Easy peasy. The pix above are of my chicken herding exploits. I let all 10 roam the back yard for a bit then had toget them back in the coop. The biggest monster in the yard is the garden rake, well the lawn mower is the biggest and meanest, really. So I used the rake to scare them back into the coop. It took about 3 min. I was shocked. I thought it would take half an hour to get them all back in but they were very compliant.
I've been feeding them Dumor's chick starter but I think when this bag is gone I'm going to try to find them an organic feed. I may have to drive up to Greenville, more than an hour north east, to find some, but if we are going to eat the eggs these gals lay I want them to be as clean as possible. After the tainted chicken feed ( melamine tainted feed) noise I'm really apprehensive about the commercial foodstock.

cock-a-doodle-roo!

Can you find the male? Spencer has named him Cock-a-doodle-roo. He sure is handsome but he is destined for the fridge. The other 4 I can't keep are going to buyers from Craig's list.