Chicks and roosters, hive parts

Saturday, I think it was. Mama and Victoria went to Tractor Supply to get some chicks. They picked carefully using a technique Mama had been shown some time ago. Using this technique, you can determine a hen from a rooster in the chicks. It is not foolproof, but it seems to work fairly well. They bought fourteen chicks. I told Mama she was not thinking big enough. She should have bought at least twenty. When she went back to get the additional six I had suggested, Tractor Supply had sold out. Someone had bought 300 chicks. All they had. Whoever that someone was, they cleaned out every supply of chicks in Decatur, Bowie and Alvord. I applaud the entrepreneurship, but it will be six to eight months before those chickens will lay any eggs. Assuming that is the intent. Long before that time, this response to the current sickness will be over. All the stores will be restocked with chicks by tomorrow and we might have our chance to buy the few more we need.

Meanwhile, this panic has brought more buyers to Mama than she can supply. We are getting about 30 eggs per day. We have buyers for all that production and much more. Even these twenty new chicks – if they are all hens – will not meet the demand once they start to produce. That is a good problem. So, whoever is starting a chicken farm, I am pretty sure they will have a market for those eggs when their hens grow up and start laying. With the coop I built, Mama and I are limited to about eighty hens. We will allow only three or four roosters in that population of hens. Mama does not like to see how rough the roosters are with the hens.

So much so, that I have killed two roosters this year and Mama has given away or sold two. One of those sales happened last night. She recently advertised three roosters and George, her beautiful Barred Rock rooster, was sold off. She regretted it from the moment the buyer made contact. She really liked George. I have told her that if she does not want to sell a particular animal, those pictures should not be included in the posts of animals she is willing to sell. The gentleman, a young man from Brazil, came with his two young sons to pick up George yesterday evening about 6 pm.

Mama and I have not been letting the chickens out of the coop yard until later in the afternoon because of the threat of coyotes getting them as they scratch around the property. The earlier we let them out the farther they stray from the protection of the coop. Sunday morning two weeks ago, Mama watched that very thing happen as a coyote came within a few yards of the house, grabbed a chicken – one of Mama’s favorites – and ran back to the woods. All before Sam and Sasha could respond. It was very upsetting to Mama. Anyway, we caught George before we let the chickens out for the evening. I put him in a cage we use for that purpose and set George and the cage in front of the house. The buyer was coming by in a couple hours.

To my great surprise, as I was walking up to the cage from the goat barn a little bit later, George got out of the cage. Turns out Mama had wanted to give him a treat and had not closed the latch on the cage properly when she did so. Since he was in the front of the house, he headed to the fence at the back yard and from there to the well house. I was able to recapture him when I got him trapped at the corner of the garden fence and the goat lot fence. I had to throw a plastic chair to fully corner him, but it worked, The legs of the chair trapped him enough that I was able to pounce – such as I am able at my age – and grab hold of him. When I had him back in the cage, I fixed the latch so that it would close more securely. Our buyer was very happy with the rooster.

After I got off work yesterday evening, I worked on the bases I have been assembling for the beehives. The screen bottomed bases will allow us greater flexibility in helping the bees keep the temperature of the hive steady. In colder months, I will be able to insert a panel in the base that will block cold air flow into the hive. In the hot months the screen bottom will allow greater airflow into the hive to prevent overheating the hive. The bees like a temperature of 106° F. I completed four bases because I am working to outfit four hives. That plus out top bar hive should get us started. We might be struggling financially, but we are not shutdown.

God is so good