Poultry & Ducks

Birds are still a big part of our farm. Our laying hens are a mix of White Rock, Goldens and Barred Rock along with a White Golden mix that oddly enough came out spotted ? Over the winter we only lost a few of our layers so we decided not to breed any more Layers until 2008. All our layers are free range and get a daily ration of flax with their grains that help produce the healthier omega 3 eggs.

We raise Meat King chickens as well but they are a seasonal bird. We purchase the chicks in early spring and in anywhere from 8 - 12 weeks they are ready for market. We highly recommend them to any chicken lovers. The meat is very tender and they weigh out anywhere from 8 - 12 lbs. Since they are free range there is very little fat on the birds. The are housed in a separate 20' x 40' pen with an insulated and heated coop.

Even though we were advised not to waste our time trying to breed our Giant White Turkeys because they were too large to successfully breed, we tried anyway. After purchasing breeding jackets for the hens from a supplier in the United States, we let nature take it's course. The end result was a very successful year for domestic turkeys. Of all our fowl we bred in the spring, we had our best hatch and survival rate with these turkeys.

We had a less than successful hatch rate with our Wild Turkeys however I believe this can easily be corrected in the 2008 breeding season with the introduction of a completely new bloodline of Toms. Our Pheasants hatched well even though we lost several of our adult breeders over the winter and early spring to weasels. Lets just say the weasel problem, for now, is under control.

All of our bird pens, 5 in total, wintered well. There was only one storm that had a very wet and heavy snow that necessitated the removal of the snow as it built up on the 2" wire mesh roof. That kept us pretty busy one night. We experienced no damage to any of the pens or coops and the water lines that were heated remained clear all winter.

Our one great loss over the winter was the passing of our favorite rooster "Brewster". We found him curled up in one of his sleeping spots one morning in March. Although Brewster's age was a well kept secret, I tend to believe he was a bit older than he let on. Brewster has been replaced with 3 other roosters, "Rock" who is a Barred Rock, "Dr Ketchup" who is a Rhode Island Red and "Brewster Jr" who is one of Brewster's youngins. All 3 have the run of the farm and sleep most nights on the top rail of the sheep's stall.

My favorite, the ducks, wintered well. We didn't loose any geese and provided goose eggs to a friend who hatched out several. In total we lost approximately 20% of our ducks which isn't too bad. Several of our 20% loss were ducks that had to be put down due to broken kegs, this caused us to come up with a way to try to fix a broken leg on a duck, sounds crazy but it worked. Our last duck to suffer this injury had her leg set, wrapped and placed in a splint. 4 weeks later the bandages were removed and the break was healed. The duck walks with a bit of a limp but so what.......so do I ! We won't have another duck hatch until spring 2008.

The ducks and geese still provide us with hours of free entertainment. Our wild turkeys and domestic turkeys were absolutely delicious, free range does more for taste than any chemical they have come up with yet. Our meat king chickens go to market starting late August and our domestic turkeys will go from September through to late fall. The ducks, they get a pass.

Images of the our Poultry & Ducks
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