Sunday, March 25, 2012

The Teen Years: Eating Us Out of House and Home

CLUCK, CLUCK, CLUCK and CHIRP, CHIRP, CHIRP!!!

Hope everyone had a great weekend now that the heat wave has passed. The chickens have been spending more time in the steer lot with the Beefy Boys than moping around in the kennel. Our weasel trap has been set and in place for several days, but still no criminal. I guess we will just have to order weasel lure...whatever the heck that is. It hasn't seemed to upset the ladies that much, however, since we've been getting 8 eggs a day for the past two days. Oh and they just LOVED the visit by Kaleb Harp on Friday night who tucked them all into bed...thanks again!

The chicks have reached the teen years....you know the ones where all they think about is food. In a hunger protest the other day the feeder was flipped over. I guess they got mad because it was empty. We have to fill the feeder at least twice a day.

The chicks turned 4 weeks old with us yesterday and we have already gone through almost a 50 pound bag of chick starter feed. Remember it is very, very important NOT to feed chicks a hen's ration of feed. Their little kidneys can't take what is in a layer feed and it can lead to kidney failure and even death. Flock 1 went through two bags of starter feed before we switched them over to what they eat now. I think you're supposed to slowly intergrate the new feed, like when you change cat food and stuff, but we didn't do that...please don't tell on us! Our chickens are tough here on the Shawhan farm...unless it comes to weasels and cars....

When purchasing our second bag of chick feed yesterday at the feed mill, Dan saw a sign that said it requires a total of 12 pounds of food per chick to reach laying age. Maybe we will need more than two bags....hmmmm...well it didn't say that it all had to be starter feed. Hopefully some will want to watch their figures and cut back a little!

                                                                                      ...cluck... cluck... chirp... chirp...

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