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8 Comments

1. That was a good look on raising poultry. Nice job.

2. Wyo, admire your courage to raise/ produce birds you don’t mind putting on your own table. Doing what your passionate about makes the pay – just an additional blessing.

3. I do respect your experience. We personally have always used newspaper to start out our chick. Meat chickens are stupid and at first will try and eat anything, including wood chips. After a week or so I switch to wood chips. I never used to have my chickens vaccinated but after losing 30 or so chickens one year to the disease that is vaccinated against I decided that the vaccine was worth it. Then if they did get it ( which hasn’t happened in the last 8 or so years) I could get a refund from the hatchery. We were and are isolated from most people so they carried the disease from the hatchery. We also don’t use bleach in processing our chickens but then we butcher, wrap and freeze them on the same day. Our chicken has always been tender. We currently feel that knowing how our meat was raised and fed is worth the effort of raising it ourselves.

4. Unless you are a whole lot older than I am then you have had “modern” breeds your entire life. They (production reds or whites) were developed by selective breeding starting November 20, 1916. Cobb and Swanson introduced their breeds nationally starting in 1955. I lived on Paul Swanson’s farm in Littleton Massachusetts when I was very young.

   The emphasis on the “production” breeds was to be able to sex them early as hens mature faster and there are significant differences in feed requirements between them and roosters as they mature.

   Significant as in commercially significant as well.

   Prior to this farmers hired Chinese laborers to look at chicken vent flaps all day long to separate hens and roosters.

   When production breeds are raised naturally there are no more issues with them than heritage breeds like buff Orpington’s.

   It’s the battery system of caged birds and egg factories that cause many of the issues.

5. I’m not sure which diseases you are referencing as caused by trade. Avian influenza’s are vectored over from Asia by migratory waterfowl, and would happen anyway even with a Crunch.

6. Just a couple of comments (-: I am also at about 6100′ in NE AZ. Water is also a problem, salinity. You may wish to consider ‘rain water harvesting’ and ‘desalinization’… I’m sure you have heard of rain water harvesting but fewer people have heard of desalinization. I am not speaking of the multi-million or billion dollar units used in the middle east. I am talking about simple DIY units that are simple to build and not a budget buster. Now you aren’t going to able to achieve, hundreds of gallons per day, BUT, enough for your family if things go totally south!

   The biggest problem I see that people have in raising poultry is build up of Ammonia and proper ventilation…look into deep bedding practices and the use of cupolas. It will take care of most all problems in that area and there is no need for any extra power or fancy bedding. With deep bedding the chickens actually do the work of keep the bedding dry by their natural scratching tendencies. Of course you will need to clean out every year or two and add new bedding material. It’s kind of an art form in it’s self. Check it out.

   1. Hope you’ll consider doing your own article on these DIY desalination units. Sound interesting.

7. Hope you do an update later about your experience with the Bresse breed.

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