Saturday, May 16, 2015

free range roosters

Woke up this morning to the sound of my roosters in front of the hut.  Seems the boys broke out of their coop and decided to try out free ranging for the first time in their lives.  Since they were so well behaved (they didn't attack me when I led them back to their coop), I will start letting them out to experience the world on a daily basis.  81,93,63,0,B

13 comments:

  1. Good deal. I'm sure the boys will appreciate their new found freedom. I'd say the hens would love it as well.

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  2. he tried to lead a normal life…
    Mike
    more detail & travels -
    Mike on PBS

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  3. back in the day - on Sundays - my uncle would take me out to help out with dispatching a "free range" chicken for Sunday Dinner.

    It's was a revelation to me - no matter how many times I participated.

    you grabbed one , laid it's neck on a stump and WHACK and it would run around spattering blood util it fell.. then we'd put it in scalding water to get the feathers off - then take it in to grandma to gut it .. then into the oven.

    to this day - looking at a whole cooked chicken or Turkey -takes me back.

    sorry if I offended anyone for sharing that part of my childhood.

    ;-)

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  4. Yes, I rember those days too. When the horrible action started, I went back into the house. And to this day when I see a whole cooked bird, I sometimes feel grateful I did not have to pluck the feathers.

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  5. That's a good picture of your birds John.

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  6. Those roosters are going to become coyote bait if they venture to far from the house. I speak from personal experience.

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  7. I believe Ron Kincaid is correct! Maybe John should start enjoying more roasted roosters before those wily coyotes eat them up. Culling some of those fine looking roosters should also make for a more peaceful henhouse!

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  8. I spent the day filling in holes with big bags of top soil. Looks like an animal tried to get in the yard with my dogs and my dogs barked at it. (Mt Lion, Cayote, Fox, dog, or what?) And I have 3 fences. (2 chain Link, 1 wood) I still have more work outside the fence. When my new neighbor builds he might be surprised at who might visit him. I had to shoo a Mt. Lion off once. They eat dogs or their heads here. My new neighbor was just here today in this quiet neighborhood. His motorcycle wakes everyone up.

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  9. Catching and killing the chickens our grandmother requested - was one of our more serious duties as young chicken farmers. Catching that first chicken - so we could wring his head off was fairly easy. But after the whole flock had witnessed our grisly intentions - it was tough to even catch another with our long stiff catching wire - with a crook on the catching end. Most orders were for 2 to 4 chickens. After the dead chickens had been dipped in scalding hot water - it was also our jobs to pluck or remove all the feathers - which took quite a while. But we later enjoyed eating those chickens! Neither of us have every raised chickens - because chickens can now be purchased so economically in the grocery store. Cheers.

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  10. I enjoy watching chickens scratch and hunt about the farm yard ... something peaceful about it.

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  11. As a child my father would catch a chicken and put it in the screened porch area. He would lay it on its side and cup his hand over its face for a minute or two and slowly lift it off. The chicken wouldn't move for quite a while unless a loud noise "woke" it up. When he was ready, he would scoop up the chicken, kill it, dip it in hot water and give it to me to "pick" and clean. I couldn't eat it afterwards and didn't eat chicken for years.

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