CornishX vs Red Ranger

Well I've been a bad blogger. We finished processing the last of the meat birds a little while ago. Maybe two weeks or so. I even had The Boy take pictures, but his idea of what was interesting and mine were different. Who wants to see the inside of a trash bag full of chicken guts? lol.

Scott and Connie plucking

Connie and Pat plucking

I manned the dispatch station. I caught the chicken and did the killing, and bleeding out. Then I took it to the boiling water pot and did the swishing. Pat, Connie, and Scott did all the plucking while I went after another bird. Then over to Larry for the gutting. Andrea was in charge of cleaning off, cooling, and bagging. We did 15 chickens in not too much time. I parted out 8 of them and froze 7 of them whole.

I've made a few dishes out of the cornish and the rangers now. The cornish (creepy meats) had much larger breasts and smaller legs and wings. The rangers were more proportionate as a whole bird. The leg quarters on the rangers were a lot bigger and leaner looking. They were great for the barbeque or roasted in the oven. I did both birds in the crockpot and then broiled in the oven to crisp up the skin. They tasted just like the rotisserie chickens you get at the grocery store. The rangers were more forgiving of being over cooked. They didn't get as mushy. Over all I'm very pleased with the birds we raised. They don't taste more intensely chicken, but do make the store bought birds taste a bit watered down. I know my birds were raised humanely, were dispatched humanely, and I know what they ate. No antibiotics, no soy, no growth hormones. I know they free ranged and were happy birds. I'l definitely raise meat birds again in the spring. I'll order a set of cornish x's for the breast meat and the tenders. They were more plump and just overall bigger, and the rangers more for whole birds. The cornish were better before it got too hot outside too. I don't want to stress them. 

Walking around Pictures

I had the camera today with me while I was out and about. My garden is actually starting to produce stuffs that I can harvest and bring inside. I've got about half a gallon bag of snap peas in the fridge. The green beans gave me their first couple of handfuls of beans today.

Greens Beans

Snap peas

Banana Peppers 

Purple beans growing at the base of the corn

Bell Peppers

Corn

Squashini corner

I got some good shots of the steers. Norman is a big boy now, full time out with the big boys from last year.

Are you a cow too?

Norman

Norman

And I got Chicken pictures for Carolyn. I read back and counted days, and this week the Red Rangers are 12 weeks old. Pete at the feed store, told me about 8-10 weeks. I could have easily started butchering a week or two ago.I free ranged these, and restricted their feed just like I did the creepy meats. They were more active, but now their legs are getting to be giant tree trunks. They are molting and look bad, lol. I went out there the other morning and it looked like a chicken had exploded inside the chicken house. Some of the roosters are getting down right huge. I did process three last week, three of the bigger ones. I was joking last time we did them, that I found their nuts way up in there, and they were tiny. these three were not tiny.

So in this pic is Einstein the polish crested on the left. The little grey bird is an easter egger that is a week younger.

This pic is two Ranger roos, a White Plymouth Rock roo, and a 4 year old Jersey Giant hen. I was told it was a JG at any rate.

Ranger hen, Easter Egger on the pan, and another Ranger hen. They are easily the same size as the Jerseys, and as big as the White rock roo that is like 4 weeks older.

Everything's Growing

The garden is growing weeds faster than I can snatch them out of the ground. The corn is growing even if it looks like a drunkard on a three day binge put it in the ground. I'd take pics to prove that the strawberries have taken off like crazy this year, but the older chickens eat them before I get a chance to see them. I keep telling myself I'm going to go out there and put wire around the berries, but I never remember till it's after dark.

My second batch of meat birds are getting closer and closer to processing time. The roos are all battling with each other. They start with the beak to beak stare down, hackles raised and then one jumps at the other. I swear that sometimes the stare downs last longer than the fights. I keep calling this batch the Red Meats instead of the Creepy Meats. They still swarm me in the morning, but I don't expect the ground to shake as they all run towards me. There is a lot less lumbering as they run. They actually run instead of waddle. Before it got so blessed hot they actually did much more ranging around looking for food than the Creepy Meats.

My first batch of pullets that I picked up with the Creepy Meats look like full grown chickens now. They are 12 weeks old now. One of the Sagitas is a rooster. One of the White Plymouth Rocks is a rooster too. The Sagita has been giving me the stink eye recently, lowering his head at me just a little, and generally not getting out of my way when I wander on through the herd. I think he's gonna be a freezer camp candidate. I call him and the first batch of pullets the Marauders. Four Sagita pullets, one Austra White, one White Plymouth pullet, and the two roos all tend to hang out together. They bully the Red Meats, eat first, and range further than the other chicks. The Sagita roo is right there watching me and making sure I'm not picking on His chicks to push around though. Some where around four more weeks to go before I can start looking for eggs from the Marauder pullets.

Austra White Pullet

Jersey Giant hen taking a dust bath

White Plymouth Rock Rooster Dust Bathing

The Easter Eggers (EE) have all their feathers in. I have two darks, one with a grey head, and one with an orange and black head. There are two white with red barring. One with a grey head and one with an orange head. Those two are my favorite colored chickens. The EE's are so hard to tell rooster from pullet. They have little bitty combs, and no waddles. The muffs they get under their beaks remind me of owls for some reason. They are much smaller than the Sagitas and the Jerseys, but not a tiny as the little Cochin Banty.

The other groomer I work with started chicks this year with her kids for 4H. One of the Polish Cresteds turned out to be a rooster. I brought him home with me today. I really wanted a fuzzy headed chicken when I was in a chick buying frenzy earlier this year. They aren't super good layers, and I didn't want to get a chicken I was going to feed just to look silly. I knew out of the 6 straight run chicks Shelly got, that one was bound to be a roo, and I just needed to bide my time. He's a little guy with a mop of feathers on his head. I have him in with the banty and the ee's for now. they're all his size.

Norman is growing a little more every day. Dairy calves don't get as big as fast, or put on as much weight, and have a slighter frame than the beef calves. I take him for a walk every couple of days, or just turn him loose while I'm out with the chickens. He likes to eat weeds. He's eating his hay really good now. I still have him on milk once a day and Growena calve grain once a day. He still flips the bucket over his head after eating his grain or his milk. 

Norman makes a friend, Red Rangers, Creepy Meats

Life is slowly adjusting for the blind horse and his owner. I know he can still see some out of the right eye, but I can see the silver growing in the pupil. I'm learning all sorts of new things. I'm learning that Apache swinging his head side to side to see out of the "good," eye will smack me in the head with the lead rope every time. I can ask him to Whoa and he will stand there for an hour, until I turn my back to hook the fence, and then he walks into me. Whoa is just a silly mouth sound that humans make when there is no lead rope attached to his halter, and therefore should be ignored. Dusk is the hardest time to work around him. Earlier and he can see better. Later and he can't see crap so relies on me for guidance. Dusk is the only time the horse eating monsters that live in shadows on the ground will come out and try and eat his ankles. I'm more nervous about the fact I'm riding a blind horse, than any of the responses he makes to stuff around him. Ben being lazy trips far more often than Apache trying to pay attention.

Apache was calm enough today out on his own to be turned out in the pasture all day. Sometimes he gets so worked up looking for the other horses that I'm afraid of him hurting himself on the fence. We've been throwing Ben out there over night and bringing him up in the mornings. After I let Ben out to run and get the farts out, I take Apache out there and let him graze for about three hours till dusk. He's learning where the fence is, and running around like a ninny is not doing anything good for him.
(Psst, Mom. See all the green grass? Your horses would love it. Move to Idaho)

See Mom, this is why you want to move to Idaho with me. 

Norman has been nibbling hay and trying out his calf grain. We go for a walk in a leash into the pasture to nibble some grass. Today I decided to introduce him to Apache.

Run little steer, run

He thought all that grass was the best thing ever. It was taller than he was in places.

 Apache watched him zoom around the pasture, but he wasn't spooked by the little bugger at all. 

They were grazing side by side after a while. 

The Creepy Meats are HUGE! Just last week I was looking at them thinking they were right about six weeks or so, and with restricting their feed, and letting them free range, I prolly had about another two weeks or so to go before starting to butcher. Nope. Them suckers are packing on the pounds over night. It's like trying to wade through a pile of puppies in the morning when I go out to feed. They're climbing all over my feet, weaving between my legs trying to trip me, pecking at my pants, anything to make the food drop down faster. I'm almost afeared of loosing a limb when I set down the pan full of crumbles.

I do the, "Here chicky chicky chicky," call when I feed so I know I can always call them in for the night with food. Feeding the Rangers in the garage and calling chicky chicky, I hear this tapping on the back door. I open it and there is the whole flock of Creepy Meats. Just standing there. Staring at me. "Yo Lady, you gonna feed us?"

The other morning I tried going out the front door so I didn't have to wade through a seething mass of white chickens. The next morning this is what I found when I opened the door. They were going to walk right in and make themselves at home.

I think they're stalking me. 

Here's a pic from today. The black hen is the Jersey Giant that thinks she's their momma.

The new Red Rangers and the five new pullets are outside full time now. I didn't have another pen for them and the momma hen wants to run them out of town. The Creepy Meats want to eat them along with anything that holds still longer than three seconds. So I had to find somewhere to put them. The boy and I drug the brooder crate outside. I wrestled up against the side of the chicken run and layed it on it's side. The wire top is now a side and the solid bottom is now the back. It's all hillbillied together with the bed extender from the Ford, temporary fence posts for the horse fence, a tarp that got blown against the barb wire fence and is full of punctures, and what ever pieces I could find to make a door of sorts. I did honor Scott's one request, and used none of the damned hillbilly bailing twine. I used the thin wire that was wrapped around the roll of chicken wire that I rolled up and saved, (hid so it wouldn't get thrown away like it prolly should have, but I knew I could find a use for it)

The little banty pullet is so cute with her feathered legs and feet. The grand baby calls her Phyllis