Ready to say goodbye
Do you have a favorite
age? I definitely do --- 6 to 10 weeks old. Mature enough
that I can stop worrying about heat and predators and frisky enough to find a
lot of their own food.
(You know we're talking
about broiler chickens here, right?)
After 10 weeks, I start
stressing again. I've yet to plan ahead well enough that I have
sufficient pasture for these rapidly growing birds, so I start hunting
down treats to keep their diet well-rounded. The pullets and
cockerels have to be shut out of the garden at that age because they
start to scratch mulch on top of my young garlic plants, and 11 week
old broilers are so long-legged that they're willing to walk the long
way round to get to those garden beds.
And then there's the deep
bedding. I
always seem to let the last few weeks get away from me, and the
increased volume of manure mats on the surface of the leaves or
straw. Our final batch of Light Sussex have been the worst in
that respect since they still want to roost in a huddle in
the corner, which means they concentrate their manure in one spot and
then sit in it. Yuck. I was beyond thrilled when Mom
brought me some more leaves to alleviate the manure pileup, but next
year I've got to plan ahead so I have enough high carbon bedding to top
off the coop floor every other day for the last two weeks of broiler
time.
Which is all a long way
of saying that even though the Light Sussex have been my favorite flock
of the year, I am totally ready to slit their throats and put them in
the freezer. We processed the first four Monday --- six more to
go!
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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