Tractor Supply animal swap
The Tractor Supply animal
swap had an impressive selection of livestock.
We ended up trading an Avian Aqua Miser plus 25
dollars for the above trio of Rhode Island Red hens.
Two full sized turkeys were
going for 50 dollars and someone had 3 dollar hens.
I'd say it was 10 times more fun than if we would've gone to the County
Fair.
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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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What fun! I think those reds look very healthy! ThEy are lucky to get such a good home!
By the way I tred creating a user page- it didn't appear to work for some reason - possibly our lousy connection out here in the boonies.
I'm almost done with my kill mulch- we are so far from town that it is hard to get cardboard or newspaper, so I can only see what I can scrounge when I make my weekly trip. About two thirds done, with at least the first layer of high carbon mulch to cover it. Will be interesting to see how this method works in this arid climate- things do not rot here easily.
Very nice looking girls! You'll get tons of eggs from them.
I'm curious, do you know where they cam from? Are they hatchery stock, or where they bred by the person you bought them from?
I prefer the nonindustrial RIR. You only get a handful less eggs, but more meat, very scrappy, they'll sit for you too if you let them.
Deb and Irma --- Finding cardboard or newspaper is the sticking point for us too. I agree with Deb that grocery store cardboard is subpar. We're lucky that our microbusiness produces a lot of packaging, and it all goes into the garden.
Someone else suggested liquor stores as a possible source of high quality boxes, assuming you don't have a refrigerator store nearby.
T, Sounds like we got lucky! The guy we bought them from is a major enthusiast and he hatches his own from breeding stock he's kept. I didn't think to ask him where those chickens originally came from, but was very impressed when he told me that his chickens free range and the Rhode Island Reds hunt further than anyone else for bugs. I'd be thrilled if one or more of them went broody in the spring!
Out of the 15 or so breeds that I raise, the rir are the ones I enjoy the most. They were the first chickens I got. By far the most intelligent breed aswell. In the morning theyre the last ones to come running for pellets, because their crops are already full.