Excellent story!

SOOO TRUE! IT WOULD BE FUNNY EXCEPT THAT IT IS AN ACCURATE PORTRAYAL OF THE BETRAYAL WE HAVE EXPERIENCED BY THE POWERS THAT BE!

The poultry industry of today is leaps and bounds more economical, efficent, and, in my opinion, much safer than old school methods of rasing and farming poultry. I have visited both and can tell you that the industry regulates itself well and although the quality of life is poor, the business has benifited from it immensley!

Interesting comments. Not coming from an agrarian background, I enjoy the new learning and thought provocations. I remember my grandmother speaking of her chickens she raised back in the old country (Italy). I have made it through my first year with my 4 hens and cannot describe the happiness they have brought to my entire family. Keep the good word coming. I have inspired two people to raise chickens already, the good word keeps spreading.

The winter of 08/09 for me the "year of the rats".. I tried everything! Ultrasonic emitters, traps of every shape and description and eventually (when it was too late of course) resorted to poison "bait". While it reduced the population, it did not eliminate them. Fast forward to fall '09 when we were given three Guinea fowl. They are noisy, not very "handsome" but .. BUT... I haven't seen the tiniest hint of mouse or rat "sign" in my coop throughout the entire winter of 09/10! I'm impressed!

It seems to me that a slow growth broiler and a cornish cross are two very different animals intended to serve different markets. The slow growth bird, from the research I have done, is intended to meet the needs of the gourmet market. Less yield results in higher production costs, which necessitates a higher selling price. Of course, it doesn't make sense to grow a bird that costs more unless you can make up the extra costs in sales dollars. But it would make sense to raise slow growers for the gourmet market, where a higher price might be extracted.

we are awaiting our first chicks ever and I'm loving this site and all the input. We live in upstate NY near VT border-cold winters and would have closed up a coop way too much if not for finding your site, Robert. I love the hot brick idea. AS it is early spring, our first issues won't be cold but predators (hawks, coyotes, raccoons...) and preventing rats. We'll just use common sense on the latter and hope for the best but any advice appreciated from you more experienced types (we don't like rats)

You should use cows or horses before the chickens to mow the grass down for you. That way you're making more money and you don't have to do as much work.

We use a brooder just like the one pictured in this article. We live in Wisconsin. We start our babies in April, May, and June. We seem to lose a lot in our April batch. I just read that you use two 125 watt bulbs. Is that in a brooder like the one shown?

I hate those bastards. I killed 4 of them last year. I just catch them in live traps. If that stops working I'm not sure what I'd do - I don't want to set anything that'll hurt my cats. This spring it seems possums are around, I got one already. Raccoons will also reach and grab through the smallest of spaces and take a leg or whatever they want (I'm talking about with closed chicken tractors & meat birds here)

Thankfully I haven't had fox or coyote trouble in about 3 years, which probably means I'm due. Stray dogs are a problem though.

Robert, I saw your comments on the Yahoo pastured poultry group about Cornish Crosses and black-and-white thinking & as a guy who made chickens a part time then full time and now part time job again (I got wise after a couple years), I appreciate them. Being in businesses and having a backyard flock are two different ballgames.

We have pasture-raised chickens too. We also have experience with those nasty racoons. For a while they were eating a chicken a night. Luckily we built our portable coops with doors that can close. Now since we go out each evening and shut the doors we haven't lost a single one. I was amazed that thy got through the electric fence but your story highlights the braveness of racoons. Thanks.

According to my calculations, a single chicken would have to eat a rat a day for ten days to be in any danger. Still, I keep my eyes open for dead rats, so I can remove them. Haven't seen any so far. I think they pass away in their tunnels where they're not a threat.

But that's the thing. You can see how, if I had waited much longer, there might have been vastly more rats, which would have required vastly more poison and been vastly more of a hazard to the chickens.

I've heard of people locally who waited too long, and when they finally did something about the rats, the stench of their decaying bodies under the floorboards of the barn made it impossible to go inside. It's much better and safer to deal with these things early!

Just wondering what happens if the chickens eat part of the dead rat? Will they be poisoned as well?

To help the bottom of the iron sheets from rusting from chicken manuer build up, I line the bottom two feet of the walls with fibre cement sheet so the chicken manuer is not hard agains the iron rusting it.

I'm trying to remember ... well, that's not working, so I'm looking in up in "Genetics of the Fowl" (http://www.nortoncreekpress.com/genetics_of_the_fowl.html). The males come out with white down and the females darker.

One advantage of buying sex-linked crosses from hatcheries is that they can't get away with putting in so many males "by mistake," so you actually get the pullets you're paying for. In the feed store, of course, you can tell the genders apart easily and select what you want.

My local raccoons are very wary of live traps, so I've stopped using them. Raccoons seem unable to notice snares, though, and walk right into them even they they are totally unconcealed.

It would not surprise me if different populations of raccoons have different skills, passed down from mother to offspring and by raccoons observing each other.

I've found coons to be the easiest predator to trap when they start raiding along with possums. A simple live trap with a can of cat food seems to get them the first night almost every night. Coyotes and foxes are a whole different ball game though!

Thanks i needed that.

Is it true that in golden sexlinks the males come out white? Or are they solid red?

As soon as you can see the beginnings of pin feathers on wings (even on bantams this rule works), if the coverts sit directly on top of the primaries, they are roosters. If the coverts are layered in between the primaries, they are hens.
I haven't tried it, but was told this on a plane. The guy next to me owns a company that sexes chicks (his dad was brought over by Tyson in the 50's from Japan to do this). I hope I have the top and nestled sex part right. I'd hate to have it backward.