Miscellaneous Chickens

Mob 2, currently 42 chickens strong, reached 8 weeks old today and are on the count down to the freezer (this Sunday).  We've learned some new things during this group's sojourn with us, some interesting, some just new.

(1) Probably the most surprising to us was the fact that October is one of the busiest fowl butchering seasons of the year, making it difficult to reserve the necessary gear from the county extension office if you don't plan ahead (we didn't).  Thankfully, we were able to reserve the de-featherer, scalder and various other paraphernalia from a neighboring county's office and are on schedule for this weekend.  Insert big sigh of relief here, I was not relishing the thought of another several weeks with mob 2 as they've become hefty brutes you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley. 

(2) Cornish Rock X love apples.  And pears.  And swiss chard.  And corn cobs.  As we've stated earlier, this group is not picky eaters and in fact, will go for the leftover scraps before their regular chicken food if given the choice.  For many chicken enthusiasts, this is probably not an earth-shattering revelation as most chickens enjoy being fed various leftovers (see this chart for a nice break down of what they can and can't eat); that said, CRX are not known for their grazing habits and anecdotal evidence states they prefer plain ol' chicken feed to just about anything else.  Our CRX are just weird.

(3) They really are trying to escape.  We have several roosters that attempt to make the jump out of the tractor whenever we open the lid for cleaning or feeding.  In fact, this morning when moving the chicken tractor, several managed to escape under the end when it encountered a larger than normal bump and immediately made a bee-line for the downed apples under our trees.  I have a feeling we have a couple of come-to-God crazies in the group predicting the end of the world (little do they know!) that stir up the rest to try and make a break for it whenever they get the chance.