Raising Cornish Cross Chickens – Week 2

22 July, 20132 January, 2017 ~ Grace ~ 10 Comments

If you missed Week 1 on Raising Cornish Cross Chickens click here, to read why we chose this breed and how our first week went, plus lots of cute chick pics!

We have not suffered any casualties as of yet and they are growing remarkably FAST! They are about to outgrow the brooder and will need more space soon. My mom took five of them to finish raising them at her house, so that helped to make some extra room. I’m hoping they will have enough space until they are 3 weeks old and can go in an outside pen during the day. I want them to be able to free range as much as possible once they are big enough. It’s been so warm we haven’t used the heat lamp since they were 11 days old. They are such messy little things we have to check their water every few hours because it gets full of bedding and poop very quickly. I seem to remember the same thing with my egg laying chickens when they were little.

Here are pics of week 2:

Some of them are a little bigger then others, which is what I expected when I ordered a “strait run” (some male some female). I got a strait run so they would vary in weight and we could pick the right chickens at the right weight for my girls 4-H projects.

As you can see they are starting to out grow some of their cuteness! Oh well, I didn’t get them to be cute…..right?

We enjoy watching and laughing at them running at each other and flapping their wings. They are pretty comical!

Here is a little cost break down so far:
Each chick cost: $3.83; so for our 10 chicks it cost – $38.30
The chick starter cost $10.45 for a 25# bag. After 2 weeks there is still some feed left and I subtracted what my moms chicks ate and ended up with $6.10 feed cost for 2 weeks.
We also bought a bale of pine shavings for $7.95 and I figured we have used about a dollars worth so far.

This comes to $45.40 for the first 2 weeks for 10 chicks.

Of course this doesn’t include the cost of a brooder, heat lamp, heat lamp bulbs, waterer, or feeder. We are using all the supplies from last years egg laying chicks. So if you were raising chickens for the first time you would have to add in these expenses. As you can see, the first year is the most expensive!

So far we are still pleased with our decision to raise Cornish Cross!

Here is the link for Week 3

Raising Cornish Cross Chickens – Week 1

15 July, 20132 January, 2017 ~ Grace ~ 10 Comments

Why are we raising Cornish Cross chickens?

I spent a lot of time trying to decide what breed of meat chicken to raise this summer. I did lots of reading about the good, the great, the bad and the ugly aspects of raising the hybrid Cornish Cross chickens. There are so many opinions out there and I didn’t want to make an uninformed decision, especially since a couple of these chickens are to be my girls first 4-H market projects. I finally came to the conclusion that I need to form my own opinion and I can’t do that until I have had hands on experience raising them. So I decided to start with Cornish Cross vs. a heritage breed. They are the most cost effective breed to raise, and if it goes well we will continue to raise Cornish Cross. If not, we will try a different breed next year.

For the next 8 weeks (that’s how long it takes for them to be ready to butcher) I will be sharing our meat chicken raising experience with you. I will be posting pictures and giving updates weekly on our little adventure!

Here is Week 1 of Raising Cornish Cross Chickens:

We ordered our chicks from McMurray Hatchery to arrive on the week of July 8th. This will make our chickens 6 weeks old for our County Fair, and hopefully the correct weight which needs to be between 4 and 7 lbs for my girls to be able to sell their chicken at the livestock sale. I had never ordered from McMurray Hatchery before, but they had the right breed available at the right time. The ordering process was easy; they kept us informed of shipping (with emails and texts) and their website was very informative.

Early on the morning of July 8th we got a call from the post office that our live birds had arrived. Of course I wasn’t exactly prepared (I’m such a procrastinator). I very quickly cleaned up our brooder “play pen”, washed up the chick feeders and waters and headed to town. We first went to the feed store to buy bedding and chick starter, then picked up the peeping box from the post office. When we got in the car I bent the lid back and was pleased to find 15 live peeps!

15 Cornish Cross chicks arrived safe and sound.

They were all active and looked healthy. As quickly as we could, we prepared their pen and got them settled in…..sooooo cute! Am I really going to be able to eat these guys in a couple months??

Here’s the pics of this weeks growth:

We have had a fun week watching these little birds grow. (Notice the growth of their feathers in these consecutive pics!) Contrary to what I have read these little guys seem to be hearty, active, and very curious. So far I have no regrets picking this breed. We will see what happens in the next few weeks!

Click here to read about Week 2

Homemade Italian Sausage Seasoning

10 July, 20133 January, 2018 ~ Grace ~ 23 Comments

This sausage seasoning recipe has been moved to our new blog! SufficientAcres.com

Click here or on the pictures to take you to the recipe.

Italian Sausage Seasoning — Italian sausage in spaghetti sauce.

May 2013 – A Month of Photos From the Red Double Wide

25 May, 20131 January, 2017 ~ Grace ~ 7 Comments

Another month gone by! Here are some of my favorite photos from May.

DSCN6817 (640x469)-1 — Moving straw into the barn….the easy way!

DSCN7012 (640x480)-1 — The lilacs in the front yard were beautiful and smelled wonderful.

DSCN7026 (640x480)-1 — This is my niece in the garden. Playing in the dirt is always fun!

DSCN7080 (518x640)-1 — Jo’s cat had three kittens….this one is Marshmallow. 🙂

DSCN6843 (640x480)-1 — The kids found many “wooly worms” aka caterpillars.

DSCN7163 (640x457)-1 — This is Digger working on the new garden fence with help from the chickens.

The potatoes are growing that we planted in the recycled potato bin!

This is Stinky she is guarding Diggers truck and trailer. To read Stinky and Diggers story click here.

DSCN7200 (640x320)-1 — This picture really didn’t do this sunset justice….absolutely gorgeous!

May was a good month, the first couple weeks were warm and beautiful. They involved LOTS of mowing and weed control. The last couple weeks were cooler and wet, we found ourselves indoors quite a bit. Everything is nice and green now and I’m looking forward to a nice warm June!

Chicken Troubles

16 May, 20131 January, 2017 ~ Grace ~ 15 Comments

We get 12 to 16 eggs from our 16 chickens every day. They have been very good and consistent egg layers, so I was very suspicious when we collected only 9 eggs the last 2 days.

A good friend of ours brought us a HUGE pile of straw bales (for free!!!) which Digger shoved off the trailer with his excavator. The result of this expedited removal left quite a mess…

I suspected that the chickens found some great hiding places in the straw to deposit their eggs instead of using the nesting boxes. This wouldn’t be the first time we’ve had to go egg hunting. This is a down fall of letting the chickens free range; sometimes they decide not to go back to the coop, and around here there are PLENTY of hiding places. I figured a quick search through the pile would produce several missing eggs, on my way to search in the straw I heard a weird chicken disturbance in the barn. I took a little detour to check it out and this is what I found:

How she ended up upside down in the wall of the barn I will never know!

I pried her out of her ridiculous predicament and realized it was Ginger (of course).

Here she is looking dazed but not hurt. Ginger is by far the most curious, and I always thought the smartest (but maybe not) of all my chickens. When I set her down, she ruffled her feathers, glared at me like it was my fault (or maybe she was just mad cause I stopped to take a picture before rescuing her), then went about her business. I was so glad I went in the barn….I don’t know how long she would have survived squished in there upside down…

I then proceeded to the straw pile to start my egg hunt.

Soon I had help…..lots of help!

As you can see we performed a thorough search, but came up with nothing. There were several holes we couldn’t see into though, and I wasn’t terribly anxious to move the whole dang pile for some missing eggs!

It was time to head back to the house and start school, but I decided to stop by the chicken coop to collect any recent eggs. When I opened the door our dog “Oddie” was in the coop! I yelled and she quickly dove for the chicken door. I had no idea that darn mutt could fit through the chicken door. I now know where all those eggs went!

Here’s the little egg sucker, still licking her chops and looking shameful.

The only way to solve the problem was to make the door smaller so she couldn’t fit through. We have called her “Houdini Dog” since she was a pup, so I shouldn’t have been surprised that she found her way into the coop. She has been known to climb 8′ no climb fence to get out of a pen, and she has managed to get out of every collar we’ve ever put on her (that’s what happens when your neck is bigger than your head).

So the lessons for the day are: Never underestimate the clumsiness of a curious chicken, and always measure your dog before you build a chicken door!

Recycled Potato Bin

8 May, 20131 January, 2017 ~ Grace ~ 15 Comments

We have not had good luck in the past growing potatoes. With our dense, clay like soil we ended up with very small funny shaped potatoes. The past few years we haven’t even tried, but this year we are planning to have LOTS of home grown potatoes to store away for the winter. A potato bin filled with a top soil, sand, and compost mix seems like the best way to go.

If you read about our “Red Neck Art Project” you know that Digger replaced the deck on his trailer last month. He used the old boards off the deck to made a HUGE potato bin!

Here is the finished product. It’s 4′ wide, 12′ long, and 2′ high and I bet you’re wondering what the pole across the middle is for.

Pretty handy, right? Digger moved it into the garden and the girls and I planted potato starts! It’s the first thing we’ve planted this year and it felt good to be in the dirt. We’ll layer several inches of mix every few weeks as they grow which (hopefully) will fill this thing to the top by the end of the season with large, correctly shaped spuds. In the fall Digger will bring the excavator back and lift the bin off so we can easily harvest them!

So that’s it: Our super cheap, handy dandy, recycled, potato bin, with an excavator handle!

The Perfect Eggs for Breakfast Sandwiches

6 May, 20131 January, 2017 ~ Grace ~ 18 Comments

I know, I know, you’ve all seen this trick of cooking eggs in muffins tins. It’s a great idea, don’t you think? Our family has been enjoying these allot! The only thing I do differently is cook them in a JUMBO muffin tin. They are bigger around and fit PERFECTLY on English muffins and biscuits.

Crack eggs into jumbo muffin cups (grease them first) add salt and pepper and bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes and you have the perfect eggs for those yummy breakfast sandwiches.

Here are some that we’ve been enjoying….the possibilities are endless!!

This is a toasted, sour dough English muffin with cheddar cheese, bacon and a perfect egg!

Click here for an easy, mess free way to cook bacon!

This is a toasted, whole wheat English muffin with egg and cheese. I had to make my 8 year old stop eating so I could get this picture. She wasn’t very patient for some reason??

This is a homemade whole wheat biscuit with a sausage patty made with my homemade breakfast sausage seasoning and a perfect egg!

April 2013 – A Month of Photos From the Red Double Wide

30 April, 20131 January, 2017 ~ Grace ~ 16 Comments

I’ve gone a little crazy with my camera lately, so I thought I would share (some of ) my favorite photos from the past month. Spring time is so beautiful and FUN!

DSCN6124 (640x480)-1 — This is one of our raspberry bushes that border our garden….can’t wait for fresh raspberries!

DSCN6103 (640x468)-1 — The chickens were in heaven when digger tilled the garden.

DSCN6149 (640x480)-1 — “Sleepy Dog” – This is a VERY rare moment, he is usually dropping a ball on our feet, drooling all over our pants, or trying to get the cats and chickens to play.

DSCN6139 (480x640)-1 — Hyacinth – Not only my favorite flower but my favorite color too! I need to plant more.

DSCN6601 (480x640)-1 — Great Grandma enjoying some snuggles with a barn kitten.

DSCN6491 (640x480)-1 — Little Chefs first time mowing with a push mower. She decided she prefers the riding mower! I don’t blame her…I took turns with her and realized how much harder a little labor is after a long winter indoors.

DSCN6618 (640x480)-1 — This is Diggers Grandpa….our riding mower broke down so he came out on his 94th birthday with his brand new mower and mowed some of our lawn for us!! (He had a blast and left asking when we might need him again!) What a great guy, we are so blessed to have him and Grandma close to us.

DSCN6552 (640x480)-1 — This mama barn cat is blind in one eye, but it doesn’t seem to effect her at all. She is the best mouser we have and a wonderful mommy!! She has two chunky adorable kittens right now.

Don’t let these pictures deceive you! We have had some beautiful days in April, but we also had our share of wind, rain, hail, and more wind! We haven’t yet planted anything in the garden (it’s still getting really cold some nights) but my seed order should be here tomorrow and Digger is working on getting the fence up around the garden. No use planting until the chickens are fenced out!

Happy Spring Everyone!!

Homemade Seasoning for Breakfast Sausage

24 April, 201322 January, 2017 ~ Grace ~ 131 Comments

This sausage recipe has been moved to our new blog! Just click here and it will take you to the Homemade Seasoning for Breakfast Sausage recipe at Sufficient Acres.com.

Here are some of my other homemade spice and seasoning mixes you might like:

Ranch Seasoning Packets – Italian Sausage Seasoning – Pumpkin Pie Spice Mix – Homemade Seasoning Salt – Onion Soup Mix Packets –

Sorry for the inconvenience while we slowly move posts to our new blog.

A Chicken Named Stinky

21 March, 20131 January, 2017 ~ Grace ~ 25 Comments

With the exception of our barn cat incident, we have had an uneventful chicken raising experience, up until a couple weeks ago……

It was dark and VERY cold the night I went out to shut up the coop and realized a chicken was missing. I called for her and looked around with a flash light, but there was not much I could do at that point. So thinking she had found a nice place in the barn to spend the night I shut up the coop and went in. The next morning I fully expected her to be standing at the coop door wanting in,… but she wasn’t… After collecting eggs I started searching, and after about 20 minutes (beginning to worry I’d only find feathers) there she was! She was stuck behind some chain link gates that were leaning against a rock wall, alert but making no sound. Just quietly hanging there with one wing above her head and her feet dangling off the ground. I couldn’t get her out by myself, so Digger came out and lifted the gates up while I pried her wing out of the gate. I immediately started inspecting her injuries when my husband politely asked me to move out from between the rock wall and the stack of gates he was balancing for her retrieval.

Day One: Chicken Hospital

She was very cold but alert. One of her legs wasn’t working so she couldn’t stand at all, and the one wing seemed tender. We took her into Diggers shop and set up a “chicken hospital”, and she immediately started eating and drinking. As cold as she’d been I figured when she warmed up she would bounce right back. But that was not the case.

Later that day in the nice warm shop, she wasn’t looking so good. We tried to get her to walk by tempting her with scratch. She really wanted it and would try to stand, but would just flop over, and then give up. In spite of all this, she LAID AN EGG that afternoon!?

Day Two: Discussions

She still wasn’t looking good the next morning….maybe worse. She was now sitting on the floor with one leg strait out in front of her and the other stretched out behind her. It looked painful and she was not even trying to get up. Digger and I had a few discussions that day that sounded about like this:

Digger: “Do you want me to wring her neck?”

Me: “Well, I don’t know……..let’s see how she’s doing later today”

Digger: “Just let me know, I’m not sure I like having a chicken in my shop”

A few hours later…….

Me: “She doesn’t look so good, maybe we should put her out of her misery”

Digger: “She’s still alert and she doesn’t look like she’s giving up, maybe we should give her a couple days?”

It went back and forth like this all day.

Day Three: Stinky Chicken

By day three she was not so affectionately being called “Stinky”. This was Diggers idea…. (He was the one stuck working in the shop with her.) Lets just say the name suited her well! She spent most of the day sleeping, yet seemed alert and very interested in whatever nibbles were presented to her. Despite not being able to move, she managed to lay another egg, but still wasn’t looking so good. The discussions continued until that evening when Digger paused to tell her she was going to be soup if she didn’t buck up soon, (the smell was getting to him). As if on cue, she pulled her legs up under her body and tried to stand. I guess she didn’t want to be soup.

Day Four: No Chicken Soup

A good day! She kept her legs under her and even took a couple steps. Digger managed to get her to roost for a couple of minutes on the handle of his forge. It was hard for her to grip and balance, but she managed it. It was amazing how amiable she was to all our fussing and fiddling with her. I was finally convinced that she was going to make it, so I put my soup recipes away. 😀

Day Five

She was now standing up and taking very slow, careful steps, but still sleeping most of the day. Digger did the math and realized the replacement value of all her eggs should she die would be well over $200.00, but was still anxious (to put it mildly) to get her healthy and OUT of his shop!

Day Six

Slowly getting better, walking a little more. When it got dark out she started looking up for a roost. (It’s a wonder how she knew it was getting dark with the shop lights on for hours after sunset, and only two small windows she couldn’t even see.) She hopped up on a little tool box wanting to get higher but had to settle there for the night. It was nice to see her trying to act like a chicken again.

Knowing she couldn’t go back with the other girls until she could balance on a roost all night, we kept encouraging her rehabilitation. Digger would place her on the handle of his forge several times a day, and even shaped a tin to hang from a higher handle that she could only reach from the “roost”. She became very determined to stay up there when a pinch of scratch was dropped in the tin.

Day Seven

It was a nice day out so we took her outside to get some fresh air!! The other hens seemed happy to see her. She hobbled around and nibbled at grass but was soon worn out.

Day Eight

Spent most of the day outside. She couldn’t keep up with the rest of the girls but was VERY happy to be outside. 😀 It’s absolutely unbelievable how fast she is healing!!

Day Nine

It snowed out and she was not fond of the idea of being outside. So she spent the day hanging out with Digger and playing around in the shop. Well, maybe I should say “pooping around the shop”. The name Stinky is still very appropriate!

Day Ten

The sun was shining bright and I went to the shop first thing to see if she wanted to go out. She was waiting right by the door and quickly walked out with barely a limp!! She still couldn’t manage to get up on the roost that evening so we brought her in to the shop for ONE more night. Digger wasn’t to happy when she hopped up on the counter knocking a bunch of stuff on the floor and of course pooped on his bench! No more nights in the shop for Stinky. 😀

Day Eleven: Back With the Flock

Back with the flock and laying eggs!!

Digger now officially has his very own chicken….whether he likes it or not! She follows him around outside and if the shop doors are open, guess who walks right in and makes herself at home. 🙂 I’m so glad we didn’t put her in the crock pot!! Think of all those eggs she’s still going to lay, and the wonderful story we have to tell of a sweet, determined chicken named Stinky!