Bummer on the turkey. Hope it gets better. I have a chicken that broke it's let above the ankle (or what I'd call the ankle). The lower tibiotarsus, aka lower drumstick. lol It was floppy broken. I put her in a dog crate because the other chickens turned on her. I had to splint it because she kept aggravating the injury as she hopped around. I suck at chicken splinting because she managed to twist her leg at weird angle. So the bone is setting... but it's twisted off to the side. I'm not going to re-break her leg to try and set it again... so if she gets over this, she'll be severely pigeon-toed. I probably should have just wrung her neck, but she came hopping up to me with her busted leg and all bloody from being picked at and gave me a pathetic look that I couldn't resist.
Bruce, Keep me posted on the sour crop ... one of the things I fear .... Christine, you are such a softee! So PT learned something today ... I did not know a 7 month old chicken could molt ...
There didn't seem to be much change until we adjusted the feeding schedule and what we feed it. Once a day, two egg yolks, tablespoon plain yogurt, teaspoon olive oil with two crushed tums. Once we began that it started to get smaller. We'll give it 2-3 more days.
Well, then, we kill it, do a necropsy, determine if we can eat it, although I am sure we can, and have a turkey dinner .
Oh boy! I see a 16X10 coop in your future. Good luck Tony. I had chickens as a kid and we never had a rooster. Now I think I know why.
Already looking at expanding in the spring......adding a second coop and run BTW Kyle, I have 23 birds :D...2 of which are roosters
Make a moveable tractor and start raising broilers. They are fast, easy and give a great return on investement.
That one is already in the books for next spring, Bruce ... me and Slabcrappy are building one late winter and getting 50 broilers as soon as we can ... I will truck it around the field every day or so .... we plan on doing this at least twice ... we eat alot of chicken :D
That sounds awesome, Tony. Wait until you guys start cooking those birds. You'll never go back to store bought chicken again. Especially after you see how easy it is. Yes, there is some real work involved but, it's not too bad and the rewards are fantastic. My tractor is 8x12 and holds 50 broilers real well.
One other thing: With that many you may want to move it at least twice a day. They poop a heckuva lot and the idea behind the tractor is to move the around so they are not sitting on that poop. The acid/ammonia in the poop will cause blisters on their legs and breasts. We even moved it 3 times a day the last week or two. It also keeps them cleaner and makes processing them less gross.
I used full 2x4's. It is a bit heavy but it is solid and, with all of that moving around, solid is working out real well. You also have to thing about how you will hang the water and food. Full water and feeders can weigh a bit and when you have four of them hanging and you are rolling that thing along.....When I use it for other chickens they roost on the rafters that hold the roof tarp up. If I had it to do over I would still use full 2x4's for a lot of it but there probably are a few places I could get some weight savings.
They need persuasion. My daughter usually gets in the tractor and herds them ahead of the trailing edge. I can move it without her but it is slower because you have to keep shooshing the away. I was in a hurry once and ended up breaking a leg on one of the birds. It wasn't moving quickly enough and I was in a hurry and not paying attention and the leg got caught between the trailing edge and the ground...snap!. I used that as a lesson about patience for my daughter and explained that being impatient hurt the animal and would cost it its life. I felt bad but, in the end, he was a good size and we had him for dinner that night.
