I Want Turkeys Part 2

I still want turkeys.  I found a trio of adult turkeys at a good price not too far from home.  We found a coup Darling Husband can build without too much expense and looks easy.  We contact the seller and set everything up for the weekend.  That gives Darling Husband 6 days to build the coup. 

Darling Husband has a friend who has a radiator shop he has kids who love hatching chickens and an uncle with access to a lot of free eggs.  He regularly needs to get rid of the chicks that hatch because there are only so many chicks a man can have and his kids like hatching eggs - not the adult chickens so much.  Somehow he ended up with a lot of birds at his radiator shop.  The city found out, you can’t have birds in the industrial part of town.  He called us to see if we would be willing to take a young but breeding pair of Black Silkies.  Sure why not.  He has only a few days to get rid of all the birds.  Instead of building a turkey coup we now had to build the chicken coup we will need when Laurel and Hardy get bigger.  It needs to be done in hours not a couple days.  Some friends gave us their old dog kennel it’s about 4 x 5 so Darling Husband decided to adapt that to fit the chickens.

 Great but it didn’t get finished so he brought home the Silkies and put them in a box on the kitchen counter every time one Caw-ca-doodle doo-ed our poor dog started howling.  I put them outside so the cats could explore the outside of the box but not make my dog go crazy.  Finally the coup was ready and we put the silkies in it.  I thought they both looked like roosters but DH said no they were a breeding pair.  Neither of us know what we are doing. 

The next morning I went out early to watch them as I was feeding the rest of the animals and both of those silkies make rooster noises!  UGG we have 2 roosters.

Learning Fodder and a Chicken Coop

Three days into the fodder experiment I forgot to water the seeds and left the soaking seeds soaking for 48 hours not 24.  Since then I have been very good about getting enough water on the seeds and we bought a grow light to help the fodder turn green. The night we fed the tray of fodder with the seeds that soaked an extra day; it was slimy and not all the seeds sprouted so the animals got some pretty yucky fodder.  So soaking 48 hours is not advised!  I also think I may be keeping the trays too wet.  When I put the holes in the trays I put them in the bottom of the trays it is more difficult because the bottom of the trays have little channels in them, Darling Husband pokes the holes into the side as close to the bottom as possible but the channels never empty – it seems the trays with the holes on the sides do not sprout as well.  We are learning.

This Christmas we made a chicken coop for our oldest daughter and gave her 5 chickens and a miniature rooster.  Maybe in spring she will have enough eggs to share with us.  The person who gave us the chickens has offered to give us more.  He knows a lot of local poultry people, I am hoping he may be a connection for getting some Red Bourbon Turkeys in the spring.