Anyways. Between sneezing and nose-blowing, I managed to do the bare minimum of barn chores last weekend. Hay was haphazardly pitched to goats. Chicken feed was flung in the general direction of the chickens. Paul took care of the mule. The hog was....wait a second, I didn't do a darned thing with the hog. Nevermind.
But what eventually caught up with me was the Creepy Meat pen. I've been meaning to move them to the larger pen, but of course, have been putting it off. There are thirty-two, not-so-little-anymore, eating and crapping machines in that pen. And that pen needs to have fresh straw laid down (on top of the poop) twice a day and the entire pen cleaned out every two days or it gets too heavy to move and the smell becomes unbearable.
I had managed to go four days without tossing out the bedding; I just kept adding clean bedding on top of the poopy bedding so they didn't have to sit in their own crap. Although in all honesty, they do end up sitting in their own crap because thirty seconds after I put fresh bedding down, they're shooting out shit torpedoes. It will never cease to amaze me how much crap those birds crap out.
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| Small Creepy Meat Pen, cleaned just now. There will be a carpet of poop in there before the end of the day. |
The birds have obviously outgrown their enclosure and I put them in the larger pen this afternoon. Which they soiled immediately. As soon as I get my useless butt in gear, I'll a clear runway for the chicken tractor and I'll shove them in there and just move the tractor every day to fresh, un-poopy ground.
I took a picture of the Creepy Meats about twenty minutes after I put them in the larger pen. They had emptied the three feed containers. One of them was sitting in the container, crapping himself while pecking at what was left of the crumbles. If you wonder why they are called Creepy Meats (I cannot claim ownership of the name "Creepy Meat", I believe OFG has that honor), just take a look at this picture:
There is no doubt in my mind that these Cornish Cross cockerels give you the most bang for your buck. These birds do nothing but eat, sleep (I think) and shit. And look at them. Their crops are huge from the amount of feed that they voraciously ingest and their back ends are distended from the massive quantity of food that their intestines have to process. I took note when they started acting food-crazy; one week. In just one week, the little fluffy chicks turned into a bunch of insane, food-driven, eating machines. It was like just one day they came running to the feed dish, like they hadn't been fed for weeks, pushing, shoving & climbing over their pen mates to get to the crumbles. They're like chicks addicted to crack and haven't had a fix. This seems all harmless and benign at first, but they will soon be weighing five or six pounds. And there will be over thirty of those crazed effers crazily flapping their useless wings and trying to beat me down with their oversized, shit-stained, velociraptor-looking feet in order to get to the bucket of feed before their brothers do.
It's like a scene out of Hitchcock's The Birds. But with really, really fat birds.
But at least I have some control over them. And I could probably out run them. Unless they all ganged up on me at once and I slipped on a slick of shit and fell down in the pen and they pecked me to death and then started to eat me because there wasn't any more crumbles left. Paul wouldn't know what happened to me; he'd probably figure I was out somewhere doing nothing. There might be a pile of bones, but they'd be covered with a three inch layer of mostly digested chicken crumbles and if you've ever had a chicken poop on your car, you know that stuff can take the paint right off so I'm sure it wouldn't be long before even my bones were dissolved into the much of the pen floor.
Wow. Where did that come from?
It's been a long day (night...actually morning again now. whatever).
I took a picture of the Creepy Meats about twenty minutes after I put them in the larger pen. They had emptied the three feed containers. One of them was sitting in the container, crapping himself while pecking at what was left of the crumbles. If you wonder why they are called Creepy Meats (I cannot claim ownership of the name "Creepy Meat", I believe OFG has that honor), just take a look at this picture:
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| Creepy, no, Nasty Meats. |
It's like a scene out of Hitchcock's The Birds. But with really, really fat birds.
But at least I have some control over them. And I could probably out run them. Unless they all ganged up on me at once and I slipped on a slick of shit and fell down in the pen and they pecked me to death and then started to eat me because there wasn't any more crumbles left. Paul wouldn't know what happened to me; he'd probably figure I was out somewhere doing nothing. There might be a pile of bones, but they'd be covered with a three inch layer of mostly digested chicken crumbles and if you've ever had a chicken poop on your car, you know that stuff can take the paint right off so I'm sure it wouldn't be long before even my bones were dissolved into the much of the pen floor.
Wow. Where did that come from?
It's been a long day (night...actually morning again now. whatever).
The things I'll do to get a chicken dinner.
Ugh...They ARE creepy.
ReplyDeleteWhenever I grumble about picking up the piles of dog poo in our yard, SM always says "Stop feeding them and you'll have less poo."
Effective but certainly not the point to achieve a nice roasting chicken.
Hope you feel better soon, CR!
Hope you feel better soon! The cute little fluffy chicks you brought home have certainly entered a rather unattractive phase... but oh how lovely they will look when you get them into the freezer! :)
ReplyDeleteEw, they do look kind of gross. I don't know if I could raise those. Just do different breeds, a slightly longer raised bird. There are people starting to do that. Wait a little longer, they claim better quality of the meat.
ReplyDeleteThis is too funny! I just pressed "publish" on a blog entry about eating one of our own "creepy meat" chickens, and wended my over to yours to find you were writing about the same thing. Sort of. While you focussed on the crap-aspect of the little guys, I waxed poetic and left that stuff out. In the end, though, we'll both wind up great chicken dinners. Hope you feel better soon -- and thanks for a blog post that had me laughing. :)
ReplyDeleteI agree that they are the most economical birds to raise for meat but they are ugly!!
ReplyDeleteJust hold on the the thought of how Delicious they will taste in a few weeks.
Hope you will be feeling better soon. Weather is too darned pretty to be sick!
Well, you've successfully deterred me from ever raising creepy meat birds! Yeah, a lovely, moist, tender roast chicken certainly does appeal to me from time to time . . . but I just keep stewing my old geriatric hens (and occasionally a rooster) . . . so I shouldn't complain about not having that lovely, moist, tender roast chicken!
ReplyDeleteNow that was an accurate description of raising "franken-chickens"! You do get the most bang for your buck from this breed, but they are not for the faint of heart. We are down to 5 in the freezer, so we will be ordering some to raise again soon.
ReplyDeleteYou scare me sometimes. :0)
ReplyDelete