Early this past week we came to the conclusion that these birds could no longer stay in the garage... The entire house smelled like poop. It was real bad. So Josh threw together their coop and they moved outside. Thank goodness it's warm during the day and we are keeping the lamp on them at night. They seem to be doing well and my house smells a lot better!
As you can see, Josh had some help with building the coop! So proud of my husband's patience with my boys, they made some good memories putting this thing together!
They continue to grow and get larger... That's the whole point! Still amazing how much they can change and grow in just a day or two! I won't go into details but we did lose two of them this week. One was by dog and the other was one of the two smaller ones we've been watching... We still have a small one that continues to amaze us!
The work is not to overwhelming thus far. Mostly just checking on their feed and water. We've moved the coop once and that was stressful since I was scared we were going to smoosh one. They are not big on moving around. I honestly think moving the coop is going to be the biggest job, but hopefully it will be better once they get larger. Plus we have a better game plan for next time to do it in the morning when we set their food out so they will move with the feeder.
This week we have spent some money...
1. Coop-we had most of what we needed for the coop, but still had to purchase some hardware and chicken wire... Everything totalled $87 including the$12 wheels from last week... I'm very pleased with that!
2. Plucker- Josh is going to construct a Whizbang plucker to take much of the time out of processing. I highly recommend watching a YouTube video of one of these in action, seriously amazing! We purchased the plucker fingers and a switch for the motor which totalled $45. We have most of what we need to build one already, but still probably going to need a few more things for this, but it's going to be well worth it... Go to YouTube and you'll see what I mean!
3. Bag of food, grit, and pine shavings all totalled about $30.
4. Our gallon waterer is fast becoming too small so we ordered some cup waterers to make a 5 gallon one...$10
This week's total (subtracting the $12 wheels I accounted for last week) is $160.
It was our most expensive week so far, but the coop and plucker are going to be the biggest expenses and will be able to be used from year to year or sold for a profit.
Our other expenses (besides feed) that we are anticipating... Vacuum sealer, bags, butchering knife, larger feeder, plus probably some parts for the plucker!
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