Pigs and Chicks

[Maya]

Also... very useful to know how to grow 'winter food' for your animals...

http://www.blacksoldierflyfarming.com/

 

[Horseofadifferentcolor]

I guess our honeymoon period is over with our lovley chickens.I used to love just watching them, running around doing their chicken thing. Up until the past few days we had no losses or injuries, only one sick and that guy we had just purchased and was already sick. I worked very hard at putting more fencing around the horse pasture so that we could free range all day. At first everything was great. Happy chickens and a happy me.Even the horses were cool with the new roomies.
Today I'm just completley grossed out by these vile creatures. One of our ladies was being eaten by all the rest, one disapeared, and two silkie roos that have been fine together for months all the sudden made each others heads look like two bloody meat bags walking around. I have a very hard time looking at them without gagging.
So my point in sharing this stuff is that I am aware that you win some and loose some with chickens but will I ever be desensitized to this stuff? I feel dirty and sad. I'm not sure how I will ever be able to slay them myself. Just the sight of all that blood from the roo fight freaks me out. But this is the point of having these chickens is for food(eggs). I am having a really hard time with this and it's seems so wrong of me to eat meat all the time but not wanting to dirty my hands with the death of a live creature. So I have a very ugly roo now sitting in my greehouse recovering, so me and my husband talked about him being our first to kill and even writing about makes me feel yucky.

How do I harden myself? Do I really want to be hardend, to have what it takes to kill my own food?

 

[Mr. Premise]

I've had chicken for years and never had any eat each other. Just make sure when you choose breeds you choose the ones that are not aggressive. My first were Rhode Island Reds and they were a bit aggressive. They would peck at the lowest ranking one, but that only resulted in a loss of feathers. After that we got less aggressive breeds and have never had a problem.

 

[Horseofadifferentcolor]

I've had chicken for years and never had any eat each other. Just make sure when you choose breeds you choose the ones that are not aggressive. My first were Rhode Island Reds and they were a bit aggressive. They would peck at the lowest ranking one, but that only resulted in a loss of feathers. After that we got less aggressive breeds and have never had a problem.

We have black javas and wyendottes that were raised together along with our silkies. We think what happened is our mini horse had got in their roosting pen and could not get back out. The next day is when we noticed one was missing. She was hulled out like a bowl. When we walked over to her the other ckickens followed over and ate on her. So I think she had been injured by the pony and the others finished her off is my guess. I just moved the silkies to their own area. I think the missing silkie was taken by owl or hawk becuase she is just gone, no feathers or any other evidence in the pasture.

We were going to buy some chicks for the spring and I have alreadys decided to buy all the same looking ones so as to not have a favorite. Its hard not to love a silkie though. Its like having a little flock of muppets. I make pickled eggs with thier smaller sized eggs and they are very popular in our house, I cant keep them stocked!