2024 Meat Birds - 2 Weeks Old

An eventful week for our feathered friends.  The changes are apparent.  First, they are putting on feathers.  Their heads still have the yellow fuzz that is typical of cute little chicks, but white feathers are starting to come out.  They are noticeably larger, too.  We'll find out how much they've grown in a minute.

The storm that blew through on Wednesday set the birds back.  First, many of them came very close to dying as they got wet and had hypothermia.  Although we saved all of them, for probably 12 hours of the day, they didn't eat and didn't drink.  Once they recovered, they ate, but in a life span of 8 weeks, losing half a day of nutrition is going to set things back a little bit.

The bug population has fallen off.  Where I was feeding them between 95 - 200 beetles each night, tonight only 5 beetles were found.  That falloff in protein will be missed by the birds.  We're expanding the real estate within the chicken tractor that they can roam on, almost daily.  Since they are eating more each day, they are also pooping more.  We move the chicken tractor to fresh grass, so that they aren't standing in their poop.

So tonight is the night I pick out an average looking bird out of the flock of 32 and bring them to the kitchen scale to see where we measure up.  Like a prizefighter standing before the scales, let's look at tonight's heavy-weight competitor:

Notice the big dinosaur-looking feet on that little bird.  That means he's got some growing to do to fit into those "shoes."

Let's zoom in on the weight:

1 pound and two ounces.  In looking at records of past history, 20 ounces at this time hold the record, I think.  This bird isn't materially far behind.

At a day old he weighed 3 ounces.

A week later, he more than doubled his weight to 6.5 ounces

Not to be outdone, a week later, he more than doubled his weight to 18 ounces or 1 pound 2 ounces.

That's pretty good growth there.  We'll see if we can keep them healthy, happy and growing!  Next week we'll see how Week 3 goes.

Happy 2024

How did you bring in the New Year?  It's been years since I've even been awake to bring it in.  We're normally asleep.  The boys were over and in the late afternoon, we built a bonfire .  There were a lot of branches in the pasture near the barn that we piled up over a big stump and we lit it up.  We sat on logs and a couple of lawn chairs and talked.  Russ put some country music from his play list and we listened.  The neighbor walked over and we talked for a bit.  It was relaxing.

Elsie walked over to share time with us.  It was a good reminder for me.  I've kind of given up on New Year's Resolutions.  I do have some goals or To-Do's and Rosie is involved.  Rosie was unable to get pregnant when we had bulls on the property on two separate occasions.  In January, we'll have the vet come to the house for a farm call and see if he can figure out why she's unable to get pregnant.  Hopefully, Dr. Fontenot can diagnose what the problem is and that it is fix-able.

We talked and sang and laughed and even danced in a goofy fashion in front of the fire.  It was just a perfect night for a fire.  The sky was crystal clear.  We gazed at the stars and could see planes flying high above us with their blinking lights.

We walked back and forth in the dark, bringing fresh branches to fee the fire.  The flames licked at the sky, growing higher and higher.

We watched the glowing embers floating high into the sky.  What a sight to behold.

We don't know what 2024 will hold.  What a year it has been?  Full of victories and disappointments.  The challenges have been there, no doubt, but good memories (and even miracles) were made.  Lots of folks are saying that 2024 will include a "Black Swan" event and trouble, economic and otherwise.  No one knows.  We pray that the New Year brings health and joy, prosperity and laughter and good times and memories made with the ones we love.  We wish that for you as well.  May God Bless You!