This morning, however, I needed to be at the local auction barn. This morning, I was finally going to cut my chicken flock in half. Something I've been thinking about doing for a few months now, but with pick-up truck problems, didn't have a viable way of getting my culled birds there. Not without a huge mess in the back of the Suburban, anyway. Which would definitely put DH and I at odds; so let's just avoid that scenario. I don't enjoy scrubbing chicken manure out of carpeting anyway.
This morning, however, the pick-up is both at home and operable!! (Thanks to a new coil pack.) So this morning found me wishing I could sleep in even as I was shutting off the alarm, throwing back my covers, and climbing out of bed at 7:00 sharp. It's worth it, I tell myself, this giving up my one sleep in til 8:00 day, so that I can reduce the number of chickens I have. Chickens that are getting older, that are not so cost efficient anymore. Chickens that only lay eggs half the week but eat chicken feed every day.
I had to put together the old dog crate that we keep in the barn. It hasn't been used for a dog in years, not since Old Dog got too arthritic to curl up in it on trips away from home. Instead, it spends most of its time dismantled and only occasionally gets put back together to temporarily haul poultry. A crate that once housed a 120 pound German Shepherd can hold a lot of chickens on their way to the butcher, LOL.
Once the dog crate was assembled in the bed of the pick-up, I drove over to the coop and backed up to the door. Then I went inside, innocently threw a scoop of layer pellets into the feed trough, and started grabbing designated chickens. Two black Australorp hens. Two light Brahma hens (ooh this hurt, as I have a fondness for my Brahmas. But two little light Brahma fuzzballs will be arriving in a few days with my chicken order from McMurray Hatchery, so out go the 'old' ones.) Two hens that are Easter Egger (Ameracauna) crosses. One silver laced Wyandotte hen. And my 'extra' rooster, Hot Stuff. With half as many hens, I don't need as many roosters. Into the dog crate they go, one at a time.
I take a goodbye picture, or two.
Then it's down the road we go. At 8:00 a.m., mine were the first poultry at the auction barn. I gave my info, put chickens into auction cages, and left. I've too much to do today (garden to plant, graduation open house to attend, laundry to wash while the weather is nice enough to hang it on the line) to stick around and see how much they go for. I'll find that out about midweek, when a check will arrive in the mail, accompanied by an invoice that shows what price each chicken fetched.
Meanwhile, back at this little place here, the remaining hens and rooster look a bit unsure of what just happened. Suddenly the coop and the chicken jail (the pen made from our old trampoline) look huge. My flock looks tiny. It has been almost halved. (Two hens are missing from the picture below; they were in the coop laying at the time I took the picture.)
However, by Wednesday I'll be swimming in chickens again. Fifteen broiler chicks and six new pullet chicks (plus the one 'free' rare chick--usually a cockerel--McMurray always throws in) are due to arrive by mail early this coming week. Got to set up a brooder section in my currently more spacious coop for them. :0) Add that to today's to do list.
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