The life and times of spanners meat chooks

spanner · **Joined:** Wed Jun 04, 2008 12:42 pm **Posts:** 91

Well i thought I would make a thread about the life and times of my little girls and boys who will one day become my supper. [smilie=a_goodjob.gif]

Today I went and purchased 10 little no name breed of meat chooks specifically for my table.

I am going to make a little tribute to them by observing and recording their life, their antics and their personalites and the rpocess of ........... harvesting [smilie=a_flyaway.gif]

and preperation [smilie=a_reading.gif]

.

I will hopefully have photos of little chicks in a box up here soon followed by other photos of interest.

As this is my very first attempt to raise chooks from day olds it will be very exciting for me......not so exciting for some of you old hands but ...meh.

Any way I have also named the chicks as well. They are monday roast, tuesday fillet, wednesday stew, thursday tandoori, friday soup, Satuurday roast, and sunday bird, monday lunch, tuesday cold snack, wednesdy chow mein.

I hope I do not get too attached to them with such sweet names.

cheers.

frasers_zoo · **Posted:** Wed Aug 06, 2008 10:00 pm

LMAO!! sounds like steer that I had once that was named steak burger....... :lol:

spanner · **Joined:** Wed Jun 04, 2008 12:42 pm **Posts:** 91

well fro those of you who think that tropical north queensland is always warm, hot or damn hot think again. It is winter up here and we had a very cold ( read : two feather doonas and socks cold) night last night. It got all the way down to 14 degreess celcius!!!!!

well I was a little worried about the kiddies in the cold with only a 40 watt bulb to keep them snug and cosy. Well I need not have worried as they were all chipper and running about with glee that I was filling up their bowl of food.

There was one little chick who was reluctant to leave the warmth of the pot with heat but even it was ready afte the others were cheeping with such joy.

Peter16 · **Posted:** Thu Aug 07, 2008 8:27 pm

spanner wrote:

It got all the way down to 14 degreess celcius!!!!!

.

Thats nothing :lol:

judging by my climate my climate :-D

katscars · **Posted:** Thu Aug 07, 2008 8:30 pm

Sounds great. love the names :lol:

greenaus · **Posted:** Sat Aug 09, 2008 12:05 am

14 degrees. :lol:

It's all relative to what you're used to. I grew up in Mackay where as a kid I thought 8 was absolutely freezing.

I have 1 doona on our bed here where it gets down to 1 or 2 at the moment.

...though I have to add...I do have a heater on...not that it's particularly effective in an old timber house with huge rooms and high ceilings. (Hot air rises).

On topic: great names

Stt · **Joined:** Sun Aug 19, 2007 7:01 pm **Posts:** 3006

Peter16 wrote:

spanner wrote:

It got all the way down to 14 degreess celcius!!!!!

.

Thats nothing :lol:

judging by my climate my climate :-D

well said peter theres frost and frozen water here right now! :lol:

at 10.00am

spanner · **Joined:** Wed Jun 04, 2008 12:42 pm **Posts:** 91

my daughter who attends Kindy wanted to take some of the kids to show her class mates.

Soooo dutifull daddy then get 4 chicks and two big chooks to take to kindy.

What a hit they were. The kids were so amazzed that the chicks were so small and the chooks were so tame. I have them trained to come at a gallop to " took took took" and they will then hang around my feet until I give them so food.

It was really amazing to hear my daughter tell the kids who are all 4 and 5 year olds about the facts of life in that the yellow cute ones are going to be meat chooks and the little black ones are going to be egg layers. She was even telling them how she is going to use the axe and pull out the guts.... [smilie=pope.gif]

... Daddy had to intervene then as he saw the kindy teacher starting to blance and get green around the gills. [smilie=a_holycrap.gif]

------------------------------

What I find amazing is that the little beggars are only two weeks old and they have so much individual personality. There is one who is really dominant already and will push and peck the others out of the way till he ( I will call it a he) gets to the food or water or warmest spot.

The wings are really starting to develope now as they are getting the indiviual feathers and a couple of them are even getting their little bum feathers as my daughter so eloquently puts it.

The weight difference betweent he egg chooks and the meat birds is also quite amazing. When we first got them as day olds they were basically the same sixe but after two weeks the size difference is almost double. The little black egg layers seem almost petite in comparison to the meaty ones.

spanner · **Joined:** Wed Jun 04, 2008 12:42 pm **Posts:** 91

Well the kiddies are out of the smallish box they were in as they are now getting rather large.....well the meat birds are large , the egg layers are still these cute little balls of fluff with wing feathers.

I have now put them into an old avery that I got from the dump and dutifully scrubbed it clean with bleach, followed by vinigar, followed by some natural oil which I can not remember right now followed by lots of shreaded paper and a warm lamp aan a MUCH bigger food bowl.!!! By god the meat birds can eat!!!

The little egg layers are so cute and light and nimble in comaprison the the meaties. I have put some pearches in the cage for all the kids but the egglayers are the only ones nimble enough to actually get onto them. Its not like they are high or anything just a few inches off the cage bottom.

Anyway my daughter really loves telling everyone that he meaties are going to be "knocked on the head" and she is bizarely really excited about helping in the harvesting process. She is well aware that the chooks have to die and she has watched a few "wducational vidieos" on You tube to ensure she is fully cogniscent of what is happening to these birds.

I think in about three weeks time I will be able to place the birds into the main coupe. Just wondering if anyone has any advice on how to introduce a large flock of young birds to two other older birds? I was thinking about putting them in there in the evening before when it is dark and having the older birds wake up to find the "stork" has brought some kiddies to join them. What do you think?

Bourke · **Posted:** Sun Aug 24, 2008 9:51 am

Good topic, much better than days of our lives, This could be call days of their lives :-D

I will keep a watch for the next installment.

Bourke

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