# Chickens for preppers



## damoc (Jul 14, 2007)

I just talk about why chickens are probably the best critter to have on the homestead or prepper retreat.


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## 50ShadesOfDirt (Nov 11, 2018)

Excellent vid ... thanks!

I consider chickens to be an _essential_ part of the homestead ecosystem; without them, the recycling of food waste is a huge problem, and we miss the eggs.

Over the years we've had them, we learned lots of lessons about keeping them alive in this area ... mostly along the lines of what not to do. This coming spring (thaw), we start on the Taj Mahal of chicken coops, and we hope to have them back by beginning- to mid-summer.

By end of summer, I hope to report in on keeping the next batch alive, and whether or not the Taj Mahal system (critter-PROOF) worked. Place yer bets now ...


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## GREENCOUNTYPETE (Jul 25, 2006)

an egg a day is all the protein most people actually need to keep running.

the Koreans have a dish I won't try to spell it but it translates mixed rice and vegetable , it is served with a sunny side up egg on top and a chilly pepper sauce , very good , very filling and good for you. easy on the digestion also. I just mix all the vegetables in a wok to cook , it makes a fairly fast one bowl feeds you meal.

I might like a couple three eggs on top of mine.

trimmings of vegetables go to chickens and they recycle it into more eggs


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## doc- (Jun 26, 2015)

Eggs have taken a bad rap from The Big Cholesterol Lie....They are as close to a complete food as you can get. They DO NOT raise your cholesterol and also contain a couple chemicals that lower your risk of heart problems...Each egg contains 6-7gm complete protein (you need 40 gm a day to just barely survive and 60 gm+ to thrive).

One of the best things about chickens as a food source is that you don't have to worry about storage-- you have a continuing daily supply of eggs and can slaughter the birds one meal at a time.


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## GunMonkeyIntl (May 13, 2013)

doc- said:


> Eggs have taken a bad rap from The Big Cholesterol Lie....They are as close to a complete food as you can get. They DO NOT raise your cholesterol and also contain a couple chemicals that lower your risk of heart problems...Each egg contains 6-7gm complete protein (you need 40 gm a day to just barely survive and 60 gm+ to thrive).
> 
> One of the best things about chickens as a food source is that you don't have to worry about storage-- you have a continuing daily supply of eggs and can slaughter the birds one meal at a time.


Eggs actually keep a long time, too. In the store-bought era, we’ve come to think of eggs as a fast-perishable food, like milk, but that’s really not the case.

Our eggs never see a refrigerator, and they don’t get cleaned. Off the counter top, we routinely eat eggs that are a few weeks old. A few days ago, we ate eggs that were almost a year old, at room-temperature the whole time, stored in water and lime. They were completely indistinguishable from “fresh”. 

Some of those eggs were laid by accidental box hatches, and, with the seasonality of our local insects and scraps, we wouldn’t have to provide feed to our chickens if we didn’t want to. They’re almost fire-and-forget livestock- and they’re entertaining yard ornaments, to boot.


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## altair (Jul 23, 2011)

GunMonkeyIntl said:


> Our eggs never see a refrigerator, and they don’t get cleaned. Off the counter top, we routinely eat eggs that are a few weeks old. A few days ago, we ate eggs that were almost a year old, at room-temperature the whole time, stored in water and lime. They were completely indistinguishable from “fresh”.


Aye, we had eggs on our counter, then put in the fridge, then back on the counter back in October. We ate the last one Wednesday.


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## Macrocarpus (Jan 30, 2018)

:"eggs that were almost a year old, at room-temperature the whole time, stored in water and lime" An old, old way of storing eggs. Somewhere in one of the old-tme author's books is a story of a girl who sent a note telling of her desire for a husband along with a cask of eggs in lime water, shipped to Alaska during the gold rush. The fellow who found the note tracked her down, found her already married.


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## Forcast (Apr 15, 2014)

Store eggs are cheaper that feed and your time. Most people cant tell the difference between home eggs and store eggs. Now my city kids sold fresh eggs at $12 a dozen from 8 Baltimore city back yard hens. Tells you something about city people i guess.


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## Alice In TX/MO (May 10, 2002)

"Yard eggs" are $8 a dozen at the farmer's market here. Our yard eggs just cost the feed and time to feed them, and the silly chickens are incredibly entertaining.

I trade eggs for pastry and crepes at the market.


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## altair (Jul 23, 2011)

I agree it's more cost effective to get store eggs. But I would rather spend money on eggs I knew came from hens that weren't subsisting in a shoebox for their short, short lives. Plus we get fertilizer, composters, bug control and entertainment out of it.


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## Macrocarpus (Jan 30, 2018)

There is no appreciable difference in the dietary value of "yard" eggs and the commercial variety. A bit more color in the yolk, usually, perhaps a harder shell. Even so, I would prefer to have chickens on the place for all the reasons one keeps livestock. I do not worry all that much about the "shoebox", a chicken is not a philosopher nor are the conditions that bad. No *****, no owls, no foxes---the shoebox chicken has an easier life than most.


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## Northof49 (Mar 3, 2018)

doc- said:


> Eggs have taken a bad rap from The Big Cholesterol Lie....They are as close to a complete food as you can get. They DO NOT raise your cholesterol and also contain a couple chemicals that lower your risk of heart problems...Each egg contains 6-7gm complete protein (you need 40 gm a day to just barely survive and 60 gm+ to thrive).


I agree fully except for one detail missing. This is only true if there is a rooster and the eggs are fertilized. This is important for hormone balance.
No wonder so many are gay or unsure of what % girl they are when we intentionally remove all the testosterone from our diet by castrating all males, removing roosters etc.

God planned it perfect. Man ruined it.


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## RJ2019 (Aug 27, 2019)

Not sure whether to laugh, roll my eyes, or cry. 🤣🙄😭


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## Pony (Jan 6, 2003)

Macrocarpus said:


> There is no appreciable difference in the dietary value of "yard" eggs and the commercial variety. A bit more color in the yolk, usually, perhaps a harder shell. Even so, I would prefer to have chickens on the place for all the reasons one keeps livestock. I do not worry all that much about the "shoebox", a chicken is not a philosopher nor are the conditions that bad. No ***, no owls, no foxes---the shoebox chicken has an easier life than most.


Umm.

No.

The "shoebox" chicken has a miserable life. And if you've raised chickens, you'd know that they do have personalities. There is no reason to be cruel to any creature, no matter the length of its life.

I've been to a "cage-free" facility. It was a chaotic, filthy mess, a ginormous building one could not enter without first donning a re-breathing mask. The birds were miserable and pretty much bald of feathers. I would reject those eggs on that reason alone, but there is data to suggest that truly free-range eggs are, indeed, nutritionally superior.


The 2007 Mother Earth News egg testing project. 

Our testing has found that, compared to official U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) nutrient data for commercial eggs, eggs from hens raised on pasture may contain:

1/3 less cholesterol
1/4 less saturated fat
2/3 more vitamin A
2 times more omega-3 fatty acids
3 times more vitamin E
7 times more beta carotene





__





Are Real Free Range Eggs Better? – Mother Earth News


Are free range eggs better? A MOTHER EARTH NEWS study on pastured eggs found that compared to conventional American eggs, real free-range eggs have less cholesterol and saturated fat, plus more vitamins A and E, beta carotene and polyunsaturated omega-3 fatty acids.



www.motherearthnews.com


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## RJ2019 (Aug 27, 2019)

Pony said:


> Umm.
> 
> No.
> 
> ...


I remember that egg study! And I've always wondered why nobody followed up on it


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## Rodeo's Bud (Apr 10, 2020)

I don't like fresh eggs. My family does, but they wouldn't want to take care of the chickens.

Fine by me. I prefer the taste of plain old store bought eggs.


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## Pony (Jan 6, 2003)

RJ2019 said:


> I remember that egg study! And I've always wondered why nobody followed up on it


I wonder how people think that animals breathing in their own effluent, fed antibiotics, and stressed to the point of cannibalism could possibly provide healthy food.


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## RJ2019 (Aug 27, 2019)

Pony said:


> I wonder how people think that animals breathing in their own effluent, fed antibiotics, and stressed to the point of cannibalism could possibly provide healthy food.


Definitely not ideal.


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## Macrocarpus (Jan 30, 2018)

You folks surely would not have wanted to eat pork in the 1800's. An egg is an egg.


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## altair (Jul 23, 2011)

No doubt! Thankfully some producers have made strides.


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## Pony (Jan 6, 2003)

Macrocarpus said:


> You folks surely would not have wanted to eat pork in the 1800's. An egg is an egg.


Unless I know who raised it, I don't want to eat pork now. 

We lived near a CAFO before. It was an abysmal place. The people who raise animals like that should be horsewhipped.


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## Digitalis (Aug 20, 2021)

Forcast said:


> Store eggs are cheaper that feed and your time. Most people cant tell the difference between home eggs and store eggs. Now my city kids sold fresh eggs at $12 a dozen from 8 Baltimore city back yard hens. Tells you something about city people i guess.


Most can't tell the difference? What? It's pretty darn obvious, unless the store egg is "pasture raised."


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## Macrocarpus (Jan 30, 2018)

CAFOs are here to stay---you can complain all you want, but there are not enough farmers in the world to feed our population without them. Conditions vary from one CAFO to another, but they all use essentially the same methods adapted to the animals they feed. Pigs at the sale barns here sometimes bring very little because only a few now know how to feed or butcher. Cattle almost all go to feed lots now--There are local butchers, but I have noticed that if you use one of them you pay far more for your beef/pork than if you buy at a good store. I know of only one man who can do his own butchering, and he has invested in a big walk in cooler. He grew up in Alaska, so he learned to butcher at home.

Attributing human characteristics to animals, such as "personality" is a common thing with people who do not have to deal with survival---dogs, cats, chickens were once "farm tools" and food rather than pets. My wife has ensured the safety of some of my geese by naming them and talking to them so that they turn and look at her when she addresses them. She thinks they "know" her when in fact all they notice is that she is looking directly at them as would a predator. 

Belly aching about the state of the world does no good. If you cannot eat store-bougjhten foods, go to the country and raise your own---and live with the vagaries of weather, animals, feed prices and fortune. I have noticed that corn is way up this year---almost twenty cents per pound here.


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## Pony (Jan 6, 2003)

Macrocarpus said:


> CAFOs are here to stay---you can complain all you want, but there are not enough farmers in the world to feed our population without them. Conditions vary from one CAFO to another, but they all use essentially the same methods adapted to the animals they feed. Pigs at the sale barns here sometimes bring very little because only a few now know how to feed or butcher. Cattle almost all go to feed lots now--There are local butchers, but I have noticed that if you use one of them you pay far more for your beef/pork than if you buy at a good store. I know of only one man who can do his own butchering, and he has invested in a big walk in cooler. He grew up in Alaska, so he learned to butcher at home.
> 
> Attributing human characteristics to animals, such as "personality" is a common thing with people who do not have to deal with survival---dogs, cats, chickens were once "farm tools" and food rather than pets. My wife has ensured the safety of some of my geese by naming them and talking to them so that they turn and look at her when she addresses them. She thinks they "know" her when in fact all they notice is that she is looking directly at them as would a predator.
> 
> Belly aching about the state of the world does no good. If you cannot eat store-bougjhten foods, go to the country and raise your own---and live with the vagaries of weather, animals, feed prices and fortune. I have noticed that corn is way up this year---almost twenty cents per pound here.


In a word...

Bull cookies.

Are you aware of how CAFOs are run? That the "buffer" land surrounding the CAFOs is enough to sustainably raise the animals, but not the most expedient?

There was a time when there were more farmers, and plenty of food. And the fact remains that we can, indeed, _properly_ produce more than enough food to feed the world.

Of course, that would necessitate the removal of corrupt governments that block food getting to its appropriate destination. 

Food in this country is artificially cheap. Too much of it is garbage, with precious little nutritive value. 

In a LOT of areas, the local butchers are overrun with business because people do NOT want CAFO raised meat. They pay local producers a good price, and they pay the local butchers a fair price for processing. That is the case here.

I refuse to eat food that will be detrimental to my health. 

I WILL talk about it - I am NOT complaining or belly-aching, I am stating plain fact - and it is never wrong to speak truth.

If you choose to eat carp, that is your choice. Do not accuse me of "complaining" and "belly-aching" because you're defending your poor choices.


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## Macrocarpus (Jan 30, 2018)

Poppycock!!!!! There is NEVER enough buffer land around a CAFO to raise the animals as they would live naturally. In most cases the CAFO operators have to haul off the litter, the manure and dead animals and spread them on surrounding farm land or pasture just to be rid of the waste. The people who OWN the land being fertilized so sometimes pay substantial sums, most for transport, some for the fertilizer itself. Dead animals have to be buried--the people who run chicken houses have to "cruise" them regularly. 

I know of one egg operation that regularly sells "spent" hens for as little as $2---Farmboy Bill has seen that operator killing spent hens and grinding them into fertilizer---sometimes not even the chicken soup market can absorb such quantity. 

Pigs as well; Sows are confined and the waste has to be removed. Again, there is NEVER enough buffer land to raise that number of animals efficiently. Even if small farmers were willing to work for peanuts they could not raise pigs, or any other animal, as efficiently as a CAFO.


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## Macrocarpus (Jan 30, 2018)

Further---in th case of cattle, the CAFO"s are feed lots---none breed cattle. The feed lot may hold several thousand animals and cover many acres with trucks hauling in fed and trucks hauling manure out. They are not pretty things---they look like any farmer's feed lot multiplied a thousand times. Now, it takes anywhere from two and a half acres to twenty five acres to run a cow in this country, the best and most productive land in the S. and SE of the country, the poorest out in W. Texas, New Mexioc, lAz, Nevada. If you were to try to fatten those CAFO calves on the range we'd never eat beef. Those ranges are where the calves COME from---there is no more room there for them. If you leave the calves on the range to grow out you cannot keep the cows they came from.


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## Pony (Jan 6, 2003)

Well, @Macrocarpus, you are obviously an expert. Why in the world did I even dream that I could ever bring up anything of value to a conversation on the subject, because you are no doubt the be-all and end-all authority on all matters dealing with livestock.

/s


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## Macrocarpus (Jan 30, 2018)

Dealing with opinionated people of little expertise has been my life work. Opinion unsupported by fact is worthless. If you have some data to suggest that we could feed this country and export food as we do without CAFO's,. PONY IT UP!!!!! We dp mpt even have enough people on farms, large or small, to do what you suggest.


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## Pony (Jan 6, 2003)

Macrocarpus said:


> Dealing with opinionated people of little expertise has been my life work. Opinion unsupported by fact is worthless. If you have some data to suggest that we could feed this country and export food as we do without CAFO's,. PONY IT UP!!!!! We dp mpt even have enough people on farms, large or small, to do what you suggest.


LOL!

You're calling me opinionated?


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## Macrocarpus (Jan 30, 2018)

And woefully uninformed as well.


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## Pony (Jan 6, 2003)

Macrocarpus said:


> And woefully uninformed as well.


LOL!

And you would know this how?

Ah... I am now going to go hit the ignore button. You've become tiresome.


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## Macrocarpus (Jan 30, 2018)

LOL, If you have no facts and are pushing a losing debate, retreat retreat.


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## damoc (Jul 14, 2007)

I think many miss the point of the original post.Yes chickens provide eggs and can do so with very little effort on our part. Free
run chickens probably provide a better egg and at the very least the chickens are happier. But there is so much more that chickens can do for us if we let them. Recycling,pest control,meat,feathers, entertainment,fertaliser,security,gardening etc.

Very handy for preppers


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## Danaus29 (Sep 12, 2005)

Although I absolutely detest feather pillows, feathers have been used in pillows, comforters and jackets for decades.


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## Pony (Jan 6, 2003)

Danaus29 said:


> Although I absolutely detest feather pillows, feathers have been used in pillows, comforters and jackets for decades.


I'm not crazy about feather pillows, either. It is a royal pain in the patootie when it's time to change out the ticking. 

Household tip: Don't change the ticking outside on a breezy day. Don't do it in the house, either.


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## Danaus29 (Sep 12, 2005)

Can you still get ticking? Grandma had bunches of it, probably a bolt or more. I don't know what happened to it.

I hated the broken down feathers sticking through the ticking and poking me in the face. Most of the time my pillow ended up on the floor.


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## Pony (Jan 6, 2003)

Danaus29 said:


> Can you still get ticking? Grandma had bunches of it, probably a bolt or more. I don't know what happened to it.
> 
> I hated the broken down feathers sticking through the ticking and poking me in the face. Most of the time my pillow ended up on the floor.


Yup, you can get ticking at JoAnn Fabrics, and probably at any brick-n-mortar or online fabric store. 

There is something about ticking itself that appeals to me. Perhaps the heft of the fabric, perhaps the stripes... I just like it.


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## altair (Jul 23, 2011)

I'm with you, I don't like feather pillows for the quill parts. But I do have a down comforter and throw that I couldn't live without. So warm.

What is ticking?


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## Danaus29 (Sep 12, 2005)

Ticking is the thick, heavy duty fabric which makes the pillow. It is sewn into a pillow shape, like a pillow case, then stuffed with feathers. Since the feathers are so hard to wash, and pillows get nasty dirty, you are supposed to remove the feathers so you can wash the ticking. Sometimes the fabric wore out before the feathers and you had to make a new pillow to stuff the old feathers into. Once the ticking was stuffed, you sewed the end shut.

I remember Grandma washing pillows in the tub. I about threw up when I saw how dirty the water got. The smell of wet feathers made it even worse.

Nowdays I have no problem throwing an old broken down pillow in the trash. I don't use feather pillows, ever.


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## RJ2019 (Aug 27, 2019)

damoc said:


> I think many miss the point of the original post.Yes chickens provide eggs and can do so with very little effort on our part. Free
> run chickens probably provide a better egg and at the very least the chickens are happier. But there is so much more that chickens can do for us if we let them. Recycling,pest control,meat,feathers, entertainment,fertaliser,security,gardening etc.
> 
> Very handy for preppers


Yes, they can be handy. With all due respect, when I first saw this thread and the original post I thought to myself" those breeds of chicken is probably not the best for preppers". I feel like if one really wants to prep, a more hardy, self sufficient type would be a good choice. Also broodiness would be valuable. Just something to consider


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## Pony (Jan 6, 2003)

RJ2019 said:


> Yes, they can be handy. With all due respect, when I first saw this thread and the original post I thought to myself" those breeds of chicken is probably not the best for preppers". I feel like if one really wants to prep, a more hardy, self sufficient type would be a good choice. Also broodiness would be valuable. Just something to consider


All my flock is free-ranging. They come back to the hen house every night. The LGDs and the roosters keep the flock in line, and protect them. 

I like Buff Orpingtons as dual purpose birds. They are mellow, good sized, and reliable layers. You can even get the occasional broody gal, although my Cinnamon Queens and almost any bantam tend to be broodier. 

Cinnamon Queens are laying machines. Not much to the carcass after a couple of years of laying, but there is certainly enough meat to make a couple of meals. 

I know that some folk really like Leghorns for laying and for ability to avoid predators, but they are the most pitifully scrawny birds I've ever raised, and in my experience, they are not the most reliable layers.


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## RJ2019 (Aug 27, 2019)

Pony said:


> All my flock is free-ranging. They come back to the hen house every night. The LGDs and the roosters keep the flock in line, and protect them.
> 
> I like Buff Orpingtons as dual purpose birds. They are mellow, good sized, and reliable layers. You can even get the occasional broody gal, although my Cinnamon Queens and almost any bantam tend to be broodier.
> 
> ...


I like your thinking here.


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## GunMonkeyIntl (May 13, 2013)

Pony said:


> All my flock is free-ranging. They come back to the hen house every night. The LGDs and the roosters keep the flock in line, and protect them.
> 
> I like Buff Orpingtons as dual purpose birds. They are mellow, good sized, and reliable layers. You can even get the occasional broody gal, although my Cinnamon Queens and almost any bantam tend to be broodier.
> 
> ...


We free range, and don’t particularly want to raise meat birds, so we end up replacing part of the flock every year. This past year we ended up with some Sapphire Gems by happenstance. It’s the first breed I think I’ll actively seek out in the future.

They’re plenty big enough to clean if you had to (most of our layers are too small to comfortably get my hand into), lay big eggs, and can run and fly like all hell. Too, the color kind of blends well with a shaded forest floor.


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## damoc (Jul 14, 2007)

RJ2019 said:


> Yes, they can be handy. With all due respect, *when I first saw this thread and the original post I thought to myself" those breeds of chicken is probably not the best for preppers*". I feel like if one really wants to prep, a more hardy, self sufficient type would be a good choice. Also broodiness would be valuable. Just something to consider


They may not be be the best for all areas but for where I am they have to be very close. Look them up Speckled Sussex. I would be surprised if you can find a better one for the prepper in colder locations. Good mothers, cold hardy, good layers good meat birds, self sufficient,friendly basically all around a great bird.


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## RJ2019 (Aug 27, 2019)

damoc said:


> They may not be be the best for all areas but for where I am they have to be very close. Look them up Speckled Sussex. I would be surprised if you can find a better one for the prepper in colder locations. Good mothers, cold hardy, good layers good meat birds, self sufficient,friendly basically all around a great bird.


Awesome, I am familiar with the breed. This is what my ideal prepper chickens look like, they keep themselves alive if left to their own devices.


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## JohnP (Sep 1, 2010)

I've got one survivalist hen. Started with half a dozen hens and a rooster I incubated and one by one the hawks picked them off accept for this last hen. I quit feeding her thinking she wasn't long for this world and she wasn't laying at the time anyway. Almost a year later, she's still around, lays an egg every day and I still don't feed her.

I need to get some more eggs from the neighbor, incubate and let her raise them. She's a little broody but I don't know if she's broody enough. I leave a window open on the coop and she comes and goes as she pleases. Maybe if I lock her in with fertilized eggs, water and feed she'll set on them. I definitely want her to teach some chicks though. I've watched her and she doesn't spend much time in the open, hangs out near an LGD or goat often.


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## Pony (Jan 6, 2003)

JohnP said:


> I need to get some more eggs from the neighbor, incubate and let her raise them. She's a little broody but I don't know if she's broody enough. I leave a window open on the coop and she comes and goes as she pleases. Maybe if I lock her in with fertilized eggs, water and feed she'll set on them. I definitely want her to teach some chicks though. I've watched her and she doesn't spend much time in the open, hangs out near an LGD or goat often.


Don't know what your weather is like, but things are cooling off quite a bit here. If that's a concern for any new chicks you incubate, I've had great success in fetching some chicks from the semi-local hatchery, and sticking them under a hen that's been broody for at least a week.

We go pick up the chicks from the hatchery, and wait for nightfall. Then, we don our red headlights, start humming the theme from Mission:Impossible, and slip into the hen house. Ever so carefully, as though we are stealing jewels from a museum, we extract the eggs the hen is sitting, and replace them with the chicks.

Next morning, mama hen is strutting about with her newly hatched clutch, and we are pleased with ourselves for pulling one over on the poor hen.


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