Just set 27 eggs and they should hatch around Nov. 16th! So does anyone want chicken?
Ok so here is the link to the forum topic I posted on BYC about the varience issue LINK and here are the comments currently on the Press-Republican page. greenacres2 Today 11:15 AM Maybe the neighbors would like a section-8 housing complex on the 13 acres instead. Drugs and violence would be so much better than farm animals. Unbelieveable. passnod Today 11:30 AM in reply to greenacres2 Ah yes, resort to instilling fear of low income housing and the residents of such. The issue with these animals is that they are in close proximity to a residential neighborhood that has been in existence for over 50 years and has NOT allowed anything but domestic animals. Having a pig/chicken farm in the back yard will diminish quality of life here and will adversely affect property values. Ask the people who live near the poultry farm in Chazy. The people who want to have these animals here do not even LIVE here! If they had a home on the property, they would not have needed the variance to begin with. There is a legal process and they need to follow it. greenacres2 55 minutes ago in reply to passnod There is 13 acres not 1 or 2. There is a huge difference between a pig/chicken farm and someone who wants to raise the animals for their own consumption. That is what these people want to do. Not have 200 chickens and 300 pigs to sell to the public. It doesn't matter if they live there or not they own the property and should be allowed to do with it what they want. You sound like a neighbor who should go back to the city and keep eating that processed crap that is sold in the stores. If you only knew what was injected into that steak you just bought you would think twice about shooting down someone who doesn't want to be poisioned. passnod Today 11:56 AM in reply to greenacres2 I might also add that the environment that these animals will create (food troughs, feces) will attract rodents and other predatory animals. How attractive does that sound? Can you honestly say that you'd like to have that on top of your neighborhood rec park or your yard? Not so much, I'll bet. greenacres2 16 minutes ago in reply to passnod Well your preaching to the wrong person. I happen to own an 8 acre farm in CT and with proper manure management and feed storage the smell and rodents are minimum to none. There are predatory animals all around not due to the "environment that these animals will create", but due to developments be erected all over the place and displacing them. Its funny how the two closest neighbors don't seem to have a problem with the small farm. __________________________________ I beleive I have a friend from the BYC community defending me! :) We made the news! the Press-Republican news paper to be exact. Click here to view the article on the Press-Republican's website or continue reading below.
Well, looks like the hatch is done. Egg number 3 appears to be a dud, but I will leave it in the incubator for another day or two just encase.  The first pip!  The second pip!  I see a beak!  Look what I woke up to this morning!  My second egg is zipping!  I see you!  and its out!  All stug in the brooder, poor thing has dried egg goop all over it. Hopefully the chick will be able to clean it off.  Black one is all nice and fluffy, it had an easier time hatching out then the yellow one. UPDATE!!!! Just got the word there has never been any restrictions on my family’s property!!!! The only lots with restrictions are lots 1-60 minus 32 to 41 or something like that of Champlain Park, so not even all of the Champlain Park subdivision has restrictions on it! We have to get this verified by a title company and a attorney, but things are looking good. Also, today is Bator Lock Down! Tonight I will be taking the turners out of the incubator and adding some extra water to increase the humidity. Then on Sunday (hopefully) baby chicks!!! Plus! Yesterday someone from the Press-Republican stopped by the house to interview me about the variance issue; apparently he was at the meeting. So we are going to be in the newspaper! Sweet! The photographer from the paper wants to come out and take pictures, but we are trying to convince them to let us submit our own pictures. We don’t want them taking pics of Toony’s pen because it is very muddy and disgusting right now because of all the rain. UPDATE: Well, my friend and I went down to the county on Friday and it appears that there are no restrictions on my family’s property (so far) we still have a few more deeds to pull. On a more negative note, we completed the goat/sheep house on Sunday with the help of Jeff’s family and a friend. We were able to get it all set up and the males and females separated; all that is left is to finish the roof (we have a tarp over it right now). Anyways, we figured that the codes and zoning officer would be getting some calls saying we are building, so we sent him an email to forewarn him. We may not have gotten a variance for the barn, but that doesn’t mean we couldn’t construct a small 8x12 building for the sheep/goats. We got a response from the code enforcement office on Monday saying that while they appreciated the heads up that they HAD gotten numerous complaints and they still had to go out and check it out to make sure we are in compliance, which it turns out we are so :P to all those people that complained. I really don’t know what those people expected us to do, it’s getting cold out and the shelter that we originally put up was just not sufficient for the winter. Did they expect us to just let our animals freeze? I can understand not wanting us to start some huge farming operations, but I don’t see what the issue is with building shelter for the animals we already have on the property. Oh, before I forget kudos to Shirley and Sue for standing up for us during the Zoning meeting! You made the whole nightmarish meeting more bearable! So the Zoning Board meeting to get the variance to build the barn last night didn't go how we planned. In short some lady found some deed from the 1950's saying that there can't be agriculture on our property, so the Zoning Board won't approve our variance until we get proof that there is no such restriction on the property. Also, during the meeting it came to my attention that the people that are upset about us having animals have no idea what our actual plans are for the property. So, I wrote up the following letter to explain to our neighbors exactly what we have planned.
After 4 days I candled the 3 eggs I placed in the incubator on Sunday and....... THEY ARE ALL DEVELOPING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Woohoo. Of course this does not mean that they will all hatch but I can hope! I will try to put up so pictures the next time I candle them. This past Sunday me and the hubby attended Upstate NY ChickenStock 2010! Which was AWESOME. Now going into this Jeff said that he would NEVER help me process our animals when it comes time to butch, so I said yeah, sure what ever. At ChickenStock there was a processing demo and now Jeff is all, "That wasn't bad I could do that" :rollseyes: So these past few days we have been looking into what type of meat bird we want to get, and from all the feedback we got from the people at CS we decided to go with Freedom Rangers. They don't grow as fast as the Cornish Crosses that you would purchase in a grocery market and they don't get as big but they don't drop dead at 12 weeks either. Cornish X's tend to not move much so they have to be babied, they can over heat easily in the summer and they tend to lay around allot and get stinky, dirty and disgusting. The Freedom Rangers are capable of being raised on pasture and will forage for food therefor bringing feed cost down. So today at work, Jeff called me to ask me if I knew how much they where, so I looked them up and gave him the pricing for 25, 50, or 100..... then he is like ok lets get 100.... uh huh yeah, ok great idea and where are we going to put these birds? The field has yet to be fenced and we can't just let them roam free, the local predators would end up eating them instead of us. So I think I have talked him out of getting that many to start out, for now at least. Then while we where at ChickenStock Jeff saw some Blue Laced Red Wyandotte and if I hadn't of had the foresite to NOT bring our carrier with us we would be plus a few chickens right now.... I don't know how this happened I used to be the impulsive one and he was the voice of reason! Oh well. On the other hand I got an incubator at CS and it currently has 3 eggs in it just as a test. It was used so it didn't come with a thermometer, so if this batch doesn't go well I have to go buy one and a hydrometer. They are due to hatch on the 24th but I should know if the eggs are developing by tomorrow or so. | AuthorKayla lives with her family in South Dayton, NY. She along with her husband Jeff hope to start a small sustainable farm to provide their family and community with healthy, naturally produced vegetables and meat. Unfortunately they really had no idea what they were getting into when they started this little venture in the spring of 2009 when they purchased their first batch of laying hens. CategoriesAll ArchivesJanuary 2013 |
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