Chicken Little and Little Chickens w/ The Next Generation
Listen to “Chicken Little & Little Chickens – The Next Generation Show” on Spreaker.
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The broadcasting network, we have to hit the reset button, create a true culture, preparedness, starting at a very young age and still train all the way up.
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Everyone. And welcome to the next generation show where we delve deeper into the little things in life. Here, we explore the lost art of fatherhood Parenthood and fundamental preparedness for the world today. I’m your host, Ryan Buford, along with my cohost young master cone and special guests, my own dad. So he’s in the room today, sitting back reading a magazine and pretty much doing what he can to ignore us while we talk our way through the show tonight. But we are broadcasting from the heart of the Pacific Northwest today, and we thank you for joining us.
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There’s not a moment to lose, so let’s dig right in first off for those of you out there, listening to the podcast, we thank you for that support. Come on over and join us during the live chat. By going to prepper broadcasting.com. You can click on the join, the live chat button. If you want to get plugged in to that one, or you can check us out on the element side of things, which is a completely different chat room that has a lot a lot going on. So I’m trying to monitor both the monitor, both of them tonight. I’m probably going to be doing most of my involvement on the element side of things.
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So for the longtime listeners element is the way to go. You’re probably already in there and for the new listeners, checking out easy, easy to set up, easy to do, and you know, you’re, you’re good to go so special. Thanks to the folks out in Arvada, Colorado as a top listeners in one location this week also thanks for the listeners across the pond and around the world had a lot of response over the last couple of weeks from some folks over in the UK, and just wanted to give shout outs to some of those folks.
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It’s, it’s really cool to be able to see how preparedness doesn’t live within borders or boundaries for as, for a like this it’s, it’s something that’s, it goes beyond, you know, one radio station or one state or province or country, or, you know, any of that. So it was pretty cool to see that we’ve got, you know, listeners from all over the world and, and folks that tune in either on social media or whatever.
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We do have a couple of new listeners in Spain and Switzerland. So thanks for your support. We’ve if you haven’t already done it, go ahead and head on over to prepper broadcasting.com and sign up for the portal or sorry for the membership portal, where you can be a member on PBN. This is a way that you can get added content. It’s our own version of Patrion that allows us to do more without restrictions. So if you’re able to contribute and you like what you see or hear, that’s the way you can show your support.
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It helps us keep this monster running and keep the wheels turning. So check it out. Very small donations upfront really do mean a lot to us here at prepper broadcasting. So shout out to the folks who already do, who are our existing members. I hope you’re getting what you expected out of that, if not more. So if there’s more that we can do for you, feel free to reach out to us directly. You ever reach out to me directly by going over to the prepper broadcasting.com website, click on the next generation show page.
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And there you’re going to find all of my social media contact information. I’m mostly active on some of them, but not all of them. So if there’s a way you’d like to reach out, feel free to shoot me a message. Another way to get ahold of me directly is by email. Just send me an email@prepperdadatmail.com, a brief tactical torture.com update. We got some new products pending, so stay tuned for that. We’re working out the details and I’m going to be sending out some information to someone who actually hit us up on our website.
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So I’m looking forward to that. It’s the one of the first attempts or first, I guess, attempts for someone to reach out to us directly. So hopefully we can make that something that you guys can really benefit from. So along with that, we got some videos forthcoming. So hopefully we can get some of this stuff knocked out in the real near future today’s show. We are talking about chickens and this is going to be an update on our previous show a couple of months ago.
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It must be four to six months ago, I think. Has it been six months on Monday? No, maybe four or five months ago. And we’ve learned a lot. I have, and it’s been quite an experience. And through all of this, I’ve kind of learned where all these chicken phrases come from. Like, you know, the idea that the sky is falling, this whole story of chicken, little where, you know, he had something fall on his head and he, you know, felt like the world that he knew was actually going to collapse in, on him.
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And in doing that, he went around telling people, Oh, the world is falling. The sky is falling. The sky is falling and nobody ever believed him and, or no, I think, I think everybody believed him. And then they kind of turned him into a fool. I can’t remember how that story ended, but some of the other things that I’m learning, what these chickens is, how they’re really are kind of the lowest animals on the totem pole. I mean, I see what it means to call someone a chicken, because they’re really, they’re literally afraid of everything, you know, a weird sound or maybe even a footstep nearby or a dog that walks or barks a bird flying overhead a plane.
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I mean, they’re, they’re pretty much, you know, they’re, they’re on their last leg, the second phase cracked a shell
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And
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That whole idea of what it means to be a chicken and, and you know, what chickens endure and how fearful they are. It kind of, you know, makes me wonder about preparedness and prepping and why chickens are so significant as a figure of that. And you might be wondering, what does any of this have to do with prepper tool? Sometimes we actually get caught up and so caught up in things going on in the world. It seems like the entire sky is falling. There might, I think there might even be some talk recently about an asteroid that’s due to hit in the next few months.
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And I mean, depending on where you’re getting your news and what’s happening next, we’ve got an election coming up and who’s doing this and not doing this and riots and chaos and destruction and earthquakes and hurricanes. And all of this is just insane. And depending on how much you’re taking in, you know, it would be very easy for, you know, especially a new prepper to be like, Oh gosh, you know, I have to do X, Y, and Z, and I’ve got to do it right now.
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So I guess we’ll see what comes to mind.
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But when it comes to prepping, I think there’s a lot we can learn about this image of a chicken and the weariness that they have of the world around them. And I think if, if we, I guess juxtapose that position with ourselves, when it comes to being prepared, you know, we learn how to act and react and do it in a safe environment so that we’re not afraid of everything. And so that we can take advantage of, you know, life in general without being fearful of every turn.
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But first, before we get on with today’s show Colin, can you share your fun fact of the week? What did I do everybody? My name is Colin and I am the cohost here at the next generation show. And today I’m speaking with my father and the host of show Ryan about our chickens. He has chickens, I have chickens. So we’re gonna to discuss those a little bit real quick. I want to talk about the craft of Khan fun fact of the week. For those of you who have been here for awhile, you know, that’s a fun tidbit of information of something.
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That’s sorry about the dogs, something that’s usually related to the show topic. So let’s get right into today’s crafted call and fun fact of the week is one gallon is equivalent to four quarts, eight pints, 16 cups, 128 ounces and 3.8 liters. And that is a fact, okay, wait a minute. Can you repeat that? I said memory. You mean it’s, it’s equal to each one of those things or is it equal to all those things combined?
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No, no, no. It’s that’s the, those are just the conversions and the versions for each one. Okay. So what is it again? It’s a fact a one gallon is four courts, eight pints, 16 cups, 128 ounces and 3.8 liters. Like those are the difference.
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It’s crazy. But I mean, I guess range
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How many grains? Yeah. If, if you have, you have to count them out, you have to sort them out and count each one. So you’re really wanting to try to connect it to today’s topic. I mean, you use eggs when you bake and stuff, so, Oh, there you go. So here you go. We can convert our eggs to court’s or ounces. If we had to, if you wanted, like, you can’t have one whole egg, you get two ounces of egg. Yes, yes. Okay. Egg white. Like if you’re making a really good, Oh, what do you call those? I think the old fashioned there’s, there’s a way to make an old fashioned. I believe with egg white, I believe.
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But anyway, you’re the one that bartender school. I know that’s that that’s that old, old,
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Old, old
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The recipe, I guess you could say. So anyway, so today we’re talking about chickens and we’re going to be pretty loose form on this. We’re going to go as long as we can tonight because I’m actually operating off of my laptop and my, I left my computer cable in another state. So I’m waiting for it to get mailed back. I tried to save as much battery as I could to keep online for tonight. So if you guys get into the show and we all of a sudden got to cut it short, then I’m going to have to either continue this or do something different.
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But hopefully we at least get as much as we can out or we’ll adjust the show as the percentage of life drops. So on the last show, we talked about a lot of the finances with regard to chickens and the feasibility of chickens and why chickens are, you know, are a good thing to have on the homestead. As far as you know why to watch out for chickens. We talked a little bit about farms, like poultry farms that had got up and flames or gotten destroyed, massive cooling of herds to, because there simply wasn’t an, a feed and this is all dating back to the early stages of the coronavirus epidemic or pandemic when
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Remember correctly, those are first episode, right on chickens, chickens. Yeah. So then we were both totally new to chickens. A lot has happened to dad’s chickens. I know. So I’m sure he’ll get into that, but the difference now, and then is going to be significant because it’s definitely been a learning process. And it’s like you said, it’s been like several months. Yeah.
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So why don’t we just go ahead and get started and maybe you can give us an update on your chicken status because I I’m pretty sure your drama and with related with regard to chickens, hasn’t been quite as intense.
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No, you’ve been very unlucky to say the least, but as far as my chickens go, we currently have eight, I believe because no I’m gonna need to have, I think I had seven last time or was it eight, seven or nine? And then I’ve then right now I have six because one of them was two of them were roosters. But as of right now, they’re not a problem. Or the one isn’t a problem we had did end up having to get rid of one, but that’s, that’s bad as far as that goes, having to gain or get rid of chickens.
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So we have five hens and one rooster. And so, I mean, I think I, I, I believe that should balance out, but we might get more hands if we need to,
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Because we have the room for it. Yeah. And you were, so you were away from those chickens for a couple months at a time and I mean, you, so you weren’t involved in as much of the care upfront. So I mean, you, you kind of saw them before you came down and then didn’t see them for a month or so, aside from pictures or whatever else. And, and then you were taking care of him again and then away for several weeks. So what was that like, as far as leaving the chickens behind and then, you know, I’m going to go back and take care of them or whatever, or the difference in their size and, and
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Yeah. I mean, other than physical appearance, all the chickens seem to be pretty much the same from the time I first left there. I hadn’t like, like you said, I haven’t really been there for a good chunk of time. Like between there, what was it like infidelity there? Yeah. They’re like chicks. Yeah. Since they were like really small to now, I haven’t really seen that because it’s been like eight weeks or whatever, and that’s a good, that’s a good chunk of time when it comes to their growth because they, they do grow really fast.
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So appearances and changed in color and in size is really the only major difference. Yeah. But there hasn’t been a whole lot going on in the background, either that I know of, because they’ve just been healthy. They haven’t really, they’re not vaccinated, but they also haven’t really had any problems. Yeah. So I don’t think I’ve missed out on a whole lot.
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So what about connection? Like, you know how, like when you get connected to an animal or whatever, how’s that going? How’s that going for you?
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Well, I’m, I’m, I’m personally not very personable with the chickens. They have names, which doesn’t really help, but I don’t know. Like, I, I, I just go in there in the mornings when I’m there and I let them out and then I feed them water on. But that’s about the extent I take care of them, but I don’t, it’s not like I made them my pants attached to them. No, I’m not.
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No. Okay. Well, I mean, all in all, it sounds like you’re doing pretty well with yours and have they started laying yet?
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No, but they should any day now they, they may have, I mean, I’ve been gone for a couple days.
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Yeah. They’re right on the brink of starting to lay a new pipe. Might see some small eggs here in the next couple of days.
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Yeah. We put ceramic ones in there because like you’re supposed to, we put golf balls and ceramic eggs in each one of their four nesting boxes, even though they’re not, they’re probably only gonna use one or two. We put those in there to encourage them to lay.
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Yeah. But you don’t have to try that cause we’ve already, you know, there’s, it wouldn’t hurt. Maybe we could use the project. Yeah. Actually that’s a good idea. Yeah. Okay, cool. So there’s a question in chat about how old the chicks are. Thanks, Jen. I appreciate that. Cause this kind of goes back to the previous episode. I want to say we did that episode in may or April. And if that’s the case, they would be April, may, June, July, August, roughly six months between five and six months, I think both of them.
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And so when I got mine, we got ours in like, like three different groups I think. Or maybe two, we got one, the first group was four chickens and they were a week old. And then a week later we got two week old chickens or chicks. We got two week old chicks. So they were they’re about the same age. All mine are. Okay. But that’s how old they were when we got them. And as of right now, like that’s, that’s like,
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So all in all, as far as your costs and set up and all that kind of stuff, you’re right about on par with what we had talked about before. Right. Like feed and yeah.
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Yeah. Because we’re not, we haven’t switched over to, we are still on. That was the layer feed is what that you give, what would they
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Start laying? Yeah. Or when they’re about to start. Yeah. Yeah. So they’re still on the medicated feed right now. Yeah. And we, so there’s a point when you switch from an early medicated feed, if they haven’t been vaccinated and basically it kind of introduces a, a little bit more strength to their diet so that they can fend off any kind of viruses or bacteria that, that they might have to be subject to. It’s especially good for non-vaccinated chickens.
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And then after a certain point, when they’re about to lay, you switch them to what’s called a layer feed. And that feed allows them to have a different diet. That’s specifically tailored to having, you know, you know, good egg production, basically. It’s what it’s designed for. So we’ve made that switch here to mainly seed isn’t it? See, it’s like a, it’s like a pellet that has different percentages of protein and stuff like that. Right.
1 (18m 53s):
So yeah, we got to, so James Walton’s in the chat and he says them backyard eggs or something. And I gotta tell you, I’ve got one of the most valuable backyard eggs in my fridge right now. You wouldn’t believe it. And, and so now we’re going to get into my chicken drama. So it started out to where we bought five chickens, five chicks. Right. And our intent was to have five hens. How old were they?
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They were just a couple of days old, but they had little dots on their head. And so I, the guy that I got him from had picked him out because the dot with that particular breed signified what sex they were, whether they were male or female. Right. So where their hands roosters, they call that sex-linked because ours were, and they all ended up being the ones that were right. So we wound up getting five checks and about eight weeks into, you know, raising these chicks, you know?
1 (20m 2s):
Okay. Well, let’s say a couple of weeks in first thing, one of the chicks actually wound up getting caught in the mouth of one of the dogs. And so we wound up, you know, really trying to baby this chick and we really took care of it. And my wife is the biggest animal lover you’ll ever meet. And of course, when, when this happened, she was really concerned because it was her favorite one. And I think she named him curious George, which is a whole nother story, but so curious, George decided to hop up on the side of his little, what do you call that thing?
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The little breeder tank or whatever it was. Yeah. The breeder books are. And so he was checking her out and she was, you know, you know, trying to pet him or do whatever she was trying to do. And he decided that he wanted to jump again and he jumped right into the dog’s mouth while she was able to get him out. And he was, he appeared to be injured. So for about two weeks, she nurses this chick back to health and, you know, time goes on and he’s, he gets better. And he starts to re establish his place within the other chicks.
1 (21m 7s):
And they’re all getting bigger and stronger and healthier. And so we’ve got these five chicks and three of them are identical. So we call them the triplets. And then we got curious, George, and then the fifth one, which was black. And I don’t remember what we called him when he had a couple of different names. We can never be settling him. So we wound up doing our best to raise the chicks and they were all happy and healthy. Right. Everything’s, you know, sunshine and rainbows. And then one day, all of a sudden I hear this weird sound and I’m not quite sure of what I heard, but I’m fairly certain of what I heard.
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And I waited a little bit longer kind of hovered around the chickens and sure enough, one of the chickens started crowing and it was curious, George. So we’re like, okay, great. So now we’ve got four hands and one rooster. So we’re doing a little bit more research and we’re like, okay, you know, this is kind of borderline. And we started to learn about the ratio of roosters versus hens. And I went and talked to a guy at work and I was like, Hey, I got a problem because now I’ve got a rooster and I don’t know what to do.
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And so he was like, well, usually you get rid of the roosters. And again, my wife is just the biggest animal lover you’ll ever meet. And as, as much as I love having chickens, I really don’t mind calling one. If it means keeping the other one safe and the way he described it was pretty much that if you have a rooster, they’ll destroy the hands. Right. So I was like, eh, we really need to look into this.
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Do we just, do we take them out? Do we swap them out for a different one? Do we try? And rehome him, what’s the deal. Of course, my wife was absolutely in love with this chicken. So we’re like, okay, let’s try and see what we can do to make it work. So we waited another week or two and they’re, they’re all doing okay. And his attitudes getting a little bit, you know, frisky or whatever. And, and he’s kind of flaring up around his neck and crowing. And it was kind of cute for a little bit. So we were like, okay, whatever, we’ll, we’ll come around and see what happens, but a week or two goes by, and then I hear him crowing, but it doesn’t quite sound
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Like him.
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And I waited a second and there, it was again, well here, this little black chick started crowing right alongside the other one. And now our ratio goes from one rooster to four hands down to two rooster and three hands. So now we’ve got a problem, right? Everything we had read and researched on these is that you generally don’t want to have a ratio of roosters to hands of less than five to one, 10 to one is better.
1 (24m 8s):
And you know, the higher you go the better because they, they generally can be pretty rough on the hands. And then they don’t lay as much. The other side of that is that if the roosters are separated, they can be just fine. You know, they can dwell, you know, they can survive and work the grass and other fields and stuff like that. No problem. But our setup isn’t made for that. So we’ve got pretty much a whole aviary designed for these birds.
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And they’re all kind of contained within each other at this point, they’re all about two months old, three months old, and they’re starting to, you know, they’ve lost all of their fur and they are starting to get their new feathers in and they’re getting their little attitudes coming up, still, no eggs yet. And we probably won’t see any til September,
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But
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We’re, we just, we’re doing okay. And they’re getting, everything’s getting along and we’re just kind of crossing our fingers that we’re going to have these miracle chickens that are all happy go lucky. And it’ll just be a great chicken commun. Well, as it turns out, the two roosters start flaring up at each other and they’re getting aggressive and they’re not attacking the hands, but they are going after each other. So we have to think about it again. And we decided, well, maybe what we ought to do is go and get two new hands or two new chicks or something.
1 (25m 33s):
But we don’t want to start over with checks. We want rooster. We want, we don’t want roosters. What we want to do is replace the roosters with hens because our goal isn’t to have a bunch of roosters it’s to have a bunch of hands so that we can have as much eggs. Right. So I reached out to this guy who I got them from and I said, Hey, I’m not sure what’s going on. But two of the five that you gave me turned out to be HINNs and they were supposed to be sex-linked sex linked to eggs. So what’s, what’s the deal he’s like, well, you know, it’s kind of a toss of the dice, what you get.
1 (26m 6s):
So, you know, I don’t know what to do, but if you want, I can take him back and I can give you two more. And so if you give me 20 bucks in the roosters, I’ll give you two hands. So we dwell on it. And we talk about it a little bit, a couple of days go by. And one of the hands winds up, or one of the roosters winds up going after the hands. And of course being the animal lover, she is, she decides, Nope. You know what? As much as she loved animals, she didn’t want to see the roosters, you know, demolish those hands.
1 (26m 36s):
So here we go, I get my, my little dog can allow it. And I put two roosters in a cage call a guy up 20 bucks in hand, I go meet up with him, swap them out for two hands. So these hands are about the same age as the ones that we got. And they look about the same size and they’re a different breed. They’re a little bit more silky, which is a more of a docile breed, which is great. So we figured, well, we’ll get these two and we’ll introduce them.
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And
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We bring them in and everything’s okay. Meanwhile, one of the triplets has starts having an issue with its leg and it just starts laying down more often. So we’re like, Oh, that’s kind of interesting. And so we didn’t think much of it and it’s a small hand, so it’s not like it’s, you know, stressed out or overweight or anything. In fact, it’s eating like a queen and a it’s look, it looks really good. All the feathers are really good and everything. So we’re like, that’s weird. Don’t really think much of it. We get these two other pullets I guess they are.
1 (27m 41s):
And so we are introducing them and, and we’re like, okay, you know, it’s, it’s way more peaceful. We don’t have all the rooster drama. They’re not attacking each other over the hands. So we’re, we’re happy. Right? You got yay. Okay. Let me get some, some little golf claps going on. And the chickens are happy again. So about a week or two goes by, and then we noticed that this one hand, one of the triplets is having an issue. And for some reason it won’t get up on the perch with the other ones.
1 (28m 11s):
And it had always gotten up on the perch with the other ones before. So now it’s, you know, on one perch down. And then now, you know, a couple of days later, it’s not even trying to get up on the purchase, it’s going in the coop, but it’s not going up with the other hand. So we’re like, well, that’s weird. What’s going on with this one. And then we noticed that when we walk behind it, it kind of hobbles, you know, like it’s one of the Hawks is messed up and we thought, well, maybe, maybe the, the feet are all jacked up. Maybe it fell or something. So we were looking at it and now it looks okay.
1 (28m 42s):
It doesn’t look bruised or mangled or anything like that. So we do some more research and we look into it and we go back and forth and realize sooner, rather than later, that this chicken had contracted disease called Merrick’s disease. They knew it was paralysis. They weren’t sure if it was mixed. Cause they were. They said that it’s likely that they also would, the other ones would have had marriage. So marriage disease is a type of infection that messes with a chicken’s nervous system.
1 (29m 21s):
And basically it causes a form of paralysis to where one leg is pressed forward and the other leg is pressed backward and essentially the chickens doing splits and the disease is fatal and it’s not pretty. So here we are faced with the decision, okay, what do we do now? So we’ve got this, we’ve got this perfect harmony of chickens. And we thought we were okay, but now this one chicken is really struggling. So we go back and forth and we decided, you know what, anything is better than, you know, having this chicken suffer.
1 (29m 59s):
Of course, my wife, the animal lover decides that what we need to do is probably, and this chicken suffering. Now we have to do it in the most humane way possible. So here I am ready to go thinking to myself, okay, I can take care of this. I’ll do it. No problem. And through the course of several conversations, it is decided that we are to take the chicken to Yvette and Oh no.
1 (30m 38s):
Did I lose my connection? No, I didn’t. I think I’m still good. So we take this chicken to Yvette and we, we get a diagnosis cause we want to make sure before we put it down, what we gotta do, you know, if this is it, maybe we’re wrong. Maybe the internet research was all messed up and we’re just making a bunch of false hoods up. And we don’t know what we’re doing, which is pretty true because we’re just learning online. So we take this chicken to the vet in a box and the veterans assistant V veterinarian’s assistant comes out and says, well, it really looks like Merrick’s.
1 (31m 16s):
We can get a doctor out here to give you an opinion. And that costs about 35 bucks. And if you decide, you want to put it down, it’ll be another 50 bucks. So here we are with this chicken in a box and still hasn’t laid any eggs by the way. So no, no eggs have passed through no, no golden eggs yet. And we get this check in, in a box and it is decided that the chicken or that we call out the vet and the vet is, comes out and says, yup, looks like Merrick’s, do you want us to do it here?
1 (31m 53s):
Do you want to take it home? And for, for whatever reason, it is decided that the vet would be the one to put it down. So this is kind of an interesting little change to the plan and that, you know, I have no problem changing. You know, I have no problem putting down the chicken and doing it quick, but there was a humanitarian side of there that I had not factored in.
1 (32m 24s):
And in a way I had, but I didn’t realize it was going to be like that. So here we are with this chicken, with Merrick’s disease, it’s obviously suffering. We hand it over to the vet in the box. They bring it in the course COVID we can’t go in there for any reason. So they take the box in 15 minutes later, they bring the box out and here we have a dead chicken that we have to dispose of because you know, it costs another 20 or 30 bucks to dispose of it there. So here we are with a hundred dollars spent on the chickens, not including the housing or any of that, to find out that, you know, we got two out of five were roosters, and then we wound up replacing two of those for 20 bucks.
1 (33m 14s):
And then we put one down for 85 or whatever it turned out to be. And so we’re now a hundred bucks in the hole just to see what we can do to maintain. We go home and put the, we incinerate the chicken and then we’ve got four hens, right? So we got four hands left. We’ve got the triplets who are now twins and the two new ones that we just bought. So we’re down to four chickens, okay. Through all this, we’re down to four falling here after a few days, they go by and you know, it’s, it’s sad, you know, obviously, you know, she’s, she’s doubting whether we did the right thing and I’m like, okay, well, you know, we still got four chickens, so let’s just be thankful for what we got.
1 (33m 59s):
Right? So these four chickens are doing their thing going around about a week, goes by. And then I hear something and sure enough, after a few more times of listening to it, Crow, one of the new hands that we just bought to replace the two roosters that we just got rid of turned out to be a rooster. So now here we are having paid 20 bucks for two hens.
1 (34m 30s):
And I got one rooster out of the batch. Our ratio is now three Hinz to one rooster, which is even worse than before. And so we’re kind of going back and forth on this. Why do we do whatever? So we decided, well, let’s just go ahead and ride this out. Let’s see what happens. So last weekend we decide, you know what, let’s go ahead and get three more hands, but we’re not messing with young hands anymore.
1 (35m 5s):
We’re not doing pullets, we’re not doing chicks. We’re not doing that ever again. So we go track down. There’s a gal up who had like 30 hens. There were a year old that were actively laying hands and we wound up getting three of them just to offset that balance a little bit. That was this weekend. So that is the new status of where things are here so that you guys kind of understand the difference between Colin’s story and my story.
1 (35m 43s):
And some of the challenges that you can run into, whether you have best intentions or not. So some of the things that that I’ve learned over the last couple of months are, you know, obviously like never, never to underestimate the connection that people make to animals. And, you know, I, I put out a message on social media, Hey, never, never named the chickens. Right. And I wish I would have followed my own advice because I’m realizing that after the fact we should have never named the chickens and hopefully moving forward, it will be a little bit easier as chickens come and go.
1 (36m 27s):
And as things change, but it’s kind of an ongoing challenge here with, with what we’re doing with these chickens, you know, is it the right thing? You know, I could come here and tell you, Oh yeah. You know, if, if you want to be a prepper or go get yourself six chickens, you know, you’ll be, you’ll be in love and you’ll have all the fresh eggs that you want. But you know, up until now, I think the, the grand total is somewhere around probably 600 bucks for these chickens, between everything that we put into the, you know, the, the housing and the medical and getting, you know, paying 30 bucks for two routes to it for a rooster and a hand.
1 (37m 12s):
And then another, you know, 10 bucks for three more hands. And these little things start adding up. And then all of a sudden that that backyard farm fresh egg is worth about 800 bucks.
6 (37m 26s):
So damn good.
1 (37m 30s):
So, you know, it’s, it’s really important to factor some of this in maybe some of you out there considering this, or maybe you’ve already done it, maybe you maybe you’re right on par with where I am, but I gotta tell you, I’m glad I’m learning this stuff now then, you know, waiting to find out if I can do this five years from now, or, you know, trying to, trying to learn how to do this and that the simple thing is some people are better at raising animals.
1 (38m 2s):
I mean, some people are better at maintaining cars. Some people are better at building structures are better at having a sense of security or, or stability when it comes to certain things. And I think the comparison between Colin and myself is pretty, there’s probably a contrast there on how things can go. So I guess is a word of warning. Just be mindful that if you’re, if you’re getting a pipe dream of a golden chicken eggs, you might have chicken eggs that are worth more than gold
2 (38m 37s):
Learn, learn from my mistakes. And hopefully we’ll get some joy out of this here in the next couple of weeks. And people do have better luck. I mean, Colin has better luck than I do, but I mean, there’s, there’s yet there there’s a whole nother six months of story to go with these chickens, for sure. So we’re not, we’re going to hold strong. We’re not going to get rid of them. We’re still going to stay steady along the path, but we definitely paid for this education that’s for sure. So why don’t do you want to add anything to that or, or kind of share some of your experiences or some of the things that you saw or your perception down here observing all that stuff?
2 (39m 16s):
Yeah, so obviously I, I, like I said earlier, and like Dan just said, I’ve been a lot luckier when it comes to these chickens or, or not me rather the chickens that I have at my moms. They haven’t had as many problems, but there’s been little things here and there, like needing to add electrolytes to their water, like poultry electrolytes that are meant for chickens and other birds, like ducks and stuff.
2 (39m 53s):
But other than a couple of cases where the birds just get overly hot and we’ve kind of had to bring them inside and then give them the food and water that they haven’t been getting to sort of replenish their needs. That’s a, that’s a, that’s about it. As far as it goes for the chicken drama that I’ve had. I’ve had, we are in a different environment. Yeah. So, yeah.
2 (40m 23s):
Keep in mind, this is where I live. It’s more of a farm agriculture type setup and you know, where in Collin’s house, it’s more of a suburban, rural and more of a, more of a suburban area. So, yeah. And, and that does complicate things because there’s so many more options for where we could keep chickens out here on the homestead. Whereas in a suburban area, you can only have, you only have so many options for your property.
2 (41m 2s):
And that being said, we we’ve spent significantly more money trying to make a home for these chickens where we can everything from an upper prebuilt chicken coop that is meant for the area to kennels for their run, like large, a hundred hundred square feet kennels. So yeah, it’s definitely been a process trying to keep them healthy and keep them happy, but they’re, they seem to just be plugging along just fine.
2 (41m 40s):
Especially being that there’s one, one rooster and five hens. Yeah.
1 (41m 44s):
Yeah. I’m surprised they let you keep a rooster yeah.
2 (41m 47s):
In city limits. Well, that’s the thing, it’s only a problem. If you get complaints and we don’t let them out until after till seven and Sydney or city ordinances seven. So I mean, if people do complain after seven, well, yeah. I mean, you can do whatever you want after seven, I suppose. But if, if people do end up complaining, then yeah, we’ll have to take care of it. But the neighbors that we have don’t seem to mind, they’re super chill.
1 (42m 17s):
I do got to say that the rooster that we have, that we decided to keep, it’s got some beautiful feathers. So if, if it’s decided that we no longer want to keep this one around, that’s going to be some excellent hackle for fly tying next summer. So not all is lost. So with that Colin let’s, let’s switch gears a little bit and we’ll do the pint-sized prepper project of the week. So for this project this week, it is brought to you by power film, solar.
1 (42m 49s):
And essentially we’re the, the project this week is how to get, how to make a hollowed out egg for the sake of concealment or hiding things in plain sight. So,
2 (43m 8s):
Or, or even, like I mentioned, at the beginning of the show, you could use it as like a fake egg to encourage lane. Oh yeah. There you go. I mean, I suppose you could use a hard-boiled or even a regular egg, but for sake of breaking it yup. Hollowing, it would be easy.
1 (43m 21s):
So why don’t you go ahead and describe, you know, w w the materials you need and how to make this particular project work.
2 (43m 30s):
Yeah. So the first thing you want to consider is that you can either hollow out a shell from, and a hard boiled egg, or you can do it with a ride. So there’s two different, let’s say with a rag one. Okay. Yeah. And the way I’m familiar with it, I mean, I don’t know, there might be another way, but you make a small hole in the top, whether or not you use a, a knife or a, like a toothpick, like a, yeah, like a toothpick or a Thumbtack or whatever you use, you just make a real, small little pinhole in the top, and then you make a slightly larger hole in the bottom.
2 (44m 9s):
So you can get the egg whites and the yolk out. How do you do that? Just blow through the wall at the top. And then it goes to, it goes out the hole at the bottom. I mean, that’s the best way I can describe it, because unless you, unless you, you could actually suck it out using a bottle, or like, if some other sort of suction or shaking it, maybe even. Yeah. But yeah.
1 (44m 39s):
So you take the egg, you take a regular egg, one that you get out of it,
2 (44m 43s):
The even chicken, I guess. Yeah.
1 (44m 45s):
And then you take a toothpick or something and you just call the top at the top, and then you flip it over and poke a hole on the bottom, and then you ream it out. So that it’s a little bit bigger and then blow it out.
2 (44m 56s):
Yeah. I mean, yeah.
1 (44m 60s):
And then, and then what,
2 (45m 2s):
And then you have a holiday, and then I suppose if it, if it came down to hiding something, then you’d have to make sure that the hole you make is big enough to put stuff in like an SD card, like you were saying, or a key or whatever you might want to put in there. And as far as you can use paper to seal LOL, you just put paper over it, tape it, and you can even paint it if you want.
2 (45m 35s):
But yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s a good way to conceal conceal something because it’s, I don’t know. It sets such a, such a regular everyday object. And with just a small hole in the top, nobody’s really gonna notice unless they pick it up or whatever, keeping in the back of the fridge. I don’t know. It’s, it’s a good idea. Yeah.
1 (45m 54s):
Yeah. So one of the things, one of the reasons why, so I’ve, I’ve done this before more as a decoration side of thing around the holidays, but when you look at it from a preparedness perspective, if, for example, you have something worth hiding, like, Oh, I don’t know a password or an SD card, or a small piece of paper with writing on it. Even a rolled up piece of, you know, a rolled up, you know, cash or a key, something like that, something small to fit inside an egg.
1 (46m 33s):
You can actually make the hole in the bottom, large enough to accommodate that kind of thing. And you have a hiding place, you know, right. In plain sight, not many people are gonna go through your egg cartons to find out, you know, where you put the, you know, the, the key to your safe or something like that. So this has kind of a, an oddball project, but it is a good way to learn the concept of hiding things in plain sight. It’s also a great way to encourage the skill of repurposing and, you know, essentially recycling, what would normally be consumed, considered waste, and, you know, just being resourceful with the, the things that you have at your fingertips.
1 (47m 20s):
I mean, just because you have a holiday, you don’t necessarily have to hide anything in it. I mean, you could always use this as a means for decorating a Christmas ornaments or, you know, Easter eggs or gifts of all kinds. So it’s kind of a neat little thing with a little hint of tactical advantage for those of you who can see the use for it. So, Hey, we hope to keep these projects coming. And if you’d like to see more of this type of thing and support our work directly here on prepper, broadcasting.com on the next generation show, head on over to Amazon and type in my name, Colin’s name or pint size prepper project, and our book will pop right up, or you can click on the link at our show page, download a copy today to get 20 more, 28 more projects, just like this one that you can do with your family.
1 (48m 10s):
I didn’t want to give a special shout out to a gentlemen on Twitter that goes by the handle at urban Aboriginal, like Aborigine, but Aboriginal, he actually bought one of my, one of our books recently and put out a review via YouTube and it’s, it was pretty cool. So thanks for that. I do appreciate it. Thanks for supporting our work. And hopefully we are, we’re going to incorporate some of his projects in the next volume, so ready to reach out to him and give some credit to, to his efforts on social media, for what he’s trying to build on his side of things.
1 (48m 55s):
So I think for the final takeaway today, it’s just important for you to recognize in my opinion, that when you go down a certain path with good intentions, it doesn’t necessarily mean that that path is going to be laid out for you. And when it comes to preparedness, especially you can find yourself in a position where you are nowhere in your comfort zone, but it’s up to you to determine whether or not you want to stay the course and learn what needs to be learned, or how do they say cut and run, you know, no one to hold them and know when to fold them, basically be aware of when it’s time to close up shop and focus on other things.
1 (49m 47s):
We’re not quite ready to close up, shop here when it comes to chickens, and I’m going to do my best to keep them alive and healthy and strong, but I can guarantee you there’s going to be more drama coming. So hopefully we’ll, we’ll get another episode out here in the next couple of weeks, or next couple months, we’ll give her another couple months and see where we’re at. But especially when, when it comes time to be wary of winter predators and things like that. So we’ll see how things roll. But in the meantime, I guess, going back to that original thought, if, if I would’ve started out this project, knowing what I know now, I would have probably given myself the whole chicken little treatment, Hey, look, the sky is falling.
1 (50m 32s):
The sky is falling. You know, this, the world’s about to end if you go down this path. But you know, I think what it really comes down to is your level of perseverance and what you’re willing to learn and what you’re willing to contribute for that education. There’s been a fair amount of money spent on these golden Lang yoga, chicken eggs, but for the most part, personally, I think it’s an education worth having, because I think there might be other forms of animal life that might be more feasible there.
1 (51m 8s):
This might turn out to be something where it, it it’s great, you know, and we get exactly what we wanted out of it. And we’re happy with what we got, but time will tell on the only way for me to allow time will tell time to tell is to stay the course and, you know, do what I can to be diligent and give the best life that I can to these chickens and try and share some of the wealth with the friends and family that I have.
1 (51m 39s):
So lastly, with the last show, we did a special prerecorded partially prerecorded episode with power film solar, and they had some great stuff specifically tailored toward preppers and, and, you know, kind of what, what they do with their rollable solar panels. If you are interested in that show or interested in power film, solar, check them out@powerfromsolar.com and we’ve, we do have a promo code.
1 (52m 10s):
If you use the code PBN 10 on any of their rollable solar panels, I believe it’s in the light saver product line. You get 10% off and trust me, it’s it’s money well spent. I actually took one of their rollable solar panels on an airplane, and I was able to basically charge my device and charge the battery tied to it by sitting in the window seat and just leaving it there.
1 (52m 41s):
A lot of planes have power embedded into the seats, but some of them don’t. So it was kind of nice to be able to have a power source right there, you know, 40,000 feet in the air. So kudos to power from solar, check it out on our recent episode. And next week, hopefully we’ll be able to get our intended show, home show guest on. So hopefully we can share some more information about the, the sun oven with a forest Garvin. So we’re going to reach out to him and try and get him back on here.
1 (53m 12s):
Well, I think that’s going to be it for today. Everyone. Thanks for joining us on the next generation show. And don’t forget to tune in next time where we explore another aspect of the little things in life that make all the difference in the world. This is your host, Ryan Buford, and your
0 (53m 27s):
Reminding you to stay informed and get involved and be prepared. Have a great night everybody and make it a great week.
0 (54m 7s):
Thank you for listening to the prepper broadcasting network, where we promote self-reliance independence tune in tomorrow for another great show and visit us@prepperbroadcasting.com.
