Wow! Seems like there is a lot of interest in poultry among members of this group!I didn't want to delve too deep into the subject of poultry, given this is a railroad forum, but since there seems to be enough interest, I'll provide a little more info:
At Downeast Thunder Farm & Railroad, we raise more than meat chickens. We also have two flocks of egg layer chickens. One is a combination of Buff Orpingtons and Plymouth Barred Rocks (full sized chickens that lay very large brown eggs), and a flock of Bantam Americaunas (also called "Easter Egg Chickens). They lay small blue-green eggs. The egg layer chickens can be used for meat (and eventually will be when they get older and stop laying), but they are much smaller than the meat chicken breeds we raise.
We also raise White Pekin Ducks. This is a traditional meat-duck breed, but we raise them only for egg production. They eat twice the food as the egg layer chickens and produce only about a third of the number of eggs the chickens produce. That makes the duck eggs more expensive, but we do have a market for them (plus we enjoy eating them ourselves).
Later in the season, we will raise a couple of breeds of meat turkeys. They take about 16 weeks from hatching to market weight, so we typically start raising them sometime in June in order to have them ready for processing (we process our birds right on site here at our farm) by Thanksgiving (where we experience our biggest demand for fresh turkeys).
We are planing on running some classes later this summer on raising egg layer chickens and also classes on raising and processing meat chickens. There will be announcement about this on our Downeast Thunder Railroad web site
http://www.downeastthunder.com and my wife's farm blog site
http://www.downeastthundrfarm.com when we have some dates firmed up.
Our railroad will eventually have a stop at our poultry area where you can interact with and feed the chickens (we allow them to free-range during the day). Have you hugged your chicken today? We have a few chickens that love attention. The railroad will also feature stops at a livestock petting zoo, the "sugar shack" (during maple syrup making season), the choose-your-own live Christmas tree area, Pick-your-own apples area, and so forth.
Progress is a bit slow this time of year, but we do accomplish at least something each & every day. You can't fight the calender and warmer weather is close ahead. It won't be long before our work on the railroad (and farm) will be ramped up. I'm getting quite enthused at the prospect of what lies ahead!
Paul B.
Milbridge, Maine
