A coming change to our monetary system

gram--be grateful they commit suicide instead of planticide!!!!
I'm sure that is very gross.

I have lots of spider mites and aphids that I am more than willing to trade! LOL

DG is worth more to me than aphids. How about some handmade art?

Good point - DG beats aphids any day!

I vote for a rooster per month of membership. Starting with the ones that crow at 2am. Surely the Texas weather would cure them of that....;-)


of course a freezer also slows them down somewhat....hmmm...

I know what to do with excess roosters!! We recently put a whole bunch of them into the freezer. ^_^

Awww. I was hoping you'd LIKE the singing! Mine have learned to target the window closest to where I am, whether in the living room or in bed asleep....lol. They may not know much, but what they know they really take advantage of...

Have you found that the sweetness of the meat is in inverse proportion to the sweetness of temperament?

I live in Alabama--too far away for a good trade swap but my brother is in Texas ahd could deliver tons of Bull Stuff
An vey appropriate exchange I would think. :)

I sure have a use for "Bull Stuff"!!

Dave, did ya'll pluck those roosters by hand? Or have you gotten or made a chicken plucker yet?

Curiously,
Shoe

Uh oh, better watch out ... Dave will be swapping subscriptions to DG for chicken pluckers!

We're still plucking by hand, but I've agreed with Trish's desire for a plucker machine. It's on the list of goals for 2010 to build one. That same year we're going to shoot for raising 50 meat birds, maybe more.

Okay, just checkin' (or just chicken?). I made a home-made chicken plucker, only does one bird at a time but is very fast. A pvc end cap, a threaded rod, and some bungy cords. I'll try to find the link where I first heard of it and holler back.

Ya'll earned those birds! Plucking is the most time-consuming part!

...and now back to your regularly scheduled program...

Shoe

Shoe --if you would be so kind as to post a chicken catcher as well? I spend more time chasing than plucking...

Dave --You and Trish do have the duck into boiling water then singe over flaming alcohol trick or something better under your belts by now, right?

This is one of the hundreds of uses of the Weed Dragon!

To be honest, though, most times I don't even pluck the feathers. I just skin the animal the way you'd do a deer or beef cow. It's quite a bit faster, actually, and if you don't want the skin on then there's no harm done.

(Border Collies herd chickens)

Weed Dragon, "De-feather your chicken and cook it at the same time!"

Grownut, I grab the chickens in the night while they are sleeping! Or you can also use a strong wire with a hook bent at one end (coat hanger type); you can easily get near the chickens then snatch them by the foot with it and pull towards you. Once you have them snatched their toes splay out and lock them in the hook part.

And yep, I do that, too, Dave, skin them. Sooo much easier and faster! Alex grew up eating skinless chicken and to this day pulls it off if served with skin on it. I made the plucker though cus I have friends/customers that want my older hens and want the skin on them so thought I'd try it out.

Happy Gardening to all.
Shoe

Kathleen -I have 2 border collie mixes --we just have our tos and froms crossed: When I want them herded TO me the dogs run 'em off, when I want them herded FROM me I end up with 30 chickens underfoot. And I'm afraid of practice, lol!!

I use the skin to render for fat and soups (it's supposedly the world's best stuff for cakes and popcorn!!). Probably cull and do the freezer camp thing about twice a year. 'Sides, the sweetness in the disposition of the rooster is located on the under side of the skin ;-) Remove that and he's a mean ol' cuss...

Now how on earth that weed dragon works.....Shoe, did you ever post a pic?

OK, so I've got a cat, 2 dogs, 450 sq ft of gardens and a HUSBAND!!! Let the bidding begin :)

Allright I've got a well dented Toyota, a totally useless poodle that will not leave the apartment unless you carry her down all three steps and a half tom of used bricks that are not suitable for landscaping.

Oh yes another half ton of completely obsolete computer parts including a k-pro and a commodore 64.

dyson,

I could use those bricks in a wash [gully].
The old TI 99 computer was our first one......it's right here on the shelf.

A TI 99-4/a was my first computer!! My dad worked for TI in Dallas and brought one home on an employee discount. My first programming experience was on that computer.

My first calculator was a TI. That was back in 1974, it was about 1" thick, 6" long and 4" wide and cost $35. I thought it was the coolest!

Just before Stan graduated from tech school in 1971, one of his teachers brought in a TI calculator. They all wanted to tear it apart and see what made it tick, but he'd paid a pretty good price for the thing and wouldn't let them touch it! It was probably a little bigger than kooger's, and about 3 times more expensive. When he got a job in the tech world, he was in quality control and spent his days tearing down modems, the kind you set the phone into. Now, if anything needs done on the computer, I do it - he says he doesn't have a clue! I guess going to work for cows has damped down the techie in him.

Those cows didn't teach him a thing??

In 1984 I attended "computer assisted LORAN-C* control" school on Governors Island, NY. in preparation for an upcoming assignment to USCG LORAN-C station Seneca NY. (located on Seneca Army Depot in beautiful, sunny, secluded Romulus (sp?), NY)(the sunny part may be a bit of a streach during the winter months).

One of the instructors at the school had set up a Radio Shack TRS 80 computer (later this model was affectionately known as a "trash80) in the back of the classroom for our use/leisure. During the two week school using my lunch hour, I learned to program in "BASIC" by going through the manual/instruction literature supplied with the machine.

*LORAN-C - can you say "low frequency, high power, pulse modulated, hyperbolic navigation" 5 times quickly?

Ha! you actually tried that didn't you?

I made it through 4!

kooger, cows are low tech, what they teach, he already knew.