Reeder Custom Guns - This weather should be banned. NO SNOW!!

We have had the temps 2 and 4 degrees, lots of sun but no snow. The wind chill factor of 2 degrees plus a 35 MPH wind gives us way below zero. I would rather have 3 or 4 feet of snow than this cold and wind.
And WB doesn't even show the pics of the baby goats.

When babies happen we manufacture warming stalls. Difficult in single digit weather, I like drop lights. I’ve violated many electrical safety protocols but everyone is warmer otherwise (total watts divided by voltage = amps) except run through 200 ft. #12 extension cords! lol

I thought another was gonna drop last night but I was just toasted. Luckily it was a false alarm. Still got one small goat I’m giving shots, but all babies seem well.

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we can actually make a buck or two. The problem is when it is 2 degrees outside you have to come up with some way to keep them alive. When we started with the chickens I built a small chicken house, 6 feet by 8 feet. That was all I needed for 15 chicks. I pretty much insulated it and put one of those radiator looking heaters in there. I ran heavy duty ext. cords and all seemed well. This was 25 years or more ago.
Then every time I went into the local feed store the owner would pull me aside to show me some new baby chicks, different breeds and such. Every kind of chicken there was I had 10 of them. Pretty soon my 10 chicks turned into 100 chicks. So I built a larger chicken house, 10 X 10. But I still had way too many. It got to be too much. We could make some money on them but it still was too much. We had green eggs, pink eggs, striped eggs, little eggs great big eggs and so on. Plus I had several ducks and they require a lot of water so I dug little concrete lined ponds. About this time I was going to Africa, Australia, Canada and so on pretty much every year and it was now 200 chickens on Colleen's shoulders. It was just too much. I ran ad ad and a fellow called and said I'll take all of them. I'll be right over.

He came over driving a Bronco. I asked him what was he going to carry them in. He said just put them in the Bronco. He ran the back window down about 15 inches. I would catch them one by one and give them to the guy. He crammed almost 200 chickens and ducks into his Bronco. They were sitting in every nook and cranny, on the seats , on the dashboard, on the steering wheel, everywhere. And he had about a 20 mile drive. So my chicken ranch was just way too much. This was about 15 years ago.
Then about 5 years ago I got the bug again and bought 20 chicks and made my chicken house a bit bigger, 10 X 20. I decided to stay with 20 chicks, no more. When the local feed store guy would call I let him know where he could stick those little chicks. I moved them back into the medium chicken house, had an electrician run me some correct wires and so on. But in 2 degree weather it takes more then just a red lamp or two. So more of the radiator style heaters, a couple of red lamps and the chicken seem to like it. I get at least 15 to 20 eggs a day from 20 chickens and no ducks (thank you Lord).
So all seems well. Then I came down with this ailment. It makes it a bit harder but nothing I can't handle. I reworked the medium size chicken house and turned the 10 X 20 chicken house, with new floors etc and turned it into a workshop. So all is well at the Reeder Chicken house....so far.

My grandson's have a small business selling eggs to the neighbors and also to friends in church. They do most of the work with the chickens. I or their Dad take care of the heavy lifting. And we have all the eggs we want to eat.

My favorite are the Australorps. I have Black and Blue (sort of gray). So tame and calm, lay over 300 eggs per yr., good mothers too. I do like Plymouth Barred Rock as well, big old black and white speckled, brown egg, momma hens.

I miss my big old Spanish Black turkeys. A Bobcat got him! This spring I’m getting some (more) Guineas. Then I’ll see how long I can keep them around. Once they start setting in the pasture the coons get them.

Learned that everything eats chickens. Bears tore apart the coop. Mink snuck in. A family of red foxes moved to my house. Eagles planned their family nests close to my house and mountain lions were frequent visitors.

Learned one thing.

Chickens are a gateway drug.

THAT is PERFECT! We have had eagles move in here! Being on the river is no help as that seems to be the environment most critters like ... which I understand. :-)

reminded that is was about lunch time. Three eggs and some Jimmy Dean sausage and a hot cup of coffee hit the spot. Thanks for the inspiration.

day. They fly up to the top of the 55 gallon plastic tubs that we keep the feed in. They sit there waiting for you to pet them and rub their backs. The plain white Leghorns are good too, an egg every day. We have some dark Reds too, don't remember the names of them. The Australorps are good too, a lot like the Barred Rocks.
We had a lot of the real unusual breeds too in our first batch years ago but didn't go with them this time. They don't pay their ways.

I miss having chickens. We are having a new home and shop built this year. I told my wife that we are getting more when we get moved in. She wants rabbits as well. My young nephew lives next door and the plan is to make him a partner. I’ll pay for it and he does the work! We have a lot of coons in our area and they are murderous rascals. We can handle that too. I used to trap and it’s time for him to learn that skill too. Too bad fur prices are terrible. A friend said he makes pretty good selling the meat though. We have found ourselves without a dog for the first time in 30 years. The livestock will be a good excuse to get another or 2.

I started trapping and shooting them. Really cut down on the problems. Lost a few to the hawks. Have them set now where the feathered hunters have a hard time getting to them.

I killed 8 or 9 coons with my little Bearcat Shopkeeper. It works right well. :-)

Well that is a good reason to buy another bearcat! I only have 3 now!

Usually, no matter how many we have, we need at least one more. :-D

breeds of them. I would raise the bunnies until they got to about 2 lbs then sell the meat to a fellow that had hundreds of them in just about every breed there was. I enjoyed the Lops, with their long ears. Rather than get paid for the rabbits I sold him I would take it out in rabbits. I would usually keep 70 or 75 rabbits as breeding stock. I had Quonset huts with the rabbits in wire huts hanging about 4 feet off the ground.
I bought my breeding stock from the fellow that had hundreds and within no time I had about 70 females and 4 or 5 males. But they, like the chickens, went thru a 50 lb bag of food just about every day. I started out with 40 rabbits total and when I moved to Florida I had somewhere around 100. Rabbits would breed "like rabbits" and if I had 40 to start with and bred each female I would double that amount in just no time.

When the females came into heat I would put them in with all the males, one at a time and breed them with each male. This way we had big broods, never little broods of 3 or 4. Breeding rabbits in a real kick too. The males would jump on the female, wham bam about 5 or 6 seconds then he would scream and fall over sideways like he had a heart attack. Kase helped me and when we were breeding and the males would scream and fall over sideways, Kase was 5 or 6 and thought the rabbit had a heart attack and was dead.
I really enjoyed them but this was in 1977 to 1981 and
I was still in radio and the head man of the radio station there in Nashville wanted me to move down to Sarasota Florida and run a new radio station he had just bought down there. It was on a small island just off Sarasota. At first I said no but money talks so I sold all the rabbits and all the equipment to a bunch of Amish folks.
I really miss the rabbits and chickens. Might get back into them sometime. If anyone needs any info about breeding rabbits let me know. I am not an expert but know enough to get you started.

They will sometimes roost in a tall tree and anything that comes in the yard they let you know.

write their breeding on the calendar? With our Jack Russells we have to keep track of the days they bred so we will know the whelping time. If we keep track we will know approx. the time frame in case there is a problem with the birthing..

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