[Chipmaker]

Since it was raining today the wife and I decided to cull some birds and pull out some extra ones, and carry them to the small animal and poultry auction tomorrow. They have one of these auctions every Saturday all year round (except if a major holiday falls on that saturday) rain snow sleet or shine, they have the auction. The general merchandise starts at 8am, poultry at 10 and small animals at 1pm, so its an all day affair and its been known to last well into the evening. Gonna have to leave really early so I can incheck my stuff so it gets put up for auction sooner rather than later, so maybe I won;'t have to make it an all day affair.

The truck is loaded and parked under the shed and ready to go.

Contents so far:
40 Black Australorp hens (2 to 3 years old)
29 Aracauna Hens (3 years old)
73 Assorted roosters (black australorps and Aracauna and Silver Pheonix)
2 pairs of Silver Pheonix (2 years old)
60 silver pheonix chicks 4 weeks old
10 Brown Chinese geese (6 gooses and 4 ganders about 4 years old)
6 white peachicks 2 weeks old
40 Assorted colors of Guinea fowl.........
8 White Pekin ducks 4 years old
2 small Nigerian Pygmy goat kids just weaned (wethers)
Approximately 90 doz hatching eggs / fresh fertile yard eggs from Black Australorps and Aracauna chickens
60 goose eggs
12 dozen guinea eggs
16 peafowl eggs

Hope to bring back 10 or more young buck goats, maybe some pheasants, and a pocket full of money!

It don't take long to go through a 50 foot roll of 2 x 4 welded wire fencing or use up a heap of old field fence making all those cages. All critters must be in a cage except for animal types unless they are like a rabbit etc. My truck looks like Fred Sanford and sons truck loaded with critters. Also have the livestock trailer loaded with them as well.

That might be a heap of birds etc but I still have a heap more that I am keeping. I just needed to whittle my inventory down. Old and non producers go to sale, productive ones get to hang around a little longer, and if the feed keeps going up even some of those productive types may find themselves under the auctions spot lights. Goats etc are not a problem as I have lots of browse and pasture but the birds are another story when it comes to buying feed.

 

[Chris]

Wow --- How much will all of that bring? What an amazing collection of fowl there.... You think you can take any pics of those fine load for the whole forum to see. Where exactly do you live? I am here in Hammond, LA and can get to Mobile in about 2 1/4hrs or so. Thanks for sharing your adventures, Chip!

Andy

 

[Big Allis]

you got a truk load chip got any room for few rabbits lol i strted wth 5 as pests n have 17 was told shld take 2 sale but got attached 2 iones i have bin thinkin bout breedin thm wth some rabbits my frnd has called san juans n sell them poultry n other livestock bringin pretty good up this way cause of the immigrants like mexicans jamaicans indians etc the fresh kill market is good especially wth goats have friend in virginia tht raises meat goats n is doin good

 

[Chipmaker]

Made out pretty darn good. I think I set a new record for prices bid on my guineas though. I got anywhewre from $15.50 to 16.50 per bird. Thats unheard of in this area. Usually you can count on 3 to 4 bucks each. If I knew they were going to fetch that price I would have hauled all my birds off to auction. Roosters brought good prices as well....up to 8 bucks a bird, hens came out in the 4 to 6 dollar range and hatching / fertile eggs still only bring a buck a dozen for chicken eggs anyhow. Goose and guineas eggs fecthed 2 to 3 bucks each egg.

Just about gave the goats away. As hard as I looked, I just did not and could not bring myself to buy any buck goats. I bid on a few but the prices they went for were more than the folks that are buying them from me for would pay, so no goats were brought home, so I surmise there are going to be a lot of disapointed latinos today (Sunday) as I don't have the first buck goat to sell to them. Have a few does, but they only want bucks. Thats why I hauled off the wethers, no one wants the wethers..............got to have em swinging in the breeze or they don't go in the deepfreeze.


No, I never took any pics, as its a common occurance around here with loading up for auction so I never gave it another thought. It poured down all day Saturday, but we managed to get there before the majority of the heavy stuff came down. Same way coming home, it was ice, but an hour after getting home the bottom fell out, and it has rained hard and steady and is still coming down pretty heavy. My pond is pretty darn close to spilling out the overflow. Sure is nice lots of rain as I sure can;t handle those 80 dollar water bills I have had to get my new sod and grass established as well as the garden.

Rabbits at the auction went for 2 to 5 bucks for young ones, and old alike. Heck nice bred does were only bringing in 5 bucks.

 

[Chris]

Wow, sounds like you had a great time. Would have loved to see all of those different animals. Sound like you did really well at this auction --- perhaps your name and reputation (extended knowledge of everything fowl and so much more) is really paying off for you.

What is with goats and latinos? Do they use them to cut the grass and then butcher em up later on? Only males? Hmmmm.
Well, it sounds like you had a really productive and fun outing.
Thanks so much for keeping us all in the loop and informed. Would like to a couple maturing egg layers from you sometime.
In any case, GOBBLE GOBBLE.


Bye

 

[Chipmaker]

Don't have no turkeys Admin. Never cared for them after i got attacked one time by a big old mean Tom we had who probably went 40 to 50 pounds on the foot! Its very intimidating to get attacked by a darn bird and have him whip your butt and beat you severly with his wings and spurs. Of all the birds we have ever raised turkeys are the dumbest, and also the bird we usually had most of our troubles with in regards to dying as a young poult or have the free rangine hens run off with the wild flocks we have around here. Turkeys are also more susceptible to diseases that chickens and other critters normlly don't come down with or can build up an imunity to.

I serously doubt they use them to cut grass with, as most of the ones that come here tobut em all live in apartment complexes etc. I am just amazed they are getting away with carrying a live goat to these apartment complexes, and slaughtering it. Oh well.

Today I had quite a few stop buy for goats, but they were all out of luck so maybe I'll head to the auction again next weekend and see if there is anything worthwhile to buy. Most of those that came around today said they could spend higher and just wanted goat.........

One family in particular is some really nice folks. They came early this morning and left with two roosters and 12 dozen eggs.......

Today the fellow brought his little boy and his wife, normally its just the fellows that come, but his wife and mine started to talk and now this mexicans wife is going to bring her some home made tortillas and some other things. I also told them if they wanted I would till up a spot for a garden and they could plant what they wanted. I can't guarantee a daily water job as its just to expensive since my last two water bills just to water my own stuff, but if they wanted, they could plant and harvest it at their leisure, no charge. They agreed, so now on Wednesday if it dries up enough he is going to come back down here and well till up a plot for them to plant. I have lots of excess compost and stuff. For the most part the ones that I have run into here at my place are some very nice folks.


Yep I did pretty darn well at the auction. Usually my luck does ot run that way when I sell. Only the other sellers make any money and thats usually when I wind up paying out the nose for something I wanted.

 

[Big Allis]

chip thts good price for guinea fowl thy they usually bring bout 12-13 buks at local auctions here do you ever see guinea pigs sell at auction thy bring 12-15 buks a piece for eatin i was at auction while bak n guy bght one was a foreigner he sd thy eay them thy are good i guess thy probly wldnt be no dffrnt thn eatin a squirrel or small rabbit

 

[Chris]

HAHA... eatin the guinea pigs. Thats a new one. But then again don't they eat horses over there too? Strange to me. Thanks, Chip for a comprehensive reply. Man, you sound like a really thoughtful and generous person --- allowing that Mexican family to plant and harvest their own food. That is a really nice gesture my friend. Way people should treat others who are less fortunate.

:thumbsup:

Jose is happy for you my friend. edro:

 

[Chipmaker]

Heck the French eat horse and other decrepit stuff as well. I spent a lot of time in Germany when in th military and France was only 30 minutes ride away. One time we took a weekend and went to check out a local town named Metz. There was a lot of stuff to see. Anyhow it was a Saturday and they had this large huge what resembles a outside flea market. They had all kinds of animals. There was also a building there that had inside vendors and had dead whatever they were hanging up for sale. Coiuld have been cats or dogs or big rats I don;t know. Anyhow we spotted some huge slabs of meat in one display case that had to be about 8" thick and perhaps18 to 20 inches ormore in diameter. Looked like a huge round steak. Could not figure out what it was , but later on we saw them slaughtering animals at the back of this place, and in the slaughter yard there was a bunch of horses.. The meat we saw was either a neck or rump cut................from a horse or mule.

When in France stick to menue items you know, unless you have a penchant for exotic cruisine and the unknown..........and their food prep standards are, well almost non existent from things I saw..........so needless to say unless it was not a well known restaurant etc we stuck mainly to pastries. Maybe their unsanitary preceedures is how they get all that so called French cruisine flavor.........but if the truth were known, you'd have 2nd thoughts on if it was really all that good of food!