Tag: chicken raising

Olio – September 10, 2014

Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things.

At times I consider whether I should just rename my blog Olio as most posts fly all over the place. It is only mid morning on a day that the weather prognosticators said would be mostly sunny and dry, but instead it is thickly overcast and too humid again to paint or stain. The grass too wet with dew to mow. This isn’t to say that the morning has been idle, no instead a load of laundry has been folded, Grand #1’s bed remade from his weekend visit; another load of laundry washed and currently drying; the chicken coop refreshed with a turn of the old hay and an addition of new hay; the meaties chicken tractor given a good layer of hay in the bottom as it is currently more or less permanently set at the end of the 6 foot wide run to contain the 5 week old chickies and it was beginning to not smell so pleasant. Another huge bucket of tomatoes have been harvested, though I haven’t begun to process them yet, as I can’t decide what this batch will become, probably just plain diced tomatoes. Just in the last couple of days, the tomato vines have begun to fade.

There are still plenty of tomatoes to harvest, but this is a signal of the end of the summer growing season. This morning, the spent cucumber vines were pulled and tossed to the chickens to peck at the last few cukes and the bugs on the vines. Each year I begin the season faithfully pinching suckers from the tomato plants and trying to contain the branches within the cages and by this time each year, the branches have fallen over and through the cages and the plants look pitiful. Perhaps next year I will use strong stakes instead of cages and tie the plants up as they grow taller, being more faithful about leaving only one main stem. Next year, they will have the rich soil of the compost bins as we remove the wood from them this winter to expand the garden and create a more reasonably sized compost bin in a new location. So much of the stuff that used to go into the compost, now goes to the chickens and their bedding becomes the compost, so having the bin near the coop door on the edge of the garden would make more sense. That area is where I planted the Buttercup squash, pumpkins, and sweet potatoes this year and between them and my weeding efforts, the bin have remained fairly weed free this summer.

The squash have spread over the woodpile, over to the vegetable garden, into the chicken run and up the hill past the hay bales and out of the electric fence. Many of the huge leaves have burn marks across them and cause the electric fence to pop as they touch it. Yesterday as I mowed, with the fence off, I snapped off the leaves touching the fence. I know that one day soon, I will begin to see those vines fading like the tomato vines. The peppers are loving the cooler weather and are blooming and producing new peppers daily. The summer squash are mostly done. It is now a time for greens and a few radishes and turnips.

As I sit here waiting for the inspiration to can or the grass to dry for mowing, I am enjoying one of the only two magazines to which I subscribe. The magazine is Taproot, no advertising, full of wonderful art, recipes, articles about back to a simpler time of producing your own food, making your own clothes, growing your own animals and knowing from where your goods come. If you haven’t ever seen an issue, you should seek one out.

Each issue has a theme and each is wonderful to savor each word and save for future reference.

Lovin’ life on our mountain farm.

September 10, 2014
Olio – September 5, 2014

Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things.

The Rainbow Ranger chicks have exceeded 2 pounds each at 4 1/2 weeks, far outgrowing anything we have to use as a brooder. They are getting feisty with each other, chest bumping and pecking. They are mostly feathered and it is still warm to hot during the days and mild at night. They were requiring twice daily brooder clean out, had gone for a week without supplemental heat in the garage, so a decision was made today to relocate them to the auxiliary pen, confined to the chicken ark. We did concede to put a tarp over the sides and will keep our fingers crossed that we don’t lose them now. Again I vow to let my hens do the work of raising chicks from now on or we are going to have to build a bigger outdoor brooder with electricity so we can put the heat lamp in it.
The March hatched Buff Orpington pullets are almost all laying finally. We are getting 8 or 9 eggs a day and thoroughly enjoying having them again.
Between canning tomatoes and cleaning chicks, I have found time to finish my Hitchhiker scarf.

And spin and ply 383 yards of Merino wool into an interesting DK weight yarn.

Now I need to decide whether to sell it, or create something with it.
When we had a cool evening two weeks ago, I pulled out my Elise sweater I knit last year and determined that it pulled at my shoulders because it is just a bit too small for me.

I don’t have anymore of the yarn, nor do I want to reknit it as I have two other sweaters currently on needles and they are both shades of blue or teal, so I am trying to decide it’s fate. My options are to try to sell this hand knit sweater for little more than the cost of the yarn, to try to trade it for spinning fiber, or determine if there is a relative smaller than I that would like to have a hand knit sweater that has to be hand washed.

Last weekend, I broke my second tooth of the summer. The first required a crown and that tooth still hasn’t been finished, a temporary crown in place until mid week. When I called the dentist, they were able to get me in yesterday and fortunately this one only needed a filling repair for now. Being a molar, it likely will eventually need a crown as well. I have 6 already and lost one crowned tooth because of repeated gum infections between it and the adjacent tooth. I hope that with dental repairs and care, I will retain most of my teeth as my 91 year old father has.

It has been a good week and we continue to love our life on our mountain farm.

September 5, 2014
Olio – August 23, 2014

A few days ago in the pouring rain, we pressure washed the deck and porch in preparation for resurfacing them with one of the new deck resurface products. As the outdoor cats often settle on the front porch and have their supplemental food on that porch, it was all moved. One of the garage doors was open and the dog crate that is used to move the cats to the vet for rabies shots, used to transport chicks when they are purchased locally, but otherwise stored in the garage was sitting on the floor. We prepared to leave to buy the deck resurface paint and went to close the garage door. This is what we found. . .

This guy is our sickly male who is about 5 years old, much older than we were led to believe that he would live as he was born with Feline Aids before we rescued him. The healthy female bolted for the barn as soon as the powerwasher was started. I would give him access to stay there, but the 2 week old Rainbow Ranger chicks are in the brooder in the garage. There is an old window screen over the top, but that wouldn’t stop a dedicated cat.

In spite of the rain, or maybe because of it, we have had some spectacular sunsets. We would love to get the decks painted, but the forecast calls for one more day of rain before we finally get a period of dry days, hopefully enough to get the job done.

Tonight as I surveyed the refrigerator for dinner, I remembered about a quart of beef stew made earlier in the week and not wanting another meal of just stew, I added some vegetables and a crust and made one of my favorite comfort foods, pot pie. Usually I make chicken or turkey pot pie, but the beef stew was just too tempting.

Broody Girl finally gave up her empty nest sit, but she still hasn’t begun to lay. We are getting 3 eggs most days from the 13 hens and pullets. Hopefully, we will start seeing more eggs soon. The pullet eggs are getting larger, but as the only laying hen’s eggs are speckled, I can still distinguish who is laying. I need at least 3 extra dozen a week to break even on their feed, since we are also feeding 15 Rainbow Ranger chicks. The chicks are rapidly outgrowing the water tank we use as a brooder. I am at a loss about what to do with them. They are only 2 weeks old and still need a heat source. The chicken tractor is hardware cloth on the lower half and I can’t get power out to it or I would consider putting plastic sheeting on the lower half and moving them there. If any of my readers have good brooder pen idea for 15 rapidly growing meat chicks, I would love some ideas.

Most Saturday mornings, though not for the past few weeks, we travel into town, enjoy breakfast at Joe’s Diner, a local landmark then wander the Farmers’ Market for goodies. Today we were able to get potatoes, onions, carrots, and green beans (ours are still not producing). Some beef and pork from our favorite meat farmers and flowers for the table were scored as well. It is such a pleasure to visit on Saturday mornings and chat with friends, pet pups and supply with goodies we aren’t producing. Today was a bit crazy in town as this week has been move in week at the University and the town is bursting with new students and parents who are bringing or returning them to school. The summer of being able to eat at the local restaurants without a wait is over until Winter Break, but the energy they bring to the town is worth that inconvenience.

We love life on our mountain farm.

August 23, 2014
Chooks and cooks

The middles are now 13 weeks old and the injured one seems to be recovering and was returned to the coop today with supervision to see if the others would leave her alone and they accepted her right back into the flock. Her injuries are healing and her feathers cover the injuries, so I think all will be well.

Since I lost one and have decided that the Olive egger will be culled in July, I returned to the farm where the rest of my Buffs have come from and purchased 3 pullets that are 15 weeks old. That hopefully will give me 14 egg layers by late July. If I keep Cogburn, my flock will be 15 Buff Orpingtons and will be a self sustaining flock as broody hens will be allowed to raise chicks for replacements and meat in future years.

All of my Buffs have come from the same farm, a year ago, 13 weeks ago and tonight. After talking with the breeder, I think that I can put the new girls in the coop tonight and let them all wake up together tomorrow. There are only two adults in the coop and they are as docile as the middles.

The Breeder lives in Floyd County, and the town of the Floyd has the best pizza restaurant around. The Dogtown Roadhouse has specialty wood fired thin crust pizza and many choices of microbrews. We left in time to enjoy our dinner there first with their Kitchen sink pizza and each having a different microbrew. The perfect end to a great week.

Life is an adventure on our mountain farm.

June 6, 2014
The King, the Queen, and the Evil Keeper

“I am the King of all Buff Orpingtons,” says he as he struts around his farm yard, bold and proud. “I would protect my subjects with my life.”

In reality, he is kind of a “chicken” so to speak. When trouble threatens, he is generally one of the first to flee the scene. He has even been known to dart into the garage and hide behind the ladders, while his ladies fend for themselves in the yard. He generally tolerates the Evil Keeper, as he must perceive her. She does bring his court food and water, but also, she separated his kingdom with a tall wall that he can see through, but can’t breech. When his kingdom was divided, the Evil Keeper put him on one side of the wall and left his Queen on the other side. How cruel could she be?

“I am the self proclaimed Queen,” says she. “No one in the kingdom lays such beautiful eggs as I. When the Evil Keeper erected the wall to divide our kingdom, she placed me in charge of half and my King in charge of the other half. Though I adore being in charge of all of the other Buff Orpingtons, including those terrible teenagers, who I must spend too much of my time putting in their place, I missed my King.”

“The Evil Keeper does not realize how sly and cunning I am. Each day when she would check on us and bring us treats, I would be visiting the other side of the wall with my King. Some nights I would fly back to bed with my subjects and to torment the teenagers, other nights I would choose to stay in the smaller Palace with King Cogburn and his ladies in waiting. My behavior baffles the Evil Keeper as she never knows where she may find me or where I may lay my beautiful olive eggs. Sometimes I hide them from her in odd places. One night recently, when I decided to spend the night in his half of the kingdom, she grabbed me from my throne, took a sharp implement and sheared my flight feathers from one of my wings. She is such a horrible keeper. Then she put me in the castle with my two grown subjects and all of those noisy teenagers. They are so annoying as their voices change and they are growing so fast that they take up so much more space in the castle. For the next several days, I was distraught as was my king. I paced the wall and he crowed until he was nearly voiceless. He still has 6 subjects to rule, but we want to be together. When the Evil Keeper isn’t watching us from that lush paradise she considers her domain and won’t share with us, I have been scratching in a soft spot near the wall and finally, yesterday my tunnel was large enough to allow my escape back to my King. My Buff Orpington subjects are too fat or too stupid to realize that they too can escape. Last night I was able to rejoin my King. But alas, the Evil Keeper blocked my tunnel and now I am stuck in the smaller Palace and yard and one of my subjects is studying to be the new Queen of the Castle. I fear my behaviors may result in my being banned to exile in freezer camp soon.”

What the Queen doesn’t realize, is that as soon as the teenagers are a few weeks older and the Palace hens are exiled, that Cogburn will rejoin his new Queen in the Castle and the Palace will be cleaned and prepared for 15 young subjects destined also for freezer camp.

June 5, 2014
Spring has come to the mountains, finally!

We are enjoying mountain spring at last. Days that are mild enough for long sleeves or a light sweater, nights still cold enough for a coat, but signs abound that Old Man Winter has finally moved south, way south.

Peach blossoms and green grass.

Garlic growing in the garden beds.

On one of my surveys of the outside of the house, I have found many Preying Mantis egg cases, two on one of the spent deck plants from last year.

They will be carefully cut off and placed in the new plants on the deck and we will try to catch the day they begin to emerge. It is interesting to watch the tiny 1/2″ long critters creeping around on the plant leaves.

Sunshine today and though it is only in the mid 50s outside, the 4 week old chicks got some sun time.

They are just past the dinosaur stage and look to have nearly all of their feathers. When out in the sun, they jump and flap, chase each other around the water trough that was their brooder. Today they went back into one of the wire dog kennels, but this time in the garage as they kept tipping the water and spilling it into the trough and the pine shavings were getting too soggy too quickly.

Tomorrow we are expecting heavy rain most all day, so Jim and I will go to the lumber yard and purchase the wood and a roll of chicken wire to create a coop divide. By the end of the week, the chicks will occupy half of the coop, perhaps still with a heat lamp for another week or so and the other half of the coop will be the two Buff Orpington hens and the Americana hen. Cogburn and the rest of his harem will be moved at night into the temporary pen and chicken tractor, tricked out with a new nesting box to keep them separate from the chicks and to isolate them until the day in July or August when they will be permanently removed from the flock.

After a few weeks of adjustment and a bit more size, the coop divider will be removed and the chicks will have to learn the pecking order with the three hens that we will be keeping.

April 6, 2014
Spring productivity

A record, 3 days in a row of sunshine and temperatures that are late springlike and it is showing around the farm. The grass is greening and by August I will wish it weren’t as I mow and mow, but it is a welcome sight. The lilac leaves are bursting forth and the forsythia has a yellowish hint of flowers soon to come. The peach trees have swelling buds as do the Asian pears.

The beautiful weather has sparked the energy that the winter sapped and much as been accomplished. The garage clean-up is about half done, the chicken run is complete except for the two wooden posts for the gate and I need the neighbor’s post driver for that, Jim and I hauled the chicken tractor over in front of the unused side of the compost bins and I erected fencing to create a pen for the cull birds this spring and the meat birds this fall.

Between the coop and the compost bins there used to be two more compost bins that eldest son and I took down when we put the coop in place. There was plenty of good compost still there so a tractor bucket full was moved to the garden and spread around. My 4 x 4 wooden boxes in the garden are rotting away, so I pulled several of them out and will just revert to long 4′ wide rows. After the scoop of compost was removed, I realized that the spot would be a perfect potato bed, so some raking to smooth the surface and try to level it some was done, then weeding and planting of peas. The garden has a good healthy crop of garlic up, the grapes and all but one berry bush are leafing out and the peas are finally in the ground. There is more weeding to do in preparation for planting in a few weeks, but after three days of work, I’m spent.

I’m cleaned up, vegging out until time to go pick up my car from the shop and go socialize and knit with my friends.

Life is an adventure on our mountain farm.

April 2, 2014
Spring Cleaning Day 2

On a farm, raising animals, spring cleaning doesn’t just include the house. The house will wait for a rainy day. Today, the babychicks had their first”outing” while I cleaned their brooder bin.

They seemed to enjoy some time in the sun. Since the daytime temperatures reached 78ºf and the bin is black, they were plenty warm.

The big chickens got their digs cleaned too.

Forking out the old hay down to the composted layer below and adding it to the garden compost bin.

A different use for the snow shovel, clearing the composted layer off the vinyl floor.

And finally adding a thick layer of clean new hay to the coop and nesting boxes. This is a guarantee that at least one chicken will lay her egg outside of the nesting boxes tomorrow by scooping out a hollow in one of the corners beneath the perches. While the coop was empty, I evaluated how I am going to put a temporary wire and frame barrier inside to separate the chicks from the 3 hens that will be left in the coop once they are ready to be put outside.

The chicken tractor was dragged out of the garage, but not put in place yet, I need help to do that, and the deck furniture was returned to the deck, hoping that we will have more nice days to eat our dinner out there and no more white stuff to decorate the deck. That was the extent of the cleaning today, but prior to those tasks, we went out and purchased a 100 foot roll of welded wire fencing, more posts and a gate. The remainder of the day was spent replacing the cheap garden wire fence that I reused two weeks ago when I realized that 100 feet of welded wire fence was not enough to finish the job. The pen is now much sturdier and will have a real gate as soon as our neighbor can come over with the post driver and set a wooden post upon which the gate will be hung. It will be great to have a real gate into their pen.

I didn’t get the peas planted. Tomorrow is supposed to be another gorgeous day so I will get the peas in the ground and with hubby’s help, move the chicken tractor to the location where the culls will be kept for a few weeks and I will erect a temporary pen with the garden fencing to contain them until freezer camp day. The rest of the week is going to be wet, so perhaps I will finish the garage and start on the house. I have to admit that deep cleaning the house is a task of frustration with two big dogs who reside inside.

Because Jim didn’t get home from his motorcycle ride until nearly 6 p.m. and I still wasn’t quite finished with the fence when he got home and since I had 3 chickens still on the outside of the newly completed run, I finished up, left two of the chicken out, hoping they would settle near the coop at dark and went out for dinner. When we got home, both hens had flown over the fence and were safely cooped up with their buddies.

Life is an adventure on our mountain farm.

April 1, 2014
Sleepless in …

The wind has howled like a freight train plowing through the house all night. I don’t sleep well when it does for fear of it toppling the shed roof over the heatpump and taking out our heat. It woke me at 2 a.m. and that ended my night.

This is what we awoke to find

yes, snow blowing sideways. Note the small flag next to the post.

I went out to put food in the coop and open the pop door and because of the direction, there is a small snowdrift in the coop. Their water bucket is frozen solid. I left if outside as it is supposed to get up to the mid 40s later, so hopefully it will thaw.

I don’t know when the wind is supposed to die down, but the weather gods are telling us we are expecting 2 to 4 inches of white stuff before it does. Not what I expected this morn.

March 30, 2014
What Do You Do When It Is Subfreezing Temperatures?

We are warm and cozy indoors, the thermostat is set at 68f, but that is not what it is like outdoors. This is what it is:

It is still gusty wind, so the wind chill makes it too uncomfortable to go play in the snow. Let me qualify that and state that I have played in the snow, on skis at that temperature, wearing lots of windproof and waterproof layers, but I don’t want to put on ski clothes to take a walk, so until the sun warms things up to the upper teens and the wind dies down, I’ll stay inside and …

Start http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/zuzus-petals, a cowl out of Mountain Colors Bearfoot yarn in Lupine color for me.

Make chili, enough for lunch and 2 quarts for the freezer. Actually, I spent yesterday while it was snowing making this, starting with dry beans, my small crockpot, lots of onions, jalapenos, garlic, and tomatoes from last summer’s garden and a pound of grass finished ground beef from the farmer’s market.

Collect and admire the hen gems, admiring the variation of color and size that the hens produce. I need to enjoy this now, because come spring, I will be replacing many of the hens with more Buff Orpingtons and the variation will cease, but the flock will be self sustaining. The collecting process involves layering scarf, hat, gloves, barn jacket and barn boots several times a day as eggs freeze and crack at these temperatures more quickly than you would believe.

The pretty tan birds are the Buffs and again they are in their coop, refusing to step out into the snow and the cold. The Oliver Egger, my Houdini finally peeked out and I learned how she has been escaping, chased her back in and sealed up her escape hole. If she gets caught outside the fence with no way back in, she will likely end up with frostbite or dead.

The dogs and I enjoyed some of their gifts for breakfast.

And read of course. The current book is The Bloodletter’s Daughter (A Novel of Old Bohemia) by Linda Lafferty. An interesting historical fiction, set toward the end of the Ottoman Empire, utilizing authentic locations and some characters but playing more on their insanity that history truly reveals.

So how do you spend shut in days?

January 22, 2014