It's Christmas Time in the Country...

I love Christmas, but this year is a lean year...business has been lacking at the shop and I don't even make enough from the sale of eggs to feed my chickens...but I have faith that everything will be O.K.  Christmas is for kids anyway, I loved having my grand daughter at my house over the weekend...she was fascinated with the decorations on the tree and all the different colors of the lights.  I gave her a Cabbage Patch doll, she seemed to love it. I have some Duck Dynasty Knomes that she played with at Thanksgiving and am going to try and make her a soft body version, but because of our kids schedules we celebrated Christmas early with them and I have not made it yet.  I look forward to more grandchildren, we will be blessed with another in June.

I have all these thoughts of things I wanted to do to prepare for Christmas, I wanted to make some pine cone wreaths and use some for crafts like decorations for the tree, I want to use pine boughs and holly for decorations too...but it will just be me and my husband on Christmas this year and with all the chores I have I may skip even attempting anything like that until I have more time.  I have a hard time getting everyday chores done without adding to them right now.  I am just thankful that we got to have some family here for a few days.  I did get the Christmas tree up and decorated before they came and that was a feat in itself.

I made candles, goats milk soap, laundry soap and cookies and put them in gift baskets with coffee, homemade vanilla, hot sauce and jelly for the kids.  I normally do more, but it is what it is and I hope they enjoy the fruits of my labor.  The jellies were from the Plum trees and Dewberries we have growing wild here.  I hope my son will bring my grand daughter out more in the future, she loves the ducks, geese and chickens...maybe some day she will enjoy learning to fish in our pond and maybe camping out on our land some day.

I hate talking about death, but we had something kill a couple of young chickens and a young duck this past week.  Only one body was totally missing, the heads were missing off of the duck and the rooster.  I had an open duck house that had been hastily put together when it was going to get down in the 20's...I totally revamped it, beefed it up clad it with metal and put a polycarbonate window...and put a lockable door on it.  All of the chickens are locked up at night now as are the ducks and geese.  I purchased a live trap and we set it up in the duck pen the first night, but it is just outside the perimeter fence now.  We have caught nothing, so it probably isn't a raccoon or possum like some thought.  I was leaning toward a large owl...we saw no tracks.  The duck was almost adult size, the hen that is completely missing probably only weighed about 3 pounds...just a small pile of her feathers was left behind.  The rooster that was killed, well there was a large pile of feathers in one spot, but his headless body was found in a tarp covered chicken tractor.  I started letting my dogs outside the backyard fence again, I figure that their scent will keep most animals away.  I have ordered a trail camera so if it comes back, we will be able to figure out what it is.  I also built what is known as a pop door for the large coop, we had been using a piece of the metal siding and large magnets...but the roosters learned to pull the metal off.  

I have been working with the roosters, trying to get everyone integrated and right now I have a bunch of roosters in the coop we call "the Condo", we let all of the big coop chickens out this morning and they can feel safe from getting pecked on by the big roosters.  There is about a 4 month difference in their ages for the bulk of the chickens in the big coop.  I do have babies in the big coop too, and 4 more will be added tonight, then I will only have 5 chicks left in the brooder...I will wait a bit longer to add them to the big coop, they need to be about 3 months old I think, I will get them out when they get too big to walk under the roost in the brooder like the other ones.


I think most people have visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads this time of year...me I am chicken obsessed, I have visions of  colored eggs, hatching new chicks, breeding the ones I have, building the breeding pens...and the first time processing roosters.

Finally ALL Out of The House

After 7 months of hatching eggs and then growing babies, I don't have any chicks or ducks in the house!  Call me crazy...but I keep looking at hatching eggs on eBay, but I will wait until at least after Christmas to hatch any more.

Why you ask?  Why would I want to hatch more cute little fluffy babies?  Well, to sell and rotate my stock.  A hen lays the best the first two years of her life, they can slow down after that two years.  A lot of people around here raise chickens so they can have eggs, and they don't want all the trouble a rooster can cause either, so they have no protection for their flock.  Even when you have a rooster they will die protecting their girls, roosters are very protective and if a raccoon or fox, or even a hawk tries to grab one of the girls, he will do his best to fight it off and will sacrifice himself so the hens will live.  I have around 30 roosters at the moment.  It is the luck of the draw when you hatch eggs, a lot of the time you get about half roosters.

I ordered restraining cones yesterday, it is a device to keep a bird still when you decide it is time to process them.  The majority of my Roosters are adult size now, I have a lot of different breeds and will keep at least one Rooster of each.  Roosters can get rather aggressive though, they fight for dominance and injuries to other birds can occur, even deaths.  I lost two young Roosters that would not back down to the dominant male in the Coop Run...it is set up like a coop now, it has a roof, roosting bars and nest boxes too.  It is best to introduce new younger chickens slowly because of the pecking order thing that goes on with chickens, I took a chance and put the largest youngsters out in the Run without much of an introduction.  I was working outside on cleaning and building so I kept an eye on them for the day, everything was going pretty well and about a week later I guess the little Roosters decided to take on the bigger Rooster.  My husband found a lot of blood one morning when he was feeding, he told me all of the chickens looked OK though, but I might want to check them out.  Later when I went out, I found the two dead...so I guess maybe he might have interrupted the fight with feeding and they resumed it afterward.  There was no blood on them, but after inspecting some of the other baby Roosters I noticed some cuts and abrasions on their feet and legs.  

No, I did not cry.  Upset that it happened, yes...and I feel bad about it.  I have learned that death is part of raising chickens though, and that is why I don't really name them.  My husband does name some of them.  I try to keep them all healthy and nurse them when anything happens.  I named this one I nursed Diamond the other day, she is a small Dominique hen...one of the favorites of my Easter Egger Rooster my husband calls Mr. Poofy Face.  Chickens can be kind of stupid sometimes, when it got cold a few weeks ago, Diamond and her flock stood out in the rain and cold...got soaking wet too.  Normally a chickens feathers keeps them plenty warm, she was molting and what made it worse, she was missing feathers in her saddle area.  I went out to feed and check on all of them and I could hear her breath from 15 feet away.  She was standing in one spot and making raspy gurgling noises.  I picked her up and felt so sorry for her...she was still wet, her few feathers were matted to her little body and I could feel the rattling in her chest.  I brought her into the house, I have large totes that I use as brooders when I hatch chicks and I had one ready to put her into.  I had moved babies to the brooder that I had moved into the storage room with the water heater so I had room.  I still had one batch of babies in the bathroom and did not want them sick, so she was kept in the office.

I got the tools of the trade out...VetRx and Electrolytes with Vitamins and Probiotics, got her all set up and warm.  Put the VetRx on her and the Vitamins in the water.  VetRx works something like Vicks Vaporub on people, it is all natural ingredients and usually helps with any congestion or breathing issues.  So she gots some on her head, a drop on her beak, under both wings and some on her chest.  She was really sounding bad a half hour later, so I got my Eucalyptus oil, Pepermint oil and Oregano oil out...I put a few drops of Oregano oil into her beak, and a few drops of Pepermint and Eucalyptus on the puppy pad in her tote.  I gave her some fermented feed with a couple of drops of Oregano oil in it too.  I did this for a few days, when she seem unchanged I added antibiotics to her water and still did the rest...after a week she laid an egg.  Diamond still had that sound and gurgling noise in her chest, she never had any discharge from her eyes or nose...but she still sounded bad.  I got Duramyacin and started giving her a shot a day...still did the other too.  She started walking around more, she even started laying an egg every other day, but still sounded bad.  I finally got some Tylan, Tractor Supply had it in the small bottle finally!  I gave her a shot of Tylan, then waited another day...discontinued the other stuff so I could tell if it was working, gave her another shot and moved her to a kennel on the back porch for some fresh air.  She seemed much better faster after the Tylan injections.  I kept her out in the kennel for another week after being in the house for almost a month!  Tell me I don't take good care of my chickens...I may just slap you.  Lol...anyway, I do the best I can...like I said before, at this time in my life they are like my children.  Wouldn't you do everything you could to take care of them?

Making Another Chicken Coop

I must admit it!  I am addicted to chickens...why else would I be making a third coop?  There is something in the homesteading world called "Chicken Math", it is where you just want another breed because the feathers are so pretty, or they lay a pretty blue egg, or you have a broody Momma hen and you let her sit on a clutch of eggs and then...another hen goes broody and you just can't say no to them sitting on eggs of that breed you wanted and got hatching eggs for...things like that make you have to build more housing.  I also am trying to breed heritage breeds of chickens and chickens that are either on the endangered list or the watch list....that and the fact that I love all the colored chicken eggs too makes it kind of rough.

I finally decided to do an inventory of my chickens by breed, I have 130!  But I am pretty sure that number will fluctuate.  I know we will have to process some roosters soon.  I have a lot of roosters and I really just want to keep one of each breed for breeding purposes.  Think of the joy you get from having a child born into the world, at this stage in my life my chickens are like my kids.  Only I can incubate a chicken egg in 21 days...so I can have new babies every three weeks if I want to!  Not that I would do that, but I could...hmmm, yes...I could, and I have been wanting some Welsumers.

Anyway, about the new coop...I decided to modify my grow out pen that I originally built for the ducks.  It basically was four panels that had 1/2 inch screen cloth on them and I had made it so I could pull a metal rod in each corner to take it apart and move it.  Well...I can't move it any more.  I have put a piece of 3/4 inch plywood on half of it and built up from there.  I wanted it tall enough to stand up in too, so it is 8 feet tall at the front down to seven feet tall at the back.  I guess it would be considered a lean-to style, it makes it easier to build that way.  I am not an expert at construction and I really just start with an idea when I start building things, and make it up as I go.  I know it drives my husband crazy at times, but it is hard for me to describe how I need things to function.  The actual inside section of this coop is probably only three feet deep, but it is eight feet in length, it has double doors on the front so I can open it up pretty wide to clean it, the floor of it actually sits on top of the previously made grow out pen, so it is thirty-six inches high.  The whole thing is eight feet square.  We put a metal roof on top of this one too, and it will have metal siding on it as soon as I get to that part.

It is a work in progress.  We put an 8 foot roost in the coop section and I made all the chickens assigned to that pen get on it to roost for the night, night before last...it got down to 23 degrees and they are almost all my current laying hens.  I did not realize how bad a chickens eyesight is at dusk...Ok, it was dark outside...but I could see them.  I picked them up and tried to place them on the roost in the coop, but I am a little too short to reach that far up and over by about six inches.  I am just glad I had on long sleeves and heavy leather gloves!  The chickens would hold on for dear life to my gloved hand and would not jump those few inches onto the roost.  I had chickens flying all over inside the coop, they kept jumping up at the windows...at the light basically, what was left of it anyway.  I got them all up into the coop, a little over half onto the roost and the others settled on the floor.  They all survived the 23 degree temperatures and they four roosters didn't kill each other, so it is all good.  I am almost finished putting the screening up on the front and sides of the run section of the coop, I just have to figure out how to modify the door to work now...and put the siding on.  But, I still have to build a shelter for the ducks...

They Eat ALOT!

I find myself going to the feed store ALOT!  I have so many little mouths to feed these days, between our three dogs, two cats, 124 chickens, 20 ducks and 2 geese...I seem to constantly be going to get more feed.  I have read about fodder, sprouting grains and fermenting feed to boost the nutritional content...I have started my first batch of fermented feed.  People have been eating fermented food for ages, it is suppose to take less feed per animal and they can't spread it everywhere like with the crumbles or pellets...I am talking about poultry feed here, my dogs will eat anything.  If I sprout grains I will have to figure out a storage system and grow lights if necessary and what grains would work, fodder is really for larger animals like goats, cows or sheep.

I took two five gallon buckets and filled them 1/3 full of my Flock Raiser food crumbles...then I added the same amount of water and stirred it and placed a lid over the bucket loosely.  I am to stir it every day and add water as needed.  It gets really thick and I had to add more water after it soaked in some...kinda like thick gloppy oatmeal.  I am currently on day 3...it kinda stinks, but it started bubbling on day two so I know it is working.  The anaerobic process is suppose to basically create beneficial bacteria and it produces enzymes and such that are good for your poultry.  So far I have not had problems with mold or foam, but plan on taking my basic starter batch and starting more buckets and rotating the buckets, washing them out after I remove the last bit and place it in another bucket to start a new batch.  I am hoping this works well, it should save me about half the money I have been spending on feed do to waste.  But, my chickens and ducks and geese also have to learn to eat it.  I also started adding sunflower seeds to their scratch grains for a bit more protein...and I have been looking at catfish food as a possible additive to the fermented feed too.

Most people feed their animals twice a day...I usually fill the feeders that often so, I will probably keep up that practice...when my batch is ready.  

In the mean time, I have 5 baby Rouen ducks that are doing well in my bathroom brooder, and I have 12 chicks in my back porch brooder, Mamma hen. Brown Racer, is taking good care of her 7 babies and they seem to be doing well after the loss of one the other day.  I have eggs in the incubator that hopefully will hatch early next week...they are the eggs from my hens that recently started laying.  I found a man that I may be able to get hatching eggs from for African geese in the Spring, and the new Khaki Campbell's and Hybrid 300's are outside in the big pen with the adult Rouen ducks and doing well.  

Life is good on the farm...Oh, and I sold my first eggs!

Leaving My Babies

I finally tallied up all of my chickens...I have 124!  I think.  I also have 20 ducks now.  I had 5 duck eggs hatch the day before yesterday, the others are now about five weeks old and have gotten to big for the kiddie pool on the back porch.  We had storms and another power outage before this set of duck eggs hatched too.  I think that is why we had about a 50/50 hatch rate...that and too low of humidity.  I had to help all of the ducks out of their shells this time, I still not sure if they will all make it, they were shrink wrapped...when they get shrink wrapped the inner lining of the shell pulls away from the shell and adheres to the baby inside.  The shrink wrapping affect restricts their movement and they can't zip around the shell to get out...so basically you have to do it for them, before they die.  I actually had 6 that pipped, after the first one died...I helped the others after waiting 12 hours or so.  I opened the shells enough that they could breath and peeled the membrane off of their heads so I could see them, I waited and waited...they did not come out of the shells after 8 more hours.  At 4:00am I decided if I was going to save them I would have to help even more.

They are my babies...each and every one.  When I collect the eggs from my chickens or ducks as in this case, incubate them for 21 or 28 days...checking on the eggs, filling the incubator with water, checking the temperature several times a day, turning the eggs, making adjustments and watching them closely for signs of trouble during hatching...you betcha they are all my babies.  It seems more so when I save them like I had to this time.  We left for an overnight trip and I worried about them the whole time and they were still in the eggs.  We had storms you see...and when we have storms out in the country...a lot of the time the electricity goes out, that makes the temperature drop and if it drops too low for too long...the babies die.  I try and think about other things when I am hatching eggs, and I know it may sound a little crazy...but I love these little balls of fluff...they are in essence my babies and it hurts me when they don't make it or one dies.

Like I said, I had to help them hatch, it basically was a three day process this time for 6 eggs...I only helped the ones that pipped and then I almost waited too long to see if they could get out on their own.  Once I broke open the first eggshell and saw how shrink wrapped they were I knew I had to do more.  I candled the eggs and helped each one after it pipped...I ended up waiting 8 hours after breaking the shells open and peeling back the membrane from their faces to see if they would get out, they did not.  I took more of the shell of at that time and laid all the eggs on their side I upped the humidity and actually used an eye dropper and moistened the inside of the shell.  It seemed like they were so adhered to the inside of the shell they could not move.  I waited again...this time overnight.  None of the ducks had gotten out of the shell by the time I got up the next morning!  At this point I figured they would all die, you have a three day window during hatching...after those three days, the ducks or chicks need food and water.  They absorb the egg sack for nutrition before they hatch, that is how they survive three days without anything...that is also why they will ship day old chicks from a hatchery.

This is the hardest I have worked to save my babies, normally I have the temperature and humidity right on hatch day and have very few problems.  I had two help two of the ten that hatched from my last batch of ducks...this time six out of 8 eggs.  It was breaking my heart every time I went in and checked on their progress or lack thereof.  I upped the humidity to 85% with all the water I had added to the inner shells and wet paper towels in the incubator.  I had one duckling die overnight and I ended up taking off half of the rest of the shells and waited even more so they could kick away the bottom half to set their little legs.  I have not had to set any chick or duckling legs because of this...I waited more.  Two ducklings made it out of the shell finally, the others were barley moving and it was concerning to me.  I mixed up some poultry drench and vitamins, probiotics and electrolytes and started dripping it on their little bills trying to keep them alive to finish hatching.  After about 6 more hours 2 more ducks kicked off the shells...but the umbilical was still attached and the ducklings still had not absorbed all of the yolk sack.  I removed the two that had dried out and cleaned them...and put them in the brooder box.  I again dripped warm water into the egg shells of the remaining ducklings, then gave them all a few drops of my vitamin concoction...and waited more.

To avoid trying to help them any more I went and worked on the last bits of hardware cloth to cover the run to the chicken coop.  I stayed outside until night time.  Once my hubby got home, I checked on progress once again with the ducklings I was able to cut the umbilical of another duckling and put it in the brooder, I waited until bedtime and checked again on the remaining two ducklings.  I again gave them vitamins with the dropper, moistened the inner eggshell added water to the incubator and left them for the night.  I was half expecting them to have died by morning, but...another one had made it out of the shell!  I took that one and clipped the umbilical...gave it a warm bath and put it back in the incubator after a few drops of vitamin water.  The other duckling was still alive and moving a bit...I decided to take it, shell and all and wash it off.  It's little head was matted with goop that had dried and it's eyes could barely open.  I did not remove the shell from its backside...I filled it with warm water and gently bathed the duckling in the shell.  I put drops in its eyes that contain the same boric acid they use in the hospital for human infants when they are born.  I wrapped the duckling with a paper towel and gently laid it in the incubator gave it a few drops more of the vitamin water and hoped the next time I checked on it, that it too would be out of the shell.  I decided to move the other duckling to the brooder so I had four total in the brooder and three of them were scooting around pretty good.  I use puppy training pads in the bottom and they were having some issues with the slickness of them, I put some paper towels on top of them and it helped a little.  Again to avoid doing anything with the duckling...I decided to let nature take it's course...and I went out to do my chores and plant trees.

I did not check on the last duckling for several hours, but when I did...it had finally kicked the shell off!  Yea, I was so relieved it did not die!  The shell was still attached though and the umbilical was not dry yet...so more waiting.  The other four ducklings had started walking and I watched them and made sure they were eating and drinking.  Sometimes when I go check on them I touch them all to make sure they are alive.  This was a hard hatch for me.  Leaving all of my babies was hard and having eggs in the incubator and the storms made it worse for me.  The last ducklings umbilical finally dried out before I went to bed, I had my husband cut the cord so to speak and ended up putting the baby back in the incubator over night.  Since the other ducklings were walking, I thought it best to give this one a little more time until it could move better before putting it in the brooder with the others.  The next morning all five ducklings are up and moving around and so far so good.  I have not checked on them yet this morning, I guess I should get in there and make sure they are clean, fed and watered...just like a baby...but they are my babies.

Working On The Chicken Run

It has taken us several months of weekends but we got the chicken coop in pretty good shape.  We have built PVC pipe waterers that are connected to a 50 gallon rain barrel, and we have one inside the coop and one outside the coop on a South facing wall...hopefully it won't freeze this winter.  I still need to make the feeders but at least we have the water done.  We set all the posts for the chicken run into cement and the run is not as big as I had planned now, but the posts are set, the door is on and I have started putting up the hardware cloth on it.  The chicken run is about 13'x16' instead of 16'x16'...but I am going to convert the grow out pen to a chicken coop now too and probably a smaller movable run as well.  Chickens really need to be the same size when you integrate them into the flock, it makes things a lot easier if they are.  They also tend to hang around together if they were raised together and sometimes hang around with the other chickens that look more like them.  My Blue Andalusians will hang out with my Blue Splash Marans...they are very similar looking...but the Marans have feathered legs and feet.  The Black Copper Marans will hang out with the black Sex-links and the Cream Legbars will hang out with the other barred chickens.

It takes me a lot longer to get projects like the coop and run built, I have to rest a lot and take care of the animals too.  I got the baby ducks set up on the back porch now, they are in a kiddie pool with cage wire around it, they have learned to drink out of the nipple waterers now too.  I moved the chicks that were in the house to the back porch brooder now too.  The chicks that were in those brooders are now in the run.

I put hardware cloth and boards to attach it to up 8 feet so far on one side of the chicken run and got hardware cloth hung on the other two sides and currently it is just attached to the 4"x4" posts and the 2"x6" boards at the bottom of the run.  There is a slight gap in the middle at the moment, but the chicks out there can't fly very well yet and I hope to get the 2"x4"'s up today and finish attaching the wire with heavy duty staples.  The main thing is keeping the grown chickens away from the youngest ones.  I tried to put a few in the chicken coop, but the roosters chased them and grabbed them and picked them up or tried to mate with them.  There is a pretty good size difference between a five and a half month old chicken and a 7 week old chicken...so at this point, they will stay separated.

It is starting to get cool at night, so I will have to come up with a smaller shelter inside of the run for the littles so they can huddle up and stay warm.  I went and picked up a bunch of dry grass and put a tote on it's side with grass in it and put a bunch of grass on the ground for them to snuggle into, if they want.  The ground is very sandy out here and they picked a corner and were really getting into dust bathing when we were watching them.  It is funny watching them interact.  We took the Cream Legbar chicks out of the chicken coop and put them and the Blue Splash Maran out in the run with the smaller chicks too.  They had been hiding a lot and seemed afraid to go outside with the other chickens.

We have a cold front on the way and it is suppose to get down in the mid 50's this week at night and the highs will be in the seventies and 80's instead of the upper 90's...good for me while I am working outside...but a bit cool for my youngest chickens.

Semi-Day Off

I actually slept late today, I didn't wake up until 6:50am!  Hey that is not half-bad since some days I wake up at 3:00am, here lately it has been 4:50am for the past week or so.  I did very little today, cleaned brooders and the necessities of raising poultry, but not what we originally planned to do.  We did not dig the holes and set the last two posts for the covered chicken run.  I will get the tiller out tomorrow and try to reduce a hump of dirt where the front door of it needs to go...I just hope there isn't an old stump or burn pit there.

Our baby ducks make a really bad mess in their brooder, they were a big mess too...my husband decided they needed to go for a swim.  It was really more of a bath because they are really to young to be in deep enough water to swim.  A duck can drown, believe it or not...and baby ducks don't have feathers or the natural oils that make them basically waterproof.  We kept a close eye on them and the water was maybe up to the bottom of their little bellies, but they seemed to enjoy splashing around and cleaning themselves up.  We had them in our garden cart...then we put them back in the brooder and dumped the water out of the cart and put a layer of dry grass in the bottom of the cart.  We put them in the sun for a bit to dry off and moved them into the shade and just watched them for hours.  I took a lot of pictures of them, hey they are cute...what can I say?

The ducks love water, they play in their drinking water and it floods the bottom of the brooder...we sat there and brainstormed how we could fix the problem.  I cut 1/4 inch hardware cloth to fit the bottom of the brooder and put three of these metal rods across the bottom to suspend the hardware cloth almost an inch above the brooder bottom.  I then layered the pine shavings over the hardware cloth...then, I put their water inside of a dog bowl so the sides were higher to contain some of the water.  I am keeping them in the office bathroom so I check on them often...so far, so good.   I guess the true test will be tonight...because last night they drained their quart sized water container...I was using puppy pads, but they got soaked and get pretty disgusting with ten baby ducks pooping all night.  Have I told you baby ducks are eating machines?  All they do is eat, drink tons of water and poop...and sleep occasionally.  They grow very fast and they need a lot of nutrition to support the size and weight gain.  But, they will be big enough to go outside in a couple of weeks, the main thing is making sure they have what they need to survive this growing stage.

So basically today, we watched what we call "Duck TV" we sat in the shade with our cold water or iced tea and watched the babies most of the day.  I came in the house and checked on the chicks hatching every once in awhile and Crew (my hubby) played frisbee with the dogs awhile.  It was a great day of relaxation...he even cooked dinner.  Oh, and now we have 3 little blond chicks and 5 black chicks so far...more pipping too.  I also checked on our broody hen, she left the nest for a little while...she has been sitting on 18 eggs!  I didn't put all of them under her...I imagine the other hens laid in the box.

Yard Work - All Day Project

Where I live is very sandy soil, and it rains a lot when it rains...sometimes 8 inches of rain in a twenty four hour period.  I put as few chemicals down as I can, when you have almost 20 acres you can't keep up with it anyway, so you treat around the house and that is about it.  We also have a lot of bugs.  Fire ants, spiders, beetles...you name it...and tons of Mosquitos and other biting no see ums.   I usually have bites of some sort on me all the time.

Today I did yard work.  If I can keep the weeds mowed they don't germinate and spread worse into my garden areas.  Since we have put up a lot of fencing, I weed whack a lot too...today was one of those days.  I know from the start now, to fill up everything I am going to use with gas and oil, check the tires and all that.  You don't really want to have to lug a five gallon gas can around and if the riding mower runs out of gas when you are on the back 10 acres...well, it is a pretty long walk to make with that much gas.  I like to keep the grass mowed every week and just mowing pretty much takes all day, when I weed whack, that probably takes half a day to do up around the house, the drainage ditch and around and in the gardens.  I have to keep replacing the string, weeding close to the wire fencing breaks off the line so I cut a bunch of extras to carry around with me.  The past two times I have weed whacked, I ended up with a burn on my arm from the engine getting so hot and resting or balancing the weed whacker on it towards the end of the day.  I got a blade attachment for the weed whacker but had to get a new shaft for it to fit on...it has not been installed yet, I think it would make my life easier...dangerous, but easier.  Some of the weeds out here have tree trunk like bases...of course I could not use it by the fences because it would probably cut through them...think circular saw on the end of a pole?  Yeah, but not much of a gaurd on it...cuts through 2 inch diameter trees...we have a lot of those and bushes around the lake.

Anyway, I always wear steel toed boots when I do yard work, I hand mowed about 3/4 of an acre yesterday with a push mower and weed whacked that area too, but garden areas and chicken pens were number one on my list, along with the fenced part behind the house..the back yard.  I did not get done.  I spent time filling holes on the backyard that the dogs dug before starting to mow, it is not good to step in a foot deep hole that grass has grown over, so I try and fill them regularly...but it is a practically daily occurrence.  The dogs play rough and when they start doing it in the house they spend the day outside.  A lot of the time I let them run free while I am out there working, but our neighbors have all gotten new dogs and they keep running over in there yards.  I cannot see my neighbors houses from our house, the woods are thick and viney...and if the dogs are not in my site...they are usually at the neighbors, either digging through their burn pile or barking at their dogs...or chasing a cat or deer.  Oh and they chase them across the street too...and go into the fields over there...so they have been on lockup in the backyard.

My husband fixed the riding mower yesterday, I had mowed a week or so ago and a branch popped up and got into the mower belt and popped it off.  Last time I went into the big city I got a new belt, oil and air filters, and a spark plug for a tune-up for the mower.  Yesterday he worked on the mower, got everything replaced, oil changed and blades replaced.  So next time I mow won't be so bad.  Doing all the work manually was a bit rough on me yesterday.  I stayed on my feet too long and I could not get my left boot off. I iced my leg for several hours, propped my foot up and kept waiting for the swelling to go down enough for my husband to pull it off...it was not the first time this had happened.  Well...at around 10:30 last night he tried once again to pull the boot off for me...it would get to a point...but then stuck tight, so with regrets...I went and got some good scissors and he cut the boot down the front and kept trying to pull it off and finally after cutting a hole or two in my sock...and cutting all the way down to the middle of my foot, the boot finally was able to come off.  I was glad, when you do a lot of weed whacking and yard work when it is in the 90's and humid...you sweat a lot, on top of that I was pretty covered in grass and weed pieces.  It was nice to be able to take a shower after all that.

New Life

I am still amazed at how much I like it in the country, everything has changed so quickly and I still can't believe how much I enjoy all the chickens, ducks, and geese.  

The ducklings started hatching a few days early, I half expected them to as hot as it was when they were shipped.  We had a mishap and I was afraid that we might have accidentally killed them in the shells.  We had a beautiful day and my husband opened up all the windows and turned off the air conditioning.  Neither of us even thought about how it might affect the eggs.  It got really warm in the house while we worked outside, which is not a good thing when your incubator was set up to run when the temperature is 78.  The house only got up to 84 degrees on the Inside, however we also had a brooder with chicks in the same bathroom that the incubator is in...with a heat lamp on it.  With the additional heat of the heat lamp and the house...the incubator temperature got up tp 105 degrees!  

I was horrified to find the temperature was that high, I figured all the ducks and chickens would be fried in the shell.  We got lucky with the ducks, we ended up with 10 out of 14 viable eggs hatching.  I had to help a few out of the shells, after one died after zipping...I didn't want any more to die.  I had three eggs that at one point had live ducks in them...I candled all of the duck eggs looking for movement after the heat incident all of them were alive, so we actually lost 4, I just didn't open the eggs...I candled them again, and even though I saw no movement any more, I left them to incubate several more days.

Today one of the chicks hatched, I put about a dozen chicken eggs in the incubator a few days after our rooster died.  I tried to select only our Rhode Island Red hens eggs.  I believe the first chick to hatch is a Rhode Island Red.  A new life to replace the one lost.  I have more eggs pipping, just no others have hatched yet.  I also have a hen sitting on a lot of eggs, Brown Racer is a very broody girl...I hope that she passes that trait on to her offspring.  We shall see how many of these eggs that could be damaged end up hatching.  If nothing else hopefully Brown Racer will have a successful hatch.

Since our Rouen's started laying eggs, I collected a dozen of them and put them into the incubator.  In about a week I will candle those eggs and see if they were fertile, if they are we will have more ducks in about 28 days.  Ducks grow very rapidly so they should be about the size of an adult at about 5 weeks, they should do pretty well in the duck pen provided I get the new shelter built for them before cold weather hits.  All of them should be old enough to start laying come spring.  I have my doubts about the eggs I hatched being full blooded Khaki Campbell ducks...and I ended up with two of the eggs labeled HY hatching out yellow chicks.  I contacted the lady from eBay that I got them from and they are a hybrid called Golden 300, if I remember right.  She claims they are even better layers than Khaki Campbell's...and sometimes lay two eggs a day!

Our Ducks

My husband thought we needed ducks for our pond, so after raising chickens for awhile and determining that we could do it...I bought some baby ducks to raise.  I was really surprised at how rapidly they grow and how messy they are.  No lie...ducks and geese poop constantly and are almost full size by the ripe old age of five weeks.

Our ducks have finally gotten old enough that we can tell what sex they are.  We have 2 Khaki Campbell male Drakes, 1 Rouen Drake and 2 Rouen duck hens.  Because we have no female Khaki Campbell's I decided to get some Khaki Campbell hatching eggs and put them in the incubator about three weeks ago...hatch day is fast approaching, it takes 28 days to incubate duck and goose eggs.  They sent 12 Khaki Campbell eggs and 4 extra eggs...I haven't got a clue what they are, they are marked H4 or Hy...so maybe a hybrid?  I have been taking eggs out and candling them to see the progress of the duck eggs...we may have a very successful hatch.  I am guessing duck eggs are just better for mail order eggs...tougher and can handle being shipped better than chicken eggs. 

I originally got Khaki Campbell's because they are suppose to lay eggs as well as chickens do...when we had no females I was rather disappointed.  We have male African Geese too, I was told they were Toulouse geese...I guess we need to learn how to sex ducks and geese so we get females when we need them.  We will probably get female geese come Spring...even if I have to get hatching eggs and hatch them myself.  

I got a nice surprise 3 days ago, after separating the two females and male Rouen ducks from the others...I got my first duck egg!  The very next day we got two duck eggs!  So my females are both laying now.  I want to put a few of their eggs in the incubator too.  They may be hybrids...a Rouen and Khaki Campbell mix.  But, we shall see.  Ducks, Geese and chickens love to eat bugs and weeds...we may need to fence more of our property so they can free range a greater area to take care of all the front part of our property...my husband believes they eat ants and I am all for them getting rid of those!

We separated the geese and two Khaki Campbell males from the others because they were picking on the Rouen male so badly, the Khaki Campbell with a white ring on his neck was constantly chasing and pecking him and one of the geese was pecking and sometimes tried to drown one of the females.  They are much happier without getting pecked on and chased. The two African Geese and two Khaki Campbell Drakes are in the pen with the teen chicks who are rapidly becoming adults...they can protect themselves, but the pen is also really big and they have room to get away from each other too.  We have a kiddie pool in that pen for them to get wet in, but we may end up moving the smaller 50 gallon cattle tank over into the pen.  The kiddie pool only has a couple of inches of water in it...chickens can drown pretty easy.  

We have not named very many of our poultry beyond the first hens and roosters.  Just a few and normally we call them a name based on a characteristic...like Poofy Face, Big Red, Brown Racer from our original flock.  We have a Mister and Mrs, the Speckled Sussex pair my neighbors gave me (they tend the smaller chicks), Spike the dominant Dominique mix rooster (he has a big spiky comb) and that is about it so far.  I am leaning towards naming the ladies gem names like Amber, Topaz, Garnet, Diamond, Pearl...etc, but some are hard to tell apart.  I have some bands to put on their legs to help ID them...but I gotta catch them first.

Deaths on the Farm

We have been really lucky not to have any death's from predator attacks, we have coyotes, hawks, racoons, opossum, wild dogs and whatever else hangs around in the woods.  Our dogs have not killed any of our poultry, although they have pulled some tail feathers out a couple of times.

Our first death was my favorite hen Ms Poofy Face.  We went outside to let them out for free ranging and found her dead in the chicken run, she was still warm...we inspected her and found no wounds.  I read up on sudden deaths in chickens and since she had no illness prior to her death, we think she may have had a heart attack.

Our second death was one of our Rouen ducks, he had some health issues, Angel Wing and a vitamin deficiency we believe.  I noticed him standing in water...and not moving, in the beginning I just thought he was keeping cool.  Later in the day the other ducks were pecking him and I went and got him out of the water.  I read up on ducks more trying to figure out what was wrong, he stopped walking too.  I brought him in the house and started giving him vitamins and Salmon cat food, he was getting better and standing up and flapping his wings and scooting around the floor making a mess.  I started taking him outside and let him swim, I kept him in a cage on the back porch for a little while until my husband thought he would get more exercise if we took him to the pond.  I was worried about him getting eaten by a predator or the dogs.  He did well out at the pond, I would go down and call for him and he would swim to me.  He was far from well, but he could get on the bank and into the water and swam pretty well.  On his second week at the pond, I called and he didn't come see me like usual.  I told the dogs to find him...Kensie, our lab found him.  He was not moving.  I could not get to where he was, but he still looked like he was in one piece.  I am still not sure what happened to him, I just know he died.

Our third death was a chick.  I let my hens hatch some eggs when they were broody.  I had two broody hens at that time.  One had three hatch and got off the eggs after three days, so I stuck the rest of the eggs under the other hen.  She had five eggs hatch and then pooped on the rest of the eggs and switched to a different nest box.  I took the remainder of the eggs out of the box and cleaned up the nest boxes.  I left the eggs out overnight on top of the coop...it got down in the fifties that night.  When I realized that I left them out I was going to toss the eggs into the compost bin but decided to do an eggtopsy.  I gently cracked the eggs open...all but one were not fertile.  The fertile one had a live chick in it!  I made the mistake of putting the egg in the nest box with a hen, I thought it would have a better chance at finishing hatching.  She promptly pecked it to death.  I will not make that mistake again.  I have since gotten an incubator.

We had two other chick deaths, the chicks were not healthy when they hatched in the incubator.  I delt with pasty butt and bullying from the other chicks.  They seem to peck on any that are not strong, natural selection I suppose.  Some chicks are just small and weak sometimes...and do not thrive like the others, especially chicks from hatching eggs sent through the mail.  These were both from hatching eggs that I incubated.  Both times, they had pasty butt, I tried everything I could but found them dead in the morning at around 5 days old.

Our latest death was heat related.  Our Rhode Island Red rooster.  I separated the roosters into separate pens inside of a fenced area.  Each of them had their own food and water.  I put up shade cloth in the fenced area for shade and their kennels both have roofs or tarps over the top.  My husband usually lets all of the chickens out in the mornings, we make sure the feeders and waterers are full when we put them up at night so all he does is let them out and do a quick check on them.  I usually go out and check on them later in the morning...usually.  I got busy and didn't check on the chickens until late in the afternoon...I found big Red face down in the dirt.  He had spilled his water and was laying on a wet spot his face was covered in dirt.  I bathed him in cool water and gave him droppers full of electrolytes and vitamins.  I filled up his waterer with more electrolytes and vitamins and laid him on a towel in his kennel.  I put a nipple waterer in his cage too...something he could not spill.  I hoped he would be OK in the morning, he was standing up when I left him.  The next morning, I went to check on him and he had died during then night.  That is one bad thing about having so many animals...you cannot save them all when something goes wrong.  We are building new waterers out of PVC pipes and hooking them up to 55 gallon or larger rain barrels or water containers now, something that they can't spill.  We are learning the hard way at times how fragile life is.

Our Geese

I stopped by a new feed store one day, looking for better prices on feed and came across a cage and bins full of turkey's and geese.  I had already purchased 6 ducks and they were so much fun to watch, I just stood there watching the geese until a lady who worked there told me she would make me a deal if I would buy some...she needed to get rid of them before her surgery she was having soon.  They were cute, I decided to take two home with me.  If the turkey's had have been Bourbon Reds, I would have bought some of them too.

It was fun taking care of the ducks and geese...they are horribly messy though and I cleaned their brooder at least twice a day.  I enjoyed it a lot when I filled the bathtub a bit and let them swim around a bit.  I tried to let them have time in the water at least once a day.  Those little boogers grow incredibly fast!  They recommend keeping them in a brooder for 6 weeks, but they outgrew everything I had!  I ended up getting a large Rubbermade tank to keep them in, I had to add wire around the top to keep them in it...and at threes week old they went out to the covered and screened back porch.  My neighbor said they could go out in the yard by that age, but I thought it would be better if they were bigger still...we have a lot of hawks and I didn't want them to appear like an easy meal.

The ducks and geese have their own fenced area and in addition to the Rubbermade tank that they really have to take turns getting into...I bought a 265 gallon galvanized cattle tank for them to swim in.  The trouble was they had no way to get into it.  In the beginning we would run around and catch them and put them in the water one at a time. Then I remembered the dog ramp that I had gotten for our deceased dog Orion...I just had to find it.  Once I found it and put it on the side of the tank, I had to teach the ducks and geese how to walk up it and jump into the water.  That took a little while, every time I could catch one I would set it down in the middle of the ramp...they would run down it instead of up it every time.  Then I tried using food to get them to the ramp, and up the ramp...they would only go so far and then run back down the ramp.  It took me several days of trying to get them to walk up the ramp to the edge of the water...then I had to get them to jump in.  After we got them up the ramp, into the water, we had to teach them how to get out.  We ended up moving some lawn chair close to the tank and watching them while they swam, they really loved it.  But we had to catch them and put them on the ground for awhile because they just didn't have enough strength in their wings to get out on their own.  They did finally get the hang of it though...and now they jump up on the ramp and walk down it most of the time.

My husband wanted ducks for the pond, the first time we tried to take them down to the pond was just plain funny to us.  We each took a duck with us, just carried them...and when we got to the pond we thew our duck into the water...the ducks immediately turned around and got out of the water.  We tried again, and it looked like they were going to stay and swim awhile...they started swimming across the lake.  You could hear the other ducks quacking and they were answering and headed straight toward the sound...swam to the other bank, jumped out and started running toward the creek!  We ran after them.  I started calling the ducks and they came running to me...I always call them my babies...we have still not named them.  They ran behind me and followed me all the way back to the house.  We did not try again with the ducks.  We did try with the geese this past week.  It was the same thing...we threw them into the water and the immediately swam to the edge and got out.  We walked down to a shallow spot and they followed us...we tried to get them to get into the water on their own..we thought that if they saw the fish, they would go after them.  We had purchased minnows and put them in the water tank they swam in and they were scared of them.  We ended up scooping some out into a big bowl and it was only after we actually started throwing to minnows to them that they actually ate them...then they put two and two together and ran to the bowl and started eating them all.  They walked around in the shallow water and pulled up weeds and dug in the mud...but barely got their feet wet.

Then my sweet husband took his shoes and socks off and waded into the lake and tried to call them in...it didn't work either.  He asked me to try it...so, I took my shoes and socks off and walked into the shallow water...and tried calling them...very slowly they worked their way into the water a little bit until it looked like they were floating.  But still, they did not swim around.  We will have to try again...but, the geese did the same thing as the ducks...they followed us all the way back to the house.  

Too Many Roos

I got the chickens originally for the eggs, started with 6 straight run chickens that were about 3 months old.  It is a learning process, I had no clue what straight-run was.  I do now. 

After figuring out 2 of my original 6 were Roosters, I decided to get 4 more...but laying hens.  I had 3 Easter Eggers, 3 Rhode Island Reds and now 4 Dominique hens.  It was coming up on winter when I got them...those crazy hens slept outside on the roost all winter, I did wrap the run in heavy canvas and put a heat lamp out for them, but they have continued to sleep out on the run.  

When Spring rolled around, I ended up with broody hens...the first time, I didn't let them sit on any eggs.  You can break a hen that insists on sitting on eggs by locking them out of the nest boxes, they need to be cooled off and some people dip them in cool water or put them on a wire bottom cage with no bedding.  The second time, I let two hens sit on eggs at first I got eggs from my neighbor, none of them hatched, then I used eggs from my chickens and had tiny little chicks, 7 black chicks hatched out and one yellow chick.  During that time my favorite hen suddenly died, I only had one egg from her that hatched...it was the blond chick.  My Rhode Island Red Rooster was the Daddy to all of these chicks.  I had loaned my Easter Egger Rooster to my neighbors so none of the first batch were his.  It seems like there is close to 1/2 and 1/2 on the sexes of the chicks.  I ended up with 3 males out of 8 chicks with that hatch.  But my hens actually stayed broody and sat on two clutches of eggs...they sat on eggs for 45 days total.  They looked rough...so after they hatched the babies and took care of them for a week, I took the chicks away so they would eat and drink and gain back the weight they lost.  Once my hens gained strength and started laying again, it was not but a month and the same two went broody again!  I let them collect some eggs and sit again...but I had bought an incubator since the last hatch.  I wanted some different breeds of chickens, so I bought some hatching eggs and substituted my hens eggs for the purchased eggs...and put my hens eggs in the incubator.  

I had to separate my two roosters after my Easter Egger Roo came back from the neighbors house, he was beat up pretty bad when one of their roosters attacked him.  I bought some chicks from Tractor Supply after my first failed hatch in the incubator, they told me they were all pullets...one was a rooster.  I ordered chicks from a hatchery too, I purchased one rooster for each breed and a Dominique rooster for my Dominique hens.  I found out that if you have any non-barred rooster and mate it with a barred hen, all of the females will be black, and all the males barred like their mother.  I have a lot of little barred roosters running around, and about an equal amount of little black hens...but I can tell by the shape of their heads that a lot of those are fathered by my Easter Egger Rooster, they have beards!  Lol, I hope I get some green or blue eggs out of the hens.  I hate to say it...but most of the barred roosters will be dinner when they get older, they can be quite mean at times.  They attacked me when I would try to change their water and feed them.  The meanest will go first.  I believe that I have about 20 roosters at the moment, but some are just too young to tell yet.

I just came in from outside and cleaning up the brooder on the back porch...I got all the 3 week old chicks outside in that brooder now, so just 4 chicks left in the bathroom for the next two weeks...until the ducks hatch, and a few days later a few chicks too.  But, my little hen Brown Racer is at it again...she is still in the nest box from yesterday, yep she is broody again.  

Chickens Everywhere!

I know my family members probably think I am crazy...moving to the country in the middle of nowhere, raising chickens, ducks and geese...having a large garden...husband working 6 days a week and me taking on almost everything by myself.  It is hard.  I am tired once the sun goes down, but...I am losing weight, gaining muscles and building up my stamina and feeling pretty good most of the time.

At the moment I have duck eggs in the incubator and added some chicken eggs, 3 plastic tubs in my front bathroom with chicks in them, 8 chicks on the back porch in a brooder and around 60 in the pens and coops out back.  My first chicks hatched back 2 days before Easter are pretty much grown, at least one has started laying eggs.  I will be happier when all of the hens start laying, I am excited to see what color of eggs I get from all the different breeds.  My Cream Legbars are suppose to lay blue eggs, I have Black Copper and Blue Splash Marans that are suppose to lay a chocolate brown egg, the Easter Eggers can lay blue, green, pink, brown and sometimes a lavender color...it will be a little while though...the other hens lay light brown and a few will lay white eggs.  Since some of my chickens are only 4 days old and most breeds of chickens don't start laying until at least 5 months old...I have a while to wait.

I only have two female Rouen Ducks, 1 male Rouen and 2 Khaki Campbell ducks...I have read they don't start laying until they are about 7 months old.  Both of my African Geese are males...we need to get a couple of females.  Today I stopped by the feed store that I got them from, I may be able to trade the lady who works there a male for a female, but we will have to see what hers look like, if they are not healthy, I won't do it.

Today we let the ducks and geese into the chicken area, we opened the front door to the coop and let the babies explore.  Geese are protectors and hung around the babies a bit, but they were mostly interested in the bugs and tall grass seed heads.  We are hoping that by letting the geese into that area, they will handle the tall grass and weeds so we can stop mowing in that area...we shall see.

It is fun interacting with all the different aged chickens, they all have different personalities.  At this point the youngest in the coop still look at me as their Mother for protection, it is funny how they hide behind me or swarm around my feet if they feel they are in danger.  My neighbors gave me a male and female Speckled Sussex pair, they have been watching after the babies in the coop when I am not around.  I have watched them through the window hovering around them while they were eating or drinking and they will attack other chickens who try and scare off the babies.  Ahhh, life as a chicken mommy...don't knock it if you haven't tried it...it is a form of therapy.

I Need Coffee

I wake up pretty early most days, sometimes as early as 3:00am.  I don't set the alarm any more, when we moved to the country it was basically for me to be able to do things like garden and get back into doing things I wanted to do.  The quiet time of the day...is when I first get up, I fix coffee first thing.  I usually don't sit down long to drink it though, a few sips and I usually start in on chores.  I am dead tired by the end of the day so I usually leave the dinner dishes until in the morning.  I start cleaning the kitchen and doing dishes and wiping down counters and such.  Then I rest a few and drink my coffee.

Some days I don't even get half of my coffee down...because when I have baby chicks I start checking on them, cleaning the brooders, filling their waterers and food up.  Right now I have 14 chicks less than a week old in a brooder in the bathroom of our office.  I have a double decker brooder that I built on the back porch with 12 chicks in each section.  Today I am writing before checking on them, but soon I will get to work on everything...after I finish this cup of coffee.

My husband use to work for a very large Corporation, he likes the finer things in life...when I met him, he had this coffee maker that you basically set the timer, filled a hopper with coffee beans and water, then in the morning it would grind the beans and brew the coffee and be waiting for you when you got up.  It is the best coffee I ever had, we experimented with different brands of coffee and found one we really both like, it is chocolate raspberry flavored.  I look forward to my cup of coffee every morning, sometimes I will drink it and watch the sun come up and listen to my roosters crow.

I prepared the coffee maker last week, filled it with water, put the beans in it and turned it on...then because I had cleaned the kitchen before bed, I started my daily chores with the chicks.  I didn't get the coffee myself.  The coffee maker had sprung a bit of a leak and I had a tray underneath it to catch the leak.  I came in the living room after feeding, watering and changing out the bedding for the chicks, turning the eggs in the incubator and candling a few to see the progress of the egg development.  I rested.  My husband walks into the kitchen and hollers "Honey"...and I immediately think I forgot to turn on the coffee pot, or put coffee beans in the hopper...but, that was not the case...I knew I did both this time.  He said come here for a minute...so, I did.

There was a big mess everywhere.  The basket to the coffee maker had sprung out sometime during the process.  I am glad the tray was under the coffee maker.  But now we had coffee grounds and coffee in the tray, the drip basket was full and a mess was on the counter.  He tried pushing the basket back in...it did not stay.  He cleaned it up, but we knew the coffee maker was done, over, finito...no more good coffee.  I pulled out the Mr.Coffee and ground some beans and started a new pot of coffee.

You get spoiled sometimes, you get use to things you like and you don't want them to change...good coffee is one of them for me.  The coffee out of the Mr. Coffee tasted weak, it was also slightly bitter...neither of us enjoyed it.  We thought we would just live with it, the coffee maker that failed was a luxury item.  Since we moved out here we have pretty much eliminated luxury items.  So, all week I tried to make the coffee taste better.  Ground more beans, experimented with trying to make it less bitter, more bold flavor, used different water...filtered verses tap, cold from the fridge, room temperature from the Berky water filter.  It finally started tasting a bit better...then the Mr.Coffee quit working...it stopped pumping the water.  I ordered a new Grind and Brew like we had...in the mean time, I am drinking coffee that is not so great tasting made by pouring hot water through a filter basket.

The new coffee maker should be here today.  

First Batch is grown up...

If you have never had chickens, you don't know what you are missing.  I never thought I would enjoy them as much as I do, but I love their personalities, their sounds and even enjoy the roosters crowing.  The first batch of babies is reaching maturity now, they are crowing and the hens should start laying soon.  There are 4 roosters and 10 hens, they get to forage all day in the fenced area around the new coop we built, they are still basically living in the grow out pen.  We moved the hatchery chicks to the coop and as soon as I can put wire on the outside so they can't go under the chicken coop...they will get to go out and play with the older juveniles.  I call them my teen chicks at this point...not quite old enough to be called adults, but almost there.  

I have another big batch of chicks on my back porch, I think there are 24...6 of those are the Cream Leg bars, 1 a Blue Splash Maran I hatched in the incubator, the rest are chicks from my original hens...and a lot of them are roosters.  My Dominique hens bred with my Rhode Island Red rooster so I can tell that any of the chicks that have Barred feathers are males and may be considered as Rhodebars, the pretty much solid black are females called Sex Links.  I was disappointed not getting but one Maran out of the hatch...so I tried again, I bought more eggs off of eBay.

I had a more successful hatch this past week, but still not great.  I have 14 new chicks in my brooder in the house...but that is out of 48 eggs.  I did get a few unusual chicks out of that batch, 1 a Golden Laced Polish, 4 Blue Laced Barnevelder, 1 Gold Laced Wyandotte, I believe 3 Blue Splash and 1 Black Copper Marans...then a Rhode Island Red, a New Hampshire Red and 2 Blue Andalusians.  Because all but two of the Black Copper Marans eggs were infertile they sent me more eggs...they are still in the incubator and I hope to get at lest a few more out of that.  I candled a few of them yesterday and it appears chicks are growing in them.

I hope that by this time next year that I have around 60 hens laying and a lot of different colors of eggs.  I can breed a Marans Chicken with a blue egg layer and get an Olive colored egg...and my Easter Eggers should be laying so a variety of colors with them, and dark browns with the Marans, the Cream Legbars lay blue eggs...I look forward to that.  I ordered a book on chicken breeding, so I can learn about traits and how to get different breeds out of my base chicken stock.

I know my family probably thinks I am crazy, chickens are a lot of work but I enjoy watching them, hearing them coo and chirp, they make happy sounds.  My husband and I have chairs set out under the trees in their pen and we enjoy watching them and taking them treats.  It is funny having them all come running when you go out to feed them, or bring them treats it is cute seeing all those little legs moving, seeing them hopping up trying to fly to you faster, get to you first.  Even when they are adults they make the cutest sounds when they are happy...and there is no feeling like finding your first egg from a hen you raised, or a baby chick you hatched out.

Success!

I planted my gardens sort of piecemeal and late this year, with all the rain we had I just didn't know if anything would actually produce crops.  I stay pretty busy around here and with working on the new chicken coop and all the baby chicks that have hatched I have not really paid a lot of attention to my gardens.  

Well, we finished the chicken coop enough to put our chicks that I got from the hatchery out there and I started paying more attention.  I had to weed.  Note to self: I will need to give myself more room if I am going to use the tiller between rows to do it next year!  I had to use a hoe to weed and a hand cultivator...and just my gloved hands to pull the weeds that looked more like small trees...and there are a lot of those.  It is going to take a long time and a lot of maintenance to keep the weeds out.  

I have had good success with my tomatoes, I planted San Marzano, Arkansas Traveller, Black Krim and Sweet 100's...I have to pick tomatoes every couple of days and get all of the ones that are just starting to turn red, if I don't the bugs and birds will eat them.  I have used zero pesticides on my gardens and really have not had to worry much about bugs...but, there are ants that will cover the overly ripe tomatoes that fall...and the ones that touch the ground.  I will have to come up with a better method than tomato cages and stakes...the weight of the tomatoes bent, broke and pulled the tomato cages out of the ground.  I think I planted about 20 tomato plants, and even with all the bad tomatoes I still pick around 10 to 15 pounds or better when I pick them every time.  I have canned tomato sauce, spaghetti sauce and hot sauce.  I pick around a gallon of fresh green beans twice a week, have picked enough jalapeños to can a couple of pints and make 12 pints of hot sauce, brocolli has been harvested 4 times and each time it is enough for a couple of meals, pinto beans...a little over a quart but I doubt I will plant them again, I harvested my corn and even though the cobs were small and the birds pulled out a row and a half we got probably 60 ears.  My herb garden is doing pretty well, the mints are huge, basil and oregano did well, Stivia is so so, dill almost non-existent (weeds crowded it), Cilantro died.  I put pickling cucumbers in the herb garden and have had a good crop...made a lot of pickles for the first time, Kosher, sweet hots, and even am fermenting 3 gallons at the moment.  I had to uncover my strawberry plants and blueberries...they are doing better now...it took a few days of weeding to find them.  Oh, I harvested some bell peppers too.  I am sure once the weather starts cooling off everything will do better especially if I keep up with weeding.

When you buy all your produce at the store you never realize how bland it tastes compared to home grown...the taste difference is remarkable and so much better.  I think this years garden was a success, even with all the set backs.  I have watermelon and cantaloupe on the vines too...just trying to wait patiently to be able to see how they turned out.  Now, to figure out what to plant for my fall garden.

Babies!

Ok, it was only in April that I let my hens hatch out some babies.  Well, I once again have broody hens.  Yep, Brown Racer is broody for the third time in a year!  Ms McCluckinson is broody for the second time.  I figured it would be a good time to buy hatching eggs of a couple of breeds I wanted and let them hatch the chicks.  The other hens laid eggs in the nest boxes for a few days and I let them keep them while I searched for chocolate egg layers and blue egg layers from eBay.

I got the eggs in the mail about a week later but the blue eggs were damaged and I sent the seller a message telling them they needed to pack differently, the eggs were smashed from too tight of packing materials.  I sent pictures.  I pulled all of the eggs from my broody hens and put them in the incubator.  I put half of both kinds of eggs under each broody hen...now it is just a matter of waiting 21 days!  But, because of the packing problem the seller on eBay was sending replacement eggs!  

In the mean time, two of my Dominique hens go broody too!  Well, I only have 7 hens laying...when a hen goes broody and sits on eggs, they stop laying eggs.  But because the seller was shipping replacements I was glad for one more broody.  Well, until they started rotating nest boxes.  When the other eggs came in I split them too.  I only have four nest boxes though...when you have four broody hens and four nest boxes, you need more nest boxes for the other hens to lay their eggs in...or they will get in the nest box with the broody hens and lay.  Then at one point it looked like I had six broody hens!  The Dominique hens kicked Brown Racer out of her nest box so she climbed in with Ms McCluckinson.  Then Ms McCluckinson climbed in with a Dominique.  They all started stealing eggs!  They would get into a nest box and roll one out and over to another, I guess 6 eggs each was not enough...so I left the eggs being laid in the nest boxes.

I think it was last Monday that I heard the first chick in the incubator...I had not done lockdown yet and the egg turner was still in the incubator...and a chick had hatched!  I wasn't really ready for it, I thought I had a few more days.  So I set up a brooder for it and took out the eggs and candled them.  Took a few out that were not fertile, and put the rest on lockdown.  I have had two eggs a day hatch all week.  I am up to 16 babies now in the brooder.

Yesterday I went out to give the Momma hens sitting on the eggs some watermelon and grapes and saw an eggshell in the run.  I decided to check under the hens to see if a chick had hatched...no chick found.  Since I was down to three eggs in the incubator, I decided to confiscate all of the eggs from the hens and put them in the incubator to finish the hatch.  It has been really hot out lately and the hens were not drinking enough water...I didn't want my hens to die, I took them all out of the nest boxes and put them outside.  I closed the coop after I did that because brown racer ran back up and sat on the empty nest.

After the eggs sat in the incubator for a few hours I went and checked on them, two of them had bubbles coming out of them...trashed them before they exploded.  I woke up this morning and one of my remaining three eggs had hatched.  The ones I took away from the hens should start hatching tomorrow if the hens didn't damage them too badly.

Ouch

We got the new chicken coop framed, it took two weekends.  My husband started taking off at 5 this past week and we worked on the coop when he got home from work.  We put up the sheathing on the sides and I hauled materials using our lawn tractor to the job site.  Well, until I hurt myself anyway.

The sheathing is a semi-structural board, we attached it to the outside walls of the chicken coop.  I thought I would get the metal siding loaded and brought over to the coop and start putting it up on the bottom sections.  The metal was in our Tuff Shed,kinda buried under the decking I had gotton for the roof.  I had to move the roof decking one sheet at a time and stack them close to the door so I could put them back.  I actually leaned the 4'x8' sheets against the door to keep it open while I got the metal siding out of the shed.

Everything was going great, I got the metal all loaded into the dump cart hooked up to the lawn tractor and started to move the decking back into the shed.  Everything happened so fast that I am not quite sure how what happened next happened...but, as I started to move the first piece of decking the whole stack of 8 sheets decided to come forward onto me!  Maybe the wind caught it?  Maybe I didn't have them at a good angle against the door?  Not sure...they fell forward toward me though, and knocked me back into the metal sitting in the cart.  I hit my elbow on the metal and tryed to get out of the way of the falling wood before it fell completely.  I pushed on it to keep it from sliding down my legs and lost my ballance, fell forward onto the doorframe and landed on my hip on the threshold of the door...that is when I noticed blood dripping down my arm and tried to get up.  I grabbed my shirt at stuck it to my arm putting pressure on my elbow.  I just left everything out and went to the house to inspect the damage to my arm.

My shirt had a nice big wet spot of blood, my glove was wet with it and I was a little afraid to look at the cut.  I got a washcloth and proceeded to clean it up and continued the pressure on it while I looked for butterfly bandages, quick clot, gauze and antiseptic.
Then I decided to look at my elbow.  I could tell I needed stitches, I hoped I could put two or three butterfly bandages on it and continue working.  It had stopped bleeding, well...until I tried to put on the first butterfly bandage it had.  When I put that on and pulled it to close the wound tighter, it kind of opened it up and blood squirted into the sink.  I am thankful at this time that my Mom always used me as her assistant when putting on butterfly bandages on my siblings when I was a kid...also that I had boys who gave me the opportunity to see some injuries and know how a lot of blood would make me feel.  Gross huh?  At least I didn't faint or panic!  But, I did dread calling my husband to come take me to the hospital for stitches.

I kept calm, called my husband...told him what happened, that it wasn't that bad...just in a bad spot.  Have you ever had a bad cut on a joint?  It moves a lot, I am very right handed and the cut is on my right elbow.  I have too much to get done to let a little cut stop me.  He said he was on his way, and I decided to try my doctors office and see if they could stitch me up before having him take me to the emergency room.  My regular doctor couldn't, but another o e would be waiting for me to get there.

I ended up getting six stitches and a tetanus shot.  I have about a 7 inch bruise on my left forearm and a very ugly black bruise on my left hip...yep, it hurt worse the second day...oh, it still hurts.  My arm is swollen from the tetanus shot too.  The shot also had the Whooping Cough vaccine in it and the past few days I have been coughing...why?  Who knows?  It may be allergies, either that or maybe the shot made me have it.  I have to take antibiotics and the stitches have to stay in at least ten days to two weeks.

The Big Chicken Coop is started.

When we first decided to get chickens, they were just for us...for eggs.  But out of the first 6 we got, two were roosters.  After getting so few eggs the first winter, we decided to get more hens.  We had to wait awhile, but we started getting more eggs and then ended up with two broody hens!  Well...broody hens don't lay eggs...they sit on them with the full intension of hatching them, they want babies.  I let them hatch eggs the second time my Rhode Island Red went broody.  Her name is Brown Racer, her partner in crime is an Easter Egger named Ms McCluckinson.  They were so intent on being Mothers, I got eggs from my neighbor and let them sit on them...they didn't hatch, and my hens laid eggs in the boxes, so I let them keep laying eggs after letting my Rhode Island Red out for fertilization.  After sitting on those, they both became Mothers!  Those chicks are teenagers now.  They were born just before Easter.  The same two hens are broody again...and they had just started laying!

I have made a double Decker Brooder to house the baby chicks.  I made a grow out pen to house the Teen Chicks...but I still need more places to put full grown chickens.  So, we are building an 8'x16' coop with a 16'x16' covered run.  So far we have semi-leveled a spot to build it, and made the base of the coop so far.  I do have most of the materials ready to go, but I have been getting help from my husband on this project and he only has a little bit of time working six days a week.  The materials are pretty heavy and some of the wood I just can't move by myself without my husband and the truck, there are also large sheets of decking and the siding is metal and heavy also.  

I am hoping this weekend to get the framing materials moved to the build site, and possibly getting the framing started.  Because, now I have two hens sitting on eggs, eggs in the incubator, chicks from almost 4 weeks old (19 of them), chicks 6 weeks old (7 of them) and my teen chicks are about 11 weeks old and there are 13 of those!  I need the coop built before they start laying eggs!

I am looking into selling the eggs, the chicks and possibly selling hatching eggs too.  I need to do more research on it and maybe get some egg cartons.  I stopped by the Farmers Market yesterday and no one was selling eggs!

Planted my gardens but...

I have three gardens planted now.  I started seeds thinking that if they were started the birds could not eat the seeds...I was wrong!  I lost a row and a half of corn and about the same with the green beans...they just pulled all of the plants up and out of the ground.  I bought some plants and after tilling again, got them planted too.  I have all kinds of stuff growing now, not sure how much of a harvest I will get, but I have stuff planted.  

I am going to assume that the soil is fertile in my gardens, I actually have 4 garden plots...only three are planted because when we get a lot of rain half of one floods.  Weeds grow really well in my gardens, it is hard to keep up with weeding them.  The tiller I got can go between the rows, but it has no reverse and next year I will need to remembr to leave more space between the fence and the planted rows...so I can use the tiller to weed!  

I have harvested Mexican Plums and Dewberries.  I made jelly with those, my first attempt at jelly making...so I ended up with more of a Dewberry syrup instead of jelly. After talking with a local lady, she said that it is always trial and error.  My plum jelly turned out really good, jellied like it was suppose to.  Dewberries and blackberries don't have any pectin in them so it takes much, much more...drives me crazy that none of my Dewberry jelly is really jellied.

The only other thing I have harvested is green tomatoes.  My plants got so heavy it broke the metal tomato cage on one.  I also saw a number of tomatoes with blossom end rot an deformed tomatoes from the way they laid on the ground.  I have a bunch sitting on the counter now some starting to ripen.  I dried my eggshells and ground them up to a powder and added some Epsom salt to an old huge Parmesan Cheese shaker and mixed it up really good and sprinkled the mix around all of my tomato plants.  I hope the calcium and magnesium works wonders and fixes the problems.  I need to apply fertilizer to the rest of my gardens, that is where my chickens come in handy.

Fenced and Ready to Plant!

I know I am running way behind on getting things planted in my gardens...but, after being tilled we had rains and freezing temperatures.  My 4 garden areas had to be tilled again and I ended up buying a rear-tine tiller to help with weeding and small areas.  I also had to fence the gardens so the dogs would not have access to them.  The dogs would follow behind me as I tilled, and they ate all the grubs!  Really gross, but I would have collected them and given them to the chickens.

I got my highest garden plot planted with purchased tomato, pepper and brocolli plants.  I have started more seeds since my original plant starts were frozen to death.  We had eight inches of rain and everything is like a marsh that is on the lower area of my pasture.  My land is on a hill and only parts are semi-terraced.  I went ahead and am starting some corn plants and green beans in starter pots again.  I am going to have to till again!  Weeds grow really well in tilled soil.  My husband and I got the two largest gardens fenced weekend before last and yesterday I tilled (again) and fenced the smaller garden.  One side I sunk up to my ankles in mud...but the blueberry plants I put in it seem to like the wet ground.  With the 8 inches of rain I have decided I need to create a collection trench to control the flow of water through the garden.  I will probably have to mound dirt up too.  I will have to keep in mind the swampy areas when planting and make sure only the higher water requiring plants are planted there.  The smaller garden area will be for blueberries, strawberries and herbs...maybe asparagus and onions if there is room.  The bigger gardens are for corn, green beans, sunflowers and then one for vining plants.  Walt at Tractor Supply informed me some people have planted seed three times because of the late freezes, so I am doing pretty good...I didn't loose but one batch and they weren't planted yet.  I just need to realize that the temperatures on the news are for Shreveport...and we are always cooler in our area.

I have harvested wild blackberries from around my house and backyard, and Mexican plums!  Making Jam or jelly is on my to-do list.  But so is getting the two large garden areas tilled and planted is my priority now...or it will get to hot for some things to produce well.  

On the baby front...my Toulouse Geese and Roeun and Khaki Campbell Ducks are almost completely feathered out now.  My 14 baby chicks are growing out of the brooder, I have 7 smaller chicks in the inside brooder that after being over the hatch date a week, hatched!  I think because that area of the incubator did not get as hot...it is the only thing I can think of.  I waited several more days to see if any more would hatch but I believe because that side of the incubator registered 105 degrees after our power came back on, they must have cooked inside the shell.  I opened the remaining eggs...all but one had fully formed, but dead chicks in them.  So I don't think them dropping down to 80 degrees before they hatched hurt them...I think it was when it came back on and the fan stopped working that did it...and the the humidity getting up to 80% after the 8 inches of rain.  I think hens hatching eggs is the best way to go, especially with the Sprng storms and erratic electricity in our area.  But, I may have My hubby show me what to do to hook up the solar for use in those situations...because it went out for about half an hour yesterday and it wasn't even raining!