I am sorry I haven't written lately, as usual I have been rather busy. We had some chilly temperatures that prompted me to get my rear in gear and start getting the chicken coops ready for winter. I got some tarps hung before the rain started from Hurricane Patricia and cleaned a few out...but didn't get finished. It has been raining for days now an I have been trying to get more done in the rain. I got two more gates built for my breeding pens and shade cloth hung over them, and then a tarp...but when it started raining the tarps caught so much rain it bent the t-posts and the tarps were so full of water they were almost on the ground...the roosters in the pens were on the sides of the pens and I had to bail the water out to even get the gates to open. I was able to basically put a pole in the center of some sort of the pens to get the rain to drain off...but a few actually broke under the weight of the water. I will have to rethink those pens, they were meant as breeding pens not to house any chickens long term, but they have a lot of roosters in them and a couple of turkeys that were injured.
The rain is causing issues...because the chickens have stripped all of the vegetation out of their yards. We are on something of a hill and a lot of the dirt is washing down the hill and blocking gates, getting deep around the coops and holes are opening up in spots. Not sure what I am going to do, I don't have any way to move it...except one shovel at a time. After all the bailing out of the tarps, I can't do that...I hurt myself and have to wait to try. So I may have to actually take the gates off and rehang them and hope all of the roosters I have penned up in them, don't get out. Why are they locked up? Well, I hatched a lot of eggs this past Spring...I don't know how to sex chicks and the ones I didn't sell got to grow up, there are a lot of them. My male to female ratio in some batches was two or three to one, in a small batch of Polish I hatched one female and 5 males! I have seven of the eight pens full of roosters...there are at least 60 in the pens. If a rooster is overly aggressive towards the hens or participates in basically gang raping a hen...I will snatch them up and separate them from the rest of the flock. At this moment, I have quite a few hens that are bald on their backs because of the roosters. I am trying to get them out any way I can and most of these roosters will be processed and eaten for dinner. I just want to make sure that I save the best of them for breeding purposes. I still have a lot of roosters running around in the yard too.
This city girl gone country should have done more homework and realized how hard it would be to get everything done in a timely matter...that is a big fail for me. I always thought I was pretty tough and could always get things done with very little to work with. That may be true of some things but the country is NOT the city. I cannot get everything I need at the drop of a hat and it is harder for me because we only have one vehicle. Although I sell eggs and chickens, those sales don't bring in much money, some weeks I may not sell anything at all. This past week has been pretty good, but I only sold $55 dollars worth of eggs, since I spent about $175 on feed and parts for gates and feed pans, that is not a good ratio. It takes 50 lbs of feed a day to feed our almost 300 poultry, if it was not for my husbands business doing better the past few weeks I would have a bunch of hungry poultry. They free range during the day, and even though the main part of their yard has no grass left...I fenced a large portion beyond that, that still does have grass. It was looking pretty bad because of the drought, but with the rain we are getting it will green up nicely and give them some more supplemental greens. The fence I used came from a garden area that I made that stays too wet when it rains like it has been. So far we have gotten over 5 - 1/4 inches of rain out of Hurricane Patricia's remnants in a couple of days time. It is still raining too. It has been a fairly steady and gentle rain for the most part, but the temperature dropped yesterday when a cold front came through and the wind picked up and it always worries me when it has rained a lot and the wind gets up over 20 miles an hour...trees start falling.
I can see a lot of roots around the trees in the poultry yard, these are large trees and I am just hoping none of them fall. I positioned the coops under those trees. I am going to have to get some type of winter forage planted for the poultry and to hold the soil in place. The good news is a lot of my poultry is finely venturing out the gate into the larger fenced area with the grass. I guess it helps that I go out there and throw scratch grains out there and they run to me when I go out. They see grasshoppers and such and go after them...so they are finely getting the hang of it.
Monday, October 26, 2015
Wednesday, October 7, 2015
Rooster Roundup Time!
At this moment, I have six pens full of roosters...I think a total of 41 since one escaped a pen, they are pretty good at that. I have a bunch more that need to be separated out and I had one disappear...it was a Salmon Favorelle and I am upset about it being just gone...I had two, and it was the better looking of the two. I am trying to keep at least two of each breed, but a lot of these that need to be rounded up are young, but becoming sexually active so, they have to be penned up.
I need to do an inventory of breeds, I am afraid we may be having someone helping themselves to my chickens. I may be missing a Double Laced Blue Barnevelder and a Blue Splash Maran too, possibly a Buff Orpington and Gold Laced Wyandotte, Speckled Sussex...and Dominiques. I have a list of what I hatched and ordered...the only chickens I sold were mixed breed...none have died either. My husband said he would have told me if he found any. We lock them up at night, but have found doors open, gates open and even part of the fence undone. The trail camera needs to be moved over into the area again. I may need to electrify the fence too. Most of my chickens stay in the fenced area, any that get out run the fence and don't stray far. I have been leaving my dogs out more and letting them into the larger fenced area, they are fairly good at not chasing the poultry. The only one that they may have killed was not eaten, had no bite marks...it flew over the fence to the backyard, they probably chased it and it had a heart attack. They help round them up sometimes and have removed a few feathers in the process, but most of the time I can go out and the dogs will be laying in the yard with chickens and turkeys walking around them.
Anyway, today I need to work on the pens so I can round up more roosters. I have two more built, but need to put shade cloth over the top and have tarps to cover them with too...and build gates. We need to process a bunch of the roosters but we need to set up a processing station to do it. I have felt kind of lazy lately and done more in the house than outside projects. That needs to change, I need to get a lot done before it gets cold and figure out coop winterization. Our geese and a few ducks have decided they like the big chicken coop and have been sleeping in it instead of their house, if they keep it up I may put roosts in it and use their house for chickens! If I can get the pens done by this weekend, I can probably get my hubby to help me round up roosters, he is much better using the net than me.
I need to do an inventory of breeds, I am afraid we may be having someone helping themselves to my chickens. I may be missing a Double Laced Blue Barnevelder and a Blue Splash Maran too, possibly a Buff Orpington and Gold Laced Wyandotte, Speckled Sussex...and Dominiques. I have a list of what I hatched and ordered...the only chickens I sold were mixed breed...none have died either. My husband said he would have told me if he found any. We lock them up at night, but have found doors open, gates open and even part of the fence undone. The trail camera needs to be moved over into the area again. I may need to electrify the fence too. Most of my chickens stay in the fenced area, any that get out run the fence and don't stray far. I have been leaving my dogs out more and letting them into the larger fenced area, they are fairly good at not chasing the poultry. The only one that they may have killed was not eaten, had no bite marks...it flew over the fence to the backyard, they probably chased it and it had a heart attack. They help round them up sometimes and have removed a few feathers in the process, but most of the time I can go out and the dogs will be laying in the yard with chickens and turkeys walking around them.
Anyway, today I need to work on the pens so I can round up more roosters. I have two more built, but need to put shade cloth over the top and have tarps to cover them with too...and build gates. We need to process a bunch of the roosters but we need to set up a processing station to do it. I have felt kind of lazy lately and done more in the house than outside projects. That needs to change, I need to get a lot done before it gets cold and figure out coop winterization. Our geese and a few ducks have decided they like the big chicken coop and have been sleeping in it instead of their house, if they keep it up I may put roosts in it and use their house for chickens! If I can get the pens done by this weekend, I can probably get my hubby to help me round up roosters, he is much better using the net than me.
Monday, October 5, 2015
Took A Day Off - Sort Of
I never really take a full day off...I just don't do as much, or everything I planned on. I had some pain in my back Saturday, so I took it fairly easy for most of the day. I cooked breakfast, unloaded the dish washer, fed the animals, folded clothes...paid some bills. Then sat and chatted on Facebook, tried to answer some questions for fellow chicken lovers. My husband was working so I just semi-rested a bit. I had planned on getting the tools out and finishing dismantling the Lowboy chicken tractor...but decided it could wait. Thought about peeling these 20 or so pounds of pears my husband brought home, but didn't do that either...they were free and we are thinking about making cider with them.
When my husband got home we took the dogs for a walk, discussed how bad we needed to clear some of the trees growing around the lake...I skipped trimming trees for several months and all the work I did last year...well, it is hard to tell this year. The vines and weeds are all grown back, you can still tell I trimmed all of the branches up on the trees around the shooting range, but the piles of dead branches are still laying up there waiting to get burned. We are under a burn ban now...so it won't be happening any time soon. Trees have grown up on the shooting range in the markers, they need to be removed before they get larger, Sycamores and willows grow really fast, trees that were not there last year are ten to twenty feet tall! I need some small trees for roosts anyway, so maybe next week I will get some cut down...I had cut one young Sycamore tree from beside the lake but it was hard to get to and there are a lot of trees around an area there were none. I thinned out some red maples too, the smooth barked trees are easier on poultries feet than rough bark. Some of the younger oaks are smooth too...so a lot of the trees we cut will be used for something...roosts or I may try and make gates out of some of the straighter trees, most of these young trees only have about a two to three inch trunk.
Today I may crack some more pecans...I did it last Sunday too, I got about a half gallon of meats out in about three hours while I was watching football. Crew is smoking a Pork Butt today, it is nice out and cool...he opened all the windows and you can smell the meat pretty good all through the house. We need some sort of press to squeeze the juice out of the pears, I need to think about it some, I have found a few scratters and presses on the internet that look pretty easy to make, if I make a press maybe I can use it for cheese too? I don't know...I saw some on eBay too...a metal one would probably last a lot longer, maybe I can get one on eBay for less than constructing one. I still need to make a top bar beehive too. I would love to have our own honey bees, but that too will be a learning process...I have a lot of wants...dreams I guess, it will all come together eventually. I still need to build another chicken structure too. We have some metal posts and angle iron behind the shed I am thinking about trying to use, I just need to prioritize everything and get to work.
When my husband got home we took the dogs for a walk, discussed how bad we needed to clear some of the trees growing around the lake...I skipped trimming trees for several months and all the work I did last year...well, it is hard to tell this year. The vines and weeds are all grown back, you can still tell I trimmed all of the branches up on the trees around the shooting range, but the piles of dead branches are still laying up there waiting to get burned. We are under a burn ban now...so it won't be happening any time soon. Trees have grown up on the shooting range in the markers, they need to be removed before they get larger, Sycamores and willows grow really fast, trees that were not there last year are ten to twenty feet tall! I need some small trees for roosts anyway, so maybe next week I will get some cut down...I had cut one young Sycamore tree from beside the lake but it was hard to get to and there are a lot of trees around an area there were none. I thinned out some red maples too, the smooth barked trees are easier on poultries feet than rough bark. Some of the younger oaks are smooth too...so a lot of the trees we cut will be used for something...roosts or I may try and make gates out of some of the straighter trees, most of these young trees only have about a two to three inch trunk.
Today I may crack some more pecans...I did it last Sunday too, I got about a half gallon of meats out in about three hours while I was watching football. Crew is smoking a Pork Butt today, it is nice out and cool...he opened all the windows and you can smell the meat pretty good all through the house. We need some sort of press to squeeze the juice out of the pears, I need to think about it some, I have found a few scratters and presses on the internet that look pretty easy to make, if I make a press maybe I can use it for cheese too? I don't know...I saw some on eBay too...a metal one would probably last a lot longer, maybe I can get one on eBay for less than constructing one. I still need to make a top bar beehive too. I would love to have our own honey bees, but that too will be a learning process...I have a lot of wants...dreams I guess, it will all come together eventually. I still need to build another chicken structure too. We have some metal posts and angle iron behind the shed I am thinking about trying to use, I just need to prioritize everything and get to work.
Saturday, October 3, 2015
Cooler Weather At Last!
It has been really nice this past week. The humidity has been low and the temperatures have only been in the eighties for the highs, bright sunshiny days too...lows in the sixties at night. I enjoy spending time outside when it is like this. I did some yard work, mowing, trimming, weeding, watering...loved standing in the sun with all the turkeys following me making their happy noises and gobbling when I talked to them. The chickens come out and investigate when I am watering the trees, all of them follow me down the fence line, chasing bugs and toads through the grass. I still have some tilling to do...I want to get the ground prepared somewhat for planting in the spring. I have been saving cardboard to cover areas to keep the weeds down. The weeds are a constant battle...well, not where the chickens congregate.
Poultry doesn't like tall grass either, they tend to avoid areas that it is over 8 inches or so...unless it is laying over. Most areas that have shade are bare or close to it, they have eaten everything down to the ground in their main areas. There is still a lot of grass in the bigger fenced section of the yard, we still have to mow it, but they love scratching around in the piles of grass looking for bugs afterward. The ducks and geese are constantly eating, if I dump water out they dig a hole...we have a lot of holes in the yard, change out water every day...dump the nasty water, wash the containers and refill them...pools too. I rake up the yard fairly often too...but if I don't remove what I rake...the chickens spread it all over the yard within minutes, if I turn my back on them.
The turkeys are discovering they can fly, they have been flying up into the trees lately, flying on top of my big coop and walking around on the roof...they jump down onto the shade cloth I have hanging up too. They are getting heavy, I am afraid they will break the polycarbonate roof panels over the run. They have been jumping on the tarps too...and tearing them up...the shade cloth is a bit tougher I suppose. I have a feeling it would be cheaper in the long run to use metal roof panels on the coops than to keep buying tarps to replace what is being torn up. Turkeys are large heavy birds, yesterday I was having a hard time getting them all to go into their house to eat...so I caught some and carried them to their house. I didn't get a good hold on one and he got his wings loose and started flapping wildly, dirt started flying everywhere and I was getting beat by his wings. He got me once or twice on the head and face...but I held on. Probably a mistake, but I got him to calm down and got him in the turkey house. It is no wonder I have bruises and scratches on my arms most of the time...most of the time I have a bird fly up and grab my arm trying to get to the feed...I have small round bruises from the chickens toenails on both arms...and now a few new scratches that bled from getting raked with the turkeys toenails.
The turkeys are good about trying to clean me up too. Since I feed fermented feed, I use large five gallon buckets to mix it in. When I go out to feed, I stir the buckets to mix it up well before I give it to my poultry...sometimes it splashes on my jeans. Once I start pouring it, sometimes it will get on the outside of the bucket and they are heavy so it will rub off on me...the buckets weigh 35 to 40 pounds...then a chicken will jump up and in the bucket sometimes. Needless to say, I get covered in food sometimes...I find myself getting pecked at a lot...when the turkeys see the food on me, they feel abliged to get it off and clean me up. I guess the geese do too sometimes, but not as much as the turkeys...I will be somewhat surrounded by them and they will peck any area that has food on it, whether it be the side of my leg, the front of my shirt, or the seat of my pants...my best bet sometimes is just to stand still and let them clean me up. They tend to grab my jeans sometimes trying to get at the food, the geese have goosed me pretty good a few times and getting pecked by a turkey on the butt can be a little painful at times. But when a chicken gets into the feed bucket and I am carrying two of them and surrounded by hundreds of poultry so that I can't see the ground...or set the buckets down...they sometimes hit the food and flap wildly trying to get out. There have been several instances that I get food from the top of my head to my toes! Splattered all over my glasses, my arms...all over my clothes, in my hair...and the grooming starts. I have had my glasses removed from my face, my hair pulled, the geese have actually pulled a shoe off before...so, I recommend if you wear Sloggers to make sure you have them on your feet properly! I tend to use mine more like slides a lot. Quick to slide on and off! I try not to wear my shoes in the house, so I keep them by the back door to slide on when I go feed or have an egg customer drive up.
Anyway, I do enjoy the cooler weather...try and spend more time outside getting things done before the heat comes back. It got down in the mid fifties last night and the high today is suppose to be around eighty. In a few days it will be going back up into the nineties, so I need to get some more building done. I don't mind hard work...good thing too, because I have a lot to get done before it gets cold.
The turkeys are good about trying to clean me up too. Since I feed fermented feed, I use large five gallon buckets to mix it in. When I go out to feed, I stir the buckets to mix it up well before I give it to my poultry...sometimes it splashes on my jeans. Once I start pouring it, sometimes it will get on the outside of the bucket and they are heavy so it will rub off on me...the buckets weigh 35 to 40 pounds...then a chicken will jump up and in the bucket sometimes. Needless to say, I get covered in food sometimes...I find myself getting pecked at a lot...when the turkeys see the food on me, they feel abliged to get it off and clean me up. I guess the geese do too sometimes, but not as much as the turkeys...I will be somewhat surrounded by them and they will peck any area that has food on it, whether it be the side of my leg, the front of my shirt, or the seat of my pants...my best bet sometimes is just to stand still and let them clean me up. They tend to grab my jeans sometimes trying to get at the food, the geese have goosed me pretty good a few times and getting pecked by a turkey on the butt can be a little painful at times. But when a chicken gets into the feed bucket and I am carrying two of them and surrounded by hundreds of poultry so that I can't see the ground...or set the buckets down...they sometimes hit the food and flap wildly trying to get out. There have been several instances that I get food from the top of my head to my toes! Splattered all over my glasses, my arms...all over my clothes, in my hair...and the grooming starts. I have had my glasses removed from my face, my hair pulled, the geese have actually pulled a shoe off before...so, I recommend if you wear Sloggers to make sure you have them on your feet properly! I tend to use mine more like slides a lot. Quick to slide on and off! I try not to wear my shoes in the house, so I keep them by the back door to slide on when I go feed or have an egg customer drive up.
Anyway, I do enjoy the cooler weather...try and spend more time outside getting things done before the heat comes back. It got down in the mid fifties last night and the high today is suppose to be around eighty. In a few days it will be going back up into the nineties, so I need to get some more building done. I don't mind hard work...good thing too, because I have a lot to get done before it gets cold.
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