Crazy Days!

I can always tell when Spring is in full swing by the number of broody hens I have...it has been crazy around here lately!  My biggest chicken coop has broody hens in every nest box, some two or three in a nest box and sometimes a turkey in one with them...the corner under the nest boxes has at least two broody turkeys, but I find three in there a lot lately.  I have a goose that will go in the corner and add an egg to the pile too.  I have another broody turkey on my back porch, she was injured in what may have been a mating accident.  I go outside and find a hen sitting on eggs in a dog house used by my ducks...and another hen sitting on eggs in the chicken tractor.  I am not sure exactly how many broody hens I have...but I have 23 nest boxes in the big coop, and several of them contain more than one hen.  I will estimate close to thirty.

After finding a chick that was pretty much pecked to death, I went in and took a five gallon bucket and collected all of the eggs from the top nest boxes on one set of ten.  I candled them and stuck the viable eggs in incubators...I had a couple hatch during the night.  I woke up to new peeping in two incubators.  I moved five week old chicks to my back porch brooder day before yesterday so I would have more space in the house brooders.  I will have to do the same thing with the baby geese and turkeys today I think, they are outgrowing the brooder totes I have them in very quickly...except for the runt goose.  I have to clean the house brooders a few times a day too.  The babies get to a certain point that they poop a lot more and just make a terrible mess.  I may have to try sand as a bedding material soon, or make more wire bottomed brooders.  Baby ducks and geese are super messy...they play in their water so much, and the mix of water, food and poop gets all ovr the place.

Enough about babies.  I have been trying to get my garden planted too!  I was doing so good...had all my seeds sprouting in my popup greenhouse...had tilled and was about ready to plant my veggies...then we had a pretty severe storm and it tossed everything with some pretty heavy wind gusts.  Some survived though.  I have maybe 8 broccoli plants, maybe 12 green bean plants, about the same on Romaine lettuce.  I lost a tray and a half of corn and not sure what is left on a few...but need to get them in the ground too.  Pumpkins, watermelon, cantaloupe and maybe squash...it is hard to tell on some of the vining plants...I will have to direct sow some seeds.  I have sunflowers too...and a few herb plants survived.  I have tomato plants too...lost a bunch, but still have a bunch.  I just don't know what type they are.  I will plant them anyway, and start some more just in case.  I may have a fall garden started and do several plantings this year if I can fit them in my schedule.

Anyway, with the mild winter we had the berries are ripening early...so I need to pick them today...well, every few days.  I need to check my blueberries too!  The wild plums will be ripening soon too.  This time of year is always super crazy for me.  Just lots and lots to get done and keep an eye on.  I just thought I would let you know, in case I don't write again for awhile.  I just woke up early today...and it rained last night so today may be too messy to accomplish much outside.  But, I have to try and finish building the supports for my tomatoes and get them planted...I am glad I started them in bigger pots this year, maybe next year I need to go ever larger?  This is our rainy season...it is hard for me to walk in squishy mud and do much of anything.  After having foot surgery on both feet several years ago, I have to be careful...and rest a lot doing much work on soft ground.  I do try and wear my heavy boots to till and use the shovel...but it still makes my feet hurt doing it.  I don't sleep very well when my feet feel like they are on fire either...so I try to keep from doing too much, most of the time.  Ok...I am not good...I press through to get the job done and pay for it later.  But, that is what us Capricorns do...we don't like to admit defeat!  So yeah, it is a bit crazy right now.

Hard Work Makes For Rich Rewards, Not Always!

It may take me awhile, but I get things done eventually.  I have been incubating and hatching chicks, ducks, turkeys and geese...but, not very many.  Well not as many as you might expect with a poultry farm.  Right now I just have three turkey poults, four goslings and about 9 chicks.  I sold a few goslings and ten chicks, but I have more chicks starting to hatch.  One of my incubators broke, it wouldn't heat up, my husband replaced the element...it still will not heat up.  I bought another incubator, but ended up sending it back...the turner was missing parts and it didn't reset like it was suppose to.  I have not purchased another one.  I really just need to make a cabinet incubator.  A man I sell eggs to, that hatches them, is hatching some turkeys and ducks for me.  They should be hatching by next week, if I remember right.  I gave him 47 duck eggs and 43 turkey eggs to hatch and offered a female turkey in return of the newly hatched turkeys, and to grow another one up for him for the ducks.  We shall see what happens.

I still need to create the dividers on my breeding pens, I am trying not to hatch many, if any mixed breed chicks.  I have a handful of Salmon Favorelles in my back porch brooder and set some of their eggs and I have some Jubilee Orpington's also separated out to start hatching their eggs too, my Dominiques have always been separated...those are the majority of chicks I have at the moment.  

I have been rather busy as usual.  I have two garden areas this year!  My garden in front of the house, I have been adding composted chicken manure into it, crushed eggshells and need to sprinkle some Epsom salts...but I have tilled it multiple times and planted some of my plant starts...at least the ones that survived my green house blowing over.  About that...we had some pretty bad storms a few weeks a go...tornados within 12 miles or so of us, we experienced some very strong wind gusts.  Well, this greenhouse is basically like a tent made out of a kind of milky white translucent reinforced plastic.  The wind picked it up and rolled it over, it broke one of the stakes off and the ropes broke or came loose on the others.  I had a shelf full of plants I had started from seeds, some of them from seeds I saved from my last years harvest...I guess I did them right, most of them...including the corn, sprouted.  They were tossed around and mixed up, some destroyed...well a lot destroyed.  But, I salvaged what I could and got a lot of the non-vining plants in the ground yesterday.  I will have to start some more from seed.  It was rather disappointing, but I planted more than I really needed anyway...but, I was hoping to sell some of the plants.  Not going to happen now, I could sell tomato plants, but I don't know which ones are which.

I was doing so good this year...the past few years I didn't get anything planted until late May or early June.  I am ahead of the game this year at least.  I may have some tomatoes by the time the Farmers Market starts, I will have to restart some cucumbers...I can't tell at this point what the vining plants are...except the watermelons.  Not sure if what I have left is pumpkins, squash, cantaloupe or cucumbers...but, I have more seeds...so, I will plant more and stick these plants in the area my neighbor tilled for me.  I still need to build my potato towers, so far I have only been able to produce a few tiny potatoes...most have died or rotted because of too much rain.  It is a learning process for me...that is for sure!