Not Feeling It...

I guess it is no surprise, I wore myself down too much and developed a sore throat.  It started yesterday.  Hurts worse today, so I am drinking hot green tea with turmeric, ginger, lemon, cinnamon and honey in it.  It feels almost like I swallowed a popcorn hull or something...mainly hurts when I swallow and my ear is starting to hurt too.  I have been trying to stop taking Aleve PM...but, after doing a bunch of digging last week and raking, I took some last night.  I slept until almost 8:00 this morning after waking up at around 4:30am for several days in a row.

I have one more batch of chicks on my back porch, I moved out all the adults and the older juveniles out to the yard, but then I found a few with injuries and possibly fowl pox that I brought back onto the porch for medical treatment...lol, I say that...I rubbed a mixture of  99.8% food grade Sulphur and Vaseline, Tea Tree Oil and Oregano Oil on all the combs and waddles, and put Teramycin in the chickens that had eye problems, one was pecked on the ear lobe and he got sprayed with Scarlet Oil too.  After January 2017, they are pulling a lot of things off the shelves in the way of antibiotics, treatment for Coccidiosis and possibly wormers for farm animals...you will have to get them from a vet.  I have a feeling a lot of animals will be dying because people will not be able to afford a vet visit and the medications needed to treat them.  I am hoping that with the knowledge I have regarding essential oils and tidbits I have picked up over the past few years, that I can keep my flock healthy.  I ferment my feed and that seems to keep them pretty healthy, my main problem is injuries and this year, Fowl Pox.

I am trying to do as little as possible today, I know I need rest.  The weather is cooler today, so I really would like to take the opportunity to work on my breeding pens.  I got all the poop cleaned out of the coop part yesterday and raked up the pine cones, rocks and sticks from the area.  Filled holes too. I have a long way to go filling holes though, the poultry loves to dust bathe...they make deep holes sometimes and because all the grass is gone in a large area the rain washes the sandy soil down the hill...it stops at the fence line, but builds up.  I shoveled it from the built up area and moved it to the holes, covered some roots too.  I have a long way to go, it is a constant battle.

We went for a short walk this morning, up to the shooting range.  It is amazing how fast trees grow around our pond.  Last summer we cleared a lot of trees out from the edge of the pond, weeds too...they are all back and some as high as ten feet already.  With the ten inches of rain we got week before last, the pond is pretty full.  I guess this year during the cooler months I will be busy clearing again.  I have not walked the path around the lake either, I am sure it is probably severely overgrown.  Maybe one of these days we can creat a rock path around the lake...and try and keep it clear.  Fall is a beautiful time of year out here, we are already seeing some of the Sumac leaves changing color.  The Farmers Almanac says that this is going to be a cold wet winter this year for us.  I have to get ready for it.  Lots to do on the farm...always.

Rain In August?

It has continued to rain here, we have had about 10 inches of rain in a little over a week.  Louisana has been hammered with a lot and flooding...historic amounts of rain, some are saying it ended up being around 30 inches!  I have seen pictures of the devestation...so many houses flooded, coffins floating in the streets, highways underwater.  People with no place to call home any more.  They speak of the Cajun Navy helping rescue so many people from their flooded homes, these are people with boats, just helping to save lives.  I think the death toll is up to thirteen now.  It is sad to watch, but the people helping each other is amazing.

We had been dry for quite awhile, so no flooding here.  Even though we have gotten a lot of rain the earth has absorbed most of it now.  The creek was dry and I can here it running from the house, but it has not left it's banks.  The lower part of the yard has had a little standing water, not much.  I got the yard mowed yesterday before the rain started up again.  It had gotten pretty high and the younger chickens were hard to see in the tall grass.  When I was done with the mower, the chickens, ducks, geese and turkeys were having a field day...running after grasshoppers!  It is funny to watch them taking them away from each other and running with them.

All the rain has been bad for my garden, my watermelons were starting to rot, I picked most of them. My Brussel Sprouts have pretty much been eaten by ants and started turning black.  My pepper plants have gotten out of control, my Habanero plant is probably four feet tall and at least that wide.  My Bell Peppers have gotten so heavy that they have been breaking the branches, as is my Broccoli...most is split and some has died.  My tomatoes are pretty much just vines laying everywhere now.  The rain came down so hard it basically beat up the plants.  I need a break from gardening...changed my mind about a Fall garden.  I have so much to do before winter I need to concentrate on getting the poultry yard ready for it.  The Farmers Almanac is predicting a cold wet winter for us, so I have to prepare for it early.  We already have cooler than normal temperatures and more rain...August is generally the driest month here and we already have ten inches of rain for the month...it is not over yet either.

I have several chickens with fowl pox now too.  It is a virus transmitted by mosquitoes, it causes little scabby raised bumps on the chickens combs, waddles, ear lobes and around the eyes.  Some of my chickens have them bad and I have no be hen you n the house that can't see out of either eye because of them.  I have been having to force feed her, she will drink on her own if I set her in front of the water bowl and push her head down to it and wet her beak.  She won't eat if I do that though, so I have been prying her mouth open and feeding her boiled eggs.  I am not sure if she will make it, she is a sweet little hen and I am trying my best.  The pox on her eyes is awful, I have been putting a Vasoline and Sulphur mix on her and tried putting Teramycin in her eyes, but you can't really tell she has eyes any more.  The eye area is very swollen and the pox are black scabby looking spots...I am hoping to dry them out enough to scrape them off and get at least one eye open, so she can see to eat.

Wish me luck, I have several more chickens on the porch that have a more minor case of fowl pox...but it seems I notice more popping up on chickens in the yard, the more it rains.

Big Surprise

We have been so hot and humid that it has been making me feel bad to be outside for very long, heat indexes of 107-115 pretty much every day..until yesterday.  We have had a lot of pop up showers that will dump rain on us, a lot of rain in five minutes time.  These are accompanied by a lot of thunder and lightening...that part usually lasts longer than the rain.  Yesterday was different.

The temperature dropped, we had a gust front hit and it rained without all the thunder and lightening. It is a big surprise to have temperatures only in the 80's in Texas, in August.  August is generally the hottest month of the year here...in bad years it is July and August, sometimes having weeks of over 100 degree temperatures and not a drop of rain.  We are suppose to be getting rain every day this week...and it is not suppose to hit even 90!  I know we have gotten 2-1/2 inches of rain so far this month, but that came with high temperatures following the rain...it made it very humid too...but it helped my trees and garden, and the grass is pretty green now.  It was raining when I got up this morning, a slow gentle rain and all week the lows will be in the 70's with highs in the 80's!  But, we also have a good chance of rain every day too.

I worked in the garden a little bit yesterday, it is a mess.  Weeds are overtaking it since I have not been going out every day and pulling them.  I just haven't felt well, not sure what it is, maybe allergies?  I have had frequent headaches and shooting pains that move around.  Here lately I have felt like someone hit me across the shoulders with a big stick and having sharp pains in my wrists and elbows.  I haven't been taking Aleve every day though...so it could just be arthritis I suppose.  I don't like the feeling though, maybe I will take some aspirin today.  I have things I need to do, canning wise.  If I don't do it soon...the chickens will be getting my crops.  I want to plant a Fall garden, I wanted green beans and corn to freeze or can and I didn't get enough out of my garden before a lot of it fried to a crisp.  I need to put composted chicken manure on the garden and till it in still too...can't do it when it is wet though, so I may start seeds in pots while it is rainy and then transplant them when I get it tilled again.  I pulled up all my corn plants and may pull up my cantaloupe and watermelon plants too.

I am upset that ants are eating my Brussel sprouts, gotta find a solution to fix that too.  I just have a lot to get done.  I have still not finished the run on the breeding pens I built either.  Just too hot and too much other work to do.  I will enjoy the cooler temperatures and I am sure my critters will too.  I need to put a couple of new tarps on today and move some roosters around.  My rooster population has gone down some and I need to try to put some in coops instead of pens, I just don't want them to fight.  I have some repairs to make too all of the feed sacks I put on the pallet coop to keep the rain out have deteriorated and the chickens are ripping them up, I need to clean it off and do something different I suppose.  So, if you ever use feed sacks as a siding material to block wind and rain...you only have about six months in a really sunny environment until they start falling apart, maybe a little longer...but to get them off in one piece...six is about max.  I touch these and they crumble in my hand unless the part was double layered.  I have a big mess to clean up.

Sweaty Work

Summers in Texas can be brutal, I keep hoping that I will get use to the humidity out here but I am just not so sure that will happen.  I worked out in the garden some yesterday and started cleaning up after the chickens and turkeys I have on the porch.  I don't think I had a dry spot on me when I called it a day.  Today was pretty much the same, taking care of pools and cleaning things, doing some Bumblefoot procedures and cutting Spurs off some of my Polish roosters.  I had sweat running down my arms, my shirt was soaked and even the top of my jeans were wet, down to my knees.  I really need to power wash my porch and the cages the chickens are in, but can't do that with them inside of the cages.  Finding places for 50 plus chickens while you clean is not easy, neither is catching them all and moving them...so it will have to wait.

Since I hatched so late into the year, I have a garden and canning to do at the same time as everything else, some things get put on hold for periods of time...too long sometimes, like cleaning under everything on the porch and moving everything and scrubbing down the porch.  I have been doing it twice a week, it takes me at least four hours, sometimes longer...way longer.  Like when it is 100 degrees in the shade.  Yesterday and the day before were like that.  I don't mind sweating, not really...the part I don't care for is the chafing if I do a lot of work.  I found something called a Friction Stick, it reminds me of a stick of deodorant, same shape and size and looks like deodorant too.  I wish I had remembered to use it yesterday.  I have slightly sensitive skin...and I cannot have any kind of rubber touching my skin for very long.  I had to switch to wearing cotton Sports bras in the warmer months, otherwise the bottom band of a t-shirt bra rubbed me raw, well...now sports bras are doing it if I forget to rub some of the Friction Stick on my skin.   One thing I did not count on was chafing under my arms from a wet t-shirt and chafing were my jeans fold at my inner thigh...or at my waist.

A lot of the time I work with wire, or around wire, and things that are super dirty...I am talking about dirt, poop, large quantities of thick dust, spider webs and flies/maggots.  I have been wearing men's jeans with no stretch to them, at all...and men's t-shirts.  Why?  Well...I can get a pair of men's work jeans for $12, and a mans t-shirt for about $3.50 or so....they offer more protection than the women's versions and are several dollars cheaper.  I can lean over a cage to try and catch a juvenile chick and get caught on the wire and rip holes in a woman's t-shirt...they are thinner and very lightweight compared to mens t-shirts.  Pretty much the same thing with jeans, I got some cheap women's jeans from Walmart, Riders I believe...although they are more comfortable with the stretch in them they do not hold up well when working with fence wire or hardware cloth, or even construction...carrying wood...I have several pairs with holes in them or the thighs have "pills"...those little balls that form when the material wears out.  They are Ok for sitting here n the lawnmower and cutting the lawn, and just general cleaning...I have to be careful though, first time I brush up against a fence, or squat down to clean and fill a chicken waterer, if they are worn at all they rip.  I was walking around with a good sized rip in the butt of one pair of jeans and I didn't even know it...my husband told me.  No telling when it happened, hopefully not when I went to buy feed.  I squatted down the other day and two holes popped open on one leg in a different pair of jeans...so, after not being able to find any non-stretchy women's jeans anyware...I guessed at my size in men's and bought a couple pair to try out.  So far so good, except the chafing part.  I guess I found a couple more areas to try to remember to rub the friction stick onto.  I never had an issue with chafing and jeans before, but I got these a little big so I could bend and stretch and they are not skin tight like some of my other jeans.

Being a farmer is not glamorous or easy, it is tough, dirty, sweaty work...easpecially in the summer.  I use to wonder why a lot of farmers looked such a mess most of the time, or why people's yards were such a mess, full of rusty metal and old things laying around...now I know.  When you get up early, work pretty much non-stop all day trying to get all of your necessary tasks completed, are not eating dinner until 9 at night, if you have an appetite at all and still have to go secure the animals for the night once you finish...you get tired, you start not sweating the small stuff, you spend more time with animals and plants than people and you get to the point that everything you own may have some rip or stain on it, but you haven't sold enough of your critters or crops to feed them, or you...so you just don't buy new stuff...I guess that is where the term "Sunday Best" came from...you save back at least one outfit to wear to church on Sundays...so it is not stained or torn, so you look presentable...but ya know what?  Animals don't care what you wear or if that feeder you accidentally left sitting on top of a table is rusted out...they just want you to bring them food and water and love on them for a few minutes out of your day...and it doesn't matter if you are sweaty or dirty and have wood shavings in your hair either.  I love it though...

So, next time you see a farmer or rancher...thank them.  If they didn't love doing what they do, you would not have food on your table...yeah, the majority of people don't think about why that steak costs so much, or the butter, eggs or bread...you just go to the store and buy it, not how much work goes into getting it to the consumer...I use to be one of them.  I have found timing is everything too...wait too long to pick your fruit or veggies and they are gone, all that work is eaten by the bugs or birds too...gather those eggs twice a day or they get broken or a snake might eat some.  I am learning the hard way...but you know what, when it happens...and you have fresh homegrown tomatoes canned, salsa and sauces made, pickles and watermelon and fresh green beans, corn or broccoli...and have enough to last a good while, it makes you proud that your hard work pays off...now to go cook myself an omelette with my farm fresh eggs and peppers from my garden!

Dog Days Of Summer

August has arrived now, the hottest month of the year for us.  The actual temperature may only be 98, but we received a few inches of rainfall in the last week and the heat index has made it feel about 115!  It is hard for me to work outside when it is that hot, but I must.

The heat is slowing my garden way down, I have lost some green bean plants and my corn plants crispified...is that even a word?  I pulled them all out yesterday, I just have a couple of piles of dead plants.  My plan is to clean out more of the composted manure from my big chicken coop and run and till it into the soil before it rains again.  I had added it to half of my garden, now it is time for the other half.  I should have done it all at once...but, I wanted to get my garden planted and I just had a window of opportunity in the Spring and hoped for the best.  Most of the time Winter and Spring are very wet months...and since I moved my garden, and had to erect a fence that rabbits could not breach, it took me awhile, it had to be dry to till and I am not fond of working in the rain.  I only have a small hand tiller, no tractor so I have to walk behind it and it takes me awhile to break up the grassy weeds.  We have a lot of crab grass and grass called Bahia, it has very large roots and sends out shoots so I get really large clumps caught up in the blades of the tiller.  I have to stop and unwind them or cut them off the blades fairly frequently.

Everyone who stops by and looks at my garden is amazed at the size of my plants, and asks how I grew them so large...all I can tell them really is that I used composted chicken manure.  I have a lot of chickens, therefore I have an unlimited supply!  I will have to find the right balance though, otherwise I will have to put more space between the rows when I plant next time.  I want to expand my garden too.  I still have much to learn about farming, because if I am ever going to make any money off of it, I must do it at the right time of the year...when I can sell things at the farmers market.  One of my egg customers has been stopping by and buying some of my tomatoes and peppers to sell. I have a good amount canned so I have been selling them pretty cheap, he picks them himself and it keeps them from going bad while I am busy doing other things.

I need to clean out my largest chicken coop and run to get the manure for my garden, I will probably do that today.  I may just pile it up by the garden until I am ready to till it into the garden...I need to start some seeds too so they can be transplanted into the garden for a Fall harvest.  We usually don't have our first freeze in Texas until Thanksgiving, if not later...it may get really cool prior to that, but I should be able to get another crop this year.  I also got something called a plot spike, it is winter crops like peas and radishes or something for my poultry to munch on.  I just have to plant it and some perineal rye grass seed.  Hopefully we will get some more rain after I plant it so I don't have to water it every day.

I still have broody hens and a broody goose, they drive me crazy!  Lol, I let them sit on eggs, but so far...only a few of the hens had babies hatch.  I have to get to them pretty quickly or other hens kill them, I have taken away chicks and eggs in those cases...so I still have chicks in the house!  I hatched longer than planned and was hoping to get finished up before my garden had crops I needed to pick, that did not happen.  I have one last (I hope) batch of chicks in the house, I am going to give them another week in the house, then move them to the porch brooder.  They have to be able to stand the nighttime temperatures and the last one hatched is not yet two weeks old.  So, once they can handle down to 80, I think they should be fine.  I had a few chicks get Coccidiosis on the porch too, two died but I got Corid in the waterers and I think the rest of them will be fine.  I was canning and not paying as much attention to them as usual, I missed the symptoms.  It has been so hot anyway, I am not sure I would have been able to tell until I saw blood in their poop.  I have fans running 24/7 out there, but it is still very hot.

I moved my batch of Heritage Rhode Island Reds out to the coops yesterday and my last batch of baby turkeys to the grow out brooder they were in, so they are now separated from the chickens still on the porch.  I need to finish my set of four breeding pens run area and build more roosts for the big coop too.  I am selling some of my older mixed breed roosters today, so hopefully it won't be too long until the wire pens we call the big top will be practically empty.  I really need to revamp them too and move them to an area that doesn't have runoff running through the middle of it.  The tarps don't seem to last very long on anything out here, so I need to think about replacing them with something different on the four cattle panel coops I built.

Time is flying by...it is hard to believe it has already been three years since I first started my chicken adventure, and three years this month since my husband opened his computer repair shop.  We signed the papers on this house in January of 2013, we still have a lot work to do on it...but we have come a long way on whipping this place into shape.

Summer Happenings On The Farm

My garden is producing pretty well this year, even though I planted it in the middle of May.  I have been getting a lot of tomatoes and go out and pick them every other day.  I have been picking green tomatoes too, they get heavy on the vines and start laying on the ground...if I don't pick them...the ants have a treat.  I am going to have to figure out better supports for all of my plants, this year I tried t-posts and nylon rope thinking if I got 150 pound test strength it would hold the tomato plants up...nope, well...not really anyway.  I guess I need a t-post for every plant or maybe cattle panels and t-posts, then prune the plants too.

I will say this...the chicken poop compost sure helps this sandy soil produce a good crop.  I only spread it on half the garden so far, but the tomatoes, bell peppers and broccoli have done pretty well, that is the half I spread it on.  I have put a little uncomposted pine shavings that ducks and chicks used down the isles in a few other spots as mulch, not much poop in it...but my water melon plants have gone crazy, none have gotten ripe yet...I picked a variety that takes too long to ripen I guess, at least that is what a neighbor said.  He told me Jubilee or Charleston Grey do better out here...I think maybe if I can get my garden in the ground quicker or earlier next year, I could still plant the Black Diamond Variety and Sugar Baby.  I need to get my garden ready earlier!  If I had not moved it and had to break new ground and fence it, I could have a better, earlier crop.

In the mean time, I have been super busy.  I have had to start watering every day, it got up to 102 here yesterday and sand dries out very quickly.  We have had no measurable rain in the past month.  There have been a few spotty showers, but not enough to measure in the rain gauge.  July and August are usually very dry here...the rest of the time it rains quite a bit per month.  We don't have water in the creek anymore and the lake level is dropping rapidly.  I have a feeling, if we had a well that it would have to be pretty deep to still be getting water too.  I know we have underground springs fairly close to the surface, I have been digging to plant a tree and all of the sudden the ground fell away and I could see water.  The ducks and geese have dug holes and found water too.  We have about a foot and a half of sandy loam and then a clay layer, I am not sure what the soil is like beyond that, it is too hard to dig once you hit the clay.  We discover this when we tried digging holes for posts.  Some areas may be a little thicker layer of sand depending on the lay of the land and washout areas...some areas the sand has washed down the hill and the clay is exposed...like my poultry yard, most of the main yard anyway.

I have been cooking and canning lately, first I made 9 quarts of tomato sauce, then 8 pints of green tomato salsa with Jalapeño peppers, 6 pints of red tomato salsa with Habanero peppers and Jalapeño peppers and I think 8 quarts of Spaghetti Sauce with mushrooms and onions.  I have a big tub of ripe tomatoes that I may deseed and try my hand at making catsup today...after I get a few chores done.  I have been harvesting green beans, broccoli, bell peppers and cucumbers too...but cleaning chopping and freezing everything but the cucumbers.  I have not had but five or six cucumbers at any one time...four plants is not enough for pickle making it seems, they almost died too.  I need to amend the soil better and mulch better, since I started watering them every day...they are doing better and growing.

I pulled the last chick out of the incubator this morning.  At least I think it is...the one egg left, the air cell is not shrinking like it should.  These were eggs I took from broody hens and I really didn't know when they would hatch.  I think if it was going to hatch, it would have by now.  The last batch of ducks I hatched has been out in the yard for over a week now, they are getting their wing feathers too.  I have them in the fenced area behind my main coop, last night they went into their house all by themselves...otherwise we would have had to coral them.  The last batch of chicks I took out to the yard are still not all going into the coop at night yet, we have about six to eight a night that we have to pick up and put on a roost in there.  The baby turkeys are growing like weeds, I know I have three male Bronze turkeys and think the buff and almost solid brown one are both females...I need more females!  Locking up the males during mating season doesn't seem fair to them, but at least they aren't able to tear up my female turkeys just having two out.  I have been letting the babies out during the afternoon...the are so excited that the fly...some fly for probably 40 feet or more and have gone over the fence into the pasture area and into my old herb garden.  I will probably move the fencing to that garden when it gets a bit cooler out.  The largest of the babies are the same size as my adult female turkeys.

Update on Mercy...Mercy is doing well, in case you don't remember...Mercy had her wings damaged/chewed off by our first hatched goose Gracie.  Mercy still has one wing, but the feathers grow at a really odd angle, she had a big blister on the wing for a couple of months while she was trying to grow her feathers out...the feather tube was very large on one feather and she kept chewing it as it came out.  Anyway, Mercy does not go into deep water...she can't really use her wings to balance or flap to get out of the biggest and deepest of the pools.  We have been setting her into a pool and watching her bathe, she enjoys it so much...but doesn't like being in water two feet deep.  She likes enough depth to submerge her body...but still be able to stand in.  Ok, now the update...we suspected Mercy may be a boy goose by the wide stance...we now know, Mercy is really a boy!  We discussed changing his name to Mike, but since we have been calling him a girl and Mercy for the past five months and he knows that name, we are just going to continue to call HIM Mercy.  How do we know it is a boy?  Well...he was getting aggressive towards our other males, and mounted one of the females and we saw his appendage.  I am afraid Gracie may be a boy too, but time will tell.  Hope is a girl though, she has developed a keel...Gracie is two weeks older and has not.  Hope is also nesting and has been sitting on eggs in our main coop.  We shall see soon...I may just have to wait a little longer,  if Gracie is a male too...well, I may just have to order some more females from a hatchery next year and we may be selling a male or two.  My husband loves the geese though, and Gracie and Mercy are special to him, so we will see what happens.

Hot Hot Hot

I have not been working outside as much lately, it is very hot and humid and even though I drink a lot of water, I sweat so much that I have lost 7 pounds in one day...in about three hours time.  I try to go out later in the day when the humidity gets lower too.  The water for my poultry heats up, even in the shade and I worry they aren't drinking enough.  I feed fermented feed which helps keep them hydrated, but is it enough?  I change out the water, it is no longer as cool as it was...but the heat index is around 105 most days lately.  I have to water every other day too, my young trees, bushes and garden start wilting if I don't water.  Today is partly cloudy, so not quite as bad as it has been...but we could use some rain.  This sandy soil dries out a lot and fast, I try and mulch around the plants, but I can only do so much at a time.

I have started on the run to my breeding pens, just one wall erected so far.  I will probably get the perimeter walls done and have to add the dividers later....as I can get supplies to do it.  I had the babies out of the house for a short while, but I hatched chicks for someone and got some eggs replaced and hatched them too.  I have one brooder going in the house now.  I have a few more eggs in the incubator that I took away from broody hens.  I have two broody hens left, that are sitting on eggs...my Dominiques eggs are starting to hatch, I hope she is a good mother...I am going to try and leave them with her.  I may change my mind if any get killed...or hurt.  I have another broody duck sitting on eggs, a goose sitting n eggs...and one turkey.  Hopefully I will get housing built for them soon.

I have put a lot of the young pullets and roosters out into the Big Coop and Sidecar.  I put all the older young turkeys into a pen with an adult turkey hen that was injured, she is showing them the ropes out in the yard.  Some of the Bronze turkeys have gotten pretty large and a couple of them have started strutting...at least two are males.  I have one that looks buff (blond) and a dark brown with very little other color...I think they may be females.  Not sure about the Bourbon Red turkeys, they are still kind of young to tell the sexes.  I still have about five young turkeys in a porch brooder.  Still have a lot of young chicks on the porch in brooders also.

I have put all the young ducks into the yard, I have five starting to get their wing feathers now...and nine that are almost big enough to go into the main yard.   I am tired of cleaning brooders and will be glad when everyone of them are out in the yard!  I have a garden to tend to, veggies to can, weeds to pull and fruits to pick soon.  Lots going on here on the farm, it has been a very busy year for me and I still have a lot to do.

Good Things Come To Those That Work

Or, is that Wait?  Yes, I do know the saying...I am talking about my garden.  We got our first ripe tomato a few days ago, it was green then and it fell off the vine when I was running my supports, but I put it on the window ledge and it ripened.  It had such a good flavor.  I had an egg customer who brought me some home grown tomatoes too, it was very nice of him...I have had only one out of my garden so far.  We cut one of his tomatoes for our burgers last night.  I am not sure if it is because of the type of tomato, or because I worked so hard to get my garden going this year...but mine tasted better!  Lol, my husband said it first...he was surprised the flavor was not the same.  I am not sure what kind he planted...they are very large though.  Mine are Heirloom tomatoes, I think all but maybe the Roma tomatoes.  But when I was out watering and weeding yesterday, I noticed one starting to ripen...it is a Purple Cherokee tomato.

I harvested Broccoli too, my plants are doing very well and are the biggest I have grown.  I guess moving my garden to the front of my house was a good move.  I have green beans big enough to harvest now too, and noticed my Brussel sprouts may be getting the sprouts!  I also have quite a few Bell Peppers and Habaneros too.  I have water melons the size of my fist and a butternut squash about four inches long.  I have cucumbers forming too...and am thinking about planting a Fall garden.  I need to move a bunch of compost to the front, you can tell where I stopped spreading the composted chicken manure by the size of the plants.  My corn, well about half of it was laying on the ground yesterday, the wind was blowing and the soil/sand dried out...I have a lot more work to do to amend the soil so that doesn't continue to happen.

It has been hot and muggy here.  We have been having brief downpours, most only last five minutes or so.  But, we are coming into our dry season.  We may not get much rain for the next two months which will make our high temperatures a little better.  Last night on the weather they said June in Shreveport Louisana is usually the wettest month of the year, we are a bit over 50 miles from there.  This year I think March and April were the wettest.  It is hard to get things done for a garden when you have 8 to 12 inches of rain in a day.  But between storms and fencing in a new area, tilling my garden four or five times...planting started plants after they should have been in the ground and seeds two weeks later...I think it has worked out great.

I have worked more on my four breeding pens too.  I got the house part almost completed, all the roofing, siding and most of the hardware cloth is on.  I even have roosts in.  I have the top section of the divided walls to attach hardware cloth to.  Then I can start on the runs for the pens.  I need more wood though, otherwise I will have to use some doors off of other pens and they are only four feet tall...not really tall enough to contain the chickens.  I need to get it finished, I have a lot of babies getting too big for my back porch brooders.  I need Growout pens for ducks and turkeys too!  Maybe another for my chickens...or maybe dividing the breeds out into the breeding pens will give me enough space in the coop to get the babies into the Side Car...or getting rid of more roosters will open up enough space to use my Growout pen for it's intended purpose?  Lots to think about, and always lots to do!

Stealth Turkey!

I talked to my Mom yesterday, it had been awhile...but since I stay so busy most of the time, if I don't call fairly early in the day, I forget.  I called and she didn't answer so I just left a message and she called me back later...I had not fed the animals yet, but we talked for awhile.  My husband came home from work and helped me get everyone taken care of.  He fed the section of poultry that has the Stadium, the Condo, the Turkey House, the Growout pen and half of the rooster pens.  It is in this set of rooster pens that we put a Bronze turkey.  The turkey was there when he fed them.  I remember the turkey was there when I was gathering eggs in that section.  Funny thing is, the turkey disappeared between then and when he went and put them up last night.

I was worried about the turkey when he told me he wasn't in the pen.  How could it have gotten out?  He looked in other pens and didn't see it.  I went out to look around more, checked other coops, other pens, called for it...no response from any of the turkeys...usually when I say turkey, turkey really loud the males gobble back...not last night.  I even rechecked the rooster pens, lifted the tarp up and looked under it in case it had gotten between the shade cloth and the tarp somehow...no turkey.  I came back in the house and we talked about it...if the turkey got out somehow it was probably up in a tree somewhere bedded down for the night and would be out in the yard walking around by himself in the morning.

The turkeys have been fighting a lot because of mating season so we separated three of the five out and put them in different areas.  Two turkeys are in the rooster pens and one in the Growout pen.   They don't roost with the roosters, but either sleep on the ground or one of the pallets.  They are much larger than the roosters, so it is pretty easy to tell the difference even in the dark with a headlamp on.  Yeah, it doesn't sound very fair to the turkeys, staying in lockup...but neither does getting their snoods ripped, their feathers yanked out or spur wounds from the other male turkeys.  I already have a wounded female in isolation because of wounds and them fighting over who gets to mate her.  She has been on my porch for a couple of months.  I had her healed up and put her back out in the yard and she was ripped back open, the skin was too thin I suppose.  So she is back in the hospital ward.

Anyway, my husband went out to let all of the poultry out of their houses and noticed that the turkey was back in the pen!  So how?  Lol, the only explaination is he went into stealth mode last night...unless he learned how to unlock the gate to the pen?  Who knows?  I guess I will take a closer look today and see if maybe there is a secret hiding place I have not found...or maybe he dug a hole under the pallet that I have not seen?

My husband found a snake in one of the rooster pens...the first snake we have seen in the chicken area.  We have had a lot of rain and they have been publishing warnings about snakes.  I thought it was probably a Rat Snake or Water Moccasin, but after doing a little research I think it is a Yellow Bellied Watersnake.  It doesn't really matter any more...it is a dead snake.  It was about three feet long and a blackish gray, had a yellow belly and smelled like a skunk...I did not know any snake could smell like that.  The chicken pens are close to the little creek that runs through our property, I was afraid it could have been a Water Moccasin and since they are poisonous, well...dead snake!  It think I probably would have freaked out if I had found it.  It makes me want to carry a machete around just in case.  I am pretty good with one of those, I use one to lop branches off when I go out and limb trees or cut paths through the woods.  I got pretty good whacking branches off with one chop.  I am not sure if I am good enough to hit a snake in the head with my gun from far enough away so that I don't get bitten.  I took the dogs for a long walk in the woods yesterday, I may start including both in my arsenal I take out with me.  That and some target practice may be in order.

Any Progress Is Good Progress

I worked on my breeding pens yesterday.  It has been slow going since February?  I guess if I had not changed my thought process on the design I would have been done quicker.  When you build things to house chickens, you have to really think about a lot of factors.  First and foremost is functionality.  I am no spring chicken any more, so everything I build now has to function well for me.  It has to have easy access, so I can clean it...gather eggs too, and if anything happens to one of my poultry, I need to be able to get to them easily.   I want to be able to stand upright in everything too, stooping to clean up chicken poop is not easy, especially when you have back problems and your knees don't allow you to get up without using your arms.  I have found that the easiest way to build anything is a lean-to style.  Take a normal peaked roof and cut it in half...can you picture what I mean?

Chickens need a certain amount of square footage each in their coop.  If you can't let them free range they need even more.  Mine get to go out into a good sized pasture every day.  But if it rains an excessive amount or snows we may not let them out until the worst of it is over.  It has rained a lot this year, record rain and flooding in Texas.  We have been lucky lately it has not rained but about half an inch at a time the past week, today may be different...we are suppose to have several days of rain in a row. It could be 3 to 5 inches of rain.  I am glad it is raining, my garden is doing well and it keeps me from having to water it and all the fruit trees, vines and bushes I planted the past few years.  We have very sandy soil and it dries out pretty quickly in most areas of our upper yard.  I am a bit crazy...planted my garden in front of my house this year because of the rain.  The past two years I didn't get the garden planted until mid June because of the areas I had the garden previously stayed wet so long, I would till it, it would rain...grass and weeds would grow...and I would till it again...it would rain before I got it planted...wash, rinse, repeat.

Anyway, like I was saying about chicken housing...a chicken needs at least 4 square feet each in a coop.  If they are never let out of the coop they should have even more.  These breeding pens the coop section is 4 feet by 4 feet, so 16 square feet each.  I am building these side by side and there will be four coops and four runs attached...hopefully the runs will be 4 feet by 12 feet.  I am putting these in my old upper garden area, mainly because it is higher ground.  I was going to build eight breeding pens, but because of the change in design it will only be four for now.  If I remember correctly the roof is about 6 and a half feet tall at the lowest point and 7 feet at the peak.  That way my husband can go into them too.  I need to put nest boxes in each individual coop and a roost bar too.  The roosts will probably be about 3-1/2 feet off of the ground or floor, but on these the nest boxes will be at the floor level.  I have been learning the hard way with all the broody hens I have that the momma hens will keep sitting on eggs in the nest box if there are still eggs to hatch and not getting the babies out to eat and drink, it doesn't take one long to die.  I try and check the nest boxes and collect the babies as they hatch for this reason.  I take away eggs from some of the hens because if they don't protect the chicks the other hens may kill them too.

Boy oh boy...it just started pouring rain.  It is early and the chickens have not been let outside yet thank goodness.  If keeps up we will probably have more than 3 to 5 inches of rain this go round and it may all be coming down in an hour at this rate!  Generally I can't hear the rain in our house, we have a metal roof, but it has a double layer of insulation that muffles the sound of the rain so much you can't hear it...unless it comes down really hard and fast.  I can hear the thunder rolling in now and the rain has let up a little...not looking forward to doing chores outside today, it will be a rain boot, rain coat and hat kind of day.  I am glad I got the roof put on the breeding pens I am working on yesterday, I forgot the drip edge though...I was hoping to get that on today.  I got it on the side sections, but not the front and back section of the roof...the metal fabricators kind of screwed up my order and gave me six foot lengths of metal though, so I have more overhang than I planned on...instead of five foot and six inches of overhang, I have a foot of overhang on each side, it should keep more rain out, but my roof rafters are too short now.

I am going to stop writing now, I have a lot to do today and I can hear chicks running around in the incubator.  With this rain I won't be able to rotate my older chicks off of the back porch yet...so I need to set up another brooder for these, I know there are five so far.  The hatch going on right now are eggs I took out from under a broody hen, she killed several or other hens did and I cleaned out the nest box, candled the eggs and put the most developed ones in the incubator...that is what is hatching and it comes in waves.

Memorial Day Memory

This is one of the hardest holidays for me, in 1980 on Memorial Day...I slept later than normal, I was completely exhausted.  I had identical twin boys that were three months and one day old, on the 26th of May, in 1980...it was Memorial Day.

I woke up suddenly and realized it was daylight, I sat bolt upright because I was normally up tending the babies several times during the night, and I slept through it all.  My oldest son who was not even two yet...didn't wake me up, I didn't hear but one baby fussing, I hurried to the end of the hall and started tending to the first baby, it was Mitchell. I changed his diaper and as wet as he was, I thought it would be good to go ahead and change Michaels diaper too and get them both fed since they didn't have a bottle during the night.  Their cribs were end to end against one wall.

Micheal was not fussing at all, I turned him over to change him and his lips were dark blue, his eyes glazed over and unblinking.  I screamed and my husband came running down the hall...He carried Micheal to the living room and started CPR, I could tell him things to try but, I could not move from his side.  He had to tell me to call an abulance.  I ran to the phone to call 911.  The fire rescue was only a block away and they made it to the house in minutes.  I knew when I saw him that he was probably dead, but we tried to save him anyway.  The paramedics tried to get a heartbeat and get him breathing and rushed him to the hospital ahead of us.  We threw on clothes, grabbed the diaper bag and the boys and took off for the hospital as fast as we could.  I remember my husband at the time telling me to make sure and bring clothes for Micheal, because he WAS coming home.  When we arrived at the hospital everything seemed like a blur, I vaguely remember them telling us that he had a heartbeat but could not get him breathing on his own and he went into cardiac arrest and died...they had to do an autopsy and because he died at the hospital, we would be investigated, it was routine.

I was just numb, in shock.  Blamed myself for sleeping through the night, not feeding them that night.  I had taken the twins for a checkup the day before and they got a clean bill of health and their first set of shots.  How could this just happen like this?  They called it Sudden Infant Death Syndrome or S.I.D.S.

I think that any parent would blame themselves in the death of their child when it happened so suddenly.  Micheal had bruises on his legs from getting stuck between the side bars on the crib and the mattress too.  I had been in the hospital for almost a month and was not prepared for the twins to be born so early.  I was put into a ward room that had six beds when they admitted me on Valentine's Day.  I am fairly tall at five foot eight, I was heavy with child and each time I went for a checkup they tried to send me to labor and delivery, I was huge...but I had to explain about the twins growing inside me.  Anyway, I had several roommates while I was there at the hospital.  I was offered used cribs from two girls that had an extra one.  So at least the babies had a place to sleep when we took them home...one of the mattresses did not fit well in the crib, there was a space and after Micheal had fallen between the mattress and the bars and got stuck one night, I had stuffed a sleeping bag down in the space to keep it from happening again.

My sister-in-law and her son were living with us, as was my mother-in-law and her husband.  This was a in a two bedroom house mind you...I had told them they would all need to find an apartment or something before I brought the babies home.  It was not a bad sized house, it had a formal dining room, a breakfast room, a large eat in sized kitchen and a sun porch in addition to the two bedrooms and living room.  But it only had one bathroom.  I got stuck in the hospital early because the doctor was worried about me not getting the rest I needed, He had told me I was to lay flat on my back and the only time I could get up was to go to the bathroom.  Tell me, how could I do that when I had a toddler, his cousin wasn't even three yet and I was the one they came to when they were hungry?  It was difficult for me to do much of anything as big as I was at seven and a half months into my pregnancy...I had to turn sideways at the kitchen sink to even reach the faucet, the counter was very low in this house...if I tried to reach the faucet facing towards the front, my big belly got in the way and I could not touch it.

I am sorry, trying to explain a little of the situation at the time.  My husband was working nights and his sister worked during the day, and my mother-in-law was suppose to be tending to the children but she didn't usually get out of bed until 9 or 10...so, I would get up and get breakfast for the boys and usually do the dishes...or try to.  The day I was admitted to the hospital my father-in-law was in a car accident, he actually was in the hospital a day or two longer than I was, I don't remember all of his injuries, but he did have a broken leg and was in a cast from his toes to midway up his thigh when he came back to the house.  My Mother-in-law, who was suppose to be watching the boys spent most of her time at the hospital with her husband instead.  I am not sure how things were going at the house during the time I was in the hospital.  I was not happy when I came home though, I didn't get to bring my babies home, my Mother-in-law had gone through all of my things, stripped my bed of my new sheets and bedspread and they were on her bed and was wearing my clothes!  You talk about pissed off...and they had not moved out yet!

It was not a good time in my life.  It was also my first experience with death.  I had never been to a funeral and I was being investigated for the death of my child and having to try and make funeral and burial arrangements for the first time and I was barely 21 years old.  I kept dreaming about different scenarios, maybe what we could have done differently, how we could have helped Micheal differently, dreaming that he actually came home from the hospital that day.  It was tough,  I drank a lot the first few days after it happened...I wanted to numb the pain of his death and all that was chaotic in my world at the time.  It is hard not to think about everything that happened that Memorial Day, it rushes back at me even after all this time.  I think it would have killed me too, if it had not been for Mitchell, Micheals twin brother.  I snapped out of it for him and Jeremy's sakes.  It was three months and one day after the twins were born that Micheal passed away.  I went through counseling after it happened, my husband did not...I think he may have blamed me or maybe himself for Micheals death, I am not sure...he never talked about it.

I hope you have better Memorial Day memories than I.  It has a different meaning to me than most people.  I lost a son, but gained a Gardian Angel and he has watched over us ever since then.  I have asked him to watch over and protect his brothers on numerous occasions.  They both spent time or are spending time in the Military.  Mitchell spent almost two years fighting the war in the war in Iraq, and I think Micheal kept him safe from bodily harm and brought him home to me in one piece physically.  War is hard on everyone who is involved...don't forget the families of our fallen.  Memorial Day is a day of remembrance, let us not forget those who sacrificed their lives fighting for our freedom and to keep us that way.

I am sorry if my writing is fragmented sometimes or seems strange, my life has not been an easy one, parts of it I rather just block out and forget...but not anything having to do with my kids.

Garden Is Planted, Let It Rain!

It took me awhile, but I finally got my garden planted.  It is not big enough, so I will have to till a bit more or do a raised bed for strawberries and herbs.  I have some things in pots too.  I do have tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, corn, green beans and water melons planted...so if nothing else, at least we will have some stuff.  I looked on all my fruit trees and have very little fruit on most of them, that late freeze after they started blooming damaged the fruiting process...except for the older peach trees there are quite a few peaches on the peach bush we have...lol, yes a huge peach bush.  I am guessing it died back, was cut down and came back from the stump...lots of trunks and it looks like a huge bush.  There is a red bud bush too.

I did get a gate built and chicken wire around the fencing I put up to keep the rabbits out of the garden too.  So far, none of the chickens have gotten into the area and the turkeys have gone on the outside perimeter of the fence, but I left a good distance around it so that if they ran the fence, they would not be very close to the street.  I am worried about another one of my turkeys getting hurt when they jump the fence.  I want to eventually put a fence down the property line to keep the wild dogs and coyotes further away.  I saw something pretty big digging around my compost pile the other night, it had a bushy tail and looked like a dog or coyote.  I wouldn't have seen it, but my dogs were in the backyard and were barking at it...and I walked out a little way and saw it, it was dark but it was a light color what ever it was.  I went and got my husband and he got the pellet gun, but it disappeared before he saw it.

The Dewberries have been ripening and I have picked a couple gallon zip lock bags full, with all the rain we have had, some of them are quite large.  I saw that the Chicasaw plums were ripening some too.  Not a real good crop this year, but maybe I can make some jelly enough for us for the year.  I just have to get out there and pick them soon, before the birds get them all.  But, we are suppose to get rain all week long though...so who knows...last year they all exploded and fell off because of so much rain.

I got my first batch of chicks out to the Side Car...grow out pen and moved chicks on the back porch around.  I have another brooder to clean out and then I can move some more from inside the house to the back porch.  My hurt turkey is now back out in the yard, she just had one tiny scab left and I am gonna cross my fingers and hope she doesn't get injured again...her side has no feathers under her wing.  I need to get some roosters off of the porch too, but I had to remove the tarp off of the pens they use to be in...it ripped down the middle and didn't keep rain out any more.  I am tired of having 11 roosters on my back porch...they are loud, but pretty good at alerting me to things going on outside.  I moved the three baby ducks to the porch too, it was getting rather warm in my he feed shed...so they are in a five foot wide kiddie pool with cage wire wrapped around the sides so they can't get out of it.  I would love to get everything off of the porch, but with so much rain and as chilly as today was, it won't happen any time soon.  I still have to have heat lamps on the little ones and don't have electricity out in the yard.

I filled my incubators up again with eggs, but this will probably be the last hatch until I get a lot of things done.  I have building to do still, my breeding pens are still not made yet and I gotta get them built.  I have a house full of chicks to grow up and three weeks until the next batch starts hatching.  I hope to sell some of these birds, I have turkeys and geese to sell and some older chicks now...and I still have a bunch of broody poultry, although I am not sure the geese will actually hatch anything, the chickens are eating eggs and my broody duck keeps moving her nest every day.  I am guessing I won't get too many babies out of them.  But time will tell.

Babies Everywhere!

My broody hens have been hatching babies here and there, I have incubated more eggs and have chicks, a goose and turkeys in the house brooders and ducks in the feed room brooder, plus brooders on my back porch.  I still have a lot of broody hens, a broody duck and a broody goose too.  The goose and ducks are my first broodies of waterfowl, I keep waiting for a turkey to go broody next.

I have babies hatching in one incubator, maybe four goose eggs will hatch around the 12th of May and trying again with some Ancona duck eggs which should hatch about the same time.  I gave my broody duck new eggs...I had given her eggs but she kicked the ones I gave her out of the nest and laid her own.  Apparently none of them were fertile...she kicked the last one out of the nest yesterday.  She was very happy this time to have eggs, I gave her 8 and she tucked them under her as fast as I gave them to her.  I have had such bad luck hatching goose eggs this year, I was glad to see one of my females go broody.  I am not sure she will have any hatch either, but she has quite a few under her...she is taking the other two females eggs too.  We go into the coop and give her food and water and sometimes all three females are grouped together and they sleep with the broody at night.

I am happy to say I have been successful hatching my turkey eggs, I love the little chirpy sounds they make.  I have about 8 turkey poults at the moment, one that looks different, I want to keep.  This one looked almost black when it hatched.  It has lightened up slightly but has very dark eyes and dark legs too.  I guess it is a genetic mutation...I want to see what it will look like when it gets all of its feathers.  Bad thing is happening with my female turkeys, they are laying eggs outside of the fence, one of them was injured and it looked like two possible dog bites, she had two holes in her side under her wing and has been on my porch for weeks, she is healing well, but still has a way to go.  Another turkey hen laid a clutch of 15 eggs under the stairs of my shed, but she had dug a depression and we received five inches of rain before I found them...I thought it best to toss all of them.  She has decided to lay elsewhere and I am worried she may get attacked by the dogs next door too.

I stay busy, cleaning, taking care of babies, broodies and house chores...and got my garden planted finely.  The wild dewberries are ripening and I pick them when I have the chance, and picked my first blueberries yesterday.  I have four grapevines that flowered this year so that is good...just 6 more to go!  We had late freezes so I don't have much fruit on my trees, except maybe peaches...and I need to spray some Neem Oil or Dormant Oil on them.

I started my breeding pens...so, yeah just busy.

Spring Has Sprung!

Spring is such a busy time of the year for me, I have been trying to hatch eggs from my chickens, ducks, geese and turkeys...some successful...some not so much.  I have really been disappointed with the goose and duck hatches.  I only had 7 ducks hatch the second go round and that was out of 42 eggs...the major rain we got seemed to have ruined several batches of the goose eggs I set too, out of the last 24 goose eggs, I have only had two hatch.  I have more in the incubator now, we shall see how it goes, those that I set on March 10, do not look viable...I candled them and put them in the hatcher anyway hoping my eyes deceived me...but when you can't see them moving at lockdown, you pretty much know after awhile.  You can see the differences in the shadows, some eggs look almost translucent in spots.  I have successfully hatched one turkey so far.  It is kinda like the first goose, I set eggs and only one developed...not all of them were fertile.  If things don't go awry I should have a batch hatch around the thirteenth.  I have hatched some eggs through the mail too, not great hatches but at least different bloodlines to breeds like my Jubilee And Lavender Orpington's, more Isbars, a few Lemon Cuckoo Orpingtons.  I have acquired some Mottled Java and Welsummer chicks that a guy I sell eggs to picked up for me at Tractor Supply, his neighbor works there and calls him when they have special breeds.  I have some Mottled Java eggs in the incubator now too, so I am hoping with the two or three Black Java's I have I can breed more blacks out of the Mottled Java's and Black Java's I do have.

I won a rare breed auction on ducks too.  The eggs should hatch around the fifteenth along with the turkey poults due at about the same time.  Ancona, Saxony and Welsh Harlequins will also not be a great hatch, about 50 percent of the eggs are developing, but we need more girls in our flock and rarer breeds than Rouen and Khaki Campbell's.  We lost two female ducks to drowning...the males hold their heads under the water when they mate, sometimes too long.  My husband loves the waterfowl, the geese are his favorite, but he loves giving the babies baths and watching them swim.  They are messy little things but grow really fast.   Speaking of ducks...we have our first broody duck!  We have one female Golden Hybrid 300...and she is sitting on some duck eggs in a kennel on the back porch, I am not sure if any will hatch...but she seems pretty determined to hatch some out.

This time of year we have a lot of broody hens too.  I my big coop I have at least eleven broodies, some are two to a nest box.  In the Coop we call the Condo, there are five broody hens...two nest boxes have two each and yesterday I noticed a Cream Legbar in one of the floor nest boxes sitting in it all day.  Even the Chicken Tractor area has two broody hens...I have a kennel that has a covered cat box in it that also has two hens sitting in it.  In a few weeks, we will have baby chicks coming out of our ears.  I have been picking up chicks as I find them, I snagged a few that didn't make it because the hens didn't keep them warm enough when we had freezes.  I check the nest boxes more often now.  I found a lone chick running around the yard by itself about a week ago, I could hear it and started looking all inside the coop, out in the run I heard it better but couldn't find it...went outside and the little thing was running around beside the big coop with no supervision.  Lol, it was kind of funny...but I grabbed it and carried it around in my shirt while I checked on the other chickens.

We did finally start on my breeding pens, but ended up taking what we did apart.  I started over and basically am rethinking my design.  I was going to have the coops raised at least two feet off of the ground, but decided to just raise them a little and put them on cinder blocks and make them taller.  I was going to make them more like my chicken tractor shape, but now I think it will be closer to the big coop in style.  It has been nice the past few days, but I have not worked on them...instead I have been fencing in my new garden area.  I need to get plants in the ground, I have tilled and put composted chicken manure over half of the new garden.  I can't plant until I have finished fencing though, the rabbits and chickens ate everything last year...so this year I am putting chicken wire over the bottom section of fencing, moved the garden to the front of the house so the chickens aren't tempted to jump the fence and eat the tender green shoots rising out of the ground and enclosing the whole thing so that the dogs can't run through it and destroy the plants.  Yep, busy time of the year...

Rooster In The House!

With all the rain we had...came terrible mud.  Thick goo actually.  My poor penned up roosters have suffered because of it.  I put a few of them in the new cage I made.  My husband gave them baths and we doctored them up when needed.  A couple of them got squished into the mud and ended up with eye infections, so I gave one a couple of shots of antibiotics and put an antibiotic ointment in his eye, he is on the back porch.  I have one in the house that I have put eye ointment in one eye, he didn't have much of the cheesy material in his eye, so no shots.  I can tell he is feeling better...he was crowing in the house this morning.  He was responding to the roosters in cages on the back porch.  Even though officially it is spring here now, we had a light freeze the night before last.  I moved some of my chicks to the outdoor brooder on the porch, so I had to keep the latest rooster In the house until he was dry.  It is easier to just doctor on him when I don't have to catch him too...he is crowing again now!  It is quite the surprise to hear a rooster crowing in your house, they are very loud.

I will probably try and move the roosters on the back porch to a pen today.  It is suppose to rain a few more inches this week though, so I am not sure how good an idea that would be.  I need to build more housing, so I guess I should get to work on my breeding pens.  I will till the area today and try and make it more level.  I need to put out some grass seed too, my old garden area needs to grow back...the more grass I have for the chickens, the less they eat of their food and that helps with feed cost.  I sold all of my mixed breed hens now.  But I am hatching some chicks to try and replace the eggs, a lot of people want full grown hens that are already laying too...I cannot sell them if I don't have them.  I have goose, duck, turkey and chicken eggs in my incubators now.  I have chicks in one brooder in the house, ducks and a goose in one, and two large geese...Hope and Mercy in a swimming pool brooder in the house too...but they are old enough to go outside now.  We are slowly trying to integrate them with the rest of the flock.  We have put them in a fenced area behind the main coop during the day a few times, but as cold as it has been the past few days, we bring them back inside at night.  We are growing these geese out to try and get Thor some ladies, he seems pretty interested in getting to know them.  Thor is just over two years old, he needs companionship other than the ducks he hangs around with.  Loki basically took the other females when we got them, so we are trying to bond Loki's daughters to Thor...we know they are Loki's because they all have blue eyes like Loki.  I even know the mother goose, she is the smallest of the three girls, she did not start laying last year...so she was the first to start this year.  I guess we should give Loki's girls names, only one is named Athena so far...and this is not Athena.  Thor does occasionally mate with one of the other girls, but we should be able to tell the difference with his babies, they should have brown eyes like Thor...and the girls...I think.

Decisions Decisions Decisions

I purchased the wood last week for breeding pens and have been looking around my yard trying to figure out the most level, best draining, easiest access place to put them.  I have been measuring and moving and measuring again.  I am building the pens so they will be connected, so not easily moved...each individual pen will be 4 feet wide and 12 feet long, part of that will be a raised coop, so the run will be 12 feet long.  I am going to model them after the chicken tractor I built when I first started with chickens...but the runs will be taller.

After much thought, I think I am going to take a section of fencing out from my duck and goose area to a smallish garden area to build them.  There is the remnants of a very large stump in that garden, I found it when I expanded the garden, but I just worked around it at the time.  I have decided to put it in this area because of a gentle slope, it will drain when it rains.  It is up high enough that it won't flood like my makeshift breeding pens housing some of the roosters...and it is the flattest section I can find big enough that doesn't flood.  There is a drain pipe to drain water from the back yard but I will just put them far enough into the duck pen that they are not affected by them.  It will be shaded in the late afternoon for the most part so summer heat shouldn't be an issue.

Well, I started writing this a couple three weeks ago...a lot has happened since then.  I have been hatching geese ducks and chicks, which makes more work for me.  At the moment I have 6 goslings in various stages of development, had 7 ducklings hatch a few days ago, have chicks inside and outside in brooders...probably about 25 of them and have set more eggs.  I have sold pretty much all of my extra hens...oh, and I have at least two of my turkey hens laying and have been setting their eggs too.  I candled one that I set about 4 days ago and I see veins and a tiny little body!  I am so happy, I love the sounds all of theses little birds make.  It is a lot of work cleaning up after them so I stay busy.

We also have had some major rain, we probably received about 12-1/2 inches of rain in two days.  Our creek overflowed it's banks, the lake is super full, my yard still has standing water in it and everything is a muddy mess.  My husband has gathered up some of the muddiest roosters and given them baths...so my three kennels and two brooders on the back porch are all full, and only one has chicks in it.  I have 12 adults on my back porch, it is getting kind of crowded.  Because of all this...I am building an 8'x 30" brooder/cage that will be divided into three sections.  I may have to build another one too.  We started on the breeding coops and pens...but I may have to take the one we started apart, the ground is just not quite right and I think I will till and level it somewhat, we were trying to make it square on a surface that is slightly stair stepped and angled down...we may have to set the posts in cement and just level the coop section and not have the run attached to the coop, unless I can level it much better.

In the mean time, Spring has sprung.  I tilled a new garden area in my front yard, it is already growing grass...I have not planted anything yet, but have tilled it twice.  It needs to be fenced and I am working on that too, I have driven a number of t-posts into the ground, but had to stop, I need to get the utility lines marked so I don't cut into anything.  In the beginning I was just going to fence the garden area, but I planted some fruit bushes and trees and need a larger area fenced.  It takes a lot of fencing to keep making small sectioned off areas, it will work out less expensive just to fence the outside perimeter of the front yard.  Since the front of our property is almost 400 feet from marker to marker...that is a lot of fence.  I would really like to fence about 200 feet down each side and just on the other side of the lake too....then, I could let the dogs out into the large section of the yard and not have to worry about them getting into the street or my neighbors yards, no fighting with the wild dog pack either, and maybe the ducks and geese could go to the lake safely to swim and weed?

Anyway, I got up early for a Sunday, but we were suppose to change the clocks last night, and didn't yet.  I like day lights savings time...yes, we may have lost an hour, but it will be light later now so more daylight equals me having more time to get things done outside that I need to do.  Tops on my list is finishing the cage I am building today.  I need to plant some veggies, but it is too muddy...and then while I have the tiller out, I may as well till the breeding pen section...and there is always cleaning that needs to happen.

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

Every day has it's challenges, some days can be pretty good one minute and the next everything comes crashing down.  Yesterday was one of those days.  For my Valentine's Day gift from my husband, he told me I could get the materials for breeding pens.  It has been something I have wanted for quite awhile.  So I went with him and dropped him off at work on Saturday.  I had to go to town and had someone interested in hatching eggs, so I took them with me and they met me to pick them up.  That went off without a hitch, but my trip for the materials, not so much.

When you live in a tiny town and have to drive 30 plus miles to pick up specific things for a decent price, you make the most of it.  I picked up a few grocery items, then went to the Home Improvement store for wood.  Saturday's are usually awful shopping for anything and the weather has been so nice, everyone was out in hordes.  I could not get anyone to help me pull and load the wood, except customers who saw me struggling with the plywood...well, not at first anyway.  I loaded raidient barrier decking by myself, an older gentleman helped me and so did another lady with the plywood.  I pulled everything else except the 2"x4"x8' that there were not enough of on the shelves.  It took a long time going through the line, they opened a lane and the man behind me ran to it...they said credit cards only...that guy misunderstood, but had cash but it took time to sort it all out because the register did not have any cash in it for change.  After a lot of back and forth and trying to come up with the proper cash, it was my turn.  I could not pull my carts through the line so they took the price gun and scanned everything and told me they would load everything for me, because they would have to pull the 2"x4"s from out front.

I paid and went and got my truck and moved it close to the loading area.  Another man backed in before I had the chance, so I had to wait my turn.  He had a large load and no help to load it.  It looked like he was completely redoing a bathroom or two with all the tile, toilet, sinks and cabinetry and wood, either that or building one from scratch.  It took awhile, once he moved it had been about half an hour, I checked the time and it was almost 1:30pm...I was suppose to pick my husband up at 2:00.  I called him and told him I was waiting for my stuff to be loaded and I would be late picking him up.  I pulled in and the guy who had told me they would come load my truck was no where to be found.  I pulled and shoved my carts to the loading area and started unloading the smaller wood into my truck.  I am kind of a stickler keeping things neat and tidy doing this, trying to fill the bed of the truck so the load would not shift.  After I had unloaded about half of it, the man who had checked me out ran by, went and got carts and took them into the store, then came back out to help me.  We got everything loaded but the 2"x4"s and he told me to drive and follow him.  I backed up to the pile and he started loading them in...I got out and started helping, one reason I like to do the loading is I get to select the wood...and I pick wood that has the fewest knots and no splits...and straight...he did not, so I was loading as fast as I could.

Here is were things start getting bad.  I had the tailgate down and left it down because I had 12 foot lengths of wood.  I went and got red flags to put on the ends but they had nails to put them on with.  I didn't bring a hammer with me.  The wood was wet, so I tried pushing them in with my thumbs, it hurt, so I grabbed some paper and folded it several times and shoved those nails at least an inch and a half into the ends of the wood.  I got the tie down straps and tried to tie the wood down the best I could, as tight as I could.  I thought the load was pretty evenly balanced and the weight was really heavy so it should hold everything down well the way it was stacked, no side to side movement either...I was so wrong.  There is a little hill to get out of the parking lot...and bed liners are super slick.  I am so glad there was no one behind me when it happened.  I heard a noise felt jolt, the truck bounced and then I heard a loud crash...I lost my entire load, one big neatly stacked pile slid right out of my truck onto the driveway in the parking lot.  A man drove up, I am not sure if he saw what happened, but he asked me if I could use a hand...just seconds before, I was feeling like crying and wondering how the heck was I going to get all that wood back into my truck by myself?

There are many good people in this world, a man his wife and two daughters also stopped to help.  It was chaotic wood going everywhere and to make sure the wood stayed in the truck, we put the tail gate up and just piled everything in, it ended up being a hap hazard mess, but it was reloaded and the second man even when and got additional tie straps out of his truck and he and his wife tied the load down for me.  I thanked them all and asked if I could mail the tie down straps back to him and he said it was not necessary, he had a lot of them and always bought more on sale...not to worry about it.  I did not inspect the load, they wanted to make sure it wouldn't fall out so I slowly drove out of the parking lot, nothing shifted but once I got on the highway I was worried, the truck shimmied in the wind really badly.  It was not evenly loaded and the front of the truck was lighter than the back.  I drove slowly back to pick up my husband...I was an hour late.

My husband drove home, the truck continued to shimmy.  It was a bit scary, but we made it...next time, I think I will just go ahead and pay for delivery...I was trying to save money.  We pulled the truck down into the yard and unloaded it close to the area I had planned to build.  We put pallets down first and stacked the wood on top of them.  The ugly...well, the wood was so heavy that it bent the top of the tailgate of the truck, something I had avoided originally by leaving the tailgate down...but that is how I lost my load.  My husband used a rubber mallet and tried to pop the metal back into place, it worked pretty well...not much I can do about it now anyway.  So, I learned another lesson...I am not sure how heavy all that wood really was...but it was wet and a lot of it heavier than usual, and I know I had a heck of a time even moving the carts it was loaded on.  I know what not to do now, no more open tailgate with a load of wood...bedliners are slick and any incline can make them slide...even with tie downs if it is heavy enough it won't stop it from sliding right out.  I also learned it is best not to put a large amount of wood, especially wet wood...stacked on top of your tailgate.  I have no clue how much it actually weighed...but I know it is too much if I can't move the cart made for that purpose.

Oh well, I will be busy next week...building.  I hope I can get the breeding pens completed pretty quickly.  Once I can separate breeds I should be able to sell full breed chicks.  It would be nice to be able to actually make enough money to feed them every week too, now if I can just get rid of 30 or 40 roosters or more, things will start looking up.  I must get busy, I have brooders to clean and a baby goose pipping, incubators to check and laundry to do.  I am sure glad my husband cooks on the weekends, at least I know we will eat good...I don't eat too much during the week sometimes, just get so busy I don't think about it much and time passes by quickly when you are busy.

Letting Go

OK, one of the he hardest things there is for me to do is to let go of my babies.  I have been hatching geese and ducks and have been selling them.  It is not so bad selling eggs, but there is a lot of work involved in all of my poultry endeavors and after collecting the eggs, setting them in the incubator, checking them multiple times a day for humidity and temperature, some hand turning each egg twice a day, candling them and inspecting the growth rate, seeing the small signs of life blooming in the egg, waiting and performing these tasks every day for anywhere from 21 days for chickens to 30 days for geese...waiting for the first pip, trying my best to make sure they all make it...even if it means helping.  It is just hard...I hope it gets easier.

I sold 16 ducklings and 3 goslings this week, I have sold 3 dozen hatching eggs too...but, I have filled all of my egg flats and the fridge I keep eggs in.  I have a lot of eggs.  I have duck eggs and chicken eggs all over my kitchen, I have a few small first turkey eggs and all three geese are laying now...but I keep putting their eggs in the incubator...it is getting full, but it won't be long and I should have a couple more hatching...and I have four reserved and more people wanting some as soon as they are available.  It shouldn't be much longer and my turkey hens should all start laying, the first eggs I have found are about the size of chicken eggs...but should get bigger...then I will hatch them too.

I think chicks are the easiest to hatch and care for, geese don't really move around much the first two days, but their shells are so thick I imagine it takes a lot out of them and they need time to recover.  Ducks recover quicker and generally start scooting around pretty quickly after the break out of the shell.  Waterfowl are extremely messy though, the older they get as babies the worse it gets because once the discover water they start playing in it, drench their bedding numerous times a day, the more they drink and eat the more they poop too...and that is a lot.  I had 17 ducks, I kinda wanted to keep a couple that were not full breed...they had a black diamond shape on their head were gold colored and had a black tail...but after taking care of them for over a week I decided to sell them all...I listed I had 16 for sale, but I had 17 and ended up throwing one in for free so it wouldn't be alone.  I gave that customer a dozen duck eggs too, they said they really liked eating them and I have an over abundance of them, I was just going to pitch them into compost soon if I didn't sell them.

I basically have a waiting list for goslings now, and people want me to call them when I have turkeys available too.  It is easier for me to sell them just after hatching so I don't interact with them much and form attachments...makes it easier to let them go.

Inside Work Today

I hate to think I still overwork my body, but I do.  I just don't realize how bad until the next day.  I mucked out several coops and tilled and my wrists and arms are feeling it today.  I picked up feed buckets yesterday and it hurt my ribs too, so instead of trying to remove all the spent/composted bedding in the run of the big coop, I have been cleaning and organizing some.  I got the pantry done and I am almost done with the laundry room.  I keep egg cartons and containers in there.  I have been throwing things on top of the fridge and freezer in there in plastic bags.  I finally organized all of them and wiped down, dusted a bit...got fifty million grocery sacks out of the pantry too.  So I am not resting...just changing the muscles I am using, well except probably when I vacuumed and mopped.

I have another gosling trying to hatch, it started pipping yesterday.  It is not due to hatch until tomorrow.  It made no progress overnight which concerned me.  I have picked at the shell and removed enough to make sure it can breath and I can add a little water inside the shell every couple of hours.  I won't pick any more shell off until tomorrow, and then only if it has not escaped or made progress.  I have ducks that will need to go on lockdown soon too.  Mercy, Hope and Gracie are all doing well.  Mercy has chewed on her wing stub a bit, I started spraying it with Scarlet Oil more often.  I am just trying to get her to heal up...she will be a keeper.  I tend to get attached to my special needs critters.  Maybe we can hope for a miracle for her and her wing will regenerate?

The nine baby ducks are doing really well, they are cute little boogers, but messy as all get out.  I have changed out their bin twice today because they are playing in the water and pooping up a storm. I am using five layer puppy training pads in the brooder bins and they still got all wet and nasty.  I hate giving them a bath so early in life, but it may end up being a necessity.  It probably doesn't help that Hope the gosling is in with the ducks she is ten days old now, but since we put her in with the ducks we can tell she has grown, in just two days.  I tried putting her back in with Mercy, but Mercy grabbed her by the tail and was tossing Hope around so, I put her back.  She is slightly larger than the ducks now.

I sold 10 dozen eggs today, I know he is going to hatch them.  I didn't wash them or refrigerate them so it was easier on me.  He is going to set more on the 16th and asked me if I would have more then.  I am going to hatch chicks soon, just trying to get some things done first and I would like to have breeding pens built so I can hatch full breed chickens.  My chickens are laying like gangbusters so I will have them, even after selling him 10 dozen I probably have 25 dozen still and I have not gathered eggs today yet.  I have been getting 4 dozen plus eggs a day lately.  Ah well it is about feeding time and I still have to finish my kitchen mess.  I just thought I would write while I am taking a break.

Geese, Ducks and Gardening

We have had two more geese hatch and 9 ducks now, our oldest goose baby we have named Grace or Gracie.  We tried to sex it and the two others, they all looked the same and we think are girls.  I am thinking their names are Grace, Hope and Mercy.  One is very small...she is Hope, because I hope she gets bigger soon!  Lol, she is half the size of the other one born the same day.  I decided on Mercy for the other one, we moved all of the geese together in one brooder...we now know it was a mistake.  My husband put Hope in the brooder with the newly hatched ducks because Grace was picking on her.  We went outside to do some repairs and chores and he heard screaming...I didn't hear them because I was tilling.  But soon after I came in the house to check on them...Mercy was soaking wet cold and her wing tip section was gone...she had a long tendon looking thing hanging off what was left of her wing.  Mercy and Hope are one week old...Grace is three weeks old, she is larger...but we didn't think she would be a cannibal!

I washed Mercy and inspected her, she was shaking so I wrapped her in a towel and held her.  She gradually warmed up, dried and I sprayed scarlet oil on the tendon thing that was left.  I put her in a brooder by herself.  Little did we know she would chew the tendon off!  Geeze, I had no idea these cute fluffy balls of feathers could be so mean and cruel.  The moral to the story is...do not put different sized baby geese together!  Hope has a little damage, some of her down is missing, but no body parts, she and the baby ducks are the same size...so she is safe in with them.  I ended up trimming off what looked like a string with a couple of tiny feathers off of Mercy...she is doing fine this morning.  We moved Grace out to a brooder in the shed, she is by herself, but she has grown so quickly she quickly outgrew the indoor brooder in the house.  She is in a small swimming pool with wire around the edge about 30 inches high.  We tried to sex the 8 week old ducks, we think we might have three girls...I don't know, we really couldn't see any difference.  We will know for sure in another couple of months anyway.

I got another cattle panel coop completed, it has been named The Stadium.  Why you ask?  Well, I made a roost for it that reminds us of stadium seating.  The bottom section is open so the roosters housed in it can run around, dust bathe, and eat without problems.  The "seating" part are 2"x4"s flat side up and stair stepped up with about 18 inches between the levels.  I am hoping so they don't poop on each other...that they are far enough apart so their tail feathers don't get damaged too.  Some of them roost on them a lot to keep from getting attacked by the other roosters.  I have a couple of food dishes that I fill and set on the steps to make sure they get food, it is fermented feed so it has water in it too...in case some of the roosters are protecting the waterer and those aren't getting enough.  I may hang a nipple type waterer high up so they can get to it too.  After the roosters have been been in it awhile, I am hoping I can let them out to range in the yard and they will return to The Stadium.  I can close that yard so hopefully they won't fly out and start trouble with other roosters or gang up on hens.

I also am working on tilling a big garden area in front of the house.  I hate putting it out there, but it may be the only way to actually get any vegetables.  I will have to move some plants and fence the area because of our rabbit issues, and the wild dogs and coyotes, oh and deer.  I will have to move some fencing from other areas, but since the chickens ate my garden last year...I don't want them to be able to see what I plant.  I may plant something specifically for them in my old garden areas...not sure yet.

Well...I must get busy, I need to remove my composted chicken poop from the big run...before it rains again, I need to move it to the front yard too.  My husband got the tiller and the garden tractor out for me yesterday.  I got about a 20 foot by 80 foot garden area tilled yesterday before the tiller had a flat.  I also got Dormant oil sprayed on my fruit trees.  I bought a few more trees from the feed store and need to finish planting them and some blueberries, along with transplanting blueberries, herbs and strawberries to the front area.  Lots to do...