The cold days are upon us...

Well, it's officially winter now and the egg laying and fresh grass are slim to none.  Time to settle in for the winter and keep warm!
A note about eggs:
As there is very little grass, what is here is covered in snow, and the chickens are being fed all corn and other feed, the nutritiousness of the eggs is at a low.  There are also fewer eggs at this time of year because of the lack of warm sunny days.  Please watch this blog or your email (if I'm in regular contact with you) and I'll let you know when everything's back to normal again and eggs will be for sale again.  From me and all my hen friends, we thank you for your business this past year and we look forward to connecting with and meeting you all again in Spring 2010!  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

The grass is greener on the other side...

Because the hens are now no longer in the vineyard and the coop isn't moving to fresh grass everyday, they spend the morning inside "cooped" up (so I can find their eggs and they don't bother the neighbors) and then around noon, I let them out so they can forage to their hearts' content all over the front yard and through the dirt work behind the house.  They have water and corn in the morning, but it is rather humorous to see them in there.  They stand there longing for the green grass and freedom on the other side and counting down the minutes until noon.  Kind of like an impatient 3rd grader a half an hour before the end of the school day! :-)  Now, don't get me wrong...they're not suffering in there...they spend the morning laying eggs, running laps back and forth, taking dustbaths, scratching for corn I've thrown in for them to find and doing other chicken things.  But it's pretty hard to be patient when the grass is literally greener on the other side of the fence and it's pretty tasty yet besides!! :-)

And there wasn't light...

A couple weeks ago, after seeing it grow dark by 6pm and watching the daily egg count take a dive, I decided to get out the extension cord, the timer and the small LED nightlight.  That's right - it's time for some fake sunlight.  I had read sometime last year about someone who had noticed an improvement on winter laying possibly stemming from a simple candle*.  I don't think I want to take the chances of an unguarded, open flame so I opted for electric....  But I also didn't want something that was going to cost a fortune in energy, so I found a small LED nightlight that supposedly costs only pennies a year to run and I also bought a small timer so that I can program when the light is on during the day.  14 hours of daylight is supposed to make the best production.  After hooking it up, I did notice a rise in egg count - yeah!  I really notice it now that for the last two days it hasn't been working and the egg count has dropped again.  I have to do a little testing...our outside plug-in is a little touchy anyway (flips the breaker sporadically) but so far the breaker hasn't flipped and nothing still works.  I plugged in something else directly into the plug-in and that works, so my guess is that the extension cord must have gone crazy.  Ah well...I'd best get to it so I can still keep having tasty eggs for breakfast in the morning... :-) 

*By the way, I can't remember exactly which issue it came from, but the "reading" I mentioned above was from the Backyard Poultry magazine I subscribe to.  SUPER magazine!!  Would highly recommend it to anyone who has poultry...

Drop in laying...

For all you who are interested in buying eggs or have bought eggs from me in the past - sad to say, but the hens' egg count has dropped considerably in the last few weeks!  Each egg is extra precious now!  The 17 older hens are at various stages of molting and as I said in another post, they spend more time losing feathers than laying eggs!  So 17 down.  That leaves the 26 spring hens as the main layers.  Those ladies are trying to do a fine job, except that with the shorter days for this time of year, their body clock tells them not to lay as many eggs.  Apparently laying eggs and bright sunny days go hand in hand!  With all this to consider, you may not be able to buy as many eggs at one time as you did a couple weeks ago.  It's a first come first serve thing now and if you'd like any substantial amount, let me know as soon as possible and even then I may not be able to fill your needs at this time.  As sad as this is, there's a positive side - in a few months when the days get longer and the older ones are back in their prime (and barring no illness or small hen stealing varmint!), I will have eggs filling the fridge and looking to get rid of them!  Your patience will be rewarded! :-)

Check for freshness!

I found this cool link to tell how fresh your eggs are!  http://www.helpwithcooking.com/egg-guide/fresh-egg-test.html

The prodical peachicks are back...

Today Keith found two more of the brown baby chicks and then the big white peachick appeared on the front lawn as well.  So that brings my total back up to 4 of the 7 birds back where they belong.  Tomorrow night after they've found a place to roost, I'm going to go look back on the other side of the yard and see if the missing 3 are around or if I can't find them and can assume that they have met an untimely end at the teeth of some wild critter from the corn field...  :-(  We'll see!!  But 4 out of 7 isn't bad either and hopefully they can stay nice and cozy in the calf hut until Sandy comes next and then she can see them... :-)

One returned peachick!

Lindsey came down the sidewalk this morning with one of the runaway peachicks!  It made my day. :-)  Only one though.  He found it on the diagonal other side of the yard by itself.  So, I still have no idea if there are others, but for now, this one is going into the calf hut for safety and some food and water! :-)
This evening, I wasn't sure what to do with the baby all by itself in there.  Animals just do so much better when they have a buddy!  Choice 1 is to put the little guy in with the chickens.  With the whole pecking order, though, I'm not sure this will be such a great idea...  I don't know if he's big enough to fight for himself yet!  Choice 2 is to put a chicken in with him to keep him company.  I opted for Choice 2 and picked my docile little buddy of a Gold Star.  I picked up Goldy from her roost and carried her across the front yard and put just inside the calf hut.  She tried to make a fast get away back out, but I stopped here.  Then there was a lot of hissing and feather puffing on the part of both birds so I decided that that maybe wasn't such a good idea either and finally chose Choice 3 - leave the chick by herself and hope she survives while I hunt for the rest of them...  Goldy then was returned safely to her perch and enjoyed a nice quiet rest... :-)

Molting...

My spring 2008 hens appear to be molting.  I have read only a little about molting, but it's rather a curious phenomenon...
1.  Once a year, chickens lose almost all their feathers and look just terrible. 
2.  Supposedly this should happen in February/March, but mine just must be early...??
3.  They stop laying eggs.
4.  I think it lasts a month or two, but not sure.
5.  I also can't quite figure why God made them to loose all their warmth during the coldest months of the year.
I should post some pictures on here, it is rather interesting to see!

Where did they go...?

Today, Sandy and David came to visit and to see the peachicks.  (Sandy was connected with our getting them a couple months back and even picked them up and brought them out to us!) :-)  Anyway, we saw the peachicks right after church around noon and then all afternoon, no sign of them.  They didn't even get to see them!  Ah well, maybe later...  Even into the evening, they still have not returned and now I'm started to getting a little worried.  The corn field is right up next to the yard and because they appear to have to sense of home and staying near it, who knows where they could be...

Free range peachicks

Today I let the peachicks out of the calf hut to roam the yard.  They seemed to enjoy it, but unlike chickens when let out of a familiar place into an unfamiliar place, the peachicks just started roaming everywhere!  Not sure if I like that...I'd almost rather than they were a little hesitant to leave safety of their home.  Tonight, I found them on the planter-for-parts just to the west of the house.  Apparently, also unlike a chicken, peachicks must not come home to roost in the same safe place they know of...  Well, I'll leave them there tonight and see what tomorrow brings... :-)

New deal!

New deal on eggs!  For every egg carton you can bring to me, I'll give you 10 cents.  Or if you're a frequent buyer, for every 15 cartons, I'll give you a free dozen eggs!  No limit!  Bring me all you can and take home a little pocket cash! :-)

Researching...

So now that the winter months of no green grass are approaching, I'm researching ways to keep the fantastic high Omega-3 eggs still coming.  Flax is a great source of Omega-3 so I started looking specifically at places to buy flax seed to mix in with their current rations of chicken feed and corn.  I found a place (http://www.purityseedsusa.com/) that sells discounted flax screenings at a pretty great price, however, because these are screenings, weed seeds are also mixed in.  My farmer husband isn't so keen on the idea of adding more weeds to the yard so I was about to go to plan B.  However, thanks to the wonderfulness of Google search I found through a couple links from researchers saying that chickens destroy 98% of all weed seeds!  http://www.mnproject.org/pdf/Weed%20Seed%20long%20-%20web%20cx.pdf  How cool is that?!  Chickens are the most effective at this being that all their food goes through the grinding process of the gizzard which ruins all those weed seeds.  So, not sure yet, but it appears as though there's a good change their eggs will remain high in Omega-3s all winter long!  I'll keep you posted... :-) 

Back home again...

For the last couple weeks, the chickens have been aimless wanderers around the yard.  It has rained at least every other day for the last few weeks and with all the rain, they like to dig in the nice vineyard grass, making it that much harder to grow again next year...  They should technically live in the truck coop for most of the day now, but being that that doesn't have walls on it yet, well...it would be a bit chilly in there.  I decided to move it up next to the house and leave it there permanently for the winter.  I'll put plastic walls up on the sides to keep them warmer and dryer until harvest is done and the big truck coop is finished.  I like them up closer to the house anyway to hopefully keep the local vermin from getting too friendly with them.  How terrible would it be to come out there and find half the chickens gone with some wiley fox?? 

Silly ducks...

I don't understand these silly ducks.  It's freezing cold outside and they're having the time of their life in mud puddles.  I haven't done any research, but apparently, ducks must be immune to cold frostbiting their webbed feet...  They also hunt through each puddle like they would hunt for fish, snails and other pondlife in an actual pond.  Makes me want to put a goldfish in the puddle here to see what they'd do with it... :-)

Friendly Gold Star

In late March, I bought 4 Gold Star chicks from Runnings (with some others).  Apparently Gold Stars are not very tolerant to cold at that age and three of the four died.  The one that lived, however, is very lovable and tame.  I wanted some more pictures taken of my with my chickens and this little hen obliged. :-)  I'll load the pictures on here when I get them off my mother's camera. :-)

Blue/green sheen on peachicks!

A noticeable sheen of green or blue on a few of the peachicks today!  Considering their major color so far has been brown with a little tan or white, this blue or green is great!  It seems the little guys are growing up so fast lately - it's hard to believe they won't be full-grown adults for another 3 years!  This sheen is on their neck and I'm going to try and take a few pictures in the next couple days.  So pretty! :-)

Winterize the peachicks

It's getting colder outside and I'm thinking the peachicks will live in the calf hut that the little chicks used to live in in the spring.  There's straw and stuff in there, but I think they need a good little straw house to curl up in.  One of these next warmer fall days, I will raid the loft of a couple straw bales and make a cozy little place for them.  It's amazing how fast these little guys are growing up so I'll have to remember to make it big enough to last them all winter so they don't outgrow it! :-)

No more run

I have decided since the grass in the vineyard has started to go into hibernation for the winter and any major scratching on the part of the chickens would probably stunt its growth next spring, the chickens are now allowed to run all over for most of the day.  They seem to enjoy it although my egg count is slowing so I'm guessing some are finding a new hole somewhere... :-)

Snow!

It snowed last night and it's always funny to see what the spring pullets do with it since they've never seen it before.  This year's flock wasn't overly scared of it - they ran out with the others.  But it's still cold on their little feet since you can see them occasionally standing with one foot up being warmed under their feathers. 

Too cold and wet!

I moved the peachicks into the calf hut today because it was just too wet and cold for them.  They appreciated it! :-)  It was dry and there's straw in there too.  Now I just have to winterize it for them!

Bye-Bye big blue-reds!

Today we said goodbye to two of the blue-red Wyandotte roosters as they made a 3 hour trip home with my parents to live with their hens.  They are such beautiful birds and so pleasant and it was going to be sad to butcher them, but now they will be going to a place where they will be two of three roosters instead of two of six as they are here.  My mom will use them for breeding so it will be interesting to see the offspring these guys make.  Should be some massive beautiful birds! :-)

It's raining, it's pouring...

It's been raining here a lot the last few days and that means sopping wet chickens. :-)  They look rather silly when they get wet.  I have let them out of the run the last few days since if they stay in it, they almost completely ruin the wet muddy grass in there.  Just what we need...one spot of no grass in the middle of the vineyard... :-)  But they certainly enjoy running free all over the yard... :-)

Collecting eggs!

Fresh grass :-)

Funny ducks!

My four runner ducks are fascinating to watch.  They trot around the yard looking at everything and usually quacking up a storm, especially when they find something they like, like a puddle. :-)  The other interesting thing is that there are always four of them together, we never see them apart.  Well, today I looked out the window and found only three quacking up a storm in the front yard.  I immediately went outside to find out if someone was hurt and all I heard was one loud quacking from the other side of the yard, so knew that she/he was ok. :-)  Later on I went looking for the missing one.  And I found her somehow stuck inside the other chicken run on the other side of the yard.  It was rather humorous...here she was on one side and the other three were cuddled up in the grass on the other side of the run wall.  Still had to be together!  I tipped the run up and she did run out then, much to the thrillment of all involved... :-)

Beautiful grass :-)

There is a definate difference in the grass that was under the run as it moves through the rows of the vineyard.  The grass in the beginning of the first row is starting to get thick and a darker green compared to the stuff that wasn't under the feet of the chickens.  The nitrogen is taking root, literally! :-)  Way to go chickens! :-)

Straw is essential, evidently...

I have come to the conclusion, after watching egg numbers rocket up, that chickens love a comfy place to lay their eggs.  What they did with them since the last of the straw disappeared from the nesting boxes, a week or so ago, I'll never know...  But since I re-stocked the nests the other day, they have been laying nicely!  I had purposely let the straw run out (and by run out I mean not refill it from them taking it all out or eating it or whatever...?) since I built the nesting box to be a rollaway nest and I figured the weaning period for a normal flat nest was over and since they were laying nicely in there, I was going to set it at a tilt.  (I had read somewhere that chickens may not normally be thrilled about going in a nest with no straw, but if you fill a rollaway box with straw for awhile to get them used to it and then remove it and tilt the nest, they take to the change better.)  The nests would subsequently not have straw in them since an egg won't roll in a nest filled with straw.  But after seeing the difference in eggs, I think I'm going to leave the nest flat and filled with straw.  Whatever they like, I will do... :-)

Where did the eggs go?

My latest dilemma is that the egg count has dropped and I don't know why.  I've also seen yolk on some of them, so I'm guessing that some are being eaten, but not sure on the rest.  I think I have two choices for attempting to solve this - 1)they really seem to like a lot of straw in the boxes, so I'll just add more, and 2)the nesting box I made them is supposed to be a tilted rollaway one, so I simply need to tip it so the eggs roll down safely into the storage area and *voila* no broken eggs.  I will try the extra straw today and see what happens.

Peachicks

Today I moved the peachicks from their warm light bulb outside into the fresh air!  Unlike chickens, these little guys seem to take quite awhile to become adjusted to new living quarters.  They're growing larger too, so soon I'll need to put them into their own larger run.  So far I don't know how many are males and how many are females, so we'll keep watching! :-)

Naughty leghorns

I have previously mentioned how leghorns are naughty and very flighty birds.  There is still one running outside that I just can't catch.  She's very fast even after dark!  Now the fun part will be hunting all over the yard to find her eggs... :-)

A one person job

So I have now moved the entire chicken truck summer coop with all 47 chickens in ALL BY MYSELF!  A little heavy but not too bad.  Our engineering work has finally paid off...:-)  The nice big wheels make it easy to push and the chickens don't mind the smooth ride either. :-)

Flighty Leghorns

I moved the coop all by myself last night and tonight!  Yeah!!  Our engineering is getting better! :-)  It really didn't even take that long either.

I let the chickens out of the coop tonight just before dark just to see what they'd do.  4 ended up roosting in the tree on the other side of the yard from the coop, so I probably won't be doing that again anytime soon.  They're content where they are - why ruin things?? :-)  Two of the birds were Leghorns.  I had read that Leghorns are extremely flighty (ha ha) birds, and after experiencing them myself over the last few months (they were hatched in the spring), I'd have to wholeheartedly agree!!  Whereas most chickens go into sleep mode when the sun goes down, Leghorns don't seem to.  Or at least mine don't!!  I managed to get one of them out of the tree, but the other one would flutter down and run away (or to be more accurate, flap her wings in a frenzy, squawk up a storm like I was a fox or coyote and run screeching the other direction from me...)  I never did catch her.  Sometimes they get themselves into such a fit, it's best to just leave them alone and try again tomorrow.  But for as many eggs as Leghorns are supposed to lay, I can't say I'd be jumping up and down to get more of them just because their personality isn't the greatest...

Yum, apples!!

Yesterday, Keith used his fantastic home-made apple press to press us some juice.  The best part about this for the chickens is that they get all the excess peelings/cores/etc for a treat!  They enjoyed it quite a bit today when I dumped it all in for them.  They made the happy clucking noises that chickens do when they are quite thrilled with something.  Chickens are very entertaining! :-)

Sneaky chickens!

I noticed 4 chickens out of the run today.  They like to be sneaky sometimes.  The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence! :-)  Not really sure where they got out except that the plastic tarp part of the run is a little saggy in places (needs to be tightened up). 
The moving of the coop now is GREAT!  Such a quick and easy process now!  See the "Why...Truck 'o Chickens" link to the right to see where the coop has come just this summer.  Hopefully our work can stop and I can just enjoy my chickens now. :-)

New run piece!

The chickens like their new longer run with the covering!  It's such a pleasant sight to see chickens pecking away at fresh grass... :-)

Roof

I'm making a plastic roof for covering one of the runs today.  The chickens I've noticed don't seem to like hot sunshine in the afternoon and hopefully this one they'll like!  I'm using plastic tarp that the local elevator used for covering mass quantities of corn that don't fit in the bins.  It's durable and free! :-)

22 eggs!

Definately have to get to finishing this site this weekend.  The eggs are a-comin' (22 yesterday!!) and I'm going to need to find more buyers!  Anyone interested in some fantastic eggs?  Stop on by!!
Last night I got a good count on how many chickens I really have.  47!  6 of them are roosters and some will be butchered sometime.  (Otherwise they fight make life miserable for everyone...)  I'm saving in particular my nice Buff Orpington and one of the three Blue-Red Wyandottes.  The Blue-Reds are massive birds and I would like to keep them and their respective hens to breed nice offspring next spring.  We'll be getting into the meat chicken market hopefully with some birds that aren't like the typical Cornish Broilers who are bred to fall over and have heart attacks if fed too much.  Ours will be all natural and God-made! :-)

In the vineyard!

The chickens are back in the vineyard now!  (They spent the last few months in a different part of the yard to allow the grass in the vineyard to get a good start on growing.)  They seem to be liking it and I love that they will just move down the row now in an easy to move coop!

Eggs, eggs everywhere!

Since the coop has been redone, I've gotten just a ton of eggs.  12-18 a day!!  Sure beats the 5-10 I was getting before!!  More eggs being laid generally means happier chickens, so yeah!  They really seem to like the new coop with the wonderfully dark nesting box and all.

New coop!

Yesterday was a great day for the chickens!  Lindsey and I finally found some time to do some much needed updates on the movable coop.  We strengthened the frame, made better roosts to fix the falling down ones and best of all, put some beautiful new wheels on it so we hopefully should no longer have to be giving ourselves hernias moving in every day!  Tonight will be the test run of moving it with all 200+lbs of birds in there!


We're working on it. You see the planter wheels we had attached on the back of the coop (which for some reason I never took pictures of...) are lying there on the driveway in front of the shop along with the metal nesting box that had no back and wouldn't keep straw in the boxes. Needless to say the chickens hated it...



Here we are all done for the day! More changes to come Labor Day weekend, but better roosts, a MUCH nicer homemade nesting box, and a MUCH MUCH better wheel system!!

hello!

Hey everyone!  Just giving a new chicken site a try.  Come back for more later!