Day 2 of painting the truck!

We had a church anniversary here and so I didn't get very far, but you can see a little difference!

Day 1 of painting the truck!

White around the windows and door!

Yummy dandelions!

Right now the 2 peafowl, the 3 Americanas and the 3 Blue Laced Red Wyandottes are in the vineyard run, while the laying hens are in the truck coop and get let out to roam the yard everyday.  Yesterday, I moved the run in the vineyard to new grass and it's hilarious to watch them devour the new grass.  Well, especially dandelions.  The way they all attack them, it makes me want to try dandelion leaves myself and see if I think they are as delicious as they seem to think they are! :-)

New recipe!

I see I haven't posted on here in ages!!  Busy summer days at the farm!

Anyway, to make up for it, I just posted an awesome homemade mayo recipe under the "Cooking with Farm Fresh Eggs" section.  Check it out!  http://cookingwithfarmfresheggs.blogspot.com/2010/06/blender-mayonnaise.html

New chicks pictures

I'm behind on posting pictures of the new chicks...so here they are!

The females are the orangey colored ones and the males are the black ones.  Although I'm not sure which is which, the orange ones consist of 15 Gold Stars and 10 Production Reds.  Gold Stars are one of my favorite kinds because they lay so well, they're reddish in color (I have a weakness for red or blue colored chickens for some reason...) and they are such a friendly easy-going bird.  The Production Reds are also a great bird, slightly larger in size, lay relatively well too, and of course, are red. :-)
The black males are Black Australorps.  I chose these because they are one of the larger breeds and hopefully I can get a lot of meat off of the 24 of them in about 4-5 months.  They will be all  black in color and have a large red comb and red waddles if left to grow to maximum size (I probably will butcher them before they get too big.)  They're so cute now, it's hard to imagine them in the freezer in a few months, but such is life on the farm!  Fresh chicken is oodles better than the store bought stuff!!






I had just refilled their food trays before I took the picture - can you tell? :-)





If raised in under a light (and following a mother hen around) these chicks will start out their lives with a tub temperature of about 90 degrees.  Each of the following weeks, ideally the temperature is lowered 5 degrees.  This is what all the "raising chickens" type books will say, however, as time progresses, the temp could probably be lowered.  It depends on the temperature of the outside world and how many chicks are together and the type of tub they're in.  I had some last year in early spring and they had a difficult time keeping warm in mid-April and these little guys started out with a heatlamp only on their first day (it was rainy and freezing cold here) and now they're under a 90 watt lightbulb and doing just fine.  I just have to be a tending mother hen and adjust things so that they're comfortable.  Usually a lot of loud peeping and having them all huddled under the light is a sure sign of being too cold.  Quiet and spread out means they're feeling great.

New roosters

The other day completely out of the blue, my nice big Blue Laced Red Wyandotte rooster fell over, never to crow again.  It was a sad day - he was such a nice fellow for a rooster and had a great personality. :-(  The next morning I put an ad on Craigslist looking for anyone in the area who had a BLRW rooster to sell because I eventually would like to mate him with the two BLRW hens I have here (and some other breeds as well) and keep the neat colored chickens a-coming.    I received a reply from someone who happened to have bought his BLRW chickens from the same person I did (a local person).  Fantastic!  We went to visit with him and came home with two BLRW roosters and a Black Australorp rooster.  Great!!  I was pretty thrilled.  Until this evening I had them separated from the others in the summer coop in the vineyard and they appear to be doing quite nicely.  Sometimes roosters will fight (sometimes to the death...) but these guys appear to get along well, probably since they've grown up together.  Tonight I moved the BA rooster into the truck with the hens and tomorrow I hope to move the two BLRW hens along with the Rhode Island Red/Production Red hens into the run with the two blue roosters to hopefully get some fertile eggs!  The reaction when I put the BA rooster into the truck tonight was just hilarious.  Like a kid in a candy shop - 36 hens all to himself!! :-)  Sometimes when a new chicken is introduced to a flock (hen or rooster) there is a lot of pecking and squaucking until the pecking order is established, but tonight these hens were being very nice to him.  Let's hope that continues!  Maybe they miss the male influence they've been without for the last few days.  This guy seems to have a similar personality to my passed on Blue - docile and just lovable and easy-going.  (If you don't believe me that a chicken can be lovable, stop by sometime and I'll introduce you to him. :-) )  

New chicks!

I got my new day old chicks today!  15 Gold Stars, 10 Production Reds and 25 Black Australorp roosters.  Pictures coming soon... :-)

Cool picture of one of my chickens... :-)

I've been trying for some time to get a good unique picture of one of my chickens and yesterday I got one! :-)

Nesting box!

Old tarp from the local elevator - free
Unused commercial nesting box - free + a couple dozen eggs :-)
A fantastic, non-heavy, nicely covered, four hole nesting box for my summer coop - PRICELESS!! :-)




The summer coop really needed more nesting boxes, but I was low on time and materials to build another one.  (I built a 3 hole box last summer, but 3 nests to 36 hens is a little on the "not enough" side...)  A friend's dad hooked me up with some older, commercial nesting boxes that were no longer being used and instead taking up barn space.  Since my chickens are free-range, I didn't need these cages for what they are originally designed for, however, cage-type material is quite versatile so I think they will all be used for something!  (Soon I will post pictures of my first project I made with some of them...stay tuned...)  My chickens like laying eggs in darker areas so I figured that they wouldn't be too keen on using the cages as they were originally designed, so I cut up pieces of tarp leftover from covering corn at the local elevator (also quite versatile stuff...) and used fishing line to sew these pieces in the cage to make it darker.  I hope to also put another piece across the lower front, but at the moment, I'm out of fishing line...  Tomorrow I hope to hook it up on the summer coop and fill it with straw and see who's the first to give it a try!  These boxes will be fantastic for keeping the coop light and easy to move too - this box only weighs about 5 lbs I think!
Yes, I know this is a long paragraph about a nesting box...but how awesome is this?!?! :-) :-)

Sun or Moon - is there a difference??

I woke up this morning at 3:40 and happened to hear the rooster crowing away out in the coop.  If the hens could talk, I think wouldn't be saying anything very nice to him about then.  I also happened to notice that there was an almost full moon out...perhaps someone should tell him that the sun and moon are two different things...one of which you don't crow at at 3:40am...
:-)

Hardboiling fresh eggs...

Did you know...?
If you want to hard-boil freshly laid eggs, don't. They probably won't peel worth anything. However, set them out on the counter for a day or two or wait a couple weeks in the fridge and then try it. Works like a charm. :-) Also, the greatest way to hardboil eggs is found near the end of this article... http://www.backyardpoultrymag.com/issues/3/3-2/incredible-edible-egg.html

Broody hens are still sitting!

My broody hens (one duck and one chicken) are still sitting on their eggs!  Yeah!  I'm excited to see what becomes of the eggs under them.  I have 1 rooster to 37 hens...which is a tad on the uneven side to get fertilization to all hens (about 1 rooster to 10 hens is great) but we'll see what happens.  Hopefully I get a few chicks out of them!  After they hatch and if the "moms" still want to be moms and don't run off, I hope to put them all in the peachick run so they can take care of their own babies and I don't have to use the brooder, which is basically a box with a light in it to keep them warm enough.  Lord willing, the hens will keep them warm and show them the food and water and I get to sit by and watch. :-)  As of now, the peachick run isn't finished...but I have roughly 15 days yet to get it done........ :-)  Hopefully too the peas leave the moms and babies alone....we'll see I guess!  Each day is an adventure! :-)

Crazy duck! :-)

So, if you've been eagerly following chicken incubation exploits, you'll know that I'm on the hunt for a broody chicken or duck to sit on some eggs for me. Spring must finally be here since I now have a Buff Orpington chicken and a Runner duck sitting on nests. Yeah!! Apparently Buff Orpingtons are good setters, but Runners apparently are not, so I guess I got lucky with this one! The duck sitting within viewing distance of the kitchen window, so I'm thrilled I get to watch her. Although, a sitting duck isn't terribly exciting. Anyway, I knew the sitting Runner had a ton of eggs under her - I guessed about 35 - which would be more than what her little behind could keep warm. The eggs would probably also be a Runner/Muscovy cross, which I wasn't sure I wanted around anyway. So, tonight when she got up for her usual 7:00 quick bite to eat and short bath (told you I liked to watch her...), I pulled out everything that was under her and replaced them with 12 chicken eggs and 3 other duck eggs. As it turns out, I was slightly off in my guesstamate of how many eggs were under her...it was 57!! She evidently hadn't given much thought to how she was going to raise 57 little ducklings... I checked her after she returned to her "new" nest and she appears to have taken to the new eggs. Evidently she can't count either... :-)

Busy spring!

Boy, it's been awhile since I've written anything on here!  I'm having a busy spring here with my chickens and hardly spend any time in front of the computer! :-)  My new project for this spring is using hens to incubate chicks since I don't have an incubator.  I could buy one I suppose, but I was reading about how nice it is when the hen does all the work of keeping them warm and how nice a job she also does keeping them alive and teaching them all to be chickens after they are hatched.  I figured I'd give it a try and let some chicken moms do all the work instead of me!  I have one sitting Buff Orpington and hopefully when hers hatch in about 18-19 days (it takes 21 days total) I will put her in the peachick run to keep her and them safe from predators.  That's my plan anyway...we'll see how it works... :-)

Lots 'o eggs!

I have a multitude of eggs filling my fridge at the moment and an looking to get rid of a bunch!  Hungry for a fresh homemade omelet or egg bake?  I will deliver eggs to anyone nearby who wants them - for free!  I will also deliver a little further away for $2.50/doz.  "Nearby" includes New Ulm, Hutchinson, Sleepy Eye, and Redwood Falls.  "Further away" includes the Minn/St Paul area.  Shoot me an email and let me know where to meet you!  I'm also considering a route, so if you'd like eggs on a regular basis, let me know and we'll work something out!

World traveling rooster

Last fall, I gave my mom (who also has chickens) two of my three blue/red Wyandotte roosters.  She was in need of some good roosters and they are so pretty I hated to butcher them... :-)  It turned out one of her Jersey Giants she bought ended up being a rooster.  He is an enormous bird and he was making life miserable for one of the blue reds.  So, today, my sister, on her way back to school, stopped by and brought him back home again.  He, and his one brother who I kept, had occasional sparring today, but neither look worse for the wear, so as soon as they establish hierarchy, everything will be peachy keen, I'm sure.  There are 40 hens and now 2 roosters, so there should be enough females to keep them each busy... :-)  I was wondering whether he'd remember living here (do chickens have a memory of any length??) and I think maybe he did since he's now perched in the summer run and not in the truck with most of the others, since the truck didn't exist as a coop when he was last here.  Well, hopefully he likes living here!  Those blue reds are such a pleasant, even-tempered bird and so nice to have around!

Easter eggs

Have you ever tried dying brown eggs before?  I have to say that my first thought was wondering if it would be like trying to color on a black piece of construction paper and have it come out like anything.  But eggs apparently aren't that way!  They have such neat "earth tone" type colors on them, versus the white eggs that end up bright and pastel colored.  Take a look!

Spring is here!

Spring is here and eggs are coming!  If anyone is interested in eggs, please stop by and pick some up!  Not as many as mid summer, but the fridge is filling up!  First come, first serve!


Lots of interesting things happened this winter.  The biggest of these is that the truck is has sides on it!  Shortly after Christmas, Lindsey and Keith finished it for me!  The chickens were almost more excited about warm living quarters than I was!  I now need to put in some quality time in filling the cracks, calking it and painting it a nice bright red color!  Stop by and check it out and I'll try to add a picture of it here.

Since the disappearance of the snow in the last couple weeks, the chickens now spend little time in the coop.  They sleep there and lay eggs, but otherwise they're scratching around in the yard looking for tasty morsels of some variety or another!  They don't care to walk around in snow much, but they certainly love warm and sunny, and sometimes muddy spring days!

Of the 7 peachicks we had last August, now only 2 are left.  It appears that one is male and one is female, so that works out well!  They seem to get along marvelously, which is also great.  Hopefully they can keep each other alive until adulthood (about age 3).  I'm in the process as I write of making them an outside coop so that they can enjoy the fresh air and sunshine of spring too!  Peachicks don't seem to have the same inborn traits that the chickens do to come back to a familiar roost at night, so they will definitely need a run and coop so they stay with us instead of meeting their demise who knows where.  I need to paint it and put on the wire and tarps and it should be ready to go!  This one is much smaller than the other summer coop I made for the chickens last summer and it's also taken me oodles less time to make it as well!  I'm not a natural construction person, so I'm just copying the first design to make it easier and faster for myself. :-)

The runner ducks are out and about too.  Enjoying the fresh air and sun and especially the puddles, as all good ducks do!  I still have no idea if I have mixed gender, so thus I have no idea if I'll have little ones from them.  There are also some Muscovies running around with them (that don't belong to me) and because Muscovies get marvelously broody, we'll probably have some baby ducks of some variety in the upcoming months. :-)

Exciting times here!  Stay tuned for more that happens by the day! :-)