A Growing Family

To those of you who don’t have adolescents helping to raise your chickens, you may not be aware that accurately identifying adult chickens is of great importance.  I, however, am blessed to be assisted with my chicken duties by one very opinionated junior adult who expressed her displeasure that all of last year’s birds are indistinguishable now that they have matured. There was only one way to solve this problem… with money. So off to the hipster, urban farming store to buy an expansion of the flock that cost many times more than the initial flock. This led to six shiny new birds of 4 different breeds which should allow for much easier adult identification. Very important. 

What I was unaware of before getting into the chicken business was just how much chickens hated each other. An established flock with outsiders is like ISIS at a gay bar. So you can’t just deposit new birds amongst the older ones.  You have to introduce them over a couple of weeks and then in the dead of night integrate them while they sleep. When they wake up they think the new birds have always been there. Talk about illegal immigration. Donald Trump would have a field day with all of this.  

Anyways, tonight is the night. If all goes well we should have one big happy family tomorrow. If not, well, you get the idea.

Andy

Snake Attack

Today, I heard the most dreaded words on the homestead.  “Dad, there’s a snake out by one of the trees.”  This was matter of factly delivered by the 4 year old.  Surprisingly, there wasn’t a hint of fear in his voice.  He sounded downright excited as he told me it was a garden snake.  Foolish child.  So like any self-respecting father, I acted interested and told him to show me.  Don’t kid yourself, going out to find a snake was the last thing I wanted to do.  In fact, if this had turned out to be some sort of misidentified stick, I would have been overjoyed.  If not that, then maybe I would be lucky and either the snake would have slithered off or my son wouldn’t remember where he saw it.  No such luck.  Wisely, the other two boys had stood watch over the snake while the third had come to fetch dad.  Drats!

As I approached, my oldest son declared that it wasn’t venomous.  Now, if you can’t tell, I HATE snakes.  They creep me out.  Needless to say, I have never done much research about them.  But what I am experienced with are children, specifically my own.  For those of you either without kids or whose progeny are too young to understand trust me when I tell you that they can smell fear a mile away and will eat you alive.  This knowledge led me to ask my son how he knew it wasn’t venomous in a tone that implied that I had the answer and was checking to see if he was correct.  He instantly told me the shape of the snake’s head clued him into this detail.  Apparently, if it were venomous it would have been shaped like an arrowhead or something.  Anyways, he sounded authoritative and since I had nothing else to go on I told him he was right.

Why don't they look afraid?

After confirming the fact there was a snake as well as the location I headed off for some work gloves and a stick.  The last thing I want is a snake snooping around my hens.  I am not sharing eggs with creatures that have no legs.  And being that I am just a big kid at heart, I know that every situation is improved if you have a stick.  Really the only thing I was missing was the wood chipper from Fargo.  Always seemed like a good way to disposed of snakes. 

Upon returning to scene, I was informed by my boys that they had diagnosed the creature with either narcolepsy or death.  Hey, things were starting to look up.  I managed to get the snake on a stick so the kids could see.  Once they were satisfied and pictures were taken, we deposited the now clearly dead snake in the nearby corn field.  I handled that thing like a champ.  I hated every minute of it but at least they think dad is alright.

Andy

The Great Escape

It turns out that one of my chickens is a HUGE Steve Mcqueen fan.  Over the course of several weeks, she plotted a daring escape plan that eventually led to her getting out into the yard several times a day.  While initially amusing, with the amount of dogs and other critters in the neighborhood, it was not the safest way to pass the day.   

The Web-Mistress grew tired of constantly chasing her back to the coop and eventually decided something must be done.  When I arrived home from work on Tuesday I was met by the backyard butcher and a pair of scissors.  She confidently described how easy and effective the process of clipping a chicken’s wings was and since we had previously marked the runaway bird, we set about the task.

Everything went according to plan and appeared to be done painlessly.  All good!  Over the fence the bird went and she dropped like a rock.  It must have worked!  The next day I got a call from home.  Steve had yet again flown the coop.

Looks like another trip to solitary.

Andy

Oh, the Irony

The chickens are doing well.  We are up to eight eggs a day on good days, with most days bringing in 7 eggs.  Our eggs are so abundant we have been able to sell some to friends and neighbors.   What a blessing. 

This also clears some things up.  Allegedly, the sexing of chicks is about 90% accurate.  This means there was a chance that the pullets we bought might have contained a rooster.  Hence the name of the blog as well as the Web-Mistress’ rooster fetish.  If any one of the chicks would stand by itself or look at her funny she would declare it to be a rooster.  She was just waiting for the day one would crow and she could cook it up.  But the math has saved them from the skillet.  Eight birds and eight eggs means we will just have to go out and get a rooster.

Andy

What the ?!?!?!

Question, where do rubber chickens come from?  Answer, from rubber eggs, of course.  Ah, of course.  Wait. What?  A rubber egg?  What the heck is that?  Well it turns out that is what you call it when a chicken lays an egg without a shell. 

Right about now, if you are like me, the questions just keep coming.  How does a chicken lay an egg without a shell?  Is this even normal?  Do I have a defective chicken?  What do I do with a shell-less egg?

It turns out, this is not uncommon for birds that are just beginning to lay eggs.  Today we are up to five hens laying, so production is growing and we are probably lucky this is the first of these we have seen.  As to how it’s done, I am not sure.  As to what to do with the egg, some say you can hard boil it and eat it.  While I am sure it has been done before, it is gross enough that I plan on tossing it and hoping for 5 with shells tomorrow.

My last question regards the relative ease of passing a rubber egg compared to a regular egg.  Tragically, I may never know the answer.

Andy

Wild Weather

Wow, sorry for stepping away from the blog for a few days, but it has been crazy busy around here this week.  To begin with, it was Vacation Bible School week so mornings were tied up and everyone got worn out as the week went on.  Additionally, the weather was intense.  All of this while the Web-Mistress decided the deck needed to go so we can put in a patio.  Did I mention half the ladies are laying now?

Wind damaged crops.

Some serious storms blew through on Monday and this is what I rolled up on around noon.  My corn was flattened and our trellised winter squash had been toppled.  Fortunately, I was able to right the squash and after a couple of days in the sun the corn had stood back up. 

Starting to stand back up.

It is actually pretty cool how the plants self recover, but let’s just say I was initially panicking about the potential of lost crops.

Once the corn came back up I noticed it was beginning to tassel and we started to see silks.  So if the weather doesn’t keep knocking it around, I am hopeful that we should see some ears soon.

Hopefully the weather has treated you better this week.  And if you are lucky your task list hasn’t been growing by the hour.

Andy

From Cradle to Egg

As I write this, there are cookies in the oven that include the first of our eggs. 

In they go.

I can’t wait to try them.  It is hard to believe the little yellow fuzz balls I brought home back when there was still snow on the ground are now putting food on the table.  The kids are really into this part as well.  They head out hourly, if not more often, to check to see if there are freshly laid eggs.  In some ways this is both necessary and overkill because we only have two hens laying eggs at this point.  However, yesterday we lost one of the eggs to ANOTHER CHICKEN!!!

That’s right, they caught at least one chicken yellow-beaked as it stood over its victim egg.  Now, my research has led me to believe that if we have a “Jack the Beaker” slaughtering eggs in the hen house she should be caught and swiftly administered frontier justice.  Chicken dinner, BONUS!  You may recall I bought extra birds to build some attrition into my flock.  Who knew they would be self-selecting to take a turn on the grill.  So everyday there is a race to see who gets to the eggs first.  If I catch the culprit you will get to come along on my journey as I explore cleaning chickens.

Time to go enjoy some cookies!

Andy

Pulling Their Weight

A belated happy Independence Day to all my patriotic readers out there.  Sorry for the delay between posts, but those of you who follow me on Twitter and Facebook probably are aware that we packed up and headed out to D.C.  for the 4th.  If you don’t follow me, why not?  Anyways, we had a spectacular time out in our nation’s capital with a day trip included up to Fort McHenry.  But all good things must come to an end and it was finally time to return to the homestead.

No sooner had we pulled in, but I went to check on the ladies.  Now, all along I have been planning on an end-of-July first egg, so it was without any particular anticipation that I opened the nesting boxes.  But what should I see when I went ahead and unlatched the boxes to check them?  A couple of beautiful brown eggs!!! 

Farm-fresh eggs!!!

I excitedly called the Web-Mistress to come check out our haul and brought the first harvest into the house.  Now there was a third egg found in the coop, but it didn’t look very well.  I haven’t done this before but I can only surmise that it may have been the first egg laid and the birds weren’t too sure what to do as it appeared a bit scratched up.  I am sure at this point I only have one bird laying, but hey, at least someone has figured out what her God given mission in life is.  And this proves that I don’t have eight roosters out there.

Between this and the way the garden took off while we were gone, I have truly been blessed.  How has God blessed you this summer?

Andy

Chicken Poop

I spend a disproportionate amount of time thinking about what comes out of the business end of a chicken, as I am sure you do.  What’s that?  It’s just me?  Anyways, chicken poop is garden gold.  Keep in mind, though, that you can’t put it directly onto your crops and gardens when it is fresh.   It will burn your plants because of its high nitrogen content.  You either need to let it “cure” for thirty days or add it to your compost bin.  I add the manure and pine shavings used to line my coop right into my composter.  This satisfies the necessary brown requirement needed to make my compost bin work.

All of the above is great, but if just starting out or building your own coop, you really need to think about how you are going to “mine” all of the garden gold about to come your way.   Let me share some tips as this was a part of the coop design I spent the most time on. 

The one thing to bear in mind is that a coop which is easy to clean will get cleaned more often.  So whatever route you go, you need to make things easy on yourself.  I ended up putting a side door into my coop just for cleanup.  Whether you go with only a main door or decide on a second access point, don’t forget to measure your broom.  Your door should be large enough to accommodate your chosen poop tool. 

Poop access point, aka the "mine" shaft

One other key feature was my decision to make my roosting bars removable.  I mounted 2x4s to the walls of my coop using raised brackets.  This allows me to pull them out and I end up with a large 4x6 foot platform I am able to sweep right out into a bucket which is then dumped into the composter.

Behind the curtain.  Note how the boards are set into the brackets for easy removal.

Just a few things I have found useful as I mine for garden gold.

Andy

Guilty Pleasures

As I believe I mentioned before, watching the chickens fight over food never gets old.  So I am always looking for things to feed them.  This really does two things.  It lowers the cost of feeding these non-egg laying free loaders and it reduces the amount of trash headed to the landfill.  So, when breakfast was done and there was still a bit of cheesy eggs left on the plate, I began to wonder if the chickens could eat them.  Guess what?!  It turns out they can.  Man, does it feel wrong.  But not wrong enough to stop me from giving them a plate of eggs. 

Normally, the first chicken to see me coming with a plate food will try it and call the others over.  Not this time.  This greedy bird went to town on the eggs, barely pausing to breath.  Now, I saw another bird or two wandering over but never saw another bird eating.  What I do know is that unlike watermelon rinds which lasted the better part of a day, scrambled eggs last less than five minutes.  These birds have no shame!

Andy

Odds and Ends

Good news!  It appears that none of our chickens are retarded.  I thought it could have gone either way for a while, but it seems that even the slowest of our birds has finally caught on with how the whole coop thing works.  It took a while for all the birds to make a habit of going in on their own at night.  For several nights I would find 2 birds laying on a third in a corner and wondered if they were protecting the dumb one.  Then, they seemed to get bored with that and left the last one out by herself for the next couple of nights.  I couldn’t figure out what her malfunction was.  But, BEHOLD, all 8 chickens have been waiting for me in the coop the last two nights.  I am not sure I was prepared emotionally to care for a special needs bird.  And I don’t think she is quite big enough to make a meal out of.  All is well for now though.

Our first harvest of the year netted 3.6 ounces of beautiful radishes.

After the last post, I (I mean the Web-Mistress) did some research and we realized it was harvest time for the radishes.  There are still a few in the ground ripening up; however, we harvested most of them.  They taste spectacular.  They aren’t too hot or too woody.  I am very happy with how this first crop turned out.

Any early harvests for you?  Let me know how it’s going.

Andy

Completion and Clarification

It is done!!!  The coop is complete.  One final push was all it took and the girls weathered their first night in it yesterday.  I left them out until it was dark to see whether or not they would venture in on their own.  When I got around to checking on them a little after 9, I only saw three chickens and assumed most were in the coop.  I soon realized my error and began pulling chickens off of the clown car pile by the fence.  At least this group of survivors was following their instincts to stay warm.  I loaded them into the coop and noticed that none moved away from the door as I went inside.

This morning, when I went out to open the coop, it didn’t appear any movement had occurred and I was met with what can only be called “chicken stink eye”.  But with the growing light they began to explore the rest of the coop and I did see them venture forth by the time I headed off to my day job.

Now for the clarification.  If you are still reading, the Web-Mistress took issue with any insinuation that she might be other than a crack shot.  So, for the record, I am sure that should any rabbit come along it will meet a swift and terrible end.

Andy

Ornamental Chickens

The ring on the left isn't as nice as the one on the right but costs the same.

Since this blog purports to be about chickens, let me introduce you to my flock.  We picked up eight chicks from Tractor Supply Company in early March that were labeled pullets.  Funny thing, I haven’t seen any eggs yet.  So what I really bought were glorified lawn ornaments.  Given what I have spent building their coop and run, I am currently producing the most expensive compost around.  When August rolls around and they allegedly start laying, I will give them credit for pulling their own weight.  Until then, though, they are merely helping my four year old fulfill his lifelong (I know, right) dream of becoming a “chicken farmer”.

Now, we went with TSC chicks because, never having done this before, it seemed best to not pay a whole lot for each bird.  I mean, should they all have just up and died I would rather be in for $10 rather than $40.  I will admit I was probably too invested in their survival.  Between the stressing over every degree of movement in the temperature being read out on the digital thermometer and the countless trips to the garage to check on the babies, you would have thought I was running a NICU ward.  I finally had to remind myself that people have been raising chickens for thousands of years with much less technology and I should probably relax.

So we will see what sort of eggs these eventually produce.  As best I can tell, we bought Isa Brown chickens.  Anyone have any favorite layers I should consider for next time?

Welcome!

Greetings!  Thanks for stumbling across my little online homestead.  In 2014, my wife, the Web-Mistress, decided that our .1 acres in an upscale Indiana subdivision did not offer enough yard for our growing boys.  Wisely, I agreed to put our house on the market and we were blessed to both sell it and find two acres and a lovely fixer upper in a sleepy little bedroom community in central Indiana.  With the extra space came the ability to pursue a homestead where we are trying to grow chickens, a garden, and some kids (the first two being to feed the third).

This is my attempt to chronicle our adventures and connect with you as we discover what some country living is all about.  There will be some exceptional experiential learning, some failure, and most of all a good time.  So stick around and see what happens.