Archive for the ‘Animals – Chickens’ Category
March 18, 2008 – We Knew This Day Would Come…
Today we got the phone call that our local locker that processes chickens is closing its doors to chicken processing. Golly’s Locker in Maxwell is no longer an option. That means if we want to have our chickens processed at a locker, it would be about 360 miles of driving to drive there, drop off, pick up frozen birds and back home. We’re going to have to think about on-farm processing as an alternative.
one year ago…”Back on the Farm”
March 10, 2008 – Chicken Feed
Today the feed truck delivered a ton of layer feed. We have it mixed at the local mill. It’s more economical than buying the bags at the farm store and we can keep the anti-biotics out. When I was buying oyster shell at the farm store, I noticed that the feed prices weren’t up as much as I thought they should be. Then I spotted the feed bags were now 40 pounds instead of 50 pounds! No doubt for “easier handling!”
At any rate, it sure is convenient to have the truck back right into the shed and unload into a wagon. Fewer trips for us to town and we seldom have to worry about running out. It just so happened, that the truck was able to drive in on frozen ground today as the promised warm-up the next few days will undoubtedly lead to mud and big ruts if the truck came a couple of days from now.
one year ago…”Spring Getaway for Mark and Linda”
February 11, 2008 – Egg Peril
When the temperatures don’t budge much above 0, by the time we make it out to the coop, we sometimes end up with egg balls.
These frozen balls of eggs will end up in very scrambled eggs for breakfast the next morning. Yes, it’s still cold, and it did snow again. Usually it has to warm up to snow, but not today.
October 28, 2007 – Rare Breed Chickens “Silver Campine”
The rare breed chickens the girls purchased a few months ago are growing up!
There’s really no way to describe them other than “chickeny” with their black, white and red coloring, long legs, and chicken strut. The bird in the foreground is a “Silver Campine” a breed originating in Belgium and came out of favor when the commercial chicken industry got off the ground after WWII and the industry standardized on a few breeds and left many of the other breeds behind.
September 16, 2007 – Wild Chicks!
In all the excitement of the past few days, I’ve neglected the “wild chick” story. While we were getting the horse settled the girls saw a hen with chicks under its wings. They were, as Martin described them, “wild chicks” as they were laid, brooded, and hatched without the aid of a nursery.
It’s the first time that a hen has brooded chicks, and we were in the dark that the hen had squirrelled the eggs away. There are three of them, all different colors, so they may have different pappas.
September 11, 2007 – Compare and Contrast
Emma wanted a picture of the baby guinea keat and an adult.
She had her hands full, but Claire eventually got a shot!
August 29, 2007 – Fowl Brooding
We’ve got three separate batches of poultry brooding now – 50 more broilers in the old hog barn, and in one half of the chicken coop, we’ve got the fancy chickens and guineas. The broilers can’t be with any others since they are too pushy and the fancy chickens and guineas can’t be together since they require food of differing protien levels.
So our solution was to stick an old piece of paneling in the ring to divide it up. The paneling has come into many uses – we ripped all the sheets of the dark paneling off the walls of the house shortly after we moved in and I just stuck it in a shed and slowly have been finding uses for it in unexpected ways.
August 24, 2007 – Fancy Fowl
Claire and Emma pooled some of their money to buy some fancy and rare breeds of guinea hens and chickens. They ordered them from Sandhill Preservation Center, a place devoted to the continuation of rare breeds of fowl and heirloom seeds.
This is a Partridge Silkie. This will be a small, fancy chicken with feathered feet (you can already see the feathers on the feet!)
Now, I know some of the skeptics out there may think this may be a copycat attempt to cash in on the good fortune of the folks at Sugar Creek Farm who won a trip to Hollywood and Disneyland with the Chicken Little crew, all just for having a picture of a silkie on their blog! It’s a fun story and you can see part of the story at their site. The girls just liked this chicken and we can only hope that Chicken Little 2 gives us a call!
We think this is a Coral Blue Guinea keat. They ordered about 12 of each – so now there is be even more diversity on the farm!
July 6, 2007 – Black and White
Emma went to gather eggs, came running into the house to get her camera, and took this picture of a black and white hen sharing a nest box that just struck her fancy!
I just turned it into a black and white photo for fun.
July 3, 2007 – Chickens Gone
Today was the last day at the farm for the first batch of broilers.
This picture shows the chickens last week. We had the best batch ever. We ordered 100 birds, and brought 100 birds to the locker. We even left one behind at the farm that we somehow missed in the flurry of excitement in loading them into the transport cages, so we really ended up with 101 birds. And that remaining chicken looks quite depressed – like somehow she’s missed her calling in life, or has an extreme case of surviivor’s guilt! Some of you may still be back at the “ordered 100 birds and ended up with 101.” It’s not a story of the fishes and loaves, but rather the hatchery usually sends a few extra in case some chicks die in transport. We actually recieved 102 birds, so that means only one chick died along the way from brooding through delivery to the locker.
We had some frozen for our customers and brought some home and Linda and Emma cut up about 20 of them for quick and easy meals later in the year.
June 3, 2007 – Chickens Movin’ on Out
Yesterday we moved the chickens out to pasture. They are a little over 3 weeks old. Here’s a chicken tractor full of new laying hens. These ladies will be with us for 2-3 years. They will be in the chicken tractors until fall and then they’ll join the laying hen flock.
They’ve got everything they need in here – fresh grass to live on (moved to fresh grass daily), food, water, and protection from predators.
This picture compares a laying hen chick (dark) with one of the cornish-cross broilers (white) at about three weeks of age. You’ll notice a big difference in size and agility!
May 25, 2007 – Cute Chick
Our favorite chickens are the laying hens as they harbor a bit of wildness and “chickenness” mostly bred out of the meat birds. We usually get 25 mixed breed pullets to refresh our layer flock.
Here’s one of the layer chicks. Some of them look like owls, others look like hawks, and some like the traditional barnyard chickens. These guys are almost ready to head out of the indoor brooder and into the chicken tractors
May 8, 2007 – Keepin’ the Chicks Hot
Today the first batch of chicks arrived. It’s important to keep the chicks hot the first few days – 90 degrees to start and then slowly dropping until they have lost their fluffiness and grow their feathers.
It seems like there is some reverse imprinting with the chicks – it seems whoever happens to be home and dips their beaks in water and sets them up in the brooder is the main caretaker and worrier. This year it’s Linda!
May 5, 2007 – These Boots are Made for the Hen House
This afternoon’s main job was cleaning out a winter of “processed” chicken food and bedding from the chicken coop. Linda decided to splurge and get a new pair of boots. I can only imagine the tight advertising copywriting that led to the impulsive purchase of these beauties.
These boots boast the color of black patent leather made of a 100% neoprene high-top that sit atop a 3/4 inch heel. The high-cut vamp features a rolled edge design (to allow your foot to slide easily into the boot without snagging your hose (water) on slippery mud. The suede-like leather heel lining cradles your heel while preventing slippage on wet manure. If you prefer “a little more boot” to cover the sides of your feet when the going gets deep, this is your best bet.
Claire had to be at school for a band thing at 5:45 am and Emma had to be at her school at 6:45 am. So we had a full day of work today. The hen house is all clean, bedding hauled away and doused with water to start the composting. I was able to get some temporary fencing up in the back pasture to let the goats roam wide, and finished applying the last of the wood chips on the property and only have about 20 pine trees left. Linda got the brooding room all ready for the 125 chickens that will arrive on Tuesday.
