Never A Dull Moment

     This mommy-to-be (that's right, if you missed our Facebook announcement, we're expecting!) has already played her entire hand of energy cards today, and I've only made it through morning chores. It all started with the cries of a farm cat coming from the shed. Tiger had apparently fallen asleep in there and been locked in overnight. Don't worry, she made herself at home with the free buffet of open feed bags. 

     As I was searching for her hiding place, I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye by the grill. It wasn't Tiger colored, and I didn't think we could have possibly got two cats stuck in there overnight. Had we locked someone else in the shed? 

     Wait... that's not a cat! 

     CRAP! 

     The meat birds got out of their brooder!!!!

     Yup, that's right the meat birds that have been hanging out in their brooder have made it to the age that they should go out on pasture.  We just happened to be 12-hours too late with our plans for this evening, and the birds managed to fly up and pop the top cover of the brooder and four of the sixteen found their way out into the shed... chowing down in the feed bags, balancing on flower pots, and making themselves a nice comfy roost on a pile of pallet boards.    

     This left the now tired pregnant woman, who hadn't eaten breakfast yet, let alone fed anyone else, a dilemma.  How was I going to get these birds back in?  

     I'd move within three feet of them, and they'd frantically fly looking for a safe place out my reach, and pooping whenever I got close enough to grab them out of fear.  Now they were wedged between flower pots in positions that I could not get to them in, clinging off the spokes of a mountain bike, perched on the windowsill, and one almost made it to the rafters.  

     In the meantime, the birds still in the brooder were trying with all their might to once again pop the top and join the escapees in their perceived freedom.  I refilled their feeders and tossed two boards on top of the brooder to try and hold down the screens that covered it.  

     Defeated, I called my husband for a second time; the first time having been to inform him of the situation that I found myself in ten minutes before.  

     "Do we have a fishing net on a big pole somewhere?"  I asked meekly.  

     "Nope, just the ones downstairs... can't you just corner them and grab them?"

     "I haven't eaten breakfast yet, or even touched the rest of the chores, and every time I bend up and down I get more and more lightheaded," I sighed.  "Could I just put a container of feed and water in the shed for them and leave them for when you get home?"  

     It was a last resort for the now exhausted pregnant lady who could hear the farm cats scratching at the door I had managed to tie shut with a piece of bailing twine.  Purrball was adamant that I was way too late with his breakfast.  Even Tiger seemed to want back in because at least then she'd have her free-choice feed sack buffet back.  I shooed the cats away from the door, and completely defeated and exhausted set out containers of water and feed on the floor of the shed next to the brooder.  It's just four of them, I reminded myself as I went out to finish the chores.  

    Here's to hoping the Mr. has better luck catching "just the four" escapee meat birds tonight so they can head out to their new homes on pasture.  There's officially never a dull moment around here.  

A Snowy Morning For Chores

     The seasons seem to change quickly around here.  Looking back at my farm notebook, it was a sunny 56 degrees just two days ago, and today we awoke to snow falling from the gray clouds above.  December has been a hectic month being in the midst of another holiday season, and had some fairly abnormal weather, but today all was calm when I stepped outside to do the morning chores in my new insulated bibs that I got for Christmas, with farm cats tangled at my feet.  

     Dashing through the falling flurries, the farm cats, as always, were quick to help this morning, and grab a snack in the warm dry shed of some of the turkey feed.

     Since I've checked in with everyone last, a bit has happened around here with our turkeys.  A week ago, we moved the turkey trailer to its new location by the chicken coop inadvertently creating a sort of barnyard for our animals past the old Pennsylvania Barn up on the hill.  

     It's a rather haphazard barnyard created with bits and pieces of whatever we could scavenge up: an old shed door propped up with tomato stakes to act as a windbreak for the chickens, chicken wire and garden fencing zip-tied to the runs to give the chickens some extra space and new areas to scratch, and an overabundance of white string used to tie newspapers together, now tightly strung in a 6-8" grid to create an aerial barrier between the turkeys and freedom.

     Unfortunately, this aerial barrier has failed us.  Again.  You may recall the turkey hen on the greenhouse roof from the last post.  Well, after just hours outside the second day (at their new location), she was promptly seen checking in with the chickens from our window.  I gathered her up, and stuck her back in the enclosure, and then spent the next thirty minutes securing the place she escaped through around the tree (witnessed by the turkey down stuck in the string nearby).  

    An hour after the repairs, she had escaped yet again.  Again, I stuck her inside their enclosure.  As dusk was now approaching, I decided to grab the hunting seat, and sit outside in the barnyard to watch vigil over the turkey hen to make sure she did not escape again.  If, somehow, she did, at least I would know how she did it, and in theory, be able to get her back inside quickly.  

     Without missing a beat, at dusk, she glanced upward through the strings, and tried to catapult herself through to freedom.  She hit the strings and flapped back down, defeated.  Yes!  It worked!  She had been using the tree for leverage after all!  After a few more failed attempts, I was satisfied that she would have to sleep in the trailer tonight.  Just as I thought she had given up, she mustered up enough wing power for one last ditch effort, and through she went!  

     I spent the next ten minutes chasing her around, while the gobbler now tried to desperately hurl himself through the aerial barrier.  I finally managed to wrestle her back in, but before I could turn around to secure her escape route, out she went again.  This time she found herself on the trailer's roof (where I could not reach), and was eagerly eyeing up the mulberry tree above her head.  

     The Mr. had fortunately pulled in at the landlord's (past the white barn behind her in the above picture) around that time, and I was able to frantically call him and get him home.  He climbed up to the trailer roof and grabbed her off, then promptly put both her and the gobbler to bed for the night.  Presently, they are stuck inside for a few days until repairs are made to the enclosure that will hopefully keep them inside!  

     With the turkeys out of the garden, the Delaware cockerels are now down there alone in their chicken tractor, working up the ground and eating up the tall and small weeds.  Our aim is for them to make it to the end of the garden before it gets too cold, and then they'll head off to the freezer so we can have some more chicken throughout the year.  

     As they work up the garden, we are finally starting to plan for next year's garden, but a little differently than before.  In years past this was a quiet winter break where all the planning could take place for two months before seed starting began.  This year, the greenhouse and cold frame are both still producing so there's only a limited break from the gardening.  Who would have thought that I would have to weed in winter?!  In December, we've harvested and eaten radishes, carrots, parsley, celery, and even tomatoes, though the plants of the latter are now pulled up.  Although the plants inside were bit by the cold, both the greenhouse and cold frame are certainly extending our season!  

     So on this cold and snowy day, it looks like I'll be finishing up some of the year-end totals, and perhaps get to work on a new garden layout plan for the coming season as I've already managed to inventory all of our seeds earlier this month.  After all, we can't harvest a seed that was never sown.  

Feeding Time At The Farm

     I know, I know, it's supposed to be "feeding time at the zoo," and some mornings it certainly does feel like a zoo around here as you trip on farm cats running at your feet to help with the morning chores.  This morning I wanted to give everyone a sneak peek at our new additions that I've been dropping hints about on Facebook, and if you take a walk with me through some morning chores, I'm sure you'll quickly discover just who they are!

     So, let's start out down at the garden with our Chicken Tractor, which we just finished construction on last month (not even a whole month ago!), that's complete with laying box and roosts and the eight Delaware cockerels who are acting as our self-powered manure welding lawnmowers.  They sure do get feisty when they see their morning feed coming, clamoring at the door to get to it.  Currently the Chicken Tractor has a temporary blue tarp for the roof until we get a white or tan one to replace it, and has two pieces of plywood that are acting as windbreaks in the chillier temperatures we are reaching at night.  Before too much longer these cockerels will be heading to the freezer as our temperatures really begin to dip.  

If you look to the left of the Chicken Tractor you'll notice Purrball is being a big helper this morning and cleaning up the chicken's feed bucket!

     Next, I head up the hill to the main coop, or the Pastured Poultry Palace as I like to call it.  Go ahead, roll your eyes at the name.  Plenty do.  This coop was completed in the summer of 2015, and presently holds our laying flock of five (Plymouth Barred Rocks) and breeding flock of eight (Delawares) for meat birds.  At the moment we are collecting eggs from both flocks until the spring when hopefully someone will go broody and we can get some chicks around here!  The Barred Rocks are now over a year old, and are presently going through their first molt, although their egg production is doing okay at the moment, and believe it or not, up from this time last year.  We'll see how long that lasts though.  The Delawares just started laying last month, and have finally made it over a dozen eggs between the seven ladies.  Their extra small eggs make cooking rather interesting.  

Mr. Roo always knows when feed is on the way, and keeps track of the camera for the ladies.

This morning's breakfast for everyone is chicken porridge!

     Next, we're heading back down the driveway and towards the house, whistling away.  It's time for the farm cats' breakfast with a brief stop to check on the new additions that got fed late last night, and still have plenty left.  

     Construction areas are certainly a mess, and today it's my mess to clean up (at least a little).  With construction started midday Sunday, there are only a few more boards that need tacked on to call it done for now.  Later we plan to add some more amendments to the structure, and in a few days move it out of our driveway.  Nestled inside are our new additions...

     ... two Bourbon Red turkeys who are about four months old.  They came from my in-laws who didn't have a place to house them over the winter, and therefore asked if perhaps we might want some turkeys?  After some debate between the Mr. and I as turkeys were not in our plans at the moment, and less than a week of construction on the new Turkey Trailer (I'll talk about that in another post), we're quite excited to see how these two settle in around here!  The guess is that these two are actually a pair, and it's our hopes that next spring they will become a breeding pair.  For now, they are pecking at the glass windows in front of them (they've never had windows before as they've lived outside in a mobile run) and taking in their new surroundings, including the farm cats that needed to peek through the windows.  

     Speaking of farm cats, it's on to breakfast for them!  

     Followed by what quite a few of us wish to be doing right now... snoozing in the sun.

Wishing you a beautiful, albeit brisk, autumn day from Pennsylvania Dutch Country! 

Our Self-Powered Manure Wielding Lawnmowers

     Last month, the Mr. and I went to the Mother Earth News Fair in Somerset, Pennsylvania as an early anniversary trip.  Camping at a nearby state park in the brisk mountain air of Western Pennsylvania, we spent three days soaking in the sights, sounds and even smells of the farming and homesteading lifestyles.  While there we got to hear a lecture from the "most famous farmer in America" Joel Salatin on Salad Bar Beef.  His rousing Southern Baptist style lecture was a fabulous way to kick off Sunday morning as we learned how he raises beef cattle using rotational grazing in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley.  (More about his farm can be found on its website.)

    While my husband was dreaming about getting beef cattle, I was hurriedly taking notes while attempting to figure out how to scale his practices down for chickens.  Yup, you heard me right... chickens.  If you can use rotational grazing for cattle, why not implement the practice with some amendments for chickens?  After all, we were already halfway there.

As our Delawares grew we wanted to give them
more space, although even in their present pasture
they were more than content.

     Before leaving on our three-day getaway, we started construction on a chicken tractor that we planned to use in our garden to help rough it up a bit (and weed it!) for spring planting.  Our plan was to allow half of the flock of sixteen Delawares - all cockerels - to escape the confines of the coop and pasture runs before butcher.  Once we got back, we finished off the construction, and this Saturday set our plan to work.  

     Using these self-powered manure wielding lawnmowers (i.e. chickens), we intend to make the painful process of putting 8,400 square feet of garden to bed for the winter a little easier on us.  Fortunately, the Mr. moved the eight not so happy cockerels down to the garden  on Saturday morning while I got to man the doors to the run, coop and "animal transportation system."  (Okay, so the Mr. tied a large dog crate to my old red wooden wagon I had when I was a kid.  Unfortunately, we were so busy I neglected to get a picture of this spectacle, but it worked out wonderfully.)   

     Then, off into the chicken tractor they went, and were happy as could be until about mid-afternoon when they noisily demanded more ground to peck on.  Thus, the Mr. moved them down the row simple as could be.  Sunday morning, they were moved again, further down the row.  Then came this morning, when it was now my turn to move them.  

     The Mr. made it look and sound so easy, taking less than five minutes to move the chicken tractor.  Simply lift the axle for the tire, hold it up with your foot, and then slide the tire on.  Spin the nut onto the end.  Then repeat on the other side.  Grab the rope, and pull forward.  Do the reverse, and remove both tires.  Sounds like a breeze right?  

     If only... 

     With two farm cats in tow I grabbed a container of feed and headed towards the garden.  I tossed out the feed to the new area they would be moved to.  That was mistake number one as it sent the Delawares into a frenzy trying desperately to get the feed that was on the other side of the chicken tractor.  

     I lifted the axle, barely getting it two inches off the ground before I had to drop it.  There was no way this was going to work, and now the two farm cats that I had in tow were sitting where the tractor was going to be moved eating the feed!  I tried pulling the rope without tires on.  Surprisingly I made it eight inches while the cockerels continued to demand their new ground and scrambled for their eight inches of feed.  Finally I gave in and called my husband.  "Use a shovel to pry the side up and stick the wheel on.  You got this."

     Kicking myself for not thinking of this easy solution the whole way to the shed for the shovel and back to the garden, I jammed the shovel underneath and pried.  Seriously?  It came two inches off the ground... the same height I could have lifted it myself.  I pulled the shovel out and moved further down the bottom board.  Still not high enough.  Then I moved even further down.  FINALLY!  Four inches off the ground now, with me holding the shovel, would be enough for the tire.  If only I could reasonably reach that two feet away to put on the tire with those two hands that were holding the shovel... (Mistake two.)  

     Doing half a split in the garden, holding down the shovel with one foot in a shoe that bore no traction (mistake three), I begun to slide on the tire with my hands, just as my foot slipped and down four inches the chicken tractor came crashing.  Whack!  The shovel handle went flying straight against my shin, while the disgruntled Delawares flew and squawked about.  I jammed the shovel back in and tried again.  Success!  Now onto the next side.  

     The second side went a little better.  Finally, the chicken tractor was just shy of four inches off the ground in the back, so I went around front, grabbed the rope and yanked.  It slowly inched forward.  I GOT THIS!  That's when I became a little too ambitious (mistake four), and started to walk backwards as I yanked, slipping in the wet grass on the edge of the garden pathway which caused me to go sprawling, landing squarely on my butt.  

     For once in the morning luck was on my side as there were no cars passing at that moment, and the only living things to witness this was the eight Delawares who now were busily pecking at their new ground, the two farm cats who had made themselves comfortable on the lawn, and all the plants who fortunately didn't have eyes, and came out unscathed.  Well unscathed aside from those that I had landed on, and now sat on bewildered and frustrated.  

     At that point, I gave up and got up. I grabbed the rope, yanked it one more time to its final destination, situating the chicken tractor in a straight line.  I pulled the wheels off, and said firmly, "I hope you're happy," to the Delawares, before grabbing the feed bucket and heading up to the coop to do the rest of the morning chores with the two farm cats once again in tow.  

     All-in-all, everyone is only slightly worse for the wear.  I have a bruised shin and backside, along with slight rope burn on my hands and a sore wrist.  Additionally, the escapade only took an extra twenty minutes.  The eight Delaware cockerels are now once again happy, starting their morning thanks with adolescent crows that sound more like bleating goats than roosters.  Yet, the only thing I can fully consider is, "Darn.  I have to do this again tomorrow morning."

Our Self-Powered Manure Wielding Lawnmowers at work Saturday morning

Things They Don't Tell You About Raising Chickens

 

     It's been over a year now since we brought home our balls of fluff.  From the start we knew we wanted a multipurpose chicken that we could raise for eggs and meat, and had settled on Plymouth Barred Rocks after a lot of research, and this past spring we added some Delawares as well.  The Mr. designed a chicken coop, which I've nicknamed the "Pastured Poultry Palace," designed to separate the birds into meat and laying flocks, and cut down the workload on us of having to go to two separate buildings.  Yet during the last year we came across quite a few things that no one really ever told us before raising chickens.  So to hopefully eliminate some surprises for you along your journey, I thought I'd better relay some of our not-so-wonderful adventures: 

Decide early on if the chickens are your pets or your food.  Realistically, they cannot be both.

Roosters to roasters.
(You can thank one of my old bosses for that pun.) 

     I cannot recall how many times I was asked what the names of our chickens were, as though all animals have names... but ours don't.  It was something we decided immediately, and by not naming them, it helped us along in the mindset we had to follow to get us through the inevitable fate of farm animals raised for food.  (It certainly helped me for sure!)  At some point our animals would become dinner.  That by no means, means you should mistreat the animals because they are your food instead of your pets.  Every morning, I still went up and said hi to them as I got them their food, and changed out their water.  I'd throw earthworms I found to them or leftover grapes, and enjoyed watching them chase each other around for the "treats."  When times are economically tough, I always make sure to purchase the animal's food first before our own to ensure that they always have enough to eat.  (Don't worry, we won't go hungry either.  We just might not be eating the food we want, but instead the food we have.)  They, while they were with us, enjoyed great lives.  And, when the time came to make dinner out of some of them, the process was quick.  I cannot stress enough that whether your chicken is a pet or food/food source is something that you need to understand from the beginning, and remember that mindset as you raise them, because if you're treating your chicken like a pet, it will be really hard when you need to cook one for the table.

Our Delawares out in their pasture run.  We've found our chickens prefer green over grain.

They want it all, and they want it NOW.  

The Plymouth Barred Rock rooster is
always the most vocal with his
demands.  He also lets his hens know
when someone is on their way with
food to the coop.  The Delawares
have caught on to his announcements
now, and come running too.

     The chickens have always been ones to want to be fed.  It's not that we underfeed our birds.  It's just they believe that whatever we have in the bucket is going to be bigger and better than whatever they have in front of them.  The hens scramble to the feed bucket each morning, half climbing over top of each other on their mad dash for whatever "treats" are in it.  (Apparently, the grass is always greener on the other side.)  I have gotten pecked by the hens until I drop the bucket and released all the food, especially if I am blocking them from getting into the bucket since they only get half of its contents.  I've also gotten pecked by a rooster so badly that it drew blood because I wasn't feeding his grain holder fast enough.  (My mother actually got spurred by a rooster when doing feeding for us while we were on vacation as well.)  The moral of the message is... when you feed them, do it fast and no one gets hurt.  

  

Roosters (and hens) can be ornery.  

Our three Plymouth Barred
Rock roosters in calmer times.

     Everyone mentions a mean rooster or a hen a little too aggressive in establishing the pecking order, but we were certainly not prepared for the blood bath that I stumbled across when closing up the coop on March 28.  It looked like something out of a television crime drama, with actual spray patterns of the blood inside the run.  You could see where one cornered the other.  Where the larger of the two started aggressively ripping feathers out from the underside of the medium rooster's wing.  And then, their blood stained trail to the  coop.

     We shined a light into the inside of the coop, the largest two roosters were coated in blood, feathers still hanging from their mouths, and their faces pecked and obviously still bleeding, as well as were various parts of their bodies.  The third rooster, the smallest one, was snuggled up on the roost against the wall that led to the ladies' side, specks of blood on him from the spray of the fight, but no sign of physical harm, or that he was aggressive towards the others.  He had always been the quiet one, while the two larger ones were always battling for dominance.  There was nothing we could do for the two larger, battle scarred roosters, and for the first times in our lives butchered chickens.  We started at 7 p.m., and only stumbled into bed around midnight.  The next morning our lone rooster, crowed much louder and prouder than I had ever heard him crow before, to welcome the sun and greeted the four ladies on the other side of the fence.  I have a feeling our meat birds will become meat birds a little quicker from here on out...

There's a routine established with chickens.

Walking down their tunnel run.  The
scraps they don't pick at get cleaned out.

     Maybe it's not intentional on the part of the birds, but the chickens established a routine for us, and not the other way around.  The first thing I do in the mornings at the coop is dump their scraps into their "tunnel runs" to the "pasture run," or directly into the "pasture run" if I'm feeling extra adventurous.  Then, I open the tunnels or chutes, and head towards the coop.  This preoccupies the chickens so the rest of the chores I can do only with the "assistance" of the farm cats, and not both birds and cats.  Then I change out the water inside the coop or run, refill any grain holders that need filling, and check for eggs.  (We also check for eggs in the late-afternoon/evening too, as some prefer morning to lay, and others the afternoon.)  By getting the birds essentially "out of the way" chores go a lot quicker at the coop.

     As an important note: They will let you know if you are late.  Every morning, I try to be out there between 8:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m.  By 9:45, I am officially late, and the rooster will be crowing about more than just the sun.  If I'm there at 8:00 a.m., the hens are dust bathing, and looking at with the "um, we're still getting our morning baths" look, and you know you are in trouble for interrupting them.

No matter how you design your coop (or if you purchase a pre-built coop), they'll be something about it you'll wish you could change.  

     We did research for months on how we wanted a chicken coop constructed before the hammer hit the first nail, yet looking back, there are certainly things we'd do differently now...

• Sure edges on poop trays and doors to the coop hold shavings and poop in, but they also hold it in, making it a pain when you go to clean the coop.  
• The chicken "pasture run" was originally constructed without an access hatch, but we quickly learned it needed one to allow us to feed them in the run and for any emergencies.  
• The pvc grain holders made life easier to fit everything inside the coop, but the elbows don't allow feed to fall down very well, so we resorted back to regular feeders as their primary feeders in the coop, and use the pvc pipes as a secondary feeder. 
• Our Plymouth Barred Rock hens prefer curtains on their nesting boxes as long as they are pulled way back.  Regardless, our hens prefer to face the wall when nesting and only turn around if they hear noise in the coop.  
• You will never be able to make their favorite nesting box large enough, and they will try to lay eggs on top of each other in the box.  Two of our hens favor the left box, and the other two favor the right.  If someone is in the box when they want to be you can hear the ruckus caused by the complaining hen in the house (a few hundred feet away, with all windows closed)! 

... just to name a few.  

What have you learned about your chickens that no one prepared you for?

Canning Season

An evening's harvest

     Things are a little crazy around here as the summer harvest begins to come in, and the deep freezes and canning shelves overflow. We've just entered Week 3 of canning season, and as I was putting away some of the newly canned goods (Sweet Pickles from Week 1, and Bread & Butter Pickles and Sweet Pickle Relish from Week 2), I realized something... 

     No, it has nothing to do with the amount of cucumbers we're swimming in. Well, actually, I take that back, it just might. It also has to do with all the cabbage, tomatoes and peppers, and all the not-so-blank spaces on our canning shelves as we expand to can even more of our own foods each year. You see, we're not going to have enough room for all of our canned goods this year.

     I was concerned last week about running out of freezer space after having to dedicate another compartment to chicken scraps.  (Two whole compartments of one of our 15 cubic foot deep freezes are now almost full with vegetables/fruits for the chickens this winter, and before it's all said and done, a third compartment might be added as well to make sure we have enough for them.)  

     Now, with the lack of space for canned goods, some serious rearranging is going to need to take place, because figuring out where to store canned goods is not quite as easy as everyone thinks as this is our year's supply worth of food essentially being "purchased" at one time.  (Take a look at "You Plan To Eat All That?" if you don't believe me.)  

     Some days a weekend "shopping trip" to purchase this year's worth of food seems more reasonable.  I often wonder why it should take an entire "season" to can everything you need.  Why can't we just all jam it into a couple of days and be done with it all?  

Canning weekend of 2015

     Spoiler: Don't do this.  Once a year I get this brilliant idea and jam peaches, apples and tomato products into one weekend in August just to get them all over with.  Every year I come up for air exhausted and swear I'll never do it again.  This year, I've bypassed most of that stage and am making plans for a "relaxing" canning weekend containing all these products again from the fiery depths of my kitchen in August...

     This early summer has been the year of pickles for me.  The cucumber plants are (for once) doing what they are supposed to do, even though we have an outbreak of striped cucumber beetles to deal with.

Early Jersey Wakefield Cabbage
fermenting to make Sauerkraut

     So far we have a batch of Sweet Pickles done, with another batch fermenting.  There's Sweet Pickle Relish canned (recipe here), and also a batch of the simplest pickle I can find: Bread & Butter Pickles.  To top it all off, Sauerkraut is also fermenting alongside the Sweet Pickles right now, and I'm about to have to thoroughly rearrange the kitchen for canning season soon as from here on out, it is expected that I will be canning (at bare minimum) one recipe each week until October.  That's at least twelve weeks of canning (and a lot more than twelve recipes worth of things that will need canned)!

     I'm not quite sure how many more cucumbers we'll need this year, so our chickens might get lucky and have some extra cucumbers to pick at instead of just cabbage heads, broccoli, cauliflower, beet tops and radishes.  I'm sure they won't mind.

The Plymouth Barred Rock also pecking at some Watermelon rinds.

In Other News

Did you say food?  Our Delawares are the least picky
chickens I have ever seen when it comes to food.  

     To complete the cycle of chaos around here, the Delawares are begging for their own pasture (and three escaped their run in search of grass when I went to change out their water the other day, so we really need to get their pasture done).  Chicken chasing is not all that it is cracked up to be.  

    With temperatures climbing into the 90s for almost a whole week now, they and the Plymouth Barred Rocks have been getting mud puddle filled runs to help keep them cool, and they are loving it!  They have also been keeping us on our toes as we change out their water multiple times throughout the day and keep an eye on whether or not they are getting heat stressed.  In all the twenty-two chickens seem to be doing fairly well considering the temperatures.

Baling Straw on July 4th before the rains came.  The Mr. is
sitting out there in the tractor, waiting to get a wagon.

     The Mr. has been helping out our landlord occasionally with the hay and straw harvests this year, and my cousin who was visiting from North Carolina and I got to watch everyone try to get the straw bales in before the rains came on the Fourth of July.  The rains, which were supposed to only arrive in the evening, came early (around 2 p.m.), and sent everyone, along with their wagons, running for cover.   Fortunately, we live in the country, and the July Fourth weekend also gave us 18 different fireworks displays, which we watched from the sand mound.

We will also be working on replacing the greenhouse roof
before winter as a windstorm late last week ripped it to shreds.

     As we started to harvest our summertime produce, we planted a late season crop of Incredible Sweet Corn, and are now planning for our fall crops in the garden.  Just this past week our seed starter trays were filled with Winter Dream Cauliflower, Sun King Broccoli, Red Acre Cabbage, Early Jersey Wakefield Cabbage and Blue Curled Scotch Kale seeds.   The seeds are currently waiting out the weather on the porch, where I can keep them easily watered, and will hopefully be moved to the greenhouse once needed adjustments are made to it.  Soon we'll harvest the rest of the cabbage and begin planting some of our fall season seeds.

Crops Being Harvested

July: Black Raspberries, Blackberries, Broccoli, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Cucumbers, Herbs (various), Hull Peas, Lettuce, Mint, Mulberries, Peppers, Radishes, Sugar Beets, Tomatoes, Yellow Squash and Zucchini

Upcoming in August: Blackberries, Broccoli, Cabbage, Cucumbers, Herbs (various) Lettuce, Lima Beans, Mint, Oats, Patty Pan Squash, Peppers, Radishes, Sugar Beets, Sweet Corn, Tomatoes, Wineberries, Yellow Squash and Zucchini

Until next time, Happy Harvesting!

International Heritage Breed Week

     In honor of International Heritage Breeds Week (May 15-21, 2016), I'd like to skip ahead in our chicken keeping adventures and introduce to you our new editions around here.  Cue, cute balls of fluff and feathers: 

     Meet the newest, rather vocal, members of this crazy life we lead, who arrived via a 26-hour trip from Missouri on the twelfth: seventeen Delaware chicks.  

     Having started our chicken keeping adventures last spring with seven Plymouth Barred Rocks, a mid-nineteenth century breed, which are on the recovering list of Heritage Poultry Breeds by the Livestock Conservancy, we figured that another heritage breed would be a good edition. (Plus, as history people, we are biased towards heritage breeds.  Go figure.)  Plymouth Barred Rocks are hearty birds that can withstand differences in weather, overall climate, and work well both free-ranging and confined.  On top of that, Plymouth Barred Rocks are a dual-purpose breed, being wonderful brown egg layers, and also good meat birds.  Before being replaced by other more modern breeds, Plymouth Barred Rocks were popular in the meat bird industry as broilers during the 1920s.  Two of our roosters went by the way of the meat birds, and ended up in our freezer.  Our third rooster (above, left) is happy with his four hens who keep us in a lot of eggs as they pass their first full year of life.  

     So why not stick with Plymouth Barred Rocks, and add some more of them to the flock instead of another breed, since they're such a great dual purpose bird?  I'm blaming this one on the Mr.  (Who knew there's Crazy Chicken Men and not just Crazy Chicken Ladies?)  He noticed the Delawares, and literally on his birthday we ordered fifteen of them.  Thanks to the hatchery for throwing in two extras in the tragic event that not all the chicks we ordered would make it through the mail, we now have seventeen (as they all made it through).  

     Delawares are a much younger breed than our Plymouth Barred Rocks are, but ironically, more difficult to locate.  On the watch list of Heritage Poultry Breeds by the Livestock Conservancy they come in slightly more endangered than the Plymouth Barred Rocks.  Delawares have only been around since 1940, just sliding into the cutoff for heritage breeds (a breed that has been around since at least the mid-twentieth century).  They, like the Plymouth Barred Rocks, are good dual purpose birds and were utilized by the meat industry up through the 1950s as broilers.  

     Thus, we decided that the Delawares would become our meat flock and the Plymouth Barred Rocks would be our laying flock.  (Thank goodness the Mr. designed a coop that would hold so many birds!  I have a feeling he secretly knew what was to come when building it.)  Both flocks would be separated on their own side of the coop and run system, and contain their own rooster along with a few hens.

     Still young and only gaining their first black-tipped white wing feathers, our Delawares are currently in quarantine in a brooder in the wood shed, waiting until they hit at least a month of age and the weather gets warmer, for them to be sent out to the coop with the "big chickens."  For now, they're only testing out their newly discovered "big chicken skills," scratching in the new shavings and testing out their wings, which you can watch in our video below.
  

For more information about heritage breeds, visit The Livestock Conservancy's website.

A Morning Surprise At The Chicken Coop

     These three precious eggs certainly made it through an ordeal in the coop this morning!  I hurriedly started to clean out the chicken coop, hoping to get it done before the rains came.  I didn't bother to check the laying boxes as our morning layers don't usually find their ways to them until 10 a.m.; however, I managed to forget that we never checked the boxes last night as we had arrived home fairly late to lock everyone up.  Swearing as we nestled down in bed last night that we'd remember to gather them in the morning, here I was in the morning, cleaning the coop...

     In went the hoe.  Out it went.  Bumping against every board in the coop to make sure all the hay, shavings and "free manure" were finding their way out of every crack and crevice.  Whitey and Purrball, two of our farm cats, had joined me on the roof, every now and then, leaning over to peek through the open doors to see what was going on in there!  The cats aren't allowed in the coop, especially when there are chickens in there, but since I locked out the chickens into their runs, I figured the cats could peek in over my head.  

     Soon enough I was filling waterers from our new rain barrel and the cats became more interested in sound of running water from the barrel than anything else.  After a while, I went to close the doors of the coop and let the chickens back in, never having bothered to disturb the laying boxes as the hens generally keep a rather tidy nest in them.  As I went to close the last door, I noticed some grayish fluff sticking out of one of the laying boxes!  

     Oh... NO, NO, NO!  How could I have managed to not count the hens right?!  

     I slammed the door shut, locked it tight and nearly tore open the lid to the laying box to make sure everyone was okay in there.  

     Meeeeoooowwwww... oh, it's just Whitey.  What, Whitey!?  What are you doing in here? 

     Curled up in a ball in the laying box, carefully tucked underneath him, were these three eggs.  Who would have thunk this morning that I would find a broody cat?  

Bawk, Bawk: Part 4 of Our Chicken Keeping Adventure

This look-back is meant to thoroughly introduce you to why we have chickens. Updates of our chickens' progress can be found on our Facebook and in additional blog posts. - The American Haggard Housewife

     With the chicks growing quickly (if you missed it, see Cluck, Cluck: Part 2), it was on to the coop for us!  Over the course of the previous year we'd been scouring homesteading blogs, quizzing friends and family that had chickens, and generally reading up on the fluffy, feathery, noisy mess to get our arsenal of information before we actually created a coop.  I think from the get-go we knew we were going to build our own coop, something that fit our needs and budget (actually looking back, throw budget out the window) that both my husband and I could love and call our own creation.  So we set to work considering what not to build, and came up with something that looked like this...

     What?  Don't you see it?  That's totally a stick figure of a chicken coop and runs, complete with doors and windows and everything.  A true architectural masterpiece.  Use your imagination the way that you do when you look at a child's drawing... what do you mean you still don't see all those details in it?  Sigh. 

     Okay, so the scribbles on the back of a receipt, in a notebook, on a napkin, etc. ending up becoming something a little more realistic (and 3-dimensional) in the end.  I think it should be called a "Pastured Poultry Palace" although both my husband and father-in-law disagree with me wholeheartedly and keep reminding me... it's "just a chicken coop."  

     So our "Pastured Poultry Palace"... (did you really think I would give up that easy?)... started to take shape last June, even though brush and tree removal from the area started long before our chicks arrived mid-May.  We begun the process in the shed as we didn't have a generator (or hundreds and hundreds of feet of extension cord) to run our power tools and the ground wasn't completely ready for the coop just yet.  So we figured, in our "free time" with the chicks eagerly listening and commenting about our construction methods, we'd build the base and walls in the shed, walk them up the hill, and then drop them down before too long.  

May 26th - Completion of the 4x8' base to sit two foot off the ground and coated with back splash on the bottom for easy cleaning (something my father-in-law suggested and thank goodness he did!).

May 27th - The Mr. proudly showing off the first completed wall of the coop.  (Note: The wall is not attached, hence why he's holding it there.)  This taller wall will be the front wall of the coop, and you can see it has openings for doors and windows and well, plenty of other openings.  Yes, the whole thing has studs of 2x3s (which may be a little beefier than needed), and the rest of the openings that are not going to become doors and windows will be insulated (a bit overkill?).  But, "Go big or go home." 

 May 28th - The Mr. showing off the back wall to the coop with even more openings!  Some of these openings will be for laying boxes and windows as well.  The rest is home to more of that insulation.  

     Not bad for three days work in the evenings, right?  Well, that's when our project lulled, greatly.  It's not that we didn't want to work on it, it's that we didn't have time with jam packed work weeks and evenings, a garden that needed planted and weeded, and chicks who were growing ever larger, and beginning to crow up a storm.  The Mr.'s best friend came up on the 11th of June and together, he and my husband hauled the coop up the hill (as there was no way my back would've held out for that).  My in-laws came two days later to give the project a much needed boost.  

June 13th - Up went the studs (and they did not color coordinate their shirts on purpose, but my mother-in-law and I got a kick out of the idea that the old saying holds true "like father, like son.")

June 13th - And then on went the roof.

June 13th - The insulation got jammed in between all that over-kill bracing.

June 13th - Followed by the walls.  

By the next morning, things were looking pretty darn good.  The coop was more-or-less enclosed and the inside was beginning to look like, well, a chicken coop.  They had the holes drilled out for the water pipes, the ceiling insulated along with the front wall, and they were beginning to work on the other walls and add laying boxes.  By the end of two days, the coop looked something like this: 

     And then, we waited a few days (with rain storms in between and plastic garbage bags stapled to all the openings) to continue the work.  Meanwhile our chicks were growing all the bigger and now eagerly testing their wings out in the brooder.  (First piece of advice I have in this entire process is start your coop as soon as you order your chicks, if not long before.)  By sunset on the 24th we had doors, front windows, and window screens installed along with the vent they had already added ten days before.  The laying boxes were roofed, and the rain pipe added to the gutter.  

     By the following week, my cousin from North Carolina had come up to spend some time with us and she was drafted to help finish off the interior of the coop, adding "chicken jails," roosting bars and a hanging feeder, as well as screening off any large holes that still remained that were not going to be put to use quite yet.  By the 2nd of July (37 days after we started the project) the coop was ready and secure for the chicks to move in, although not completed.  

     We coated the bottom of the coop with shredded copy paper, added a container for "greens" (or "actual food" as I like to call it) and grit, as well as a gallon waterer as their water system was not installed yet.  (Yes, the coop may look a little small in this picture as the center dividing wall is up creating two separate 4x4' coops.)  Boy were the chicks happy to spread their wings in the new coop!

For the moment, the picture of Mr. Rooster checking out his new digs will have to tied you over.  Watch for Part 5 in the coming months to continue the chicken tale and figure out if everything goes to plan with chickens in this new "Pastured Poultry Palace."  (I'm still not giving up on that name.)