Signs of Spring, FINALLY!!!!yupilipiuiipupiivnckn

Oill
Vas

3/31/15 chickens by east garden

4/2/15 dust bath for all

April, 3rd, Lil prepared 6 bowls of goodies for the chickens to celebrate their 3rd hatchday.For Easter Sunday dinner, I dug up some sun chokes. I’m not sure if this is the last harvest from last year or the first harvest from this year.

4/5/15 sun chokes

Lastly, pictures of the east and west gardens and the uncovered chicken run. Note the snow. Also note the destroyed fencing of the east garden, there were a group of deer that took it down trying to get out late last fall.

4/5/15 west garden

4/5/15 east garden

4/5/15 chicken run

4/5/15 going in for the night.

Personal note, I’m going back to the Appalachian Trail for a month or so, starting April 30th.  I’m now a section hiker.

My hiking blog is  https://myhike2014.wordpress.com/

Yes, It Has Been A While.

I’ve been away from my blog, lets see if this dinosaur can remember how to post.  This post will try to fill in what has been happening in my back yard these past many months.

I did something for Thanksgiving, that I haven’t done since my Ladies started laying eggs.  I BOUGHT EGGS at the supermarket.  After laying over 3,000 eggs my hens have cut way back on the number of eggs they are producing. Partly because they are getting older, it is getting colder, some are molting and the loss of Miny. Some days I’d get 1 or 2 eggs but most days I wouldn’t get any. My wife and I said from the beginning that the chickens were pets and we would keep and care for them even when they stopped laying eggs.  So we buy eggs.  I’ve forgotten how pale and tasteless the store bought eggs are.

Shortly after Miny went to that big farm in the sky, my son asked me if we would take in his girlfriends last chicken.  They had a pair of chickens for quite a while but only one returned to their coop after free-ranging one day. I said yes but if she didn’t integrate nicely he would get her back.  I had the “cottage” set up for Miny still, so Holly was put in there. She was separated from the other chickens by a wire fence.  They still tried to attack each other thru this fence. With colder nights coming we really needed to get Holly into the coop. So after a couple of weeks with the fence between them we started letting them out in the yard together. Holly was chased and pecked at a lot by all of the ladies.  She learned to keep her distance. This got better as time went by and one cold night Lil and I just put her in the coop with everybody else. They have worked out the pecking order, Holly is at the bottom. Mini is happy not to be at the bottom anymore. Actually she goes after Holly more than the rest. This is a bit comical because Holly is twice the size of Mini. When we first got Holly she was molting and not looking her best. She is now fully feathered and quite a good looking lady.   All of our chickens are fully feathered this winter GOOD THING because this has been quite a winter.  My son didn’t think Holly was laying eggs anymore when we got her. But  earlier this month (March) she started to lay eggs.  I can tell they are Holly eggs because they are a very light color, my flock all lay brown eggs.  Holly being the largest hen lays the smallest egg, go figure. With spring trying to get here and the days getting longer the ladies are producing more eggs and we haven’t had to buy any recently.  Now some pictures. Clicking on them makes them larger.

Holly, 12/29/15

Holly when she first arrived, molting. 10/21/15

I’m about 25 miles west of Boston MA.  We have had a lot of snow and very cold temperatures for us starting the end of January and still going.

1/20/15 Chicken by the corner of the house. Very little snow.

2/9/15 Wrigley in front of slide and wood shed

2/15/15 Coop and runs picture taken from back deck

3/19/15 Chickens out in pathway. Holly in front. Still too much snow.

My grandson is learning about 3-D printers at his high school.  Me, I remember the mimeograph machines from my high school. And we didn’t learn about them, maybe we got to turn the crank. Well, Alden made me a chicken with this 3-D printer.  Some days I’m more of a dinosaur than others.

Blue chicken by Alden

With all of this snow I haven’t really started doing anything about my garden.

Ed

THREE THOUSAND

Three thousand is a pretty large number, well depends on what the 3000 represents. Compared to the number of leaves I will have to rake this fall, it’s not very large at all. Compared to the balance in my checkbook, it’s rather sizable. But this is a blog about my garden and my chickens——-NO it isn’t the number of tomatoes I harvested this year  (actually I didn’t plant any) and I’m not expanding my coop and run to accommodate 3,000 new chicks.  I’m writing about eggs.

the ladies give me small and extra large eggs

On April 4th 2012, I brought home 6, one-day-old chicks.  5 hens and one surprise rooster, Jack. On August 4th 2012, I got my first egg, 220 days later on March 12th 2013, the count reached 1,000 eggs, 223 days after that on October 21st  2013, 2,000 eggs and 310 days later, on August 27th  2014, 3,000 eggs.  They are slowing down with the egg production.  When they first started the ladies would average better than 4 eggs per day, for the last 3 months they are averaging less than 3 eggs per day.  Some of the reasons they are slowing with their egg production are, they are getting past their prime laying age,  some of the time they are molting and Miny has been sick.

While I was off on my hike, Miny stopped acting like a chicken.  She wasn’t interested in food, she wasn’t scratching about and she would spend most of the day sitting in a corner of the run.  She was very lethargic.  My wife, Lil, who I affectionately call the “chicken whisperer”  hand fed Miny, yogurt and treats, massaged her crop because it wasn’t emptying and was very squishy.  She gave her olive oil to help move things along by eye-dropper daily.  Some days Miny seemed better and some not so.  Lil took her to our vet twice.  On the second visit the vet operated on her crop and cleaned it out.  No perceivable blockage was found.  Miny then spent some time in the crate in the kitchen recuperating.  Wrigley (the cutest puppy on the planet) did not make this a relaxed stay for Miny.

Miny in her cottage

Wrigley on leash, with chickens in the yard

When I got back home later into May, Miny still wasn’t acting well, actually getting worse.  We took her to another vet that specializes in birds of all kinds. The vet didn’t think Miny’s insides felt right so she did an ultra-sound and took x-rays.  Miny has a tumor, a mass in her that is crowding her organs.  We brought her home with very heavy hearts.  Glad to have an answer, just not happy with it.  We decided to make her as comfortable as possible,  Both of us thought we would be burying her over the July 4th weekend.  Lil had read someplace about high doses of vitamin-C shrinking tumors——-so—-she started giving Miny daily eye-droppers of high dose vitamin-C.  Miny started getting better. There were days when she acted like a chicken, out in the yard scratching away with the flock. We were both very hopeful.  BUT, in September she started being lethargic again and I watched one day as Mo and Jasmine rather viciously attacked her.  I separated them and put Miny in the old run by herself.  NOW WHAT???  I fenced off a section of the new run and set up a little “cottage” for Miny.  Again she would have some good days and some not.  Lil was still hand feeding her everyday, I made her a separate corn-cob feeder for her cottage.

Miny in her cottage

Miny, Lil and Wrigley

Miny with feeder. The chickens love corn on the cob, I don’t like just throwing them into the run and the dirt.  I drill a hole in them and stand them on dowels.

Miny went to that farm in the sky September 20th 2014.  We buried her at the base of a large rock in the back yard.  Not quite 2 1/2 years and we have lost our first chicken.  We have always tried to be good custodians of our flock, Lil, maybe more than I. Lil would have them live in the cellar under the stairs when it gets cold out side, me, not so much. We hope our chickens know this, that they are spoiled BUT who knows what goes on in the mind of a chicken.

Jasmine on the garden fence ready for her escape, Jack still in the garden

Cute puppy picture

Naked Chickens

I would like to report that none of our chickens are wearing “saddles”.  The bare spots that Jack has caused the ladies have filled in with new feathers and they are all looking good.

collard greens hung on a wire

The ladies have been very consistent with their egg production averaging better than 4 eggs per day from five hens. Until this year, For the month of January they averaged less than 3 eggs per day and February is looking the same.  I have had one day this year that I got 4 eggs.  All of the other days have been 3, 2, or 1.  They are approaching their 2nd birthday, we think 2 of them were going through a molt and it has been a little cold around here. Maybe they are just on strike because they don’t get to free-range as much.  With this last snow they won’t leave their run if we opened it.  Our chickens are spoiled and as such we will keep them and feed them and care for them even if they aren’t laying as many eggs.

Ed

 

Update on My Chickens

Not a lot going on here in the garden.  The seasons seed catalogs have arrived. But, since I’m not planting a garden this year, I haven’t even looked through them.

Egg production for the calendar year 2013 was 1601 eggs produced from my 5 ladies.  That’s 4.38 eggs per day average .  They are amazing creatures.  https://mygardenmychickens.wordpress.com/2013/03/07/egg-production-sheet-take-two/

My chickens have a pretty good life for chickens.  But, they do not have a heated coop.  There is a light bulb in a cement block under their water in the coop that keeps their water from freezing.  It probably adds some heat to the coop.  This last cold blast brought outside temperatures of -12 degrees F.  It was 5 degrees F inside the coop.  I have an electronic thermometer mounted on a wall in their coop.  Everyone survived, with no signs of frostbite.  I didn’t let them out of the coop all day, it was just bitterly cold.   If I open the coop/run door the temperature in the coop drops quickly.  I’m happy to report they are out in the covered run today with half a cabbage to peck at.

looking into the covered run

Ed

Warm and Sunny

We have been rather COLD, not like Willow Creek, but unusually cold for New England.  So this warm 50 degree air and mostly sunny day was most enjoyable.   Yup, I went outside.  Looked at my 2 main gardens.

December 20,2013 snow covered garden

Let the chickens out for the first time since it snowed.  I tried to let them out the other day but they were not going out in the snow.  They didn’t have much bare ground to scratch at but they seemed happy to be out and warm.

December 20, 2013 chickens out in the yard

I took advantage of the nice day and cleaned the run and coop.

loading the old shavings into the wheelbarrow

Lastly, here is the chicken swing in the run extension.

chicken swing waiting for spring

Chicken Pictures

These are some of the end of the garden pictures when I had all of the ladies and Jack helping me in the herb garden.  These were taken in November.

And this one is for the season.  Right Patti??

Ed

Crazy Chicken People

This is from one of the blogs I follow.

http://brookwoodshire.wordpress.com/2013/11/29/you-thought-my-girls-were-spoiled/

Being a frugal yankee I decided to make one rather than buy one.  I’m glad I did, it has been 3 days and not one chicken has gotten on it by themselves.  My wife did place each of the chickens, including Jack, on it the first day .  I don’t think they are swingers.  I’m going to try their main motivator, food.  I’ll hang some kale on the sides high enough that they can reach it from the swing but not the ground.

Ed

Autumn Leaves

In the fall in New England, I rake up the leaves that have fallen in my gardens and yard and move them out to the compost pile. Then I turn the pile, add horse manure, turn the pile, add kitchen scraps (no animal products except egg shells), turn the pile, turn the pile and turn the pile.  So that in a years time I can spread this compost over my gardens and lawn.  Maybe I should just leave them where they fall.

My chickens enjoy the raking.  They don’t get out as much as they use to, so this weekend was a treat for them.  If I was out raking, they were out helping.  They slow it down some because you have to be careful not to hit them with the rake.  Maybe helping isn’t quite right.  But they are good company and talking to the chickens looks better than talking to yourself.  I love watching them scramble for the creepy-crawlies that  I uncover.

Once the leaves are in piles they need to be moved to the compost area.  This has never been fun.  The wheelbarrow doesn’t hold enough leaves and raking them onto a tarp and then dragging this to the compost is way harder than you would think.  So some years back I made a cardboard tube that fits over my wheelbarrow giving it much taller sides.  I am amazed at how many leaves can be stuffed into this and easily wheeled away.

wood strips to support the cardboard sides

Ed

Sweet Potato Fries and Eggs

I cooked my  first sweet potatoes this week, made sweet potato fries.

sweet potatoes ready to fry

I fry them in coconut oil.  It’s supposed to be a better oil for high heat frying.  When done and the oil is cool enough I pour it through a paper towel in a funnel into a clean glass jar for storage.  This jar is just left on the counter till the next time.  I’ve been doing this for over a year with no problems.

Lets do a little egg production history.  I brought home 6 one day old chicks April 4th, 2012, 5 hens and 1 rooster (Jack was a surprise).  I still have all of them, the gods have been looking out for them.  On August 4th, 2012,  I got my first egg.  shortly after that all of the ladies were laying eggs daily.  About 7 months later the ladies had laid over 1000 eggs on March 14th 2013.  Well we have gone another 7 months and the ladies laid their 2000th egg, on October 22nd, 2013.  I keep track with my egg production sheets.  https://mygardenmychickens.wordpress.com/2013/03/07/egg-production-sheet-take-two/.

Ed