Manure

I've been a little less than thrilled with the amount of produce coming from the gardens this year. Let me restate that. Given the input of time from me and the plants generated, I'm a little disappointed with what we've been getting out of the gardens. Not just compared with past years, or others' gardens, but with things like the amount of potato weight out from potato weight in, the pitiful vine growth on the squash & cucumbers initially in the old garden compared with those in the new one. These 2 big flags, and any number of little ones, have pretty much told me that I need to add more fertilizer to the old garden this year than I have been in past years.

I've added a couple of wheelbarrows-full of chicken manure each fall, but this fall I'm going to aim to do a bit more. I've already dumped 2 wheelbarrows-full of chicken manure in the old garden this past weekend, from cleaning out the coop. With the digging of the last of the potatoes I had enough room for a huge pile, so I finally got that chore checked off my list. But to add more than just those 2 loads means either bringing down some dirt from the chicken's outside run, using some pig manure, or bringing some manure in from off the property.

The chicken's outside run has only been in this location since the spring when we moved the coop & created the new side garden. I'm really not sure how much good stuff that dirt contains, since it was pretty barren before it became their outside run. And even if it were great, there are so many little rocks in that soil that I would really hate to add it to the old garden, which is fairly free of hoe-breaking pebbles! The dirt from the chicken's old run, which had been used for almost 2 full years, was great for the new garden this spring though, so I am going to plan on using the new dirt in the gardens next fall perhaps, once it has had more time to accumulate the good stuff.

There are 2 pig manure options right now. The old spot got somewhat dug up by my husband and moved to the new garden this spring, but there is still a lot of dirt there that should be pretty good. However it is a barren weed-filled wasteland right now, not having had any water or attention since the spring when he removed about half of the top layer of pig poo & dirt. 

The other pig option is the inner pen of the current pig area, which has a fair amount of poo given the two pigs this year, but its pretty fresh, and it might be rocky. Also, that is future garden space, hopefully for next year as long as we get our fencing acts together, so I would hate to be doing a 'rob peter to pay paul' with that, especially since the main poo and mucked up area is going to be in this coming spring's garden expansion.

The third option, bringing some manure in from off the property, is really not appealing, as I like to move towards self-sustainability - not away, and generating our own compost/manure is something that we really should be able to do. So this leaves me with the pig manure in the old spot perhaps slightly topped up with the new area if needed.

 In the future, I hope to be working on our own compost bins and compost piles in addition to the manure generated from mucking out the animals' pens, however the grass/manure-dirt pile you see in the background of the above shot was just started this past couple months, so no useable compost yet. Also, I think I need to have the piles in a spot that gets at least a bit of sprinkler-water, as it is so dry here that I think it impedes the compost breakdown. Definitely something to put on my winter goals list - learning more about compost building! We generate a fair amount of green matter due to the extensive fields my husband has been working on for game animals and future pasture animals, so having a great compost heap should be completely feasible for us.

 Well, there you have it, the state of our poo :) I hope you are all enjoying the start of the Fall. Upcoming we've got entirely too many hunting trips, family visits, and harvesting tasks to reasonably fit into the month ahead. However, I'm sure we'll manage to make it through, although I'm sure blog posting will fall a bit by the wayside, as it does every September! Happy harvesting to you, and if you are a hunter, happy hunting!

The June Side Garden - the before & after baby edition

So following up on my post about the weed growth in the lower garden earlier this week, here is how the side garden was and is looking! Overall, this garden isn't showing the time in weed growth as much as the lower garden. Mostly with the paths being mulched, but also with the soil being disturbed so recently. I think having the drip irrigation also really helps, unlike the overhead sprinklers in the lower garden that really allow weeds to take off everywhere! Here come the pictures:

The new herb area before, and filled in more later. I can tell I'll have to adjust some plants next year as the heights are a bit off, and some of the plants are going to be too big for the space I have allocated for them.

 Here is an after of the sunflower area that Little M and I transplanted from the lower garden. The large one near the right side is one of the ones Little M grew from seed, it looks like it will bloom soon. They have a bit of drip irrigation on them but don't get all that much water, which I'm thinking is why that one is so short to be getting ready to bloom!

This before shows more than just the peas, which you can see in the background, but apparently I did a poor job taking pictures of specific plants for before shots, and did mostly overall shots. The peas are doing really well though, and have been blooming a lot, giving us the start of a decent crop of peas! We've eaten a few here and there since we've been back from the baby's birth, and soon will be getting enough to make more of a serving of them.  I'm hopeful that this totally new and distant spot from the lower garden will avoid the issue of the pea weevils we were infested with last year in the garden! The strawberries have been ripening but a little mouse is eating the berries before we get there up in the side garden unfortunately, so I've got a trap set to catch it (or them!) The raspberries are also doing well, and are blooming and hopefully we will see some berries from them in weeks to come too! So exciting to have this much more garden space than last year!

On the left in the before shot you can see the hastily put in side bed for the dry beans. The irrigation leftovers that we had remaining at that point in the garden irrigation set up were pretty meager, so this area needs extra attention to keep it happy and moist. I'm hopeful that once the beans come in fully the soil will be shaded enough that this lone strand of drip irrigation tubing will be enough to water the plants but we shall see! On the right at the bottom you can make out one of the mounds of squash and pumpkin, of which there are three. One is the most important, pumpkins for the kids' halloween carving needs, and the other two were just planted with leftover sprouted seeds from planting the lower garden with butternut and hubbard squash, cucumbers, and zucchini. Hopefully we get a bit extra food from these for the pigs!

 And of course no post of the side garden would be complete without sharing how the pigs are growing, they are getting larger and friendlier, and Little M still loves to be in with them. The dominance has changed as the browny-orange one (Copper) has grown a bit faster than the white stripey one (Stripey), and now it is Copper who bosses Stripey around, unlike when they first arrived.

In the next week or so of having both of us parents at home before my husband goes back to working nights, we're hoping to get the electric fence set up that we just didn't have time to get to before the pigs came initially, and I'll be sure to take lots of pictures of that set up and of the large area the pigs will then have to roam in. Hope your gardens are growing well!

2013 Garden in my absence

Near the end of last week, Little M and I made the trek home and back to Grammy's in one day, to pick up my husband (and the 2 dogs not already with me at Grammy's), so that we wouldn't end up with 2 cars with us after the baby makes her appearance. It was a bit of a long day, but so nice to see the garden and relax at home for a couple hours before making the trek back to stay at Grammy's for the long haul, however long that may be! He of course only stayed briefly, according to his days off work, but it was nice to spend a bit of time with him before he headed back home to work and keep a handle on the property, gardens, and animals.

When we were briefly at home, the garden had been without me for only 3-4 days, but it was amazing how much had changed - the green beans had come up, the newly transplanted tomatoes, peppers, greens, and marigolds had settled in nicely, and most of the squash, cucumbers, and zucchini sprouted seeds that we planted just before we left had emerged from the soil with their seed leaves.

In the time since then, my husband reports that the corn is all coming up, the green beans are filling in, and all the animals are doing well. Apparently there were even frogs of some sort calling from the pool of water in the pig's pen! I'm hoping they are still calling when I get back so we can ID them - he isn't much of a frog ID guy. What would be even more exciting (although quite unlikely with the disturbance the pigs make in that pool!) would be to end up with tadpoles in the pool. Likely won't happen, but makes me hopeful that in future years, once we have a little garden pond that isn't disturbed by pigs daily, we might have all that sort of wetland-y goodness for Little M to explore right by the house!

Ok, back to waiting on this baby to arrive and knitting a baby blanket for one of Little M's little friends whose mother recently had a baby boy...

The new side garden in late May

We've been slowly plugging away at the last things to get done before the baby arrives and full summer hits. Mostly that has been gardening and pig stuff outside, although there has been a fair amount of work inside too, slowly getting Little M moved across to her new big-girl room and all that that entails, along with converting her old room back into a nursery for a newborn (goodness pulling her long outgrown 0-3 month outfits out has been fun - they are all so little and cute!!).

Here is where we are today on the new side garden though, with the new herb area, the newly enclosed garden shed, and the pig gate all installed! The only other additions that I hope we will get to in the next week or two is extending the herb area for the dry beans to go in there, and planting pumpkins and perhaps squash down in the far end with all the pig manure spread over it. Other than that, its just the pigs' electric fencing to get figured out up here before the baby comes!

the mister built me a nice gate to keep the dogs out of the garden

Little M's sunflowers

the pig gate got moved from the old pig area down to the new pig area, just waiting on electric fencing now! This area makes me smile every time I look at it - hose nicely wound up, chair to sit in, lilac in the planter...

The compost bin with herb area behind it, and a pile of moldy mulch hay from the farmer next door

The herb area with herbs transplanted up from the lower garden herb area - oregano, dill, garlic chives, common chives, and a lavender). Need to start some more herbs (basil, thyme, sage, cilantro) but not in a rush about it. They are surrounded by the hoops from some old barrels that were on the porch when we bought the property.

My new garden shed! It is so nice to have the tools so close to the garden, before, they were in the carport, on the other side of the house from the garden area. This spot works quite well when it suddenly pours down rain!

outside of the new garden shed, see the chicken peeking out at us!

Garden shed, pig gate, and garden from the pig area looking in.

Looking from the end of the garden up towards the coop. Peas, 2 rows of strawberries, and a row of raspberries on the right, herbs and space for dry beans to the left of Little M. I love this new space!

Of course there is still a fair amount of work to get done in the main/old/lower garden, but all of the soil has been turned over and most has been raked flat. Corn and beans need to be seeded; squash, cucumbers, and zucchini need to be sprouted and planted; and peppers, tomatoes, broccoli, and cauliflower need to be hardened off and planted. But the weather is looking rather wet and cool until after the long weekend, so I expect those things will get rushed in at the last minute next week or the week after shortly before I head to Spokane with Little M to await the baby's arrival!

Moving the chicken coop

So over the Easter weekend we were rather busy! Not only did we fit in 2 easter egg hunts and Easter lunch with some close friends who have a daughter a bit younger than Little M & the girls' paternal grandparents, but we moved the chicken coop from the old location, where it was when we bought the property, to its new home in the new side garden!

The mister and I were about to start putting the temporary fence up around my new garden area for the year when I realized that if we were going to move the chicken coop at all, it was really now or never. You see, once we have the temporary garden fence up, the next step would be to start installing the fencing on the log posts we've been installing. And both of those fences would preclude moving the chicken coop into that space.

We were wavering because

1. I wasn't sure the chicken coop was structurally sound enough to survive being jacked onto sled logs and dragged around the property, and
2. I wasn't sure we had the time or energy this spring to devote to moving and leveling the coop into the new side garden, getting the outside secure enclosure disassembled, moved across, and reassembled, all in addition to getting some sort of fenced new garden area set up along side the coop in the new side garden area (not to mention the normal spring chores we have!).

But since the mister's mom & stepdad were here for the weekend, we decided that if it was going to happen at all, this was the time, and so we decided to just go for it, because the benefits of having it over in the new area far outweighed the additional work and risks moving it would mean. After all, if we hadn't of moved it, the coop would have been where it was for at least 5 years until we could afford to build a new coop and garden shed in the new side garden. Since we've been having problems having the coop over there in terms of dog-chicken interactions & poop eating, we decided the hassles involved with moving it would be far outweighed by not having the hassle of the dogs and the chickens overlapping in the existing orchard area in the future. Of course, it means that we are now thinking about relocating the pig pen as well, but since we aren't set yet on having another pig this year, we may have next spring to get that relocated to a better spot.

So, Saturday around noon we started jacking up the chicken coop, in preparation for placing logs under it to make a sleigh to drag it around on. This went fairly successfully, the mister had a pretty solid idea of what he was doing and it seemed to work just fine. There was a slight hiccup maneuvering around the closest corner of the pig pen, but the mister's stepdad was able to wiggle the fence post loose enough to bend it sideways, and so we will just have to re-set it later to get it secure again, no big deal.

The real issue came once we were down in the bottom field. There was a patch of ice/snow and a muddy patch placed in just the right locations, near a tree we were trying to go slowly around, and the jeep got a bit stuck due to the weight of the coop behind it. In the process of trying to get going again, the chicken coop was pulled with too hard of a pop, and it came right off the log sleigh! Oops... Luckily, after a bit of re-jacking and manuevering, the guys got the sleigh back under the coop and the jeep unstuck, and headed up and around to get the coop into the new side garden area. By then, it was almost suppertime. They were able to mostly level the coop, although the floor joists had been torn off in the move, so Sunday morning a bit more work was required to get the floor adequately supported again.

Sunday evening the mister and I were back out there, moving the outside secure enclosure across from the old location, and tidying up the old coop area. We wanted to have at least the side fencing back up on the outside enclosure in the new area so that we could let the poor cooped-up chickens out, but we didn't quite get done in time, so the chickens will have to make do until later this week when the mister is on his days off.

Of course, we also didn't quite get around to fencing my new garden area off from the dogs, so planting in the new area will have to wait until later this week too... Not a big deal, since that area isn't at all the priority this year, and I did get around 10 wheelbarrow-fulls of dirt/chicken manure moved across from the old outside pen area to mix in with the soil. There is also a bunch of pig manure to be moved across from last year too, and any number of other chores to get that new garden area starting to be more functional, so I figure this next month we'll slowly work on it, fence post by fence post, wheelbarrow-load by wheelbarrow-load, and just not stress about it at all! :)

Slowly tidying up the area where the coop used to be. We haven't quite decided what will end up over there, but we've got nothing but time.

I love March and April because we just get so much done around the property every year!

on chicken eggs and nothing much else

Woo Hoo - our chickens have seriously amped up egg production and we've been getting 5 or 6 eggs a day this week! Time to start selling eggs again after the last 2 months of not always having enough for our table. I would have pictures to share of all these glorious eggs, the chickens happy to have a bit of bare dirt in the side of their pen to scratch at on (thawed out) warm sunny afternoons, the general excitement as the snow line heads south across the road and approaches the orchard, and the sun sets behind the distant mountains not the hills to our immediate south, giving us hours more sunlight all of a sudden, but my husband accidentally took the memory card for the camera with him this week as he traveled for work. So I'll just have to be sure to take lots of photos this weekend as not only is he back home today but he's off for the entire weekend!

First egg of the new year

Back in November sometime the chickens all started molting for the first time, at about 1.5 years old. Now I'm fairly sure they had molted previously in turns, but never before had they all gone through a period where they were definitely all shedding feathers & really not laying. Then with the failing light and cold temps, they stopped laying altogether. It was a sad time.

Actually, it was even sadder because around Christmas time, when we got our pork back from the butcher, and as I started really having a huge appetite as the baby decided that food was a good thing - give me lots - now, we started eating serious breakfasts again. Eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns. Yummy. But not with our own eggs! Sad to be supplying the bacon & sausage from the home-grown pig, the hash browns from the home-grown potatoes, but not the eggs due to our winter chickens!

The chicken coop shortly before Christmas. Note the top netting tore and fell down under the weight of the snow! That will take some sewing to fix come spring I'm sure! Oh, and don't mind those 2 dogs tearing across towards the coop, with the deep snow they get their exercise where they can!

Well sometime around New Years I had enough with the lack of eggs and decided that we needed to supplement their light situation. So I ran a couple extension cords over, wrapped an indoor timer in a plastic bag (we do have an outdoor one but I wasn't able to locate it... not quite sure where it has gotten itself to), and I dusted off the old heat lamp we had in the coop from when the chickens were little chicks. I added about an hour or two before daylight and an hour or two after dusk, in the hopes that that additional light would convince them we were coming out of winter and into spring.

Sure enough, yesterday my husband found a (frozen) egg in one of the nest boxes! YAY! I'm now pretty curious as to which of our hardy breeds is the one laying first, but will have to wait until the weekend to sneak over there repeatedly and try and figure it out. In the meantime, hopefully whoever it is keeps it up and we start getting some eggs to eat! Not only do I hate to buy the store-bought ones when we're feeding our own laying hens at home, but they just aren't anywhere near as good (and fresh!) as ours are!

Selling our farm products - getting customers

In my post last week about putting myself out there to fill up some spots on our weekly egg list, I promised to share some of the bits I've learned about getting customers. I'm definitely no expert, and I hope I keep learning more and more as time goes on, but here's what I've learned so far.

When we first had extra eggs, I took them in to work and hoped that some of my coworkers needed some. I sold a fair number, but then my hens started producing more than my coworkers could eat. Plus, I hated taking the eggs in and asking if anyone needed eggs - I think it made me feel slightly desperate, which I really wasn't. So then I let people know that if they wanted eggs they could contact me and get some occasionally. I also followed up when I saw people interested in eggs, and made sure they knew that I sold the occasional dozen. We had a regular buyer from the start, but due to distance, sales to her weren't as regular as either us or her would have liked, so that led to another lesson - customers have to be really local to make it work & be worthwhile.

Once we decided that we had consistently enough extra eggs to be able to sell regularly, and once I decided that selling just on an occasional basis wasn't exactly working for me, then we sent out that email. But before that, we had done a lot to prepare our market, to convince them if you will, that we regularly sold fresh good quality eggs for a decent price. We did that by offering a free dozen when we had extra to people who we thought might be interested in buying eggs but that we hadn't reached yet. We asked often enough at work or events with friends that those people knew we had eggs available, and a handful of them purchased from us occasionally when they needed eggs.

My email was pretty straight and to the point. I mentioned how many hens we have, that we feed them organic locally produced feed and let them free-range in our fields and orchard daily, and that they have constant access to a fully enclosed small yard attached to their coop. I told them that they were still more than welcome to purchase eggs from us occasionally, with no pressure or commitments, but that we had a list of weekly purchasers with some available spaces on it.

With our 11 hens, especially lately with one of them invariably broody, we have 4 or 5 dozen extra eggs a week. That means that I feel comfortable having 4 people who want to buy from us weekly, and I think we could likely pull off 5 if we were sometimes willing to give our personal eggs up to ensure that every week we had an extra 5 dozen. At the moment we don't have our list quite full, which actually works out well as we are still able to supply our occasional customers with eggs when they need a dozen, or give away or trade a dozen when the need arises.

Another thing that we would have given more thought if we had more hens and thus more available eggs is to have a sign at the end of our driveway. But we like our privacy and solitude, and just don't have that kind of farm yet. So we've shelved that idea for the years to come, when we might just have more than eggs to offer. What about you? I know some of you shared your strategies to obtain customers last week, and you had some really great suggestions, so check back there if you're looking for more. Any others that come to mind that you'd like to share with us?

Later next week I'll share what we've learned so far about keeping customers, and how careful selection of customers goes a long way towards keeping them around long term :)

Linking up to the Homestead Barn Hop.

On putting yourself out there, farming-wise

Last week I sat down and typed up an email that I'd been squirming over for a little while. I included the email addresses (via bcc to respect my customers and keep their information private) of local people who had bought eggs from us once or more over the past year. You see, we've got more eggs than we can possibly use ourselves, and in the past month we have ended up having more than we are able to sell. We needed more regular customers.

We are looking to develop a list of local people who want eggs weekly or biweekly, which we have put off before now because:

1. we seemed to have enough occasional buyers, and

2. because with our young hens we were still attempting to figure out how many extra dozen we had to sell in a given week and month.

Now that we've kept detailed records of production & sales all spring and summer, we've got # 2 dialed in - we know how many eggs our hens produce and how many our family eats on average. But lately # 1 hasn't been working out, so we've had extra eggs.

We've always had occasional egg buyers, either local friends or coworkers, but none had moved from occasional to regular customers, likely mostly due to us not having a regular customer distribution list, and them not being aware we were thinking of starting one. I was also fairly successful at selling eggs to a local corner store for several months earlier in the summer, but lately they have had enough from their other sellers, and since they buy the eggs for less than I can sell them to direct customers because of the store's mark-up, I haven't wanted to push to be on their regular seller list, if they even had an opening. In addition, I really value the direct connection between farmer and consumer that we get when we sell directly to the people eating our eggs. I know I feel better when I know exactly where my food is coming from, and I love being able to provide that connection to my egg customers.

In the future, as we attempt to move towards a bit more of a sustainable farming venture, we will need a good base of customers for our increasing line of farm-grown & produced products. This requires me to do what doesn't come naturally to me, put our name and our goods out there. Stir up a bit of interest in our product, and get some customers to shift from occasional purchases to being committed to buying from us regularly. Occasional customers are great, but in order to supply some kind of stability to our family as we attempt to shift a bit more into farming, we would love to have a larger regular customer list as well as all of our occasional customers.

Egg production from our hens will fluctuate as the seasons change, as they moult or become broody, as our current hens age, and as we add and remove hens from our flock, so we won't always have as many extra eggs as we did back in the height of this summer with young birds and long days, but having a list of regulars that are committed to buying eggs from us will keep us committed to providing good quality eggs on a weekly or biweekly basis.

My email was pretty basic, letting people know that we had a couple openings on our weekly egg-selling list, and if they wanted to move onto the weekly (or biweekly) list they just needed to let me know, but I was sure to give them a brief update on how our chickens were doing and what they were up to.  Later next week I'll share some more detailed tips on how I went about attaining my customers, both occasional and regular, but in the meantime, I know some of my readers are also small farm owners, or heading along that path. Have you gone out looking for customers? When you were starting out, or as you are starting out, did you let your business grow by word of mouth or have you been a bit more persistent to let people know about your product and it's availability? Did you find it difficult to pointedly ask your occasional customers if they would like to be on your regular list? What part of the customer-getting process do you find (or think you would find) the most challenging?

Linking up to the homestead barn hop!

Americauna Eggs

On the weekend, our lone americauna lady laid her first egg! It was pale green, and on the small side. She laid it in one of the worst spots, in the corner by the way outside. The day after, she laid another, larger this time, again beside the coop exit! Likely she'll lay another one today, hopefully in one of the nest boxes this time!

Little M and I were out with the chickens yesterday afternoon, and Rooster Cogburn was getting rather friendly with several of the ladies, so hopefully in the future some of these pretty green eggs will get incubated and give us some new baby chicks! Although with 13 females right now, laying 5-6 eggs a day, I'm not sure that we need to be adding any more layers to our flock!

Our weekend

My husband normally works weekends, so from late morning until bedtime, Little M and I fend for ourselves. This means I get to be the one choosing to have the TV on or off, music playing or quiet, etc. Not to mention, I don't get time to really work on any current projects, mostly we just do the routine stuff - light cleaning, meal prep, feed/water the chickens & dogs, and some playtime.

My husband came home sick from work Saturday, and stayed home Sunday, so while he lounged around as he started to feel better Sunday afternoon, he kept an eye on Little M for a bit so I could get out of the house and work on some projects outside in the beautiful warm weather we were having. I was able to put a roosting bar up in the chicken coop, thin out some little trees in the front yard, and get the last couple door trim pieces cut. Pretty great progress I was thinking.

Then I realized that it was 4:30 on Sunday, and I hadn't started supper yet! And the house was a complete disaster, clean clothes waiting to be folded and put away, the floor needing swept, the table needing tidied up, the sunporch needing vacuumed, and Little M's toys strewn about the living room. Not to mention the kitchen wasn't quite as tidy as I would have liked either. Whoops!

I managed to get supper on the table by 6:30, and the house cleaned up while the enchilada casserole was in the oven. What a relief! I feel so much more calm and relaxed when the space around me is clutter and mess free! After supper Little M and I finished our cleaning spree, vacuuming the sunporch and getting it straightened up from my projects. No photos from the weekend, I guess we were just too busy! We did get our first blue/green americauna egg over the weekend though, which was pretty exciting! It looks so pretty next to the various shades of brown eggs! I'll try and put some pictures of the selection up later in the week :)

Our very first egg!

Friday afternoon I came home from work early, and spent some time with my family before the weekend (around here, weekends mean two 12 hour shifts for my husband, so very little family time). After Little M's nap, we headed outside. First I went over to the chicken coop to give them some food and see how they were doing.

I was leaning over in the coop, giving them some food, and I was thinking about how the white golf balls I've had out in their nest boxes, to encourage them to lay, and lay in the right spot, were going to look rather odd next to a brown egg, since most of our hens will lay brown eggs. As I straightened up, my gaze passed across a spot on the far wall that had been hidden by chicken bodies moments before as they rushed to the food. I did a double take. A pale brown egg was sitting there, on the floor, amidst the chicken feet as they rushed by it here and there. I quickly went further in to the coop and picked it up. It was a bit dirty, but whole!

These darn chickens should (could) have been laying at least a month ago, if not two. We weren't supplementing with light or heat, though, wanting them to make it on their own to weed out any breeds (we've been trying 8) that weren't able to take the cold temperatures we get here in the winter. So although I've been not-so-patiently waiting for quite some time, I knew they would start laying once the days started to lengthen. I've been saying 'any day now', for weeks!

On Sunday I found another egg, laid in a slightly lower traffic area of the coop. It looks the same as the first one, so I figure only one girl has started laying. If I get an egg every other day for a little while until the others start, I'll be perfectly happy! I guess the next couple weeks will tell whether they start slowly or whether we quickly get overwhelmed with the number of eggs thirteen hens lay on a daily and weekly basis!

I wish I knew which of our thirteen girls it was laying already, but since 12 of those are brown egg layers, I suspect I'll need a few more eggs to see the range of color variations to start pegging eggs to girls, if it's even possible then! At least the Americauna girl's eggs will be easy to tell apart, and hopefully that will make it easy to selectively incubate them if any of our hens go broody, since Rooster Cogburn is also an Americauna, so that is the one breed we have that we could possibly get pure-bred offspring from this year.

Oh Spring, I'm so happy you are on your way!

(Of course, within an hour of finding that egg, the snow started, and by bedtime we were up to 4 inches of damp new fluffy snow!)

Rooster Cogburn settles in

Mr. Rooster Cogburn, our new Americauna rooster, has been settling in nicely over the weekend. I've already integrated him with the rest of our flock, because in the winter we currently only have one water fount that we can thaw out daily, so we really didn't have any option to segregate him longer term like I would have otherwise liked. Although when we ordered our chicks I had thought about ordering a male, or one breed straight run, so that we would have one breed that we could hatch chicks and replace our flock with in the future. My husband, working night shifts, wasn't keen on the thought of having a rooster crowing at daybreak, waking him up, so we ordered just females.

I was surprised when last week he so readily said yes to a free rooster, and I'm just hoping that he'll stay interested in baby chicks and the ability to produce more layers, and not get purturbed if Rooster Cogburn starts crowing early in the morning! So far I've only heard him crow once, and it was almost noon, so I'm hoping he'll stay under the radar for a bit!

When I thought about getting a rooster, the americauna was the first of our breeds that came to mind. In terms of having chicks and becoming more self-sufficient, I would want to keep our breeds pure. With the exception of the Americauna we have, the rest of the breeds are all brown egg layers. Time will tell if I can differentiate breeds from the brown eggs we get, but to keep things safe this first go around, an Americauna rooster would make raising pure americauna chicks as easy as picking only blue/green eggs to incubate.

I think in the future, if we keep enjoying having chickens and want to expand and raise more chicks, I would have 2 flocks of 5-10 birds. Having a couple different breeds in each flock, and a rooster with each flock thats mates are the only producers of their color of egg in that flock, would mean I could have sustaining populations of several breeds. We'll see how that works out long term, but once we have a larger coop (in the next few years maybe?), it would be more possible. I guess it depends on which breeds we end up liking best from the 8 we bought last summer, and whether we do another round of breeds before selecting our final breeds that we want to work with.

I think Rooster Cogburn is settling in nicely with our 13 girls, don't you? I'm linking up today with the Homestead Barn Hop, head on over and see what has been happening on other homesteads!

The new & wonderful Mr. Rooster Cogburn!

Earlier this week I called a nice lady about a free Americauna rooster she had available. Little M and I were supposed to drive over to her place that evening, but the snow was dumping down pretty good a half hour before we should have left, so I called and we rescheduled to last night. We drove over, loaded him up in a small dog crate, and brought him home.

He's so pretty! Long tail feathers, beautiful feathers around his neck, and just overall gorgeous! I don't have any pictures of him yet, but we've settled him in to the coop beside the girls, so they can get to know each other slowly. I expect I'll get some pictures of him this weekend when I can see him in daylight.

We've named him Rooster Cogburn (and chickenshit if he misbehaves!). I sure hope he doesn't misbehave... :) I'm pretty excited to have him - hopefully we'll be able to raise some chicks in the future and be more self-sustaining in the chicken department, only time will tell!

Photos from a busy weekend

Since one of my current goals involves learning to use our newish digital SLR camera on the fully manual setting, I figured that I should set myself up to succeed by 1 - sharing that goal with all of you, and 2 - sharing my photos on here more regularly even when they aren't strictly garden or project-related! Keeping that in mind, here are some pictures I took this past weekend. I think they turned out fairly decently, although I know there is room for improvement - particularly with the white balance settings... :)

Over the weekend Little M and I kept ourselves busy - we went on a couple walks, so that explains the chickens and the scenery shots, and then we decided to change the furniture arrangement up in our living/dining room to see if a different floor plan would work better for us, so that explains the inside shots. Thanks for looking & hope you enjoy them!

Building chicken nesting boxes

As the time to when my little chickens would be all grown up approached, I started thinking more and more about the nest boxes I really needed to build for them. Luckily over the weekend before Thanksgiving I had enough time to build 4 boxes from plywood and scraps we had laying around the garage.

I did a bit of browsing around online for dimensions, and decided to build them approximately 11 inches deep & wide, and a bit taller - around 13 inches. Luckily I had just enough wood to build 2 nest box units, each having 2 nest boxes stacked on top of each other, with a deeper roof to provide a bit of an overhang. I cut the boards to the right dimensions on the table saw, then brought them in to the sunporch to assemble the boxes.

I used several clamps to hold the boxes square as I pre-drilled and then screwed the side boards on to the platform boards, and then carefully placed the nest area fronts on and pre-drilled and then screwed them onto the units too.

Right before we left for Thanksgiving weekend I ran out to the coop and installed one of the nest boxes, by pre-drilling through the side of the nest box and into a wall 2 by 4 and then putting a screw through. That way the plywood exterior wall of the coop would serve dual purpose as the back of the next box too! Just in case those sneaky little hens were waiting for a nice nest box to lay me some cute little eggs, they might be tempted to start while I was gone. No such luck, and still no eggs yet, but I'm ever hopeful :)