How to get started with chickens

Here is a quick little primer for getting started with chicks. Honestly getting started with chicks is quite easy. The first handful of weeks they can even live in a big box! Really, easy. It's only when they get bigger that you have more to consider. I'll start with the beginning basics now and as Frankie and I work on the run for the coop I'll show more about coops and tractors and just general chicken housing.

If considering getting chicks the first thing I would do is sign up at backyard chickens. It's really the most comprehensive place for chicken information. You can find anything you've ever wanted to know about raising chicks at BYC. But if you're more of a book type person and just like to hold information in your hand here are a few recommendations for books:

There are a few ways to get your chicks. Around here most common is feed stores, Tractor supply or farmer co-ops. We live in a rural area so when it's chick season you pretty much can find them being sold all over the place. We also have very reputable local hatchers that sell on craigslist. But if those aren't an option for you you can order them online. There are many hatcheries out there. Here's a few of the top hatcheries:
McMurray Hatchery - this is where we always order from when we order for ourselves. The have an insane catalog. If nothing else, order a catalog. You'll learn SO much about chicken breeds!
Ideal Poultry

Cackle Hatchery - This is where our friend who owns a feed store orders from and he likes their service a lot. Meyer Hatchery

Onto basic supplies. You really don't need a whole lot to get started with chicks. You'll need a waterer. Something like this:


You'll also need a feeder. Once again a couple different basic designs. I like the long red ones with the holes. It's what we've always used.

A heat lamp. As chicks are most often sent off as day-olds. In the wild they'd be spending most of their time under the warmth of their Mama Hen and as such NEED a heat lamp. Heat lamps are pretty cheap actually. About $10 or so. Plus a heat bulb - a couple more bucks.

A note on heat. If you notice your chicks always huddling 100% of the time under the lamp it may be a tad too cold. On the other hand, if they are always huddling away from the light, move the light back a bit. Over time you should be able to slowly back off on their heat until they don't really need heat anymore. Hopefully it's warm outside and it will be time to move them out!

What you house them in is up to you. Some use big rubbermaid tubs. Some use big boxes. We've done both in the past. This year we happen to have ours in the house part of a chicken tractor that Frankie and I fixed up. There are actual brooders you can build or buy.
Ours in years past looked something like this:
or this:
Now we haven't used a galvanized tub but I've seen it done a lot. Really anything will work!


And they even sell cardboard brooder "kits". The kits come with heat lamp, that cardboard, the feeders and waterers.


Chicks need heat, food, water and dry housing. Aside from maybe a little love (that they really would do fine without as horrible as that sounds) they will do just fine with that.

And last but not least, here's a little shot of our current set-up. I should say that the ventilation hole up top is covered in chicken wire for safety.

Back to Chickens again

THEY'RE BAAACK!

So this last year Clay decided he officially hates chickens. We've had chickens for years but this last year, well their free-ranging got on his very last nerve. Our first flock didn't really get on the porch for some reason. They were great. The only one of the porch were these rogue roosters that someone dropped off. Now THEY lived on the porch. And drove Clay crazy lol. There was one large rooster that hated Clay. Every time Clay would walk out the door he would crow and crow and crow. I loved that big ole rooster though and it was because of that that Clay didn't kill that giant rooster.

But this last batch of girls, well they just wanted to live on the porches. And if you don't know, chickens that live on porches, well they poop on porches. If they want to roost on top of your standing freezer they poop all over there. And that is a giant mess to clean up. It's unsanitary and gross and Clay was done. So this last year we went from a HUGE flock of chickens down to 3. And he was ready for us to get rid of those last girls.

But chickens are a part of every budding homestead. And after a year of really getting little to no eggs and really missing having home flocks of chickens and ducks, I miss it. And Frankie does too. He's my go-to poultry guy. He feeds, waters, catches rogue poultry and helps me deal with injuries. He goes out late at night if we're not sure we shut the coop doors.

So Frankie and I made Clay a deal. If he would buy the materials we would do all the work and build a large run outside our coop for the chickens to live in. He reluctantly agreed, but agreed.

So what did we run and do as soon as we got the okay? BUY CHICKS OF COURSE! I'll return tomorrow with some pictures of our set-up to show how to start with chicks but here's a few sneak peeks of the little cuties.

Backwoods Home Magazine

A friend of Clay's bought us a subscription to Backwoods Home Magazine. We just got our first issue. I'm so excited! I've bought issues at Tractor Supply and the feed store in the past but never would go spend the money and subscribe. I'm not sure what's wrong with me but I should have years ago. Years.

If you haven't checked out Backwoods Home Magazine, click this cover of the current issue and it will take you to their website's front page where it has online versions of a few of the current issue's articles.

But on top of that, their website is a HUGE resource. On the left side with all the links are blogs of some amazing homesteaders. And archives of retired BWH bloggers. But there is my all-time favorite "Ask Jackie Clay". Jackie knows everything and she gives me confidence that I can do it. Even when it's raw packing crazy meats and canning them or canning cheese :) Or acorn stew.

BWH rocks though seriously. They cover everything from building clay ovens to harvesting acorns to building log cabins with step by step instructions to politics and guns :) Anything and everything a homesteader or dreaming homesteader thinks about is covered in this magazine.

Now just when you think it can't get better........... there's this:
THE BWH ARCHIVES

It's the insane, and I mean insane, archive list of past issues from 1998! So run over there and start clicking and reading. Meet me back here in a couple years.

Homestead to Health

So I'm overweight. Yeah. I said it. Oh I've said it before? Yeah well I'm still overweight. Nothing's really changed. Up until now I've tried everything. South Beach. Schwarzbein. Calorie Counting. And on and on. I've gone up. I've gone down. I've lifted weights (which I firmly believe in!) and done endless hours on the elliptical. But the life change was never really there. Not there in that it stuck.

The other day Clay and I went and worked outside. I pulled weeds in the garden. We were out for a couple hours. I felt great. I slept great. I've always said that I want to live the type of life that doesn't need ellipticals. I've heard SO many of my girl friends say it. We all want to be living a life so full of activity, a life that tries to live off the real food their growing in their gardens, so FULL that they don't need to plan elliptical time and buy diet "cheese product" (I couldn't call low fat cheese CHEESE. I just can't. It's weird.)

At this point I figure the way, the only way, for me to lose weight and live a life of good health and good body weight, will be to achieve this idea of living a life that doesn't need constant trips to the treadmill to keep it off. So I'm starting my own little series to try and keep myself motivated. If any of the 5 people who read this blog want to join along be my guest! I'll even make myself a little graphic you can use if you want.

So the idea?

A, Basically an attempt to eat how a homesteader would eat. That doesn't mean no cake ever but trying to make deliberate choices in what I make for my family and what I put in my mouth. Eat seasonally. Eat grass-fed meats and dairy. Can and dehydrate foods for leaner times. Eat whole real food. And enjoy the occasional treat as it comes along. Try and eat in a way that's intentional. Eat like one out on a homestead in the past would eat. Whole fruits, veggies, home canned foods, good healthy meats, healthy traditional fats like butter, lard, olive oil. Long soaked sourdough type breads and grains. Also in the thought process of eating like a homesteader, not eating insane amounts of food LOL. I just can't see Pa and Ma Ingalls eating 7 pieces of cake. Or eating 10 handfuls of chocolate chips. Can you?

B, work outside almost every day. And even on off days, do small outside projects like reload the wood on the porch. I need to get off my rear and make this homestead happen. A lot of projects would be done already if I had been out everyday doing them instead of in here on my rump in front of this computer. Essentially, start creating that life so full of activity that my metabolism does its job naturally. That life I was saying I wanted.

So I'm going to start keeping track of the kinds of food we eat, how to prepare certain foods, link to other's great information about fats, etc. And post the great homesteading chores I'm doing to shrink this waistline.

Homeschool Science *warning dead animal picture*

Who needs a Science book when Daddies come home with this beauty found dead in the road. Note..... picture of dead owl ahead. In theory Gramma you won't be reading this since you saw the title first thing. Hopefully...

Originally when they saw it in the road they thought it was a hawk and threw it in the back of the truck. But when Clay brought the kids out they saw it was an owl. The kids were wide-eyed as they looked at the claws and beak. Cassie, our resident feather collector, got a huge owl feather to add to her collection. Clay and Frankie told the story about how there were two dead rodents right by the dead owl and how they looked like were run over together. Frankie felt like it told a "story" about how the owl was chasing the rodents and swooping down to get one when the car came.
Clay's face says "I'm holding a dead thing". Doesn't it?


Wow those claws really were something. Oh the creatures God has made.I think looking at the face is what made me feel sad that the owl was dead. Owls are amazingly beautiful, so unique in the look of their face. It was fascinating and sad at once.

While he supposedly brought this for the kids to see, the most excited to check it out was Daddy. It made the children more excited about it. As parents we really need to show excitement for learning for our children to have excitement for learning. Clay and I searched online until we found out what kind of owl it was. The children were most excited in this whole process when they saw a picture of what the own looked like alive. Their little brains put it all together then and I could see light bulbs go off. It is a Spotted Owl.

Clay then went to throw the owl off into the woods. Somehow he managed to get it stuck in a tree. So there the owl sits on a branch overlooking the side road. I don't even want to know what it will look like in a month. Eek.

Honestly I hate to see such majestic creatures getting killed in the road. But it's important to seize these little learning opportunities when they come.

Mini Paper Towels post Q&A

I was asked a question about not using paper towels. I thought I had written about it but I must have forgotten. The question from Dana

Agreeing 100% with one confession... I use paper towels to drain greasy stuff... like turkey bacon (which we don't actually eat very often and isn't really that greasy at all), ground beef, french fries...

Do you not ever have greasy foods that need to drain? Or what?

I use cardboard or newspaper. I always seem to have cardboard around and Clay reads the local paper now and then and I save those. Now to be honest the only greasy thing I ever have is bacon. I don't really fry things ever. But for bacon I use cardboard or newspaper. The truth is if I had paper towels around for certain things my tendency to be lazy would take over and I would use them instead of rags for things. I would. Give me convenience and I choose convenience every time. I wish I didn't but if I HAD presliced store bread I'd put off making bread, if I have disposable diapers laying around I use them, if I had paper towels I'd use em :)

Is there some reason

that none of you told me that a low hoop tunnel is called a cloche? Hours of searching.... Hours. Trying to get a good enough article to show hubby exactly how to build a low hoop tunnel. My "hammer down some rebar, slip pvc over, then plastic, just wasn't inspiring him. After days of searching, countless cursings of Google, I read something that calls it a cloche and suddenly I can find a bazillion gazillion articles about it? I blame you, I really do. Now the question is.... why didn't I look in Eliot Coleman's book? I have it and all. I chalk it up to being blond AND pregnant. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Living Without Paper Towels

For many this will be old hand, but as I was folding today it felt like a good thing to post about. I don't know how long it's been now, quite a long time I'm sure, but we no longer use paper towels. It's honestly been one of the easiest things to transition to. I rarely even notice that we don't use them anymore. The only times I think I do is when the stomach flu is going around here or the dog has a bad accident. But with the day to day things, it's cake.

We use primarily three things.

Dishcloths. Not only are those for dishes, avoiding having to buy sponget, but wiping up spills, thing that need a wet wipe, these are great.


Little rags. These are free free free. Anything that has holes, gets too stained, quitter socks, etc. get cut up and turned into these smaller rags. We use these for noses, for picking up that piece of squished banana off the floor, things like that and also for anything that you REALLY want to just throw the rag away when you clean up. Those are very rare, but they happen and being that they're just old socks and shirts, no tears are shed if it has to go in the trash. Ours live in this hanging basket to be easily grabbed.


Dishtowels and surgical rags. Dishtowels are self explanatory. Hand drying, etc. all need dishtowel. But we are also blessed with surgical rags. My great aunt and uncle send them in boxes when they pack gifts, etc. They are super absorbant and great for anything really! Here soon I will be cutting and edging all old ripped towels as well. Smaller pieces of thick towels with a zigzag edge make fabulous fabulous rags.

And of course there's the old standby, cloth napkins. And we'll just pretend they're nice and folded in the drawer. Cloth napkins don't need an explanation do they? The only problem I have with them is there never seems to be enough here. I need more.

See? Not hard. There's something for every use of a paper towel. Cake.

Around here today....

Or yesterday or the day before. Around here in the last two or three days. Okay well the last few pictures we've taken....


11 little chickies under a VERY good mom born yesterday!! They're going to be our new layers for next year. Dad is half Rhode Island Red, Half Buff Orpington and most of their moms are RIRs as well though there might be one or two with a Buff Orpington mom. Don't know why my Barred Rock didn't lay in there. But we have two half RIR/Buff O half Barred Rock pullets running around so that's fine. SO much fun getting new batches of chicks. I'm SO over new batches of ducklings this year. If we don't get another duckling until next year it'll be too soon! We've only had maybe 50+ ducklings hatch this year, maybe way more.

Did our first batch of canning Clay and I. 4 quarts of tomatoes, 5 of green beans, 3 quarts of bread and butter pickles and a pint of bread and butter pickles that won't be waiting the 4 weeks to age and get yummier. First time using our ROCKIN' All American canner. Can't wait to can 100 more jars with it~! It's amazing!

Clay's garden has loads of acorn squash growing on it. We'll get more from his garden than we ever thought possible!

Our first garden carrots. Why I wasn't planting these all Summer I don't know, but next year I will be! They're amazing. Amazing.

One of the two kinds of pumpkins that we have growing in Clay's big garden. This is the first one finishing up. We're not really sure when it's going to be done as we've never done pumpkins, but we're read online and hey, live and learn. But it sure LOOKS good right? We have some super cute Cinderella looking sugar pumpkins out there as well.

Just a quick post until later....

Bounty

Oh neglected blog how I miss you so.

We've gotten so much out of our garden over the course of the Spring. I've taken pictures and then never get around to posting them. Like this yumminess from the Spring:
But those great lettuce and bok choy days are gone. Unfortunately for us the inexperience gardener I am didn't plan well enough, didn't plant some things early enough and all those type mistakes so we had a dry spell between Spring and Summer harvesting. But here's a taste of what we've been getting the last few days.

We still have lots of potatoes still to dig up (it's going on Clay's weekend project list) and of course the zucchinis are just getting started.

Oh my do I love fresh onions. They just make me happy.
Zukes and the first yellow squash. Bad picture but still yummy.

And you know it goes when you miss a day picking cucumbers. Ours have just started and one missed day and we walk with 10 at least. In a few weeks, we'll be overrun!

We have been getting tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, herbs, zucchinis, yellow squash, hmm... what else? Don't know why I don't have a picture of our lovely tomatoes. They're sitting right there on the counter right now lol.

Okay fly by quick post. All I have to say is that I am amazed by the miracle that is putting a tiny seed in the ground and having a huge plant that gives our family food grow from it. Amazes me every year.

Garden Journal - Sunday June 14th

Before I forget, going to do a quick garden journal. This one will have pictures though!

Currently:

• All broccoli and cabbage are done and gone. Had bad infestation of caterpillars that did my cabbage in. Planning on row covering them next year to see how that goes.
• Loads of green tomatoes
• Pole beans huge and overflowing. No open flowers yet but close
• Potato plants starting to die back
• Cilantro totally flowered and fallin over. Needs to be pulled
• Amish bottle onions flowering
• Most eggplants dying from flea beetle infestation. Gotta find out what to do about those. I've read loads and can't find a good answer.
• Lettuce tall and bolted.
  
• Lost 2 out of three of the first yellow squash plants lost to what look like vine borers.
• Inch long zucchini on the plants.
  
• Planted loads of sweet potato slips yesterday
• Have lots of hot peppers growing on the hot pepper plants
• Caught a gazillion squash bugs by spraying water on the plants and catching them as they crawled up to dry off. Kids loved that!
  
• Cucumbers just starting to flower
• Brussel sprouts have little buds, lots of caterpillar damage but I couldn't find a single bug one them yesterday. Maybe getting too hot. Hopefully.
• Clay's winter squash seeds he planted are starting to peek their first true leaves. Just peeking. He planted those about a week and a half ago
• Lots of green huckleberries. The huckleberries have really made it through and grown big despite the flea beetles.
• Amish bottle onions flowering, open flowers. Took all flowers off all the other onions.
  

Clay's garden:

• He put some fertilizer (gasp) on the corn. His corn is finally starting to get bigger with all this rain. Some are still 2 inches tall but some are 2 feet tall or taller.
  
• Pumpkins starting grow. A couple are about 5 feet long with vines.
  
• Two official nice yellow pumpkin flowers
• Bush green beans just starting to flower
• Planted 50 foot row of 2-3 wide of sweet potato slips yesterday

Day Huh?

Okay after seeing Katie posting day after day about her time with NO internet and my whole "yeah I'm doing that too" thing, I figured I better check in :) Do I have any grand revelations? Lessons learned? I've learned that my resolve is not as big as I thought. I've learned that the internet is much more of a HABIT than I thought. I sit when I'm tired and read a blog or two. A lot. I've learned that my spirit is willing but my flesh is weak. And that I'm not okay with just giving into my flesh quite so much.

What's she got there? A new garden plant to plant? I want LOTS to grow!

But I've also learned that even the simple concept of trying to not eat the bread of idleness has left me getting SO much more accomplished everyday. And that when I truly get to where not a moment of my life is fruitless I will get done everyday what I want to get done, what I dream can get done, and have been told that a mom whom homeschools with almost 5 children can't possibly get done in one day - that I CAN grow huge gardens, have animals, have a clean home, clothes on the line, never run out of things, read my Bible, spend great time with my children AND husband, bake all my own bread, and well.. be the superwoman I told myself just isn't realistic. Because in a few days of not NO internet but simply less, of reminding myself throughout the day to not be idle, things are getting done. And I can see a glimpse of just how some women achieve the seemingly impossible.

What a hard worker.

It's not that I can't do these things. I just choose not to. Like sitting here typing instead of cleaning the morning dishes. Sigh. Off to clean the kitchen :)

Getting more done gives you more time for this.

Garden Journal - Thurday May 14th, 2009

Okay so I haven't blogged in a month. And even now I'm not going to really :) I realized that whether I blog or not I am going to keep track of what is going on in the garden. I wanted to do a written one but I'll never get it done or lose the notebook or something.

Tuesday May 12th:
Planted 4 zucchini plants (8 seeds) about 2 feet apart
Planted 4 butternut squash seeds in a hill - hoping for 2 strong seedling on hill
Planted about 12 feet of cucumbers (1/2 straight Pepino or something and 1/2 pickling cucumbers. Will look at seeds tomorrow) Planted about 8 feet of pole beans
Planted row of Romaine lettuce (ugh I should have pulled out the seeds so I could know what variety but I'm too tired now) between the 2 pole bean teepees in other bean bed
Transplanted second batch of peppers - 20 plants - sweet Italian stuffing peppers and the Hot Pepper Mix from bountiful gardens. I started those under lights this year. About 50 plants in total. I'm thrilled about it.

Garden status:
2 broccoli plants out of 12 going to flower
Other 10 plants have smaller heads slightly smaller than a baseball
1 Bok Choy out of 6 flowering. Ate it. Was amazing
Big Romaine heads ready to eat. Salad tomorrow! Maybe whole wheat pizza and salad. Sourdough pizza crust. Yeah.
Onions have unopened flowers
Straight neck yellow squash planted two weeks ago looking good. About 2 inches tall with 1 set of true leaves.
Mesclun too tall. Must eat.

Clay's garden status. All his silver queen corn is up. Compost transplanted Amish pumpkins looking way stronger than thought all with one set true leaves.

Today Thursday May 14th:
Cut 3 heads of cauliflower. Slightly smaller than store bought ones, nice slight purple color :) They were starting to open a bit so I cut them today. Sauteed with some Spring onions from the Amish, butter and fresh Thyme from the garden. Honestly the best cauliflower I've ever had. Honestly.

Boy it's been raining a lot. Raining a few times a week for 3 weeks at least. Everything in the garden going off, weeds too. Though suddenly my Spring veggies are wanting to flower. Sigh. I guess I need to eat them. Yum.

Storing Information

I realized the other day that I rely WAY too much on the internet. Why print things out when I can just Google? Why store recipes when I can just go to my favorite message board and run a search for it since I know it's there? That's a mistake.

Look I'm not nearly as much of a "the sky is falling" type gal but I do feel a slight pressure more than I ever have to start preparing myself. For what I don't know. Maybe the Lord has some plan for us I don't know about yet (okay of course He does lol). Maybe the world WILL fall apart. Maybe we'll just keep plugging along day after day towards our goals and I'll need the information. Maybe one day we'll turn off the internet. Maybe the power will go out for 3 weeks in a bad storm. Who knows? AND of course I find it really hard to manage all the links in bookmarks and whatnots. Nevermind the anguish when you go to a site that had somethin special and BAM it's gone. Sigh Robyn. hehe. Or Candy when she stopped one day. Yay she's back. Or any of the other gazillion sites that left me hanging. All I know is I am starting to print off some of the great tidbits of information I've been gleaning off the internet and putting them in a big binder.

Like THIS:
http://www.scienceprojectideas.co.uk/make-rubber-band-from-dandelion.html
Yeah you can make rubber bands and waterproof fabric with dandelions. That rocks. And WHY haven't I heard this before?

I do have lots of really amazing books that have soo much information in them. I am so thankful to live in a time where amazing books are so plentiful. And I have some books I really still want like the Ball Blue Book and Root Cellaring.

But I'm going to start making myself a running list of what I want to print off. Things like:
Dandelion latex coolness.
Making lye (and drying it!!) from wood ash
Soap recipes
All sorts of gardening info
Rendering fat
Making baskets from local weeks and barks
Darning socks
Pattern Drafting info that is starting over at mrssurvival.com forums
Natural medicines
Medical info on farm animals
All sorts of plans for things like the rockin giant homemade dehydrator I just printed off or milking stands or homemade brooders, etc.
Preperation lists (love the 100 first things to go in an emergency list I'll post that soon)
And a million more things I need to figure out.

And there's something about printed information. I read all day long about winter gardening but when I sat and read Elliot Coleman's book it just clicked. Something about having it in my HAND helps me.

So I encourage you to get some of your valuable information off your computer and into your hand. Or at least I'm encouraging myself.

Who needs flowers? - Take 2

Remember my first installment of "Who Needs Flowers?" Well my sweet husband has done it again. A ways back I emailed him a nice wood cookstove that I saw on craigslist. I've wanted one forever. Slowly, way slower than I'd like hehe, we're working towards living without much electricity. I think we're still quite a ways from my hubby giving up running HOT water and flushing toilets but cooking with woodstoves and weaning off lightbulbs, we're getting there. Anyways, I've been keeping my eye out for wood cookstoves. BOY they're expensive even on craigslist. Then I found this beauty. It was almost 2 hours away and while cheap, still a fair amount of money for us. He told me he wasn't thinking we could get it. I tried to let it go but kept making little comments here and there about it. Yes I should have let it go. I tried. Honestly.

So I eventually figured we weren't getting it. Then late Friday night I made some little comment followed sweetly and jokingly by "you non woodstove getting husband hehe" He just smiled and said "who said I'm a non woodstove getting husband?" "WHAT?!!!!!!" replies his astonished wife. "I WAS going to surprise you but I'm going to get it early tomorrow morning". "I LOVE YOU!!" I squealed as I covered him with kisses.

And the next morning the alarm went off at 5 AM (on Saturday no less) and a few hours later he returned with this beauty. (ignore the fact that I had to piece two photos together and didn't feel like working on it to make it look right)


It's in pretty great condition. Very little rust, no cracks, nice white finish still. It does need a little TLC from me. I'll be getting rid of all the rust I can, either oiling it or stove blacking it (still need to research that), etc. We're not so sure about the water resevoir since it's just an open box with nothing else and there's a space under the water resevoir I need to figure out the purpose of. Clay's going to get the metal shop guys to build him a new insert for the hot water that perhaps I can lift out or.. well we haven't figured that out yet.

My hubby and son had fun because they said it was a really nice lady they brought it from. My son was more excited though about seeing all her geese and animals and whatnot but he's 9. She was happy it was going to a family that would actually use it and love it. And we will. All winter long we plan on using it. And for the summer... well my son's next job is hauling rock over to where together the kids and I will be building an outdoor grill. I'd LOVE to build an outdoor oven but one step at a time. I'll start pictures of the outdoor grill this week as we get started.

Anyways, the wood cookstove. I'm in LOVE with it. Well and my husband too. And my son who went with him.

Our Chicken Coops New and Old

We've had chickens for forever. It feels that way at least. They've lived in all sorts of places. We've built a number of chicken tractors. They still sit around the homestead. Occasionally a duck or chicken decides they're a good place to raise a bunch of babies. Right now in fact we have a Mommy duck sitting on eggs in one. No one actually lives in them, just random chickens and ducks decide to lay in them now and then. Having a few chicken tractors around is always a good thing though. Whether it's having a good place to quarantine new poultry, a temporary holding place for all sorts of animals, somewhere to raise a new batch of chicks from the feed store or a place for Mommies to hatch babies, everyone should have one around. They're a "Good Thing". In fact here's a happy Duckie Mama working on hatching some baby duckies as we speak.

She's in this old HEAVY chicken tractor. I need it moved for a garden there but man, the last time we tried to move it it tried to just break into a million pieces. :)
We also have the chicken trailer which just an old rickety trailer that we gutted and put roosts and nesting boxes in. The chickens lived in there for the last year. And we moved it more than once. Chicken coops on wheels are convenient for a number of reasons. But the chickens decided on their own to move out. Now the new chicks live in there.
Here's our happy little chickies in their trailer. I am a firm believer in the trailer coop. Cheap. Most people will almost want to pay you to take their old ugly one away. It can move. And easy to gut.

Why the chickens decided to move in with the ducks I'll never know but they did. We needed a new place for the ducks so what we did was run chicken wire all around the bottom of our back porch which is fairly high. I can't stand underneath it but still fairly high. We put a gate on it and presto! In 30 minutes or less we had a complete pen for the ducks.
*note that Adric sprayed the orange marking paint for marking the garden post holes all over the back porch. Dad's yet to see that one. He will soon. Uh oh Adric.

Yet of course, the ducks have decided to just free range in the yard all night. Whatever. I can't tell these things what to do. We used to round them up every night but after months we had enough of that nonsense. Hopefully they fly away when a predator comes. They've survived all winter so who knows. Stubborn creatures.

So the chickens moved in under the porch. The only problem with that is that they stopped laying in regular places. And it's not so safe with the gate open and ducks free. So this weekend we finished up the chicken coop. Note to mom - you'll probably be annoyed we didn't turn this into a playhouse like you wanted but really, even after we cleaned it out, it never would have been clean enough to be a playhouse. It was a mice house for way too long. Yeah it just couldn't get un-icky enough to be a playhouse. Here it is: Forget the stuff out front. We have yet to haul all the stuff we gutted out from it to the dump.
*note since writing this Clay has taken all that stuff to the dump. Hooray!*

We ran roosts on the framing beams.

We had leftover cabinets that work perfectly for nesting boxes and a feeding center. LOVE reusing things for free!
The cabinets worked great for nesting boxes! Clay ran 2x4s across the front not only to keep the straw and eggs in the boxes, but to give the girls a place to easily jump onto from the ground. They're loving the higher boxes. Us women like to make things as difficult as possible. Go figure.

And everyone is happy! They've been laying us eggs everyday in there and things are hunky dory.
And I'm really happy to have one more permanent part of our homestead finished. With so much to do and with the fact it feels like it will be years before anything is really done, as each thing gets ticked off the list, it feels like a huge victory.

The girls should be really happy now. I hope one day to run a small run around it so they can be outside in the morning before we let them out. Hmm... but then that would mean we'd have to have a chicken door open all night so it's open in the morning for them to get out and critters could get in. Well I still want a run so that they can be outside when we go out of town.....someday. We never go anywhere and like it that way.

Welcome our new additions :)

It's a busy time around here. All sorts of fun things going on around here. It makes me always wonder how all these homesteaders with loads of littles have time to blog everyday. Onto our new arrivals.

Meet the Rhode Island Reds. There are more of those guys. 10 in total but these are their spokespeople. Note I said spokesPEOPLE. That guys who got a little out of control with the green marker is the rooster. He better be a good one. We miss our other RIR rooster, Max. Our mean rooster Prince (who's in the freezer now) ran him off and we miss him. Rhode Island Reds aren't usually the kind of chicken to want to be close to humans, but they're not skiddish either and are great egg layers. They have always performed incredibly well for us so we got 10 of them.

Next, meet the Buffs. Buff Orpingtons. We've always had those. Always. They're fluffy and gorgeous and are fairly good egg layers but they are Mommies most of all. They love to set and make us little babies. And Buffs are one of the friendliest chickens out there. We don't really handle our chickens a lot but if we did they'd love for us to pick them up and whatnot. Just sweet chickens. With ONE exception. This doesn't hold true for their roosters. Our mean rooster that attacked kids and babies and adults and other chickens and ducks and was just mean was a Buff Orpington. So glad to be rid of Prince.
Those yellow Buffs are classic little chickies eh?
Here's a grown Buff Orpington:

Onto the Barred Rocks. I only got 4 of them but should have gotten more. They're my favorite "looking" chicken and ours laid all winter this year. Even when everyone else slowed a little she laid and laid. I should have gotten 10 of them!

Their markings look like this. Don't know why it's just a Barred Rock rear end but whatever.
I love Barred markings.

Next onto the Black Sex Links. Here's another one that are egg laying machines and I regret not having more. But honestly. How many eggs a day do we REALLY need? We'll be getting a couple dozen a day during peak season with all these girls. 2 dozen. Black Sex Links are my least favorite looking chickens but definitely the best layers
Here's a little Black Sex Link pullet (a young girl chicken) so you can see the markings
Last but not least the Ameracauanas or "Easter Eggers". They'll be all sorts of different colors and they lay all sorts of different color eggs. Okay well mostly green but all sorts of shades of green. We always get some of these each year because the kids can pick one for "their" chicken that is a totally different color than anyone else's. Last year we had "Fluffy, Cocoa, and Isabella". This year we have "Nana" (Mom bought em for us and so we bought one that's for her and named after her), and the kids have yet to name theirs. Well they've named them a few times but nothing has sticked yet
The first one is Adric's. You can't see it but it has a cool looking cheetah face. The next is Frankie's. It looks just like his one from last year. The striped head one is Cassie's. It's a cool looking chick for sure. And last but not least. Nana :)

They lived a few days in a box in the house but now live in the trailer that was in the tour thread. They have two heat lamps in there and are healthy and thriving despite it being down in the teens at night. They'll be in there for quite a while. Right now they're only allowed in about a third of the trailer and it's more than big enough. So they should be fairly big before they outgrow it. The hens are mad though because they started laying eggs in there. They walk around it mad and squawking. So I guess I will be finishing up the chicken coop ASAP. Our black australorp has taken to laying on Clay's work bench on the back porch for some odd reason.

Alright off to real life.