The Best Laid Plans or Seven Birds and a Cat

The big difference between Mrs. H and I is that she's a "spur of the moment" kind of gal and I am a "let's take a year to think about it" type of guy. For example, a couple weeks ago she hollered at me from the other room -

"Guess what I found on Craigslist?"

"What?" I shouted back

"Chickens," she called out, walking into the kitchen. "Young ones too, and they're orangish colored."

"Orangish?" I inquired, rolling my eyes. "Hmm, I wonder what breed that could be?"

"It doesn't matter, there's no time because their FREE!" she exclaimed in a slightly elevated tone.

"Why are they free?" was my skeptical counter.

With a slight look of disgust, she replied "Who knows, but if I don't respond right this minute they will be GONE! FREE, did you hear me, they're FREEEEE!!"

And with a deep sigh, I conceded "Yes dear, if it makes you happy we can go look at them" and so she called the phone number, and so we went and looked, and thus it was that we eventually acquired a few new laying hens.

Sometimes it seems that no matter how hard one plans and schemes the Gods of Chaos will prevail. I had it all worked out in my structured little mind and once again she proceeded to challenge my boundaries. The plan was to pick and order new hens from the below listed birds that I had thoroughly researched and decided on. The 6-10 new additions, based on cold hardiness, egg laying abilities, size, temperament, and recommendations from other bloggers who raise chickens in colder climates were to be chosen, if available, out of the following breeds;
Ameraucana
Australorp
Buff Orpington
Chantecler
Delaware
Plymouth Rock
Red Star
Rhode Island Reds
Sussex
Wyandotte
Cochin
Russian Orloff

But no! The word "free" is like a drug to my wife and we have now been gifted with many new additions to our motley crew of laying hens. The newest hens supposedly range in age from 6 months to just over a year old and were offered on Craigslist because the owners could no longer care for them and were willing to part with the birds for free under the conditions that we provide a good home and not use their pets as stewing hens...only two of them were "orangish" colored and there were really 7 hens not 6 as the ad suggested.:) And so now we have;

Two small scrappy white Leghorns that I just adore. I would have never considered this breed but am so happy to have been talked into them as they are the neatest, busy, smartest little birds I ever did see. One of them even laid two eggs the day before yesterday...that was a surprise but apparently possible upon occasion.

A lone Red Star, such a sweet, friendly, very curious little bird, and quite smitten with our dog Rowdy whom she no doubt thinks is a rooster...he is a pretty cocky little fellow after all.

Two Buff Orpingtons, that, like the Red Star, were at least on my original list. They seem to be great birds and immediately honed in on the nest boxes and laid us a couple eggs.

And two more scraggly looking Rhode Island Reds that are as cockeyed crazy as my originals but should be a nice addition to our flock that now numbers 16.

That Mrs. H, she does like her deals and because of it we now have a larger flock that has meshed together without incident allowing us to avoid the challenge of raising baby chicks this spring. Luckily, the new gang of hens has been very submissive to our originals and no serious squabbling has taken place. The new birds are very happy as their old digs left much to be desired. The weather was nice enough the other day that they even ventured outside for a while, their first taste of freedom no doubt. Unfortunately, today's colder weather has somewhat tempered their enthusiasm for the great outdoors.

Oh, and my good wife found this half starved cat in our barn this winter too...it is sitting on my lap begging for attention as I try to type this...Ay yi yi. Meet Nikita Katerina (right), master of her domain and proprietor of the chair pictured below. She was spayed yesterday so everyone is being extra nice to her, even Spooky, our grumpy old orangish colored cat.:)

It's kind of a strange system that Mrs. H has put in place here, and one that always leaves me scratching my head wondering what the heck I just got myself into...and I wouldn't change a thing.:) As they say "Compromise, if not the spice of life, is its solidity. It is what makes nations great and marriages happy.”

Ambitions and Rambling Thoughts on Chickens

Sharing Food

Warning -“The critical opinions of a writer should always be taken with a large grain of salt. For the most part, they are manifestations of his debate with himself as to what he should do next and what he should avoid.” - W. H. Auden

The above quote can be considered my disclaimer as I am somewhat of a boob when it comes to discussions on animal husbandry. Give me a potato, tomato, or even a funky climbing trombetta squash to talk about and my confidence level is fairly high...chickens, not so much. That said, we have somehow managed to keep our flock healthy and thriving for a few years and are only now faced with a slow down in egg production forcing us to contemplate a few new additions to the gang.

One of our future goals is to become more self-sustainable when it comes to feeding our fine feathered friends. We think that this objective could either be achieved by once again selling enough eggs to pay for the birds feed and/or growing all of the foods that a small flock might need to meet their nutritional requirements. My plan is to one day soon set aside a small section of land that we will use to grow enough corn and wheat to feed a flock of 15-20 chickens whose diet will also be supplemented with as much garden produce as we can get them to eat. I figure that this might be possible on about 1/4 an acre...we shall see and I shall share.

These carrots, mangles, beets, potatoes, squash, apples, and sunroot tubers are being grated for the chickens.

At this point we are still buying most of the grain products that we feed our flock but do go out of our way to augment their diet with as many home grown food stuffs as possible. This makes a huge difference in the amount of store bought grains they consume. Right now our birds have around one fenced acre of forest and field in which roam about foraging for bugs, grass, and anything else they might find...this also helps with the feed bill.

The flock heading out into the cold...they hate being cooped up even more than they dislike the snow. Their pen is always open during the day so they can come and go as they please.

Every couple days during the winter months we grate and then steam cook a wide variety of vegetables from our root cellar for the chickens. A portion of this is then fed to them late in the afternoon each day to provide enough carbohydrates to help them stay warm at night. In addition to root vegetables the birds are provided with alfalfa hay when they can't forage for grass and weeds due to the snow and I also try to obtain any "less than perfect" greens from the winter garden rows for them while picking our daily salad.

The chickens get a flake of alfalfa hay every 3 days when their free range is covered with snow.

Their eggshells are saved, dried, crushed, and added back to the feed to help provide them with enough calcium for all those eggs we no longer get. Every couple weeks after I have cleaned out the wood stove the "cool" bucket of ash is left in the pen for them to peck at...they really seem to like the ash and it no doubt adds some beneficial minerals to their diet. I do know that the ash contains some calcium because we add all of Rowdy's (the dog) and any other bones we might come upon to the fire. When it is time to clean out the fireplace any ash remaining in the bucket is then spread on the garden and replaced with the new stuff. Wood ash can also be dumped in a pile so the birds can use it for dust bathing purposes during the winter, although we don't do this as their pen has plenty of soil in it. Obviously, we are very careful that nothing other than wood and the occasional bones go into the fireplace.

I built our chicken house so that it could easily accommodate 30-40 birds, although we have never had that many. Their house is built right into the barn and has three adjoining rooms, the one pictured below is where they sleep and lay eggs.

As I've mentioned in a previous post an oil heater and bird bath warmer are ready to use during January when the temperatures sometimes drop into the negative digits for a couple weeks. The heater is surrounded by chicken wire just in case someone decides to try roosting on it...so far that has never happened.

There is nothing better than a nice dust bath on a sunny winter's day...dirty birdies.


Here is an interesting excerpt from Countryside Magazine on feeding animals from one's garden:

"While growing small amounts of grains will be fun and instructive, you'll soon see why farm folk welcomed mechanization. But what about those crops that got left behind in the process?

The leader is probably the mangel, or mangold, or mangle-wurzle or stock beet. These are fun to grow: they'll amaze your friends and neighbors.

The roots reach fantastic proportions. . . two feet long and more. Don't worry: they grow mostly above ground You won't need a backhoe to dig them.

At one time mangels were a staple feed for dairy cattle, even in the U.S. They were displaced because the growing of other feeds was more easily mechanized. . . and because of the research into and improvements in silage. (Some writers maintain that if as much work had gone into root crops as was invested in silage, root crops would be the more common today.)

After harvesting, cut off the tops and store the roots in clamps-rudimentary root cellars. Dig a pit, put the mangels in, and cover with enough straw and soil to keep them from freezing.

We once had a Jersey cow that ate mangles whole, just nibbling on them like people eat apples. But conventional wisdom says cows can choke on these beets, so they must be cut into bite-size pieces. If you want to feed mangels and you're lucky, you might still be able to find a beet-cutter hidden away in an old barn. Failing that, you might study one in a farm museum and replicate it. . . or devise your own. On a small scale, of course, they can be chopped with a large butcher knife or machete.

Other root crops include the aforementioned turnips and carrots. Turnips have made a recent comeback among some shepherds. Planted in pastures, the sheep can harvest them themselves. (Turnips are said to produce off-flavor milk if fed to cows or goats.)

Carrots require more work to harvest, but if you have good, sandy carrot soil they're certainly worth considering. Store these in clamps, like mangels.

Jerusalem artichokes have also been highly touted as livestock feed by modern homesteaders. This member of the sunflower family produces stalks and leaves that are relished by cows, sheep and goats. Any animal (including humans) will eat the potato-like tubers, but that involves a lot of digging labor for little reward. We have found, however, that pigs enjoy both the labor and the rewards.

And what about potatoes? At first blush it might seem like some kind of a crime of waste to grow potatoes for livestock feed, but why is that any different than growing corn for them? Potatoes were once a common stock food, and culls are still used in potato-growing regions."

A Lazy Fall Harvest

Nothing too exciting to report from our Northern Idaho garden as the lackadaisical tranquility of autumn slowly takes hold. Surprisingly warm, above freezing, rainy weather has allowed us an extended grace period in which to finish harvesting the few remaining root vegetables. Purple Top turnips planted in late August have turned into nice little egg-shaped orbs that we have stored away for winter fare. My flock of red headed step children seen in the background were beside themselves waiting in eager anticipation for the nutritious tops to be shared.

The rutabagas have also been packed into totes. We only grew a few this year as they always end up wormy but this season we planted them a bit later, sometime in early July I think, and ended up with a smaller sized but mostly blemish free crop. We planted both the turnips and the rutabagas late in order to avoid issues with root maggots that so often haunt our brassicas during the early spring months.

We also potted up about 15 containers of celery, 3-4 plants per pot, to be used for soups, salads, and stir fry during the cold months. They keep surprisingly well in the root cellar as long as they are not allowed to dry out...you would be amazed at what good use we make of celery around here.


We saw this wonderful video, posted as a reminder to myself, on how to make kimchi this morning. I liked the way she prepared it and am looking forward to trying out this method...I love how she dices her carrots. Unfortunately, with a couple gallons already made it will be sometime before we get around to this. I would like to use turnips in place of radishes and I will probably pass on the squid as we don't have any in our lake...as far as I know.:)

Jack's Back!

Our little grandson Hunter William, aka Jack, has recently found his way back down the beanstalk all the way from California where he spent the summer getting reacquainted with his "birth mom." Anyway, he is back just in time to help with the harvest, of course all he wants to do is go fishing, and fishing, and fishing...he likes fishing. He is also the missing link in our garden photos as a small boy makes everything in the garden look much bigger.

Surprisingly, after being on a slightly (much different) diet than what we eat around here, the lad was ready to get back on track with a wide variety of wholesome foods from the gardens without complaint. He returned to us with a craving for fresh eggs, anything berry, and will eat as many cucumbers as we give him....pickled or fresh. I was sure that we would have to retrain those taste buds of his. Welcome back little man.:)

While he is really of Polish, Japanese, English, and other descent, he seems to have acquired my jovial Irish nature.:)


Don't let those little green eyes fool you, what you're really looking at is 100% pure mischief.


Saying hello to the girls on the other side of the runner bean patch

Harvesting Peas with Gimpy

With a little help from one of my trusty assistants "Gimpy" I began harvesting peas yesterday afternoon. Gimpy has a re-occurring leg injury and has been allowed to follow me around the gardens of late in order to get a little break from her mean sisters. She is also a member of a small party of "well behaved" chickens that are involved in my experimental currant fly/maggot eradication program. Currant flies emerge from the soil in April - May and lay their eggs in the fruit. When the fruit drops, the maggots enter the soil and so the vicious cycle begins anew. My thoughts are that if the chickens eat the fallen berries and any maggots that have already entered the soil it should help control the numbers of these nasty little bugs going forward.

Anyway, we harvested a nice little haul of Afilia peas and kale out of this bed and replanted more Afilia peas and fast maturing Roma bush beans in their place that will both hopefully be ready around the first part of September. I did leave a 6' section of peas at the far end of the bed to dry on the vine for next year's seed supply. While my bush peas have been planted, harvested, and replanted a small patch of our pretty purple podded pole peas (try saying that really fast) are just now in full bloom. With any luck the weather will be favorable for the next couple of months and another fine crop will be had.

Of Bark Splitting, Free Eggs, and Lessons Learned...

Last summer's heat was a bit challenging for a few of our smaller fruit trees, most being only 4-7 years old. Towards the end of the gardening season I noticed that two of our apricots and a pear tree had developed some pretty ghastly wounds in the form of bark that had split wide open in numerous places along both the trunk and limbs of the trees. This, having never happened before, was definitely a cause of concern for us and prompted me to dig up some information online that suggested perhaps the trees had suffered from sunscald...dang.

Our Chinese (Mormon) apricot tree is in pretty bad shape due to sunscald

Apparently sunscald is fairly common among younger thin-skinned fruit trees. Fortunately, it is often not fatal to the tree and I was very happy to see lots of new buds had developed on ours this winter signaling that the trees were still full of life. So from what I have been reading I will need to perform a bit of surgery on the trees and remove some of the curled bark thus helping the tree to recover and hopefully form calluses over the wounds. That and make sure that all of the trees get an adequate and steady supply of water to help prevent this issue in the future...lesson learned.

This young D'Anjou pear tree looks bad but is in better condition than the apricot


As for the free eggs, a few weeks back the grandson commented in a long forgotten conversation that the eggs he was eating were free. The free comment was not lost on me and this past weekend I shared with him a few of the secrets of life. I told the boy that now that he had grown into a strapping young five year old it was time he started earning his keep and proceeded to explain to him that the eggs he had partaken in were not really "free" at all. I shared with him the fact that caring for the chickens that laid those eggs required a bit of effort on our part and that they did not just magically appear in our refrigerator.


So, early the next morning we went out to the chicken house where I taught him how to perform his new duty, the monthly chore of cleaning the old straw out of the nesting boxes and replacing it with fresh, clean material. I explained to him one of my many theories, if the nesting boxes became too dirty the birds would begin to look for a better place in which to lay their eggs. I told him that as long as we kept the boxes cleaned at least once every month the birds did not seem to have this tendency and that the last thing we wanted was to wander around in the forest looking for stray eggs...he agreed that that would be quite a hassle. Under the hens strict supervision he did a pretty darn good job and will probably never refer to eggs as free again but might enjoy them all that much more as he now has a stake in the whole affair. Again, lesson learned.

Squawk! "Get to work boy, I'll be supervising this operation today."

"Good job, that's right, just dump the old straw on the ground. Hustle up now I've got eggs to lay."

The Pied Piper

Convincing my flock of 13 lazy redheads that the half-hearted throws of winter have temporarily subsided and what little snow we have received thus far has melted was no easy task. I was forced to act as a kinder version of The Pied Piper leading my fat little hens into the forest to fend for themselves for a few hours. They have yet to lose their free-ranging freedom to the winter's cold but have become a little too content to stay holed up in their den anxiously awaiting their all too generous daily ration of greens from our winter rows. As you can see only half the flock was convinced to follow a siren's call to greener pastures.

A Little Help Potting Endive

Penelope giving my lovely wife instructions on how to properly pack endive roots ↑

With a little help from our trusty assistant and self-proclaimed Master Gardener, Penelope, we were finally able to get some of the endive pulled and packed into pots for storage. Little red headed Penelope has been a step ahead of the rest of the flock since day one. We can take her into the garden without worrying about what she'll get into as she just likes to keep us company. This never works out too well with the other birds who immediately seek out the garden's forbidden fruits. They must be very jealous of her as they are only able to watch from afar as we dote on her. She is a very affectionate girl, the minute you kneel down she will hop onto your leg seeking attention...chicken love, it's a Northern Idaho thing.☻ If these crazy birds ever get setty I hope it's her as she is by far the most intelligent of the bunch, and that's not saying much.

After carefully pulling the endive so as not to break the roots, we cut all the greens off and put them into a large pile slowly feeding them out to the chickens over the next few days. Piled up like this the waste greens will stay fresh for over a week in fall's cooler temperatures and provide the birds with a valuable source of nutrition. The roots are then layered into small pots for storage. I finally figured out that if you lay the pot on it's side it is much easier to place the long rooted endive into them...it was Penelope's suggestion of course. I will take these pots out of our root cellar and into the much warmer upstairs one at a time and enjoy the forced greens in the middle of winter. The roots can also used as a coffee substitute - Poor Man's Coffee.

Forcing = the art of raising plants, flowers, and fruits at an earlier season than the natural one, as in a hotbed or by the use of artificial heat. In our case this applies to winter salad greens - Forced To Provide.

A substitute for this root, both for forcing greens and a sorry cup of dried root coffee, is the common dandelion.

Golden Treasure

Constant companions in the garden area, besides our ever-present cat, are our flock of Rhode Island Reds. They have around an acre surrounding the gardens to roam about chasing grasshoppers, scratching up worms, and squawking their silly heads off every chance they get. A simple clicking noise from me causes them all to come running, knowing that their kind master has some sort of treat for them. Spoiled they are, fed various greens and other garden goodies each morning and every evening. Often times even more if the kind master happens to be thinning kale or pitching overripe berries, and that is pretty often.



My reward, nourishing golden eggs. Eggs that are in no way similar to those pale sad little replicas that are found in the local grocers dairy section. Eggs whose yolks are colored as little golden treasures, and whose flavor is beyond compare. Eggs that make some people nervous because they are "too orange," not at all normal.


So, faced with an ever abundant amount of "real" organic free range eggs, and a seemingly constant excess of kefir (Berries, Kefir & Goats), we make quiche. One of our favorite ways to create a protein rich, nutrient dense meal. How do you make a vegetarian fat? Just feed him lots of quiche.:)



A box without hinges, key, or lid, yet golden treasure inside is hid.

- An Egg - J. R. R Tolkien

Hither and Yon

One of the best things about having a flock of chickens is their ability to consume and produce. What I feed them is what comes out in the eggs they share with us. Here are Penelope and Baldy enjoying some broccoli starts that did not make the planting cut.


"Our peppers are planted" he says with a deep sigh of relief. We were able to get the pepper plants in the ground two weeks earlier than last year... Hot, hot, hot for a change. I thought for sure we would have a cool spring going into summer but it went from frost to 80° overnight and looks to stay that way for awhile.


We find that these worthless tomato cages work really well for pepper plants, perhaps that is what they were really intended for... there must of been some sort of mix up in the cage marketing department. Then there are the "little bit bigger" worthless tomato cages, they make a most excellent support for eggplants. Some of this year's peppers will be from seed that I saved from really nice looking organic red bell peppers at the farmers market. It will be interesting to see how they do. I have yet to save any of my own pepper or eggplant seed... but I hope to do so this year.


I was somewhat disappointed when I realized that we had forgotten to plant amaranth this year. I have been growing it for years, mostly just because I enjoy looking at it. We have yet to grow enough to use it as a food source. To my delight, last year's amaranth is coming up all over the place... this did not happen in previous years but is a most welcome surprise.


Kind of a lame post, more so than usual, but we have been going at various tasks non-stop all spring and we are beat. The garden being mostly planted, our next spare moments will be spent hunting down firewood. The good news is that I cut so much last spring that we only have to get about 5 cords this year. :)

Foot Loose and Fancy Free

The snow having finally melted, I was able to add another 10,000 Sq Ft section to the chickens realm and they are loving it. They now have around an acre on which to roam.


And will have plenty of shady places in which to protect themselves from the suns rays this summer.


That will have to be enough, if they get too far back into the forest I won't be able to keep an eye on them. Now that's a nice pair of legs.


Shake paw, claw?

Chicken Ruminations

My flock of redheads are officially one year old and all 13 hens and 2 roosters have somehow managed to survive a whole twelve months under my dubious care. They have come a long way from little yellow fuzzballs that could barely totter around on unsteady feet to the large red birds they are today, each with their own unique personalities. Not being around chickens since I was a boy the whole procedure has been quite a learning experience. A number of things turned out to be much different than I might have imagined. A few of the things I've learned/observed about chickens:

First, never raise a flock of 15 chickens in your house for two months. While it seemed like a good idea at the time, with the weather being cold and the coop still under construction last March, I would have been better off delaying their arrival until May. Chickens have an uncanny ability to make dust and though they were kept in a separate room and were continuously cleaned up after we have never had so much dust in our house. I must say although we would never keep baby chickens in the house that long again I am glad we did as not only did we bond with the birds but our grandson was able to observe them up close and that in itself was priceless.

I thought for sure they would all be named by now but the naming process never really materialized. There is Penelope, the not so much friendly as food aggressive hen, stubborn little Rosie whom I spent almost a month training to lay in the chicken house and not afield, Big and Little Red the roosters, and then there is the unsung majority. Perhaps it is because they all look so much alike, but more than likely, the daunting task of naming and remembering said names of 15 chickens was just too much for our own little bird brains to manage.


Chickens are not afraid of everything as the term "chicken" suggests. They are really quite brave, or perhaps I should say adaptive. If something (as in noise) or someone (cats, dogs, and small children) does not immediately harm them they eventually chalk it up as a normal thing and go about business as usual. Fortunately, for them, they have not adapted to the many hawks, eagles, and ravens that are constantly flying overhead looking for a meal, but they do differentiate and ignore low flying airplanes and helicopters. Apparently our little garden spot is of great interest to someone as it was circled by helicopters off and on all summer.

The birds are not dumb, they are actually fairly intelligent. Maybe persistent would be a more fitting term as in persistently trying to find new ways into my garden. And ,oh, what a battle to teach 13 free range hens that eggs are to be laid inside the coop and not in the bushes, that took persistence on my part. The trick is to be able to watch the little rapscallions like a hawk and as soon as they try to lay afield lock them into the coop until they use the nest box...that was a two week training seminar most of the flock was forced to attend. It is amazing how quickly they can learn when it suites them and what stubborn creatures they become when it does not.

I read about how well certain breeds of chickens can handle the cold, what a bunch of rubbish that is. Chickens, like people, do not like to be really cold and will get frost bitten if left without enough warmth. It did not take long for me to realize I needed an oil heater in their pen after seeing them huddled in the corner one cold December afternoon. I now make every attempt to keep the temperature from dropping too far below 30°in their sleeping quarters, mostly it remains right around 25-35°when really cold outside.


My biggest concern, next to being able to keep them warm enough, was keeping the chickens locked up for months on end this winter and how they would handle the change from being free range to caged birds...and how would I ever keep their pen cleaned. In both cases I was in for a pleasant surprise as they adapted quickly to confinement, and although allowed daily forays into the snow they mostly choose against it. The cleaning has not been an issue either as they seem to take care of that themselves, any waste is quickly scratched into the dirt floor. The loose dirt under the roost gets turned daily and shoveled out once every couple weeks.



Lets see...what else? We froze dozens of eggs in anticipation of a lull in laying that never really occured. I think feeding them greens and grated root vegetables all winter helped with that. The roosters get along quite well with each other, they even sleep side by side most evenings. One is obviously in charge, but he often looks the other way while his counterpart is flirting with the ladies. The whole molting thing never really took place, or at least it has been on such a small scale as to be barely noticeable...again the chickens feed perhaps.


My only on going concerns are their seemingly progressive ability to fly with ease...a little higher every day. I thought they would be less able to do so as they gained weight but alas it has not been the case. Imagine the fun I will have keeping them out of the garden this summer, my 7' deer fence may not be enough. There is also the issue of our incorrigible roosters not taking kindly to small children and strangers, they really seem to enjoy sneaking up on the grandson or visitors and assaulting them from behind. My poor wife usually ends up caught in the middle and leaves the engagment with a few bruises to boot. The grandson and roosters are now taking advanced behavioral management courses, although progress has been slow on this front, I still have hope that in time a more positive chicken/boy relationship will develop.

I suppose that my next adventure in the fine art of chicken husbandry will have to do with setty hens. Do I really want any more chickens? Probably not. I think, in hindsight, that six hens and no roosters would have been just about right for this small subsistence plot. Hopefully, I will be able to maintain the health and happiness of the flock through another season.