Fowl

One of the clucks in horrible dress. She is in the process of losing just about all of her feathers in this picture taken in November All of the clucks have their feathers back now.

The flock of turkeys is growing. I think all but a few of the spring babies made it through the summer. There are over 20 of them now.

Chicken Talk

     

So you've made the decision to get chickens. You've secured a place for them to call home, the next step is to bring some home. Some folks may decide to bring home hens already laying and skip the chick process. But I think most people decide to bring home chicks. Those oh-so-cute little balls of fluff. You could order them from a hatchery and have them shipped to you or you could wait until your local farm supply brings in their spring supply of chicks. This is what we have done. We wait until the end of February. That is when the first shipments of these sweet little chicks begin arriving. There is a new shipment each week through the month of May for us at our farm supply. Many different breeds.  Now here you are looking at these little chicks sold as pullets and straight run. If you are a first-timer then you might be thinking what on earth does that mean? Is a straight run like a home run? And what is a pullet? These terms are chicken talk. A straight run is the term given to a group of chicks that have not been sexed. In this group of chicks are both male and female. No body knows what they may end up with. If you were to bring 5 of these little chicks home from a straight run group of chicks you will end up with some little soon-to-be roosters. Most likely more of those little chicks will be roosters then future egg layers. Usually these are less expensive as well. Now if you want egg layers this is where the term pullet comes in. These little chicks have been sexed. The term pullet refers to the female chick or egg layer. (Keep in mind there is a 10% chance that in the 5 or so pullets you bring home, you may end up with 1 of these pullets being a rooster.) In the total group of chicks that we have purchased as pullets 3 out of 19 of the chicks (pullets) ended up being roosters. This is also over two seasons of purchasing. Our first season we purchased 11 pullets and 2 ended up being roosters and in the second season we purchased 8 pullets with 1 of these ending up being a rooster. If you have large open space for your pullets, soon to be full grown chickens, a rooster or two would be ok. You should have a minimum of 10 hens per rooster as a general rule. We have a rooster here and kept him with our hens but over time we have decided that it is better for our hens to keep the rooster in his own space. If it is eggs you want then you should be looking to purchase pullets. You spend a bit more but in the end it is worth it.

Contemplating Clucks

     Looking back a few years, it was this time of year that our thoughts turned serious about bringing chickens home. We were sure we wanted to add them to our family and looked forward to their egg gifts. But first things first, we had to make a secure place to house them in. We decided to construct our little coop and run from reclaimed wood that we happened to have. We could have also used new wood from the lumber yard or home improvement store but for us it was nice that we were able to reuse some old wood. But one could also use an old garden shed or a new one, an existing out building that could easily be converted into a coop, or maybe one of those wooden shed kits that are sold at the home improvement store. What ever your choice ends up being make sure you really think about your decision. Where is the location of this coop going to be, will that location allow for a nice size run for your clucks and most importantly is it big enough. Now, due to space and how much you can afford in your finances to dedicate to this coop and run for your clucks has a lot to do with the size of coop you are willing and/or able to choose. For us I absolutely adore the little coop and run that we constructed. But if I had it to do over again, I think I would go a bit bigger. Our coop has a 4 x 8 foot print and our run is 8 x 12. I would do an 8 X 8 coop and 16 x 20 run if I had it to do over again. One reason is quite simply this, chickens are addicting. So are their eggs. But another important reason is that you need to have enough space so that each spring you can add a few more clucks to your flock. Why? There are several reasons. Sometimes clucks die. Just like that. No apparent reason. Or there are predators that you can loose your clucks to. But if you had none of that to worry about you would want to add a few more clucks each year for egg production purposes. When you bring your new little peeps home they won't be laying for a good 4 to 6 months depending on the breed. Once they start laying they will lay well for 2 to 3 years and then the amount of eggs they lay will decline. So if you add a few clucks each year, your egg numbers will continue to remain strong. I love knowing that the eggs we eat are coming from our very own, very spoiled clucks.                                                                                                                        

                                                                                                                                                           Snooks.

Square Foot Real Estate

Square footage. That's some touchy real estate. I think if we all had a choice we would have as much as we could possibly get our hands on. But for most of us that just isn't the case. If you have the space and the funds and are contemplating chickens or a new coop and run build it bigger then you think you will need. You will use the space. I wish we would have built our sweet coop double the size it is. Cause guess what? We want more clucks. We have been able to add a few each year and will be able to add a few more this year but then that's it. We'll be done with adding clucks to the space we have for them. You see it all hinges on the square footage. A bigger space for the clucks is always better. Our hens have a nice size run and spend most of their time there. Using the coop to lay eggs and sleep. We also give them time out of the run out in the back yard. Allowing us to have a few more clucks then if we kept them cooped up all the time. If the clucks will be spending all of their time inside the coop, then in my opinion it would be best to have a minimum of 4 to 5 sq ft per bird. But have a look at what 4 sq ft really looks like and you will see it's not much space at all - so more space is better. If you have an enclosed run space along with your coop then a minimum of 8 to 10 sq ft outside per each bird. But again that just isn't that much space and if you can go bigger then by all means do so. Taking into consideration your own unique location and situation for your clucks and how many you think you would like to have, key word being think, because once you have clucks you will inevitably want more. Rethink what size coop and run you can build or accommodate because this will determine the number of clucks you will be able to have.                                                                                

                                          

Counting Eggs

Counting eggs. Looking at internet sites that have lists of chicken breeds, somewhere in the description of the chicken you may find a listing of how many eggs that particular chicken is projected to lay either per year or by the week. For some one like me, I have to do the math. It's just how I'm wired. So for instance you might come across the Australorp who is projected to lay 260 eggs in one year. Now by chicken standards that's a bunch, since most chickens lay about 3 eggs per week. Divide that 260 eggs by 52 weeks and you end up with 5 eggs per week. So, if you were to know the amount of projected eggs each of your hens was expected to lay, you could find out how many eggs you could be expecting each day from your flock. Keeping in mind these numbers are based using the first 2 most productive egg laying years of the chicken. After 2 years the amount of eggs the chicken lays in a year goes down. Using the hens we have in our flock as an example, we'll do the math to find out how many eggs we can look for each day from our hens.

1 Buff Orpington - 3 eggs per week      3 x 1 = 3 eggs

1 Black Australorp - 5 eggs per week   5 x 1 = 5 eggs

1 Easter Egger - 4 eggs per week          4 x 1 = 4 eggs

3 Light Brahma - 3 eggs each per week  3 x 3 = 9 eggs

3 Cochin - 2 eggs each per week           2 x 3 = 6 eggs

4 Welsummer - 4 eggs each per week      4 x 4 = 16 eggs

 Our total number of eggs per week is 43 eggs.

Divide 43 eggs by 7 days and this will give you the amount of eggs you could expect to see from your hens each day. 43/7 = 6.14. Round this number down to 6. (Chickens are not going to lay a part of an egg. It's all or nothing.) 

Keep in mind also that there are factors that will lower the amount of eggs your hens may give you. Heat, cold, shorter days, diet, water, parasites, broody-ness and molting are some triggers that will make the hens lay less or not at all. Most of which, can be managed.

So, this is counting eggs. Or egg math. How ever you want to look at it. 

The Breeds of Chickens We Have

Buff Orpington. Lays 3 light brown eggs per week.

This is our one Orpington that we have. She is always friendly and very curious. First to come over and investigate what we are doing or come up and say hello. She seems to get along well with the other hens and does fine whether or not she is confined to the coop and run or out in the yard foraging. Her eggs are a medium size, fat oval, light brown egg.

Black Australorp. Lays 4/5 brown eggs per week.

We have only one Black Australorp as well. She stays to the hens. She isn't interested in being handled and stays back or away from us when we are in the coop and run. She doesn't seem afraid or flighty but isn't interested in mingling with us humans. She seems to get along well with the group but every now and then she will get after one of the other hens and peck at them or run at them. It is always short lived and never amounts to anything. She does well confined to the coop and run as well as out in the yard. This one lays a medium size brown egg.

 

Top brown hen is a Welsummer. Lays 4 dark brown or speckled brown eggs a week. Bottom white and black hen is a Light Brahma. Lays about 3 light brown eggs per week.

The Welsummers are a more active hen. They seem to be leaner and lighter in their build. We have one that is a year and half and she is very curious and friendly. We have 3 that are about 8 months old and they too are very active. They would rather be left alone by advances from us humans but will not hesitate to come and gather around us when we are being still. They do well in the coop and run but when let out to forage in the yard one can see this is where they enjoy being most. They can fly for 10 feet or so, about 3 feet off of the ground. Our year and half old hen lays large very dark brown eggs. The 3 young hens lay smaller speckled brown eggs. Their eggs are darker then your typical brown egg covered with darker speckles.      
The Light Brahma hens are a sweet bunch of hens. We have 3 of them. They are very calm and quiet and eager to be near us. One of them went broodie on us this last summer. Even for her broodie-ness she was never mean and never pecked at us when it came time to collect the eggs from under her. These hens have done well confined to the coop and run but also do great when let out into the yard. They like to run and stretch their legs. Being a heavier chicken that is about all they can do. These hens have laid large and medium size light brown eggs.

Blue Cochin. Lays 2/3 brown eggs per week.

We have 3 Cochin hens in our little flock. These are very sweet and gentle birds. They seem to be very comfortable being confined to the coop and run. When we let out the chickens into the yard the Cochin are the last to come out. They are actually a smaller framed bird. With lots of extra downy feathers and their feathered legs and feet they seem larger then they really are. They lay small brown eggs.

Easter Egger. Lays about 4 mint green/light blue eggs per week.

The only EE hen that we have in our flock. She is friendly and a fun bird to have. She is so curious. She contemplates everything she looks at. Quite the little thinker. She is one you will find up on the fence or up on top of the run. She is all girl and very expressive with her fluffy cheek feathers. She likes to play and will try to get the other hens to play with her. She is fine in the coop and run but would rather be out in the yard foraging. She lays a medium light minty green egg. Sometimes her eggs look pale blue.

Happy Chickens Lay More Eggs

Chickens and egg laying. Seems to be a basic concept. Chickens lay eggs. But happy chickens lay more eggs. This is a crazy notion but we think it's true here. Having a before and after peek into the lives our chickens you can draw your own conclusion.  

Before: We acquired a rooster in a batch of pullets that we purchased in Spring. By the end of summer this roo was big enough to start acting the part of a Rooster. Around September. Here is when we noticed a slight drop in egg production from the lady clucks. Then came the onset of the cooler temps of fall and shorter daylight hours. Loss of more eggs. The end of November brought deep negative temps and snow prompting us to put a cover over the run making it dark inside the run. Next to no eggs being laid. 1 to 2 a week from 13 hens.

After: Removal of part of the cover over the run making it much lighter. Addition of a well secured heat lamp for those cold, cold days and nights. Removal of the Rooster to his own space away from the lady clucks. Different brand of layer feed and an increase in the scratch that the clucks are getting. A week later after the lady clucks adjusted to the changes we are now receiving 3 to 5 eggs a day.                                                          We think our hens are much happier after the changes we made and they are showing us their happy-

ness in the quantity of eggs that they are laying.

Making Changes

Last weekend we had some pretty good weather. That is weather that wasn't freezing you to death and biting at every patch of uncovered skin. So we took advantage of these warmer temps (mid 30's just above the freezing mark) and cleaned the coop and run and made some changes and additions to the clucks coop and run. We got in and cleaned the coop. Removing all of the poopy litter and added fresh new litter and doubled the amount we usually add. We then removed some of the covering that was over the run to keep it dry. The covering made the whole run area dark. We all know how much chickens love and need the light. A night and day change for the run to say the least and the clucks seemed so much happier. We added a heat lamp for the night time. The temps up until this week were dipping into the negatives and on warmer nights barely into the teens. We also, after more observation of how the rooster was treating the lady clucks decided it was best for the ladies to remove him from their coop and run and put him in his own space. We changed up the feed and added more scratch to their diet. A week passed by and we still had little to no egg gifts from the clucks but at the beginning of this week -Sunday to be exact we received 3 eggs. Now we were careful in our excitement that maybe the clucks were starting to lay again because on Monday we only received 1 egg. But Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we were gifted with 5 eggs a day from the ladies. Today we collected a total of 9 eggs!!! Happy clucks lay lots of eggs. Lots of eggs make happy humans.

To Heat or Not To Heat

Heating the coop. We have not heated our coop in past winters but this winter we installed a heat lamp. My thought on heating the coop is based on stories my Dad has told me about the coop that he had when he was a boy. He lived smack in the middle of South Dakota and the winters there were not kind. In the midst of blizzards and deep negative temperatures he and my grandparents had chickens for their eggs and meat. Never did they heat the coop. As my Dad tells it, chickens are like little mini heaters. They put off a bit of heat all on their own. Now this doesn't mean that a chicken isn't going to freeze if she was left out in the brutal cold of the dead of winter. What this does mean is that if you are smart about your chicken keeping in the middle of winter the chickens natural body heat will enable them to keep warm.  If you had only a few birds you might want to add a heat lamp to help them with staying warm. A few chickens will put off a little heat but not enough in the bitter cold temps to keep them warm. The more birds, the more heat they create. We have a group of 13 clucks and by their numbers should really be able to stay warm enough on their own without the need of a heat lamp. However they will be using all the energy they have to stay warm, taking away from energy used for laying eggs. In those brutal South Dakota winters my Dad would close up all the chickens in their coop and they would stay warm. He had quite a few chickens, so there was no need for a way to keep them warm. The clucks did it on their own. So for winters sake and staying warm without the use of a heat lamp the old saying "the more the merrier" applies. Or perhaps it should be "the more the warmer." The more chickens there are in a coop the more heat they create. This is all providing you have a draft free coop with deep litter to help insulate the floor from the cold.

Ideas

      Tossing around ideas for around here. Lots of them. Not necessarily because it's the new year. But because we as a family have had some good down time these past few weeks for Christmas and New Years. We all had some good time off from work/school and in general being busy. So we were able to talk about our ideas for what we wanted to see done around here.

-Ideas like a walking path from the patio to the clucks coop and then over to the fire pit area.

          -Raising the roof of the clucks run. Our son is nearly as tall as I am now and even he has problems with squatting down to get in the run area to put down the food. Time to raise the roof so the run is more kind to our backs. I think the clucks will like the taller space too. We will be finding some large tree branches to put inside for them to get up on to roost. We will all be much happier.

        -Adding more clucks to our little flock. Husband and Son are both wanting to add some little banty hens to the flock. I would like to add another Easter Egger and a Wyandott or maybe some Faverolle. Not sure but wanting good egg layers. So we'll see what's out there this year in the way of choices from our local farm supply. 

      -We want to plant a garden this year. Since we took last year off. This year something smaller and started from seeds. 

           -I would like to see the porch cover done that Husband has been wanting for several years too. Not sure if we'll manage that but we'll keep it on our list.                -Moving the strawberry patch to a different location.                                       - Planting more trees.       Then there is all the up keep. Trimming up the berry vines, staying up with the

  weeds when the time comes and preparing the garden area to be planted.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Never Ending To Do's

Outside preparations. On going it seems. Or never ending is a better way to put it. It seems that I have been trying to wrap things up outside since September. Every time I think I am close to the end - the end seems to move farther away. I have been trying my hardest to get things complete before the bad weather sets in. I did manage to get some of these things done in some really beautiful weather. One of those things was the cleaning out and resealing of the gutters and their joints. No pictures of this, cause well, gutters are not that interesting and who wants to see dirty gutters. I know I didn't.

Stain. It could be a spot of something mysterious from who knows where on your favorite shirt of pair of jeans but in this instance it's wood stain. You can see in this picture how dry the wood is for the fence of the coop. The front and one top plank on the side of the fence have been stained. The bottom two planks along the side have not yet had the stain applied. The difference was amazing. 

Once again stain. We treat the coop with stain about this time every year. Whether it needs it or not. Clearly, as you can see by the picture it is in desperate need of a good staining. The right side around the window has newly applied stain. The rest hasn't yet been done. 

What a difference stain can make. The coop has a new coat of stain all the way around. Protected against the elements for another year. The clucks may not notice or care but I do. Now when I look out my kitchen window I smile at what a beautiful coop the Lady Clucks have. 

I moved all of the plants in from the patio to the mud room. They are quite happy there and have gifted me with some new blooms. 

Last week was a busy week for us here. All of that busyness tumbled right over into the weekend. 

Weekend Recap

    We have had one busy end to October and start of November. I can not believe that we are nearing the end of this year. With birthdays and holidays around the corner we have a busy next few months ahead as well. Note to self-don't forget to stop and smell the coffee.  We had lots of to do's this weekend and only managed to check a few off of our list. (We didn't have a list. But you know what I mean.) 

I love Geraniums. I remember my mom always having them when I was a kid. Hers were pink. So each summer I go out and get my Geraniums. Red ones. Love the red. Each year when we get the freezing temps I lose them. The leaves get all sucked up looking and brown. This year I intend to keep these little pretties alive in our mudroom/laundry room. No sense in wasting these happy, colorful bits of summer. You all know how much I love summer. 

So I trimmed all of the brown sucked up leaves off. To find that these plants still had some life left and not all was lost in the recent below freezing temps. Very happy about this. I had to replant them in some smaller pots in order to move them indoors. They seem quite happy in their new digs. Now all I have to do is not forget to water them.

We had some raking to do this weekend as well. We still have lots more to do. I managed to get the area around the coop and run raked out. The roof to the run raked off and the run raked and cleaned out. Now that the walnut tree has lost all of its leaves and the dang walnuts, it was safe to get in and get things all cleaned up with out the worry of being assaulted by walnuts falling from the tree. They hurt when they hit you. 

As you can see in this picture and the one above our ugly girl is finally getting some feathers back. She has been in a molt since February. I am happy to see signs of her getting her feathers back. Our other hens have been molting here and there but not with quite as much gusto as this Australorp. Our egg production has dropped off considerably the last months of summer and this past week we have been two days with not a single egg. We got one egg on Saturday and nothing again yesterday. These clucks better get laying. I need eggs!!!

In all of the activity this weekend, raking leaves, moving trailers, cleaning gutters and the clucks coop and run we managed to enjoy the outside and had some nice weather. While we were outside we let the clucks out to forage in the yard and piles of leaves. They can really do a number on a nice pile of leaves. Our Easter Egger rooster Little Bit was working hard at his rooster duties. We have a resident mama hawk who resides in the trees by the creek and guess what? She decided it was time to do some hunting. I heard her and kept an ear open to where her squawks were coming from. Most of her noise was coming from a distance but one was directly over head. I looked up and sure enough there she was. Looking to mark her target. I looked into the yard and saw that Little Bit had all of his ladies gathered underneath the big pine tree. He had heard her too. What a good boy.

I told the guys and we hurried to get the ladies into the safety of their covered run. Little Bit was quite happy with that and remained in the yard with us guarding his precious ladies. The lady clucks were quite happy to be in their run. Preening themselves in the sun after foraging in the yard. 

Not everything that we had intended to do this weekend got done but we did do some of it, as well as some things that we hadn't intended on doing. Most importantly we enjoyed each others company.

Weekend In A Nutshell

For a weekend with nothing planned we sure found a lot stuff to do. Most of it did need tending to. For starters my Husband and son winterized the boat and covered it and then drained all of the water out of the camp trailer. Those were things that were important to get accomplished. Husband mowed the lawn and we even did a bit of chicken watching and chatting with the neighbors over the fence. We even aquired some railroad ties from them that they were getting rid of. Not too shabby I think.

This is one of several loads of black walnuts we raked up and got rid of. I hate the way those things smell. Kind of a spicey pungent smell that got stuck in my nose. We are not fished yet with their removal as there are still more attached to the tree that will continue to fall over the next week or so. Oh and by the way, they hurt when they fall out of the tree and land on your head.

We took a few breaks to watch the clucks in the yard doing their scratching and hunting in the fresh cut grass. 

This is the old rabbit hutch we are borrowing from the neighbors to put the rooster in. After much conversation over the fence with the neighbors, the Husband and myself, we thought the lady clucks could use a break from the roosters,, eh em, shall we say "attentions". He won't leave the gals alone. He is really feeling his oats. Talk about above and beyond the call of duty. Hoping the break will help increase our egg production and give the poor gals a rest. 

Little Bit, the rooster enjoying the yard and his ladies.

Little Bit isn't so little is he?  He wasn't really named cause he was little. It came from the comment we kept saying when we first brought the peeps home. You see he wasn't doing so good. Husband kept saying he just needs a little bit of time. We gave him electrolytes and kept a close eye on him. All he needed was just a little bit of time and some electrolytes and he was as good if not better then new. He grew into a big strong handsome roo.

So there you have it. Our weekend in a nutshell. With a little background on the rooster thrown in.

New Peeps.

Some of the sweetest little peeps that I have ever encountered. 

Everyone outside for the first time.

Welsummer peeps. Not such peeps anymore. 5 weeks old.

Sweet little Blue Cochin. 3 weeks old.

I am excited to add these little ones to our flock. We increase our numbers in eggs, adding more beautiful dark brown eggs from the Welsummers, some green eggs from the Easter Eggers, and the sweet Blue Cochin with their feathered legs. Can't wait for the eggs to start coming.                                                             

Additions Update

From left-3 day old EE chick and 3 day old Blue Cochin.

Welsummers just over 2 weeks old.

My goodness. I can not believe how fast these past few weeks have gone by. Since then we have completed the coop addition and added 32 square feet to the clucks run and revamped the roosting bars in the coop. We changed out the feeder for one of the galvanized bucket styles and made a list of more things that need to be done on the coop and run. We have planted roses that our sweet lab decided were sticks that he needed to play with in the yard. I put the roses back in the ground and they have yet to produce any signs of growing into beautiful rose bushes. The two climbing roses were left alone and are looking very promising. I am giving the poor bushes just a bit longer to see if they show any signs of life. We have added a few more heart beats to our little homestead. We brought home 3 Welsummer peeps about 2 weeks ago and this past Friday we brought home my sons choice of peeps. His long awaited Blue Cochin. 3 of them. He also fell in love with 2 little bearded Easter Eggers that he couldn't walk away from. Which brings our total number of peeps to 8.  Eventually they will be integrated with our current flock of ladies which make our clucks number 16. Hoping 16 is as sweet as they say and all goes well. I know we will be rich in eggs. Hope everyone can get along.