It’s been a very hectic month! I have not blogged as I would’ve wanted, but many things have been pulling attention away from my own personal website. The crops are almost done being planted, we’ve had to bring in 4 truckloads of dirt, raise several beds, planted a few trees and so on! Lots of chicks, lots of regular work, all distracting me from DawnontheFarm.com! To make up for that, I created a quick Youtube video tour of the farm, because I lack good video equipment! Enjoy:
Posts Tagged ‘chicken coops’
YouTube Farm Tour
Sunday, April 26th, 2009Time flys
Wednesday, March 25th, 2009Oh how many days go by! It really seems like the day before yesterday that I made a blog entry! No really I swear! Time just flys when your busy! Lets see, I have a ton of things to do today so I’ll be brief. Lets see if I can give you a summary of the accomplishments in the last week.
Gardening – I managed to plant 54 seed pots, within 3 days my broccoli & cauliflower sprouted and already began moving outside for daytime sunshine. Cabbage has also started sprouting and I expect many things to continue quickly. We put up solid edge borders on our raised beds, which were pathetically bordered by rocks before. They looked nice, but needed upkeep constantly and we tended to lose a lot of dirt that way too. So we’ve got those setup and we also dug a new bed where the little chicken tractor was formerly stationed, creating a 3rd planting area for my onions and such.
Chickens – I think I’m done selling adult chickens for now, as I only have Wattles left and a couple of buff hens to part with. I DID hear back from one of the White Orpington breeders and some chicks are supposed to be headed my way on Monday! At around the same time the eggs we removed from Broody will be due. Unfortunately, only 2 of those are well developed the other 3 are quitters. Which doesn’t surpise me considering all the interruptions she had on her nest, not to mention the cold snap that hit at the same time. Did I tell you about the time I checked for extra eggs under her but found a BUFF ORPINGTON instead? It was hilarious and those little girls actually FIT under Broody! Well.. it was a good chuckle.
Breeding in Pen #3 has started, the girls have returned to laying and have begun accepting their new rooster . Pen #2 with the Black Orpingtons is also nice & peaceful, everyone getting on quite nicely. Pen #1, the hen house, is still a bit up in the air. Not too sure how mature my rooster is in there, although I have seen him taking care of business with one of the hens, I have yet to see any activity with any of the others. He’s certainly NOT in any rush, and of course, he’s the one I need to perform the most! Hopefully it’ll all start moving along quickly soon and I won’t have anything to worry about. At least he is doing some of his job, that’s a good sign.
Turkeys – A New Hampshire man has 2 Jersey Buff turkey toms and no hens. What a predicament! I’m very excited, we are discussing the possibilities of trading a hen for a tom or even perhaps selling him my two hens so he can start his own breeding program. I’d rather do the trade but many things to consider, such as our NPIP status, shipping stress on these very large birds not to mention the cost of shipping them, which I have yet to find out. But, still.. possibilities are around so that is enough to brighten my day.
Ok.. I think that’s the major summary, I am 2 weeks behind on my work for www.JumpfortheCause.com a non-profit organization raising millions of dollars over the last decade for breast cancer research through a world record skydiving event. If you don’t know I used to skydive but became more reliant on my tunnel flying, but am still active with all my old friends and always meeting many new. It’s my honor to help them with their fundraising events through web promotion. Visit, donate and enjoy!
Spring is in the air…
Thursday, March 12th, 2009A few days ago, we marked it on the calendar, we allowed our broody black orpington hen to sit on some eggs. I was saving eggs from Lexi’s show chickens, because I knew they would be Silver Laced Wyandotte crossed with Big Blue, and I thought I might like to hatch a few. But since she was insistant about setting, I decided to give her a few. I have her 6 eggs, 5 SLW and 1 unknown that was laid that day. The next day we noticed the unknown egg was cracked and removed it. Today is Day 4 on her eggs and she’s still happily setting. The photo was taken yesterday of her setup. We have everything she needs within reach and I bring her treats regularly. Unfortunately, I still have to check for eggs underneath her because the other hens have NOT yet figured out that they should be laying in the other nest boxes. If broody makes it to week 2 and we candle the eggs with success I’m going to go ahead and block her area off from the others for the last week. I put the hen house thermometer probe underneath her, because the weather is turning cold. It’s reading a toasty 101.2F and from inside the house I can tell when she gets off the eggs to walk around. So far she is taking about a 15 minute break each day, the probe temp drops to the low 80’s while she’s off the nest, and warms right back up when she gets back on. I’ve had to readjust it a few times but mostly it doesn’t seem to bother her.
This last few days I’ve been on a hunt of course as well. It seems every type of poultry I like is rare or really rare and nearly impossible to locate! That being the case I’m going to be doing some collecting this year for next years breedings. I’ve found my source for Blue Orp hatching eggs and am still hunting for a source for White. A new friend contacted me this week too and was looking for a few of each kind. I thought it would be easier to find black or blue but it truly wasn’t! It appears we’ll both be waiting our turn in line, like everyone else. Each year, these chickens are harder and harder to locate. All the more reason to allow them to breed and share the offspring with others.
I forgot to put up the brace on the door of the aviary, and this afternoon when I went out to check for eggs, I found Black running around the yard after Wattles. Apparently their bantering through the door was enough that Black pushed the door open. Wattles is a bit bloody, apparently they were fighting for at least a few minutes before I got out there. I’m not sure who was winning… it didn’t seem like either of them were really into it honestly. One would flare up and peck at the other and then they would turn around and run the other way; taking turns on who was the aggressor. Well, it was easy to catch Black in this condition as they were oddly calm. I put him back in his pen and braced the door and Wattles went back to harassing everyone through the fence. He’s DESPERATE for some girls. I wish I could find a couple of girls for the yard, but at this rate it’ll be months before I can grow up a lady friend for him. I’ll have to keep on it, perhaps I will remove some of the extra hens from the Mystery Pen and make that an all Black Orp Pen instead. I’ll definitely have to wait until the weather is better at least, these ladies have never roughed it outside in the elements, and I’ll have to consider how to make a nest box for free-ranging hens too.
The 10 mile long yardsale is coming up soon, I’m sure I’ll find lots of goodies there this year.
I updated the site with pictures of my hen house & construction. I don’t have any real photos of the aviary under construction as it was really really simple and went up in a couple of days. I’m going to add some photos of the inside as soon as I can. I also added some photos and information on how I’m shipping fertile eggs if you would like to read more about that.
The cold weather is supposed to continue for a few days, but then the gloves are off. Spring is only a few days away at this point, I’m ready to start my indoor seeds, all but my Sweet Potatoes are here and I just can’t wait to get some plants growing!