How to pasture poultry without a chicken tractor

When we first got chickens, we were surprised at how far from home they would wander.  They mostly stayed in our yard, but we found that they'd occasionally go over to the bar near our house, which is further than I expected them to go, and across a somewhat-busy street.  The current flock travels as well, but in a different direction.  I spoke with all the neighbors when we got chickens, but either I missed one, or they changed their mind.  Someone got upset about birds in their yard, and they called the humane society on us.  We weren't home when the officer came out, but we were given a warning about our birds "running at-large".  Oops.  I really wish the neighbor had just come to talk to us; I don't understand why they wouldn't want chickens in their yard eating their bugs, but I would have responded the same way I did to the humane society visit.  In other words, the chickens would have been kept in their run instead of ranging. 

Poor chickens.  In 3 weeks of confinement, their eggs went from having orange yolks to yellow yolks.  I don't think they were as pale as storebought eggs, but there was definitely a difference.  I'd let them out half an hour before sundown to range a bit, since they'd stay very close to their coop, but it just wasn't the same.  Shayne and I talked about fencing the yard; we talked about fencing an area around the coop.  But if we fenced the yard, it would ruin our views and access to the little woods behind the house.  Ethan plays back there, and the neighbors let us dump any yard waste that we don't burn.  And if we just fenced an area around the coop, we knew in short order it would be down to bare dirt.  They could exercise, but there wouldn't be any forage for the birds.  I didn't want to build a tractor, since we already had a nice coop and run.  Plus, most tractors small enough for me to move myself seem like they're too small to really let the birds exercise.  What to do?

After some serious googling, I came across Premier 1 Supplies and PountryNet.  It's portable netting made for pasturing poultry.  It's designed to be electrified, but we're just using it as a standard fence.  There are PVC posts every 10 feet with a U-shaped stake that you step on to push into the ground, and the fence itself is flexible, twisted wire 48" high.  The entire 100' roll weighs about 20 lbs, and it takes me about 10 minutes to set it up on the days I move it.  I'm sure it will be less once I'm not pregnant and can move a bit faster...  The birds get the benefit of fresh forage, my lawn gets fertilized, and the chickens don't stay in one place long enough to destroy the grass.  If there's a downside, I haven't yet found it.

We got the green netting, since we didn't want to draw attention to the fence.  I wasn't sure how it would look, and although we are in a somewhat rural area, we do try to keep things aesthetically pleasing.  I'm no Martha Stewart, but I didn't want our yard to look ghetto (for lack of a better term...).   I had to wait on the green fencing, as it was back-ordered, but I'm really pleased with it.  It's nearly invisible from the road, and it allows the birds enough area that I really only need to move it twice each week.

The chickens are happy, we should be back to getting healthy eggs, and hopefully we won't have any more problems with our neighbors.

This year's homesteading plans

Yes, yes, I'm well aware that the year started about 3 months ago...  But the gardening season is just starting here, so it seems an appropriate time to talk about my goals.

First of all, our garden will be considerably smaller than the past two years.  Really small.  Baby #2 is set to make an appearance in mid-July, and I just don't want to be inundated with tomatoes while trying to adjust to having two littles.  I am still planning on making my own sauce and juice and canning fresh tomatoes, but I'd like to do it on my schedule.  So I will buy my tomatoes at the market in order to have some leeway with timing.  I'd hate to let tomatoes rot because I'm exhausted from a colicky baby or something.  I think I'm just going to grow dry beans, squash, carrots, onions, potatoes, and watermelon this year.  Everything should store well, so even if I'm a little slow to harvest, there shouldn't be any issues. 

My hens are going absolutely crazy laying eggs.  I've read in numerous places that a hen needs many hours of daylight to continue to lay, but my girls laid all through winter.  Production did slow down, but I never got less than 3 eggs per day once everyone started laying.  Now with the slightly longer days and warmer temps, I'm getting 5-6 eggs per day.  I love being able to feed them our kitchen scraps and leftovers that are going bad (though we've been really good about having less of those!).  No changes are planned for the girls, barring any catastrophes.

But we are going to get more chickens.  I have a friend with a barn and fenced horse pasture (out of use) who has offered to raise chicks with me!  We're going to get Freedom Rangers, as I have some ethical objections to the cornish cross hybrid (namely, I believe it is cruel to breed a bird to grow and gain weight so quickly that its legs and heart cannot support it.  I realize that sometimes this can be mitigated by withholding feed for some of the day, but I just don't feel it is responsible to breed a bird that is predisposed to so many health issues).  Our 25 chicks will arrive in late May or early June, and we will plan on butchering at about 12 weeks.  I would like to do the butchering ourselves, and another friend may have a chicken plucker built by then that we could borrow to speed things along.

I'm slowly but surely adding to my cooking repertoire.  Recently, I've made homemade Lara bars from dried dates, dried cherries, and walnuts (recipe).  Mine turned out a bit less sticky than they needed to be, but I about blew the motor on my mini food chopper, so I just left it instead of adding more dates and cherries.  I've also made broccoli cheddar soup (yum!) from this recipe.  I halved it and used all cheddar instead of "processed cheese".  I also added onion when I was melting my butter.  I had to cook it WAY longer than 30 minutes to make the broccoli less crunchy, but it was very good.  And...  I got brave and made my own pie crust to use for my chicken pot pie after learning that Pillsbury refrigerated crusts have awful ingredients and artificial colors.  Yuck.  I've always been scared of pie crusts, but decided to give it a go.  I found a recipe using 5 ingredients: flour, butter, salt, sugar, and water.  The first one was a dud (though edible), but version 2.0 was quite good.  I only used 2 1/4 cups of flour, so it wasn't so dry.  I'm impressed with myself.  If you decide to try your hand at crusts, I strongly suggest rolling it out onto a piece of parchment paper or waxed paper.  It makes transferring the crust to the dish so much easier and allows you to use much less flour.  I'm planning on making up a couple and freezing them so that they're on-hand in a pinch.

Foods I want to learn to make are yogurt, a good wheat sandwich bread, more soups, and homemade pasta.

But really, things here will just be business as usual this year.  As always, we're taking baby-steps to increase our self-sufficiency, eat healthier, support our local economy, and live more mindfully.  Some days I feel like I'm not accomplishing anything, but every time I take my lunch to work in a mason jar, I'm reminded of how far I've come.

Pretty Boy meets The Girls

Last night we took a trip to a friend's farm to go get Pretty Boy, the rooster.  Ethan was ecstatic to go see cows, and was even more excited when he found not just one, but three tractors in the barn.  This child is obsessed with machinery.  Sue got Pretty Boy into the kitty carrier with a minimum of fuss, and he rode quietly all the way home.  I set the carrier in the coop, still closed, and planned to wait til dark to let him out.

At around 7 pm, Shayne heard Pretty Boy squawking quite a bit, so I went out to check.  As then hens were trying to come home, Pretty Boy was bk-AWWWWK-ing at them loudly and scaring them away.  I moved the carrier out of the coop, and peace was restored. 

And then it was dark.  I was worried, as last time I introduced new chickens to an existing flock, there was a lot of picking and pecking before they sorted it all out.  But this time, nothing happened.  Pretty Boy went to roost on the ladder to the chicken house, and the girls cooed sleepily at him before going back to sleep.

But I was still worried.  I woke up at about 3 am and was unable to get back to sleep.  All I could think about was whether or not there would be bloodshed in the coop when I went out in the morning.  Was it too small of a space to introduce a lone bird to my flock?  If they fought, would the picked-on bird be able to find somewhere to hide?  Maybe I should go out at 6 am and open the door, so they could all go straight outside when they woke up?  Yeesh.  It was a long night.

I actually slept later than I expected, probably as a result of being up half the night worrying...  So at 8:30, I ran out to the coop, expecting much chicken misery.  Pffft.  As if.  Pretty Boy was in the house, and the girls were on the floor.  As I opened the door, Pretty Boy emerged and started bRRRRkk-ing at me.  The girls all hopped out the door, and Pretty Boy followed.  He followed them around, making chiding-sounding noises at them, then did his little wing-dragging mating dance.  Oh my.  My little adolescent hens went crazy.

First the girls would all cluster together, making little chicken noises that reminded me of nothing so much as a bunch of teenage girls giggling.  Then one would get brave and run up to Pretty Boy.  She'd circle around him, acting shy.  He'd dance some more, and she'd get even closer.

 

He'd decide the moment was ripe, and he'd jump on her back.  "Sqaaaawwwk!" went the surprised hen, as she ran back to the other girls.  They'd giggle and gossip some more, then another one would go to tease Pretty Boy.

The light was horrible (which is obvious from the picture I took), otherwise I'd have taken a video.  They were hilarious.  I think Pretty Boy was flattered by all the attention; he came from a flock of 70, with several other roosters.  I'm really looking forward to seeing the results, now that he has his own, very appreciative, harem.

We're getting a rooster!

I said when we first got chickens that I'd never get a rooster, because I was afraid of all the noise he may make.  And now I'm eating my words.  With the continued unease in our economy, plus the fact that I've been unable to source a reasonably-priced provider for pastured chicken meat, I decided to look a little closer to home for a solution.  And when a friend posted on her blog how she needed to offload a rooster or two... the answer seemed obvious.

Pretty Boy, a Buckeye/buff Orpington cross, will be coming home to roost on Monday night.  None of the girls have started laying yet, but two of them are really close.  Their combs are bright red, and their wattles get bigger every day.  I expect eggs within a month. 

We currently have three breeds of chickens.  Buff Orpingtons and Australorps are considered a dual-purpose breed.  The grow fairly quickly, are heavy-bodied, and are excellent layers of brown eggs.  The Easter Eggers lay green eggs, and are fairly slim.  They are geared more for egg production than meat, but since their eggs are green, I will be able to easily remove them from underneath a broody hen.  Or if we hatch in an incubator, I'll select only brown eggs unless we need to replace a layer.  I'm hoping to raise a few birds next year for our own consumption.  I'm not sure yet if I'll do the processing myself; I don't have a good spot outdoors for butchering and cleaning production-line fashion.  But if not, we have a processor nearby who charges $7 per bird.  Even adding in feed costs, I estimate each bird would cost about $12 and dress out at 4 - 5 lbs.  And for organic (getting new, organic feed soon!), truly free-range, pastured chicken, a price of less than $4 per pound is unheard of. 

I'm still not certain about the noise issue...  But he can't possibly be noisier than our neighbor's 6 beagles. 

Backyard chickens: Another hen homicide

I came home for dinner tonight and went to shut the coop door.  I checked inside to make sure all the girls were tucked in and to gather any eggs before they froze overnight.  Then on my way back to the house, I noticed my favorite Australorp laying in the snow.  The mystery neighborhood dog strikes again...

I'm not sad so much as I'm pissed off.  I like my chickens, but I never named them, and I don't really consider them pets.  But...  I don't really like them being killed by a roving dog, either.  I want my hens to be able to free range, but that doesn't seem to be an option right now.  Maybe some kind of fence is in order.

I was able to get the breast meat off of the hen.  I wasn't sure how I would feel about doing it myself, since with the last hen I had just watched my friend do it.  But it wasn't a big deal, or difficult to do.  I don't know that I could kill my own birds, but at least once they're dead, I can take care of business.  I guess I can add that to my list of ever-growing homesteading skills.  It's an unfortunate thing to have to do, but I am grateful that I can have a bit of meat out of the deal.  At least her death wasn't completely in vain...

Backyard Chickens: Rainbow Eggs

My new girls are laying!!  My other Australorp finally started too (see the pale brown egg in the center that is smaller than the rest?), so I've been getting anywhere from 1 to 3 eggs per day.  I have no supplemental lights or heat, so I'm surprised I've gotten any.  It'll really be something in the summer to get 5 per day!  I love how they lay different shades of green and brown so I can tell whose are whose.  The dark green is from the silver Easter Egger, the light green from the red/gray Easter Egger, pale brown is the Australorp with the smaller comb, medium brown is the Australorp with the big comb, and dark brown is the Wyandotte.  The buff Orpington, before her untimely demise, laid pale brown eggs with white speckles.

I love chickens!

Backyard Chickens: New Additions

Today my friend J from work called me with a surprise: he was on his way home from his sister's farm with 2 Ameraucana hens. I lost my buff Orpington on Christmas Eve to a dog attack, and I was planning on ordering chicks again in the spring. I'm so glad thta now I don't have to! Not that I minded the chicks, but I don't want the hassle of a curious toddler and a boxful of chicks with a heat lamp over it. I don't think he could resist the temptation!

I met J at his house earlier and brought home these 2 odd-looking girls:

The red and blue one has a muff - feathers that stick out around her beak - and they're both supposed to lay blue or green eggs. They're more elongated and trimmer than my Australorps and Wyandotte, and neither has wattles to speak of. Looking at these birds, I can see why scientists theorize that chickens came from dinosaurs.

So far the silver hen is having a bit of trouble getting along with my Wyandotte, but hopefully they'll sort out their pecking order without any major damage. They were both roosting on the same branch tonight, which I think is a good sign. We'll see.

Merry Christmas from the backyard chickens!

Chickens in the snow

I had read that chickens hate snow and won't walk around in it.  Mine must not have gotten the memo.

My buff Orpington has started laying, and we now get 3 eggs on most days.  Hers are a very light, almost pinkish tan.  The Australorp's are a light brown, and the Wyandotte is a darker, but still light, brown.  The other Australorp's comb and wattles are finally turning red, so hopefully she'll jump on the egg-laying wagon soon.  I keep expecting egg production to drop, since our days are getting shorter.  Everything I've read about chickens says that they need over 12 hours of daylight to continue laying (some even say at least 16 hrs).  Right now we get about 10 hrs, 45 minutes, and it's still decreasing.  I guess it's just another thing my chickens missed the memo about.

Year in Review: Homestead Harvest

This was a bit of a rough year; between working full-time and keeping up with the kidlet, I didn't really have much spare time at all.  Next year should be more productive, since Ethan will be able to "help" with gardening and cooking a bit more.  I'm really looking forward to teaching him about growing food and raising animals.  But even though this wasn't the most productive homesteading year, it was still a blast, and I'm really enjoying being a mommy.

As far as homegrown foods...  All that really survived our hot summer was the tomatoes and green beans.  The broccoli fried in the heat, and the carrots never even sprouted.  I wanted to plant potatoes and onions, but it never happened.  Neither did the spinach or lettuce.  Oh well.

I did make lots of jam.  I canned 6 half-pints of cherry butter, 9 half-pints of raspberry jam, and 15 half-pints of strawberry jam.  There were also 6 half-pints of strawberry ice cream topping (also great to add to yogurt).  And I still have a bunch of raspberries frozen in the freezer waiting for me to make them into jam.

The tomatoes were a big success.  I only planted Romas, and I canned 12 quarts of sauce using only my tomatoes.  I'm definitely planting more next year.

Frozen veggies...  Didn't happen.  I wanted to at least freeze some corn, but the harvest came and went before I even had a chance.  Oh well.

I've started on applesauce, and canned 6 quarts so far.  I plan on buying another bushel of apples at the market soon.  A yellow delicious and Empire blend seems to yield the tastiest sauce, in my opinion, but I might pick up some "mixed seconds" as well.  My goal is 18 - 20 quarts.

The best part of this year, and what makes up for the lack of productivity elsewhere, is the fact that we got chickens.  Even better is that they now lay eggs!  I got our cute little balls of fluff on May 4, and on October 11 my Wyandotte laid her first egg.  One of the Australorps started on October 22, and the buff Orpington looks like she'll be laying any day now.  The other Australorp seems to be a bit of a later bloomer.  But her wattles have gotten a little bigger, and her comb a bit pinker, so I'm hoping she'll get started soon as well.  Still, even 2 eggs per day is nice, and it's enough for me to share with others.  I'm not keeping track, even though I probably should, but I've gotten at least 4 dozen eggs so far. 

Chickens are so, SO easy.  All I have to do is shut the coop door at night, open it in the morning, and check to make sure they have food and water.  They pretty much feed themselves by free-ranging around the neighborhood, and eveny night they come home and put themselves to bed.  They require about as much upkeep as a gerbil, but with the bonus of producing food.  Can't beat that!

I'm thinking of adding 2 Easter Egger chickens if I can find some.  The only thing more fun than yard fresh eggs is blue or green yard fresh eggs!

I'm already getting excited for next year!  I want to order from seed catalogues instead of buying hybrid seeds from the garden centers around here.  I'll probably get seed potatoes locally, but that's it.  Time to start browsing the web to decide on varieties!

The Monster Egg

I'm not sure which of the girls laid this one, but I can't imagine it was fun!

Looks like a double-yolker to me!

Backyard chickens: More eggs coming soon!

This is one of my Australorps, happily parked in the nest box.  I'm so proud of her.  I knew she'd be statring to lay sometime soon, since she was exhibiting signs of sexual maturity (large, bright red wattles and comb, squatting, and no longer shedding her neck feathers).  But I wasn't sure when she would lay, or if maybe she had already started.  Some hens don't lay in the nest box (my Wyandotte) or even the coop.  So since they free-range most of the day, I thought she may be laying in the woods, or the neighbors bushes, or Lord-knows-where-else.  I felt bad shutting all of the girls in just to see if one hen was laying, especially since there aren't many nice days left, so I was determined to wait for a rainy day to keep them all in the coop.

But apparently that won't be necessary.  This afternoon I came home from dropping Ethan off at his "grandparent's" house, and was greeted by only three happy chickens.  I checked the bushes, the neighbor's yard, and the woods before thinking that she might be in the coop.

And there she was, right where she was supposed to be, and hopefully working on laying an egg.

The first ones seem to take a while -- the Wyandotte sat on the nest for about 90-120 minutes for the first few days -- so I had to leave for work while she was still sitting in the nest box.

Let's hope she has something to show for all that sitting!

Backyard chickens: Scrambled eggs!

Since I collected my fifth egg today, I decided it was time to make some breakfast!  My mom came over after going to the farmer's market, so she got to share the feast.

I was going to do a side-by-side comparison of my "yard fresh" eggs with the all-natural eggs from the farmer's market.  But my mom didn't get any this week, and the ones I had in the fridge, while still good, are a few weeks old.  I didn't really think that would be fair.

But my eggs would have won anyways.

The first thing I noticed was that the shell was extremely hard.  I don't feed any supplemental calcium, just standard Nutrena layer crumbles, some table scraps, and whatever they find while free ranging.  I did get some oyster shell bits for winter, though, since they won't be able to range as much.

The second surprise was how orange the yolks were.  I had thought that the orange yolks from the market eggs were bright, and they certainly are when compared to a store-bought, factory-farmed egg.  But the yolk from my hens were BRIGHT orange.  The egg white was also a yellowish color, not clear.  How orange everything was became even more obvious once the eggs were cooked...



No Photoshopping.  The eggs are really this color!

  

It looks like I made scrambled yolks!

Surprise #3?  They tasted like eggs.  I had thought that maybe a truly fresh, free-range egg might taste... I dunno.  Eggier?  Kind of like milk from a grass-fed cow tastes different.  Nope.  Although a free-range egg does have more nutrients, the taste is the same.

So breakfast today was yard-fresh eggs (scrambled with local milk from grass-fed cows and cooked in homemade butter) and toast with homemade raspberry jam.  If I'd made my own bread, the entire meal would have been entirely homemade.  But it's close. 

I also noticed that one of my Australorps kept squatting while she was out ranging today.  That's supposed to be a behavior that comes right before egg-laying, so maybe soon we'll be getting 2 eggs per day!

Backyard chickens: Yard fresh eggs!

We haven't eaten any yet, but I've now collected 4 mini-eggs from the Wyandotte.  She seems to lay them between 10:30 and 11 am; if I go out there any earlier, she's sitting on the little nest she scooped out of the pine shavings in the coop. 

I have to say...  There's nothing cooler than collecting an egg that's still warm from the hen who laid it.

Backyard chickens: We have eggs!

After 5 months of not-so-patiently waiting, on Monday morning, I found our first egg!  It was tiny, smaller than a medium supermarket egg, but it was perfect.  I am disproportionately excited.  You'd think I had laid that egg myself!  Yesterday, I accidentally left the coop door open overnight, so the girls scampered out at first light, and the mystery layer must have laid an egg somewhere in the woods or bushes instead of in the coop.  But today I kept them shut in.  At 9:30 I went out to check on them, and my Wyandotte was sitting on a little impression she made in the pine shavings.  She's the most shy, but she didn't move when I came to the window.  I left to give her some privacy.

And by 11, we had another egg!


Our first eggs!  The first is on the bottom, today's is above it.  The white ones are extra large eggs from the market.

If I get another tomorrow I'll have enough for some scrambled eggs, so I'll take some comparison shots of our homegrown eggs with the farmer's market "all natural, cage-free" eggs.  The market operation isn't free-range, so I'll be interested to see the difference.

Backyard chickens: The finished coop

I haven't been posting about this as dilligently as I should.  Although the idea and the building plans were mine, Shayne did nearly everything for this project.  Basically I provided design consultation, but all of the labor was his.  I would have liked to help a lot more, but we are almost never home at the same time anymore.  And when we were, I watched the baby so he could work on the coop. 

And he did a wonderful job.

You can see the girls through the coop window...  They're waiting impatiently for me to come let them range the yard.   The window will soon have a real casement window that will open upwards (is that still a casement?) to allow airflow without letting in the rain.  We're using vintage windows that my mom happened to have in her garage, but we need to reglaze them.

The little door in the back is the egg door.  Once the girls start laying, we'll have nest boxes right inside that door so that we can retrieve eggs without entering the run. 

The access door for humans is on the far right.

And you can see the chicken ladder inside the run that the hens use to get into the coop.

I'll add a more detailed post soon with more pictures, design features, and construction details.  It was too buggy outside this morning to get more pictures.

Backyard chickens: Update

The girls spend most of every day on pest patrol in the side yard.  Since this is where the garden is, I'm thrilled with their choice!  Since the mulberries have started coming on, they can almost always be found right under the mulberry tree, eating berries and flies. 

The neighbor's kids came over yesterday to help with storm clean-up.  By the time they left, they were both begging their mom to let them have chickens too.  I'm really surprised at how much kids like the hens.  I figured in today's electronic society, they'd just think the chickens were boring.  I'm so glad to be proven wrong!

No more chickens in the house!!

My buff Orpington and black Australorp check out the new "roost" that fell from the tree during a storm today

Floor sanding today!

And I don't have to do it this time!  Lately we've been taking the "Y" out of DIY and just paying people to get it done.  This was supposed to be finished last summer.  Before I had the baby.  Yeah...

But at least it's finally going to happen.  The crew will be here sometime after 11 am, so we emptied the entire upstairs into the living room.

Thank God it's temporary.  I cannot believe there are people who live like this all the time.  Granted, they probaby don't have 2 large dogs, a cat, a boxful of chicks, and a baby, but still.

And speaking of the boxful of chicks... The coop is nearing completion!  [insert happy dance here]  We're done painting except for the trim that we will put up over the exposed ends of the hardware cloth, and then we just have to staple up the wire and glaze and install the windows.  The girls will be in there within a few days.  I can't wait.  They're very cute, but the constant cheeping is making me crazy.  I've never had a bird as a pet, and I can now promise you that the only birds we'll ever have will be yard birds.  There's no way I would tolerate this all the time.  3 weeks is plenty.

I finally got the tomatoes planted (Thanks Mom #2!), and I'm thinking that another 6 plants wouldn't be a bad thing.  I'm going to have romas everywhere in August, but I plan on making lots of sauce.  I still need to get a pepper plant or two, and maybe potatoes if I can find them.  I'm kind of late...  As usual.

More later...

The weather was perfect today, even early this morning, so I plopped Ethan on a blanket outside and did a little work in the garden.  We got our truck fixed this week, so yesterday Shayne and I picked up and unloaded another truckload of dirt, which filled 2 of the beds.  A third was nearly filled, so I think a half load will finish us up.  Finally.  This morning I planted my peas, carrots, and lettuce, plus leveled the beds.  While I was messing around in them, I found lots of worms, so I know the soil is good!  I'll be planting my tomatoes soon, and I'm planning on a fall crop of broccoli and maybe spinach.  Not as much as I wanted to plant this year, but.... eh, life happened.

Shayne's also been busy on the chicken coop.  It now is fully enclosed!!  Only another week and the girls can take up residence!!  I can't wait to have them out of the house, because Ares is about ready to climb into the brooder and eat them.  Awful dog.  

And in other news...  We've scheduled our floor sanding for May 26.  I'm off work for 12 days, and that falls right in the middle.  If all goes well, we should have a newly shellacked upstairs floors and staircase by June!!