The Accidental
Farmer

Chickens.
Making me safe for the world.


Friday, December 02, 2005

Hiatus  
The Accidental Farmer is going on hiatus for an indefinite amount of time - probably until spring. Predators have pretty much decimated the flock (newest suspect: coyotes - yes, there are coyotes in Northeast Ohio), and while my impulse right now is to get out of the chicken hobby, by spring I may decide I need to send off for some chicks from McMurray's and start rebuilding. The break will also give me the chance to figure out if I want to keep the chooks in the barn, or build a dedicated coop.

There's some other things afoot as well: a dog may be in our future - and even though he's neutered, the fact that we've got one around heisting his leg on upright structures, it may be enough to keep the coyotes at bay. And be a threat to annoying things like possums, raccoons, and rats.

One more story before I go dark for a while. My daughter is looking to breed her goats once more so the kids are the right age for show when the fair rolls around at the end of next summer. Early this week, one of her does came into heat, so we took it to the owner of the buck that did the honors last time.

The doe didn't want to go, didn't want to go in the holding pen, but we got her in. The buck, which was separated from the doe by a wall, was thrilled to see her. He stood up on a wall and stuck his head out of a small gap between the wall and ceiling, staring at her and bleating and sticking his tongue out to taste the air (uh... right).

The next day we got a call. The deed was done. Thinking wow, that was fast, my daughter and I went to pick up Ebbie the doe.

And Ebbie didn't want to leave. When we got there, she was standing on her hind legs, stretching her neck up at the buck's peeking head, wagging her tail furiously.

That must have been some, uh, skilled buck.

So by spring I'll know if I'm up for round two of chickens. At this point I'm thinking not.

But boy, do I ever miss those fresh eggs...

posted by The Farmer: 09:58
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Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Reconstruction, Part II  
More cleanup and repairs this weekend, primarily in the tack room where the hay for the goats is kept. General cleaning and tidying up, lots of old paper feed bags to the burning pile, reorganiztion of the feed bins, and driving new nails to hang things on.

The electricity is back on in the barn. That's a welcome thing. I reset the timer on the light in the coop, but haven't seen any eggs - because we're so far removed from summer now, I'm not sure that I'll see any now before spring. But if I have a spare pair of fingers, I'll keep them crossed.

posted by The Farmer: 09:07
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Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Reconstruction, Part I  
Saturday I started picking up the pieces after the goat invasion. I had already removed the chewed up nest box, so I pitchforked out all of the old litter and threw down a fresh new layer to start the winter off. Cleaned up the feeder and filled it, and dunked the water can in a bucket to start soaking off the bird residue. There's a water trough just outside of their coop that the goats use, so they'll be able to get water.

A quandary when I came to the goat gate, which was sprung off of two of its hooks and had one spacer slat broken off. I decided that, since the birds were capable of flitting up into the rafters of the coop, they could fly over the bottom half of the main door to get into the coop. I tried this and they had no problem doing that.

Ahead: what to do with the coop. I have two choices. First, I could scrape off the walls and put up more chicken wire so they can't get into the rafters and bomb everything with their waste. Or I could build a straw bale chicken coop in another part of the yard, and surround it with goat fence so the goats don't eat it down to the ground. Whatever the case, I've got the winter to ponder the choice.

My wife says she misses the fresh eggs. Me, too.

From memory, at last count I had the following chooks still hanging in there: Hens: two buff orpingtons, a white leghorn, a barred rock, a silver laced wyandotte, the while Silkie/Cochin cross, and a couple of Red crosses. Roosters: Rhode Island Red, Silkie/Cochin Cross, the mystery Bantie, and two mutts, one kind of a calico cover, the other a rusty salt and pepper color. Then there's what is supposed to be an easter egger, but I can't tell what it wants to be. It has no pronounced comb, but it has longer tail feathers. I don't know. That looks like a count of fourteen to me.

McMurray Hatchery now has Marans, the breed that lays chocolate brown colored eggs. Add them to my list for spring: Cuckoo Marans (the hens resemble barred rocks), another set of New Hampshire Reds, and some easter eggers that I know for certain are hens, and easter eggers. Round out the balance of the order with meat birds, and I'll be set,

Until then, more work. And decision making.

posted by The Farmer: 09:02
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Wednesday, November 02, 2005

The Roo Sells Out  
Yes, I'm a vile person. I put Google ads up on this site. I've been watching my traffic carefully, and what do you know, a lot of people come here for chicken information. Since Google reads the site and places ads by contextual key words, this was another way to provide more links to people looking for information on everyone's favorite poultry.

And a way to make a little extra money - heh, heh.

Actually, I probably won't make chicken feed off of this little venture. Although if I make enough to some scratch for them, I'll be happy. We'll see where the experiment leads.

One of the events of the last couple of weeks was a stealth goat attack. My daughter went out to feed the herd, couldn't find several of them, and found them trapped inside the chicken coop. They'd gotten in somehow and couldn't figure a way to get out. So while they were there, they knocked down everything I had up out of the way of the birds, ate my egg production calendar for 2005 (except for a couple of small scraps and, I'm assuming, the little wire thingy that bound the pages together), and chewed up the main nest box.

Surveying the damage last weekend, I took out the remains of the nest box and did a little cleanup. The birds have started to nest in the upper rafters of the stall, so I need to put some chicken wire up to keep them down on their roosts where they belong. After I scrape the walls (I could tell that they'd been eating under the mulberry tree - ecccch).

If I go that far. I'm also thinking about building a separate coop with a removable lid and attached run outside of the barnyard. It's all percolating in my head, and I've got some time to think about it. While I clean up the damage.

(In case you don't get the gag that is this post's title, go here)

posted by The Farmer: 15:10
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Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Disarray  

Things are in a state of disarray at the Accidental Farmer's place. The electrical problems in the barn knocked out lights in all the stalls, including the one in the coop. As things headed into fall, without fourteen hours of light, what egg production there was has dropped off. Eggs occasionally turn up, but still in odd places.

There's a lot of work to be done to get things back in order - but it's been weeks since I had a free weekend to do it. I've had my mother in the hospital again, weddings to go to, and the usual bout of busy-ness that comes with the start of the school year.

Perhaps I'll post a complete list of what needs to be done. On the other hand, maybe I'll just write about things as I do them. I don't want to overwhelm myself. I will say that one of the things I'm thinking about is building a separate, smaller chicken coop with a run in another part of the yard. Some of the birds have started nesting in the upper rafters of the stall, and have knocked stuff around that I had stored up there. It's anarchy. I almost feel like starting over with a new batch of chicks and shipping the delinquents off somewhere. Well, we'll see what happens.

Meantime, my daughter found a good home for her two young wethers. She got wind of a woman who has a petting zoo of sorts, and was looking for a couple of young goats to add to the mix. My daughter was really happy about this turn of events. She'd gotten rather attached to the herd, and didn't want to sell to anyone who was going to raise them up and then butcher them for meat. This way, they're going to have a good life, pampered and spoiled, giving little kids a thrill by getting to pet them and get their hands all goat-slobbery when they go to feed them.

And - horrors! - my wife had to buy eggs at the store for the first time in more than a year. We're all a little freaked out by it. I haven't had any yet, other than the ones she put into her soup (yes, eggs make a great addition to vegetable/beef style broth soups).

While I'm on the subject - the culled roosters from August have found their purpose. My wife throws them in a pot and boils them for a good, long time. They make a great chicken stock, and when some of her thick "dumpling noodles" are thrown in, it's just too good. Thanks, boys.

posted by The Farmer: 09:19
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Monday, September 19, 2005

Goat Identity Crisis  
Eggs (week ending 9/3): 10
Eggs (week ending 9/10): 15
Eggs (week ending 9/17): 15
Eggs (year to date): 1524
We got through the fair without much incident, other than the fact that the goats have brought home the cough that they seem to get every year. We're not sure if it's from being around other goats, the sheep, or the streams of people who come through the barns to pet whatever animals will let them lay hands on them. Antibiotics may be in the future for them.

On the chicken side, not much progress in the egg department. My single surviving Banty hen has started laying again - I've gotten 4 eggs a day for the last couple of days, including finding another secret laying location in the tack room. I'm still not happy with these numbers considering I've got at least 17 hens. But the Wyandottes are coming out of molt (it looks like), and the pullets from the Class of 2005 aren't laying yet. I thought the two Buff Orps were laying - they may be the ones visiting the tack room. That may be the case. I don't think the White Leghorn hen is anywhere close to laying - she's still small and immature looking. I don't think I like this breed if it takes them that long to mature.

While the other goats were at the fair, the two little wethers who stayed behind, Cabrito and Sirius Black, bonded with the chickens. I found that they had slipped under my goat proof gate and were staying with them in the coop one day. Since Cabrito keept getting out of the barnyard, I left the gate open so he and Sirius could go and browse at they pleased. I came home from the fair to feed them on another day and didn't see them. So I called the chickens, who were all resting in the shade beneath an overhang of the barn. The chickens came running... and so did the two little wethers. They were under the barn with them, resting and chewing their cud, I guess.

Now that the herd has been reunited, I think their little goat identity crisis is over. They remember they are goats now, and are back with the herd - not the flock.

Because of the fair and other things, I haven't had the chance to do much on the chicken tractor. The parade float has now been dismantled, so there's wood aplenty for me to use. All I need is time. It'll be a couple of weeks yet before I can get serious about it, I think.

One other odd incident. The other day when filling the chicken feeder with layer feed, I heard a rodent-like squeaking. I looked around and found a mouse stuck through the chicken wire, rear end inside the coop. The rear-end looked like it had been picked at by the chickens, who no doubt thought the mouse might be a tasty dietary supplement. But obviously they couldn't get the mouse out of the fence, because the mouse couldn't get itself out. I tried to free it, but I realized I couldn't do it without tearing the mouse in half. Since it was morning, I was unable to do much more because I had to get to work, so I figured I'd get to it when I got home.

Alas, I wasn't able to get to the mouse because of events when I got home from work. So the next morning I checked on the mouse. It was dead - but it was now stuck the other way - with it's head and torso inside the coop and the bottom on the outside of the chicken fence. This has to mean that the mouse freed itself, and then turned right around to try and get more spilled food and got stuck all over again.

And I suspect that the food it was eating was a contributing factor to the fact that it kept getting stuck.

So mice ain't smart, folks. No matter what you see on the Tom and Jerry reruns.

posted by The Farmer: 09:55
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Thursday, September 01, 2005

Fair Week, Part I  
Eggs (week ending 8/27): 23
Eggs (to 8/31): 20
Eggs (month of August): 114
Eggs (year to date): 1489
I'm snuffling a bit today. I'm at the peak of my allergy season - ragweed, I suspect - but thanks to a couple of great Rx's, have been largely asymtomatic. Until yesterday, when I was watching, and then helping my daughter show her goat herd during Open Class at the county fair. This wouldn't have ordinarily bothered me, but this event was held in the show ring inside of a horse barn - and I'm fiercely allergic to horses (as opposed to being only intermittently allergic to cats). So my sinuses were overwhelmed, but it's still manageable. Without the Rx's, my sinuses would have slammed shut long before the fair.

By the way, with Open Class now over (and awaiting the 4-H competition), my daughter is now in a quandary. She was going to sell her two kid does, but one of them won Junior Grand Champion for Alpines and then went on to bag Junior Grand Champion for All Breeds (Junior indicates that the doe in question has not developed enough to breed, and therefore, produce milk). The same doe and her mother also took a blue ribbon in the Mother/Daughter contest. She was also told by the judge that this doe and the sister were both good looking animals. So now she has a champion to breed. But what about the almost-as-good sister?

I'm so glad that there's another chicken blogger out there now. I mentioned Amy Stewart's blog in my last post, and since then she's had a couple of great entries. The first is an amusing post that should diffuse the myth that, when you keep chickens, you get free eggs. Folks, when you keep chickens, you need more reasons than eggs. Another post references Mother Earth News in a discussion of how free range eggs are better for you than storeboughts. Glad to see it documented, but hey, I knew that already... just from looking at those lovely orange colored yolks.

(I was glad to see that Mother Earth News is keeping this story open as part of an ongoing research project. There was only one line I really disagreed with on a first quick reading of the full article: Hens housed in free-range conditions are able to consume large amounts of grass, clover, weeds and insects in addition to grain. This is because I have also seen my hens eat feathers, small toads, and small mammals (moles, voles, mice, etc.). Diverse natural diet, indeed!)

Regular visitors may have noticed that The Accidental Farmer now allows readers to leave comments. I held off on this for a long time because I didn't think the technology to keep things archived and spam-free was where it needed to be (more details on this can be read on my other web site). But now I think everything is where it should be, so I've activated them.

This prompted a couple of changes. I've added an explanation of what a chicken tractor is to the glossary page. In the process I discovered that my Farmer archives were opening up the archives from my main site, so I fixed that problem as well. While I was at it, I added the aforementioned Mother Earth News page to the list of Chicken Resources (thanks, Amy!).

And the chicken experiment continues, but went awry this week. My goal is to see if the birds will run from A to B to C, perhaps repeat it once, and then dither. A couple of days ago they went from A to C and then dithered. Yesterday they dithered coming out of the coop, some going to A, some to B, some starting for C, and some coming to me for a handout. They're either not capable of such advanced learning, or else my teaching method needs a little work. I will continue and see what happens.

posted by The Farmer: 15:19
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