chickens

Tag: chickens (page 3 of 8)

A Big Pig, Turkey, Duck, and Chicken Update!

This year we’re hitting the ground running with a lot of new ideas and plans being put into action!

Pigs

You might have already read about our new potbellied pigs and their new weather-proofed pen! Here is the lowdown on our pigs: We have…

One adult male who is about 3 years old. His name is Gandalf and he is our breeding male. He still has his tusks, which makes him more dangerous than the other adults. Even though he is generally friendly (his old owner told us that Gandalf thinks he is a dog), he can still push up against you or rub up against you affectionately with his face and hurt you. We have to be sure that when we are near him, we wear thick pants and gloves.
Two adult females who are about 2 1/2 years old. They are sisters and we haven’t named them yet. They look very similar but one has yellow at the end of her tail and the other does not. We’re just calling them The Sisters for now. They are less interested in human contact than Gandalf is but are not unfriendly. They just have not been socialized as much as Gandalf, but I have noticed that they have become more interested in us when we come over to their pen.
Four piglets. Three of them are from one litter and are 2 1/2 months old and the fourth one is from another litter and is 1 1/2 months old. Half are males and half are females.

Our long-term plans for the pigs are to keep the breeding trio as just that, and to allow each mother to have 2 litters per year. Their litters will be humanely harvested as meat once they have grown up.

Turkeys

You might have read our most recent post about beginning our turkey operation and raising birds for this year’s Thanksgiving!

We just ordered our turkeys the other day: 50 Bourbon Red Heritage Turkeys and 20 Heritage Turkeys that will be a mix-and-match of 6 heritage breeds. We plan to keep a couple breeding groups so we can hatch our own eggs in subsequent years. We also plan to eat many of them ourselves! Yum!

A baby turkey (called a poult).

Ducks

Around the time that we get our baby turkeys in April, we will also be getting some ducks to start a laying operation. We haven’t ordered these guys yet, but it looks like we’re going to be getting Cayuga ducks which are a beautiful black/green color, lay gray or even black eggs, and are very personable. We’ll also be getting another breed as well, to be determined.

A beautiful cayuga duck! We can’t wait for those gray eggs!

Since the winter weather has shut down a lot of our outside chores except for feeding and watering the animals, some of our ideas and projects have shut down too. For example, the chicken tractor that we began building a few weeks ago is covered in snow right now and still incomplete. Since our chickens have gotten even larger since we began the chicken tractor, we realized that we can simply add them to the adult flock in a few days once the weather gets a bit warmer. The bantams will leave their bantam tractor and live with the standards for a while, and the younger female chickens will leave their basement home and join the others. The tractor can then house the younger male chickens until we butcher them (leaving one barred rock and one hybrid male for breeding).

And, in three more months the new hens should start laying eggs, adding to how many eggs we’ll get!

.:.

Starting the New Mobile Chicken Tractor!

February 4, 2015 / Emma / Comments Off

With the chicks getting bigger and bigger (and messier and messier!) it is high time to get them outside and into the “free” world!

This weekend Jason and I started with our new chicken house/tractor idea. Since we started the homestead almost 2 years ago, our idea of the best chicken houses and pens have changed. Our first chicken house is still in use, housing our standard chickens and just a few bantams (these standards are the parents of our new chickens). This house is larger than the newer one and the associated pen once enclosed the house but now uses the house as a fifth side of the pen, giving the chickens almost as much space and making the entire contraption easier to move. More recently, the bantam mobile has become even more of a favorite. Its small size and light weight allows us to move it everyday, which gives the bantams access to fresh turf and cuts down on damage to the yard and grass.

So, based on our experience with a semi-mobile house/pen and a very-mobile house/pen, we realized that we really like the very-mobile design better. Our idea of the new house is this: a 12 foot by 8 foot chicken tractor that can be moved as often as we desire, by dragging the entire structure.

This structure is being made out of 1 1/4 inch black polyethylene pipe, the flexible kind! This will be really lightweight and allow for easy sliding!

We started on the base of the tractor, cutting the pipe to the right length and attaching plastic connections so that 3 arches can be added to the top of the frame. We anticipate that the arches will be about 4 feet tall at their highest point.

The joints that will allow us to add the arches.

The corner joints!

The final product will be half-cylinder shaped, like many greenhouses. But for now we have to deal with the issue of straightening out the pipe, since it has been tied in circles and kept behind the barn for the past half-year!

Look how crooked these pipes are now! Don’t worry, though! We can straighten them out in the heat of the sun.

After we get the pipe straightened out a bit, we’ll add the arches to the frame and finish connecting the corners. The entire house will be covered by chicken wire (but the bottom will be open) and one half of the structure will be also covered in something (perhaps black roofing liner and a tarp) to keep out the rain and the wind and also house the roost bars.

We have yet to figure out where the egg box will be and how the water and food trays will be designed, but it’s exciting to finally get started!

Wish us luck!

.:.

The Eggs are Back in Town!

February 2, 2015 / jason / Comments Off

This winter our flock of barred rock and buff orpington chickens experienced a significant drop-off in egg production. 1 egg days were common and 3 eggs in 1 day was a cause for celebration. This was due in part to the changing of the seasons, with the short and cold winter days translating to less egg production. This is pretty standard for chickens, but did not account entirely for our huge drop in eggs.

This winter, our chickens went through their first molt. Molting is when chickens lose all of their feathers and then regrow new ones. This takes a great deal of energy, and during the molt, chickens gradually stop laying only to pick back up after they have grown back all of their feathers. Chickens will go through their first molt at about 18 months, and then once every year after that.

So, for the past couple of months we were pretty low on eggs, and even had to stop selling to our loyal customers. However, the eggs are back in town! The chickens have come home to lay eggs again! We started getting 2-3 eggs everyday about 2 weeks ago, and now we are consistently getting 5 or 6 standards and an equal number of bantams everyday.

To me it feels like another sign that spring is actually coming and that soon the grass will be green, the clover will be blooming, and the trees will leaf out.

Counting Future Hens and Roosters!

January 28, 2015 / Emma / 2 Comments

4 weeks ago, when the chicks were 4 weeks old, Jason and I decided to take a tally on how many we thought would be hens and how many would be roosters. At that point, they were starting to grow little combs, but it was harder to tell than it is now at 8 weeks. So far, as well as we can tell, we were right about our guesses!

Before we thought about their sex, we divided them up based on their assumed full-blood or hybrid status. Then we guessed about the males and females within each type.

When we were guessing, we looked at:

Comb size and color
- Males have larger and pinker combs
- Females have smaller and yellower combs
Leg color
- From what we read about the Barred Rocks, males and females have differnt leg colors. Even though some of the chickens are hybrids and not full-blooded Barred Rocks, we though we could at least use this trait to help us think about the Barred Rocks in the bunch.
- Males have oranger legs
- Females have grayer legs
Feather color
- Among the Barred Rocks, males have more white in their feathers, since having “barred,” or “speckled” feathers is a sex-linked trait of which males carry 2 genes while females have only 1.
- Males are lighter
- Females are darker
Body size
- Males will grow to be bigger than females, but at 4 weeks guessing based on body size is a lot harder. We still tried, though!

Deciding on the sex of the hybrids was a lot harder than the Barred Rocks, for obvious reasons and for those listed above.

Barred Rock Male

Hybrid Male

Barred Rock Female

Hybrid Female

These are the numbers that we came up with:

13 full-blood Barred Rocks
- 7 males (we included Gimpsy in this count–even though he was small-bodied and didn’t have much of a comb–because he had lighter feathers)
- 6 females
8 Barred Rock and Buff Orpington Hybrids
- 3 males
- 5 females

And what do you know? Gimpsy is a boy and we are mostly sure that our guesses were correct. We can’t wait to tell for sure!

This puts our total at 11 hens and 10 roosters. That sure is about a 50/50 split! This means that in a month or so, we’ll have 11 more hens that we’ll raise to be layer hens, 1 Barred Rock rooster for breeding purposes, 1 hybrid rooster for breeding purposes (we’re for sure keeping my favorite, friendly rooster), and Gimpsy–who we’ll probably have to take care of in special ways.

And that means we’ll have 7 chickens in the freezer for eating! Thank you, Mother Nature.

And then, we’ll start the cycle all over again with another batch of eggs…!

.:.

Almost Grown Up: 7 Week Old Chickens!

January 19, 2015 / Emma / 2 Comments

This video gets up close and personal with the 7 week old chickens!

At this point in their development, you can see who the hens will be and who the roosters will be! The roosters have well-developed combs and a few of them are even starting to crow! For most of the chicks, you can tell which are hybrids (crosses between Barred Rocks and Buff Orpingtons) and which are full blooded Barred Rocks.

Check out the video for more info!

.:.

Chicken Nipple Waterer for Chicks with a Soda Bottle

January 8, 2015 / jason / Comments Off

Our chicks are growing fast, and as they get more and more energetic and active they end up messing up their water more frequently. They kick up their pine shavings and poop in their mason jar waterers which necessitates constant dumping, cleaning and changing on our part to ensure that they have access to clean water.

Chicken nipples (get your head out of the gutter!), use gravity and simple mechanics to keep their water clean and their bedding dry. We eventually want to transition our entire chicken operation to nipple waterers, but we decided to start first with the chicks.

Installing chicken nipples is simple. We got a pack of 25 that screws into a pre-drilled hole in your container. Easy.

We hope to use 5 gallon buckets outside, but decided to first try a 2 liter soda bottle or the chicks. 1 hole with a 5/16 bit in the cap, a quick tightening with a pair of pliers, and a few loops on a piece of rope and our soda bottle nipple Waterer was ready for action.

The nipples are red, which apparently attracts the eye of chickens, and within seconds of adjusting the Waterer to eye level the first few brave chicks were pecking at the nipple and drinking water. Success!

One quick note, it’s important to make sure that you avoid creating a vacuum inside of the waterer. With a bucket, just leave the lid a little bit cracked to break the vaccuum. Our solution with the soda bottles is to just poke a tiny hole in the base by where it hangs. This is enough to break the vacuum and ensure that the water flows freely out of the nipple when the birds peck it.

Right now we have just the one nipple Waterer, in addition to the two mason jar waterers but I want to build at least two more. It seems that most people use 1 nipple for anywhere from 5-10 birds, so 2 or 3 should be fine for us.

I’ve seen some creative designs using pvc, barrels, and hoses, and I’m sure we’ll set up something pretty cool for our Banty tractor, the standards, and any other fowl we add next spring!

Wind Proofing the Chicken Houses

January 7, 2015 / Emma / Comments Off

Tonight it is supposed to get down to 10 degrees (without the wind chill) and we decided that we really needed to set up the chickens with extra windbreaks and warmth.

Here’s what we did:

Moved the mobile over beside the standard pen, creating a two-sided windblock for the geese to hide behind.
Covered the top of the mobile with 3 sheets and a tarp to keep in the warmth and to keep out the wind.

The bantam mobile gets some extra warmth!

Attached an unfolded cardboard box to the front door of the standard’s house. This is attached with small bungee cords and c-clamps. Their front door is facing the direction of the arctic wind and is only a frame covered in hardware cloth, so we knew that this was a place that they really needed some extra windblock!

A cardboard door!

Using our bungees… Thanks Grandma!

Adding straw to the area between the standard house and the bantam house…

Creating a space for the geese to sleep!

And even though the geese have this great new, less-windy spot, they didn’t think it was worth their time to go near it. Clearly they didn’t even need the wind block! They even had the audacity to take baths right out in the cold wind as the water was starting to freeze over! Ha, ha!

Taking a freezing bath!

.:.

Naming More Bantams

January 2, 2015 / Emma / Comments Off

Since the hawk attacks a few days ago, we’ve recounted and realized that another bantam was taken, Perry, the pretty little one who looked like a hawk herself. This realization was another blow… Especially one that made me feel guilty. Why hadn’t I noticed that she was gone? And how long had she been missing from the flock before I noticed? These questions were bothering me, so I decided to take a very careful tally of everyone who is left to be sure that I have my numbers right in the future if an issue ever arises again.

Related to this, the four black bantams that are still living with the standard chickens had never been named. Early on, there was 6 of them that all looked the same without any major markings to distinguish them. Now that there are 4, I decided that it was high time for me to spend some time observing them (like I did with the new bantam flock) so I could give them names. When they have names, it is much easier for me to remember how many there are and to watch out for them accordingly.

So as an overview for myself more than anything else, there are 12 bantams that are living in the bantam mobile. They are:

From the new flock: Elvis, Presley, Red Wing, Robin, Ringo, Poka, Oro, and Churo (8). The 2 from the new flock that hawks took were: Teeny and Perry.
From the original flock: Vanna, Q, Bren, and Cleo (4). The rooster from the original flock that the hawks took was Roosty.

There are 4 bantams living in the standard pen, they are:

Sola: She has the smallest comb of all and it is very gray. She has no head tuft.
Media: She has medium-sized comb that is pink. She has a medium-sized head tuft.
Caper: She has a large comb that is gray. She has a large head tuft.
Hattie: She has a large comb that is red. She has a large head tuft.

There are 16 standards living in their pen with the 4 black bantams. They are:

Rex the rooster
8 Barred Rock hens
7 Buff Orpington hens

So now we at least know how many we have of each (since I always tend to forget). Let’s hope we have better luck in the coming year with keeping an eye on our poultry!

.:.

two hawk attacks in one week

December 31, 2014 / Emma / Comments Off

this post brings you some sad news on the homestead.

we’ve had two chickens die this week, carried away by hawks (or maybe the same one), never to be seen again. the first victim was our bantam rooster, roosty, who we’ve had since early on in our homestead life. we didn’t see him get attacked and we didn’t even realize that he was missing until he next day. the hawk must have swooped down during the day when all of the chickens were out ranging around the yard and carried him off. we never heard a sound during the day and when the chickens went in their bantam mobile at night, we never counted to see if they were all there (we never do this, since they are always so crowded together and it’s hard to count them in the dark).

the second hawk attack was today. as far as I can tell, we lost one bantam. i’ve looked through my list of all my bantams and their names and descriptions and it looks like teeny was the one taken. i heard a noise and went outside to see all of the chickens hiding under bushes or in their houses. i walked around a bit and didn’t see any hawks, and then I went back inside. a few minutes later i heard a similar noise and went back out again, just in time to see a bantam being carried off by a medium-sized hawk. i was in shock at first, because the hawk looked like one of our standard barred rocks, and i thought that perhaps two chickens were simply fighting. by the time I realized what was actually happening, the hawk was flying over our field of pine trees with the bantam firmly in its grasp.

r.i.p. roosty. We will miss you.

i still need to recount all of the chickens when i go back outside this afternoon, and get the one bantam that is running free back in her house. then i should be able to double check our losses and make sure that we lost just one today (still one too many!).

all in all, a sad day. and an interesting ending to 2014.

one of our resolutions for 2015: be more careful about when we let the chickens out to range free!!!

.:.

chased by chickens and geese: a hungry flock!

December 29, 2014 / Emma / Comments Off

today was wetter and rainier than days past, and even though all of the birds got 4+ hours of daylight to range freely and eat any bugs or other delicious tidbits they could find, all of the birds still acted as though they were starving when bolt and i came outside.

picture this: bolt, who loves to chase chickens (and if he caught one he might try to eat it), coming outside with me to see a horde of poultry coming towards him like flesh eating zombies! of course he was interested, and since the chickens got way too close to him (how could they be so foolish?! oh yeah, they’re chickens!) his interest was definitely peaked! after being corrected a few times, he did a good job of ignoring their creepy, feathery advances and we were able to complete our walk as usual.

once bolt was safely inside, i came back out with a camera to film the horde of chickens chasing me around. i didn’t have any food at the time, but since it was past their usual dinner time, they expected me to have something and thought to follow me around (some of them totally underfoot) hoping i would feed them right then!

i’ve noticed that all of the birds (bantams, standards, geese) have been hungrier lately… perhaps they’re trying to fatten up for the cold winter ahead.

.:.

KW Homestead

Pasture Raised Poultry & Edible Landscaping Plants Since 2013