Welcome back to Kids Wondering…!
This time we head into the chicken pen to collect eggs and learn a few exciting facts about hens and the eggs they lay.
And… We have an extra special treat in this edition of Kids Wondering… We find a type of egg that I bet you have never seen or heard of before!
Can you guess what it is? Watch the video to find out…
Until next time… What are you wondering?
Comment here and let us know, kids!
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We moved our chickens to new paddock this weekend, which is in line with our goal of rotating them every 2 weeks to fresh pasture. Because the early spring growth wasn’t very lush, they scratched it up pretty well and left behind a nice 16 ft. by 32 ft. plot of weeded, tilled, and finely mulched earth that was begging to be planted. Who are we to turn down such an offer?
partly planted flat of cabbage and broccoli seedlings.
A few weeks ago I started some broccoli and cabbage seeds in a flat of potting mix. They germinated well and after many nights of ferrying them in and out, protecting them from freezing temperatures and dodger’s butt, a good many have survived and aren’t too spindly. I planted these in long rows, about 12 in. apart in the freshly prepared soil.
Following the chickens with vegetables crops makes good use of the fertility the chickens left behind, both the nitrogen rich manure, and because we feed rock minerals every week, a healthy dose of plant ready minerals ready to rejuvenate the land. The chickens also weed and scratch out most of the grass and weeds that would compete with the crops, and also do a great job of breaking pest cycles that could reduce yields.
It’s also important to fill this new space with something, whether it’s cover crop, trees, grass, mulch or veggies, before some of the nastier weeds come in and take hold. This makes following chicken tractors, or any livestock, with productive species a great multi-functional farm strategy.
transplanting seedlings after running chickens is a quick and easy way to stack functions and obtain a yield
All this should help increase our chances of a nice cabbage crop, and the best part of a nice cabbage crop is sauerkraut. Lacto-fermented sauerkraut actually, but we’ll talk about that later. For now, that’s a quick run down on how our chickens will help us make sauerkraut!
Welcome back to Kids Wondering…
For those of you who do not live on a farm, you might be wondering what sorts of foods chickens will eat!
Chickens don’t just eat seeds and grass, that’s for sure! Join us in the video below for more insight into what chickens really will eat…
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So, to review… Will chickens eat pizza and other interesting foods?
YES!!!!
And the were-you-paying-attention question of the day:
Where do you see our black cat, Dodger, in the video? Let us know if you can find him lurking about!
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A huge problem in the world today is the constant erosion of our soil. Over many years, this process leads to nutrient deficient and dead soils that grow less nutritous plants every year. If we follow the food chain up, any livestock that eat these plants will suffer nutrient deficiencies, and any meat, eggs, or dairy that we obtain from these animals will likewise not supply a full spectrum of minerals and nutrients necessary for healthy life.
Livestock, such as chickens, can help us cycle nutrients and minerals back into the landscape.
One way to combat this unhealthy cycle, and remineralize the land, our livestock, and our food, is through the use of supplemental minerals. By feeding a full spectrum of minerals to our animals, in addition to high quality feed, not only do we improve the quality of their health, meat, and eggs, but we also improve the quality of their manure. By cycling these nutrients and minerals through livestock, they become bio-available to plants, which readily soak them up and perform better than ever. If we continue this cycle, and either mulch, compost, or feed these plants back to our livestock, we can rapidly increase the fertility of the land, and remineralize eroded and damaged landscapes, all while enjoying a bonus of the healthiest plant and animal products imaginable.
Geoff Lawton is where I first heard of this remineralization process, and his supplemental mineral recipe is great. This recipe is enough to feed to 1 dairy cow every day at milking or 10 chickens once a week.
This mix is stirred together, added to a bucket of chopped forage, and fed to the animals. Geoff credits the bones of this recipe to Pat Coleby, an Australian author who writes natural animal care books for farmers and pet owners. Pat’s take is that animals do not have health problems or diseases, but rather are suffering from a nutrient deficiency, and that it is up to the farmer or pet owner to supply the correct nutrients and minerals. This treats the cause of the problem as opposed to the symptoms.
There is probably some wisdom there when it comes to our own health as well. Regardless, the first step is to remineralize the soil, and there isn’t a more efficient way than feeding a mineral supplement through your livestock and having them pre-process it for you into a plant ready state, creating an oasis of fertility and nutrient density in your backyard.
*Don’t forget to pre-order your Heritage Thanksgiving Turkey!
Kuska Wiñasun Homestead is ready for spring. It’s been nice enjoying the winter weather and the change of the seasons, but I personally can’t wait to see those first dandelions and clover blossoms. The maples are budding out, but it’s still cold. We got more snow, ice, and sleet today, and it should continue into the morning.
This constant cycle of freezing and thawing should help the seed mix I broadcast this weekend by improving soil contact and moisture. I sowed a nice mix of perennial herbs, annual grains, and a few random vegetables thrown in for fun. The base of the mix was dutch white clover, a low lying leguminous perennial that fixes nitrogen and feeds the bees and chickens. To that I added a good bit of chicory, some plantain, alfalfa, vetch, and lambsquarter. I also mixed in some oats and wheat, as well as a packet of daikon radish, lettuce, spinach, chamomile, broccoli, cilantro, and old packet of yellow squash.
We’ll see what takes and what doesn’t, but there should be more than enough vegetation in the old chicken pens where I over-seeded the mix. If there are any blank spaces, we can follow up with some amaranth, chia, buckwheat, and some more lambsquarter after the soil warms up a bit.
Broccoli and cabbage seedlings starting to germinate.
There’s also been some vegetable seed starting. We have a flat of De Cicco broccoli and White Acre cabbage that has begun to germinate. After they gain some true leaves, and some strength, we’ll transplant them out in the garden for a nice early spring crop, and hopefully get the chance to make some lacto-fermented sauerkraut.
There haven’t been anymore hawk attacks on the chickens but they seem a bit more skittish than usual. We bought a bale of straw today from the feed mill, and they scratched it around all afternoon while they picked out seeds, weeds, and bugs. They’re great mulch spreaders, and a nice layer of manured straw should protect the soil from spring rains, lock up some of the extra nitrogen from the chicken poop, and slowly decompose into wonderful topsoil.
I pruned our dwarf apple trees a few weeks ago and am trying to get some of the cuttings to take root. Apples are normally propagated by grafting, but they can also be grown from cuttings under good conditions. I’m doing a mini experiment, and I have different sizes of cuttings from different trees, some cut below buds, some above buds, and some just tips of growth.
Apple cuttings in water with pieces of willow.
The majority of the cuttings are simply jammed into either our raised garden beds, or into the sides of our garden swales. The rest are on our kitchen table inside the house in a Mason jar filled with water and pieces of willow. The willow contains natural rooting hormones that encourage the growth of root.
The garlic has really perked up the last few weeks. We were worried for a while there that it had gotten too cold too soon for our garlic crop, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. I’ll try to get a picture up soon.
Almost completed chicken tractor in the snow. Those 2 sticks to the right are the dwarf apple trees after a serious pruning.
I’m also almost finished with a new chicken tractor for the bantys. Just a few finishing touches; roost bars, nest boxes, some more chicken wire, and Roosty and his girls will be ready to move in! The timing couldn’t be better, because one of the little hens has gone broody, and wants to sit on eggs and hatch out some chicks! We’ll see, and we’ll keep you updated!
we’ve had some amazing animal adventures over the past few days. this is to be expected at the beginning of spring (or at least what appeared to be spring until it dropped from 50 degrees to 20 degrees over the course of 5 hours today and then started to snow and sleet!). this means the school system where i work is closed tomorrow… and i get to spend my birthday at home! fantastic!
the other day bolt unearthed a mole while digging in the yard (now we know what he’s been digging for!) and played with it a little bit but wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do with it since it wasn’t fighting back or running–just laying there and squeaking. bolt’s problem was solved when he encountered an escaped chicken (6 of them sneaked out of the small crack in the gate during feeding time a few minutes before bolt found the mole). the chicken ran from jason and i and flew towards bolt, who forgot all about the mole and tried to pluck the bird out of thin air. luckily, the chicken never got close enough, seeing the big black monster that bolt has become, and turned back toward us. when bolt returned to the mole it was gone, having waited for the opportune time to make his escape!
after this adventure we also noticed that dodger had caught a few prizes: field mice. we saw him catch 2 from afar, and later jason confirmed that dodger had eaten the head off of at least one of them. a little bit of a waste, dodger… we wish you would eat the whole thing!
also… about a week ago, jason saw a small, white-speckled, brown hawk fly in twice to smack up against the bird net above our chicken yard. after seeing this he sent me a text message that said: bird net: 2, hawk: 0.
unfortunately, this same hawk got smart and found a small hole in our bird netting a few days ago. the holes were torn in the netting a few weeks ago when we got 8 inches of snow. the wet, thick snow on the netting weighed it down too much and ripped out some of the zip ties that we had used to attach strips of netting together. we had noticed the holes but didn’t think too much of it, considering that up to that point we hadn’t detected any animal attacks at all.
anyway, this crafty hawk (which we are pretty sure is a cooper’s hawk) spent a few days looking at the netting and plotting his entry (or so we can assume). the first signs we found of his success came on friday.
i usually open up the chicken house and let them out into their yard every morning around 6am. jason found a dead bantam in the corner of the chicken yard around 7:30am. she was ripped open with many of her feathers missing and half of her breast was eaten. it was clearly a hawk attack.
a cooper’s hawk, photo courtesy Tobeyotter
the circumstances are still a bit of a mystery considering that the hawk was sitting outside the bird netting when jason came outside and flew away. did he kill and eat the bantam the night before and come back for more the next day? did he hear jason coming outside and somehow escape the netting in time (but stay around to actually see jason appear?). also, why was he able to catch bantams but not our standard hens who are much slower? after thinking on it, we’ve realized that the hawk probably didn’t even try to get the larger hens, since a cooper’s hawk is about the size of a crow. but, we just aren’t sure!
so, long story short: we lost a bantam from the hawk attack. then… late in the day on saturday once jason and i went inside after being outside all day, the hawk came back and went for another bantam! he got inside the netting again and pulled the feathers from another bird but did not wound her. jason and i chased him away and we have since patched all the holes in the net. once we move our chicken yard later this week, we’ll re-patch it again just to be sure.
overall… very frustrating. but also, admittedly, very exciting. and we suppose that this is the way it is: we’re learning firsthand that raising animals and plants comes with some failures and some successes. some living and some dying. you witness birth; you witness death, and the cycle goes on…
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The more I watch our 2 flocks of chickens, the more I feel like we should give them each their own space. Right now we have a flock of bantams, and a flock of standards. Each flock has a rooster, and contrary to everything we’d heard, they don’t try to murder each other. True, Rex will chase Roosty around, but he’s way too quick to catch. That goes for Roosty’s hens as well, who find themselves at the bottom of the pecking order, and often are chased off from food and water by the bigger Buff Orpingtons and Barred Rocks.
That’s really the main reason we want to separate them. Maybe if the bantams don’t have to constantly watch their little backs, and have better opportunities at the food dish, we may get some more tiny eggs (not wind eggs!) and maybe hatch out some banty chicks too.
Our mobile chicken coop, right after being moved to fresh pasture.
In order to separate the flocks, we’ll need another chicken coop. Right now our mobile coop and cattle panel paddock system is working great. It measures 32 by 16 feet, has an old camper top on wheels as the coop, and is covered by bird netting to discourage hawks and aerial assaults. We haven’t had any predation issues yet, and we move the birds every two weeks to fresher pasture.
This is great, but does take some time to take down and move (about an hour), and I think the best fit for our bantys would be a lighter, more mobile chicken tractor. Chicken tractors are meant to be moved every day or multiple times a day, and are becoming more popular as people begin to rediscover the importance of pasture raised meat and eggs.
Roosty and his girls cautiously at the food dish.
The tractor is both coop and paddock at the same time, and is either dragged or rolled to the next spot by a farmer or mechanical tractor, depending on the size.
Which brings me to our design considerations for our banty tractor. We have 12 bantams, and according to the internet, 1 acre of land can support anywhere from 50 to 400 chickens. Not too helpful, but it’s a place to start.
Taking the low number of 50 birds, which seems more reasonable for pasture raised chickens, that’s about 1000 sq. ft per bird. Moved every day for a year, that’s 2.75 sq ft. per bird per day.
So a 4′ by 8′ chicken tractor, 32 sq. ft, should be able to handle 10-12 chickens or banty’s, if it’s moved every day. At that size, it should be possible to build a fairly light and predator proof structure, so daily movement shouldn’t be a problem.
Now we just need to think a little more about shape, materials, roosting, egg boxes, and some more functional aspects, and we’ll be on our way towards more pasture raised bantam eggs on the homestead.
something amazing happened to me the other day. i’m so excited about this that you would think that i happened to lay my own egg! (that will come some day, but not yet!)
here’s what really happened:
i was collecting eggs in the afternoon and i found an amazing, tiny egg snuggled in the nest box with the other standard and bantam sized eggs. at first i thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. but i quickly realized that there was in fact a tiny, darker egg laying in the nest box with the other eggs.
the wind egg, laying on top of other standard eggs. you can see that the wind egg is darker and much smaller!
having never seen or heard of this before, i clutched that little tiny egg closely, being sure to cradle it in my hand until i got inside and placed it somewhere safe.
later, i used a technique that my mom taught be years ago for preserving beautiful or interesting egg shells: blowing out the egg. this technique allows you to preserve the egg for many, many years!
the procedure is simple, really. you use a safety pin to poke a small hole in the bottom of the egg (a couple millimeters across) and an even smaller hole in the top. then you proceed to blow into the top hole so that all of the contents of the egg are blown through the bottom hole (be sure to save the egg for using in a recipe or for scrambled eggs).
as i was blowing out the egg, i saw that there was no yolk inside, and the egg white seemed a little murky and did not look very delicious. so, jason did some research about the tiny egg!
he found that such small eggs are often called wind eggs. they are commonly a shade lighter or a shade darker than the hen’s usual egg and they are usually a hen’s first attempt at laying. these little eggs do not include a yolk because, well, they are not really an egg, actually. they may have an egg shell around them, but they could not support life as an egg should.
they are usually made when some portion of the hen’s reproductive tissue breaks off (no harm to her, though) and her body thinks that the tissue passing through her nether-regions is the beginning of an egg. so, her body slaps a shell on that baby and sends it on out into the world.
these eggs are also called fairy eggs, and i can see why: what child wouldn’t want to believe that a fairy had been playing with her chickens! in the past, these eggs were called cock eggs, and because of their size and the fact that they aren’t viable, people originally believed roosters had laid them.
how amazing! an amazing history for an amazing little “egg.” i will certainly forever cherish my little wind egg, and keep it as a reminder that there is always true magic that nature has to offer us!
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i often wonder about different people’s motivations for choosing certain breeds of chickens. some choose chickens that lay many eggs, others choose chickens that are showy and beautiful to look at. still others choose chickens to be their friends or those that are friendly around adults and children. many choose chickens who are better at foraging and taking care of themselves.
i’ve mentioned before that we have both standard chickens and bantam chickens. i wanted to take some time to describe the differences (that we’ve experienced) between these birds of a feather, just in case you’re interested in how their traits may fit into your lifestyle as a chicken owner.
the standards that we have are barred rock (black and white speckled) and buff orpington (which look much like any regular chicken except they are golden/tan in color). our standard rooster, rex, is a barred rock and looks much like the bird on the rex goliath wine bottle.
our bantam chickens are all mutts. each of our females are primarily black, some with varying neck colors such as white speckled or golden banded. our bantam rooster, roosty, has a lovely, deep green tail and an orange-red body and neck.
feeding time: our bantam rooster, roosty,
with standard and bantam hens
now, before i compare their observed personalities and traits, i think i should mention the nicknames that jason and i have given the different breeds. we got the buffs and the barred rocks a few weeks before the bantams and spent our first few weeks as chicken owners comparing these two breeds. i started calling the buffs the “pilgrims” and the barred rocks the “blackfeet,” partly on account of their gray legs (while the buffs have cream colored legs) and partly because of the blackfeet native american tribe. our joke was that when the pilgrims showed up in north america, they were less survival fit and “stupider” than the resident native americans. this reflected in our flock, where the barred rocks seems to be less ditsy and clueless about the basics of finding food and avoiding walking feet.
once the bantams arrived, we continued the nicknames, but quickly realized that the blackfeet couldn’t hold a candle to the survival skills of the smaller, speedier chickens.
after many months of observation and chicken chasing, i have a few thoughts about standard chickens vs. bantams. keep these in mind as you make choices about the makeup of your flock.
the standards (barred rocks and buff orpingtons):
rex, our barred rock rooster, spending
some time with his lady friends
the bantams:
overall, i would choose a similar situation if we had to make the choice about chickens all over again. the standards give us many eggs and the bantams are lovely to look at while also being great mothers for our future chickens. they both provide meat for our household and they are equally valuable, in different ways. the standards eat more, but also produce more.
we love having a mixed flock. or rather, two flocks living harmoniously together. the roosters do not fight–perhaps because they do not bother or claim each others’ hens and all chickens roost and eat together. it is one fun and complex extended family we have in our front yard, and it’s perfect for us.
we recommend raising both standards and bantams, and trying them out together (at least at first) to see if they can co-exist peacefully and productively!
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Brrrrrr…. Last night it got down to 3 degrees. Fahrenheit. With a windchill of -11 degrees. That’s cold. So cold in fact, that it pushed us to the limit of our USDA Hardiness Zone. This kind of weather adds a few more things to the ordinary lists of winter homestead chores.
For instance, we took extra precautions with our remaining yaupon holly bush because its already on the hardiness border for our zone. We covered it with a layer of clear plastic, and a double layer of bed sheets just to be safe.
Emma thought up a few ways to protect the chickens from the icy wind and seal off drafts in their mobile coop. That seemed to work well, and the chickens seemed extra joyous about both their new plot of pasture, and the warming rays of the sun. So far the chickens seem more than capable of handling the cold in their solid, yet uninsulated mobile coop.
Ice Cold Water
Yet it only got up to 23 F today, so I did have to break the ice a few times on top of our new chicken waterer today to let them to drink. No frozen eggs to report of yet ;)
We also covered our well pump with a couple of sheets, just to be safe. That’s not a problem I feel like dealing with any time soon, and thoughts of building a more substantial well house came to my mind again last night.
Our faucet protectors did their job, and the pipes in the basement didn’t even flinch in the face of the cold, more than I can say for myself last night on our 1 am dog walk. The front treated me to a great swallow of arctic air that widened my eyes and stole my breath for a moment. Did I mention the windchill? -11 F?
All in all, we weathered the cold just fine. The house, furnace, chickens, and even Bridey. One thing to thank the cold front for was the sky last night. One of the clearest nights we’ve had yet, and worth bearing every extra second of the cold that set its stage.
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