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!
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Welcome back to Kids Wondering…!
This episode features our four fantastic geese, Audo (a male Emden), China (a female Chinese), and Houdina and Iza (female Africans).
Check it out!
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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.
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despite having a really great hatching experience for our first batch of chicks, there were still some anomalies in our new population of chicks. of course we’ve had some chicks who took longer to hatch then others, or some chicks that appear to be smaller (a little more runty) than the others, but this is to be expected. no chick is the same, of course!
beyond these “average uniquenesses” among our chicks, three particular anomalies stand out from this experience:
i want to describe these three different anomalies and how we’ve dealt with them/plan to deal with them. this post focuses on the second…
anomaly #2
when this chick was hatching i didn’t notice anything different about it. it wasn’t until a day or two later, when the chicks stopped sleeping all the time and started moving around a lot more, that i realized that he didn’t move about like the others. he never used both legs and when he stood up, he usually fell/flopped over in order to move from place to place. i picked him up and realized that his right leg didn’t fully bend. although it looked like a normally developed leg, it seemed like he had something wrong with his bone that kept him from extending his leg past halfway. he could pull it all the way up under his body, but he could’t stretch it out fully.
after i realized that he needed some extra help, i went a little overboard and even designed a metal wire leg for him so that he could learn to walk… but i never used it. jason, rightfully so, convinced me that in the beginning of this life he needed to learn to cope with his disability if he was going to make it at all.
so we watched and waited. i picked him up every chance i got and made him drink water and tried to get him to eat. usually he would protest and not eat anything, but every now and again he would peck at the chick food. this concerned me until days later (he was still doing fine even though he was clumsy and rested a lot) i saw him stand up on one leg and hop/fall over to the food tray and prop himself up with a wing to eat! he’d figured it out after all!
i knew that if he could figure out how to eat, he could certainly figured out how to drink! he was tough, after all.
the video below shows him moving around his house… usually he hugs the wall and moves clockwise (with his bad leg side sticking out). although he moves this way most commonly, he still isn’t scared to move though the middle of the brooder for any reason.
he’s gotten better and better at hopping, and even though he is smaller than all the others (he gorges himself less and has to use more energy getting around), he seems very smart! he usually waits to eat until most of the the other chicks are resting so he has time and space to get what he needs. and… no other chicks are picking on him, even though his foot sticks out sideways. sometimes others will peck at it to see what it is, but never more than once or twice.
one thing that has changed since the first week-and-a-half: his leg no longer beds at all, even towards his body. the bones seems fused in one position… who really knows what happened?!
i’m really hoping he’s a rooster, so that i can have a one-legged rooster friend that rides around on my shoulder! i’ve even started writing a children’s book and he is one of the main characters’ sidekicks and best friends.
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Fencing is an integral part of farming, homesteading and permaculture. But there is more to a fence than just a boundary or barrier.
By laying out fencing, you create an element on the landscape that you can now design off of. Instead of having a blank canvas (sometimes the hardest thing) you have a structure that can be used and integrated into your homestead or permaculture design.
Fences create, define and reinforce zones and actvity centers. They can be also be used as trellises or in creative ways like chicken moats.
Once these sort of elements appear on your property, it becomes easier to build out around them and add other elements that coalesce into your design. An example would be: this fence divides the garden and the chickens, we need gates here, we could have 2 dwarf trees on either side of the gate, comfrey at the base, and vegetables trellised up the fence.
The next iteration of elements seems to spill out form the edges of the first, just like a forest with an advancing front of blackberries and other woody plants. I’m so excited about our new cattle panel fence, and the future of our homestead design, that I recorded this quick video today.
Also, be sure to check out Episode 2 of our his and her craft beer review series where we do an Ommegang’s Three Philosophers Review. Also, don’t forget to use our Amazon link before you do your last minute holiday shopping! Thanks!
this post is a catch-up post to show you how much our chicks have grown over the last 2 1/2 weeks. how very exciting to see babies born and grow up (even if they’re bird babies.)!
this first video is of the day old chicks sleeping after being removed from the incubator:
this video shows the chicks becoming a little more active, moving around, and exploring a little. they are about 3 days old in this video:
another video shows the chicks at a week old, when they became much more active. at this age we started to see individual personalities develop, and our chick with the funny leg was still going strong and learning how to fend for himself. yay!
this last video is of the crazy, almost-flying, jumping, pecking, and very-curious chicks at 2 weeks old. they are starting to look scruffy and crazy now because they’re adult feathers are slowly beginning to come in!
enjoy!
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Here’s a short video on how I treated an insect sting on my knuckle at work with some plantain today. Plantain is a great medicinal herb that is both very conspicuous and very safe. It’s a well known herb, sometimes considered a weed, that is often found in lawns, nature strips, and parks.
The compounds in the leaves are extremely useful at pulling out toxins and poisons, and old timers have used this wonder plant to treat all sorts of cuts, bites, and envenomations. My sting today was on my knuckle! Ouch! But the plantain (genus plantago) worked it’s magic and after just a few hours I couldn’t even tell which finger had gotten stung! Check out the video for more!
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and yet another post about the amazing lion’s mane mushroom!
check out this video to learn more about how to prepare your mushroom for dinner!
enjoy!
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as jason mentioned in his post yesterday, we’ve discovered two lion’s mane mushrooms growing wild in our woods, on a dead oak tree, overlooking the large pond and the gully.
here is the video that we filmed shortly after discovering this amazing find!
can’t wait to eat them! yum!
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Do you ever go camping or hiking? What do you for water when your miles from civilization and the comforts of tap and bottled water? What if you need to drink questionable water after a storm, like a hurricane that damages the water lines or knocks out power to pump your well? How would you ensure that you have access to clean water, one of the most important items for day to day survival and prepardness?
Enter the steripen, a lightweight, portable device that uses UV light to kill bacteria, viruses, and other potential contaminates in your water. It zaps these pesky buggers, and keeps them from proliferating to dangerous levels, and allows you to safely consume water from streams, springs, lakes, and water tanks.
the steripen is a great way to quickly and easily make water safe to drink
I recently tested the steripen on a week long Appalachian trail hike and was more than satisfied with it. Compared to chemical treatments it’s safer, and let’s you taste the freshness of the water.I think it’s easier than a filter, all you have to do is insert the lamp into your water bottle, and then shake until the light goes off. There are 2 settings, .5 l or less and .5 – 1 liters. The whole system is perfect for a bpa free Nalgene bottle and fits easily in your pocket.
Check out the video we shot of the steripen in action, and you’ll see just how easy it is to guarantee yourself safe and delicious water, whether you’re thru-hiking the trail or without water after a natural disaster.
Check out the steripen classic on amazon, or the whole line of steripen products.
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