Community Cluckers

Incubation Series Part 4: The Long Wait, Candling, and Hatching Day

2012-03-01T12:09:00.003-06:00

Chicken eggs incubate for 21 days. To an anxious chicken addict, this can prove to be the hardest part of rearing chicks. Unfortunately, there's not much we can do to rush Mother Nature, so I heed the lesson of patience and try to keep myself busy. Depending on the incubator you have, there are some daily routines that can keep you feeling like you're "actively" waiting. Like I discussed in my last post Part 3, if you are hand turning your eggs, this should be done 3 times a day. Water levels in your humidity source should also be checked and re-filled accordingly. As tempting as it is, try not to remove the lid too often, as the changes in temperature aren't ideal.

My favorite pass-time while waiting for chicks to appear is candling. Candling is one of those amazing ways nature has made it possible for curious humans to look in on a growing chick with ease. With most other animals, scientific x-rays or ultrasounds are required to witness such miracles, but the amazing egg allows us to enter this embryonic world with only a flashlight, and a dark room. If you have small children who want to participate in the candling process, but you're weary about tiny hands balancing your precious eggs, consider ordering an Ovascope. It's a great product by Brinsea that makes candling safe and easy. For more information on the Ovascope read my product review post The Brinsea Ovascope or visit Brinsea's website.

After about 4 days you can begin to candle your eggs to look for veins and the first formation of the heart. You can candle them before this, but there's not a whole lot to see. Click here for a great link that shows photos of a chick developing each day for 21 days! As you can see by the end, there's not much to view as the chick is taking up most of the space. Some eggs are easier to see through than others. For example, French Black Copper Eggs are difficult to candle as their shell is very dark. If you can't tell exactly what is going on, look for consistency among the eggs to see that the chicks are all developing in a similar manner. If you're certain that an egg has stopped developing, or is infertile, take it out of the incubator and discard. A dead egg can begin to go rancid and cause bacteria problems with your other chicks. I've even read that they can explode! Sure Hatch is a great site that helps identify problem eggs.

Day 19, You're Almost There
Be sure to increase humidity levels a few days before hatch and stop rotating 2-3 days before. Place small stones or a screen over your water source as new born chicks can drown very easily. With our model, the Brinsea Mini Advanced. I take out the rotating disk and lay a piece of paper towel in the bottom of the incubator. This will help absorb any fluids when the chicks hatch, and help with clean up later on. It can also help prevent splay leg as the paper has a bit more grip than slippery plastic. When chicks are born their leg bones are somewhat flexible, a firm place to stand at birth encourages correct leg development. Today is a good day to set up your brooding area as well. (More about that below).

The First Crack, Day 21
By now you should have your brooding area all set up and ready for chicks. To read more about brooding chicks, read my blog post, Raising Chicks. At your 21st day your eggs will begin to wiggle and you'll hear faint peeping through the shell. Then you'll go make yourself a sandwich and you'll come back and there will be the first pip hole. The egg will probably stay in this state for several hours. Hatching is exhausting stuff for chicks, and in my experience, it can take several hours for a chick to break completely through.

Once your chick hatches, it will be soaked to the bone and wobbly. It will go through episodes of frantic stomping and thrashing about, crashing into the other un-hatched eggs, or its brother and sisters, then into periods of immediate exhaustion and sleep. I carefully take out the broken shell pieces, but leave the chicks in the incubator until they have dried and fluffed out. This can sometimes take a whole day. Chicks don't need to eat or drink for the first 48 hours of their life, they still have the yolk of the egg supporting them, so don't worry that they'll be getting hungry or thirsty.

Once dry, they can be moved to their brooder box with heat lamp set at 95 degrees.

Be sure to talk to your chicks and make yourself visible, as imprinting starts at birth. I've definitely noticed a difference in personality from chicks that I've raised from an egg.

They are friendlier and more eager to follow you. In fact, we have a very large rooster that sort of took to my husband Zach from the start. As a chick, Zach taught him to jump on his finger, then as he got older, to jump on his arm. Now he's grown into a hefty boy and loves to sit on Zach's shoulder like a pirate and his parrot, while he does the daily chores.

The problem is, he's not particular about who's shoulder he lands on, and sometimes his aim is a bit off, so it's a bit of a surprise when he decides to leap off the ground and land on my head!

For more information on Incubating and raising chicks check out some of my other posts:
Part 1: Incubating Advantages
Part 2: Choosing Birds to Breed
Part 3: Choosing an Incubator, Set Up and Collecting Eggs
Part 4: The Long Wait, Candling, and Hatching Day
Raising Chicks

Do you have a favorite incubator, or hatching story? I'd love to hear about it! Feel free to leave comments or photos on Iron Oak Farm's Facebook Page or Blog and I'll do a Reader's Response after the series has posted, celebrating all our new babies from Spring 2012!

Incubation Series Part 3: Choosing an Incubator, Set Up, and Collecting Eggs

2012-02-29T14:55:00.002-06:00

by Jennifer Sartell

In Part 3 of my incubation series, I'd like to start out by giving some tips and experience I've had with different style incubators. I've worked with a few different types of incubators in the past, and my favorite by far are the incubators made by Brinsea. We have 4 of the Mini Advanced models and they take the guess work out of egg care. I like the smaller batch models because I have more control and can fill up an incubator faster and start different batches going at different times. Our incubator is seriously fool proof. If you can water a houseplant you can hatch chicks. It does all the rotating, and timing, temperature up keep and even humidity levels for you.

There are many different styles of incubator available. One of the other models I've used are the common square incubators with the Styrofoam outer that you can find at many chain feed stores, or education supply stores. These incubators hold more eggs, and are usually less expensive, but require more involvement in the hatching process. There is often an optional egg turner that can be added for convenience, the addition of this unit will bring the price of the incubator to that of a more automated model like the Brinsea Mini Advanced. If you don't get the egg turner, you must hand turn each egg 3 times a day. A good system that helps keep track of this process is to write an "X" on one side of the egg, and an "O" on the other with a pencil. That way you know which eggs have been flipped. Personally, I wasn't home enough everyday to turn eggs, for 21 days or longer.

Another thing to consider about this style of incubator is that they hold a lot of eggs at one time. If you are planning on hatching out a lot of chicks at once, then these styles would be a great choice. The problem that I had with this option is that, often I don't have that many fertile eggs to hatch. Many times I have only one or two of my best hens with a rooster at a time. It would take me a long time to fill up an incubator of that capacity, and by then, the eggs would no longer be hatch-able (more about this below). So you might think, "Why not add eggs to the incubator at different times?" And this is a great idea except for one thing, 2 to 3 days before hatching, an egg should not be turned. So, if you continue to add eggs to an incubator, eventually you will have eggs that need to be turned and eggs that shouldn't be turned. You would have to keep track of this, and the automated rotary turner would have to be stopped when the first eggs approach day 19.
Humidity levels should also be increased as hatching time approaches. This would also be difficult to control with eggs at different stages of growth in the same incubator.

Once you decide on an incubator, it's important to clean it thoroughly. I wash all removable non-electric parts with soap and water. Then swab the crevices and areas near the heating element and fan with a cotton swap dipped in alcohol. Let dry completely. Brinsea sells an incubator wash, which I haven't tried, but it's good to know about. Clean your incubator in the same fashion after the chicks have been hatched and again in the spring after they've been stored for the winter. An incubating environment is warm and moist perfect for breeding bacteria as well as chicks.

You're going to want to start your incubator about 24 to 48 hours in advance of your eggs arriving to get the temperature stabilized. You can add your moisture source as well. Our Mini Advanced has a circular dish with a separation in the middle. We keep one half of this dish full of water for the first 19 days, then fill both sides until hatching day.

The nice thing about the Mini Advanced is that it's programmable. It has a countdown to hatch day, and alarms that let you know when you need to do something, or if something isn't right. It comes with instructions on correct incubation temperatures for each species, and an egg size chart for choosing the correct rotation level. It will also stop rotating your eggs automatically when hatching day approaches.

Keep your incubator away from radiators, doorways, or other areas where the temperature might change often. Power outages are also something to consider. We get a lot of spring ice storms here in Michigan, and it's not unusual to loose power for a couple of days. Last year I had an incubator running when we lost power for 14 hours, and still had a successful hatch. I've read somewhere that 2 days, is about the maximum that the eggs can be left.

Some people wash their eggs before putting them in an incubator. I've never had the need, but if you decide to wash, Manna Pro sells an egg wash that is supposed to be hatch approved. The instructions say to soak eggs in a diluted solution for 5 minutes. Always wash hands before and after handling hatching eggs or newly born chicks.

The Birds and the Bees, Collecting and Storing Eggs

I'm sharing this with you, as I wished I could have found this information more easily when I first started out. This has been an accumulation of different people telling me different things and then testing these theories with my own practice. We free range our birds all together except during breeding season. We raise three main breeds of chickens, French Black Copper Maran, Lavender Orphington, and Blue Laced Red Wyandotte. While free ranging, our hens are exposed to many different breeds of rooster. To cleanse our hens of the different strains of rooster that she may have mated with, we separate our breeds for a month or more to get clean lines. Once the hens are clean and fertilized with roosters of the same breed, we collect the eggs to be hatched or sold. The eggs must be stored in a cool place, well away from hatching temperatures. I try to keep them under 70 degrees. The eggs will stay fertile but dormant for about ten days until they are exposed to incubation temperatures. That's why no matter what day an egg was laid and collected, they will all hatch around the same day if put in an incubator at the same time. This is also why it's important to begin incubating your eggs as soon as possible if ordering them through the mail. Communicate with your breeder and have your incubator set up and the temperature and humidity levels settled before your eggs arrive.

For more information on Incubating and raising chicks check out some of my other posts:
Part 1: Incubating Advantages
Part 2: Choosing Birds to Breed
Part 3: Choosing an Incubator, Set Up and Collecting Eggs
Part 4: The Long Wait, Candling, and Hatching Day
Raising Chicks

Do you have a favorite incubator, or hatching story? I'd love to hear about it! Feel free to leave comments or photos on Iron Oak Farm's Facebook Page or Blog and I'll do a Reader's Response after the series has posted, celebrating all our new babies from Spring 2012!

Incubation Series Part 2: Choosing Birds to Breed

2012-02-28T14:14:00.003-06:00

by Jennifer Sartell

Blue Laced Red Wyandotte Pullet (Blue Variety)

This post is the second in my Incubation Series. In the first post, Incubating Advantages, I discussed some of the advantages and disadvantages of incubating your own hatching eggs. One of the advantages that I'd like to discuss further is that home incubating allows more control over what characteristics a particular chicken's offspring will have. It gives us the opportunity to encourage or discourage those features by select breeding. This post is going to explore that subject a bit more in the hopes of helping you to select the correct breed for you, or the parents of a breed you hope to hatch. I will share with you my own experience with our Blue Laced Red Wyandottes.

Breeding can be tricky, but very rewarding. Unfortunately it is not as easy as bird 1, plus bird 2, equals bird 3. I have learned so much about chickens by breeding, and the most valuable lesson, is the importance of starting with good quality stock.

All chickens are not created equal. Even a chicken that appears to be healthy can be carrying genetic secrets. Crooked beak, for example, is hereditary and can arise from two seemingly normal parents. Chickens that throw undesirable genetic mutations should be discouraged from producing offspring. There are many people who devote years of patience, effort, and love to producing healthy, beautiful chickens. When you see a bird raised in this way, the care speaks for itself.

With this being said, not everyone is able to start with "award winning chickens." In my opinion, this should not discourage someone from continuing their own flock. Do the best with what's available to you, research, research, research, and breed responsibly.

Blue Laced Red Wyandotte Cockerel (Blue Variety)

My first suggestion is to research breeds that do well in your area. Weather, climate, and humidity are all things to consider. Our Blue Laced Red Wyandottes do fabulous in our Michigan winters. They have a short comb, which is not prone to frostbite, and dense plumage that keeps them warm in the cold months. You will get the best results from offspring that are raised in a climate that suits them. Start with one breed and see how it goes. If you decide to raise multiple varieties, remember that each breed must be kept separate or "mutt" chickens will be the result. Sometimes this is desirable, sometimes not. Just make sure you know where you're going to put everyone, so that you don't have any oops-es! (More about this in my next post Part 3: Choosing an Incubator, Set Up, and Collecting Eggs)

Secondly, consider the space that you have and incubate accordingly. Even a small backyard collector can raise a few hatching eggs. It's not quantity but quality, and you don't have to fill an incubator to replenish your flock, and experience the fun of incubating.

One of the things that I find most interesting about raising chickens, are the breed standard guidelines, and trying to breed birds that will produce offspring with those qualities. This is a heated subject on many a chicken forum. Many people think that chicken breeding should only be left to experienced breeders who are strict to the standard guidelines. Others feel that breeding is a hobby, and it should be left up to the individual's discretion. Both sides of the argument have merit. On the one hand, there is a risk of loosing original breeds through "mutt" breeding, or loosing the breed's integrity though poor quality breeding. On the other, I think it's important to encourage newbies to get involved and to generate interest in raising chickens of all sorts. Honest communication would solve many of these debates. Breeders have a responsibility to be truthful about what they are selling, to provide line information when possible, and to divulge a bit in their breeding practices.

Buyers also have a responsibility, to do their homework and know what they're paying for. There is a ton of information on line to help explain the genetics of breeding, breed standards and how to pick a good looking bird. Talk to different breeders and ask questions. I find that people who are really enthusiastic about raising chickens will be happy to answer any questions you may have. There are also poultry clubs all over the United States. 4-H is a great place to start, even if you're over the age requirement (it's usually 18), the poultry club should have some information for your area and tell you where to start looking. Some clubs are even breed specific and will help you narrow in on your breed of choice. If you can't find something in your area, there are forums and even on-line chicken shows where people can up-load photos and get feedback on their birds.

Go to chicken shows in your area and get a feel for what a quality bird looks like in the breed your interested. Read the judges comments and talk to the judges if possible. For More information visit The American Poultry Association

There are two shows in our area that I hardly ever miss. The first being our local 4-H fair. To take a tour of our 4-H fair, read my post The Poultry Barn .

Another favorite show in our area is Fowl Fest. Each Autumn Zach and I head north to spend a day oohing and aahing over our area's finest selection of chickens. To see a tour of Fowl Fest 2010 check out my post Visiting Grandpa Tiny's Fowl Fest. Or click the video to see snip bits of the following year, Fowl Fest 2011. Seeing these beautiful specimens makes me want to raise the best chickens I can, and I'm sure it will inspire you as well.

My last bit of advice, is that when it comes to breeding chickens, yellow and blue don't always make green: Some breeds are more predictable than others. In these breeds, you mate a rooster and a hen of the same breed and color and you get offspring of the same type. But in the case of our Blue Laced Red Wyandottes, for example, there's much to learn under those pretty laced feathers.

Blue Laced Red Wyandotte Hen (Splash Variety)

Blue Laced Red Wyandottes come in two color varieties, Blue and Splash. There is also a third color, Black, that will occur, which resembles the coloring of a Golden Laced Wyandotte. If you mate a blue rooster to a blue hen, you will not get all blue chicks. You will get 50% blue, 25% black and 25% splash. To make it easier to understand, visit Blue Laced Red Wyandotte.com for a chart that breaks down the color combinations that will occur when mating the different varieties.

Frizzled breeds are another fun example of complicated breeding. Frizzles are a classification of chicken whose feathers grow outward, almost backward, curving toward the front of the chicken. To produce frizzled young, you must breed a smooth chicken (normal feathering) with a frizzle. This will produce 3 out of 4 frizzled chicks. If you mate a frizzle to a frizzle, all the chicks should be smooth.

This post is a mere drop in the ocean when it comes to learning about breeding, and is not meant to act as a guide, only to bring some interesting facts to your incubating experience. Even if you are the only one who will ever see your chickens, it's fun to look at where the breeds are going, and what people are doing to improve and prolong their existence. New breeds are being developed each year, some are trying to gain recognition, some are struggling to make a comeback from near extinction. Everyone raises chickens for different reasons, which makes the chicken world a fun and exciting place!

For more information on Incubating and raising chicks check out some of my other posts:
Part 1: Incubating Advantages
Part 2: Choosing Birds to Breed
Part 3: Choosing an Incubator, Set Up and Collecting Eggs
Part 4: The Long Wait, Candling, and Hatching Day
Raising Chicks

Do you have a favorite incubator, or hatching story? I'd love to hear about it! Feel free to leave comments or photos on Iron Oak Farm's Facebook Page or Blog and I'll do a Reader's Response after the series has posted, celebrating all our new babies from Spring 2012!

Incubation Series Part 1: Incubating Advantages

2012-02-27T19:14:00.003-06:00

by Jennifer Sartell

It's that season again! Pictures of baby chicks are popping up all over my Facebook Farm Page, as fellow bloggers, homesteaders, and chicken enthusiasts share images of their new little peepers. It's an exciting day when chicks arrive, whether they come from a store, a breeder, through the post, a broody hen, or from an egg in your own incubator, baby chicks are a miracle I never tire of.

In the first post of this 4 part series on incubating, I'd like to talk about some different reasons for raising your own chicks from a hatching egg. The advantages, the disadvantages, and some tips that I've learned along the way.

My favorite way to add chicks to our flock is by allowing a broody hen to do the work for me. Mother nature really does know best, and it takes the guess work out of egg care for us humans. To read more about my first experience with a broody hen read my post Bath Time at the Lavender House.

If a broody hen isn't an option, my second favorite way to acquire chicks is by hatching them myself with an incubator.

The main reason I started incubating my own eggs is that some years ago, I was able to purchase some good quality stock from a serious and reputable breeder of Blue Laced Red Wyandottes. I couldn't afford to purchase new chicks of this type each spring, but I wanted the lines of these quality birds to continue each year, for our own farm and for our customers who buy our chicks and hatching eggs. (To read more about our hatching eggs and chicks, visit our farm blog at Iron Oak Farm)

We purchased three fertile hens and two cockerels, beautiful birds but quite expensive. We collected the eggs from our hens over the next week, ordered an incubator with rush shipment, and hatched our first incubated eggs.

From this experience on, I was hooked. This was one of the most amazing things I've ever had the pleasure of witnessing. I also felt that this experience needed to be shared. So with the next batch of eggs to be incubated, I set up a live cam so our blog readers could watch the miracle as well. The response was overwhelming! We weren't alone in our amazement, so many people were watching that it bogged down the online connection and I had to keep re-booting the system!

There is a lot to think about when making the decision to bring an animal into the world. Other than the pure joy of watching chicks hatch, there are some advantages and disadvantages of incubating eggs. Below are a few things to consider.

The Advantages:
These are some things that are really important to our farm and our own rearing practices. If you can think of more, I'd love to hear from you. Feel free to leave a comment!

1. Hatching eggs open up a whole world of breeds that would otherwise be difficult to find. A lot more breeders are willing to ship eggs than they are live chicks. Incubators can also be used to hatch other species of birds like turkeys, geese, guineas, peafowl, swans etc. Our model even came with directions for parrots and other tropical birds!

2. Raising rare breeds of chickens is not only interesting, but is a great thing to do for the historical integrity of all livestock breeds. Through incubation, we can help some of the disappearing heritage breeds make a comeback. For more information, visit the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy.
(I will have more information on choosing birds to breed in my next post in this series, Part 2: Choosing Birds to Breed.)

3. It is usually less expensive to buy hatching eggs of a rare breed than live chicks or adult birds.

4. It's less stressful for a bird to be shipped while it's still an egg versus a live chick. You cut back the chances of the chicks being chilled in the shipping process which can lead to pasty butt, or death. There are also regulations as to when chicks can be shipped. Many times it must be within the first day. Hatching eggs open up this short time restraint.

5. You don't necessarily have to order large minimum numbers. Many hatcheries will have a minimum order of 25 chicks. They do this for a number of reasons, one of which is in order for the chicks to stay warm in the shipping process. More bodies equals a warmer trip. For a small backyard collector who only wants a couple of chickens of a particular breed, this number can be a bit daunting. Some hatcheries will sell a smaller number of chicks, but many charge you for a heating device that is mailed along with the birds. This device can tack on more than $50 to your shipping price.

6. You know where your chicks have been from the beginning, what care they've had, and who's handled them. I cringe sometimes when we go to large chain stores that get in chicks to sell. I've seen chicks, chased, squeezed, dropped, and handled by every Tom, Dick and Harry that wanders over to the brooder bins.

7. You also have the choice to vaccinate or not vaccinate.

8. And finally one of the best reasons is that it is an incredible thing to witness and be a part of. It is a great learning experience for children and adults!

The Disadvantages:
While hatching chickens can be loads of fun, it might not be for everyone. Here are a few things to think about.

1. One of the few disadvantages of hatching your own chicks is that you can't order pullet eggs. If roosters are a problem in your area, bear in mind that you will more than likely hatch out a male bird amongst your eggs. But don't despair. While re-homing a rooster is classically harder than re-homing a hen, it's not impossible, especially for some of the rarer breeds. Have a few people or ideas in mind before committing to a hatch. There are forums for chicken enthusiasts that help people find homes for birds. For more helpful suggestions on dealing with roosters, read my post Keeping Roosters Together

2. The second problem is less of a problem and more of a test of patience. Incubation takes planning and preparation. In my third post I will touch on issues like choosing an incubator, prepping for your eggs and other helpful tips. With home hatching, you won't have the instant satisfaction of driving to the store and getting your chicks that day. You will have to wait for the breeder, to ship you your eggs, and then of course, there is the 21 days of waiting. Which to an excited chicken person like myself can seem like an eternity! But there are fun things to keep the impatient monster at bay. Like candling. Which I will also talk about in my fourth post. (link below)

For more information on Incubating and raising chicks check out some of my other posts:
Part 1: Incubating Advantages
Part 2: Choosing Birds to Breed
Part 3: Choosing an Incubator, Set Up and Collecting Eggs
Part 4: The Long Wait, Candling, and Hatching Day
Raising Chicks

Do you have a favorite incubator, or hatching story? I'd love to hear about it! Feel free to leave comments or photos on Iron Oak Farm's Facebook Page or Blog and I'll do a Reader's Response after the series has posted, celebrating all our new babies from Spring 2012!

An Eggs-periment in Egg Anatomy

2012-02-19T23:34:00.013-06:00

by Jennifer Burcke

In my last post, I shared the horror of finding two frozen and cracked eggs waiting for me in our coop on a frigid January morning. I removed their shells and placed them in a bowl in the hopes that they would defrost and be usable in a baking recipe. After they had spent several hours in the refrigerator sans shells, they did in fact thaw and by the end of the day we had chocolate chip cookie bars to eat for a bedtime snack.

In the days that followed, countless chicken keepers shared their methods for combating the bitterly cold weather and frozen water in their coops. I was amazed at the creativity and thankful for all of the great suggestions. I can’t wait to give a few of them a try and share the outcome with you.

As the comments and suggestions came in, I continued to think about the frozen eggs. My curiosity was piqued. My inquisitive nature has a long history of getting the best of me. In fact, my curiosity was responsible for me getting the slightly crazy idea that we should add a flock of heritage breed hens to 1840 Farm. Here we sit less than two years later with a herd of dairy goats living in our circa 1840 barn and a French Angora rabbit happily munching on alfalfa hay.

Now that I consider us a full-fledged farming family, I was ready to put my curiosity to practical use. I wanted to learn more about the anatomy of the egg. As a homeschooling parent, I took it as an opportunity to teach my children a science lesson while also learning something valuable myself.

Enter the website for The Exploratorium Museum in San Francisco. I had visited their site in the past and my children and I had already completed several of the experiments detailed there. In moments, I discovered that their section regarding eggs contained just the type of experiment I was looking for.

If my goal was to learn more about the shell and membrane of an egg, than I had found just the way to do so. It seemed simple enough, didn’t require any materials that weren’t easily at hand in my kitchen, and was bound to make for an interesting educational experience. It was time to gather our supplies and make a few naked eggs.

It didn’t take long to assemble the few tools necessary for this experiment. While the instructions call for putting two or more eggs into one container and then making sure that they are not touching, we opted to put each egg in its own container. Pint-sized Mason jars proved to be just large enough to hold each egg and easy to close in order to mitigate the smell caused by the vinegar.

Soon it was time to select a few eggs. Let me be clear: No farm-fresh eggs were harmed during the course of this experiment. We actually purchased a half dozen eggs at the store. While buying eggs at the grocery store is something I try to avoid at all costs, it seemed like a better option than ruining two perfectly fresh eggs from our coop. I just couldn’t bring myself to put one of our farm-fresh eggs in harm’s way.

We weighed each egg and recorded their weights at 58 grams each. Then it was time to lower them gently into their jars using a tablespoon. We covered them with white vinegar and sealed the jars. Initially, nothing seemed to be happening. We set the jars in the refrigerator and wondered how long it would take for them to begin their transformation.

When we checked on the eggs a few hours later, the shells were still intact. However, bubbles were forming on the shells and rising to the surface of the vinegar. The vinegar contained in the jars resembled a carbonated beverage more than it did plain vinegar. We were hopeful that by morning we would have two shell-less eggs to investigate.

By morning, the shells were not gone, but we were making progress. The shell had begun to break down and small portions were completely dissolved. Bubbles were still forming and rising to the surface taking small particles of the disappearing shell with them.

The acetic acid in the vinegar was clearly breaking the egg’s calcium carbonate shell into calcium, which was rising to the surface. At the same time, the acid was reacting with the shell to create carbon dioxide in the form of bubbles. We also noticed that the eggs began to float in the vinegar solution. Each time we opened the refrigerator door, they seemed to be closer to floating to the surface of the vinegar.

Once we hit the 24-hour mark, we checked and found that the eggs were far from being shell-less. So, as the instructions recommended, we removed the eggs from the jars to observe them and then returned them to clean jars and covered them with fresh vinegar. According to the experiment’s instructions, we would find completely naked eggs in another 24 hours.

We did not find shell-less eggs the next day. We made the decision to repeat the process of draining the jars and replacing the day-old solution with fresh vinegar. Apparently, the third time was the charm. The next morning, we discovered that our eggs were finally free of their shells and it was time to remove them so that we could take a closer look.

The first observation we made was how much the naked egg had increased in size. In fact, it was nearly double the size of an egg that we had reserved from the half dozen purchased at the store. The eggs had weighed 58 grams at the beginning of our experiment. We now had two shell-less eggs that weighed 90 grams and 98 grams, respectively. It was clear that not only was the vinegar working to dissolve the shell, it was also being transferred through the membrane into the egg.

Using a paper towel, we carefully removed the remnants of the dissolved eggshell. The membrane was intact and resembled a water balloon. Pressing on the membrane with my finger allowed me to make a depression, but its elasticity prevented it from breaking. I found myself marveling at the strength and flexibility of the membrane. Even though the egg’s membrane was now holding over an ounce of vinegar along with the egg, it was still doing the job that nature intended.

In minutes, my children were talking to each other about the eggs, the shells, and the miraculous membrane that had survived an environment that the shell could not. Out came the microscope. Soon there was a slide made with a fragment of the dissolving eggshell. Under the microscope, it became clear that what was left of the shell was incredibly porous.

After we had all given the naked eggs a full inspection, it was time to move on to the second part of the experiment. We had already seen firsthand that the eggshell could not stand up to the acetic acid in the vinegar while the membrane had emerged unscathed. Now it was time to see what the membrane could do on its own.

We placed one egg in a clean jar filled with tap water. The second egg was destined for a jar filled with corn syrup. While the first egg was happy to sink in the water, the second refused to be submerged in the thick corn syrup. Instead, it floated on top like an egg-shaped ship lost at sea. I tried to push it down into the syrup, but it was no use. Now it was time to place them both back in the refrigerator for 24 hours.

The next morning, the corn syrup egg had already been transformed. The membrane had given us a lesson in osmosis that was so easy to understand that my 6-year-old grasped it immediately. Because the corn syrup does not contain much moisture, the selectively permeable membrane of the egg had allowed liquid from inside the membrane to exit into the container in order to equalize the pressure. When that happened, the egg was suddenly flabby and deflated, weighing a mere 50 grams. In fact, there was a considerable amount of vinegar now floating on top of the corn syrup in the Mason jar.

We could actually pinch the membrane between our fingers and even pick the egg up by the membrane. In contrast, the egg that had spent the evening in water had ballooned up to 91 grams. Its membrane was stretched so tightly that we could no longer press our fingers into it. It felt as if it might burst at any moment.

We held the egg that had been in water up in front of a light to see how translucent it was. We could see the contents of the egg clearly. It was as if we had a three-dimensional cross section of an egg. It was easy to see the yolk, albumen and chalaza. By rotating the egg, we could watch as the contents moved freely.

After we finished inspecting the egg in the bright light, we moved on to complete the experiment. We returned the full egg to its water bath. The egg that had spent 24 hours in corn syrup was placed in a clean jar and covered with water. Within a few hours, it had absorbed enough water to be fully formed. When we weighed both eggs the next morning, they each weighed 94 grams.

This experiment reminded me of the marvel of nature that an egg represents. Magic happens out in our chicken coops every day. Now, thanks to our hens and a few store-bought eggs, magic had happened in my farmhouse kitchen. My children learned not just about the egg, but about chemical reactions, osmosis, and permeability while having fun. Here's another amazing fact: I had as much fun as they did and learned a lot about the anatomy of the egg in the process.

Tomorrow morning, when I’m out in the coop delivering morning oatmeal to our hens, I may have to make one change to our morning routine. Instead of addressing them by their names: Hedwig, Amelia, Bertha, Marigold, Abigail, Fawkes and Sally, I may have to call them by a more descriptive moniker. Until I can figure out the appropriate greeting, I’ll guess that, “Good morning, professors” will have to do.

This spring, we'll be making a few additions to our flock and sharing the experience with you. The chicks are ordered and will be arriving in April. I will be chronicling the life of our new chickens from day-old chicks into laying hens through a recurring series of posts about life in the coop at 1840 Farm. Stay tuned!

You're always welcome at 1840 Farm. Visit our blog at www.1840farm.wordpress.com.

For daily updates about the happenings at 1840 Farm, follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Gardening with Chickens - Part 4 - and a GIVEAWAY!

2012-02-19T22:07:00.042-06:00

by Rebecca Nickols

This spring the Master Gardener chapter that I'm a member of is doing a series of gardening classes, and I'm excited that I will be doing a presentation titled "Gardening with Chickens." In my previous posts for Community Chickens I shared the first three portions of my presentation: Why Chickens?, The Setup and Gardening with Chickens. Now, I'm going to list my favorite resources or my top choices for where to find information on the basics of chicken keeping: online sites and books. During my actual presentation, I'll also include resources such as local hatcheries and feed/supply stores.

Gardening with Chickens

Why Chickens?

Eggs
Self-Sufficiency and Sustainable Living
Free fertilizer
Entertainment-Easy-Enjoyable-Rewarding

The Setup

Coop-Run
Chicks
Heritage Chickens
Ordinance Requirements

Gardening with Chickens

Advantages
Disadvantages
Solutions

Conclusion

Resources: online, books, local sites

Resources

Online Sites

Community Chickens!

Of course, Community Chickens is one of my favorite online sites! I enjoy the biweekly newsletters and reading the comments, suggestions and advice from chicken keepers throughout the worldwide community ... Its Facebook page is also a great social site to share photos, ask questions or just follow the posts of other chicken enthusiasts!

BackYard Chickens

This is valuable site for new and experienced chicken keepers. Its forum always has hundreds of online members ready to answer any question you might have. The site also has a huge selection of coop designs/photos (many with free blueprints). There's also a learning center that includes everything from raising chicks to maintaining a healthy flock. One fun feature on this site: You can design your own web page and share photos and stories of your coop and flock!

My Pet Chicken

Another great site, but what I appreciated most about this site when I first entered the world of backyard chickens was their free Chicken Care Guide. This guide includes info, advice and tips, including: why you should have chickens, caring for baby chicks, and what to expect the first year and beyond.

Books

Grit's Guide to Backyard Chickens

For less than $7.00, this guide includes: tips on incubating eggs, basic chick care, info on 25 heritage chicken breeds, DIY projects, strategics to protect the flock from predators, raising chickens for meat, recipes and more. It also has info on the benefits of raising additional types of poultry: guineas, ducks and turkeys.

Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens by Gail Damerow

In my opinion this a great book, with everything you could ever want to know (and more) about raising chickens. It even has a few tips on chickens and gardens:

Surround the garden with a double-fenced chicken yard, or "moat," creating a bug-free, weed-free zone.
Let chickens into your garden late in the day, giving them an hour or so to eat bugs and nip leaves, but not enough time to do serious damage.
Divide the garden area in two with the chicken house in the middle. Garden on one side and confine the chickens to the other, alternating these uses annually.

The Chicken Encyclopedia: An Illustrated Reference by Gail Damerow

For those of us who sometimes would rather thumb through a book than the Internet, here's an additional book by Gail Damerow that I think is a great "search engine" for all chicken-related info... I enjoy how this book is arranged in an easy A to Z format, and it's full of detailed definitions, color photos, illustrations, charts, tips, etc. Once you start browsing through this book, it's hard to put it down!

Free-Range Chicken Gardens: How to Create a Beautiful, Chicken-Friendly Yard by Jessi Bloom

As a gardener with a flock of chickens, this is my top choice in chicken-resource books! Not only does it cover the basics (how to care for new chicks, coop requirements, etc.), but it's written with a gardener in mind. It includes many tips on how to protect your plants, garden designs, lists of plants chickens prefer or will avoid. Not only is the book well-written and informative, it's full of wonderful photos of chickens, gardens, coops and more. Of course, this book couldn't have come at a better time, as I'm preparing a presentation on "Gardening with Chickens!"

Here's the best part: I'll include anyone who leaves a comment in a drawing for a free copy of Free-Range Chicken Gardens. Share a gardening or chicken-related tip, or simply comment, "Include me in the drawing!" In two weeks, I'll announce the winner ... So, check back on my next post to see if you won!

To see what else is happening on our Southwest Missouri property, visit ...the garden-roof coop.

The Tale of the Very First and Sort of Poopie Egg

2012-02-08T16:09:00.012-06:00

by Kimberly Furry

It was another exciting day for us! Our chicken, Sunshine, has just started laying eggs! With the unusually warm weather, she started laying this week. We weren't expecting her to lay until spring, since we opted against supplemental lighting to get her to lay during winter. I was able to get the girls' reaction on video this afternoon and am happy to share it with you. The egg we found today was not in the nesting box. We found it entrenched in a whole lot of poop! When Ara pulled it out, it was covered in some rather large gobs of poo. So it begged the question: "What the heck do we do with a poop-covered egg?" I found a stellar site from Colorado State University Extension that explains in detail what to do. Here is an excerpt from their site that succinctly addresses our questions:

Caring for the Eggs

Collect the eggs often. Eggs that spend more time in the nest have an increased chance of becoming dirty, broken, or lower in quality. Collecting eggs at least twice daily is recommended, preferably before noon. Consider a third collection in late afternoon or early evening, especially in hot or cold weather. Coated wire baskets or plastic egg flats are good containers for collecting eggs. Discard eggs with broken or cracked shells.

Cleaning. Dirty eggs can be a health hazard. Eggs with dirt and debris can be cleaned with fine sandpaper, a brush, or emery cloth. If eggs need to be washed, the temperature of the water should be at least 20F warmer than the egg. This will prevent the egg contents from contracting and producing a vacuum. It will also prevent microscopic bacteria from being pulled by vacuum through the pores of the egg. A mild, non-foaming, unscented detergent approved for washing eggs can be used. A dishwashing liquid that is free of scents and dyes is acceptable. Eggs can be sanitized by dipping in a solution of 1 tablespoon household bleach to 1 gallon of water before storage. Dry eggs before storing because moisture may enter the shell pores as eggs cool on refrigeration.

Storage. Store eggs in the main section of the refrigerator at 35F to 40F; the shelves in the door tend to be warmer than interior shelves. If collected and stored properly, eggs can have a safe shelf life of greater than three weeks. Date the storage carton or container and use older eggs first. If you have more eggs than you can use, you can break them out of their shells and freeze them. Only freeze fresh eggs. Beat until just blended, pour into freezer containers, seal tightly, label with the number of eggs and the date. Add a small amount of salt, sugar, or corn syrup to prevent gelling and improve the keeping quality of the eggs. It’s a good idea to note any additional ingredients on the freezer container. The whites and yolks may also be frozen separately.

Preparation. Never eat eggs raw. Undercooked egg whites and yolks have been associated with outbreaks of Salmonella enteritidis infections. To prevent illness from bacteria, cook eggs until yolks are firm and cook foods containing eggs thoroughly to 160F. Use a food thermometer to be sure. Do not keep cooked or raw eggs at room temperature for more than two hours.

Here's the link to a wonderful two-page fact sheet (in PDF format) that you can print for an excellent reference: http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/foodnut/09377.pdf

Here's another interesting blog post that I found with some great information on cleaning eggs:
http://www.theprairiehomestead.com/2011/10/eggs-to-wash-or-not-to-wash.html
I'm not a big fan of bleach, so I'll be skipping that option for cleaning soiled eggs.

I hope you find this post helpful in answering questions you may have about cleaning, storage and preparation of eggs.

What Would You Do?

2012-02-05T22:50:00.005-06:00

Every week at Community Chickens, we get dozens of questions from people across the world, hoping to find someone who has shared a similar experience. We try to answer them all, and forward them on to experts where we can. But many of the questions are unique, and because of this, we realize that sometimes the best people to answer the questions are precisely the people who are or have been in your shoes. This is why we often ask our guest bloggers to tackle questions - and they do such a great job!

So here's what we're asking, "What would you do ..." if you were in some of the following situations? What would you tell our readers? What is your best advice?

YOU might be the best person in the world to answer someone's question ... and we want to provide you with that ability. So, go for it!

If you'd like to respond to a question, leave a comment, and be sure to indicate to which question you're responding: (e.g., Q1: This is what you should do ...)

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Q1: T. Murray writes: After NOT being satisfied with the feed that our local farm stores were selling (the formula changed last summer!), I purchased a different kind of layer crumbles. Then 2 weeks later, I purchased yet another kind of 'crumble' that was in smaller pellet form. I kept the label and compared ingredients. What I found was interesting, but I am not sure exactly what the hens need from vitamins and minerals, etc. listed on the tag. Currently my 3 year old hens (still laying) get the poultry crumbles, cracked corn, oyster shells (that I find sometimes are just limestone rocks), grit and whole oats. Plus any scraps go to them, which they love! I am puzzled..... Can you help???

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Q2: Vern writes: Can my chickens catch the flu or a cold from humans?

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Q3: Dinah writes: What kind of greens are okay to give my chickens in the winter? I was wondering if I could add a pellet dried green to their diet?

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Q4: Dave writes: My chickens were supposedly 26 weeks old when I bought them 8th August 2011. They seem happy are scratching around and eating layers pellets and drinking fine but haven't laid an egg yet is it possible to have infertile chickens (I have 2) or am I doing something wrong?

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Q5: Irena writes: When the eggs have blood spots on the egg...are they good to eat? I have been throwing them away.

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Q6: Linda writes: I have mini chickens, the hen just hatched out 5, 3 are her size but I have 2 that aren't much bigger than when they were hatched, the others are back in the big pen. I've had to keep the other 2 with us in the house; too cold outside. Any information on mini chickens would help!

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Q7: Phillips writes: Having a problem with ants in with the small chicks, afraid to use spray or granular poison. What would be safe to use?

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Q8: Loretta writes: How high off the ground should the chickens perch be? Also what should a perch be round (dowel) or can you use a 2x4? What should the diameter be?

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Q9: Debra writes: A seemingly healthy 3-month-old chick is suddenly paralyzed on one side. She is still alert and eats. I am giving her grower and electrolyte water. Any ideas?

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Q10: Barbara writes: I have a question regarding health. I have a hen that has gotten very quiet and hasn't laid for well over a week. She acts like she's cold all the time with her feathers puffed up and hiding her head. I might mention I had another hen act the same way and I lost her.

Today I picked her up. she was very docile. I notice that her chest seemed swollen with like a sack of something.

Should I isolate her, should I try antibiotics, Is there anything I can do to improve her health? I am a new backyard chicken hobbiest and am learning by trial and error and it can be quite heartbreaking at times.

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Q11: Tina writes: Is it normal for my chickens to continually pluck the feathers from the others and eat them? Is there something they need to be eating that I am not aware of? Some have all their tail feathers plucked; some have all there hind feathers missing to the point of bleeding! What can I do for them?!

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Q12: Patti writes: I want to get 4-6 laying hens and was wondering what size the coop should be and how much outside pen area I would need. I work during the day but do not want to keep them in the coop all day.

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Q13: SouthCoast Guy writes: I have 3 hens and this is the first time I have raised chickens. All three were very docile, but over the last couple of weeks one of them has began to peck at us every time we come close, to the point where she drew blood from my wife's finger ... is there any way to discourage that behavior?

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Q14: Lisa writes: I was given a bag of walnut saw dust, do not know what type of walnut. Is it safe to use as bedding? Thank you.

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Q15: Jay writes: My 3 layers are housed in a 50 sq. ft. fenced run with a second floor coop with roost and nest boxes. I leave them in the run during the day, when I go to work. I let them run free in the yard when I get home. They are out for an hour or two before it gets dark.

My problem is that they will not willingly eat the layer feed that I put out in a feeder for them, either crumbles or pellets. They will eat kitchen scraps and scratch corn, or 3-way scratch, plus the yard and forest foraging. They seem to get what they need, since the egg shells are strong, and the yokes are a healthy yellow-orange, but I wonder why they will not eat the processed layer feed.

I have tried to mix varying proportions of scratch and the feed, but they pick through the feed for the corn, and scatter the rest. If I only put out the layer feed, it sits around until it absorbs moisture from the humidity, and gets moldy and soiled from their scratching through the soil and bedding.

Do you have any advice?

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Q16: Carl writes: How much should you feed a full grown chicken per day? How many times should you feed them per day?

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Have a question of your own?

Post it in our forum - or shoot it over to editor@communitychickens.com

What Would You Do?

2012-02-05T20:58:00.004-06:00

So here's what we're asking, "What would you do ..." if you were in some of the following situations? What would you tell our readers? What is your best advice?

YOU might be the best person in the world to answer someone's question ... and we want to provide you with that ability. So, go for it!

If you'd like to respond to a question, leave a comment, and be sure to indicate to which question you're responding: (e.g., Q1: This is what you should do ...)

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Q1: Paula writes: Why won't my hens use the nesting boxes I bought? They lay in one spot on the barn floor. I have a six-box nest that I have moved to different areas but they ignore it. They are free range birds.

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Q2: Marlene writes: I have 4 laying hens and several young hens coming up who are almost old enough to lay. However, lately, my hens have decided to lay their eggs anywhere except the coop. We were letting the gang out of the coop and fenced area in the late afternoon and evening for something different for them to do before going back to roost at dusk. But unfortunately, I found several clutches of eggs laid in tall weed/grassy areas outside of the coop. By the time I found the eggs in tall thistles :(, they were spoiled. I have tried to keep them in the coop & fenced yard to encourage them to lay in the coop and their laying boxes for several days in a row--but I am not sure if or when I should start letting them out again.

So my question is: How do I get my year-old hens to lay in the coop in the laying boxes and not outside in some remote area just because I am trying to be nice to them and let them have some free roam time in the evenings? I thought hens were 'suppose to' lay in the mornings and I'd be ok letting them free-range after 3 p.m. until dusk? They sure enjoy it--and so does my chicken-dog, a gentle soul--a Collie who loves being with the birds when they are outside the coop and fenced area too!

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Q3: Tim writes: What is the best way to clean the eggs?

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Q4: Amanda writes: I have a mobile chicken triangle "ark" setup, and right now I have the sides covered with 10mm of plastic to keep the snows off, and I have installed a Bayco 13 watt fluorescant work light in the open space underneath their coop/roost in the run area. The hens seem quite happy, and at this point are 27 weeks old. I have 2 Delawares, 3 Ameracaucanas, and 1 Barnevelder. As of yet, I have not to see one egg. I am gradually moving back the time frame when I turn the light on and feed them in the morning, 15 minutes per week, in order to try to stimulate egg production beginning. I am at 12 hours and 45 minutes today. As I began looking online to try to find some other ideas, I came across a couple of articles stating that warm white bulbs are better for stimulating hen's reproductive cy! cles. I chose the light I purchased for three reasons: #1- It had a protective plastic cover over the light, so I figured that was better if the chickens tried to peck it. #2- The specifications for the light stated that it was "equivalent to 75 watt incandescent bulb with Natural Daylight illumination- 6500 Kelvin." I think now that the "natural daylight" may have thrown me and I may have gotten the exact opposite of what my hens need. I cannot buy a warm white bulb for this work light. #3- It stated it was "cool running," which I though was important since it was going to be mounted only 2 inches away from the wooden floor of the coop/ceiling of the run area.

My question is: is this light going to do anything for my hens? or should I just switch to a different fixture with a warm-white or incandescent bulb?

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Q5: Brett writes: I have a hen that can't eat to fill her gullet. She is very light for an Orpington she coughs when she tries to eat or drink fast. Help?

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Q6: Laura writes: Any advice on how to correct chickens from eating their own eggs out of the bedding in their boxes?

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Q7: Debbie writes: I live in Ohio and plan to get day-old chicks in the Spring. How can I heat the coop without using electricity? I would have to add a pole (and a 2nd bill) in order to have the power, and prefer to use something other than electric. What can I do to avoid getting the electric? Thanks!

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Q8: Jean writes: My hen laid a shelless egg and then ate the yolk of it. Why?

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Q9: Jerry writes: My chickens have quit laying, they were molting but seem to have all their feathers back now. How long before they start laying again.

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Q10: Mandi writes: We have an A-frame uninsulated style chicken tractor, with 6 laying hens. This is our first winter in NW PA with our chickens. Our winter temps get down to zero, but usually are in the teens-twenties. We are labeled as zone 5 and receive between 100-200 inches of lake effect snows each season. We picked breeds that we believe will do well with cold, that have small combs, using the chicken picker app. (thank you!) We have 3 Ameracaucanas, 2 Delawares, and 1 Barnevelder.

I have a few questions though about the cleaning of a mobile coop and about our thoughts regarding winter with this type of coop setup.

1. First, we have been moving the coop daily around the yard, and cleaning out any poopy straw from the upper portion (sleeping and laying area) of the coop either everyday, or every other day. Is that often enough to clean? We hear alot about the deep litter method, but that won't work for our little arrangement.

2. In regards to winter, our plan is to put the chicken tractor into my husband's uninsulated pole-barn with the REAL tractor; putting it perhaps on a tarp that we can shake out into the yard everyday or every other day. Should we put some straw down daily on the tarp for them to scratch in? We will be running an electrical bulb to hang near their coop area for the 14 hours of light they are supposed to need to continue laying. Is a CFL bulb sufficient or should we use an incandescant one? In addition, would you suggest that we put a blanket or insulation over the outside of the top sleeping area to insulate it a bit? Also, at what temperature should we begin to move them into the pole barn?

Thank you for allowing people to write in with their questions. It's so hard to get reliable information.

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Q11: Diane writes: Once a chicken is done laying 2-3 years, what is the best way to cook an older bird. Also, how high does the fencing have to be to keep chickens from flying over?

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Q12: Mike writes: I live in the Florida panhandle, Zone 8, and working on coop plans.

Can the floor of my coop be made from hardware cloth? I am new to the chicken raising experience. My thoughts are to raise the hutch about 4 feet and put leaves and such under to catch chicken poop. After a time rake it out and replace putting used into compost bin.

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Q13: Lyra writes: Recently, I took my Barred Rock in to the vet thinking she was egg-bound. Turns out she had cancer of the ova duct. I suppose I should have realized that chickens, like every other living creature, can get cancer but I hadn't.

She was only 3 years old and the alpha.

Is this common in chickens?

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Have a question of your own? Post it in our forum - or shoot it over to editor@communitychickens.com

Gardening with Chickens - Part 3

2012-02-05T19:30:00.002-06:00

by Rebecca Nickols

This spring the Master Gardener chapter that I'm a member of is doing a series of gardening classes and I'm excited that I that I will be doing a presentation entitled "Gardening with Chickens." In my previous posts for Community Chickens I shared the first two portions of my presentation: Why Chickens? and The Set-up. Now, I'm moving on to the next subject: Gardening with Chickens

Gardening with Chickens

Why Chickens?

Eggs
Self-Sufficiency and Sustainable Living
Free fertilizer
Entertainment-Easy-Enjoyable-Rewarding

The Setup

Coop-Run
Chicks
Heritage Chickens
Ordinance Requirements

Gardening with Chickens

Advantages
Disadvantages
Solutions

Conclusion

Resources: online, books, local sites

Gardening with Chickens

Sure backyard chickens are a great addition to any home, but if you're a gardener like me you'll want to know how you can use your flock to aid you in your gardening and how to protect your crops and plants from the voracious foragers.

Advantages

Free Fertilizer

Chicken manure is a sought after fertilizer for organic gardeners. It ranks top among animal manures in nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium--and when combined with straw or similar coop bedding it not only adds nutrients to the soil, but also organic matter. And--since your average size hen also produces one cubic foot of manure every six months, you'll have an unlimited supply of free-organic fertilizer!

Because of its high nitrogen content though, it needs to age or compost before it can be used as fertilizer. It's important to not add fresh or "hot" manure directly to the garden in the spring, otherwise you'll end up killing or actually burning your plants. Here's how it measures up:

Here's my scoop on the poop...

To keep things simple most composters follow the general rule of 1 part carbon (brown, i.e. coop/run bedding) to 2 parts nitrogen (green, i.e. chicken poop). However, because chicken manure is too high in nitrogen you may be more successful using a 1:1 or even a 2:1 mixture. How long it takes to produce compost depends on your method of composting or how diligent/dedicated you are to turning, watering and monitoring the temperature of the pile. If done properly, the compost could be ready to use within 2-3 months. Otherwise, it's probably wise to let it age for 6-9 months before incorporating it into the garden soil.

Here's what I do...

I use straw in the coop and during the summer when I clean the coop (about twice a month), I add it to the compost bin. After the last fall harvest, I spread the straw/manure combo on top of the garden. In January I stop adding the fresh manure to the garden, giving it time to age before my first spring planting. I used to use straw in the run also, but the first time I cleaned the run, the straw had compacted into a huge slimy, smelly, moldy mess. Since then I switched to wood shavings.--The run only needs to be cleaned out a few times a year and it's a great fertilizer/mulch to add to the top of my berry beds in the fall/winter.

Weed eaters and organic pesticide!

If you have free-ranging chickens, then organic gardening is a must. Using chemical insecticides, pesticides and herbicides is not only is harmful to the environment, but it will poison your foraging chickens as well. Fortunately, hens love weeds such as chickweed (so named because chicks love it), purslane and dandelions (leaves, not the flowers) and they are constantly on the move, searching for the perfect bug... They provide outstanding tick and mosquito control and have a huge appetite for slugs, snails and other pests including--Japanese beetles! Because the chickens have quite an appetite for Japanese beetles, I don't use an insecticide to control the beetles, instead I just hand-pick them--and then feed them to the chickens!

If you can't handle a handful of squirming beetles then you can knock them off the leaves into a bowl of water. It makes a disgusting beetle-soup that the chickens love. I've read where some chicken keepers purposely put up beetle traps and use the beetles as a free organic chicken feed. Some even freeze the excess beetles to use as a protein supplement during the winter or offer them as a cold treat in the summer. Of course, chickens will not eliminate the beetles from your garden, but I do find it quite enjoyable watching the hens devour these annoying pests!

My property is surrounded by a wooded area and ticks are a major nuisance... I don't know if it's just my imagination, but this past summer (which was the first year that I let the chickens free-range on my property) the amount of ticks present in my yard was noticeably lower.

They're almost like miniature garden tillers--they scratch up the soil white they're foraging for weeds and bugs--another benefit!

Disadvantages

They prefer veggies over weeds...

When I first got chickens I wouldn't let them out of the coop/run in fear of my border collies or cats attacking or killing a bird. Fortunately, I had one chicken who would charge and peck at any dog or cat that even looked their way... When they were confined they would eat anything and everything I offered them--weeds or veggies. However, when I started letting them out to free range and choose what they preferred, they grazed through my garden eating their favorites and completely ignoring others. They especially love blueberries, tomatoes, (not the plant), broccoli crowns (not the leaves), sweet peas (again not the plant/leaves) and bok choy. They loved the bok choy so much, they only nibbled at the lettuce and spinach. They never touched the chard or herbs when allowed to free-range, but if I would add it to their run when nothing else was available--they would eat it... I've never had them even take a second glance at my onions, garlic or peppers, but supposedly chickens lack the ability to detect capsaicum,--the chemical responsible for the hot/burning sensation of peppers.

They aren't as interested in my flower garden, though they do love scratching up the mulch pathways I have, foraging for grubs and bugs...

Here are a few plants that could be poisonous or harmful to your free ranging flock:

Daffodils, tulips, rhubarb, foxglove, ivy, morning glories, poke, lantana, rhododendron, hydrangea, milkweeds, trumpet vine, sweet pea, sweet potato vine, sage, pokeweed, jimsonweed, yew...

OK, now here's the real info...

I have most of these "poisonous" plants and what's interesting is that the chickens somehow know what they can and cannot eat. The same goes with insects... I have several varieties of milkweed (which they avoid completely), but I've also seen them look at the milkweed bugs, Oncopeltus fasciatus, (which are also poisonous and always present) and not eat them. However, they first time I offered them a mealworm, they fought amoung themselves over who could eat the most...

They're messy foragers and bathers...

It's great that while their foraging for bugs and weeds that they scratch up the soil, but as I mentioned earlier they will also make a mess of mulched garden paths. I even have rocked paths that they have been able to kick large stones out of place searching for hidden treats, but I do try to remember that there is probably one less grub or beetle thanks to their diligent scratching.

In addition to your garden becoming their personal smorgasbord, it also becomes the best spot for a dust bath and sometimes the ideal spot might just be in the middle of a row of beans...

A dust bath, however, is an essential part of a chicken's health; It is their way of eliminating mites, lice and other parasites. Providing them a bathing area away from your garden might help them avoid using your vegetable patch as their spa. I've tried making a dust bath out of a container, but it doesn't really work. What works best is just a cleared out patch of earth--add equal parts Diatomaceous Earth (DE), soil and sand. DE is a natural product consisting of the fossilized remains of diatoms (a type of hard-shelled algae). According to some sites, DE can be used as a treatment and preventative measure against intestinal worms, mites and lice. It's a safe product that can be added to the chicken's feed, sprinkled around the coop as well as included in the dust bath.

Solutions

Fencing, bird netting, barriers...

The chickens do love tomatoes and last summer I experimented with a couple of different homemade spray repellents (taste/smell) that I use on my plants to deter the deer. One, which was pepper based, did seem to slow the hens down a bit, but I came to the conclusion that if you want to keep your chickens from eating your garden, you can't allow them to have access to your garden... A fence--either around the garden or containing the chickens is the best option to ensure that your plants are protected.

What my plan is for this year, is to use removable metal fence panels. At $12.00 a panel, it has been an investment to contain my entire garden, but I like the way it looks and the fact that I can remove it in the fall when I'll allow my chickens back into the garden to eat weeds, bugs and contribute their "fertilizer." I've also made a temporary fencing that I use to protect new seedlings and to "cage" my birds into a section that I want to take advantage of their proficient weeding skills. It's nothing more than 4-foot high plastic fencing attached to wooden stakes. As I mentioned above, they're especially fond of seedlings--any variety (for example, they're not so interested in spinach once it's mature, but they love to snatch up the sprouts). Even if you don't fence your entire garden, a newly seeded area needs some sort of protection until the plants are more established, or keep the chickens contained in their coop/run for a few weeks.

Some chicken keepers get pretty ingenious trying to keep the chickens away from their plants, but still put them to work weeding and eating bugs in the garden. Chicken tractors (movable coops without a floor) are one option--you can move the tractor to different areas of the garden, controlling where and what they have access to eat. A chicken tractor is a great option if you are not able to let your flock truly free range. It allows them to forage, but keeps them contained and protected from predators. I use my tractor as a place for the girls to forage when I'm at work or when I'm not able to check on them frequently. During the fall and winter I leave the tractor in the garden and take advantage of their weeding and fertilizing skills. Around January I move the tractor out of the garden to avoid a large deposit of uncomposted chicken manure.

I also found one chicken farmer who invented a "chicken tunnel" that he places between the rows of his garden and uses his flock as sort of a garden tool to weed and work up the soil.

Plant a chicken-proof garden...

If you want to live in perfect harmony with your free-ranging chickens, then you could devote a special garden full of their top choices, or you could design a garden around chicken-resistant plants...

Free-Range Chicken Gardens by Jessi Bloom, a new book hot off the press, provides a whole list of plants that chickens will avoid.

Here's a sampling of the list:

Bee balm, black-eyed Susan, several herbs, goldenrod, iris, peony, yarrow, daisy, coneflower,columbine...

Timing is the key!

Timing is the key to successful gardening with your flock. They're a great addition to your garden and they'll be your best helpers if you just plan out when and how you'll take advantage of their attributes.

Check back at my next post when I'll list my top choices in chicken resources (books, on-line sites, etc.), I'll talk more about Jessi's book and there will also be a giveaway!

To see what else is happening on our Southwest Missouri property, visit ...the garden-roof coop.

Moving the Coop, 40 Chickens, 40 Miles West

2012-01-31T13:04:00.007-06:00

by Jennifer Sartell

My husband, Zach, and I recently moved from my parents' house in the woods to a 14-acre farm. Some people move in a weekend, some over a week or so. Our move was a 2-month undertaking, where we hauled four goats, three rabbits, 40 chickens, a small barn, two chicken coops and all our stuff 40 miles west.

When we found our new farm it already had an existing barn built in 1917. It's a big classic red barn with a black roof and an upper floor. It has almost a hundred years of aging, and while it has been fixed up here and there, it's not what I would call "air tight."

The Red Barn is secure enough to keep out large prey animals like coyotes or dogs, but not secure enough to keep out animals that can climb, like raccoons or stray cats. For the goats, there is a nice solid corner that we re-enforced with plywood, laid cement pads and built strong pens with heavy-gauge wire fencing and metal gates, but for the chickens, I just didn't feel secure keeping them in there, especially at night.

At my parents', our chickens and goats were kept in a small two-story barn. My family built the barn from scratch 15 years ago with my dad, an amazing artist and carpenter, leading the way. Zach and I were newly dating at the time and he was lovestruck into manual labor to help his sweetheart fulfill a Laura Ingalls-ish romantic escapade with chickens. Thinking back now, it's amazing how long Zach and I have known each other, and how all of this was somehow meant to be. Some years later, Zach and I attached the coop wing off the left side.

With the move at hand, and the Red Barn being what it was, we talked it over and decided we would attempt to move the barn at my mom's. My dad passed away in the midst of all this moving, so it even meant more to me to have it on our new land.

I put a message on Facebook that we were having an "Old-Fashioned Barn-Raising Party. Trucks and trailers welcome, you will be fed!" With little hope I clicked the "enter" button and watched as the message appeared for the social networking site to do its magic. Doubt filled my heart. Who was I fooling? Who was going to give up their entire Saturday (and maybe Sunday) to come do manual labor in exchange for a pot of Sloppy Joe's, some lunch meat, and a few side dishes? What if it couldn't be moved? Or what if it would take so long that we would have to give away our chickens?

Well, as it turned out, our friends and family are an incredibly generous lot, and we had so much help that we took the barn down in one day, moved it to the new land and began re-raising it that evening. Those who couldn't help the day of brought over dog crates, rabbit cages and other portable carriers to put the chickens in while we moved their home.

People I hadn't talked to in years came with willing hands and a smile. Each board, each trim piece was labeled and stacked onto trailers, then we hauled it all over and it was stacked again in corresponding piles.

Zach and I had prepared the site the weekend before and leveled it with Alice, our tractor. The cement forms that act as the foundation were in place and ready.

Once again, our friends and family came to help re-erect the barn. Board by board the structure took shape, and I was overwhelmed with emotion. This little white barn became more than just a chicken coop; it was a symbol of friendship and love.

First, the love of a father to a persistent teenage daughter that brought Murray McMurray catalogs to the dinner table each night.

Then there was young love, and what a teenage boy will do to impress a young girl who loves animals. Mainly, trading his summer weekends of dirt bike riding for a hammer and nails, and a box full of chicks that delicately peeped ironically in his large mechanic-like hands.

Then there was the love that grew over the years, as we were married and the little white barn was kissed with the weather of a dozen Michigan winters. It housed our goats and rabbits too, and gave us a small taste of farming life, so addicting that we haven't looked back since.

And finally the love of friends. The old ones that are always there, no matter how long it's been. The new ones who create fresh bonds with similar interests and things in common. Even our new neighbor who brought us a section of aluminum egg boxes, as our old system didn't make the move.

Often I've wondered what people thought of Zach and me. Many times we get a few raised eyebrows, and a chuckle or two when we share the fact that we breed rare chickens.

But the support for our ventures was without compromise. It was serious and genuine, and gave me a new respect for not only the people who were helping, but for the nature of the human spirit.

With the world in its crazy state, a whirling, dizzy society of hurried strangers, it's easy to become cynical. But it is still in us, it's in all of us, the love for a neighbor, generosity, the gift of time and effort. It's still out there, and it's not all that hard to find. All it took for me to see was a few dozen chickens and a little white barn.

To see more of what Iron Oak Farm is doing please visit our website at www.ironoakfarm.blogspot.com, or our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/IronOakFarm2?ref=tn_tnmn.

Gardening with Chickens - Part 2 - The Setup

2012-01-24T17:38:00.031-06:00

by Rebecca Nickols

This spring the Master Gardener chapter that I'm a member of is doing a series of gardening classes and I'm excited that I will be doing a presentation entitled "Gardening with Chickens!" Before I start proclaiming the joys and benefits a gardener can expect from having a few backyard chickens, I thought I would go over the whys and hows of basic chicken keeping.

In my last article for Community Chickens I shared the first portion of my presentation: Why Chickens? Now, I'm moving on to the next subject: The Setup

Gardening with Chickens

Why Chickens?

Eggs
Self-Sufficiency and Sustainable Living
Free fertilizer
Entertainment-Easy-Enjoyable-Rewarding

The Setup

Coop-Run
Chicks
Heritage Chickens
Ordinance Requirements

Gardening with Chickens

Advantages
Disadvantages
Solutions

Conclusion

Resources: online, books, local sites

The Setup

Before you purchase chicks or hens, the setup has to be in place (plus a little basic knowledge in chicken keeping)...

Coop-Run: This is probably the biggest initial expense you'll have when you decide to undertake a flock of hens. The coop can be an elaborate and attractive feature to your landscape, but here's the basic requirements a chicken needs in their housing setup:

The coop ... Basically, as far as a chicken is concerned, the coop is a place to find shelter, lay an egg and roost at night. A typical minimal requirement in size is 3 to 5 square feet per bird inside the coop. As for nesting boxes, one per 4-5 birds is all that's required (they seem to like having all their eggs in one box).

The roosting bar needs to allow 12 inches of space per bird. Adequate ventilation is also essential to the health of the birds, either in the way of a ventilation fan system, or an adequate amount of windows that can be opened or closed depending on the outside temperature. I don't heat the coop for two reasons: one is that I specifically chose winter-hardy heritage chickens that can withstand our Missouri winters and secondly, the Ozarks are famous for crazy ice storms that can take out the electric power for long stretches ... If the hens aren't acclimated to the cold, the sudden lack of heat could prove fatal to the flock. The last requirement of the coop is safety. If you allow the chickens to free range during the day, they will need to be enclosed each evening in a secure predator-proof coop to protect them from our sly and cunning raccoon, foxes and such ...

The Run ... Chickens are constantly busy foraging and scratching. If you choose not to let the birds free-range on your property, then they need a secure outside run with a minimal size requirement of 10 square feet per bird. This run also needs to be secure from predators reaching into the run, digging under or attacks from above. I added a 3-foot skirt of chicken wire on the ground around the outside perimeter of the run. The top and sides of my run are covered with 1/2 mesh hardware cloth.

Chicks: Expect to devote quite a bit of time caring for your new chicks for the first 4-8 weeks, but after a couple of months they're pretty much care-free! They need a warm environment during these first few weeks, so plan on having them in a heated garage or laundry room. Before you purchase the chicks have on hand a container to house them in (I used a plastic storage box). You will also want to cover the top of their housing to keep them contained and to keep predators (such as curious cats) from getting to the young birds.

For the first week, the air temperature needs to be at a constant 95 degrees, then each week decrease the temperature by 5 degrees. Most sources recommend suspending a 250-watt infrared heat lamp above the container. The correct temperature is achieved by raising or lower the light. What worked for me was purchasing the chicks in the heat of summer. I was able to keep them in the (unheated) mud room and achieve the correct temperature by simply using a 100-watt light bulb. Purchasing the chicks in the summer (when the night temps are above 80 degrees) also meant that I could move them out to the coop/run earlier.

The young chicks are susceptible to a few illnesses at this young age, but keeping their water, food and bedding as clean as possible will prevent most problems. I used a thick layer of pine shavings for their bedding and elevated their waterer and feeder on bricks, but they still managed to knock over the water and poop in their food ... Be prepared to be a mother hen! Fortunately, once they do move out to the coop, checking on them a couple times a day is usually sufficient ...

Heritage Chickens: Once the decision has been made to purchase chicks or chickens, there are a lot of options: breed, color, temperament, size, egg color, dual purpose, winter hardiness ... even fluffiness! I wanted a family-friendly, winter-hardy breed that was also a good egg-layer. There are several online sites that will help you determine the best chicken based on your needs ... there's even a cool app from Mother Earth News, "Pickin' Chicken."

Heritage Chickens by definition are breeds that were recognized by the American Poultry Association before the mid-20th century. They are naturally mating and have a long, productive outdoor lifespan. They are also slower to reach maturity than industrial chickens; 16 weeks vs. 6 weeks. This slow growth rate allows for a stronger skeletal structure as compared to commercialized chickens bred for fast growth and market weight.

This seems like the perfect opportunity to show off my attractive breeds ...

Buff Orpington

Classified as a heavy (7-8 pounds), dual-purpose bird, Buffs are winter hardy with a calm, docile temperament. They lay large, light-brown eggs. They're a popular breed not only because of their friendly personalities, but also because they are also good brooders and mothers.

(Meets the ALBC's Heritage Chicken definition.)

Barred Plymouth Rock

Also a large breed (7-8 pounds), "Barred Rocks" are one of the most popular backyard chicken breeds. They have a great disposition, make good mothers, are tolerant of cold climates and lay large brown eggs.

(Meets the ALBC's Heritage Chicken definition.)

Cinnamon Queen

A medium-sized bird (5-6 pounds), tolerant of the cold and an excellent layer of large brown eggs. Cinnamon Queens are a sex-linked cross breed created from a Silver Laced Wyandotte hen and a New Hampshire rooster. This breed has not been given recognition by the American Poultry Association. Cinnamon Queens will start to lay eggs at a younger age than most standard breeds. They are also color sexable as chicks: Cockerels are white, and the pullets are more brownish red in color.

Golden Laced Wyandotte
Wyandottes are large (7-8 pounds) birds that include several varieties (in addition to the Golden Laced): Silver Laced, White, Black, Buff, Partridge, Silver Penciled, Columbian, Blue. They're winter hardy, easy-going (calm and docile) and lay large brown eggs.

(Meets the ALBC's Heritage Chicken definition.)

Ordinance Requirements: Springfield, Missouri, similar to other cities, recently passed a city ordinance allowing residents living within the city to have backyard chickens, but there are a few rules:

• You can have up to six hens, no rooster.
• You cannot breed the chickens or produce fertilizer for commercial purposes.
• You can slaughter your chickens, but it must be sanitary and not seen or heard by nearby properties.
• Coops must be kept clean, neat, sanitary and odor-free.
• Coops need to have adequate ventilation and light, as well as be a safe place from predators and the elements.
• Up to three cubic feet of manure can be stored at a time in a fully enclosed structure.

That's the basic "hows" of chicken keeping in a nutshell. In two weeks, I'll cover the next topic in my outline: Gardening with Chickens

To see what else is happening on our Southwest Missouri property, visit ...the garden-roof coop.

Hello, My Name is...

2012-01-23T23:42:00.002-06:00

by Jennifer Burcke

I hold a wide array of positions here at 1840 Farm. In fact, it's not uncommon for me to fill the role of teacher, mother, cook, handyman, gardener, and farmer all in one day without ever leaving the driveway. Lately, I've also been the resident ice queen.

No, I am not referring to my mood . Although, the last few weeks of extremely frigid temperatures and my continued harrumphing as I reenter the farmhouse after completing my farm chores could be confusing to a casual bystander. It's actually much more literal than that.

I have identified myself as the ice queen because I have spent the better part of the last month hauling buckets of warm water outside to replace water containers that are frozen into solid blocks of ice. I've taken more trips to ferry water to our animals than food during the last four weeks. Most days, I find myself making multiple trips to deliver liquid refreshment to our seven heritage hens and herd of dairy goats.

In fact, I made five trips to replace icy water containers in one day during the last week. By the time I made the last delivery, I was convinced that the water was likely frozen before I had returned to the farmhouse door. It was then, as I was removing my hat, scarf, gloves, coat, and boots that I wondered aloud why on earth my great-grandfather had chosen to farm in New England when he could have certainly moved south to a warmer, more hospitable location. As soon as the words left my mouth, I went on to wonder silently why I was following suit.

I know what you're thinking. Why don't I use heated waterers in our coop and barn? If I did, then I could simply take fresh water to our animals once a day and spend the rest of my time in front of the fire fighting off winter's chill. Yes, I could, in fact, begin using a heated waterer in our coop.

Well, I could if I didn't mind turning off the fixture that supplies our hens with supplemental lighting. I am acutely aware of the importance of the light provided by this single bulb. In my last post, I shared with you the incredible difference that a compact fluorescent light bulb has made in the laying ability of our hens this winter.

I could trade the all-important light for a heated waterer if I didn't mind a return to days on end of finding empty nest boxes every morning. That is a choice I simply cannot make. If I can only supply power to one electrical device in our coop, then the light wins every day of the week.

Since moving to our farm six years ago, we have gone to great lengths to bring our circa 1840 barn into the current century. We've made many improvements, but it is still, at its heart, a 170 year old member of our farming family. It has its faults. We love it in spite of every one of them.

One of the barn's limitations is the absence of running water and an electrical capacity that is somewhat lacking. We're grateful for the power that she provides us in the form of barn aisle lighting and powering our electrical tools during the summer months. We're left to make a choice in the winter of how to safely dispatch enough electricity to the chicken coop to power one lone device.

Choosing between powering the supplemental light in the coop over a heated waterer should have been more difficult. Instead, it didn't take long to determine that while I could trudge to the coop when necessary with fresh flowing water, I could not stand inside the coop and mimic the much-needed sunlight. I mentioned that I hold a lot of positions here at 1840 Farm, but I can honestly say that no one has ever expected me to pretend to be the sun. Even I have my limits.

Then Mother Nature dared me to rethink those limits. On a Sunday morning, I went out to the coop bright and early with warm oatmeal and water for our hens. They greeted me eagerly and began their morning meal. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted two fresh eggs resting in a single nest box. I took a deep breath, thanked the girls for their hard work on such a cold morning, and went to retrieve the eggs for my family's breakfast.

It was a nice moment. Suddenly, all of my hard, bitterly cold work was worth it. Yes, it was cold and I would have rather been inside drinking my first hot cup of coffee of the morning. But here I was, ready to triumph over the cold January morning. I was going to collect two beautifully fresh eggs and serve them to my family for breakfast.

I reached over and gingerly picked up the first egg. Even with my fleece gloves on, I noticed that it felt different. Then I picked up the second egg and noticed the unthinkable. It had frozen solid to the point of breaking its shell. Upon examining the first egg, I found that it had suffered the same damage.

I made my snowy retreat to the farmhouse feeling totally dejected. I was freezing, my fingers were numb, and I had two eggs that had fallen prey to the cold temperatures in spite of my best efforts. Did I mention that I was dealing with all of this before having my first cup of coffee? I don't deal with anything very well before I have a little caffeine. This situation was definitely too much to bear without the assistance of a cup of home roasted coffee.

These were the first cracked eggs I had seen in months. True, I had seen my share of cracked eggs from the coop since we became chicken keepers. All through the spring, we had struggled with thin eggshells before we discovered how to boost our flock's calcium intake. I had foolishly hoped that our days of cracked eggshells were behind us now that we had found a way to incorporate more calcium into our flock's diet.

I wasn't sure what to do with these eggs. The shells of both eggs were cracked from end to end. I could see the frozen membrane was still intact and doing its very best to protect the underlying egg. I knew that I had to free the eggs from their shells while they were still frozen. I was willing to bet that the membrane would be compromised after being frozen and might rupture during the thawing process exposing the egg to harmful bacteria. I worried that the thawed egg would then emerge from the cracked shell leaving me with two eggs that I would be unable to salvage.

Drastic times call for equally drastic measures. I started to remove the shell from the first egg and found that it was a process akin to peeling a hard boiled egg after it has been refrigerated. The shell broke into small pieces and fell away from the membrane encased egg. The second egg followed suit and in a matter of minutes I had two perfectly frozen eggs.

I placed both frozen eggs in a small bowl, covered the bowl tightly and placed it in the refrigerator to thaw. It took a full day, but the eggs did thaw completely. By the end of the evening, I had whisked them together and used them to bake a batch of chocolate chip cookie bars. The bars came out perfectly and were a delicious, warm treat for my family.

It had taken nearly twelve hours for me to prepare these two eggs for use in our farmhouse kitchen. True, it wasn't how I had intended to use them, but at the end of the day, they had served their original purpose. They had helped to nourish my family while reminding me that the difficult work of farming through the winter was a small price to pay for the reward it brings.

I will admit to allowing myself a moment later that evening to enjoy that sense of pride I had held upon first spotting those two eggs in the coop earlier in the day. Through bone chilling temperatures and winter's harsh conditions, I had tended to our flock and they had rewarded me with farm fresh food for my family. Deep down, I knew that this was the reason that my great-grandfather and I had both persevered in our quest to farm in New England's harsh winter environment. The reward so far outweighed the toil involved, that the location became irrelevant.

Then, rather abruptly, the moment of reflection was over. It had been three hours since I last delivered fresh water to the coop and barn and it was time for my last icy trip of the day. Hello, my name is the ice queen and there is still plenty of work to be done before the day is through.

This spring, we'll be making a few additions to our flock and sharing the experience with you. I will be chronicling the life of our new chickens from day old chicks into laying hens through a recurring series of posts about life in the coop at 1840 Farm. Stay tuned!

You're always welcome at 1840 Farm. Visit our blog at www.1840farm.wordpress.com.

For daily updates about the happenings at 1840 Farm, follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

My Chicken RV!

2012-01-23T11:20:00.003-06:00

by Julie Miles

My chicken coop is on wheels! I have a friend who is a woodworker and a jack-of-all-trades, so I commissioned him to build my chicken RV (a large chicken tractor!).

Most of the RV was built from scraps that we had lying around. I had a lot of leftover wood, a roll of chicken wire from up in our attic, some scrap metal roofing and a small window that I wanted to use. He had some very old wood, some old windows, and a pair of vented doors that he wanted to get rid of. I bought four tires and told him what I was looking for in a coop. He had raised chickens when he was younger, and had great ideas.

It is the perfect size for four to six chickens.

In the morning before I let them out, I roll the RV about 3 feet to provide fresh grass for them to forage around on. I open the doors and they jump down onto the grass and peck around for worms and vegetation.

To give them the most grass space I can, I have hung the waterer from the ceiling with a bungee cord. This way the chickens can walk underneath and sip water at beak level and it prevents dirt and seed from fouling the water too quickly. The bottom sides flip up so that I can let them out to free range, weather permitting.

The crank-out window in the back is right by the nest, so I can open it and conveniently reach in for the eggs. This also makes it easy to add pine shavings to their nesting boxes.

I close the chickens in the coop at night by latching the vented doors at the bottom. This provides safety for the chickens and prevents predators from attacking at night. The vented doors provide fresh air in the coop.

We had 114-degree temperatures this summer in Oklahoma, and when I closed them in, I hung a fan over the doors so it would move the air inside. In the winter I hang up a small heat lamp and it provides enough warmth for the chickens in freezing temperatures.

The one thing I would like to add to the RV is a few more roosts around the cage for the chickens.

The urban chicken experience is very rewarding. I originally started this venture for the eggs, but I have found that I love just watching the chickens and think of them as pets. The only drawback that I have found in this whole experience, is finding someone to watch the chickens when I travel!

Dusting Chickens for Mites: Taking Care of Business

2012-01-23T11:11:00.004-06:00

by Suzanne Roark

Other than a fluke blizzard-like snowstorm way back in October, we haven’t had a stitch of snow here in southern New Hampshire. With temperatures hitting the near-50° mark, it’s the perfect time to take care of some business out in the coops.

Maybe it’s because the coop is kept closed more often, or maybe the hens go into the coop earlier everyday, but whatever the reason, I end up cleaning the coops more in the winter than any other time of the year. This stretch of unseasonably warm, dry weather is just the time to get coop cleaning chores done.

(Pictured: Catalog ad from 1921, showing a bird being applied with Pratts Poultry Disinfectant. The ad claims: “It has a 'clean smell,' is inexpensive, but wonderfully efficient.” Being from 1921, no ingredients for the powder are given.)

In anticipation of having a slew of big, giant Jersey Giants in our midst, some years ago we built a two-level roost in our main coop. The bottom rungs were lower so the big hens wouldn’t be as susceptible to bumblefoot and injured legs when they jumped off in the mornings. Unfortunately, our group of Giants all died before they reached a year old and we’ve since chosen other breeds to occupy our coop. But the double roosts remain, allowing our current flock of 21 to spread out on the roosts if they feel the need.

Coop cleaning starts with removing the wire mesh-covered boards under the roosts and scraping them off before putting them back under the roosting boards. I also use a paint scraper to scrape down the roosts to bare wood.

This winter I chose to use leaves as the floor bedding instead of the more expensive wood shavings. We raked the leaves back in the fall and saved them in enormous bags to keep them dry. I dumped and spread out a good layer of leaves and pine needles about 8-10 inches thick onto the coop floor. Using this homegrown litter, I save a bit of money on bagged shavings.

I try hard to keep the nesting boxes clean and dry so our eggs will be as clean as possible everyday. Occasionally, a hen or two will try to sleep in the nests, which means they end up soiling the shavings. It is easy enough to scoop out the mess daily when we gather eggs, but every so often it’s good to just completely clean out the nests and start over. This time I just put the shavings on the floor to mix in with leaves and needles that make up the litter. I added new shavings and mixed in a handful of diatomaceous earth into each nest.

Organic insect dust, Blue Ribbon oil, old nylon sock—ingredients for a warm winter day dusting chickens.

I also decided that this was a good time to dust the birds for mites. I’d never actually done it before. I guess I felt that I didn’t have a big enough flock to worry about mites. Pretty ignorant on my part, I know. Anyway, my kids and I dragged out the picnic table, a bag of organic diatomaceous earth and an old nylon sock. We put the table right next to the coop so we could easily catch each bird to do our duty and return them to the pen quickly.

The kids held the birds and I did the dusting. It was a very messy job. I filled a nylon sock with a handful or two of the diatomaceous earth. Holding the small pouch of dust, the kids held each wing open for me to gently pat the dust into the wing area. Next came the vent area, and a quick flip over on their backs for belly dusting before each birds was released back into the pen. Of course, it would have gone much smoother had we closed the birds up in the coop and plucked them out one at a time, but since we didn’t get started until the heat of the day in the afternoon, the birds were already roaming the outside pens. Although catching them did get us some exercise! It was pretty easy to tell who had already been dusted, as their usually glistening feathers were dull and overcast with a slight white haze!

Applying dust with a nylon pouch: Not too traumatic for the chicken, but Paige wasn’t too happy holding onto squawking chickens.

Oh, and before departing for the pens I applied some oil to their shanks and toes to help keep leg mites at bay. It’s a eucalyptus oil blend that I got online from McMurray. But I guess you can use cooking oil too. I’m a bit too nervous to use cooking oil (to me it seems too slippery), and I really worry about my large Orpingtons and the other breeds hopping down from the tall roosts with slippery, oily feet.

I’ll probably try to squeeze in dusting of the birds once a month or so. Having a covered pen area and lots of leaves in the pens means my birds can dust bathe all year long, which goes a long way toward keeping lice and mites away. The covering over the pen keeps out the rain and snow and the leaves keep the dirt underneath from completely freezing. On any given sunny day, warm or not, I find my whole crew out there squished into deep holes. Except for the occasional flip of a wing full of dirt, it sometimes looks like the whole flock is lying out there dead!

It’s a good thing I picked that day to clean and preen, because as I write this, snow is coming down to beat the band!

Fluffy Sponge Cake

2012-01-13T12:52:00.007-06:00

by Meredith Chilson

It’s a blustery day here in Western New York, one of the first for this year, really. It’s just the sort of day that I like to dig out my very old Betty Crocker’s Cook Book and whip up some magic in my kitchen. My chicken girls are finally beginning to lay eggs again—not enough to share with my neighbors and friends just yet, but a few more than my family needs. So, I have a pot of soup on the back burner, a thought of cornbread to go with it, and the recipe for “Fluffy Sponge Cake” in front of me.

Sponge cake is a yummy way to make use of a few extra eggs. It’s been a while since I made one, and I’m not sure how easy it’s going to be to take photos as I go along, but … here we go.

The ingredients:

1 ½ cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
6 egg yolks
6 egg whites
1 ½ cups sugar
1/3 cup cold water

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 teaspoon lemon flavoring
½ teaspoon cream of tartar

Betty’s recipe also calls for 1 teaspoon grated lemon rind, if desired, but I didn’t add it.

First, heat your oven to 325 degrees. Mix together the flour, baking powder and salt in a small bowl and set aside.

Separate the egg yolks and whites. (Have you noticed that with very fresh eggs, this is sometimes difficult?)

Beat the egg yolks in a small mixer bowl until they are very thick and lemon-colored.

Pour the beaten yolks into a large bowl and beat in the sugar gradually.

Beat the dry ingredients in slowly, on low speed, alternately with the water and flavorings.

In another large bowl, beat the egg whites and cream of tartar until stiff. Gradually and gently fold the egg yolk mixture into the beaten whites.

Pour all this carefully into an ungreased tube pan, and bake about an hour.

Turn the pan upside down with the tube over the neck of a funnel or bottle, cool. Remove from the pan and be ready for appreciative murmurs.

My family likes this sponge cake just plain, with maybe a glass of milk ... but it's also great with a fruit sauce, using berries frozen last summer!

Cue the Sun (or a Compact Fluorescent Light Bulb)

2012-01-09T10:58:00.006-06:00

by Jennifer Burcke

Eggs are a very precious commodity here at 1840 Farm. It has been almost a full year since our flock of heritage hens began laying eggs, yet the excitement of discovering an egg in the nest box hasn’t diminished at all. In fact, we still bring each egg into the farmhouse to weigh them individually and log the information into our daily farm journal. Each egg is a small farming victory, a reminder that we have produced fresh food for our family table.

As a family of farmers who raise chickens but don't eat chicken, the eggs produced in our coop have an even greater value. We don't raise birds to grace our farmhouse table although I greatly respect those who do. Instead, we raise birds to produce the fresh eggs that take center stage on our breakfast, lunch, and dinner plates.

So, there we were in November, preparing to enter the holiday season with fresh eggs at hand. Suddenly, we started to notice an abundance of feathers floating around the coop. Every day there were more and more of them. By the time a few days had passed, the run underneath the coop looked like the aftermath of a full-fledged slumber party pillow fight.

I knew what these piles of feathers meant, but I wanted to go on being blissfully unaware of the transformation that was taking place. We had noticed a decrease in egg production before the feathers began to cover the floor of the coop. We had remarked to each other that the hens were looking a bit haggard. I had even allowed the word “molt” to cross my reluctant lips. Deep down, I was hoping that the decrease in egg production was simply a response to the change in season and the decrease in daylight hours. Deeper down, I was afraid that our second winter as chicken keepers might be another winter of my discontent.

No matter my lingering suspicions, I was still shocked when we had our first day of production that didn’t actually include any production. There were no eggs in the coop in the morning. Around noon, I confidently marched out to the coop hoping that at least one egg would be waiting for me. No such luck. Several hours later when I went out to secure the coop for the evening, the nest boxes were still bare.

I told the hens good night and went back into the house. My family, as usual, asked how many eggs I had retrieved from the coop. After shedding my winter coat, I relayed the sad information that there were absolutely none. We talked about the fact that we hadn't had a full day without a fresh egg since that glorious day back in February when we discovered the very first egg produced at 1840 Farm.

Suddenly, the whole family was posing questions regarding molting. Unfortunately, those questions were all headed in my direction. As a chicken keeper who had just plunged unwillingly into our first molting period, I was having difficulty fielding their inquiries. I didn't know how long the molting would go on. I didn't know what we could do to help our hens stay healthy and warm during this transition. All I knew for sure was that our steady supply of deliciously fresh eggs had come to an abrupt, screeching halt.

I went straight to the computer to learn all that I could about molting. Luckily, there were several great articles on this very forum about the subject. I learned about the molting process from reading Meredith Chilson's article. I read on to find that a fellow contributor, Rebecca Nickols, was also experiencing molting in her flock.

I felt comforted to know that I wasn't alone. At the same time, I felt powerless. What could I possibly do to help our birds emerge from this transition that Mother Nature had so cruelly imposed on them just as the weather turned perpetually cold?

I continued to read all that I could about molting. Finally, I felt prepared when my family looked to me to solve our latest farming challenge. My children worried that the hens wouldn't be able to stay warm with their compromised feathers. My husband worried that he might never know the culinary pleasure of having fresh eggs for Sunday breakfast again.

I did my best to reassure them that this too would pass. I did my best to believe the words as I heard them coming out of my own mouth. While I now understood the biological necessity of the molting process, I still had my doubts that we would leave it behind without the loss of at least one of our beloved hens. Winter in New England can be bitterly cold and I worried that it would be far from kind to a chicken with little protection in the way of feathers.

So began the daily march of molting season. Out to the coop I went with fresh, warm bowls of oatmeal every morning. I added extra yogurt and kefir to the mix, hoping to supplement the protein content of their morning meal. While I knew better than to expect to find any eggs waiting for me in the nest box, I felt like I was at least helping our hens to keep warm and boost their protein levels every time a steaming bowl of oatmeal was placed in the coop.

It was obvious that molting was taking its toll on them. They looked ragged and their personalities had suffered as much as their plumage. They were reluctant to eat their morning oatmeal, which usually caused a stampede to the feed bowl. They no longer rushed to greet me at the door when I came to check on them.

Sometimes, I found their evening cereal still resting in its bowl the following morning. I knew for certain that they were as unhappy with their molting feathers as we were. It was obvious that the farmers living at 1840 Farm weren't the only ones eagerly awaiting the regrowth of the last feather to complete this cycle and get back to the business of every day life.

Each day our hens seemed to leave fewer feathers behind in their coop and run. After two weeks had passed, they began to look more like their former selves. We hoped with each small improvement in their feather condition that we were one step closer to reaching the end of molting. When they started to greet me at the coop door and race to gobble up their warm oatmeal I knew that we were within striking distance.

I wasn't taking any chances. I had spent enough time reading about molting to know that there was something else we could do to literally brighten our flock's days and get them back to the business of providing our family with fresh eggs. It was time to start providing light for our hens during the months that Mother Nature did not.

Last winter, we had employed the use of a heat lamp in our coop. Our chicks were young and we worried that they would be unable to keep sufficiently warm during the long New England winter. We purposely chose to use a red spectrum heat lamp in order to allow them to sleep at night. It seemed to work well. The coop was slightly warmer yet they were unaffected by the red light and continued with their normal evening sleeping and roosting pattern.

This year was different. We no longer needed to help heat the coop. Our birds were adults and unfazed by cold temperatures. We had specifically chosen breeds that were cold hardy and so far, those choices had proven to be successful. On even the coldest days, they rushed to go outside as soon as their ramp was opened. When given the choice, they chose fresh air over a warmer coop every time.

Now our goal was not to add heat to the coop, but to provide pure light. We needed to make sure that they would recognize the light as a supplement to winter's diminished sunshine intensity. We thought that we had the perfect answer: solar lights. We eagerly purchased two lights and began to charge them outside the coop.

Every night, we placed the lit solar lights inside the coop. Every morning, we returned the lights to their outside location to fully charge for use the next evening. We were happy to be lighting the coop with renewable energy. It seemed like the perfect solution. That was, until we noticed how our chickens were reacting to the illumination provided by the solar lights.

The sad realization was that they weren't reacting at all. In fact, it was as if they didn't even recognize that there was additional light within the coop. As soon as darkness enveloped our farm, they went to their roost and settled in for the night. It didn't seem to matter to them that the solar lights were shining brightly and that we were doing our best to extend the daylight hours within the confines of the coop. They were not impressed.

I was puzzled by this behavior. I decided to bring in the big guns. I enlisted the help of my family to run an outdoor heavy duty electrical cord from the barn to the coop by burying it in a length of PVC pipe underground. Then we reinstalled the old assembly for the heat lamp we had used when our hens were young chicks. We connected the cord to a timer and set it to illuminate the coop for seven hours each day from noon to 7:00pm. I installed a 9 watt compact florescent bulb and waited to see if our hens would appreciate the light that this setup would give them.

That evening, I went out to the coop for my nightly visit. Hedwig, our Black Australorp met me at the door. She couldn't wait for me to come inside and scratch her on the head. I was happy to see that she was enjoying the new lighting. She is by far our most prolific egg layer and if I was only going to make one hen happy, she was the one I was aiming for.

I wasn't prepared for the rest of the hens to come running to meet me as well. They all gathered at my feet and allowed themselves to get caught up in the excitement that treat time brings. It was the first time in a month that they had reacted that way. I gave them the attention they wanted along with the cereal that makes me such a popular nightly visitor to their coop. I happily bid them goodnight and secured their door.

Three hours later, I went out to the barn for my evening milking shift with our dairy goats. As I passed the coop, I peeked inside wondering what I might find. As I got closer, I noticed that the chain supporting their hanging feeder was moving rapidly. Sure enough, our seven hens were up and active in their new lamp-lit coop. Five of them were gathered around the feeder happily picking through their feed. One was scratching around in the hay on the coop floor.

From the window, I couldn't locate the seventh hen. I put down my milking supplies and opened the coop door. As I peered inside, the hens looked up from the feeder at me, wondering if I might have more cereal. They returned to the food at hand and the feeder was soon rocking back and forth between them. I scanned the coop. The remaining hen was not to be found on the perch, near the feeder, or at the waterer.

She was in a nest box. She looked at me but refused to greet me. She was busy. She was laying an egg. I was all too happy to smile at her, thank her for her hard work, and close the coop door. As I walked to the barn, I could hear the happy sounds of the coop. Birds scratching the floor's surface, birds eating, and best of all, a hen doing what hens do best, clucking while laying a fresh egg.

When I returned to the farmhouse, milk in hand, I enjoyed the happy sounds of a chicken-keeping family. I was asked the usual questions regarding the status of our little flock. For the first time in weeks, I could happily report that they were back to being fully feathered and content in their coop. I put everyone on notice that there was a hen hard at work to bring us the first fresh egg we had seen in weeks. Excitement filled the air. Would there be eggs for breakfast?

The next morning I went out to do my morning chores to find a glorious surprise. Seven fresh eggs were waiting for me in one nest box! Each hen had returned to laying. Each hen had made it through the molting process. That morning, each farmer had fresh eggs for breakfast. We were finally back to the business of family farm life. At least until next year.

You're always welcome at 1840 Farm. Visit our blog at www.1840farm.wordpress.com.

For daily updates about the happenings at 1840 Farm, follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Happiness is Being a Chicken Keeper

2012-01-09T05:59:00.005-06:00

I remember leafing through books at our local Barnes & Noble. Staring for what seemed like hours at photos of chickens, coops, farms, and what looked like the happiest people on the planet: chicken keepers. I'd show the pictures to my daughter, Brie.

"Look," I'd remark. "Doesn't this look like fun?" And I'd point to a perky hen plucking away at blades of grass while a proud hen keeper gazed on, adoringly.

"Can we have a chicken of our own?" my daughter inquired.

Sold. Now, I was on a mission. Where to get chickens? And what the heck do you do with them once you bring them home?

After Googling a few local sources, I found a lovely lady, Judy Morris, who started a business building coops and selling brooding kits, with the support of My Pet Chicken. I met her at our local Westport Farmers' Market one fine spring day.

"I just received a beautiful batch of mixed breed chicks. ... Here they are!" And Judy proudly displayed a box full of wiggling, chirping puff balls.

"Oooohhh," I cooed. Brie cooed in unison.

The rest is history. We met Judy out at her farm in Weston, scooped up six of the adorable chicks, along with a brooder kit and chick food, and rushed home with our bundles of joy.

Fast forward two years, and we are now the proud "mamas" of 14 gorgeous hens, and chronicle our adventures in backyard farming through blogging. Simply Chicks is our way of sharing these stories with friends and family who live in other towns, and sustainable backyard farming has become a way of life.

The girls' home was exponentially expanded, and a garden was built... completely chicken proofed, to round out our local, organic food source endeavors.

We amuse ourselves with the chickens' antics, chasing them around the back yard when free range time is over, giving them cabbage heads and pumpkins to munch on for snacks, and posing them on tree branches for photo opportunities.

We find ourselves, even in the early stages of this hobby, being asked to speak on behalf of chicken keeping at local events, and have been invited to Ecofest, Earthplace's Green Earth Fair, Wakeman Town Farm, and Temple Israel. It's an honor to be thought of as an expert ... though we defer to far more seasoned poultry enthusiasts when it comes to health and animal husbandry matters.

Every day, Brie and I are entertained by our girls, and learn new lessons about caring for our feathered friends. Building a sturdy coop with all the comforts of a hen home, feeding them organic fare and nutritious table scraps, letting them have free range time each day, and, yes, snuggling with them, we believe, helps the birds maintain optimal health.

It's the least we can do for those delicious, fresh eggs, which quite literally go from nesting box to the frying pan within a day ... We gobble them up as quickly as the girls make them, and are grateful for these edible treasures.

"Thank you," we say to our hens, each time we reach for an egg to place in our basket for breakfast.

It's a good life, and we are happier for it, indeed.

Gardening with Chickens - Part 1 - Why Chickens?

2012-01-09T00:11:00.026-06:00

by Rebecca Nickols

The Master Gardener chapter that I am a member of is doing a series of gardening classes this spring and the speakers bureau asked if I would do a PowerPoint presentation on chickens ... Of course I accepted! What a great opportunity to spread the news on how easy and enjoyable it is to have a flock of backyard chickens! As this is a gardening series and I'm more of a gardener than a farmer, I thought I would not only share the whys and hows of basic chicken keeping, but also how a gardener can benefit from having a few hens, as well as strategies to protect your garden from the ever hungry foraging birds ...

Over the next couple of months, I thought I'd share my presentation. Here's the basic outline:

Gardening with Chickens

Why Chickens?

Eggs
Self-Sufficiency and Sustainable Living
Free fertilizer
Entertainment-Easy-Enjoyable-Rewarding

The Set Up

Coop-Run
Chicks
Heritage Chickens
Ordinance Requirements

Gardening with Chickens

Advantages
Disadvantages
Solutions

Conclusion

Resources: online, books, local sites

Why Chickens?

Eggs (of course!): They supply you with beautiful, fresh eggs daily. Great tasting and proven to be more nutritious than store bought. According to research conducted by Mother Earth News, chickens allowed to roam freely and eat grass lay eggs that are higher in Omega-3 fatty acids and Vitamin E and at the same time lower in cholesterol than store-bought eggs.

Your leftovers and surplus vegetables will never go in the trash again (reduces waste).

They provide you with an excellent fertilizer base (world's best)...

One simple step to make you closer to self-sufficiency and sustainable living: Your leftovers (and garden extras) are fed to the chickens; their "fertilizer" is added into the compost bin (along with egg shells and coop bedding); this compost is worked into the garden soil; crops are planted and harvested, then the cycle starts over ...

Grow your own food plus less waste and reliance--that's a good feeling!...

They reduce insect numbers (chemical-free bug and weed control)!

They love Japanese beetle soup...

Easy and inexpensive (when compared to most other pets) and as pets go they're fun, friendly and they'll provide you with endless live entertainment! You'll soon learn that each chicken has their own unique behaviors and attitudes. Some will come when you call them and will want to be by your side at all times, while another member of the flock will be scared of its shadow and is sure the sky is falling! If you're not familiar with backyard chickens, they're not the commercialized chicken that many people think of ... These are the chickens our grandparents (or great-grandparents) had, they're intelligent, beautiful birds with gorgeous feather patterns and colors. Their antics and unique personalities are endearing, and if you're not careful, they'll become less like a farm animal and more of a pet. A dog might be a man's best friend, but a chicken is definitely a gardener's friend, companion and ally!

In two weeks, I'll cover the next topic in my outline: The Set Up

To see what else is happening on our Southwest Missouri property, visit ...the garden-roof coop.

Thinking about Raising Turkeys?

2012-01-08T19:44:00.006-06:00

by Suzanne Roark

Thinking of raising up a turkey for Thanksgiving or any other holiday or for any day really? Here are a few bits of advice and knowledge I've picked up in my experiences with turkeys.

Just a few short years ago the choices for the average person to have a fresh turkey were as follows: supermarket meat case or local commercial turkey grower.

Our options have thankfully expanded a bit in the last few years. More and more farmers' markets are popping up with smaller local growers offering fresh turkeys, even grown to order! And more and more backyarders are growing their own turkeys as well.

Price can be a big factor in turkey selection. A turkey at a farmers' market might garner upwards of $6 per pound. Fresh turkeys in a supermarket case, “fresh” being a relative term here, can be around the $2-3 per pound range. With many supermarkets advertising low cost per pound frozen birds at just 59 cents per pound and even some freebies thrown in there, how could a fresh turkey compete?

Let’s face it, when accompanied by hundreds of calories on the typical holiday meal plate, the turkey isn’t quite as center stage as our reverent tradition holds. Historically, the turkey was only a portion of the festive meal anyway, with other meats such as fish, chicken pies and beef roasts also gracing the table. In our minds I guess, a cheap turkey allows us to have more on the table. Bland, stringy, pumped with filler juices and water added—you get what you pay for.

Raising a turkey of your own won’t be cheap: We backyarders can in no way compete with the conglomerate turkey farm at 59¢ per pound. A homegrown bird will more likely be in the $1.75-2.50 per pound range, but will have unsurpassed flavor and quality of meat.

A decade ago a backyard grower would be hard pressed to find a turkey poult available other than the Broad Breasted White. Again, thankfully, there are at a least a few other options with more availability of heritage breed turkeys.

Castaway trampoline with wire sides and plastic roofing. Our first attempt at holding in flighty Narragansetts. Losses took its toll on our flock of heritage turkeys since, with only a trio remaining, they have been moved into permanent quarters.

The topic of raising your own feast begins with commercial breed vs. heritage breed. I have raised both. I’ve eaten both. Both are delicious. Both have their own quirks on raising. Backyard growers would do well to research both.

Some facts about both “kinds” of turkeys is that there isn’t a whole lot of information out there on the raising of just one or two birds. Most information I have gleaned is from large commercial operations. Good for us though, most poultry are very easy to raise.

Be advised that hatcheries tend to sell out quite fast of the heritage breeds. Both commercial and heritage birds are sold in minimum quantities. Here in New Hampshire, state law requires feed stores and other poultry sources to sell turkeys in minimum lots of 12. That’s a lot of turkey. If you are thinking of raising only a few consider going in on a lot with a group of like-minded turkey raisers.

Heritage breeds normally take much longer to raise. You’ve heard that before I’m sure. But you can raise a heritage turkey from spring to fall. It won’t be huge. Not like the BB Whites. Most likely 15-18 pounds for a tom purchased as a poult in May or June. But don’t worry, the meat is much denser and tends to feed more on less pounds per person. The flavor is more turkey, but not gamey in any way. The meat on the breast is a bit darker as you’ve heard. But NOT like the dark meat on the leg. Breast meat is more of a creamy color than the stark white of a supermarket bird. The dark meat on a heritage bird is very dark indeed, but is all the more flavorful. There tends to be more leg meat than breast on heritage breeds in general. I found the leg meat to be meatier and not stringy like the supermarket kind.

Young Narragansett sits atop a large dog crate. Those turkeys never did go inside even in the snow and rain!

A heritage bird of larger size can certainly be obtained, but you’ve got to grow that bird usually into the next year. Which is OK, because they are beautiful birds. It’s often more difficult to cull that beauty for a meal, so a heritage bird may squeak by another year of growth. Heritage birds don’t eat as voraciously as the commercial breeds. You’ll still spend money on feed over the long run though. I haven’t calculated the difference between the two, but it certainly seems that they eat less than their commercial counterparts.

Heritage turkeys are more spunky than the BB Whites for sure. They figure any way out of their pen, up, under, through, between… You’ll be amazed as well as aggravated by their attempts at escape. Be vigilant and they will settle down as they grow bigger than the holes they attempt to squeeze through! Heritage breeds are less prodigious in the poo category. They do forage although a high protein grain mix is required to pack on the pounds.

Heritage birds dress out about the same as the commercial kind. But they will have more feathers and will leave some darker pinfeathers behind on the carcass after processing. Small or hard to get feathers can be plucked off individually before roasting and the tiniest will cook off in the oven. I’ve cooked them the same way as the supermarket kind, being careful not to over cook. (I like to pull my roast at 160° degrees.)

The commercial side will find you deciding between Broad Breasted White and Broad Breasted Bronze. Here again, you’ll need to do your research. I found the meat to be exactly the same between the two. I did like how the BB Bronze grew out, as they looked more like a “real” turkey clucking around the yard. I did not like how they processed. I have been a supermarket bird gal for too many years and just don’t care for the black pinfeathers in the skin. My personal choice here only, folks.

Better pen area for our 11 Broad Breasted White flock. They quickly trampled all the grass. This group was pretty smart and headed for the security of the metal shed in the background in early evening. They even had enough sense to get in out of the rain. I do not believe turkeys are as stupid as everyone makes them out to be, perhaps more childlike and inquisitive but not stupid. If there is something in their pen area that can be broken or destroyed in anyway—they’ll do it.

Our choice after trial and error is the BB White, abundant at feed stores in July and August. A July tom will yield 30+ pounds by November. We opt for a later start in the beginning weeks of August, which yield smaller birds overall, with toms averaging 20-22 pounds. The BB Whites are voracious eaters. Just like their commercial cousins the Cornish X meat bird, they eat and they poo. Lots and lots of feed. Lots and lots of poo. The BB whites are much lazier than the heritage breeds, while they will eat grass, they prefer the trough. You have to range them strategically in order to have enough green grass for them because they poo so much, they soil their soil much too quickly. It’s best to raise them on commercial grain. They drink enormous amounts of water so make sure you can supply it even when the fall weather turns cold enough to make turn it into ice!

BB White poults will find curious ways to escape as well, but since they grow at such a rate, they quickly get too big for those shenanigans. They won’t fly up and out like the heritage breeds will. Keeping them in lower open pens is easier than the covered pens needed for the heritage varieties. Of course, you can free range both. But be prepared for losses. BB Whites are slow easy targets for predators and heritage breeds will wander away to become a wild turkey.

You should be prepared for losses, though, in both categories. Turkey poults, while easy to raise, are a bit more finicky than raising chicks. They seem not to like the heat lamps as much as chicks and prefer to be outside rather in a coop in general. Day olds are extremely fragile, it seems to me; more so than chicks.

Broad Breasted White turkey hen, from day-old poults acquired the first week of August. Hens from this group weighed in at 13-15 pounds by Thanksgiving, toms ranged from 18-22 pounds. Add 10 pounds for an additional month if acquired in July.

Both varieties of turkeys have personality. Which can often be a determinant to the home processor! I was just on the verge of falling for my BB Whites about a week before D-Day. I was careful to appreciate their humor without getting overly attached. Turkeys seem very loyal and will follow you around like a little puppy—beware!

I don’t let myself get attached to the turkeys we intend to process, but darn, I’ve fallen in love with my Narragansetts. I was forewarned of this very thing happening by a dear friend. We’ve decided to keep them as breeders—for now.

Processing turkey is much the same as for chickens although the size can make hefting up into the scalder, plucker and onto tables quite tiring. A group of friends gathered at our place to process 22 turkeys this year. I was fine and dandy with all of it, until the very last bird at 37.5 pounds. I thought I was going to drop from exhaustion after that monster.

As with meat chickens, meat turkeys are worth giving it a try at least. The meat is naturally moist and flavorful, and then there is that satisfaction of knowing what went into the entire ordeal.

Hen Inn

2012-01-02T15:03:00.003-06:00

by Sarah Richards

My source for fresh farm eggs ended, but the farmer asked if I wanted a momma hen and her two hatched chicks.

I live in an eco-development named Serenbe. Even though my neighbors are very close, we are surrounded by 900 acres of woods...cluster development it is called. So, I wasn't sure if I could have chickens or not, but you know what they say, it's easier to apologize than to ask for permission. Having said that, I began building the Hen Inn.

Turns out one of the chicks the momma hen, Black Betty, hatched is a rooster and he may prove to be a problem. I named him Nuggett.

I have had birds before on a 180 acre farm in New York, but now I live on .11 acre. I know the way to a happy chicken family would be a coop that is easy to keep clean. So I bought plans for a simple coop and made many changes.

My kids (wink) are happy and so far have stayed in their own yard. I hope Nuggett doesn't prove to be a problem. I like him.

Processing Day

2012-01-02T14:54:00.004-06:00

by Suzanne Roark

Processing day actually starts the day we bring home our day-old meat chicks from the feed store. Being Cornish Cross or Jumbo Cornish Cross means we only have a scant eight weeks to prepare.

The very first thing we do after the little chicks are under the heat lamp and fed is to mark the calendar eight weeks out. The first time we did our own processing we didn’t look ahead and we ended up scrambling for a plucker on Memorial Day weekend! Since our first time out, we’ve gotten our own plucker, but if we need to have another one on hand, now is the time I would start scouting around for a rental and put money down on the date.

Giant aluminum scalding pot with heavy duty propane burner.

It’s a good idea to have everything one needs for processing ahead of time ... once you start you can’t stop. I take those eight short weeks for grow out to gather all the items. I think ahead not only about the plucker, but about the water source, sinks, scalding and burners, clean tables, cooling, packing, and disposal of the offal, along with good sharp knives and aprons. I think the process through step by step, from the moment we take the bird from the coop until the moment we pop it into the freezer. Don’t want to be running to the store for ice in a bloody apron!

Set up with coolers, freezer, stainless steel tables, outdoor sink in background. Foreground is double scalding pots.

Because processing is quite a bit of work, we usually plan to hold it on a Saturday, giving us Sunday to recuperate. We also enlist anyone who might be interested in seeing the process, and we typically have one to two other families who are raising their own birds for meat, as well. Many hands make light work! We give everyone notice that first day when I mark the calendar. Weekends are precious time, and we can’t catch anyone off guard with "Hey, wanna come kill some chickens?”

The Friday before the big day, food is withheld from the meat birds. It’s a hard thing, as the Cornish X meat birds are endlessly hungry.

Hubby doing the "deed."

Also on Friday evening we set up one or two EZ-up canopies out in the way back of the yard. We drag out the stainless steel counters we fashioned from scrap and added wooden legs. Next comes the old-fashioned farmers sink, you know the kind: heavy porcelain-coated cast iron with a drain board built in on one side. Hubby added a wooden base to that as well and also installed a faucet and drain pipes. It’s mighty heavy to move around, but its smooth porcelain surface is a breeze to clean up and disinfect.

While hubby is setting up the cones and getting the plucker in place, my job is to clean and disinfect all the surfaces. I use a solution of bleach and water with a touch of dish soap in a spray bottle to scrub up the stainless steel tables, holding tubs, sinks, knives, etc. We keep it on hand to periodically clean up as we go, and we’ll use it again at the end.

We have learned over several processing events that we are each suited to particular jobs. I, for one, cannot do the following: slaughter, scald, plucking. But read on, my time will come.

Hubby does the slaughter. He’s got a small shelf attached to a back shed that holds three cones with buckets under each one to catch the blood. We also have a tarp on the side of the shed that reaches to the ground, so we can use the hose or pressure washer to clean up more easily.

Once he’s done, the bird moves to the scalder, which is usually the job of my son. After trial and error, he’s got it down to a science! We actually get two pots going, one to use for scalding and one to be heating up so that when the first one gets dirty we can switch. We also have an instant-read thermometer to keep a check on the water temp and a hose nearby to cool it off if it gets too warm. The only real way to tell if you’ve got the temp correct is to pluck a few. If the skin tears too easily, the water is too hot. If the feathers aren’t coming out, the water is too cold.

Scalding pot ready to switch with the clean water one.

Our ancient rotary drum style plucker with tarp to catch the flying feathers.

I gather up my courage and remove the feet. Using kitchen shears to remove the neck saves time and effort over a knife.

After scald, the next station in the line is the plucker. Our good friend has taken a shine to running the plucker. He’s become a plucker master. Of course, our plucker is as old as the hills. A rusty pile of metal with a rotating drum ... on the outside. We got it for a steal at $50, but of course, we’ve had to add all new fingers. It takes a whopping 400 fingers! At a buck a finger, you can see how that adds up.

My job is finally here. After the plucking, the bird is held over in a large plastic tub filled with ice and water. I take the birds from their cold water bath to begin eviscerating. Oh, and I’m squeamish about taking off the neck and legs, too. But, after a few hundred chickens, I can manage the task. We have an electric knife sharpener on hand, and buckets under the stainless steel table to catch the offal.

The final rinsing and scrubbing in the old farmer’s sink.

We keep several stainless steel bowls on the table, one each for innards that are being saved. Our family does not like any of the organ meats, so they are saved for friends who request them. Chicken feet go to our local Chinese food restaurant. They don’t serve them to their customers, but it’s a great delicacy for themselves.

The offal is either given to a local hunter or double bagged and sent with the trash. Cleanliness and disposal of the offal, blood and feathers is very important. Any speck leftover for the next day brings flies. Thousands, and thousands of flies. That first time processing, we were so tired, we forgot to wash out the slaughter buckets. BIG, BIG, MISTAKE ... FLIES EVERYWHERE.

Ahhhh, such a beauty ... I mean the chicken.

The bird moves from the eviscerating table to the sink. It’s washed thoroughly and any unwanted fat and bits are removed. The birds are then put into coolers filled with ice until all the birds are done.

Hubby is the first one done with his station and by then there is usually a backlog at the eviscerating table. His job moves from slaughter to hose. He cleans up his area before blood starts to coagulate and adhere to surfaces. My son, the scalder, is next to be done, and he moves into clean up mode as well. He dumps out the pots and washes them down.

Next up for cleaning is the plucker. We fashioned a tarp behind it to catch all the feathers (remember, it’s the drum style). The tarps are hosed down and feathers raked up and bagged. A tub plucker shoots them out the side, which can be easily raked and bagged.

Daughter Paige, weighing up the birds. The baby gates in the background are where the chickens spent their eight weeks.

Meanwhile, I am still trying to catch up with eviscerating. By now, all the other stations are helping me. This is the most time-consuming part, particularly washing the birds.

Once all the birds are in the cooler, it’s my turn to clean up the knives, tables, sink and buckets. When it’s all clean, the birds are taken out of the cooler and bagged. We like to weigh our birds to check on feed conversions and wow over how much bigger our good friend’s birds are ... eergh. We clean out the coolers and change over to new ice. They can remain in the ice coolers until the next day, which is good, because we are all pooped!

The next day, besides being incredibly stiff and tired, we take down the canopies and tarps, drag back the table and sink, and hang up the scalding pots.

I like to part out the birds, so that I don’t just have a freezer full of whole roasts. I divvy up the carcasses into breasts, legs, thighs and wings. I even bag up the carcasses to make stock. The bags are marked and put into the freezer. Done. Good thing we took Sunday to rest, eh?

Getting ready for the final push. Bagging and weighing.

For some reason, hubby was thrilled with the feet.

Our birds finished and ready for the freezer.

Don't Bag Those Leaves!

2012-01-02T14:08:00.005-06:00

by Suzanne Roark

Every year it seems like we are behind the eight ball when it comes to getting ready for the winter. It’s not like we don’t know winter is coming and what we’re in for, we just always seem to get caught up in other things.

So you can image my pride and joy when I found myself with all the heat pans wired, in place, and ready to go for my chicken and turkey waterers way before Halloween! Wow, I’m good.

But who would have known we’d get dumped with 12 inches of snow on October 30? I mean, it was forecast. But, usually early snow just melts as it hits the ground. Whatever is left over melts in the warm afternoon sun that same day.

Not this year. This freakish storm not only dumped heavy wet snow on the region, it actually turned cold enough to make it stick! Many parts of the New England area still had green foliage on the trees. Which was one of the main problems. So many trees snapped and fell because they just couldn’t carry the load of heavy snow plus all that green foliage. Leaf turning is extremely late this year. A week after the storm, and my trees had just begun to turn and fall.

The worst thing was that our covered chicken pen partially collapsed. We can’t have our flock free range; we live in a town that likes to think it’s a city (being within any proximity to Boston does that, you know). The chicken pens are made of dog kennels with wire tops. Well, wire tops can only hold out for so long.

After a good cry, and three days of cutting and moving branches out to a large pile at the back of the yard we call “the way back,” we surveyed the damage of the coop. Not so bad after all—whew! Hubby was able to push up the top of the pen and secure it without too much effort. My chickens are happy again, clucking around without fear the sky is falling.

Up until this point I didn’t have any leaves to rake up and put into their pens. Usually I have tons of leaves on the ground way before Halloween, but fall is late this year and left me without my any leaves for my pens. The storm helped speed up fall, so to speak, and now I have lots of leaves on the ground. I never used to be so excited about raking up leaves, but since we got chickens I very much look forward to them.

Leaves under foot in the Narragansett’s pen.

The pens were built atop old sand piles that the kids weren’t playing in any more. That first year with chickens I found myself constantly raking out the pens because the droppings just seemed to sit on top and make a huge mess. After some serious thought on the subject—mostly that I didn’t want to do so much cleaning—I came up with using leaves as a flooring. It didn’t make much sense economically to use shavings, and I couldn’t keep up with raking the pen clean every day. But dumping huge piles of leaves in their pens did the trick. The chickens simply love to jump in the leaves, almost as much as the kids! I never worry about spreading them out, just leave it in a huge pile. Before long, the scratching and digging of the hens has the pile completely flat and spread out.

Using the leaves does more than cover up the poo. The constant scratching actually works the poo into the pile of decaying leaves, keeping their little chicken feet nice and clean. In fact, I so love having the leaves as a floor to keep their feet clean, I found other seasons of the year offer flooring options as well. I use grass clipping, pulled weeds, spent garden stalks or whatever I can find to dump in a pile for them to scratch through.

Best way to sop up the poo in the meat bird pen. Thank heaven for leaves!

Recently, I discovered the most excellent reason to keep up the piles—compost. When I was a kid, my father spent a lot of time fussing over his pile of compost. All that layering and turning, and more turning, seemed too complicated and too much effort in my hectic world. So, I never really took a shine to keeping a compost pile. I have instead used leaves in a variety of ways. One way is to use the leaves as mulch for my blueberry bushes. I also have never bagged a leaf, preferring to rake them into the “way back” and leave them in a heap to decay on their own. I never, ever, used that pile for compost though, because we had always added tree limbs and branches to the pile too.

But as it turns out, using all that garden refuse and fall leaves as flooring, my chickens have been living on a huge pile of compost. When we first built the pens we needed to step down into them, because that part of the yard sloped down. As fall approached I noticed that I was stepping up into the pens. I decided it was time to dig up some of that flooring to make the pen gates easier to close.

We took huge loads of composted leaves and garden waste out of the pens and dumped them straight into the garden. I was plenty shocked to find no sand. Instead we were digging up rich, black earth. Hens clucking around and scratching and playing in the piles had accomplished what I was too lazy to do myself. Voilà! Compost with no real effort on my part—what could be better than that?

Hard to tell from this photo, but really, it’s rich and dark … ahh … garden dreaming already.

I still like to use the leaves to keep their feet clean and I love to watch them dig, but that compost is surely the best payoff. Even though my garden just went to bed a few weeks ago, I’m already dreaming of waking it up to start the another season and see how that rich, black compost will make my garden grow.

Open Faced Egg Salad Sandwich with Dill and Avocado

2012-01-01T12:18:00.002-06:00

by Jennifer Sartell

It's so great to be back and blogging again! Just before Thanksgiving, my computer took a nose dive and I couldn't access any of my image files, I couldn't download my camera, and worst of all, I couldn't share all the exciting things that happened at our first Christmas on the new farm. I had "first snow" farm photos all ready to be sent out in Christmas cards, but they never made it off the camera until now. But it's a new year, and I have a new hard drive, and it's great to be talking chicken again.

Over the holidays, I felt as though my taste for food was being bogged down with the heavy traditional foods of the season. In my house it's gravy, everything has gravy. And don't get me wrong, I love gravy, but too much of a good thing can weigh a palette down.

Usually around this time, as winter settles in and nestles it's long dreary stretch across the coming months, I start craving the fresh green flavors of summer. And while this recipe isn't exactly flocked with something like fresh asparagus, or spring lettuce, the dill and the buttery green avocado give the traditional egg salad a bright new taste.

Ingredients:
6 farm fresh hard boiled eggs. Chilled, peeled and chopped
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 red bell pepper, finely chopped
2 green onions, finely chopped
small bunch of dill, finely chopped, about 1 Tbsp.
sour dough English muffins
Swiss, Gruyere or your favorite sliced cheese
avocado slices
salt and pepper

To make hard boiled eggs perfect every time, set eggs in a pot and cover with water. Once the water starts to boil, set the timer for 6 minutes. To ease peeling, cool the eggs as fast as possible after boiling. I do this by straining out the hot water and running cold water over the eggs until they're comfortable to handle. Peel immediately under cold running water. The shock of the cold seems to shrink the egg slightly and allows the shell to come off without damaging the egg white. The water also acts as a lubricant between the shell and the egg. Boil your eggs several hours before and refrigerate. There's nothing worse than luke warm egg salad.

Add 1/2 cup mayonnaise. (Want to add even more homemade fun to this recipe, check out one of Grit's latest recipes by Laura Marie, a super easy how-to in making your own mayonnaise.)

Add the chopped red bell pepper, green onions, dill, salt and pepper. Give it a good stir.

Lay slices of cheese over two halves of an English muffin and toast in the oven until the cheese melts and slightly browns. I used a delicious smoked Gruyere.

To assemble the sandwich, scoop a generous portion of the salad onto the toasted cheese capped muffin, top with slices of avocado and give it a good sprinkle of salt and pepper. I find that salt always brings out the delicate buttery flavor of avocados. Enjoy!

Visit our farm blog at www.ironoakfarm.blogspot.com

All I Want for Christmas is a Chicken?

2011-12-15T15:35:00.007-06:00

by Margaret E. Kellogg

I'm sure that many of you have heard the various things children want for Christmas. But, have you ever heard a child tell Santa, "I want a chicken for Christmas?" Usually, it's the latest hand-held game, doll, puppy or kitten, but not a chicken.

I'm so happy that I'm a crazy chicken lady who just decided to hatch some chicks after the main hatching season was over. I had lost most of my Polish hens to either a fox or creatures that fly, so I wanted to hatch some. I also wanted a few more white Silkies, so I incubated a few of them. There were some bluish and smaller eggs, and I was curious to see who was laying those. So, I also incubated them. I had beautiful white Silkies, Self blue d'uccles mixed with cochin, hatch in October. I also incubated Polish and a few miscellaneous eggs that I knew would be banty, but I wasn't sure what kind. This batch hatched right before Thanksgiving.

Born October 27th, 2011

Yesterday when I got home from work, I found a message on my phone left by someone who had obtained a few chicks from me earlier in the year. When I returned the call, I started to tell the woman about the variety of chicks I had. She was pleasantly surprised that I had any ... and was especially delighted when I said I had white Silkies.

"Oh, white Silkies!" she said. "That's just what my son wants. He even brought out a book and showed us a picture of one."

About 1 month old

I told her they were about 2-months-old and nicely fluffing out. The white Silkie hen was also sitting on a few eggs at this point, which I expected to hatch around Christmas. So I told her I would be fine with parting with a couple of the older ones.

I also added that I had some red ribbon, which I could make into a big bow for the chick or chicks. She asked how late she could pick it up, and I told her she could come on Christmas Eve if she wanted, so it would be a lovely surprise for her son.

Now, I think I'm as excited as the parents about giving the little boy this special gift. I have been very pleased with how lovely the Silkies look.


Currently, they are with the Polish and the mix.

I would love to see the look on the little boy's face when he receives this chick or chicks. The parents haven't decided if they want to get one or two. What a delightful and special gift. I'm so happy I was crazy enough to hatch out a few chicks for myself ... or I wouldn't have this opportunity.

Happy Hatching and Happy Holidays. Chickens are a joy year round.

Raising Cornish X Meat Birds for Processing

2011-12-12T13:29:00.001-06:00

by Suzanne Roark

When we first began raising chickens it was strictly eggs we were interested in. Somehow after a few years of raising the egg-laying kind, we started to think about raising the meat kind.

I searched the internet for answers on how to raise them. I knew vaguely that the “meat” kind was an all-white feathered breed but not much else. I did find information on meat conversions, weeks to slaughter, and how incredibly weak and ill they could become with their fast growth rate.

I had questions like how the meat would taste and whether cooking the meat would be different from the store bought kind. However, I couldn’t find much information on that aspect of raising meat birds. I did find a lot of documents about giant commercial chicken raising operations and even quite a bit about free ranging the birds. I could do neither of those options and couldn’t seem to get any concrete answers about the flavor and cooking of home raised meat chickens.

Cornish X youngsters with baby gate fencing. Grass will be totally gone in a week or two. They’ll eat some, but mostly just poop on it and stomp on it.

But we took the plunge anyway. Day old chicks of Cornish X meat birds didn’t seem to be very much different than day old layer chicks. We didn’t hold and cuddle them like we do our laying hens and absolutely NO naming them!

It didn’t take very long to discover some major differences between egg layers and meat chickens—mainly that these commercially bred birds are eating; water drinking; pooping machines. They have no normal chicken behavior, no scratching and clucking around. No normal chicken personality. I was disgusted, and still am disgusted after raising several batches of the little beasts, that we as humans have somehow managed to breed this monster of a bird. We’ve mangled and twisted the genetic makeup so that these creatures no longer have any discernable “chicken” traits, so sad.

Cornish X crowding into the shed. Notice the sparse feather on the behinds and very low, heavy, wide, bodies. Roosters don’t crow, they are just a bit bigger than the hens.

Since they do grow so quickly and don’t do any scratching around, poop tends to build up rather quickly. I am still trying to come to grips with a best way to deal with this whole poop thing. I use shavings, but man, even a small batch of 10 birds can completely soak through a full bale of shavings in just a day or too. That’s a bit of money and a whole lot of work shoveling and replacing. Why so much replacing of bedding? Because the Cornish X don’t scratch through the litter. They just sit atop the pile and poop. They drink so much water that the shavings become a wet matted mess almost instantly.

You see it quickly becomes apparent that the coop must be kept dry to keep the overwhelming smell of ammonia at bay. I had read about, but never really experienced the ammonia smell with my laying coop. Meat birds have an incredible ammonia problem which I think comes from the fact that they respire so quickly from all that fast growth and the tons and tons of wet poo. I find myself churning the poo with a rake and hoe since the chickens can’t do it themselves.

Other than dealing with the ammonia-pooh issue, raising meat birds is fairly easy. You just feed them. Constantly. The amount of water they consume is about double the amount of feed so don’t be surprised to find yourself filling up the waterers more than once per day. It is true that the easily found breed of Cornish X is ready for the butcher at 8-10 weeks. I suppose we could push them a little more, but trust me, by the 8th week you want to be rid of them. At 8 weeks, their bodies are so fat and low to the ground they barely move. At feeding time they crowd around and push and shove, their big awkward feet tripping you while your pouring in the grain…once the feed hits the trough, they do indeed sound like pigs slopping it up. Processing them is almost a relief.

Cornish X crowding the feed trough. You could scatter fresh corn and wiggly worms on the ground and they wouldn’t touch it. I don’t know how we humans managed to engineer them this way, but they only eat from the trough!

We did search around for alternatives to the Cornish X. We don’t have the room to free-range so the Freedom Ranger breed is not really an option. Plus, they poop and eat nearly exactly the same as the Cornish X, without as much breast meat. When you’ve spent a full back breaking day processing these guys, you really appreciate getting the most meat as possible. We’ve processed a few roosters and old laying hens, but there is so many feathers and there isn’t hardly any meat—it’s just not worth it. So Cornish X it is—for now.

I was concerned that the meat would be “different” than store bought and that we wouldn’t really like it—you know, too strong of a taste or perhaps the meat would be tough. No worries though. The meat has incredible texture. Just like a store bought egg is watery, so is store bought chicken meat. Home grown is denser and consequently it seems to take much less of a portion size to fill us up. The flavor is more “chicken-y” than any store bought meat. In fact, after a year or so of eating only home grown chicken, a taste of the store bought kind revealed an odd chemical-like after taste.

Cooking of chicken you raise yourself does not really change that much either. I used to rely on pop up timers that come already neatly inserted into the meat. I now use a good meat thermometer. But smell, look and feel are a much better indicator of correct doneness than the government required 185° pop up timer. Is it that the manufactured chicken is pumped so full of water and “natural juices” that it seems to take so long to cook, or the incredibly high temp of the required 185°, or perhaps the big guys have manufactured them that way so that no matter how much you overcook their product, it always tastes the same?

In any case, after raising a few batches of birds I now notice that the compact shrink-wrapped chicken at the store is so much smaller per pound than my own birds. For instance, I recently noticed one of those membership clubs offering two whole chickens packaged together, I could fit the pack in my two hands. The weight on the package read 9lbs—meaning each chicken weighed 4.5lbs, how could that be? When just one 4lb chicken of my own is so big it takes two hands to carry it alone. The bones seem more rigid on my home grown kind. The legs do stick up and you can actually feel the body has bones. But the packaged version was very mushy, with nary a sign that there were even any bones at all. The legs were soft and bent over neatly along the breast meat. Makes me wonder just how they got those two tiny carcasses to weigh 4.5lbs each.

Top and bottom of a buckeye rooster who met his demise the first weekend of loud crowing. About 10 months old. Excellent yellow skin color, very tasty meat. But note the high keel bone in relation to breast meat. Much more leg meat than breast. Smallish amounts of meat make the processing hassle seem not worthwhile.

Same buckeye roasted. See what I mean about the legs, keel bone and wings? Store bought birds look flattened down. To me both home grown roo or Cornish X have a bit tougher skin. That's good, it holds in all the juices during cooking.

I also take note of the fact that there is no slime in my home raised meat chickens, whether fresh, or frozen and thawed. So what exactly is that slime on store bought chicken? Where does that come from? Forget it, I don’t think I really want to know.

After investing all that time and effort feeding and caring for them, and then the hard work of processing them, I feel an awareness that the effort must not go to waste. I never ever made my own chicken stock before I started raising my own birds. Now, I can’t throw away the carcass (I freeze the carcasses for when I have the time to make the stock). It’s just too wasteful. That chicken gave its life for me I must use every bit out of respect for its sacrifice.

Making chicken stock and stacking it in the freezer like books!

We’ll continue to raise meat birds, I’ll continue to search for better ways to deal with the poo and I’ll be searching for a less intensive meat breed to raise. If you’ve got a great way to deal with the upkeep of fast growing Cornish X, or have a better breed that yields a decent amount of meat, I’d love to know the details!

Fried pieces from culled cockerels, processed too young and much too skimpy! Need to hold onto cockerels longer to have any real meat.

Multi-Task Renewable Resources Coop

2011-12-12T02:23:00.002-06:00

by Joy Mazeikas

This coop was built around two sides of a six foot fence. It's not your eyes.., the coop does lean a bit one way because we had to build around the very large roots of the fir tree to the left. Our town was in the process of revising a local City Chicken ordinance, so we started with a smaller sleeping house for The Girls, and when the process was completed, we made a more permanent structure. The orginal "sleeping house" sits inside this more-secure frame. The front of the frame was repurposed from pieces of the original chicken run.

This original house set to the left of the Fir Tree with a 4 x 8 run.

The new and permanent Hen House is to the right of the Fir Tree and is built with the old house inside

I am a Master Gardener, so when I set out with my "plan', I covered the roof with fiberglass so we could use the top of the sleeping house to start seedlings in the Spring.

Wintering–over garden plants.

The roof also allows protection from the elements and additional light--and facilitates ripening of those last Fall tomatoes!

One of our Girls badly injured her hip jumping down from the perch, then another. We realized they were getting older and having more difficulty with the suggested height, So we lowered the perch to 10 inches. The Girls loved it and spent most of a day jumping up and down off of it. I told my husband we probably had the only handicapped-accessible coop in the U.S. So I enlarged my own Placard, laminated it with plastic and posted it on the outside of the Hen House!

Because my Girls have the run of my back yard, I found that I needed to “rethink” the design of my garden areas to make them “chicken-friendly.” In short this means removing plants they love to eat and replacing the garden areas with plants they won’t bother as well as placing barriers such as cinderblocks, around some plants as whose roots they'd try to dig.

Our Hen House was featured as an example of “green/reusable” coop, in our town’s first ever Capital City Chicken Coup and Garden Tour this last spring.

About me: I am retired, a Master Gardener and also a new great-grandparent. I believe that deciding to have chickens has been one of my best life choices!

Due to my love and interest in our Girls, I just completed my first little children’s book called Egg~Song. It has a bit of interesting-but-true information about Backyard Hens, which is a bit of real-life combined with a bit of comedy. Watching our Girls “perform their daily duties” is like watching a backyard full of comedians. Egg~Song can be purchased on-line at Smashwords.com and Barnes & Noble Nook for only 99 cents per download.

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A very crafty coop; thanks, Joy! We know there are other dedicated coop-extraordinaires out there, and we'd love to hear from them.

Click here to share your story with the Community! ...

Molting Observations and End-of-Year Thoughts...

2011-12-06T11:03:00.006-06:00

by Rebecca Nickols

I'm going into my second winter of chicken-keeping, but this is the first molt I (or my chickens) have experienced. What I have observed is a splotchy, tousled appearance, and it may be my imagination but it seems that they're more nervous, panicky and fearful of everything. However, the most apparent observation is that the egg laying has halted ...

My beautiful Buff Orpington has gone from this ...

... to this.

Henrietta, my Buff Orpington, is over a year old and her molting was expected, but what's weird is that my 8-month-old Plymouth Barred Rock is also loosing feathers. Her molt is not nearly as impressive as my older hen, but she's losing her share of feathers also. At first I thought my Buff might be plucking out the young pullet's feathers in some sort of a stressed reaction to her own molt, but that wasn't the case. After searching the Internet and chicken forums to see if she could possibly have some sort of ailment that was causing her feather loss, I came to the conclusion that, although it's not common, an early molt can happen.

An increase of protein in the diet is recommended for new feather growth, so I'm giving the molting girls more than their share of mealworm treats and I'm also trying to be patient with their nervous dispositions and lack of egg laying. I do wish this feather losing process could happen in the warmer months instead of the fall and winter, but hopefully by spring their beautiful feathers will have regrown and they'll be back into their normal egg laying schedule.

Here's some odd end-of-the-year thoughts I've been pondering ... I started out the spring of 2010 with four Buff Orpington chicks. Everything went well for the first six months, then I lost two girls expectantly. Recently, another Buff died, leaving me with only one of the original four. The remaining (surviving) Buff, Henrietta, became ill close to the time I lost the first two, but a quick trip to the vet spared her from her sisters' fate. I wonder if they were exposed to something before I purchased them that weakened their immune system or did I just have a run of bad luck with my first flock? Their symptoms (if any) were vague and didn't signaled any obvious disease and I suppose that since I didn't have some sort of post-mortem autopsy performed, I'll never know the cause of their deaths. I hope my luck has changed, as I've grown rather attached to my new flock and would hate to have a repeat of last year... Anyone else out there in the chicken-keeping world have any thoughts or a similar experience?

To view what else is happening at our southwest Missouri property, visit the garden-roof coop.

No Eggs Yet

2011-11-30T21:35:00.005-06:00

by Meredith Chilson

I’m frustrated, irritated, discouraged, and a bit concerned. I have 18 laying hens. No, I have 18 hens. ONE of them is laying. The others, the Buff Orpingtons and Rhodies – the ones that have faithfully given me enough eggs for my family, and the neighbors, and the neighbors’ families — those girls began to molt about two months ago, and haven’t yet begun to lay again. I don’t think they’re interested in that job any more. The nest boxes – all but one — haven’t even had a visitor. The straw that makes such nice, sweet-smelling nests hasn’t been inspected or disturbed.

The only hen that’s giving me eggs is my little black Silkie, Le-A (that’s pronounced luh-DASH-uh — the naming process for this girl is a story for another time). Le-A is a special chicken. I bought her as a day-old chick, along with five others, from a lady who lives farther out in the country than I do. Le-A and Missy, an angry spotted hen, are the only two left; the others had medical (cross bills and weak knees) and mental (more anger issues) problems and ended up … well, where well-fed problem chickens end up around here — in a “cooler climate.”

Le-A is a friendly little hen. She talks a LOT. If I’m cleaning the floor of the coop, she’s perched on a water jug near my ear clucking about something. Chicken gossip? I’m not sure. Many evenings when I’m headed in to shut the coop door, I can hear her “buhk, buhk, buhk” as I come near the coop. She hums and purrs and compliments me on every treat I bring to the coop, too.

She’s near the bottom of the pecking order. She’s much smaller than the rest of the hens, and one of the last to come to the flock, so she must wait when I toss grain or greens out to them. Sometimes she’ll dart in to grab something, and then run to hide behind me until she’s swallowed it.

Perhaps because she has to take what’s left over, or maybe just because she’s a chicken, Le-A isn’t careful about what she eats. One day this past summer, I noticed that her crop was extremely engorged. She had trouble getting onto the roost at night, and was obviously uncomfortable. To be honest, I thought she was going to explode. I read chicken advice books, checked the Internet, and talked to my local farmer to see what to do. I had traced the cause to a pile of hay that had gotten mixed in with the straw bedding. A chicken’s crop often cannot handle long grasses — they wad up and sort of ferment rather than digest. My resources suggested a few things: massage, surgery, and my farmer’s advice: “She’ll either get over it or she won’t.”

For three days — several times each day — I massaged Le-A’s crop. She loved the attention, but it didn’t seem to do much good. (According to the books, I had to be very careful while massaging her so that she wouldn’t vomit and aspirate.) I couldn’t even imagine how to tackle the surgery suggestion: “Carefully open the chicken’s crop, remove the impacted fibers, open out the crop and rinse it with salt water, stitch back together.” How in the world would I be able to get a chicken to hold still while I did something like that? I was much more certain that it would cause ME to vomit and possibly aspirate. So I continued to massage (gently) and wait.

One evening I noticed that Le-A was sitting on the roost again. The next morning, she ran out of the coop with barely a “good morning.” Her crop was soft and much smaller. My farmer friend was right, as usual.

Le-A still loves a nice rub-down. And, as I mentioned before, Le-A is the only hen in my flock that’s laying eggs. They’re not very big (my neighbor calls them “sparrow eggs”), but they’re keeping me from having to do something that I haven’t had to do in three years: buy eggs.

What do you think? Should I try giving the other girls a massage and see if that convinces them to produce?

Small Flock Hen House

2011-11-28T13:14:00.004-06:00

by Kelli Simpson

We had this coop made by an out-of-work cabinet maker. Fortunately, he had chickens too and knew something of their needs.

The "custom" part of the coop is the living roof, which we planted with a seed mix called chicken salad!

Although the coop is more than adequate for our flock of four, there are a few things I would do differently next time. I hope you can learn from my mistakes! Here they are:

1. The interior roof is too low as a result of making a planter in the top. I would pay more attention to the inside dimensions.

2. As soon as they could fly, the chickens got on top of the coop and ate the seedlings out of the planter, decimating the first crop. We had to fashion a fence to keep them out until the plants were big enough to tolerate the feeding.

3. The chicken access door slides up and down in channels on either side. In wet or warm weather, the wood expands and makes the door very difficult to open. This has resulted in the handle recently falling off from the stress. I would recommend a hinged door.

4. The nest box is part of a swing-out door that gives access to the coop for cleaning. I also have to open it to fill the feeder and change the water. More times than I care to admit, one of the hens has been in the nest box when I swing that door open. It interrupts their laying, making them less likely to lay in the nest box, and more likely to hide eggs in the yard. If I could do it again, I would build the nest box with the opening lid only and put the big door on the other side.

5. After a visiting dog clawed some of the siding off of the coop (see below) and gained entrance through the nest box, I realized that the coop is not as secure as I would like it to be. If you have any worries about predators, build with solid surfaces, not siding-type wood like we have. Any determined predator WILL be able to get in.

6. Last, the ramp into the coop should be solid with "steps" for them to grip. What I have amounts to a ladder and it took the girls a while to get used to it. Even now, they usually just fly to the top instead of walking up.

Other than these improvements, the girls and I are perfectly happy with our lovely little house!

About me: I'm a newly wed who recently moved to a new state. I am a nurse by profession and have found plenty of time for many hobbies. My husband and I became very interested in the local food scene and decided to take some steps toward supplying as much of our own food as we can. Part of that project involved keeping a small flock of laying hens. After much research we decided on cold-hardy heritage breeds, and they seem to be doing very well in our cold climate. We spent much of the spring and summer planting our first garden and growing our own vegetables. Somehow we also acquired some ducks and rabbits, too! Start with a few chickens and watch out, your menagerie will grow!!

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What a remarkable coop; thanks, Kelli! We know there are other dedicated coop-extraordinaires out there, and we'd love to hear from them.

Click here to share your story with the Community! ...

A Dollhouse of a Coop!

2011-11-28T12:25:00.007-06:00

by Jennifer Durbin

Last summer my boyfriend built my beautiful, beautiful coop using only the plans I had drawn on a piece of printer paper, with these simple instructions: "It's gotta be cute ... and safe ... and warm."

And it is. There is 6 inches of foam insulation in the floor and ceiling -- 3 inches in the walls -- including the nest box, hatch and doors.

The roost and vinyl-covered poop board are at one end ...

The nest box is at the other ...

It has sufficient ventilation via operable vents and two functional windows -- all double screened with 1/4 inch hardware cloth. In the large clean-out door is fitted a secure screen frame for summer and well into fall. Suspended from the peak is an interchangeable fan or heater.

The outside measures 4' x 8'; the inside slightly less due to the insulation. Because of the small size, in the building of this coop, it was immediately clear that after framing, the interior walls should be installed first followed by the insulation and then the exterior sheeting.

Although this coop currently houses 4 bantam cochins, I can comfortably keep eight standard hens or 10 bantams.

Behind and under the coop is a secure run area surrounded by 1/2 inch hardware cloth. The wire screening is bent to extend a foot all the way around the run perimeter to prevent digging under. Inside the run is filled with 6" of rounded pea gravel to provide a well-drained comfortable walking surface for the chickens.

What my run now needs are suspended roosts for daytime entertainment. I did have a few bales of straw for them to hop on, but in the elements, these deteriorate and grow mold and mushrooms, which I feel makes them hazardous to my girls.

I have four bantam mille fleur cochin -- the goal is to add two more ... or three. Thanks for snooping!

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This is a gorgeous coop, Jennifer. I'd be willing to bet that a few of our readers would love to borrow your boyfriend!

We know there are other dedicated coop-extraordinaires out there, and we'd love to hear from them.

Click here to share your story with the Community! ...

And The Winner Is...

2011-11-28T08:24:00.003-06:00

by Jennifer Burcke

When I wrote my last post regarding the Purina 60 Day See the Difference Challenge FLIP Camera Giveaway, I had no idea just how many of you would enter for a chance to win! Over 90 readers entered for a chance to win a FLIP camera.

Last Monday, we assigned each entry a random number and placed them into our egg collecting basket. I would have preferred to fill the basket with eggs collected fresh from our coop, but our hens seem to be in a never ending period of molt, so it has been empty far too often. It seemed cathartic to fill it with something so positive, and the entries seemed like just the thing. For a few moments, the basket was happily filled to the brim instead of sitting empty as a constant reminder of our decreased egg production.

After shuffling the entries sufficiently, my two favorite young farmers dug deep into the basket and chose our random winner, number 25. We scanned through our list of entrants and found that our lucky winner was Deborah from Mendocino, California.

Before the night was through, Deborah had been announced as our winner on our Facebook page and on Twitter. Posting our daily update was nothing new as I do it every evening to share our farm harvest for the day. I will admit that it was a welcome relief to be able to post something other than our continuing tale of molting woe and empty egg baskets that evening.

By now, the Purina 60 Day See the Difference Challenge FLIP Camera is on its way to Mendocino. I have found myself using our FLIP camera to document all of the animals living here at 1840 Farm. It has proven to be an incredible tool for sharing videos of our first goat kids as they grow bigger and stronger every day. I hope that Deborah will be able to use it to share videos of her hens with the rest of us.

Congratulations again to Deborah for being selected as our winner. Thank you to all who entered and to Purina for providing such a wonderful FLIP camera to share with our winner. A special thanks to all who left me such incredibly kind comments. I felt like a lucky winner each time I read your words and learned more about you and your chicken keeping experiences.

This morning, I'm off to tend to our hens. It's time for their morning oatmeal dressed with kefir to add a little extra protein. While I know that molting will have to run its course, I'm doing all I can to help them get back to providing our farm with fresh eggs. I'll happily let you know when the day comes that our egg collecting basket is full of eggs again.

In the meantime, I have another opportunity for a lucky reader to win a tool for their chicken keeping toolbox. All who enter will have a chance to win a Boredom Buster as I described in an earlier post to the Community Cluckers Forum. To enter, visit 1840 Farm and subscribe to our blog or follow us on Facebook or Twitter. All subscribers and followers (existing and new) will be entered in the drawing. I will accept entries until Friday, December 16, 2011 at midnight.

One winner will be randomly selected and announced on Facebook, Twitter, and in a future Community Cluckers post. Good luck to all who enter. I hope that your flock will soon be enjoying a boredom buster to help pass the time during the long winter months ahead!

You're always welcome at 1840 Farm. Visit our blog at www.1840farm.wordpress.com.

For daily updates about the happenings at 1840 Farm, follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Meyer Hatchery Catalog Came Today!

2011-11-14T16:23:00.007-06:00

by Karla T.

I'm excited to have received my 2012 Meyer catalog today! I pore over it for hours, putting little stars next to types of chickens, ducks, turkeys and more that I would like to have strutting around my farm yard. I'm not yet sure what I'll be getting, but I'll have fun dreaming.

They have some exotic birds that I know I won't be getting. A sebastopol goose is a white bird with long curly feathers. They're lovely, but fairly expensive. And they aren't cold hardy, so they wouldn't enjoy our freezing winters. I also won't be getting a pair of White Mute Swans. At $780 for the pair, plus $320 shipping and handling, they're outside of my price range! They also have pheasants, partridges and peacocks.

There are also dozens of chickens, ducks, turkeys and geese to peruse. The price for chicks varies, but in general it's in the neighborhood of $2 to $4 each plus shipping.

Well, I'm off to dream of my colorful flock additions. In the meantime, I'll leave you with a few pictures of my current chickens. Here, you'll see them in their favorite hangout. There's about 4 feet of weeds growing between our garden and our yard. The chickens LOVE to hang out in this little jungle.