Welcome back to Kids Wondering…!
This episode features our four fantastic geese, Audo (a male Emden), China (a female Chinese), and Houdina and Iza (female Africans).
Check it out!
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KW Homestead
Pasture Raised Poultry & Edible Landscaping Plants Since 2013
Month: January 2015 (page 2 of 2)
Since inoculating our shiitake mushroom logs and watering them and watching them for the first few months, we’ve been pretty much ignoring those things, waiting for them to fruit.
A few months ago, we saw one mushroom rearing its head, but it never got very big and no more appeared after that. We knew that it was possible that the logs would not fruit in the fall, instead waiting for the spring thaw to begin coming out, but it was still disappointing nonetheless.
I just checked on them today while I was getting firewood, and still they look the same. Now, in the 20 degree weather, is certainly not a time they would choose to come out, but I was still curious to look!
Mushrooms logs, looking the same as ever.
A few months ago we noticed that a few of the logs were growing a lichen on their bark, which could mean that the shiitake spores couldn’t/didn’t act fast enough inside the log to take it over before the lichen gained control. These logs might not fruit for us, and we didn’t want them the spread the lichen to any of the other logs, so we moved them a little but away from the bunch.We’ll see what they do!
Taken over by lichens!
As we get closer to spring, and when we get some warmer days here, I plan to hose them down a good bit to make sure the spores inside don’t totally dry out. Since we’re new at this, I’m afraid that the spores that are growing inside the logs might have already dried out too much, killing them. This could just be my worry talking, but we’ll find out in a few months, I suppose! Hopefully once the spring thaw begins, we’ll have more shiitake than we know what to do with! Eating the wild Lion’s Mane mushrooms got us so excited, and we can’t wait for some more mushrooms!
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As Christmas and New Year’s pass and the days start to get longer as we get further and further away from the winter solstice, slowly, Spring is coming.
One of the things that particularly reminds me of this is the sudden, and almost incessant arrival of seed, plant, and gardening supply catalogs.Starting around Mid December, seed companies large and small start to send out their beautiful and eloquent descriptions of cultivars and varieties.
Some of our favorite places to find new seeds
From vegetables to fruit trees, the catalogs pour in with old heirloom favorites like Cherokee Purple Tomatoes, to newly rediscovered varieties from across the ocean like anchote. Anchote, or Coccinia abyssinica, caught my eye the other day as I perused J.l. Hudson’s new availability. Its an ancient tuber crop from Ethiopia related to cucumbers. Pretty cool, and supposedly tasty too.
These catalogs are full of interesting varieties like that, and make for great winter reading by the fire as we contemplate Spring, a new Year, and the taste of those first vegetables from the garden. There’s a lot that still needs to be done before then, but for me at least, these catalogs are the first sign that Spring is coming.
Our chicks are growing fast, and as they get more and more energetic and active they end up messing up their water more frequently. They kick up their pine shavings and poop in their mason jar waterers which necessitates constant dumping, cleaning and changing on our part to ensure that they have access to clean water.
Chicken nipples (get your head out of the gutter!), use gravity and simple mechanics to keep their water clean and their bedding dry. We eventually want to transition our entire chicken operation to nipple waterers, but we decided to start first with the chicks.
Installing chicken nipples is simple. We got a pack of 25 that screws into a pre-drilled hole in your container. Easy.
We hope to use 5 gallon buckets outside, but decided to first try a 2 liter soda bottle or the chicks. 1 hole with a 5/16 bit in the cap, a quick tightening with a pair of pliers, and a few loops on a piece of rope and our soda bottle nipple Waterer was ready for action.
The nipples are red, which apparently attracts the eye of chickens, and within seconds of adjusting the Waterer to eye level the first few brave chicks were pecking at the nipple and drinking water. Success!
One quick note, it’s important to make sure that you avoid creating a vacuum inside of the waterer. With a bucket, just leave the lid a little bit cracked to break the vaccuum. Our solution with the soda bottles is to just poke a tiny hole in the base by where it hangs. This is enough to break the vacuum and ensure that the water flows freely out of the nipple when the birds peck it.
Right now we have just the one nipple Waterer, in addition to the two mason jar waterers but I want to build at least two more. It seems that most people use 1 nipple for anywhere from 5-10 birds, so 2 or 3 should be fine for us.
I’ve seen some creative designs using pvc, barrels, and hoses, and I’m sure we’ll set up something pretty cool for our Banty tractor, the standards, and any other fowl we add next spring!
Tonight it is supposed to get down to 10 degrees (without the wind chill) and we decided that we really needed to set up the chickens with extra windbreaks and warmth.
Here’s what we did:
- Moved the mobile over beside the standard pen, creating a two-sided windblock for the geese to hide behind.
- Covered the top of the mobile with 3 sheets and a tarp to keep in the warmth and to keep out the wind.
The bantam mobile gets some extra warmth!
- Attached an unfolded cardboard box to the front door of the standard’s house. This is attached with small bungee cords and c-clamps. Their front door is facing the direction of the arctic wind and is only a frame covered in hardware cloth, so we knew that this was a place that they really needed some extra windblock!
A cardboard door!
Using our bungees… Thanks Grandma!
- Adding straw to the area between the standard house and the bantam house…
Creating a space for the geese to sleep!
- And even though the geese have this great new, less-windy spot, they didn’t think it was worth their time to go near it. Clearly they didn’t even need the wind block! They even had the audacity to take baths right out in the cold wind as the water was starting to freeze over! Ha, ha!
Taking a freezing bath!
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What do you do with all of that bark, wood chips, and woody debri that accumulate when you split wood? While all of this material could be burned in you fireplace or woodstove, I find that after I sort out the smaller pieces of wood for kindling, I’m left with chunks and larger pieces of bark. For me, this bark doesn’t burn as well as dried wood. I think it holds more moisture, is less dense, and isn’t great kindling.
a fresh layer of bark under a Methley Plum tree in our food forest
So I prefer to use it as mulch. Now these pieces of bark are pretty big, anywhere from 2 – 12 inches long, so I don’t put them on our vegetable gardens. Instead, I dump these larger pieces of leftover bark in our backyard food forest at the base of fruit trees. Here they can break down slowly and won’t get in the way of any planting or harvesting.
Mulch helps to conserve water, block weeds, and protect the soil
This also mimics a forest environment where dead and dying trees litter the forest floor and aid in the nutrient cycle feeding all sorts of microorganisms in the soil. Right now, in the middle of winter, most of the leaves have fallen off of the trees, and by adding a fresh layer of mulch over top of them, we create the perfect environment for decomposition and lock all of the new fertility in place with a protective layer of bark.
Since the hawk attacks a few days ago, we’ve recounted and realized that another bantam was taken, Perry, the pretty little one who looked like a hawk herself. This realization was another blow… Especially one that made me feel guilty. Why hadn’t I noticed that she was gone? And how long had she been missing from the flock before I noticed? These questions were bothering me, so I decided to take a very careful tally of everyone who is left to be sure that I have my numbers right in the future if an issue ever arises again.
Related to this, the four black bantams that are still living with the standard chickens had never been named. Early on, there was 6 of them that all looked the same without any major markings to distinguish them. Now that there are 4, I decided that it was high time for me to spend some time observing them (like I did with the new bantam flock) so I could give them names. When they have names, it is much easier for me to remember how many there are and to watch out for them accordingly.
So as an overview for myself more than anything else, there are 12 bantams that are living in the bantam mobile. They are:
- From the new flock: Elvis, Presley, Red Wing, Robin, Ringo, Poka, Oro, and Churo (8). The 2 from the new flock that hawks took were: Teeny and Perry.
- From the original flock: Vanna, Q, Bren, and Cleo (4). The rooster from the original flock that the hawks took was Roosty.
There are 4 bantams living in the standard pen, they are:
- Sola: She has the smallest comb of all and it is very gray. She has no head tuft.
- Media: She has medium-sized comb that is pink. She has a medium-sized head tuft.
- Caper: She has a large comb that is gray. She has a large head tuft.
- Hattie: She has a large comb that is red. She has a large head tuft.
There are 16 standards living in their pen with the 4 black bantams. They are:
- Rex the rooster
- 8 Barred Rock hens
- 7 Buff Orpington hens
So now we at least know how many we have of each (since I always tend to forget). Let’s hope we have better luck in the coming year with keeping an eye on our poultry!
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