chickens | KW Homestead

Tag: chickens (page 6 of 8)

Mobile Chicken Paddock Update

July 21, 2014 / jason / Comments Off

Emma wrote the other day about our new mobile chicken run design, and after moving this system twice I figured I would give an update on its functionality. The chickens have been in this new setup for about 1 week. In our old system, we would typically wait 2 weeks before moving them to a new piece of pasture, but in the past week I have moved them twice. As Emma mentioned, even though the fenced area is half of what it used to be, because the coop is no longer inside, the chickens actually have around 75% of the space they used to have.

the new mobile coop and paddock system is easier to move, which means we move it more often

However, thanks to the redesign, moving the chickens is now a much easier proposition. It can be done at any time of day, and is now a 1 man job. Compare this to the old system where we had to wait until dusk, take down the entire thing, pull up posts, roll up the bird netting, put up the posts and panels, zip tie everything, by this point it was dark, we were frustrated, and we still had to untangle the bird netting and fix any rips that had happened. Not fun, and not a chore we looked forward to. This meant that we often put off moving the chickens, and the would end up staying in the same spot for longer than two weeks. This lead to overgrazing, compaction, and further frustration.

Our new system easily slides to a new spot, and because it is smaller (16 ft. by 16 ft.), it fits easier into tight spaces around garden beds and fruit trees. The hawk netting does not need to come off, there are no posts, and this can all be done at any time of the day. I have already done it twice, and at this rate the chickens will have access to 300% more pasture in 2 weeks than before. This allows us to more easily monitor their behavior and impact on the land, and more efficiently harness their energy toward improving our land, and avoid the harm that comes from overgrazing, all while they enjoy more grass, weeds, and bugs than ever before.

bridey watching the chickens in their new paddock

I think we learned a valuable lesson; that if you design an aspect of your life to be difficult, you will dread and avoid it, and when it doesn’t get done, it becomes harder and harder to catch up. This starts a cycle of stress and frustration that is hard to beat. However, if we design these things so that are easily accomplished, we are more likely to do them. This fits in with the permaculture concept of zones, where you design the elements of your property that need attention everyday (vegetable gardens, livestock, etc.) to be closer to your house where you constantly see and interact with them. For example, if you have to milk goats everyday, don’t put the milking area half a mile away, down a steep gully and then up a rocky hill. If you wan’t to remember to take a multivitamin everyday, don’t put the vitamins in that cabinet that you can’t reach unless you get that stool that’s in the garage.

It’s a simple concept, but we all have things that for one reason or another we have made harder for ourselves, whether it’s on a homestead or not. Some of things we can’t change, but the other ones should be designed to fit into our life in a way that enhances it, not make it harder. With thoughtful design, things tend to fit together easier and our life systems function more efficiently, giving us more time to focus on whatever it is we want to focus on, be it writing, working, gardening, or eating delicious eggs from pasture raised chickens.

backyard chickens: finally in the backyard!

July 18, 2014 / Emma / Comments Off

hilariously, our “backyard” chickens have never actually been on any of our backyard pasture. for some reason, we started them in the front yard and they never ran out of green spaces to occupy. now, though, after a year of having them, they’ve made their journey to the back. and with that journey came a new way of piecing together their fencing. instead of the usual 6 cattle panels that made up their old chicken pen, we’re only using 4 of those panels, permanently tied together on three of the four corners just like with our goose pen. we also are not rolling their house inside the pen, instead using it as a fifth side that the two unattached fence corners can lean against. the space between the front wheels of the house and the house itself act as perfect slots for holding the 2 fence pieces in place. one of those connections act as the gate, and all you have to do to get in is lift the fence up and over the wheel and walk on in. bird netting is still draped over the top to deter hawks and escaped chickens, and a metal bar is leaned up against the base of the house to prevent small bantams from escaping that way. we have 2 wooden poles with tennis balls attached to keep the netting up higher and we remove when we move the fence so that the netting won’t get too taut from pulling and rip.

our backyard chickens get a newly designed pen!

some of our reason for making this change are:

once the chickens go in their house at night and we close them in, we can easily roll the house whenever we want without first disassembling all of the cattle panels and step-in posts that we used to use.
once the house is rolled away, we attach the open side of the fence with a clip and can slide it along the same was we slide the goose fence, with the netting still attached. the square shape is really easy to move, we’ve discovered. this also requires no posts at all!
since the gate is right by the house it is so much more helpful to be able to set food and snacks on top of that while you walk into the fence. i’ve always found it annoying and difficult to get inside the fence holding buckets of food while chickens walk under your feet or try to fly up in the air to land in your bucket.
since the square shape of the pen can be pulled on to be made more diamond-shaped, it will be easier to fit their pen in tighter spots in the the yard (like in and between garden beds and trees).
even though the area of their pen has been cut in half, since the house is no longer inside that area, they probably have 3/4 of the actual grassy area that they had before. and since they are so much easier to move now, this is a benefit for them. they’ll probably get moved every 5 days or so (they used to be moved every 2 weeks) and they still get 3/4 of the pasture area that they did before. it a good deal for all of us!

our chickens, enjoying their fresh grass.

.:.

Sprouting Grains for Chickens

June 24, 2014 / jason / Comments Off

Sprouting grains to feed chickens and other poultry is a great way to supply top quality nutrition in a cost effective way. We try to avoid feeding GMO feed whenever possible and 1 great way to do that is by sprouting whole grains and seeds into fodder and feeding that instead of pre-packaged chicken food. It’s very easy and only takes a few minutes a day. Our system involves plastic buckets, a scoop, and some grain. That’s it. We modeled it after Jack Spirko’s Dead Simple Fodder Technique, and the birds are loving it. We take grains like wheat, barley, millet, sorghum, and black oil sunflower seed, and transform them into sprouted fodder. This increases their nutritional value, almost doubles their protein, and makes more of the nutrients bio-available to the flock.

3 buckets with holes in the bottom is how we rinse the sprouted fodder.

First, I drilled holes in the bottom of the buckets with a 1/8th in. drill bit. I drilled a lot of holes, maybe 40 or so on each bucket. These buckets hold the grain, and allow the sprouts to get rinsed off at least twice a day in order to prevent mold growth. That’s really the only setup involved, as everything else is the sprouting process.

The sprouting cycle begins with an overnight soak of grain. We do about 1 qt. at a time, but adjust this to suit your needs and your flock size. The next morning this grain gets dumped out into one of the drain buckets with holes, and rinsed. That night, a new batch is soaked overnight, and then dumped into a fresh drain bucket that is stacked into the older one. This flushes all the buckets with water, rinsing all of the grain. This process is repeated until the sprouts reach the stage you prefer.

Soaked wheat and millet in one of the drain buckets.

Right now, because it is so hot, we are only going 3 days before feeding, and only have tiny sprouts forming on most of the grain. The chickens seem to like it this way. You could let it go 7 days, and it would form a dense mat of grass and roots, which would be great for animals like horses, goats, sheep, cattle, and pigs.

The end product after 3 days.

By soaking and sprouting the grains, we change their nutritional profile, and when we add a mineral mix and other high quality supplemental feed, as well as food scraps and garden waste, our chickens get a healthy and well rounded diet that allows them to lay delicious eggs. If you have chickens look into sprouting some grains for them. Go to your local feed mill and ask for untreated barley or wheat and give it a try. If you decide it’s not for you, the chickens will eat the unsprouted grain as well, so there really isn’t much to lose.

The Chicken Bucket

June 17, 2014 / jason / Comments Off

What do you do with your food scraps? You know, those tiny bits of leftovers, peels, and stems. Some people toss them on the compost pile as a decent source of nitrogen, or in the trash, but we are lucky enough to have a flock of 28 avian composters right outside our door. Our chickens readily devour anything from pizza to outer cabbage leaves from the garden. In order to separate these nutritious treats from the rest of our waste, we employ a simply, yet effective strategy.The chicken bucket.

Old ice cream containers make great chicken buckets for holding and transporting food scraps.

Almost everything except coffee grounds and eggshells go into the chicken bucket.

We have found that an old 1 gallon, plastic ice cream container works perfectly as a chicken bucket. The cheap, store brand version is best for the application. It has a handle that makes for easy transport, is made of rigid plastic that holds up at least 6 months, and is easily rinsed and cleaned. Right now we have our chicken bucket on top of the trash, and any time we peel sweet potatoes, snap green beans, or have leftovers that are just a little too old for our taste, we dump them in the bucket. Then, about once every few days, we dump the contents into the chicken yard and stand back and watch as they turn our leftovers and waste into high quality eggs. What do you do with your food scraps? Let us know in the comments!

sick chicken?

June 13, 2014 / Emma / Comments Off

when i went into the chicken pen today to collect eggs, it appeared that one of our bantam hens was feeling sick. i could see that she was walking around under the house (while almost everyone else was outside eating) and hunkering down low to the ground. she would wander a little and then stop and crouch, all the while holding her beak open and panting. later, when she came out from under the house for a little while, roosty tried to jump on her (you know why!) and she looked so beaten by this. she kept her head down on the ground for a while afterwards, looking asleep.

i decided to go get the net and catch her to check out how she was doing and to put her in her own little cage to give her a break from all the other chickens. i also wanted to quarantine her just in case she was contagious.

upon further inspection, i saw that some of her feathers were missing in places and she looked a little scraggly. i think this is due to old age (she’s one of the older hens my dad had a while before giving to us). but, i also noticed that the area around her vent was missing feathers, and there was a little bit of goo in the area. it just didn’t quite look right.

the hen’s vent area. you can see that she is missing a lot of feathers.

our bantam hen, hanging out in her temporary cage.

i haven’t yet had the chance to look up more about what could be wrong with her, but in the meantime she is spending the night in the carport in her cozy little cage. she has food and water and a little roost bar. luckily, when i put her in the cage this afternoon, she livened up a good bit and walked around a bunch clucking. so, hopefully that is a good sign! tomorrow i’ll look into what her ailment might be, and go from there!

.:.

a lotta bit of happy and a lotta bit of sad: our first chick

June 6, 2014 / Emma / Comments Off

on monday, may 26th, our first baby chicken was born here at the homestead. our first baby anything, for that matter, and it was all very exciting.

the dedicated hens sat on their eggs for 21 days (the incubation period for chickens) and even though we started with 12 eggs, only 1 baby was born. this is because not all of the eggs were fertilized and some of the eggs were busted over time as the many broody hens switched from nest to nest. next time, to prevent this egg-breaking issue, we plan to give the broody hens a better, more private space to sit. i was super excited about the baby being born because 2 fertilized eggs were accidentally crushed only a few days before their hatch date. while it was very interesting to get to examine the nearly born babies, it was also a little sad to know that they came so close to emerging into the world but just never got to. i conducted funerals for both.

so when the first chick was born, i just had to give her a name. i knew there was a chance that she wouldn’t make it (as is the case with all animal infants), but i just couldn’t help it. i named her primera, since “primero” in spanish means “first.”

another really exciting thing about primera, besides the fact that she was here (!!!), was that she was a cross between rex (our black and white speckled barred rock rooster) and one of the tan/golden buff orpington hens. this means that she was a kooky and amazing color blend! her belly was golden fading to bronze, fading to silver, fading to gray. her back was mostly dark gray but she had a golden “crown” of feathers on her head. i was lucky enough to hold her during her first two days and she was beautiful and lively.

interestingly, the mothers (yes, two!) that sat on her while she hatched and claimed motherhood, were two black bantam hens. bantams can be better mothers than standards and our bantams are older and a little more mature than our standards. i felt like it was lucky that she had a more experienced mother, and two of them… even better!

on wednesday, may 28th, her third day of life, her mothers took her out of the nest box and into the outside world (as is the norm for all chicks’ coming-out-parties). i have no way of knowing what her time was like in the outside world or how long she was outside (jason and i were both at work).

when i came home and went to feed the chickens that day, i found that she had died. maybe i’m too emotional (i really don’t think so) but it was horrible to see such a new little life no longer alive. her body was laying a few feet from the chicken house and all of the other chickens were going about their daily business. my guess is that her two bantam mothers brought her out in the world and the other chickens (the standards and maybe even some of the bantams) thought she was an intruder and attacked her. and what can two smaller mothers do against a bunch of bigger chickens? nothing really. afterwards, i read up on what could have happened, and i found that this behavior is not uncommon but also not expected. i can perhaps credit it to having the two flocks living together, creating an atmosphere of competition (?). i also think it was harder since there was only one of her, and she was not part of a group.

i was really mad at all of the chickens for a day or two, until i remembered that i can’t humanize them. they are animals. they are important animals–special things–but they are not human and therefore cannot be blamed for “blindly” following instinct. they are not truly guilty, just as i am not guilty for having failed to protect her.

it has been a learning experience, though, and this had taught me what to do differently next time we hatch chicks. for example, i am definitely going to fully separate the new mothers and their babies from the rest of the flock until the babies are at least a few weeks old and less likely to be assaulted. i am also learning something that i really already knew… that when you raise animals, some of them die. sometimes they die because of health reasons, sometimes they die because of circumstance or lack of understanding on your part. i do know now, that as long as we are trying our best to be good stewards of the animal families that we raise, it is okay. it is the cycle of life, after all.

some things die and some things live, and how can i presume to know the reasons why the universe moves the way it does?

primera’s funeral was conducted “peruvian-style” with jason’s help, and we buried her under a crab apple in the front yard. i thanked her for coming to stay with us for a while and i will not forget her and what she meant to us… that life is possible.

life is always possible.

.:.

we will be taking a break from hatching chicks for a few weeks, and then after that time, once we are better prepared and if some hens are still broody, we will try again.

.:.

collecting eggs from broody hens

May 28, 2014 / Emma / Comments Off

this video shows my daily, afternoon experience for the last several weeks. what fun it is to finally get to touch our bantam hens, who are much too speedy and cautious for me to catch and hold under normal circumstances!

this video was filmed about a week ago, and since then we’ve had some developments in those nest boxes… but more on this later. in the meantime, watch the video below and check out our technique for collecting eggs from underneath broody hens.

.:.

broody chickens, bald chickens, and roosters who attack!

May 14, 2014 / Emma / 2 Comments

beginning a few months ago, we noticed that about 5 or so of our standard hens were starting to go bald in very concentrated spots on their backs between their wings. my first thought was that the hens were picking at each other and eating those feathers, but after watching them i realized that i hadn’t seen a single hen pick at the feathers of another (except once when a hen got mad and chased another one, grabbing at her tail feathers). i also didn’t see how the chickens would be interested in eating each others’ feathers since they receive great supplements in their food that should prevent them from wanting dine on feathers.

so, i decided to look into the issue a little more and learned that the bald spots were the fault of the rooster, rex! once i read this, it made sense, of course!

one of rex’s favorite ladies–do you see the pink bald spot between her wings?

apparently, when young roosters get close to reaching full maturity, they pick out a couple hens that are their favorites and shower them with attention (you know what i mean, ya’ll). as they get older, they start to spread their attentions out over the whole flock so no hens are losing all of their feathers or getting too scratched up, but when they are young there is a risk that if their spurs are too sharp they can actually cut up the hens they really like.

after reading this, i made sure to look closely at the balding hens to see if they were cut at all… and they were not. but still, some were a little raw looking, which made up 1/2 of my mind when later…

rex actually attacked me with his spurs!

this happened about a week ago when i was feeding everyone. i noticed that rex had been a little bit more “pushy” and “prancey” lately but thought that if i didn’t get in his space too much he would leave me alone. untrue. once i turned my back and was walking to the back of the chicken pen where i dump out their food scraps from my school kids, he jumped up in the air and spurred me in both legs, right around the knees. he didn’t get through my pants to my left leg, but he did with my right. his spur didn’t go in very deep but it went through the pants, punctured my skin, and made me bleed.

of course i felt like killing him/crying after that but only managed to yell at him and throw the food scraps all over him in revenge, which he ended up liking very much.

the flock enjoying their new spot in the grass. rex is in the foreground, keeping himself between me and his hens.

since then, i’ve decided that as soon as we hatch out some more roosters i’m going to eat rex in a soup. in the meantime, we’ve clipped rex’s spurs. this is the choice that was easier to make since noticing the bald spots on some of the hens. i pinned down rex in a net (and felt awesome doing it!) and my dad nipped off the sharp ends of his spurs with handheld hedge nippers. he didn’t make any noises of pain (since the spur is a bone and the process didn’t hurt) and the end of the spur only bled a tiny bit and then quickly dried. now he can’t actually puncture me if he jumps me again and he shouldn’t scratch up the hens as much.

which leads me to the third type of chicken i want to talk about: a broody chicken! we have three hens who are trying to sit on nests/eggs right now and a few days ago we officially labeled their eggs (marking them with pencil) and let them stay on their nests! one standard is sitting on 7 standard sized eggs, one bantam is sitting on 2 bantam eggs, and another bantam is sitting on 2 standard eggs and 1 bantam egg. i’ve placed a piece of cardboard behind their nest boxes so that the sun doesn’t shine in on them and make them too hot.

two bantams sitting on eggs.

an unlikely duo: a bantam and a standard.

everyday i’ve collected the fresh eggs out from under the three hens (much to their chagrin) but left the eggs they’ve been sitting on. we hope they will remain broody and vigilant! if all goes well, we might be meeting up to 12 baby chicks as early as the 26th of may. cross your fingers for us!

.:.

a variety of bird eggs!

May 5, 2014 / Emma / Comments Off

since we recently got geese, we’ve had our share of exciting egg sightings! at first, the large goose eggs were extreme-sized, but now they seem normal to us and our chicken eggs seem tiny. this got me thinking about all of the birds that we see everyday and their lovely eggs.

of course we see our geese, standard chickens, and bantam chickens everyday and get to check out and collect their eggs first hand, but we’ve also had other bird visitors this spring. the jenny wren has come back to take up residence in the same geranium plant that they used last year and our hummingbird feeder has become a busy place! chickadees thought about building a nest on our hammock support, but have hopefully decided against it. i couldn’t resist checking out the jenny wren nest for comparison purposes!

a goose egg (left) and a wren egg (right). look at the size difference!

a goose egg (left) and a wren egg (right). look at the difference! The wren egg is even smaller than the wind egg!

birds are amazing creatures! and even more amazing are the different sizes that the different species can be (and their differently sized eggs too!).

from left to right: goose egg, standard chicken egg, bantam chicken egg, wren egg.

one of our hummingbird visitors, coming out for a meal!

check out the size of this goose egg; the other eggs are standard chicken eggs!

i’m gaining even more respect for birds than before… just look at the amazing variety of eggs they lay!

and don’t forget to check out our post on how to use eggs, from boiling and spaetzle-making to craft-making and deviled eggs.

.:.

a day in the homestead life: her day

April 23, 2014 / Emma / Comments Off

i just realized that i haven’t yet written a post detailing a typical day in our life from my perspective. so, i’ve decided to do just that! this is certainly a typical spring day, with longer daylight hours and better weather for planting and outdoor chores.

so, here is my typical day in our homestead life:

5:40 am

roll out of bed and put on my coveralls. i take the dogs out to pee and open the chicken house and feed the chickens their first of two daily meals. also, since we’ve gotten the geese, i’ve been letting them out of their nighttime enclosure and into their larger pen. they immediately head for the kiddie pool and start drinking and splashing about.
luckily, during this time of year the sun is already on the rise (still not sunrise, though) so all of my morning chores are easier and more fun to complete!
i load up the car, complete with the chicken bucket that i use to collect my students’ lunch leftovers for feeding to the chickens, my lunch, and my breakfast (which i eat during the 1 hour commute to work).

6:15-7:15 am

this is my drive-to-work time, which usually consists of listening to the radio and munching on my breakfast, i would rather be recording podcasts or writing songs, but i still have to get organized for doing things like that.
luckily it is easy to enjoy the car ride to work because i slowly get my brain geared up for working with kids and i get to enjoy the lovely country views (which in spring are filled with lots of horses, donkeys, goats, chickens, and flowers!).

3:00 pm

i get off of work and begin the drive home, sometimes later than 3:00.

4:00 pm

once i get home i let both dogs out, and often have to clean up after bridey who has probably peed inside, pooped inside, or both. i unload the car and start on the everyday afternoon farm/outside chores.

these everyday chores are:

dump and refill the “goose pond,” which is their beloved kiddie pool, and their water. i also feed the geese their afternoon grain.
feed the chickens the leftover scraps from my students’ lunch and their afternoon grain, refill their water, and collect eggs. collecting eggs can either be simple or not, depending on the mood of rex, our standard rooster, and whether or not he feels territorial and pushy. the hens also sometimes lay eggs under the house (perhaps they’ve wised up and realized that i take their eggs that end up in the nest boxes) and so i have to fish/roll those out with a metal hook.
feed the dogs their afternoon/evening meal and feed the cat.
wash the eggs, dry them, and put them in the fridge for storage. lately i’ve been washing goose eggs too, which are so amazing!

bolt, hanging out with me during afternoon chore time!

5:00 pm

sometimes my daily afternoon chores are completed by 5:00, sometimes not. once they are complete, i move on to other farm chores which don’t necessarily need to happen every day. these other tasks are often a little more creative and less routine. some of these, which i happened to do yesterday and today, are:

water our new seedlings that are growing in trays
water the flowers i’ve planted in pots, and the new mums that jason brought home from work the other day!
stake cages around our newly planted fruit trees and bushes
water our fruit trees/bushes
tie white tagging tape around the tops of each cage so we can see where not to step (the cages are really hard to see since the metal is so thin and dark)
jason and i moved the goose pen yesterday–our plan is to move them to fresh pasture every 2 days
i also finally figured out how to plug the holes (where the spill drain used to be) at the top of my 2 cast iron/enamel tubs for soaking my mushroom logs. i used circular cuttings from an old mahogany door and layers of a thin, deflated, old tire. i placed the tire materials over the hole and hammered the wooden plugs into the hole. this pushed both rubber and wood partially into the hole, filling in all gaps and making a nearly-watertight barrier.
after determining that my plugs worked yesterday, today i went about soaking 1/4 of my logs, 7 in each tub (batch 1–the batch labeled with orange marking tape). they will soak overnight and i’ll lean them back up against the corn crib tomorrow!

two bathtubs filled with soaking mushroom logs!

today's batch for soaking was the "orange batch." labeled with flagging tape so i can keep straight the info about when logs was soaked

today’s batch for soaking was the “orange batch,” labeled with flagging tape so i can keep straight the info about when logs were soaked.

my rigged plug–working well!

in addition to these chores, jason spent yesterday digging his hand-dug pond out even more, planting more fruit bushes, watering plants and the seeded garden beds, and beginning to build our newest bed: a raised hugelkulture bed downhill from our others.

8:30 pm

sometime around dark we head inside, eat dinner, and try to rest a little.

bedtime and pre-bedtime (anywhere from 10:00 pm to 12:00 am)

one of us always writes a post in the evenings (monday–friday)
we take the dogs back out to pee
lock up the chicken house
close the geese into their smaller, fenced enclosure

and that is a general idea of what we do in this spring season to keep the homestead running and fruitful. some days we do more outdoor, farm-related chores, and other days we do less. it just depends, really, on our mood and the homestead necessities!

.:.

KW Homestead

Pasture Raised Poultry & Edible Landscaping Plants Since 2013