Chickens and Produce

An Ancona in our 4-in-1 Pear tree.

I didn't plant a garden this year as I had a lot going on with chickens, projects going on around the house, and not being home as much. There are other reasons as well that I thought it best not to do one; mending the soil, eradicating weeds and blackberry bushes, plus trying to figure out how much sun the garden gets now with the 2 big pine trees gone. We have had an unusually dry year so far. Yeah it has rained some but not enough to keep our other fruits, flowers, and trees wet enough. We did get some strawberries from our patch but now there are none and no new flowers. All our fruit trees still have no fruit and the 2 that we bought that should had started to set fruit, we lost. Our Meeker raspberry canes are starting to get fruit ripening.

I checked on my kiwi cuttings and it looks promising for 3 of the female plants and at least 5 of the self-fertile ones. Even our fig tree sapling is looking really good! We also have Jerusalem Artichokes growing in many pots. I am super happy that my Calla Lilies are doing very well and even have a bloom on one. I moved the butterfly bush again to a semi sunny location. It gets a few hours of sun now unlike the other place it was where it got almost no sun. However, originally it was in full sun and did not seem to be growing at all. We plan on adding the Stinging Nettle by it, along with moving the Foxglove from the opposite side of the yard to this same location, plus moving the fuchsia bushes as well, and adding some milkweed. We are going to try and make this location around the butterfly bush a place for hummingbirds and butterflies to hang out. I see Caterpillars in our future! The kids will love that!!

Our Globe Artichoke is finally growing. I guess removing that tree sure helped. Yes, I realize I could have just moved it but the tree was coming down regardless. The Horseradish is also growing better now too! I cannot wait until our garden is finally fenced in, mended, beds added, and everything is ready to plant. There are so many things I want to grow. Probably a good thing the garden is going to be 4,000 sq. ft.

 This year we bought 6 new blueberry plants to add to our 2 that we already had. Every plant is full of berries and they are starting to ripen. 4 of the plants will ripen July/Aug and the other 4 will ripen in August. I have a good feeling that I won't get to freeze any or use them in recipes. Not with 3 growing kids around, but I am okay with that! I love the fact that they would rather eat their fruits and veggies than junk food any day! Plus the love it more when it comes from the garden, it just taste so much better.

Now for the chicken updates! If you read the previous post our Silver-laced Cochin, Spice, decided to go broody on us and it felt like such a waste not to let her hatch out chicks since we already hatched out 2 batches of chicks via the incubator. We have never done it naturally with a hen before, so this will be a first. We collected the eggs over the course of 3 days, made sure they were as clean as possible by wiping any bedding or poo off with my hands. Since our nest boxes are relatively clean there wasn't much to do. All the eggs were marked with the corresponding day they were collected. Normally we put them in the refrigerator and then warm them back up before incubating but I wanted to try it differently since a hen would be doing the work. Trying to make it as natural as possible. The eggs were left out at room temperature until it was time to put them under the hen. I sat the eggs under her on Wednesday the 19th. She is doing good so far. I am a little worried that we put too many eggs under her, but she fluffed herself up a lot to cover all those eggs. I have not seen any eggs uncovered, which is a good thing. Waiting is so hard. The only question remains.. Will she be a good mom or will she turn on the babies? Only time will tell and we have some time before that happens. When it gets close to hatching day we plan on setting the brooder up in case she doesn't do good for caring for the babies.

 

As for Thumper and her 8 chicks, all are doing really well. It is so funny how the Black Sexlink boys look like Barred Rocks. We have never seen a Black Sexlink rooster before but have had females in the past. One of the Rhode Island Red pullet does not seem to be growing at the same rate as everyone else and I think it is because of her deformed toe. Her middle toe was curled when she hatched out and I currently have it splinted to help straighten it out. It is so crazy to think they are already 3 weeks old.





As for the other 8 chicks we hatched out. These Easter Eggers are getting big fast! When they first hatched I thought we had all males with only 3 being females, as time progressed I changed my mind and thought we only had 1 rooster. Now I am reverting back to my original thoughts..lol

Seeing their combs changing colors and noticing their feathers are becoming more pointed, it is looking like there are definitely more males. Only time will tell what we have exactly, but it is still fun to keep guessing.

Chicken madness!

 I'm a little late posting the weekly photos, but alas they are here! Yep, these EE's are 5 weeks old and of course we have a few more with combs turning color. This has me worried that me we have more roosters. It is very hard to determine sex, even with looking at legs, combs, vents, feathers it can all be so confusing. So for now, we will just wait until they get older or maybe when they start crowing.

As for mama and her babies, they are doing FANTASTIC! Oh my word these babies are getting big so fast. I am so in love with these little balls of fluff already starting to feather. My only regret is not being able to hatch more so we had more girls than boys. Oh well, there's always next time!

Speaking of more chicks, as if we don't already have enough chickens, we decided that since we have yet another broody hen we would put her to good use.

 

Meet Spice, a Silver-laced Cochin. The look on her face shows such disgust that I pulled her out of the nesting boxes. I am hoping she turns out to be a good brooder and mama, only time will tell. Not sure as to how many eggs we are gonna try to have her hatch out.  It will be within the next couple of days that we put eggs under her, separated from everyone else. She will be hatching out more Easter Eggers as we are down to just 1 rooster now. It will be interesting to see what these chicks look like, their moms will be Sicilian Buttercup, Black Langshan, Australorp, Brown Leghorn, Ancona, and Silver-grey Dorking. 

This will be the first time we will ever have a hen hatch out chicks, which is really exciting! No worrying about temperature, humidity, turning, and all the constant checking. Talk about worry free, sort of. We will still need to keep an eye on Spice to make sure she continues to sit on the eggs and not give up half way through, or any other things that could go wrong. Crossing fingers!

Chicken updates

   

      It's been crazy here with chicks growing and waiting on more to hatch. While the first 8 have been enjoying their sandy brooder, they have been growing so much that now they almost have no more fluff. We have been keeping an eye on their combs to see which ones are roosters and I have a good feeling that we only have 1. Can you guess which one it is? With them growing so fast it is also getting harder to tell some apart.

     With it being warmer out, I decided it was time to let this young ones outside to have some fun in the sun. They loved playing in my flower bed of violas. It is kind of hard to see but there is 3 looking directly at the camera next to one another. It is still too cold to leave them outside at night. Yes, it still is cold here at night. It's been in the 40s, so I feel it is too cold for them. They chirp loudly even with the heat lamp off in the house that is 70 degrees. This does seem a tad odd to me as the other lot we hatched out ended up being outside with a surrogate hen.

Thumper is a Cochin who decided to go broody about the same time we started incubating these batch of chicks. We have never had a hen successfully hatch out chicks before or be broody at the same time we were hatching chicks until now. I read up on how to sneak them in to trick her into thinking they were hers. We were also concerned with how or if she would take to them. We moved her from our big coop a few days before the chicks were to hatch, into a smaller coop that would be big enough for the chicks to grow up some before venturing out into the run area. We also put golf balls under her so she would know she was sitting on something. The 1st night that the chicks hatched it was decided that we would put out 2 black star males. This way if we lost them it would not be a huge loss as roosters do not lay eggs, plus we do not need a bunch of rooster for our small flock. The little chicks were placed under her during the middle of the night, leaving the golf balls as we were going to add the rest if all went well. The next morning we checked and she was happily clucking about while they snuggled up under her warmth but darting out any chance they got. SUPER CUTE! We continued to check on her and the 2 chicks throughout the day and with everything going so well, we put the last of them out that night while it was still dark out. Out of 15 eggs only 8 survived. 3 Had hatched out but did not make it, 2 started to develop but stopped early on, and the last 2 were almost fully developed but for some reason just never hatched. Out of the 8 that survived; 4 are Rhode Island Reds, 2 males and 2 females, and the other 4 are Blackstars, 3 males and 1 female. I guess this was our karma for only having 1 male from the last batch we hatched out..lol Momma and babies are doing wonderful. We do check on them numerous times a day, daily. They run around peeping, while momma hen clucks at them and pecks at the feed and water to get them to eat and drink. I will say, it is nice having this batch of chicks outside already getting acclimated to the weather. I cannot wait for the older ones to finally be outside.

    After having this last batch hatch out I realized that even if we do hatch any more, we need a better set up for chicks. Especially if we get a larger incubator. Plus I had originally planned on hatching more chicks in August, but was worrying about the what if's, as in no one wanting chicks at that time due to it going to be getting colder. Something to think about that is for sure.