New Chickens

After they went to roost last night, we moved our old girls in with the new girls. They've all been exploring the new yard this morning without too much fuss. Just a little posturing.

Here's one of the Speckled Sussex. They look exactly alike.

Here's our Silver Laced Wyandotte.
Little Miss and the new sexlink also look almost identical. Here's the new coop and the new yard. We haven't gotten the water/food/shell/grit locations finalized yet, but I made sure they have plenty of all of the above this morning.
The lady we bought them from says the girls are 7 months old but she said they are all just coming out of a molt?! Seems young for that to me but she says the Sussex haven't started laying again. The sexlink lays big beautiful dark brown eggs though.

I don't know where we're going to put the new beehive we get this spring now that the chickens have their old spot but it really seems like a perfect place for the new chicken yard.

Lacey's First Egg!

From left to right: Lacey's egg, Little Miss' egg, and Lily's egg.

First eggs are always supposed to be a little weird as chickens try to get into the groove and the other layers eggs are generally huge (they weigh in at jumbo) but isn't Lacey's first egg just adorable? So tiny and perfect. I think she's almost exactly 20 weeks old. Hopefully this is the beginning of a good layer.

Chicken Harvest

Here's Monday night's dinner, our first homegrown full chicken dinner. It was really good. The white meat was like butter to bite into. Chicken....goooooood. :)

Sunday was harvest day. Here's the whole set-up.

The scalding pot is 140 degrees and the deceased chicken gets dunked around in it for about 30 seconds before getting plucked.

Here's the kill cone set-up. We were considering getting a real metal one but couldn't find one locally so we used a modified vinegar bottle again. It worked well.

Here's the rooster we were given while awaiting his turn. We caught them one at a time and kept them in the cat carrier until their turn. We tried to keep them as unstressed as possible since apparently that flavors the meat.
After they were plucked, I took each chicken inside, removed the feet, took the insides out and removed the oil gland at the base of the tail. I froze the necks, hearts, and cleaned out gizzards for stock. Each chicken was put in a Ziploc bag and we left them in the fridge to season for three days before freezing them. Apparently the meat needs 1-3 days to get rigor completely done so it will be at its best.

After being dressed, the Cochin weighed in at 1 lb. 10 oz. and the Rhode Island Reds weighed in at 2 lb. 7 oz. and 2 lb. 10 oz.

Roosters Aren't City Dwellers

Last night as we were starting to pick blueberries and strawberries, a car drove up and a woman got out, asking, "Do you still want a rooster?"

Q forgot that I was out of town for the Tour de Coop so he turned and repeated the question to me. I continued to stare blankly. After asserting that I had no opinion on a rooster, I left them to work it out.

What had transpired at the Tour de Coop was that Q had gotten into a conversation about the meat birds with this lady who feared that one of the layers she was raising was actually a rooster. Q had offered to take it off her hands and put it into our soup pot if this turned out to be the case.

The denouement is that "Chuck" (the rooster) is quarantined in a large cat carrier in our guest bathroom for the next day or two until we harvest this weekend. The two Rhode Island Reds are also destined for the freezer and "Lacey" (the Silver Laced Wyandotte) is getting upgraded to layer status.

Chuck is very clearly a rooster. A few minutes after we turned on the bathroom light for him this morning (no windows) we were startled by a very loud crow. He's been doing it intermittently ever since. I kind of like it but won't miss it as an "inside sound". The cats won't miss it at all and keep giving me dirty looks which seem to clearly translate into , "Why do you keep putting chickens in the bathroom?"

Q promised to prepare one of the fresh birds butterflied on the grill this weekend - doesn't this look yummy?

The New Coop

After rain thwarted our building efforts and the chicks had to live in the bathroom for way to long, the new coop was finally made habitable last weekend. Q designed it based on lots of research on other people's coops and we think it ended up costing about $300. We did use almost all new materials so those costs could probably be cut way down. The layers live here now and the meat chicks live in the tractor.

The footprint is 4x6 and the bottom frame where it touches the ground is made of cedar. There are extensions on the "heavy end" (right, in the picture) that will have wheels attached so it can be lifted and rolled like a wheel barrow with handles on the other end.

It fits perfectly onto our raised beds so we have to option of using in on a bed, secured with carriage bolts to keep it from slipping.

There is an access panel to the small run that is held in place by two slide bolts. All of the hardware cloth is held on with washers and screws.
This panel on the end will completely lift up to let them into the larger run when we get that set up again. We need to make some adjustments to the door's chain pull because we hadn't accounted on the weight of the door. Smaller chain and another eyelet to help the feed should take care of the problem. We used metal channel we found at BRING to set the doors.
From this angle, the small door that leads into the coop is visible on the interior left. (It's the same chain and channel arrangement as the front.) This will allow us to lock them into just the coop area for transport or run cleaning. The interior coop area has hardware cloth between it and the small run. We're going to also have a solid panel that fits in that space to protect them during harsher weather.
Q hasn't added the latches to the back access doors yet. Currently, we have to bring the electric drill with us to check eggs each day. Eventually, it will be possible to open just one at a time.
Here's the inside after the doors are open. Their food, water, grit, and shell all reside to the back left in the photo, behind the roost. There are two nest boxes in the front right and there is a storage area built in above them. They have been very courteous about using the new nest boxes and the manure pile suggests they're using their roost at night.

We're going to be on the Eugene "Tour de Coop" this year and I think Q's looking forward to showing off his handiwork.

The young ones seem rather satisfied with their new outdoor life. I think they're about two months away from harvest. Eugene Backyard Farmer is planning on getting a shipment of meat birds in in August, so assuming this little experiment ends up working out well, we'll probably be raising another, slightly larger batch during late summer and harvesting in time for stocking up the winter freezer.

Lazy Weekend

My spring break started this weekend after my class performed three shows of "Much Ado About Nothing" in two days. They were pretty great and we're all pretty exhausted. Now we're on to mentoring presentations in April, class trip to California in May, and graduation on June 2. Amazing how time is flying.

The chicks already practically look like chickens at the ripe age of three weeks. Since their head and neck feathers seem to be the last to grow in though they keep reminding me of vultures. We have had two accidental escapes from the bathtub (heralded by frantic chirping). They stretch their wings and flap a bit and one suddenly finds itself isolated from her sisters in a strange new world. We'll have to rig up a taller barrier this week.

Ms. Rhode Island

Wyandotte

Somehow she always manages to give me a funny pose.

This weekend's little project was cutting the flannel I'd bought square and making a couple of receiving blankets by simply serging the edges. It cracks me up that that's how they do them at the store anyway and I get a lot more options for patterns this way.

The big craft project this weekend was this little tank top. It's some super soft (my guess is merino wool or alpaca/silk blend), really nice yarn a friend was going to give to Goodwill because she was sick of looking at the half-finished wristwarmer project it had been. What to do with a single 50g skein when one has babies on the brain...:) I'm going to try to post a full pattern tonight since I just made it up as I went along and like the way it turned out. It's sized for a wee one (18" chest) but I thought it might work to give some extra warmth to that vulnerable little torso in about October when it gets chillier here. I'm trying to drill this message into my brain even before the little one arrives.

Digit kept following me around as I took pictures so I told him I'd take one of him.

Everybody's Growing

The chicks are now about 2 weeks old and are feathering out at an alarming rate. You can practically watch them grow.

16 weeks and counting! You can practically watch me grow too. ;)Ultrasound on April 7. (Although we're keeping the gender a surprise.)

On the subject of bellies, I'm in love with this image.

The school's annual auction was Friday night. It's basically the only "adults only" evening of the school year and I always look forward to it. This year, the second grade chose "Welcome Baby!" as their basket theme and I managed to get it for a steal - especially since it included two one-hour prenatal massages along with everything below...

It's so rare that a mishmash basket has so much useful stuff and serendipitous that I've been strictly resisting buying baby gear yet. The clothes are also in a variety of sizes, ranging from newborn to about 6 months.

Tiny socks and hats!

The layette before Friday night consisted of the adorable care package that my mother-in-law sent (see below), the sweater I knit, and a hand-me-down Maya wrap from a friend.

It's a good thing we love duckies because they've become a bit of a theme.

Spring is Really Coming

A few weeks ago Q ran 6' heights of chicken wire between two corners of the shed and two corners of the ell that is the master bedroom. He cunningly incorporated the tractor door and the chickens now have their own run during the day. It makes them exceptionally happy. The serendipitous part of the situation is that the bedroom's sliding door is enclosed in the run, which has provided a lot of opportunity for amusement.

The chickens are alway anxious to watch chicken TV and look through at the strange life inside a house. They hurry to the door every time anybody approaches it. Little Miss (on the right) also thinks she should live in the house and has started trying to hop up when the door is opened. She is also the one who hunkers down and spreads her wings a little when you scratch her back and tends to also follow Q like a dog when he's out in their yard. Lily (back and on the left) is much shyer and more difficult to handle but they've each given us an egg a day throughout the winter. They apparently don't know that chickens are supposed to molt and quit laying when there is less than 15 hours of daylight. ;) Silly chickens.

This is also a fine cat tv station and for some reason it especially tickles me when all of my orange animals get to observing each other.

More proof that spring has sprung came today in the form of CHICKS! We've been talking about raising a few meat birds this season and we, of course, had to visit the chick room when we went to the Urban Farmer today to get some other supplies. We decided that there's no time like the present (and I swear Q's a big softie when it comes to the joy of possessing chickens) and we picked up 3 chicks who are probably a little over a week old. They happened to be a little older than all the other chicks he had and were the only ones in their tub so we got them all. They are now living a life a luxury in our guest bathroom tub under a heat lamp.

One Silver Laced Wyandotte

Two Rhode Island Reds

They're both dual purpose heritage breeds that are known for being good layers as well as being meaty and I'm glad that it just happened to work out that we now get to experiment with some new breeds. Silver Laced Wyandottes are so strikingly beautiful when they grow up that if this one ends up having a nice personality I'm thinking it might be nice to replace Lily (who would become stew) and have an easier to handle layer. We're planning on training them all to be accustomed to people and easy to handle anyway since it will make their short lives less stressful for everyone involved. They should be ready to harvest in mid-July. I'm very interested in the cost comparison of raising and processing our own birds versus the poultry CSA we were part of last year.

When we went to the Good Earth Home Show in February we picked up this guy at the One Green World booth - a tea plant. I potted him in a pot that's far too big for him now but he's going to be permanently potted (so we have the option of bringing him in if it gets too chilly) and I know how lazy I am when it comes to repotting.

We also got 5 little pots of saffron crocus bulbs (ever wonder where saffron comes from?) and a grape to replace the one that died last year. One Green World is an extremely dangerous plant nursery. They're in WA, so they know how things grow in the Pacific Northwest and they tend to carry rather unique plants that pique my interest and make me think crazy things like, "wouldn't it be fun to grow my own tea?" As I said, dangerous.

I've got the beginnings of growth from all four of the rhubarb plants and they didn't care a whit about last week's snow and freezing temperatures. The asparagus crowns have not awakened yet.

The front bed is absolutely littered with crocuses. A few hyacinths are starting to put forth stalks as well and there are tulip leaves a couple inches high. During last fall's bulb planting window, we got amazingly motivated and tore up the front perennial bed that had gotten almost completely taken over by lupines and daisies. We widened the vegetable bed that abuts it toward the house and used the landscaping timbers that had been at the street to clearly delineate the two beds. This summer we're going to bring the short stone retaining wall that lines the west side of the yard all the way across the front to replace the timbers. In the process, we dug up the bulbs that we've had planted when we moved in, which had been multiplying for the last 6 years. There were zillions. We also (of course) bought more to help provide some more zesty variety. All of the work has paid off and I think we're going to have a long bulb bloom season in that bed as different varieties reach maturity.

Canned Suncrest Peaches

Around here, the first canning peaches ready are the Suncrests and, since we're going to be out of town for the end of August, I needed to get a quick start this year on Quentin's winter supply.

I made 14 quarts of canned peaches plus a crisp out of 2 boxes ($18.99/box) of peaches. It was the longest, most torturous canning I have ever done. The peaches were quite a bit less ripe than I had thought so they didn't skin well, even after blanching, and their "freestones" were not quite free yet. At least I got a lot of practice paring...? Sometimes bright sides are a little tricky to find. It seemed absurd that only two canner loads ate up 6 hours of my time.

I'm just over a third of the way to my goal of 40 quarts for this season. Rather than going to Detering's and buying them by the box next time I'm going to go to Bush Fern View and pick them myself. That way I'll have more control over their ripeness and if it's difficult it will be my own fault. :)

Unrelated but still lovely, Q and I had an omelet for lunch that consisted of Little Miss' first 5 eggs (produced in five days!).

Our First Egg

Well, we've confirmed that the new chicken is already laying! It is way up there on the cool things list to look in the nest box and find an egg. It kind of feels fake, like Easter or something. ;)

Premature Chicken Harvest

I was out taking the picture above and others of the yard this afternoon when I noticed that there was blood on Vivian's leg. (You can see it a little in the picture - she's the buff one.) Upon closer examination, we determined that the cat that had been stalking around had gotten a lucky shot under a crack at one end of the tractor and she'd been pretty badly injured. She'd lost a lot of her upper leg muscle and, even if she miraculously recovered, would never use that leg again. We made the difficult decision to put her down.

Later in the afternoon, Q made a makeshift killing cone from an old jug of windshield wiper fluid and performed his first duty as the family butcher. I'm so grateful that he feels like he can do that. She was such a tiny body but we felt like it was only proper to make the killing not be completely senseless by getting some practice and a little food from it. We hadn't practiced our butchering skills since we first learned them last Thanksgiving when we helped our poultry farmer kill and dress the dozen or so turkeys she'd raised for the holiday.

After she was killed and had been bled, Q scalded the body and pulled out most of the feathers. I don't think the water was still quite hot enough or it wasn't left in there quite long enough because a lot of them didn't come out very well. We cooled the body in an ice bath and brought it inside where I removed the feet and skin and eviscerated it. I discarded the portion of the leg that had been badly injured and didn't save the wings because they were basically nothing but skin and feathers. After the turkeys, such a small body was difficult to maneuver and get everything easily but thankfully everything is the same on both species so it was only scale that changed.
Here's what was left, ready to cook. It's sitting in a 6 cup storage container so it's clear how small it really was. Scary to think that if we'd been raising Cornish cross meat birds this chicken would have been a respectable 3 or 4 pounds by six weeks of age instead of a tiny little thing. I popped it in some boiling water just long enough to cook the meat. I stripped about a cup of meat from the carcass and then froze the bones for the next time I get enough to make stock. Unfortunately, I'd just made stock a few days ago and had canned it this morning (blog post to follow soon) so this rather small package (the bones easily fit in a sandwich bag) will have to be stored for quite a while.

In one of those strange twists of fate, right as we had been coming to the conclusion that Vivian needed to be spared any more pain, a guy pulled up and started talking to us about our tractor, wanting to know if we'd built it, etc. We got to talking and we asked him if he knew anybody who sold layers so we could get a second bird so Lily wouldn't be all alone. He immediately called up a friend who lives about 1/2 mile south of us and she had an extra layer who she was willing to part with. She didn't even ask for payment so we took her a jar of apple butter and a plant of basil as thank you gifts and came back with a new chicken. I don't know if we'll ever see Tom (guy who stopped) or Shelby (woman with the chicken) again but we're grateful to both of them.

We completely moved the tractor to a new location where we'd removed all the bark mulch so it was sitting on very hard, level ground and have now placed boards at either end that are weighted down with rocks to completely eradicate even a small crack. Q thinks that perhaps the cat got his lucky shot because the chickens couldn't see that he was there through the solid end of the tractor.

The new chicken, who as alternately been called Little Miss Bold as Brass, Little Miss Bossy, Chickenzilla and "the monster" today, earned her sobriquets by immediately picking shamelessly on little Lily when we put them together. We let a little of it happen at first thinking they needed to establish pecking order but she was just being a bully and had Lily cowering and pushing her head as far as it would go into the corner to try to escape.

They were separated, Lily being put in a crate, while we went down to the chicken store and got some wire mesh and an additional feeder and waterer. Q worked some magic on the tractor and separated it into two spaces for a while until they get more used to each other and Little Miss quits being so aggressive. A very small silver lining is that the new chicken is a couple months older than Lily and is right at the age to start laying. We may be getting eggs sooner than we thought.

Well, we've gotten over one dark little milestone on our path toward greater self-sufficiency.

Little Miss

Chickens Growing

Here are the chickens being put into the tractor for the first time. Thanks for taking the picture, Mom. (Monday)

They were so proud to find the roost (Wednesday)

I swear they're getting bigger and getting noticeable more real feathers each day.

Tomorrow they get to spend their first entire night outside. Clearly, Vivian is excited.

I Live in a Zoo

We now own chickens!

Yesterday afternoon, the Eugene Backyard Farmer tweeted that they had two three-week old red sexlinks available. Somebody had decided they wanted a different breed and they brought these back for a trade. Half grown chicks, well past most of the tricky bits of raising babies, seemed like an ideal way to start chicken farming. They are past needing a heat lamp and only need about 4 more days inside before they can start spending daylight in their tractor. A week of that and then they're living in it full time. The tractor gets delivered tonight. Right now they're living in our bedroom, by the sliding door during the day and locked in our bathroom at night.

Since they're layers, we can name them since they'll be with us for a couple of years. I've gotta admit they so far don't have qualities that would make me get emotionally attached to them like I do with fur creatures. That's a good thing since I'm already quite aware that I have no desire to run a chicken retirement home. For names, we're currently considering Sealey and Temperance or Sweets and Daisy (courtesy of the TV show "Bones") even though they're two girls. I also like Lily and Vivian in honor of the synchronized swimming star sisters from "Pushing Daisies". Lily's even a redhead in the show.

On the fur creature front, here is the least blurry picture I could get of Marbles, our most troublesome foster kitten. He's been limping for two weeks now and Greenhill arranged to get x-rays for him this morning. Apparently, he's got femoral head necrosis. In layman's terms, the "ball" of his ball and socket hip joint on the right side is basically gone. The vet says it's likely the result of an injury he received very early in kittenhood. My research into the disorder suggests it could have even been due to something that happened before birth. He doesn't seem to be in any pain - he just isn't able to use that leg, understandable since he effectively doesn't have a hip. That hasn't stopped him from becoming the heaviest of the three kittens though; he's almost 5 pounds now!

All three are almost done with the ringworm treatments and the cultures will hopefully come back on Monday, clearing them for adoption after another two weeks of treatment just to be really, really sure. Ringworm is quite the persistent fungus.

The vet is tentatively thinking Marbles' hip can be fixed with surgery but I'll get to know more on Monday when everybody goes in for their check-ups.