Making a House a Home

The girls moved to their big girl coop last week and the girls are loving the difference.

We added their nesting boxes and some dried weeds/grass clippings we have been saving for a month or so.  It made me realize how much "waste" cutting the lawn and pulling weeds produces.  However I did enjoy the free bedding for the girls.  

They apparently enjoyed it too.

We also upgraded their waterer and feeder to big girl sized self filling contraptions.  This way we only have to fill them once every couple of days and they have access to much more without having to wait on us to feed them every morning.

I did rig up a terribly shoddy run for them but they keep escaping.  

So our next project will be to clip their wings so they can still get some outside time without requiring me to chase them into the neighbors yard (across the garden, over the fence and onto the neighbor's deck to be exact).  

Marco has been on a research cruise for the last week so his next project when he gets home is setting up a real run- with a top- for the girls.  Until then their "outside" time will be limited and only while I am out there with them.  But they are all laying now and giving us three to four eggs a day so something must be working.

Anyone else chasing chickens lately?  In the dark?  While your flashlight dies?  In your pajamas??

How You Doin'? In the Garden

Three months ago, before I up and abandoned our blog, I announced that one of our goals for this year was to grow 750 pounds of produce in our own backyard.  Well I'll be honest, I'm getting really nervous about making that goal.  Not because we aren't growing- I've got pictures to prove we're producing- but just because I'm not sure that all of our experiments are going to work exactly like we had hoped.  Namely, our watermelons are not giant behemoths like they were last year.  They're weighing in at around 3 pounds each.  And our pumpkin plants?  Totally forgot about'em and they're still seeds.  But we are chugging right along anyway.  

So what started out as harvests like this:

Yay first harvest of the year!

 And has now come to include a few of these every week:

What up chickens?!

 Has finally led in the last few weeks to harvests like these:

This was 14 lbs of produce.

Our real live total weight so far is just over 200 pounds and that is nothing to sneeze at, I know, but it's not 750.  Thankfully there are still plenty of weeks of warm weather to be had and last year we were producing tomatoes and egg plants right up into November.  We are also waiting to harvest our first potato towers, cantaloupes, and our first cabbages.

I planted our fall crops last weekend- more cabbages, broccoli, and kale.  We'll be adding another couple of potato towers and clearing out the last of the beans this weekend as well.

Anyone else having long nights of cooking tomato sauce or running out for more jars for pickles?  We've been eating all of the 2011 jars from back in the pantry in order to make more room.  I should probably be taking stock of what's in the freezer as well.

Well those chickens don't feed themselves you know, and I've got eggs to collect.  Happy Wednesday everyone!

Earth Day Introductions

After spending several evenings and spare moments glued to the Oxford City Codes and Ordinances, my own neighborhood covenants and considering the various and sundry ways to bribe my neighbors, I am finally ready to introduce our newest family members to the internets.


What started out as this:

Waiting to come home with me!

Are now these:

Strutting hard at 8 weeks.

I love that picture of #4.  What a pretty (although stubborn and sometimes easily excitable) girl!

They are currently living in the rabbit hutch because several things have to happen before their big girl coop is complete.  Mostly the building of the coop, but also the removal of the tree Marco started to cut down last year, and the completion of the fence (I know, I haven't mentioned that yet, but it's coming, I promise!).  The seem content enough right now though and are really enjoying the sunshine. I am really enjoying them not being in the guest room so everyone wins.

Now to answer some common questions while I jump into more pictures of my girls.

Do you have a rooster?  Nope- nothing but ladies.

What kind of chickens are they?  Plymouth Rocks or Barred Rocks.  They'll be big and fat with black and white spots and red combs (the things on top of their heads).

Going through their "ugly duckling" phase when they lost their down feathers and started growing real ones.

So, about their eggs...? Their breed lays an average of 250 brown/pink eggs per year, times 4 chickens that's looking at about 1,000 eggs a year once they start laying.

Are they laying eggs yet?  Nope- most hens need to be about 6 months old before they lay eggs, so we've still got about 4 more months.

What are you going to do with all of those eggs??  Use them to bribe the neighbors not to complain (there is nothing in the codes or covenants that prevents chickens, but bribery never hurt anyone either) and sell what we can't use.  

Do they smell??  Yes, right now they smell like grass clippings.  When they move into their big girl coop they will smell like cedar and by the time the leaves start to fall off the trees, they will smell like leaves.  Oh, you meant do they smell bad!  No- we are committed to keeping our coop and our girls clean so that they are healthy and don't smell.  Plus, we have a few neighbors who already want some of their compost, so I don't think we'll have a problem getting rid of any excess.

There are few things at cute as a sleepy chicken pile.

Alright, other than eggs, why chickens??  So.Many.Reasons.  They are great, low maintenance pets.  Although ours still face a chance to end up as soup (that is yet to be determined),  they really are fun to handle and watch.  They eat ticks, mice, snakes, snails and grubs.  I have no love for any of those things, so the chickens can have at them.  They compost like crazy.  Whatever bedding we put down for them (grass clippings, leaves, wood shavings, a mixture of all three) they will dig and break down while adding their own fertilizer.  Add in their food scraps (plenty of veg and their own chicken feed) that get composted along the way and BAM garden gold that can be mixed into the garden up to 30 days before we plant.  Or composted and mixed in all season long.  Plus they are natural tillers, weed killers and soil amenders.  AND they are way cheaper than the alternatives- tick control or snake poison, bagged fertilizer, renting a tiller for the garden, weed killer, mouse traps, buying a second compost bin, and lawn service to de-leaf our yard... all for about $75 a year in chicken feed.  We were sold.

Can we come visit them??  Of course!  They love visitors!  They get a little excited when I pull them out of the hutch, but they love to be petted and picked up.  The neighborhood kids have fully tested the "Will it peck me?" question and the answer is "maybe, but it doesn't hurt."  Plus, I am taking them to campus on Wednesday as part of Go Green week, so if you are around the Union between 12 and 2, you should come find us.  I'll be the one with the wagon full of chickens...