Two New Additions

We had two new additions to close out the weekend:

a few more chicks- you just can’t ever have too many chicks
a vegetable garden

Now, I have come to a good place around how many chickens is too many chickens. According to my husband that special number is 25, which I will agree is a good number to land on. Before this weekend I was actually good with the number of chickens I had in the barn so new addition was my husband’s idea. One of the favorites is Lady Bird. She is the most friendly bird and Dustin has been recently playing with the idea of letting Lady Bird have some chicks. This weekend was one of those times that the topic came up again. I explained to him that for Lady Bird to have chicks means I have to get some more chicks. The only roosters I have are Bob and Ringo. If Ringo is the father we won’t have bantam sizes anymore and if Bob is the father… well… I am a little concerned what those chicks will look like.

Dustin and I began to search out craigslist and ran across a farmer who loves his chickens as much as I do. I met up with his wife, who is not the chicken person in the family and came home with 5 new additions.

I have to admit they are very cute.

The other new addition was the vegetable garden. This is Dustin’s baby similar to the chickens being my hobby. Dustin had mentioned wanting a garden several weeks back and began tilling the ground. I was not prepared how big he wanted to go. In the process of mentioning how big this garden was going to be, he reminded me that he doesn’t mess with my chickens- don’t mess with his garden. So, gardening here we go… We spent the weekend finishing tilling, testing the ground and putting place markers for each item. Dustin joked that the garden looked like a graveyard for the chickens. I was not impressed.

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We were blessed with a picturesque sky to capture what a great weekend it was.

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I will also give a quick update on the previous little chicks. They are now 7 and 10 weeks old and full of energy. They enjoy their freedom in the barn. One of the interesting discoveries is I thought I had picked up 2 black marans but instead have discovered they are silver laced wyandottes. Was hoping for a darker egg layer but am relieved they are sexed, unlike the marans. I will have 7 more egg layers hopefully by July.

Locally Laid- a small gift.

My colleagues hear all of my daily antics about the farm. I was completely suprised with a small gift on my desk last week. He mentioned he was driving home and was listening to NPR and heard the author of Locally Laid talking about her journey of becoming a chicken farmer. He said it was a sign and ordered the book for me.

I have to admit I enjoyed the book and many moments I caught myself chuckling to myself. One of the stories she described was the first night with the mqsses of adolescent chickens. It was getting dark and the chickens did not yet know what to do at dark. Instead, the birds just tilted their head and stared at her out in the pasture. I had a very similar experience of discovering that my first batch of chicks didn’t know how to come back to the barn at dark nor did they know how to roost. My husband would make fun of me picking up each of the chickens and placing them on the roost at night.

The book was a delightful read that captures some of my own journey.

All time high production

Today was a Saturday so we were able to be around the barn and a little more today. The girls were making quite the noise this morning and we were excited to see who was actually laying eggs. We had an all-time high of 7x today. If you are not familiar with the egg song it is quite a noise.

One of the big exciting news around egg laying is that Lahaina laid her first egg. She is my silkie bantam and is almost 30 weeks old. I was prepared she was going to take her time.

Here is a picture of lahaina’s first egg which is much skinnier then all the rest but still about the size of a bantam egg.

Since it was such a nice day out I also finally decided that Lahaina and Bob needed a bath. A few weeks back they were getting pretty dirty and since Bob is white all the dirt shows up pretty good. I was impressed it almost looked like both the chickens enjoyed the warm bath on this sunny warm day.

Hay Auction and Egg Update

Today was going to be a pretty busy day since both of the kids had birthday parties to head to early afternoon. As we were enjoying the morning, the doorbell rang and it was one of our neighbors down the street. He introduced himself and informed us that there was a hay auction that he thought we should check out. He had heard from our next door neighbor we were looking for some hay. The auction was in Rockford so we rushed out to join the fun. Our neighbor was there to purchase some hay for his flock of sheep. The hay was divided into lots of different kinds and quality. We were excited to score a lot of 50 bales at $2/ piece.

One of the entertaining thoughts I had while we were out there is that I felt a little piece of being a newcomer but we had a big diesel truck so the locals kind of had a look on there face that we must be alright. Everyone had diesel trucks with large flatbed trailers. The funny thought was when Dustin drives the kids to school and how out of place his truck looks in the middle of the city.

We headed home and finally added some hay to the hay loft.

Egg Update

By request, we created our first video detailing how we weigh the eggs and identifying who is laying at this time. Hope you enjoy it!

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Here are some photo updates of the scale we use to weigh the eggs. The top picture is from Lahaina- we are almost positive. The middle image is from Lady Bird and the bottom picture is from the Black Australorp Hen.

The image on the right is the new discovering we found today when I opened up the side barn doors. Two of my new laying hens apparently have found a different location to lay instead of a laying box. So, early this morning I was cleaning out that corner to detract from laying there again. What I discovered is they found a different spot tonight. This is motivating me to clean all extra supplies and materials out of the barn.

Here is another shot of comparing the sizes of the eggs. Jumbo to Peewee.

The Neighborly Way

One of the unexpected blessing through this farming experience is the wonderful friends and neighbors that have come to my support to share their own wisdom.

We are personally excited to now have 4 hens laying eggs. But tonight the neighbors gave us a basket of goodies.

The basket included goat milk, homemade caramel, goat cheese and homemade elderberry yogurt. 👍

Looking to the goat world, I am 3 weeks away until the triplets will be home. I have been getting a crash course on goat food.

Little Chickie Update

The little chicks are now 4 1/2 & 8 weeks old. They double in size since we were gone for the week. The chicks are big enough that I moved them out of the brooder and we built them a roosting spot.

4 Rooster Silkies- 5/2016

Spring Break

We enjoyed a week away from the cold Minnesota and headed to Las Vegas. A huge thanks to Mike, Carrie, Makena & Ava to keep an eye on the farm. Now you are probably figuring that Las Vegas Strip- here we come, but, actually we spent one evening on the strip and that was enough for me. Instead, we headed out hiking for most of the week.

Our first trip was tackling the Trail Canyon on Mount Charleston.

The hike is 2 miles each way climbing 1,500 feet starting around 7,700 ft. elevation and ending at 9,300 ft. elevation. Last time I hiked this I experienced horrible elevation sickness so was much more prepared this time- water, electrolytes, snacks, and taking it slow.

DAY 2:

Now that we got the big mountain out of the way we headed out on a day trip to Death Valley. We had heard the super blooms were happening all of March and were hoping it would still be some left.

We took a trip to Death Valley a couple of years ago but had skipped the ghost towns. We decided to make it a stop this year. Here are some of the shots from Ryolite just outside of the park borders.

Once we got into the park we were able to check out some of the blooms and did 2 hikes- one across the sand dunes and the second one to the end of the salt fields.

The one little discovering we located along the road to Death Valley is a gas station that looked like this:

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We apparently stumbled across the area 51 center that has a 24 hour brothel. It is open for tours in case anyone is interested. I sent Dustin in first to make sure it was kid appropriate. The gas station looks like every other gas station and the brothel is the pink building behind the girls sign.

We did a few additional hikes but for the most part enjoyed time at the pool and the semi- nice weather for the remainder of the trip.

Chicken TV

We have come to enjoy the weekend mornings watching the antics of the chickens. We have coined this “chicken tv”. This consists of watching the chickens and everyone in the family taking turns providing commentary.

This morning we looked out the window and noticed all the chickens were facing the barn wall. This completly reminded me of a police line up from the movies.

” ok, everyone. . . Face the wall. . .put your hands on the wall”.

Sadie’s observation was discovering two birds fighting over a chicken feather in the trees.

Which turned into …

Which later turned into …

Taking a break which turned into …

Sadie making the observation that they were riding each other just like Ringo does with the hens. She is learning all about the birds and bees. Literally. 😄

We spent the rest of the weekend heading up to Zimmerman to see the goat triplets. We were struck by how small they were in person. We learned that they were a little over 2 lbs. When they were born.

This is the look of a 9 year old annoyed his mother made him stop and take a picture. Teen years here we come.

This must of been a lucky weekend because the neighbors also had a new doe born. Our neighbor’s raise nubian goats.

We had snow this weekend so the new baby was dressed up for the occassion.

To end the weekend we enjoyed the sunset.

Chloe’s Triplets

We are excited to meet the triplets!

Cabochon Farm

Chloe delivered an adorable set of triplets (two doelings and a buckling) around 2:00 in the afternoon on March 8th. The kids all got daddy’s color, Chamiose, but they are all look very different. It took several tries to get good photos of these little cuties, but I think it was worth the wait…

Doeling #1

Doeling #2

Buckling

Chloe and her girls

These lucky siblings all get to stay together when they move to their new home. They have a bright future with a young 4H family interested in producing their own milk.

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MIA

Came home with Eli tonight and the neighbor came over to ask if we were missing a chicken. I started thinking in my head who it might be. She had mentioned one of the black ones. I checked the barn and sure enough one of them was missing. I can never tell who is Jackie and who is Marilyn unless they right next to each other.

Apparently free range means wander to the neighbor’s coop. My guess is she wandered out, probably following Martha, and got lost. She started following whatever chicken she could find.

The runaway and me heading home.