The Hens Are As Excited About Spring As I Am

The chickens are laying, full speed ahead:

Right now I have 2 1/2 dozen eggs, and I have been sharing them with a friend and making scrambled and boiled eggs and baking cakes and pancakes galore. I get 4 eggs on most days.  That's an egg per chicken almost every day.  That is very good. I recommend this breed to anyone who asks.

The chickens made it though the winter just fine. The worst part of it was that the chicken coup was wet and messy rather than dry and sandy, and the chickens couldn't dust bathe not matter how clean I kept the coup.  The heated waterer worked well.  They did seem to get a bit stir crazy when I didn't let them out for a while.  They seemed to like to get out and explore even when it was snowy.

Now that things are greening up they love to go out to their daytime tractor that gets moved around the grass in the front yard.  They thatch and mow the grass pretty efficiently, and don't damage the lawn unless you leave them in one place too long. I have learned the hard way they can not be trusted to roam around free in the yard when there are seeds or seedling to dig up or tasty plants to eat. I love them, but they do know how to get into trouble if you let them.

I also have a neighbor's cat that is a little too interested in the chickens.  I don't know if he would really hurt them, but I don't completely trust him alone with them. His name is Billy, and he is a lover, but I've heard he loves to eat the little birds. He might look at my chickens and think, "those sure are the fattest, tastiest house sparrows I have ever seen.  Now to sneak up behind one while it has wandered off alone."

I Said It Was a Jungle Before? What Is It Now?

Okay, I admit it.  I am horrible about starting projects like this blog and not finishing them. I left off blogging about my jungle of a garden last year in June.  Obviously, there was a lot more story to tell.  I just didn't get around to telling it.  This post was left in draft stage with just the pictures imported in August. They were taken August 12th. You can see that the jungle just got more amazingly huge as the months went on.  August and September last year were the hottest driest weeks I've ever had to nurse a garden through.  Every day was over 85, with over half the days in the upper 90's. The more sensitive plants were not happy about it.  The runner and pole beans, pretty much shut down. No matter how much I kept them watered, they wouldn't flower of set any beans. Many leaves on the afternoon sunny side even got fried in the hot sun. (see below)

You might notice in the above picture the squash vines have wilted.  This is mostly due to the squash bug feeding, but I am sure the heat didn't help.

The beans that I planted around the chicken coup did help the chickens to stay cool, and some of them actually made beans in the shade of the coup.

All of the pumpkin plants died.  I had the most overwhelming infestation of squash bugs you can imagine.  I am also wondering if they carry a disease. I read a journal article about yellow vine wilt, a plant disease that is carried by squash bugs, and is fatal to pumpkin plants. It has not been documented in our state.  I read it too late to be able to send them a sample of my vines. I don't think I will plant pumpkins this year. They take a lot of room and work, so if they are going to die like that, it really isn't worth it. The butternut squash and the unknown hybrid F2 revert shown below didn't succumb to the disease, and did make a few smallish fruit, despite the squash bugs.

The mammoth sunflowers did reach 12 feet.  Some of them fell over.  I think that is because I plated them underneath the roof overhang and they had to lean out to get the sun. Some of them just got too heavy on the top to be able to hold that slanted orientation. Despite the constant occupation of the flowers by longhorn bees, about half of the sunflower seeds were empty when it came time to shell and eat them.  That was kind of disappointing.  The seeds that weren't empty were large and delicious.

The sunflowers did shade Molly's windows pretty well, but I think this year I will plant the runner and pole beans here on strings connected to the eaves.  It seams like a good cool shadier place for them during the hottest days and they should grow thicker and provide better shade.

The strawberries didn't produce much in their first year, but next year they will make loads, hopefully.

You can just scroll down through the rest of the pictures....

Mostly Peppers

Rosa Blanc Eggplant - I am not a big fan.

Hansel Eggplant - Awesome!

Gourds and cucumber

We did end up getting several dried gourds.  They have just finished curing and Molly is looking forward to crafting some bird houses, water bottles and pots out of them.

We did end up getting quite a few cucumbers despite the fact that I crowded and shaded them pretty bad.

The nasturtiums and marigolds really got big, too big.

I planted too many tomatoes, but it didn't matter because they were a huge disappointment:

It was very hard to keep them consistently moist like they like, so many of them got end rot.

The rest of them were fed upon by stink bugs like this one above

and this one.

Pretty soon the tomatoes looked like this. Gross! You can't see the inside of the tomato, but each of those marks on the outside means there is a white pea-sized tough mass on the inside.  The taste is bitter and the skin is tough. Just not yummy at all.

I did get enough good tomatoes to can 14 quarts and 7 pints, but with the number of plants I planted it should have been much more.  I will only plant a few tomatoes this year and I will mulch them heavily.  I have also installed soaker house systems to make the watering more convenient and therefore more frequent and regular. It is bad to grow tomatoes, peppers or potatoes in the same place you did the year before.  That doesn't leave me many options for this year.  I will have to do a better job planning for rotations this year.

RIP poor little comise pear tree.  For some reason, it died over the winter this winter.  It gave me three pears last year and some grafting experience. I will not be replacing it this year.

The rhubarb did recover after the ants and earwigs were removed, and I look forward to being able to harvest it this year when the strawberries are ripe for strawberry rhubarb squares and Rhubarb pie. Yum.

Here is a picture of the last double yolker I got from my girls. They quit laying in November for about four weeks while they molted.  I got a bit worried when it was daytime highs of 18 degrees Fahrenheit and they were molting with some bald spots, so I knitted them some sweaters.  What a comedy that was.  They hated them and promptly got out of them, or mostly out of them after I had to struggle to get them on.  I settled for rubbing coconut oil on their combs, feet and exposed skin regularly.  They started laying slowly in December and then were up to full speed, about one egg per chicken per day, by the middle of February.

Chickens Nine Weeks Old

It has been a while since I have posted about the chickens.  They are still very friendly and are all doing well. Lilith has chipped her beak.  I think she must have been pecking at something through the wires of the cage.

It makes her look kind of silly.  Like she is doing the Elvis lip thing.

Here's Ginger.

Brie looks kinda mad, but she really is very sweet.

I didn't get a good picture of fluffy.  They are now nine weeks old.  They live outside now full time.  They enjoy eating grass and watermelon, and try new things every couple days.  Everyone keeps asking me, "how long before they start laying eggs?" It will be a while, August probably. Until then they will keep giving me lots of good chicken manure for the compost pile and keeping me company in the garden.

Chickens: 7 weeks old and full of sass.

Wow! The chickens are growing.  They are still just as friendly as they ever were, but they sure are sure of themselves.  When I first put them outside in their coup during the day, the neighborhood cats scared the crap out of them.  Now they have figured out the cats can't get in, so they taunt them.  It is ridiculous.  I will try to get a video of it one of these days. One of the neighbors likes to come over and feed them grass from her hand.  They tear into it with gusto, only occasionally missing and pecking her hand.  I feed them from my hands every day so they learn to come when I call them.  I give them grass, weeds, or just their crumbles.

Here are Fluffy (who is the least fluffy of them all now, by the way) and Ginger.  They are sitting on their outside perch.  This is where they have been sleeping at night.  I have been trying to get them to go in the little coup house at night.  They like to run in there when they get scared, but it is very hot in there when it is 90 degrees outside, so they prefer the outdoor roost.

This is Brie and Lilith.  They are the most friendly and curious.  In this picture they have run over to see what treats I might have for them.

Look at those girls.  They are running over because I just opened to the door to the run.  Shortly after this they pecked the camera to see if it tasted good. I am loving that they are outdoors all day and night now.   They were getting too messy and smelly for keeping in the house.  All of our neighbors love them.  One neighbor said she is thinking of getting some herself.  My evil plan is working.

Chicken Update: Two weeks old

Okay, remember last week I posted pictures of each chick showing the progress of their feather growth and the color patterns on their feet? I thought I would do that again today to give you an update.  The best laid plans of mice and men (or should I say chicks and women)..... Well, anyways, I did get this cute video:

This is Lilith.  Her tail is getting huge and she is getting very forward and friendly.  She sees my arm and thinks, "there is my favorite perch again." 

We have named them all now.  Lilith and Fluffy you know. The one formerly known as poopy butt is called Brie, and the light colored reddish brown one is named Ginger.  Ginger is acting a little under the weather this week.  I have tried not to bother her too much and let her rest.  She seems better today, I hope she pulls through.  I haven't noticed any specific symptoms besides that she seems a little bit sluggish and tired compared to the others.  I have also caught her holding her wings weirdly, letting them hang a bit.  She isn't getting worse, so I will hope for the best.  I know chicks can come from the hatchery with all kinds of awful diseases.  Now that she has a name we are kind of attached to her.

Brie is almost as friendly as Lilith and will also come when called:

This is not the first video I made of Brie, I have to admit.  In the first on she ran right over and jumped in my hand.  Then I bumped the side wall of the photo set and the whole thing came crashing down.  No chicks were harmed in the making of that film, but she was pretty scared.  It took me a few minutes to get her to do it again. Poor Brie.  She really is a sweetie.

Fluffy is not as tame, but she will also sit on my hand and balance.  She still has no tail.  She also has developed a little balding spot on the back of her neck.  Don't worry no one pecks her.  She is just making a very awkward transition to her, hopefully, beautiful feathers.

They are really starting to poop and eat more these last two days.  I will need to buy them a new larger bag of food pretty soon. I have cleaned out the brooder once and it is time to do it again. I had to put a hardware cloth lid on the brooder because they were starting to look up and judge the distance to jump /fly over it.  Lilith tried to jump to me once.  They can't jump or fly that far yet, but I figured that I shouldn't wait until I find chicken poop all over my attic craft room before I make the lid.

If I can get them to stand still for even a second I will try to post some good pictures of them soon.

Here's Lilith.  I had just hopped out of the shower, so my hair is wet and there is no makeup, sorry.  Heehee

I did get this one picture that isn't too bad.  This is Brie.  She is just starting to get a tail.  She is still the heaviest and the one with the thickest legs.

I hope you enjoyed the chicken videos.  I know I enjoyed making them.  Have a nice evening.

The Chicks are Now Eight Days Old

Here they are after I threw in some sunflower sprouts from the yard.  They didn't know what to think about them.  They half heartedly pecked at them, but didn't seem to eat any.

I put them in my light box that I use for photographing my crafts and took pictures of each one.  I can tell them apart most of the time now.  Two of them have tentative names.

This little girl's is quickly becoming my favorite.  I know I shouldn't have a favorite, but I can't help it.  She is very friendly and outgoing.  I call her Lilith.

She kept walking right up to the camera and checking it out.  It made it hard to get a good picture of her.

Here you can clearly see the white next to her eye that easily sets her apart from her sisters.

 I also use the feet coloring to tell them apart sometimes. 

 Lilith has the most developed tail and wing feathers, as well.

This little girl is much more redish/brown than her sisters.  Her feet are also lighter colored. I haven't named her yet.

You can barely see the yellow middle toes.  One looks like it doesn't have any yellow.

She has the second most developed tail of the four.  Look how much red/brown she has compared to Lilith.

The next one I have been calling poopy butt, but I don't want that to end up being her name.  I hope the poopy buttness is just a phase.  I read on Backyard Chickens that the poop sometimes sticks to their feathers back there and you can just pull of the poop on their butts and take the feathers out with it without causing them too much harm, so I did it.  She is not very happy with me right now.

She is darker black on the head than the other three and has no tail feathers showing yet.

Her body type is different.  Her legs are stalkier and her butt is fatter.  I think she is the heaviest of the four.

These are her feet.  She has very striking yellow middle toes, even more so than Lilith.

And last but not least, Fluffy.  I started calling her fluffy because while the other girls were getting their feathers, she was staying fat and fluffy like the day I got her.  She does have some wing feathers now, but she is a late bloomer.

She also squeaks the most when I pick her up.

She has quite a bit of brown fluff and her butt fluff is whiter than the rest.

You can see that her feet are quite light, and she has one middle toe where the yellow extends much farther than the other.

It is hard to get a good picture of them in the brooder because of the red light, but here they all are after I had taken each of their pictures and put them back. Lilith has her eye on me.  She usually does.