Flogged by the Rooster

I Guess our rooster doesn't like tattoos!

Charlie flogged Alan when he was leaving the hen house, got him completely by surprise and this is the result. Thankfully it was not as bad as it could have been. We know better than to wear shorts in the chicken house, for some strange reason that is the only time our rooster will try to attack and he always waits until you have your back turned.....Bad Rooster!

Winter is NOT for butchering!

What do we do when it is 25 degrees outside with 14 mph winds?

We butchered, not that we really wanted to but, we had to, we butchered 6 chickens and 2 rabbits today for a total of 47 lbs 10 oz. of meat,
I would rather accomplish this in milder weather but we were low on meat in the freezer and these animals were way past the time for butchering.
It is very expensive to feed so many animals in the winter, not to mention the hardship that cold weather brings to both man and beast.
We had intended to have this done way back in November and not have to worry about it at this time of year but, a series of events had taken our time away from those chores. so now we are left to do our butchering in the middle of winter, we have 19 more chickens and 6 more rabbits to do before we are done.... not a chore I look forward to doing in warm or cold weather, but enjoy the benefits once it is all done!

Taking care of the Animals on a winter day

Robin and Willow

This morning is cold, its the kind of cold that chills you to the bone as soon as you walk outside. I greeted the Horses who are always glad to see us come down because they know they are going to get their sweet grain, Badger will whinny in excitement and then bite at her gate until she gets her grain, Willow whinnies and then gets aggravated with Badger biting at her gate. While the horses eat their grain, we feed and water the Chickens, Turkeys and our flock of Meat chickens and open the door to the coop to let everyone outside. The Rabbits are next, we fill their feeders and collect the water bottles to take up to the house to thaw by the wood stove, we will take the water bottles back down to them after they thaw out later. We put the Halters on the Horses and let them out, Willow has to go first, then Badger. They get fresh hay thrown to them because there's no good grazing right now, everything is frozen.

We of course spend a little time loving the horses before we return to the warmth of the house.

In the evening we return to the barn to feed and water again, Brush the horses ( I have learned to do this in the evening because they usually like to roll during the day) We clean out their hooves and muck their stalls, then they go in the stalls and impatiently wait for us to bring them more grain and throw hay into the hay racks. We collect the eggs from the chickens and close them in the coop for the night. When it is really cold out the chickens and Turkeys get some scratch grains before roosting to help keep them warmer through the night. We give the rabbits each a little hay and say good night to all the animals.

Sometimes going to the barn feels like a drudgery to get myself motivated this time of the year ( I am not a cold weather type of girl)but, Once I get down there, I actually enjoy it, I love being with the animals, petting and holding the rabbits or hugging the horses and watching the antics of the chickens. The animals provide me with a sense of calm and help me forget the stresses of the day and they always do something that will amuse me and make me laugh, Its then that I forget, for a little while that its cold out side!

Thief in the hen house!

When I went into the chicken coop tonight to collect eggs and secure the chickens....I found a thief!

All curled up in one of the nest boxes, caught red handed!

He had several big bulges in his belly and yolk dripping from his mouth!

I called Alan down to the barn to apprehend the felon

court was held, the jury... Robin and Myself voted for execution but the high court... Alan, ruled against us and decided that this egg bandit should be banished from the land and so Alan took the snake in custody... inside of a cooler, to a land far, far away... well, actually about five miles down the road and released him.

I hope that is the last we see of him!

No chickens were harmed, just robbed or their eggs!!!

Feathered Friends

Meet some of our feathered friends,

Little Red Hen

Cant a girl get some privacy?

Fresh eggs in the nest box

Big Boy
Look at me, aren't I handsome!

Here, this is my best side!

Day Old Baby Chicks

I wanted to share some pictures of our new baby chicks, we have 11 little fluffy chicks right now and we are waiting to see if anymore will hatch later today and tonight. there are 10 eggs unhatched right now.

I really lost count somehow, I thought we only had 18 eggs in the incubator but it turns out we had 21!

Here is one of the chicks in my daughters hand

They are very clumsy and will run right over top anyone in their way!

They take frequent little naps all day

and they love to cuddle with each other!

This has been such a wonderful experience, we have raised chicks in the past that we bought from a hatchery but, this is the first time we hatched our own!

Ryan loved every bit of it and was amazed to actually see the hatching!

Newly hatched chicks

Our little chicks are starting to hatch out!

In this picture you can see a little beak poking through the egg!
And here is the little one just out of its egg!


This is our first baby hatched and all dry, under the heat lamp of the brooder!

It takes a long time for these little ones to hatch from the egg, hours into the hatch process we are still patiently waiting for the others to hatch!

Candling the eggs

We candled the eggs in the incubator last night,

The tools you need to candle an egg are very simple,

We used an empty coffee can that we cut a quarter size whole into the bottom,

Then we placed a flashlight under the opening that we cut into the can, and placed the egg over the opening. we kept all the lights out in the room so we could have a better view.


We were looking to see if the light would pass through the egg, you should see an air pocket at one end of the egg and at the other end there should be just a dark area that the light could not pass through.

If the light passed through the entire egg, it means that egg was not fertile and we disposed of it.

We candled all 20 eggs and only had 1 bad egg so far.
We will candle one more time before the hatch, from what I have been reading we should at that time be able to see the actual chick!
We should have little baby chicks hatching around March 29Th!
I'm so excited!

It makes me feel like an expecting Mom!

Incubating Chicken Eggs

This is our first attempt to incubate eggs

We set 20 chicken eggs in the incubator on March 9, 2008

The temperature and water levels are checked three times a day along with watching that the egg turner is properly working.
it takes 21 days to hatch the eggs and they will get candled at 8 days and again at 14 days to make sure that the eggs are indeed fertile and that life is starting to form!
Our first day of candling will be Monday, I will try to take pictures of our process as we go!

Winter Barn Chores

It has been very cold here the last several weeks, we had an ice storm last weekend and today it is snowing. The night time temperatures have been in the low 20s, All these cold temps make my barn chores a little.... well I will be honest here...A Lot more challenging!

I have now started taking warm mash down to the barn in the mornings for the Chickens, Turkeys and Rabbits.

The chickens and the Turkeys got a mixture of oat meal and layer mash, mixed with hot water that I added some skim milk powder and a small amount of molasses with it for a little more nutrition and just a touch of a sweet treat, boy o boy did the chickens like that! they were all scampering, pushing and pecking their way to the bowl for some!
The Turkeys.... well, I think they have convinced themselves that I must be trying to poison them with any new food, they avoided it like it was something really bad and one of the Toms kept grunting and running at the bowl like he was trying to scare it away! I will give them a few days with it and they should start getting the idea of what it is and that I really am not trying to poison them!

The rabbits got a little warm oatmeal with the skim milk and molasses.

The warm mash gives them something to eat and drink while I defrost the waterers and refill them for the day.

I am going to make a treat for the rabbits today and thought I would share the recipe, I would love to take a picture but my camera has been temporarily misplaced.

Here is the Home Made Rabbit treat recipe,

like any other treats I would feed this in moderation!

1 small carrot, pureed
1/2 banana, mashed until really creamy
1 tbsp honey
1/4 cup rabbit pellets, ground finely in a coffee grinder
1/4 cup ground oats, ground finely in a coffee grinder
Mix pureed carrot, banana and honey in a medium bowl. Add pellet powder and ground oats. Mix until blended. Knead in your hands for 1-2 minutes. Roll out the "dough" in 1/8- to 1/4-inch thick layers between sheets of plastic wrap. Cut into small cookies (about 3/4 inch across). Place cut shapes onto a parchment paper covered cookie sheet. Bake at 325 degrees for about 30 minutes (check to make sure they are not browning too much). Turn off the heat and let the cookies sit in the warm oven for an hour or so.

Numb Hands and Barn Chores

I am a warm weather kind of gal and this morning has proved that to me, I wake up at 5 am and get that all important first cup of coffee in me, Look at the weather on the computer while I try to wake up, then today I donned two pair of socks, long johns and jeans, Tee shirt, long john top and sweat shirt, put on my "Turkey Poop" Shoes and finally my coat, grabbed my gloves and out the door to the barn! There is frost all over the ground that glistened so pretty as the sun rose in the sky. I tread down the hill to the barn with my egg basket in hand and think...This isn't so bad!
That is until I get to the barn, start watering the animals and the darn hose is now leaking....out of the nozzle and over my hands, but I continued on even though after a short...and I mean short while later, I could no longer feel my hands! Have you ever tried to open the water bottle of a rabbit cage with numb fingers? Well let me tell you it isn't easy... but the chores must be done, I got the rabbits watered, fed and then saw Bubbers, our cat!!! He wanted fed, I needed warm hands with feelings and so, I grabbed him and tried to hold on to him for some much needed warmth!
Well...All I got was this look of disgust from him as he jumped out of my arms then proceeded to his feed bowl and demanded food! Lucky for him, I have a soft heart and obliged him.
Next it was the turkeys turn, I went in the coop with frozen, numb hands and grabbed the feeder...its metal! Good thing I already couldn't feel my hands grabbed the feeder and filled it, then had to empty the water can and fill it.... fingers burning from being so cold. After all that, I spread more straw about the Turkey coop and then had to make way to the chickens (ugg... I am so cold) and guess what?......
Same thing as the turkeys, the chickens needed feed and fresh water, well eggs have to be gathered and that is not easy to do with fingers you thought just fell off because you can not feel them! The only good thing was that while reaching under Queenie, I didn't feel much when she pecked me!!!
With the Morning barn chores done, I make my way to the house and grab my coffee, not to drink at this moment, but to warm up my hands!
Time to build a fire in the wood stove I think!!!!
The bad thing about this morning.....Its only October! I am not looking forward to winter, I think I need to ask Santa for some better gloves and warmer country clothing!

Hanging around on a rainy day

This is Bebub, Our cat who stayed in the barn all day because of the rain, He sits here waiting on his turn to be fed!

This is Queenie sitting on her nest, I don't reach under her to gather eggs, she pecks when you stick your hand in and if you even get near her nest, she growls at you, like shes warning you to go away!


This is Charlie our Silver laced wyandotte, he is our only remaining rooster since we had a predator attack last week, Charlie and the girls were upset this morning because I would not let them out of the coop today!

Very Sad Day continued

Well with the help of my friends at Homestead.org, we have come to the conclusion, the animal that killed my chickens is probably a raccoon. The really sad news is that if it was a raccoon, they will keep coming back for more so we have decided to put out a trap.
I kept the chickens in the coop secured with cinder blocks against the door for awhile to hopefully keep them safe.
We are making more frequent trips to the barn to check on everything and today I have only gathered 3 eggs.... The poor things have been so traumatized by this invasion they just are not laying. I hope we can catch this intruder so the chickens can go back outside and enjoy the life they are used to having, sunning themselves, taking dirt baths and getting plenty of fresh air and exercise.
What a hard lesson to learn.

Very Sad Day

Today is a sad Day, Last night something got into the chicken coop and killed 9 of our chickens, what ever they were, they killed Rascal, Fancy and Big Red plus 6 hens.

Rascal and Big Red will be sorely missed as Rascal was our favorite rooster and Big Red was such a ham for the camera. I will miss Fancy and his beautiful feathers and I will greatly miss the other 6 hens when I go down to the barn and they come running up to me to see what treat I had for them that day.

This is the hard part of farm life. I will miss them all, they were such wonderful pets!

Fancy

Fancy is our one and only Buff Cochin Bantam, He arrived as a freebie with our meat chickens and had grew up with them until they were no longer here, Fancy was to young to introduce to our existing flock of Chickens so He went to live with the young Turkeys for awhile. To make a long story short Fancy now thinks he is a Turkey and prefers to roost in the coop with the other Turkeys at night!

He is a very gentle Chicken with feathers all the way to his feet, he is very soft when you pet him, I would like to get some more Cochin's for his companionship and our viewing pleasure!

Gathering Eggs!

Collecting eggs is very fun! I enjoy it like a game almost! Its fun to go into the coop and look in the nesting box's to find the days bounty from a hens hard work!
I collect about 22 eggs a day! the ladies work hard everyday to keep us supplied, I have read that when a hen lays an egg it is compared to a human giving birth! and these girls go through that every day!!
after collecting the eggs, I take them to the house where they get washed and carefully inspected. any cracked or pecked eggs are fixed and fed to Hunter our dog, the good eggs get packed away in egg cartons and sold or given away to family and special friends.
We have had a very abundant supply from our wonderful girls and we are very grateful for each and everyone of them!

Raising Chickens

I enjoy having chickens and watching their antics!
I never thought about raising these kinds of animals before we moved to PA but, I really enjoy it, more than I thought I would. We bought our first flock in February from McMurray Hatchery and I couldn't wait until the day they arrived! They actually came to us through the post office! it was very amusing to me, to think that I would have 26 chickens mailed to me! So the morning they arrived, the post office called to let us know our chickens were waiting on us and immediately I was out the door and on my way to become the Mom to 26 cute little baby chicks!
They arrived in a box, all huddled together nice and warm and just as cute as could be, we brought them home and put them in a brooder box with a heat lamp and sugar water, we took each one out and dipped their beaks into the water so they could find it and gently sat them down by the water, they started drinking right away and then we added some special mash that we purchased from the hatchery for them to eat. They looked so cute and we watched them like hawks! Our 26 little chicks were instantly entertainment for the whole family. We kept the brooder box in the basement until they were ready to enter the coop. I remember the first time I heard our first rooster crow! It was like a gift to me I was so excited to go and see that it was Charlie one of our Silverlaced Wyandottes!
That was like music to my ears and I had to call my Mom for her to hear it!
Then the day I walked into the coop to let the chickens out and found My first egg was another gift that my wonderful new friends had given me, I found a total of 4 eggs that day!
Now we get about 22 to 24 eggs a day! We feed, water and take care of our chickens and they repay our efforts with fantastic, great tasting eggs every day now!
I sell the fresh eggs for $1.50 a dozen so they even pay for their own feed!
I Love having my Chicken friends!