Sunday, October 18, 2015

Looking Back at Past Chicken Experiences

I was just thinking about when we started on this chicken raising adventure.  The first year, we lost three of the seven little chicks.  The chicks were purchased as "just hatched" from a well known farming store closer in to Portland. In talking with the store owner later in the year, I learned that others had a similar die-off experience. That store no longer sells Russian Oroff chicks.  That year was an unusually hot spring, that I feel contributed to the issue. But there were other things that I we have learned. For example, we initially placed the chicks into an aquarium and the heat from the lamp radiates off the glass, making the area that much toastier. We would have done better to use the little brooder heating shelf instead of the heat lamp in that environment. After the first year, we lost one of the hens. We think it was kidney failure. 

In our second year, we invested in one of the little brooder heaters. We purchased 10 Russian Orloff chicks from a different farm store. in anticipation of losing some, again. But this time, we did not lose a single chick. Additionally, we started them with a fine ground chick feed (non-medicated) and a little pro-biotic in their water. Also, the first week, we did not use any shavings. Instead, we used towels for flooring. We did switch to shavings a week later. After two weeks, we stopped grinding the feed and no longer added the pro-biotic. We ended up selling some of the hens because we just had way too many.  We kept seven, thinking that a family member was going to take three off our hands, but life circumstances changed and we kept all seven.  We got one of the hens back because she was a he. He is moved to a new location. We live very close to the city and we didn't want to cause any rooster ordinance issues (but we don't live in the city.)

The third year, we picked up five chicks. This time, we picked up Welsummer. We decided to use an old rabbit cage with sheets wrapped around it for a brooder. We used the brooder heater. We basically did the same as last year. We used towels for the flooring and ground their food, but we did not do the pro-biotics. Again, no dead chicks.  We gave away two chicks and kept three for ourselves. 

Looking back, losing those babies during the first few weeks of caring for them, was a really difficult experience. In fact, even when we lost the year-old hen, it was emotional. We knew that these girls were probably not as healthy from the start. We did not give up. We tried different techniques and approached the situations differently in hopes of giving the chicks a better, healthier start. 

One thing we know for certain now, is that, for the most part, these tiny little chicks are resilient, considering all that they go through to get to the farm store! Before buying the chicks, ask friends and neighbors about the store you plan to purchase the chicks from. Also, have a large enough brooder ready to go. Have a large enough coop and pen ready to go. Because let me tell you, these little chicks grow much faster than you can even imagine! Thanks for allowing me to share :)

Summer is done?

Carrot with male partsWe certainly have had a relatively mild start to fall this year. Last week, we had temps into the low 80s F. This week is starting off a bit cooler in the 60s. We had our first fall thunder storm Saturday morning. With the temps cooled down, I took this opportunity to do my garden activities. I needed to plant my garlic starts.  I'm also trying red onion from seed. I have never tried starting onions from seed before. We will see how this goes. I cleaned up my two raised beds. I have 22 garlic cloves in the ground and 18 onion seeds. I kept thinking that the rain would do its thing... while it has rained, it's barely been enough to dampen the surface. I actually had to water the garden today! I pulled the last of the carrots out too.  We had a couple of very large carrots, and as per usual, one "male anatomy" looking carrot. I always find this rather humorous. In a couple of weeks, I will need to throw steer manure on the gardens to get that ready for spring planting.  So we are off and running for the winter garden processes. (Sorry the photos are blurry.)

male anatomy carrot
All the older hens are still molting.  Even the hens that started molting the end of August are still working on the re-feathering thing. I'm guessing they may end up doing an eight week molt, this year. Most of the hens, with the exception of coop three, are almost done, though.  We are down to relying on the three new hens' eggs. We have used up all the light brown eggs that we had stored up.  It will be nice when the older cluck clucks get back to producing.

Oh, yah, we also have seeded with a ground cover mix to try to repair the hen/summer damage of the pasture areas.  With such a hot summer and hardly any rains, some of the areas that the chickens were pasturing has become really barren. We will need to reseed in the spring too, to catch the rest of the areas that are currently too hot with hen manure.

Friday, October 2, 2015

Triple Moulty Molt

This past week, the hens in Coop three have headed into the full on feather molt for the year. Coop one has been in partial molt since the end of August. There was one hen who has been pretty much laying an egg every other day, but I think she has given up. Coop two has had no eggs for about four weeks now. So, for now, we seem to be relying on the new girls.  We're getting about two eggs per day, so we should be fine with that. 

Darned Coyotes are hanging a little too close in our back yard. Neighbor told me the other day that he's noticed that we have a wide trail leading right up to our house from the highway. Also, he has noted that there are typically two or three coyotes pacing around the coops almost every morning now. That's not good.  I had commented about the crazy coyote we had a little over a month ago, wondering it it had rabies, but he suspects that it might actually be mange. We have an over population of coyotes in the area and that tends to lead to a lot of unhealthy stress in the groups, resulting in more disease. So, that's not good either!  Just another thing to have to keep an eye on. 

Well, anyways, hopefully, the hens will be done with their molt in a couple more weeks and we'll back in egg production soon.