An Evening Out with the Orloffs

First and foremost, I apologize for the fuzzy photos.  I really should have used my tripod! 

Yesterday was an eventful day! Normally, we keep all the hens/pullets penned up for safety reasons.  There are plenty of predators out here, even in the daytime, from Hawks to Coyotes, Feral Cats and Neighboring Dogs. Also there can be some traffic zipping past our house, on one side or the other. D and L wanted to investigate how well/close the chickens would stay in proximity to the house and their coop. Will they venture over onto the neighboring properties? Will they slip out into the field? Will they attract the predators? Will they proverbially, "cross the road?"

These are the soon to be dinner chickens. They have been the least productive peep that we have experienced to date. We should, at the very least, get 14 eggs per week from them, however, if we are lucky, we get 7 per week.  Typically we get 5 per week. That's food in their bellies without giving much back. Breaking it down, that's about $12 per month expended on all three of them in food (organic), grit, oyster shells, other supplies and coop cleaning efforts.  At the price I sell the eggs, I would only recoup approximately $6 per month.  That's not even breaking even! Soooo... something has got to give.

Of the other two coops, the hens are costing us about the same, $12 and $16 ($28 total), but, if we sold the eggs from the other two coops, we would  recoup about $40 per month.  But we don't sell all the eggs.  Of course, the real benefit to us is that we know we have healthy, happy chickens laying the best chicken eggs in the territory! :)  We personally, can't eat all of the eggs.  Essentially, we try to sell just enough to pay for the grain. So it's not like we are making a "killing" on selling the eggs. On the average, we sell about 2 to 3 dozen eggs per week and eat the rest for ourselves.  We are recouping about $9.00 per week, but the benefit ratio would be better without the three non-productive eggers. Then, of course, there's always the 6 week molting period where a chicken basically does not lay any eggs. We are heading into that period in a few more weeks.

So, that being explained, the question was raised, how safe would it be to let the hens roam the property, on their own during the day, letting them forage more freely outside the safety of the pens.  Our property is not well fenced.  There is a fence for the pasture where the horse moseys around, but even that is not something that slows down any other critter or predatory animal.

The "experimental" hens stayed pretty close to their coop.  They ventured, at most, about 75 feet from it. They did investigate the horse, by running between his legs while he was noshing on some green grass. But, for the most part, they stayed close to the opening of their pen, under the trees.  They did not venture into the field.  It was close to twilight when I let them out, so that might have been a factor. But they did stay outside longer, well after dark, after the other hens had already gone to roost. We will try letting them out again today, a few hours earlier in the day.

From Pullets to Hens

At about 18 weeks, I like to introduce the nesting boxes to the pullets.  The Welsummers are much louder brawkers than the Orloffs, so they were loudly expressing their excitement to the new addition inside their coop. Until now, I have had the nesting box blocked off, inside the temporary coop, to keep the pullets from thinking this is a sleeping area. The Welsummers are 19 weeks now, heading into 20 weeks on Monday. They are "of age" to start laying eggs. While, in reality it may take another few weeks, but we will need to start checking the box at least once a day.  Our Orloff pullets don't start laying eggs until at least 24 weeks.

I was struggling with ideas on ways to reduce the size of the box to cozy it up a little.  The box's inside dimensions are 11" by 11" (depth and height) by 16" (width). There is no lip to hold in the hay and hey, 16" wide is much to wide for a standard sized hen.  Even in our first coop, with 12" by 12" by 12", we will frequently find two hens in one box.  And yes, they will both be laying eggs.  Even though they have two boxes available!

Back to this coop and its oversized nesting box, I had a hardly used cat litter box that I had purchased for my kittens a few years back. It's too small for them as cats, and it hasn't been used for a very long time.  I bleached solutioned it first, then after drying it out, I raw vinegar solutioned it.  When I say raw, I mean home-made strong apple cider vinegar.  I think it will do the trick, but we will see. 

I placed hay in the litter box inside the nesting box. It will either work, or it won't.  If not, I'll look for other solutions. For example, I can buy pre-made nesting boxes at the farm store.  I'm just trying to save money since the hens won't be in this particular coop for the long haul.  The three hens that are only producing occasionally, will be in the freezer soon enough. That will free up one of our home-made coops with built-in nesting boxes that work much better. 

As for my gardening news, the garlic that I planted early last month is starting to sprout.  I was waiting (and waiting) and thinking, well, perhaps I screwed up.  So I planted Cilantro in the pot about two weeks ago.  When, all of a sudden, today, I see a little garlic sprouty shoot up. I've read that garlic must "winter" over in order to clove up.  So, I guess it makes sense that the garlic took this long to sprout. The first photo is the same as the second, but the second has a yellow hexagon on the right-hand side to draw your focus to the spout. LOL

Hot Summer Daze Pt-2

When I hung the basil outside to dry, the temperature maxed out at 96F in our area.  The basil was not done drying on that first day.  I hung it over our water heater for the night, then brought it back out the next morning for another day of drying (yesterday). The outside temperature hit 101F (for our area - other local temps were a lot hotter). The smaller leaves were dry by 7:30pm but some of the larger leaves were still limp.  I hung them over the water heater for the second night. The one row of larger leaves is back outside for the third day. While the rest of the leaves are pictured in a bowl, below.  You can see that they are ready to be crushed/crumbled.

large basil leaves still drying on third day

smaller basil leaves ready to be crushed

The hens laid five eggs yesterday in the extreme heat, which is totally unusual! But I'm not gonna complain about it.  I had to keep switching out frozen water bottles with the thawed ones next to their nesting boxes.  In each coop, the girls have a "favorite" box and the other tends to remain unused.  On a rare occasion, they will use the other box, in fact, a couple weeks ago, I found an egg right next to the thawed water bottle! Hahaha. Below are images of the "frozen" water bottles that we put in the boxes and in their pens. Plus, we change out their drinking water a couple of times per day on these super hot days. 

small frozen water bottle next to fav laying box

large bottle in pen already partially thawed

In early July, we did try to use some makeshift swamp coolers for them, but they were unsettled by the noise and the breeze, so we went back to the frozen bottles. They will lay near it and are more calm about its presence, so that's our technique.

Another first in my limited experience.  Sun Scalded Bell Peppers.  I've grown bell peppers for a few years (all totaled, past and present, about 10 years).  I have never encountered this in our neck of the woods of the PacNW region.  I lost a considerable amount of fruit before it was even fully ripe ;(

Hot Summer Daze

This summer has been especially hot for the PacNW. We have had more 90°+F days already this year than I can ever remember, and it is not even August yet.  Anyways, the chickens are surviving, but certainly not thriving.  Many of them have done a "mini-molt" and we are lucky if we get more than two eggs in a day from the ten layers on these hot days.  And Molting season is coming up soon, so I'm not sure that to think at this point. 

Here are the three new pullets.  Welsummers with their combs and waddles filling in and coloring up. They are definitely noisier than the Russian Orloffs! But their disposition is just as sweet.  They loved the young spinach that I pulled up for them.

The Basil is growing well.  I'm trying my own "solar drying" technique.  Not wanting to have any of it blow away because we almost always have some amount of wind out here, no matter how hot it gets, I put a thread (on a needle of course) through the leaves near the center vein of each leaf then tried to space them out so that there's some air flow.  The first one, I didn't think it through very well. I put the larger heavy leaves on the outer ends of the thread, and being heavy, they want to all slide into the center.  The second one, I pulled the thread more taunt and there's not much sliding going on. Also those leaves are not quite as large. But, we have 90°F already today, with the winds, and the humidity is low enough (32%) helping with the drying process. I'll bring them in at twilight today because the cool down outside at night can contribute to mildew. If they are not quite done tomorrow morning, I'll put them out again to finish up the drying process. Also, I was told not to put them in the direct sunlight because it can bleach out the flavor of the basil. So there you have it. Heck's fire, it's hot enough to even dry up a batch of solar jerky, if I have a mind to! 

Nine week old Welsummers in Temporary Pen/Coop

Hexagon Coop and Rabbit pen.  We made a few modifications to secure the flooring on the coop and found that the door for the coop fits just inside of this long "rabbit run."  Way better than we expected.  We may need to put a little reinforcement round the bottom of the pen to keep it more sturdy and stable, but for now, I think we are okay with how it works.  The plan was to sell off three of the oldest hens, but that's not working out so well.  People want them for free... well, since the hens are currently laying about 18 eggs per week (collectively), I'm not going to just GIVE them away.  So, for now, we will keep them since they are still producing so well.

Anyway, the cage has a metal "stabilizer" bar in the middle, and I know that the pullets will want to roost on it, so I wrapped it with a rope to give them leverage.  I will be finding a pole or something that I can use to hang the feeder on in the corner of the pen to get the food up off the ground and less accessible for the mice. Then we should be fairly "good to go."  heading into the summer months with the pullets.
 

New Shorter DIY Rainproof Chicken Feeder

Now, with the Welsummers in the smaller pen, we needed a shorter feeder. We found a laundry detergent bucket that was just the right height, so with a few minor modifications to the last rain proof chicken feeder design, we have done it again.  Since this was not a food-grade bucket, I made certain to wipe it all out, then soaked it overnight in a bleach water solution, then wiped it down with apple cider vinegar, just as an added cleaning agent to try to ensure that all the soap/detergent was removed.  One bucket, two 9-inch long 1-inch PVC sliced open, six short sheet metal screws (to attached the PVC channel inside, one piece of plastic corrugated signage board, two L brackets, and six screws and nuts to attach the rim. I made a smaller opening on this one and it seems to be way more balanced without having to add any weight just inside the top of the rim.

Welsumers Outside in the Spring

With the really warm spring this year, I was able to pop the peeps outside right on time.  Even though we had a few cool (40F) nights, they did well.  Not fully feathered, I decided to place their chick brooder warmer by Brinsea in the coop. They like to sit on it at this point, so it's doing the job for the next few weeks.

Since our three small coops and the free-range pens are still inhabited, I decided to dust off the emergency coop I purchased last year. We had to do a few modifications to ensure that the flooring would not fall out. The angles were rather flimsy and the coop would easily shift when the winds blew. I think we have it stabilized now.

For a protective run, I have the dog pen set up until the other pen shows up. To keep the girls in and the hawks out, I made a dome with arched 10' long PVC pipes that form a cross tied in the middle. I placed bird netting over it, then fastened it to the pen. When it started raining last week, put a tarp over the dome. Also, I hammered stakes on four sides to secure the pen from being knocked over by a critter of any type and it should prevent any critters from crawling under the pen. 

Anyways, the young pullets are now about seven weeks of age and their hackle coloring is showing up in their feathering. Soon, their waddles will begin to appear and their combs will turn red. Then they will be well on their way to joining the rest of our laying flock. :)

Date	Weeks	Event
03/24/15	0	Chicks Hatched
03/29/15	1	Wings getting coloring
04/11/15	3	Combs started to pop up and black streaks on face are fading
04/17/15	4	Long necks and new Feathers
04/27/15	5	Gold starting to show in hackle/neck feathers
05/04/15	6	Mostly feathered = Outside in Coop

   

   

   

   

   

Here is a great representation of a Welsummer hen on jackiekoerner.com in order to compare the coloring with age.