Sweet Peppers and Eggs

Our local temps have cooled way off and now we are getting much needed rain. This is a nice relief to all of us, chickens included.  The chickens are laying more eggs now, with the exception of the hens that are well into their molt. The three Welsummers have laid 10 eggs total in 10 days, so that's a good start.  We have now added oyster shell to their pen to help with shell production.  The shells are pretty thin at this point.  I accidentally stuck my thumb through one of the eggs while trying to pick it up. 

One of the Welsummer layers is producing a lighter brown egg that has some funky looking discoloration on one side. There's suggestion that two eggs are developing side by side, causing the lopsided and "circle" band on one side. We will need to keep an eye on her since this is not a good thing. These photos show the discolored side and the back side. But, the insides looked good. The yolks are well formed, deep yellow and the whites were of the right consistency. So I'm thinking she will just need some time to get her laying process more established. 

The other two Welsummers are producing small, thin shelled dark brown eggs. I placed them around one of eggs that our older Orloff laid (top of page). The little brown eggs are so cute! The mix of light brown and dark brown in the carton has a cute effect too. A checker board of eggs.

All in all, we're now getting an average of four eggs per day. That will likely taper off over the next couple of weeks. 

Our bell peppers that we planted in five-gallon buckets are just about done. We have a nice mix of green, red, yellow and orange. So sweet and delicious. Delicious in an omelette, salad or just dipped in sauce.  Well worth the extra work and wait! Planting in buckets like this keeps the sluggos out and we can move them into the shade when it gets too hot outside.

Doing the Mouse Stomp

I can't say that I'm a chicken behaviorist. I don't profess to understand what goes through the mind of a chicken. But I think the Welsummers are territorial! 

We live on several acres of untended pasture land. The stray cats, snakes, hawks, owls and coyotes feast on the mice that live in the pasture. Our backyard is not a coiffed parcel, but more pasture where the chickens can graze in peace, until a mouse tries to invade their space.  In the past month, the Welsummers have stomped, killed and played chase with little mice that get into their pen. Sure, I can totally understand why mice want to get into the pens, because the chickens routinely drop food on the ground.  But, obviously, if it mouse dallies at all, these gals are gonna turn that poor little mouse into an object of fun or revenge.

No, I did not take photos of the little squished mouse carcass that I found today. I pulled it out of the pen and threw it into field. 

By the way, all three Welsummers are laying eggs now.  We have received five cute little chocolate colored eggs.  Despite the Orloffs going into molt, we are still getting a few eggs from them, from time to time.

Smoke, Construction, Coyote, Stress, minus Eggs... Until Today!

This past week has been really rough on the Clucks! And the humans here too. Saturday morning we woke up to a thick haze and the strong smell of timber burnt smoke. The smoke of wild fires up in Washington was being blown south to us. Basically to the whole Willamette valley. The winds were not of the dangerous intensity, but enough to flip over things that were not battened down. As the day wore on, it got stinkier and smokier.

The Sun looked like a tiny red orb in the sky. It was intense.  Sunday, the sky and smell was a little better, and by Monday, we were pretty much back to normal.

Then our new neighbors started on some new construction. Lots of saws buzzing along with the banging of nails and lumber. Plus, another neighbor brought in a tractor for mowing the tall grass that has been left unattended for more than a year (they are trying to sell the property) and so the blades were clanking as the tractor mower moved over the rock-hard ground, while hitting rocks and other debris that had not been cleaned up around all the nursery stock (trees).  It was extremely noisy and distracting, considering there's been no real attempt until this week to improve the appearance of the property for several years. The new activity was quite foreign to our ears, after all this time.

Early Monday morning, we heard a dog in our backyardish, barking and barking.  When D turned on the yard spot light, it didn't stop, which we thought was hugely odd. Then, all of a sudden it yipped and yodeled... Ahhh, it's a coyote.  But it was persistent! It was not going to leave. After about 15 minutes of all this coyote noisy ruckus, it finally quieted down, and we assume it left.  We could not actually see it.  It was not near any of the coops. So we didn't do any active attempts to find it or scare it away.  But when I was leaving the house to go to work, next to the garage door, laid a dead wild bunny with its face mauled off.  That was disturbing enough, but even more disturbing was the white gravy looking substance on it's neck and hind quarters. There was even some on the pavement around its little body. I have never seen anything like that on dead victims of coyotes, and believe me, there are lots of coyote victims out here for us to find.  This photo is not from our area, but the image accurately represents what we see/experience a lot. So, no, we would never leave our chickens unattended or free to roam across the acreage. 

Between all the smoke, noise and predator filled activity this week, our poor chickens have been stressed to the max.  Add on the fact that several of our Orloffs are starting into their molt. It has not been a good week! So, we have received only two eggs from them, so far, this week. (Until today!) This morning, when I went out to check, there were hens (four) in all the nesting boxes. This should be a BIG egg delivery day. :) 

Additionally, we have been waiting and waiting for the new chickens to start laying eggs.  The Welsummers, according to what I have read, can be late bloomers in the egg laying department. I have read that they can start, basically, anywhere from 20 weeks to 40 weeks, with, of course, 30 weeks being the average.  But, regardless, I have been checking their box every day right along with all the rest. At 22.5 weeks, it's a WooHoo day for the Welsummers. Two cute, small, chocolate-colored eggs were laid this morning! 

Our Orloffs' eggs are a light brown (almost pink) color, weighing anywhere from 45g (1.6 oz) to 67g (2,4 oz) The large eggs are laid by the older hens.  The year old hens typically lay medium sized eggs with a few large ones, on occasion. (I'm using the USA egg size standards). Different countries have different standards for determining egg sizes. Anyway, the new Welsummer pullets are now starting to lay eggs which are distinctly different from our Orloffs! A nice deep brown egg with darker little speckles. The first eggs are 43g/1.5 oz and 41g/1.4 oz. Small and narrow, but it's a start! They will get larger as time progresses.

In the photo with the eggs on the paper, left to right, 1.4g, 1.5g, 1.7g, 1.9g and 2.1g.  The first two are considered small and the last two are considered large. There you have it. 

I have been apologizing to the chicklets every day for all the stress. Finally, things have settled down and we are getting back to normal. Plus, the added bonus of the new pullets joining the ranks with the other hens. 

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!