The 12-week Moult is Done

Finally! The Orloff hens in Coop Two have finally started laying eggs again!  They started molting about the 2nd week of September and in the past two days, we have received 2 nice eggs.  Big Sigh of Relief there!  I really think this very hot summer was just too much for them so they molted twice as long as typical. 

The Welsummers have yet to lay any new eggs since being consolidated into coop three. That was two weeks ago. One of the Welsummers is super low hen on the pecking stick. She's finding creative ways to avoid the other hens' pecking by hiding behind the water pail and fighting back when necessary while making a mad dash for the feed when the other hens get in the coop.  Hopefully, she will be able to regain her weight and strength soon.  

Coyotes are coming right up to the house with the colder weather creeping in. We've been locking the hens in at about 6:00 p.m.  The light set-up that I created for the two coops this year seems to be holding the lights in place without allowing the hens to knock them down. I have the timers inside of a hard plastic casing. This year, we have the lights coming on at 4:00 a.m. instead of 4:00 p.m., because last year, the ladies would not go to roost until the light would go out at 8:00! This makes it easier to corral them in as it is getting cold at dusk.   Live and learn what works for us.

Last weekend, we prepared the garlic and onions ground with old hay to help prevent deep freezing. It looks like we have about 10 garlic and about 15 onions.  Hoping  they make it through to spring.

Re-Group and Re-Coop

Well, it's that time of the year!  We have less pasture places to place the coops and with the lack of sunlight/new plant growth, we have to move coops more frequently throughout the area. Four coops was two coops too many! We have consolidated. We kept the "only 2nd year layer" of coop three, and she is now co-mingling with the 1st year layers. We also kept all of the 2nd year layers of coop two. Coop one's 3rd year layers will all be winter soup material by the end of this week. 

D has decided that he definitely "over built" that first coop. Without any wheels to move it along, the process of moving that big old heavy coop was getting to be too difficult to move in the winter, even with heavy slog boots on. That coop will be put away, for now. 

I have strategized a different "hoop" coop that we can build for next spring. We can work on it over the winter in the garage. It will be a combo of the coops we built last year along with PVC hoop (tunnel) pen. So I think we can get at least five to six hens in that one while it will still be easy to move.   

So, our thirteen hens are dwindling down to eight hens this winter. That will be plenty of eggs for the family with a few extra that we can sell.

Last night, at dusk, we pulled the three 1st year Wellsummer hens out of their coop. Just before that, we closed the door from the coop to the pen on coop three. Then we pushed all three hens into coop three with the remaining Russian Orloff (in the dead of night). Interestingly, no major fights.  I knew they would not fight in the dark, but wondered what the daylight would bring. They definitely kept their distance, with three in one part of the pen with the one in the other part of the pen. So, perhaps, they will work it out without any damage until they figure out a new pecking order. 

The moult has been a long one this year.  Don't know if the extra hot summer is the reason, or if all the house construction has just been too much stress on the hens. The 1st year layers, of course, basically grew up with all this noise, so they appear oblivious to the racket. Nonetheless, the coops are set up for winter with lights in place.  I attached some oversized plastic electrical boxes in the coops to protect the timers from constantly being knocked down.  Now the issue is the light socket being knocked out of the box... Oy Vey! Will need to work on getting that secured. 

Hopefully, we'll start getting some more fresh eggs in the near future! For now, we are only getting one or two eggs per day! Come'on Girls - let's get back to Egg'n!

Garden-wize, I wanted to make note so that I don't forget next spring, that I planted the Garlic and Onions about the 3rd week of October (10/18/15).  I had never tried onion seeds before, so I was not sure that would even work.  Due to the temps being in the low 40s almost every night, not much was happening even after two weeks. I put my plastic hoop house over the garden, and a week later, I had a nice sprout of onions and garlic.  It's dipping into the high 30s at night now, so I'll leave the hoop house up for another week or two. In the meantime, I plan on adding straw to the garden to help protect the bulbs from frost. Winter is on its way!

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?

We 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.)

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.

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. 

Tiny Heart Feather

I found this little feather this morning.

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.