Christmas Eve White Christmas

Last year, we had a sudden snow storm on the 15th of December that caught us off guard and ended up with snow inside of the chicken pens.  This year, we had the shields in place before the snow started flying.  We did not get as much snow this year and some of it was freezing rain so it was quite the mix between the two.  Yesterday was so blustery that the wind chill dropped to 16F even though the temps were closer to 30F. We even had a few gusts of 40mph. So, yah, it was bitter cold on Christmas Eve.  

Thankfully, Christmas day has been calm, although it never really got much above freezing. The new chickens are stressed by the snow, but the older chickens seem to be taking it in stride. 

We have a gopher this year that has been taunting the chickens, tunneling under their coops and into their pens. The coops have floors, so it's not like the gopher is adding tunnels into their coops, but my guess is that, either the gopher or mice using the tunnels are getting an added food resource this year.  We do not seem be going through feed quicker, so I don't think they are able to get into the hanging feeders, but I know that the chickens do drop food on the ground, giving the field critters access to the spillage. 

Some of the hens are still laying, so we got a few eggs this weekend. Not as many, but some eggs is better than none eggs. 

Facing East	Facing West - Coops, Cars & Hills
Light dusting of Freezing Rain and Snow	New Hens at the Feeder
New Hens Confused by the Snow	New Hens Perplexed in a Row
Egg in the Nesting Box on Dec 24	Dec 25 More Freezing Rain
Freezing Rain on Coop 1 (older hens)	Freezing Rain (and Snow) on Coop 2
Nesting Box lid Warmed by Hens	Egg in Nesting Box on Dec 25
Gopher Hole from the Field	Gopher Hole and Trail to Hole under Coop 2
Close up of Gopher Hole under Coop 2	Gopher Hole on Other side of Coop 2

It is supposed to warm up tomorrow - we will see if that happens.

Back to the Full Production

Thankfully, the older hens are back to regular production. But, that was almost a 12-week moult.

Even with the light on every morning this week, the younger hens are not producing. [Big Sigh]  But the older hens are giving us the eggs we need, just nothing to spare.  We just used up the last of our frozen eggs, so we will need to start working on those again so that we have some in storage for the future. Finally have a full dozen in the cooler. [Yay!]

Farm Fresh Eggs for dinner tonight!

Brr Cold Wind Chill Frost

The East Winds had kicked in hard, however, the older Welsummers have mostly completed their moult and with a light in their coop that kicks on at 4:00 a.m., they are starting to lay again. We have gotten two in the past few days.  

The younger hens are not very egg oriented yet, and we are only getting 1, some times 2 eggs per day from them. I know that a factor is the cold cold temps.  We have put the water warmer out to keep the waterers from freezing overnight and to keep the water a bit warmer during the days. We have not, yet, started closing up the coops at night, but if it drops down into the 20s at night, we will. The younger girls had kicked their light out of the socket, so that might also be a factor.  Got the light back in, moved the coops to a new location and now they have some fresh grass to munch on.

More Meat in the Fridge

The six Cornish Cross chickens have been processed.  We had two roos and four pullets (two male and four female). Collectively, we ended up with 45 pounds of chicken after processing. So that's pretty good.  We spent about $90 on feed, but factor in that they also pastured. No antibiotics, no chemicals, no hormones. We have our winter chicken meat "resting" in a refrigerator for a few days, then they will be frozen for use over the winter months. We still have a 10 pounder left over from last spring. The plan is to roast him this weekend. In some ways, it is a lot of work, but for the assurance of what we are going to eat, it feels about right. 

The HoopPen attached to the HoopCoop Update

The sun is out, albeit, brisk. Temps are not getting above mid-60s this weekend. However, the chicks are enjoying the fresh air, and the sun through the door.  On occasion, one or two will pop out into the grass to look for bugs and worms, but mostly like being inside where there's heat radiating from overhead. While we have placed food and water in the pen, we will also keep it inside the hoop coop unless they start getting so fat, that they can't walk.  We don't want them THAT fat!

The heavy water-proof canvas tarps along with the down-filled comforter laying in between, is doing the trick to keep the warmth inside at night. That's our solution for now, until we can come up with something better for next year. 

Next weekend will be the extra lighting set up in the other coops, since we are barely getting 13 hours of sun per day. To keep the layers producing a little better, we need at least 13 hours of sun/light. We set up the lights inside the coops to come on at 4 am for the layers and that way, all fall, winter and spring, they are getting a minimum of 13 hours of light and sun to help with egg production. Additionally, we will take off the sun cloth from the pens, so that any sun that does peek out from the clouds, helps to promote a little extra warmth, and lots of vitamin D. 

We always try to use clear plastic on the pens as rain guards covering over 75% of the pens, but at the same time, there's a gap for ventilation purposes on each side.  We do cover one or both sides of the pens, when there's a strong wind or snow for a little extra protection.

I recognize that some people think we go a bit overboard with protecting our chickens, but the reality, as we have learned, is that the extra protection reduces the stress level for the chickens, and we don't need to feed them any medicated food in order for them to be good egg and meat producers. The layers produce good eggs almost all year long, they don't pick/peck on each other, they forage like "real chickens" are intended to do, and they are not bored because we move their paddocks regularly to fresh grass. We don't pamper them; we do treat them humanely without turning them into pets.

Close up of Hoop Pen	Hoop Coop and Pen is Set up
Cornish X Sunbathing	The goofy Hoop Coop and Hoop Pen
New Welsummer Doing the Sunshine Lean

Hoping we don't have Chick-sicles in the Morning

Today, the cornish cross went outside into the hoop-coop.  It's cooooold tonight, so hopefully they will stay warm enough.  We started with the 50 watt infrared light, but it was barely warming the coop, so we went to the 75 watt.  I just checked on them. It's 45F outside right now, but they are moving around in the coop and not all huddled together, so that's a good sign. We have never tried the fall season for new chicks before, so this is all new territory.  These guys are four weeks old, and have most of their feathers.  Have my fingers crossed that this is going to work.

Update: October 10, 2017
The temps inside the coop dropped pretty low Monday morning, down into the mid 40s(F) and the birds were a bit lethargic Monday morning at 7:30.  Monday  night, we placed a heavy bed comforter and another canvas tarp over the coop. That kept the temps inside the coop about 12 degrees warmer all night. This morning, at 7:30, the temp was 52 inside the coop. We may want to add a blue plastic tarp if it rains tonight, to protect the comforter from getting wet. The chicks were more active and alert this morning, so that's a good sign!

The photos below are from Tuesday morning.  I know it is a goofy look, but, at least it helps to keep the warmth inside the coop.  This coop was originally designed to house two heritage sized turkeys, from spring to fall, so, yah, it is what it is.  To determine the approximate inside temp, we are using a digital terrarium thermometer, with the  readout taped under the flap on the outside of the coop, and the gauge hanging inside, near the middle of the coop, where the chicks can't peck at it.  Plus, in addition to the heat lamp that we have hanging in the coop (a safe distance from the ceiling, and from the birds), we have a 50W LED light on a timer that comes on 12 hours per day to help with the night vs. day situation since the door light, especially on cloudy days, is not enough light for the chicks' circadian cycle.

The chicks are only four weeks old, so they really are not quite ready to deal with the outside temps yet. But they grow quickly into stinky pooping machines, and we could not handle the smell wafting through the garage any longer.

Oh, yah, the white board to the side is the "door cover" to help with a sense of security for the birds at night. The coyotes and raccoons will look through the plexiglass at night, and it scares the birds to see these predators leering at them.  We fasten the board over the plexiglass to impede the view at night.  The coyotes were very active last night in the area, and I had to go check on the birds several times for that, in addition to the cool temps.

The Chip Flickers

The cornish cross are three weeks old now.  The six of them, collectively are drinking more than a quart of water per day, so we are using our larger, three quart waterer.  The base is so large that we have to put it on a small wagon tire to keep the water clean (free of pooh and wood shavings). After a week or two, chicks have a tendency to dig through the savings, looking for things on the "ground" and it's a form of chip flicking that ends up sending those shavings everywhere, including into their feeder, as you can see in the photos below. There's feed under all those shavings, and they will get to it, but we have to dig threw the feeder before throwing a whole batch out and adding fresh feed every day. Normal (heritage) chicks do not eat and drink this much at this age. In about a week, we will start restricting the amount of feed, or they will over eat to the point of not being able to walk.

One of the chicks had a black spot on his/her tail end... now it has black on its wings. So, I guess we will always be able to tell that one, from the others.

All Six Chicks @ 3 wks	Looks Like They Eat Shavings!
Have you heard the one about two chicks walking into the bar?	So what is this stuff, anyways?

One Week Cornish Cross

Last week, we picked up six little peeps for the second meat growing season for the PacNW. In our garage, I set up a short version of the small outdoor run that I have for young pullets that I use in the springtime for transition from indoors to outdoors. The run comes in two sections that hook together for about a five foot run. So the chicks are in one half of the pen in my hope to minimize having to move them from one pen to the next since they grow so quickly.  I have cardboard on the cement floor to minimize the coldness from the ground. I have an old sheet for the "floor" of the pen to help keep in the wood shavings.  I always use aspen since the odor is less intense with it. 

I have the brooder warmer's height at its highest level with an old folded up sheet for them to sleep on at night.  That way I can wash the sheet every couple of days since that area contains the largest concentration of POOH in the pen.  I have poster board all around the sides (outsides) to help keep heat in, and drafts out. At night, I cover the top of the pen with a large sheet and have a space heater just outside the pen that pushes warm air into the pen between two of the poster boards to help it stay nice and warm while they sleep.  Today, they were congregated in front of the heater rather than snuggling under the brooder.  This is a good indication that the area is warm enough for them that they are not all bunched up but not all sprawled out at the opposite end of the pen trying to get away from the heat.  

We picked up the chicks on Wednesday so they are almost a week old (Monday-ish). Their little white feathers are already starting to grow.  We have everything set up for the move outside in a few weeks. 

The older Welsummers are moulting as of this week.  We took the oyster shell out of their pen and will switch them over to a higher protein diet as they shed their feathers.  I was actually hoping to sell them off this weekend, but, alas, I waited a week too long. I won't sell them during the moult since that would be just toooooo stressful on them.  It has been bad enough on them with the smoke from the out-of-control fires just a few miles north east of us for the past two weeks.  Today, it started raining! This should help to contain the wild fire.

Six Little Chickies - One Week Old
No Worries!	This is What we Do!
Yesterday - Smoke at Sunset

Welsummers Laying @ 22

We approached the egg laying situation different this time, with our Welsummer pullets. Our first flock of Welsummers took at least 23 weeks for the first to start laying.  And they were awkward, constantly breaking their eggs or flipping them out of the nest.  I think the last of the three layers finally started laying about 26 weeks in.

This time, I kept the nesting area boarded up until they were 20 weeks. Then when I opened it up, I put a lot of soft grass hay along with a fake ceramic brown egg in the box.  On August 13, we got our first egg. We've been getting an egg each day, so I assume that we have at least two laying eggs.  We will give it a month before we start providing oyster shell, to ensure that all the gals are laying.  We don't want to cause any kidney damage to any of the ones who may not yet be laying. 

The eggs are about half the size of the older Welsummers.  A little misshapen, but they look fine on the inside.

The Big and the Not Quite as Big

The Cornish Cross are basically two different sizes.  I have to assume that the larger ones are the males, but that's only a speculation.  When they are side by side, it's quite obvious that there are two very different sizes. They spend most of their days outside now.  Not a lot of movement going on.

Late Evening Sun Bathing

Looking for a better spot in the sun.

The size differences at the same age.

A Dry Day in May

The PacNW has had a much wetter and cooler spring, than normal. But today was down right nice. Almost Sunbathing Weather.

We let the broilers out into the pen today to enjoy the sunshine. The plants are also soaking in the rays.

Welsummer Pullets on the Outside at 8 Weeks

With our spring temps being a bit lower than typical the past few weeks, we took a little longer to take the pullets outside. They are out.  Training them to go in at dusk, which I have learned is something that they need to learn to do since they are not being added to an existing flock.  It takes about a week to train them.  They are a bit leery of all the sounds of planes, cars, wind, and wild animals. Everything something spooks them, they all go running into the coop, which is a good sign that they are adjusting to running for cover. Today, one pulled a worm from the ground, and she went running to the coop to get away from the others so she could eat her treat. Of course, they all chased her, trying to get that worm. 😊  You will note that the feathering is in, but the comb and wattles are not yet developed.

The temps are about right now, for their age (eight weeks) and feathering.  We will have another nice flock of layers with this group in about sixteen more weeks.

Another Milestone Chicken Day at the Farm

All four of the remaining Russian Orloff layers have moved to new homes as egg layers.  The three in coop 1 (large coop) went to a young family this morning, and in the afternoon, another person showed up and picked up the one remaining Orloff that was in coop 2 (smaller coop) with the Welsummers. This will make life easier, since the smaller coop really works better for flocks of three, while the larger coop can hold five.  So the four Welsummer pullets (almost seven weeks) will be moving into coop 1 this week as it warms up.  We will clean it out today, bleach it down and air it out.  

People who see our coops and pens comment at how clean we keep our coops.  I believe this helps the chickens, health wise, by keeping their environments more livable and humane. And, it's not that difficult to do the upkeep, even with three small active coops.

We went ahead and moved the six Cornish Cross (20 days old) into the turkey coop, since it can easily hold up to eight full sized chickens.We put a LED light in there, on a timer, for a light source. For heat, we hung a 75W red heat lamp in the top center of the coop, being careful to hang it low enough to not catch the tarp on fire, but high enough that they can't get burned.  They were all clustered for warmth and security when I took the photo.  Checking in on them every 30 minutes.  The last time I checked, they were moving around exploring their new digs.  On the warmer days, we will let them out into the pen to forage and get fresh air, but they are still too young to be left unattended in the pen, especially on days where it is only getting up to 60F.  These chicks still need temps between 75 to 80F. 

Feeling the Sweet Soft Sunshine!

Such a cold and wet winter that slowly slid into spring. Cooler temps are slowing the crops.  Record breaking rain fall, in for the Pac NW! The sun brought a much needed day of Vitamin D.  

The Orloff flock will be sold to make way for the new Welsummers. They are ready to move outside.  I'll post photos when they move. 

In the mean time, it was nice to walk around to check my little crops, and pet the gals as they sun bathed for the first time in quite some time. 

The crops above are 3 different types of potatoes in barrels, spinach around red onions, and walla walla sweet onions.

These Orloffs are ready for sale.

The Clucky Flock	There's Sun!
Any Treats for us?

The Welsummers will stay for one more year.

Looky, we have sunshine :)	Buggs! Yeeha!
The Flock of Four