Winter Solstice 2020 on the Farm

It's has been a crazy year, 2020.  Pandemic of Covid-19. Unusual weather patterns. Devastating wild fires. And through it all, we have been experimenting on the farm. 

It's officially winter and we still have all the birds. We will try again in January 2021 to sell them as layers since they are officially starting to lay eggs.  Yes, in Winter on the shortest sunlight day of the year, our producers are/were still laying. 

Some updated photos of the green/PVC tractor pen design that seems to be working fairly well.  We have the ability to move it without the tractor, but pulling it up hill is a work out. Every once in a while, a bird will get too close to the edge, when we are pulling, and will get a leg/foot stuck that requires us to go lift and extract.  No injuries while the ground has been so wet and sloggy. It usually works best if someone is on the inside chasing the birds away from the sides OR if we have them all locked up in the coop.  If we use the tractor, we must have them locked inside the coop or they freak out from the rumbling of the engine and they injure themselves. Getting them inside the coop before dusk is it's own crazy task. 

The waddles and combs are developing on the younger pullets, and the pullets have adapted to the bossyness of the older layers.  

The Blue Plymouths are quite attractive and if I can't sell them, I'm more than happy to keep them in the flock although they are rather squawky and a bit flighty. They are not as calm as my Barred and Rhode Islands. 

Greenhouse dill and lettuce are growing very well. Have it all set up to cover them if a deep freeze blows in. The potatoes that I planted in July did not do well.  I thought I would experiment by moving them into the greenhouse, but the lack of light in October seemed to do them in.  We had a ton of tiny potatoes, but they just quit growing. So, that was an interesting experiment, but not a very productive one. 

Double Yolkers for Dinner

Over the past few weeks, we have received a few larger than usual eggs.  One was Extra Extra Extra Large weighing 3.2 oz. That's like the size of a Turkey Egg.  I had read a piece recently about a large egg having another fully developed (with shell) small egg inside of it.  So I kind of wondered if we had one of those. Cracked open the three larger eggs tonight, and they were all double yolked. That's all. Nothing too crazy :) But this most recent larger than usual egg was so big, we could not put the lid on the carton. LOL  Yah, that big! Most of the eggs are still rather smallish. That might be why it seems so gigantic. Even next to the other two large eggs, it was still pretty large by comparison.  

Crazy September 2020 - Is it October Yet?

The start of the month was any normal September. Too Hot, Too Dry, and harvesting crops. Then life seemed to start sliding sideways. Let's see if I can remember everything in the order by date. 

9/4 Friday - Pickle Palace is Completed with a few fixes still to be done. 

9/5 Saturday - Moved young pullets into their new larger coop/run Pickle Palace. 

9/6 Sunday - Picked a bunch of cucumbers and pickled two batches in honor of Pickle Palace. 

9/7 Monday - Huge windstorm. We had to chase down the hoop coop tarp and batten that to the run plus set up a wind block for the layers in their run. Next we chased all the birds into their respective coops, the Meats were eager to go into their little A-frame Coop, the Layers into their Hoop Coop and the Pullets into their Green Mobile Coop. The winds with gusts about 50mph in our area, from the N/NE, were strong enough to move/push the new large coop/run two feet south! It didn't lift it or flip it, so that's good. None of the fiberglass got blown off either. Lots of power outages from downed lines, broken branches and toppled trees. Up on Mt. Hood, the power grid was shut off to help prevent new fires. It would take almost a week to get it turned back on for everyone.

9/8 Tuesday - Fires across Oregon were pushed across hundreds of thousands of acres. More than a million acres were burning shortly after the windstorm, wiping out towns and forcing close to a million people to evacuate. The skies to the south of us were turning red with smoke as the flames were going everywhere possible. Picked up apples off the ground. Need to peel and freeze them.

9/11 Friday - Get Ready (level 1) evacuation zone on our back door step. Almost all of Clackamas County was under evacuation with about half of the county already at "Go!" (level 3) evacuation. This was mostly from the Riverside fire south of Estacada but the one unnamed fire that was just south of Barton was not too far from us on the other side of a small mountain. We were packing and preparing, but at the same time, our old cat was dying.  Two weeks prior, she had been diagnosed with a heart murmur, hyperthyroidism, and kidney disease. The medication was apparently too late to help, and she was over 15 years old and ready to die. We tried to figure out also, how we were going to move 25 birds to a safe location. The air was so choked with smoke, we could not see the mountains anymore, the sun was merely a small orange ball in the sky, when we could see it at all, the air quality was the worst of any place in the world, deemed to be hazardous to breathe and stay indoors with windows and vents shut. Thankfully, it cooled off quickly outside, once the smoke took over, and stayed in the 60F range. 

9/12 Saturday - Neighbors' wells were going dry or muddy, and on this day, the cat died, and the air quality was still toxic. On the plus side, the humidity in the air had increased and we were having more moisture (fog) at night and early in the mornings, which was helping contain the fires. The evacuation zones were slowly being pulled back. By the end of the day, we were no longer in an evacuation zone. 

9/14 Monday - We were supposed to receive some rain, but that didn't happen.  Now, the news is predicting thunderstorms on Thursday night (9/17). Smoke is still thick and it is impossible to do much of anything outside without, at least, a mask. Unfortunately, that doesn't block the toxins, but we can't get N-95 masks due to the pandemic. We dug a hole next to our apple trees and buried our cat. Our hearts, of course breaking. She is no longer in pain. Today is also meat processor day. We withheld feed (they can have water) from the seven week old meaties today and tonight they are being transported to the processor up the street. 

9/15 Tuesday - Meaties are back and in the fridge to rest. The heaviest one is six pounds and the lightest is 4.8 pounds. Fairly decent weights. Smoke is still awful, but the evacuation zones keep being pulled back, little by little. The fire just south of us had been contained, but flared back up on the 13th, but is reportedly contained again. Barely any winds this week has helped a lot. Biggest fear now will be the thunderstorm coming from the south of us. 

9/16 Wednesday - More meaties.  We have eight this time (like we should have had last time). Have them all set up in a box with their warmer, water, food, and light. The store wanted us to take a few extra this time because some of their customers were unable to pick up their orders due to the fires. We could not help them out this time. One of the chicks has several brown spots. I have had a few Cornish Cross with one spot, but never had one with several spots. The other chicks, unfortunately, pick on its spots. 

9/17 Thursday - Smoke is still thicker than fog. Thunderstorms have been moving up the valley, mostly to the west of us. Kind of assumed we would not get any moving over us. We moved the hoop coop and run and battened everything down, just in case. 

9/18 Friday - At 3:30 am, the lightning was directly overhead, winds from the south were strong and that was no little storm. Hail, and sideways rain pummeled everything, while the lighting was striking every 5 to 10 seconds. The thunder was one continuous rumble, causing the house to shake. Power went out so we went around checking to make certain everything was secure. It lasted about an hour, perhaps a little longer, and then just rain. We got over an inch of rain during that time. It continued to rain, off and on throughout the day, and by 5:30 pm, the smoke was totally gone and the sunshine was wonderful to see once again. Just like that. The Pickle Palace did not leak or blow apart. The lettuce was shredded. A few branches broke off the tomatoes, but it wasn't as bad as I thought they would be. Bell Peppers were in a fairly protected area and seemed fine. Nothing broken. When I checked on eggs from the layers, we had six eggs (normally was getting four each day) and one was super sized! 

9/19 - Today, the  rains continued with occasional showers, then sunshine, then showers again. The tractor was used to pull the Pickle Palace.  One minor foot injury to one of the pullets as they freaked out. Perhaps from the tractor, or from the pen being moved.  Rounded them all up and put them into the coop before moving it any farther. Checked on the onion starts I planted a month ago. Not sure what is up with them. Of the 35, I have 11 left. Might be bugs, the smoke, or animals. On a positive note, the dill that I thought was going to be a waste of my time is finally popping up! Cooler Weather? Perhaps. Dug up the last of our potatoes (the purple ones) because they got wet in the storm. Don't want them to rot before we get a chance to eat them. There were not very many and were fairly small.  

Let's just say, it's been a stressful two weeks.  We Survived even through the loss! 

Photos below. 

First Day Outside EVER	Trying to figure this all out.
First Day in the Pickle Palace	Orange smoke
Skies to the South can't see the mountain	Skies to the West filling with smoke
Meat Chicks are Here	Spotted Meat Chick
Still Smokey Thursday looking south	Six Eggs after Thunderstorm by ounces; 3.2 to 1.4
Back side of coop	Feeders and Ramp
Milling around	Sun after the rains
Checking out the fresh space	Pickle Palace
Fresh Grass after the move	Thru the gate to the coop

New Coop in the Works

This has been named The Pickle Palace, for now, because it is long and shaped a bit like a pickle, with green fiberglass/corrugated roofing. The plan is to pull the pickle with the tractor across the field. The bottom will be hardware cloth all around and the door to the pen is also hardware cloth on a PVC frame. 

Hopefully, it will hold up against the east winds that we have out here. 

Almost 3 week old Chicks - August 2020

We have had the chicks two weeks now, although they will be three weeks on Sunday, August 16 and Monday, August 17.  The Cornish Cross are almost ready to go outside, but we are going to have a heat wave this weekend and into next week, so we have to wait until that passes before they go outside.  They have no true way to regulate their body temps and they are prone to heat stroke on those hot days. By next Friday, they will be outside until they are old enough to process. 

The other chicks look so tiny in comparison. But they are only a day or two younger. We lost one of the Blue Plymouth.  She didn't eat or drink very well.  It happens. We have had more problems with that this year I think due to the overload on the hatcheries trying to ensure that they are getting enough chicks out.  It is not uncommon for them to sell those chicks that are not as healthy as they could/should be. Unfortunately, that's what happens when people start panic purchasing livestock. The remaining 14 seem to be doing okay.  

We did do a bit of nursing on one of the Blue Plymouth yesterday after it got tangled in one of the threads on the flooring.  We attempt to keep a close watch on them, but things happen from time to time. Thankfully, we seem to have caught it soon enough and after some extra attention, it perked back up and appears to be eating and doing fine now. I put an ankle bracelet on it so that I can keep an extra eye on how it is doing. I'll cut off the band in a day or two to let it blend back into the group.  She is the gray chick in the first column, third down and bottom, of photos below 

Two weeks in, and today was transition into shavings day. New process is always a big transition for little chicks, but they have all settled into the new environment after a few moments of distress, back to EPS (eating, pooping and sleeping). 

Happy Layers August 2020

The past week we have been getting 4 eggs per day from our six young layers. Three of the eggs are brown, while one is a pale beige, similar to the Orloffs that we had. It might be one of the Barred, or it might just be one of the Rhode Islands laying a lighter egg.  I have had that happen before. They were all laying in the one big box that I had temporarily stationed in their coop, but I didn't want them to feel as though they had to share that much. When a girl's gotta lay, she wants some privacy. So the new nesting box was a bit of a test with two nice sized spaces available, would they use both? Yes, they did. I picked up two eggs from each box today. One of the Rhodes was standing on the perch and seeming quite proud of the new boxes in her space. Some happy layers today.