Escaping Suburbia » Backyard Chickens

Spring + Chickens

Kate — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 19:36:41 +0000

Thursday afternoon was sunny and beautiful! The girls seemed so happy, I just had to get out there and take some shots while they hustled around, catching gnats and picking at the grass.

The ground is still completely soaked, in case you were wondering… *stares at muddy jeans*

Snow? What is this “snow”?

Kate — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 17:06:19 +0000

It snowed here on Monday night, and when I opened the chicken coop door on Tuesday morning, the chickens went, “oh, HELL no.”

They’d never seen snow before, since we didn’t get any last year.

They seriously wouldn’t come out until I tempted them with some leftover cooked pumpkin. The snow melted from the grass by late afternoon.

But it’s lingering on the steps:

The Little Women

Kate — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 16:17:03 +0000

Our poor chickens still don’t have proper names. I never actually gave them the Little Women names… I don’t think Dennis would ever remember. How much higher can I hoist the geek flag, though? There are three that are hard to tell at a quick glance (for me), I actually have to kind of study them for a minute to figure out which is which.

So, I don’t know. We love ‘em, despite their having no names.

News from the homestead – September, 2009

Kate — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 22:15:25 +0000

It’s been slightly less than forever since I did an update on the yard and house. We’re starting to think about how to prepare for winter, and seeing what we can get out of the garden for fall and winter. We also need to make sure the chicken coop is well-insulated, and we’ve already gotten a remote-controlled lamp set up so that we can let them have light a little longer in the evenings and first thing in the morning.

The chickens will be 29 weeks old tomorrow. We discovered that they purr when they are content. It’s adorable!

We’ve finally managed to fence in a good-sized portion of the yard so that they can run around free & they won’t damage the garden. They may be locally famous, soon, too, as we were recently interviewed for a story about people who are doing a bit more than vegetable gardening — such as keeping chickens for eggs, or raising bees or their own livestock. I can’t wait to read it! Look for it in the Home & Garden section of the DH or GT… oh, who am I kidding, I’m sure I’ll link to it. Please keep your fingers crossed for me that I don’t come across sounding like a complete blathering idiot. No more than usual, I mean.

The gang currently provides us with 4 to 5 eggs a day. We’ve given several dozen away and I’m always on the lookout for good recipes to use ‘em up. This weekend I made a 10-grain bread from a Bob’s Red Mill mix (yummy, but no eggs needed), so tonight I think I’ll make mayonnaise and have sandwiches for lunch the rest of the week!

Inventory! We’ve been getting fruit trees from the clearance section over at Garland Nursery. If you don’t mind waiting a season or two to start seeing yield, this is a great way to get young trees for a good price. We go for the dwarf varieties so that we can fit more into the yard, and the yields will probably be more than enough for the two of us. We’ve got 1 peach, 1 fig, 2 pears, 2 cherry, and 2 apple.

The strawberry plants are putting out an insane amount of runners. We’re thinking we’re going to have to move everything out of that area and let them take over the whole patch. We’re getting a few concord grapes from our vines — these must be the few that were able to hang on after the rooster decimated them the day he got loose. Er. The day I forgot to secure the door to the run, so he got loose. Whoops.

We also didn’t get any blueberries this year — partly because of the chickens and partly, they just didn’t do too well. Don’t know if it was location or some other cause, but I think we have five or six blueberry bushes now, so we’ll see what happens next year.

Dennis has removed a huge row of box hedges along the street-side of the yard and we’re going to fill that space in with lavender plants. We’ll probably be putting up some kind of fencing — just for looks.

We’ve planted pole beans and pumpkins, the broccoli is making a second showing (and now that we’re keeping the chickens out of there, we might actually get to eat some…), and I think there is still some corn growing. Next summer we’re going to be more methodical about the corn & I need to make sure we’re growing an open-pollinated heirloom variety. I think we are now, but I’ve forgotten what kinds of seeds we bought.

The tomato plants, a gift from my friend Erica, are going like gangbusters. Dennis made a sauce with stuff from the garden (tomatoes, onion, garlic & some herbs) which cooked for two days in the crockpot and drove me crazy from how good it smelled. I also dried some tomatoes that I got from a co-worker (pictured). Nom! Quite tasty. We picked two more batches yesterday and I think I’ll make some salsa. I hate handling tomatoes, though, blech.

And, finally, it’s hazelnut harvesting time. I gathered a big basketful yesterday and there are still more out there.

Well, that’s it for now. That’s sort of a lot to have going on out there, isn’t it? And I didn’t even mention the weeds.

Chickens: Week 23

Kate — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 02:20:09 +0000

Bath time!

The chickens like to hang out under our porch when it’s hot & they get really into their dust baths.

We now have names for four of the hens. There’s HH (pronounced with a jaw-clenched-upper-crust accent) who used to be the head hen, but seems to have been knocked down a notch. There’s Floppy who has the floppiest of combs and who is now the head hen. There’s Gimpy, she of the (now healed) broken foot. (Not politically correct, sorry.) Last and at the bottom of the pecking order, there is Bitey. Guess why we call her that?

Haven’t named the fifth yet because she doesn’t really seem to have any special characteristics.

Egg production is well underway. Gimpy has finally re-joined the flock, thank goodness. We’ve had a few skirmishes among all the birds, and some bloodshed, but nothing catastrophic.

23 weeks old tomorrow! Almost six months old.

Farewell to the Rooster

Kate — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 21:34:58 +0000

We found a new home for our rooster yesterday. He’s very vocal and it was bothering our neighbors, and we’re not supposed to have a rooster anyway. He’s gone from being the king of our big, sunny yard to being at the bottom of the rooster pecking order now that he lives with an older, bigger, Barred Rock rooster. The two of them have a larger flock to split. I know he’ll be okay, but I still feel sad about it & I’m going to miss him.

About four weeks ago, one of our hens broke her foot. We were using a recycled fence board as the ramp into the coop, and it had a split in it. She got her foot caught at the top of the ramp and gravity did the rest. (The board has been patched!) We got her put into a splint and isolated her for three weeks. I’m thinking maybe that was a mistake — we should have splinted her and let her stay out with the flock, because now she’s getting picked on by the head hen. (I’ve started calling the head hen “Aunt March” in my mind.) Broken Claw has been out in her own little run in the yard now for about a week, and at night we put her into a medium sized dog crate & put her in the coop. She seems to like the crate at night, but we really want her to be mixed back in with the other hens now.

The chickens are 19 weeks old today.

Chickens: Week 13

Kate — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 22:31:11 +0000

Hey, baby.

I put a little chicken update over on my other blog, please check it out!

Happy Earth Day

Kate — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 04:09:58 +0000

I know I’ve been quiet. I’ve got a million things on my mind and a post to that effect that I’m drafting. Just can’t concentrate right now.

Anyway, we put the chickens in their coop for the first time tonight. I’m really worried about them getting too cold. The photo above is of the one chick we’re pretty sure is a rooster. He’s pretty, though!