Baby Chicks Hatching!

Well, here I am talking about my chickens again (still!?!). Back on May 21st my broody Barred Rock hen started hatching out chicks. She'd been sitting on a big communal nest. We had 11 chicks hatch out by the 23rd. I borrowed an incubator from a friend anticipating that I'd have some latch hatches. Sure enough, when momma hen got up and was ready to leave with the babies there were still 5 viable eggs left in the nest!


Here are pictures of chicks hatching under my broody hen:


I caught the timing on this one perfectly... it literally hatched out in my hand!






Welcome to the world baby! Good thing you're a girl...we won't be eating you!





After about 48 hours the hen was done sitting on the nest. We have too many cats who like to dine on baby chicks to let the broody hens run loose. So, I moved the whole brood to my small PVC chicken tractor where they are safe and Momma hen has some room to 'range' and teach the little peeps how to be chickens. She's a wonderful momma. Ya know the saying about getting your feathers ruffled? Well, it must have been inspired by a broody hen! She sure got her feathers ruffled when the flock rooster came over to investigate all the peeping. No way was she going to let him mess with her babies!

On the 25th-26th we had three more chicks hatch, all pullets! Two are left in the incubator, one has already pipped through the shell and the other is working on it. That'll be 14 total from this hatch. Phew! MORE chickens, just what I needed (hmm...). So far the running total is 11 pullets, 3 roosters. They are black sex links (Rhode Island Red daddy x Barred Rock momma) so I can tell gender at hatch which is really nice. I am getting GREAT odds right now, I'm feeling so lucky I've debated going and buying a lottery ticket.

Now that this hatch is done I'll have a little break, then in about a week and a half my Jersey Black Giant's chicks should start hatching. I pulled a real switch-a-roo on her and stuck Rio Grande Wild Turkey eggs (from a neighbor who raises them) and some Americauna eggs under her. Poor girl, her kids are gonna hatch and not look a thing like her!

How our garden grows!

Apparently weeds and garden plants can grow in harmony. Perhaps slightly off key, but hey, they all seem happy enough! The problem is, we had a couple really good rains. It made the garden grow like crazy, but alas, it made the weeds really take off too. I keep hacking away at the weeds, but I fear it's a loosing battle. This is a first year garden, so I anticipated some weed issues. It'll be better this fall and even better next spring. I keep the weeds pulled back away from the plants. Everywhere else they are growing I've started referring to them as my 'cover crop' of 'green manure'. Uh-hum. Sounds better than 'rampant out of control weed problem'.

So far we've gotten a couple gorgeous bell peppers, lots of radishes, lettuce, yellow summer squash and zucchini.

The tomato plants are HUGE and covered in green tomatoes. The bell pepper plants have 3 or 4 peppers each. The green beans have little green beans and the corn plants have little ears growing! The cucumber and watermelon vines are trying to take over. The various squash are of course flourishing. Carrots seem to be doing well, but aside from admiring their nice green tops it's hard to tell. Potato plants are up and growing well and the onions are getting very tall. It's too hot already for things sensitive to the heat. I didn't get an early spring garden in because of the stupid pig on the loose. Will grow a bunch of cool weather stuff this fall. I grumble about the Texas heat, but I'm already appreciating our long growing season in a whole new way now that I'm avidly gardening.

Soren loves stomping through the garden, it's like a jungle from his perspective. Here he is in front of the tomato plants. This was taken about a week ago, believe it or not the plants are even bigger now. How big can a tomato plant get??

I'm getting ready to can/freeze anything extra the garden produces. This year is a bit of a test run. Hopefully next year I'll have the kinks worked out and will know how much of various veggies to plant to provide enough for the growing season and food storage the rest of the year. We're growing 100% organically from the seed up. I really like the idea of knowing just how the veggies my kids are eating were grown!

New Chicken Tractor

My first chicken tractor was a little PVC contraption that has been serving me well, but does have a few draw backs. Not the least of which is that it is very light (flew over our fence during a strong thunderstorm!) and since it's flat across the top with only a tarp for cover it collects rain water badly during a storm. That said, it was very easy to build (like putting together tinker toys) and it's very light and easy to move around. It's already raised one bunch of pullets and is currently housing a broody hen and her 14 chicks. I won't complain about it too much!

I need more than one tractor and since I had to build another one I figured I'd go for an upgraded model. I decided to build a 'hoop' tractor. This one has a bottom frame of 2x4s. It is 6.5' wide and 10' long. The hoops are 3/4" PVC pipe cut 10' long. Almost everything on this tractor is from scrap I had around the farm. Some of the wood is a little warped, but it still works fine for my purposes.

I built the bottom frame, then braced it with two wooden angle braces (one each on opposite corners) and metal 'L' brackets I had stuffed in a drawer. The wood braces double as perches for the birds. If I'd had more thin lumber I would have braced all 4 corners, but I didn't so I just used what I had!


Once the frame was built, I started adding the PVC hoops. Now, this part is a 2 person job. Or one adult and a handful of kids as the case may be! Pre-drill the holes in the PVC (yea, it's worth pre-drilling... ask me how I know!), attach one end (I used washers with the screws to help distribute the pressure of the screw and to prevent the screw from punching through the PVC) then bend the PVC until if forms an arch. Have a child hang from the middle of the arch to pull it down so you can then attach the other end. My light weight 4 year old wasn't quite heavy enough to pull the PVC hoop down enough for me to easily anchor the loose end. Took one of my big boys to help out! Here's Bella posing with the first hoop I got wrestled into place!

In addition to child labor, a few cats thrown into the mix ensures that your netting is pre-tangled and your box of screws gets knocked over.


Here we are with a few more hoops in place. Odin turned out to be the best help wrestling the loose end down. I honestly don't know how I would have built the tractor if the kids hadn't been around to help me! I ran a PVC ridgepole along the top and that really did seem to help with keeping the hoops stable.

Here's the tractor with the door framed out and the netting going on. I used really light weight plastic netting from Wal-Mart over the whole thing (it was very, very cheap!). Then around the bottom I added 18" tall chicken wire for better predator protection. That makes for about 2' of predator protection around the bottom of the tractor (including the board) and then a net covering to keep the birds from flying out. So far, it's working well. I did a combination of stapling, wiring, and zip ties. I drilled holes through the PVC to run wire or zip ties through to anchor the netting well.


Here's a very, very rare picture of me as I was framing out the door courtesy of Odin who says 'But Mom, you have to be in at least ONE picture'. So... here's your one for the year folks! And yes, safety first!!



Here's my more or less finished tractor. I later tucked the loose tarp up and stapled the bottom down to make it nice and snug. The birds appreciate the shade it provides! You can also see the simple plywood door I cut out and attached with some old hinges I salvaged off a cabinet door. Closes with hook and eyes. You can also see the pull rope I use to tug it around the pasture. I think I'm goign to train the pony to pull it... No, it's not that heavy. It's just that the darn pony is so lazy and could really use a job!




I started moving the Freedom Rangers into the tractor a few at a time. I think I have 20-some odd of them out of the 44 in there now. They've been out in the front pasture in the tractor for a week now and are loving it! I feel bad for the few left in the coop. I guess I should rotate them out... I have 44 Freedom Rangers (meat birds) and 8 random layer breed roosters together. Just not enough room for all of them in my tractor!

Course, if I could get that big bird in the back out of there it might help free up some room!!! He sure eats a lot too!

Potato Pickin' at Sweet Berry

We made another trip to Sweet Berry Farms a couple weeks ago. We went with a friend and packed a pic-nic lunch. The kids had a blast picking strawberries and potatoes. They were totally amazed that you could pull up a plant... and along with the roots came potatoes! Beautiful red skin potatoes at that. I think they picked about 20 lbs. About 6lbs of strawberries and I brought home 3 yellow onions.

Here is Magnus with a bunch of potatoes:

Not to be outdone, here is Odin with a bunch of potatoes as well:

The farm has pic-nic benches set up in the shed. If you look in the background, you can see the chicken coop. The birds are very tame and such beggars! We sat down to eat and suddenly had a flock of very pretty (and fat) Rhode Island Red hens join us. Bella managed to catch one. Actually, I think the hen probably just walked up and hopped in her arms.

Here are the kids playing with the lady bug picture dealy. Silly kids... there's just no way to get a whole group of them to stick their head in a hole, hold still and smile for the camera. Oh well. I tried.

From left to right that's Soren, Odin on top, Bella below him, their friend Hunter and then Magnus.

And that was yet another fun filled trip to Sweet Berry! We're going back again real soon to pick black berries!