Almost time for freedom

While looking up info on ducks we found a great deal on some surplus ducks. The catch was they needed to be picked up soon. That gave me 7 days to get their pen and house built. Of course that is not what was planned for the week, so between work, prior engagements, and rain, I only had 4 days that I could work on this project.

The chickens are already on the one mostly level part of the yard. That meant my project started with making a 10x14 foot level pad to start the base. After doing that I think I know why my house is a split level house. Between the rocks and roots there is not a even a level rectangle that small to be dug out in my yard.

So after 3 evenings, 3 Home Depot stops, and 1 really long day this if the newly occupied duck home.

8x8x8 pen, 4x4 house, 4 ducks, and a real door. I'm quite proud of my door. It's square, it's braced, it swings smooth and level, and it has even clearance all around. The pen is sturdy and stable as I confirmed when I used an extension ladder to climb up the sides to secure the fencing across the top.

The 3 girls, They like to perch on the horizontal poles. They are not ready for hand feeding yet. I tried, and and the darkest one took flight, circled once and landed back on her perch. Thankfully I was not pooped on during the fly over.

Out handsome drake. When I cut out the door I didn't know how big they were going to be so I guessed a little.  At 12 inches at the bottom, 8 inches at the top, and 14 inches tall, the door is just big enough for him to squeeze through.  He does seem to enjoy the small door now. In the morning he will stand in the door  blocking the girls while he surveys the land before walking over to their little pool. And at night he will make sure nothing got inside, then ushers the girls inside, stands in the door way looking smug before going in to snuggle with his little harem for the night.

Though I did not get a picture of it, the secure of the pen was tested my an owl. We were taking the dogs out for their bed time potty run when and owl bounced off the pen. I heard the noise and looked just in time to see a gray colored owl flying off into the trees.

As we understand the process we are supposed to leave the ducks in their pen for a week or 2 to make the recognize the pen as their home. They've been in for week, so something this week we'll let them out and herd them a few feet down to the muddy mosquito breeding pit. Hopefully we are doing it right and we'll still have 4 ducks in the pen that night.

Next up - my new used wood chipper that I was given because it would start and it was just taking up too much space in someones garage.

Hey Ladies!

So the ladies are now about six months old and are producing three eggs a day very consistently.  I let them free range on the days I'm home to save wear and tear on their pasture.  It's also excellent natural bug control.  Just yesterday the ladies discovered and decimated a nest of carpenter ants.  All four of them got super excited when they found the egg chamber and I'm sure I saw one take off with the queen.  They also helped me move some stuff around the property and ate all of the night crawlers I uncovered.  Pretty sure they ate a frog, too.  They're like my little fluffy shadows when I'm working outside.

The downside to letting the ladies out is that they need regular management.  Especially after the fox incident, we want them to stay where we can see them.  We also want them to stay off out of the neighbor's lawn (though she loves them).  The ant nests they've been feasting on are right along the property line and they need to be put away before we let the dogs out or leave.

For me, it's easy.  I've raised them from one day old, they know me.  I call 'Chik-chick-chick' and they come running.  Problem is that Joe can't imitate my call, it's too high pitched.  So now I'm trying to teach them to come running when I call "Hey, ladies!", a la The Beastie Boys.  Mostly because I want to see Joe out there yelling that.



Of course I have to be nice to Joe, he's been working hard.  Our Muscovy ducks are arriving on Saturday and he's getting their pen together.  Three ducks and a drake so hopefully next year we'll have duck to go with the chicken in the freezer.  He also has to get the coop and pen together for the next round of meat birds that are arriving at the end of the month.  I'm not losing my sun room again!  We invested in a nice brooder for the first four weeks, then they're heading outside.

On the left is the start of the Muscovy pen, showing the area where we need them to manage the bug population, and on the right is the start of the meat bird coop, showing the pasture fenced in for them.

We also have four more laying hens on the way.  They're four week old chicks of assorted breeds, we're just waiting to see what we get.  We'll probably end up keeping the two we like the most and selling the other two.  Six hens will get us 4-5 eggs a day.  That's a lot of eggs.  We're already giving some away to our neighbor.  Joe was worried that just four girls in the coop designed for 6-8 will get cold during the winter.

I have my fingers crossed for Cukoo Maran or Silver Laced Wyandotte.  Easter Egger is also on the list of possibilities.  I adore my Barred Rock girls, but I want to try out some other varieties.

Fox in the Hen House

Today we had our first run in with a live Red Fox in the yard. Sorry no pictures.

The chickens were free ranging and feasting on garden critters and I was hauling stuff through the yard to take care of another brush pile. Then this cute adorable looking Red Fox comes rushing up out of the ferns, and through the garden on it's way to steal at least one of my chickens while it was hard at work.

I dropped the wheel barrow can run towards the fox to cut it off. You could see the fox was confused and considering it's life choices. Do I ignore the flailing bi-ped? Do I abort and run away? Maybe I can snatch one and run away with it? And while I'm running at it I'm thinking do I wring it's neck, or do I punt it. The fox decided to try to snatch and run, which meant I couldn't punt it without for sure getting the chicken it also chose.

So I'm flailing and yelling trying to get a grab at the back of it's neck. There was no way it was going to get a free meal off my flock after we just started getting steady eggs from them. The fox decided it wanted to live, and got off the chicken and ran like hell. Turns out foxes bounce. It didn't see the new fencing that was going up and ran right straight into it. He bounce straight back off the fencing and headed back towards me briefly. He decided that wasn't a wise direction either and choose a very wide loop around the back of the yard and slinked up the gully to where I think it's den is.

The poor chicken the fox grabbed is just fine now. She lost a couple of feathers and hid somewhere safe for a couple hours before coming back to join the flock in their run.

This fall fox goes on my menu. I'll be looking forward to breakfasts of fox and eggs, and bow hunting with a nice fox muff.

Summer time madness

We live!  It's been a wild start to summer, with severe weather, the occasional flood, and a lot of work.

First, the maple syrup project was a bust when the sudden end to the winter flooded the area where the maple trees live.  This explains why we have all red maples, also known as swamp maples.  Several of our collection jugs had to be rescued from the other side of the property when they washed away.  Oh well, better luck next year with equipment that's secured in case of moving water!

Second, the chickens!  We were very successful with our first batch.  At 12 weeks, the 19 Red Rangers were processed.  I wasn't there, but Joe did a great job.  Dressed weights ranged from 3.5 pounds to a whopping hen that was almost 6 pounds!  They've been excellent eating and we've ordered another batch of chicks in August to raise.  We've ordered a variety pack of 25 meat breed chicks, so we can see what we like.  The Red Rangers were awesome back yard chickens and it's quite possible we'll go back to them, but we want to try some other varieties.  We also ordered an enclosed brooder box so the sun room can remain unscathed.  We finally reclaimed it, after many passes with a rug cleaner.

Our six laying hens turned out to be four hens and two roosters.  The two boys were rehomed and the four girls are happily living in the coop.  They're getting fat and happy on a diet of crumbles, greens from the garden, kitchen scraps, and the bugs they catch for extra protein.  We're adding a permanent run along the creek so they can manage the area too boggy and steep to be mowed or used for anything.  As Joe posted, we're starting to get eggs and he's enjoying them immensely. 

Third, the garden.  One the positive side, we've started to eat food we've produced.  The broccolini did very well and I'll be enjoying that for a few more weeks.  The Tom Thumb lettuce from Territorial Seed Company is highly recommended for a tasty, petite head of lettuce.  The tomato plants are getting covered in fruit, the bean plants are ripening, and the purple jalapaneos are booming.  Potatoes look great and the spaghetti squash is launching an invasion on the rest of the garden.  Thankfully it's trapped in a raised bed.

My herb garden is all I hoped for this year.  I can use fresh basil, oregano, rosemary, parsley, and chives whenever I want.  I also have sage to be harvested later this year and dried.  The tarragon will take more time to get established, long with the thyme.  The lemon balm looks good, but I think it needs more time.

On the downside, some of the plants were a bust.  My radishes kind of flopped, the colander never came up, and the corner where I put the spinach turned out to be far too shady.  The broccoli also did badly, though the broccolini boomed.  I had some greens bolt in the heat and I'm now clearing out sections of the garden bed to replant.  Kind of expected in my first year, but still, not ideal.

In August I'm going to do 30 days of real food.  That means nothing processed and no fast food.  It should be interesting.  Fortunately I don't have to live off of my meager production, I have lots of farmer's markets to hit.  Local meat and dairy is actually pretty easy to get a hold of here.  I expect to start craving potato chips like crazy about one week in.  Guess it's time to learn to make my own salt and vinegar potato chips.

First eggs and the first omelet

This weekend our chickens started laying. In 2 days we received 5 eggs from 4 hens. One egg was found cracked, and one more was found after breakfast.

That's a large egg carton in the picture. Our first bunch of eggs are not large eggs but seems like 3 of our backyard eggs = 2 large eggs.

I can't say my yolks are more yellow or not, but an omelet and coffee are moments away.

 

The first backyard omelet, with backyard chicken, and cheese, peppers, and onion.

I can't prove it scientifically, but this backyard omelet is a little smaller than I usually make, and it was more filling and had more flavor than commercial eggs I was used to using.

Spring has sprung

Spring is finally, finally here!  I'm going outside in a t-shirt and no jacket, the perennials are starting to come up, and the snow is receding rapidly.

Things are going to start getting very exciting now that we can actually go outside and do things.  We're ordering 10 cubic yards of loam and 10 cubic yards of mulch to be delivered before Easter weekend so we can take full advantage of time off from work.  Cinder blocks for the new raised beds are being brought home bit by bit.  Neither of our cars is up to carrying 100 cinder blocks, so it's more like 8 - 10 at a time when we're going through town.

Raised beds are becoming a high priority since I've got seedlings that are doing well in our sunroom with the chickens to provide some extra warmth at night.  Most of my herb garden has been started, tomatoes, some onions, and a flat of mesclun salad mix are all at about 3 inches tall.  The sunflowers are already pushing five inches and are getting repotted.  I also have 9, yes 9, types of peppers.  Chocolate ghost peppers finally came up, I'm very excited!

I've got a plan partially built out on motherearthnews.com using their garden planner.  We'll see if I've bitten off more than I can chew.

On the livestock front, the chickens are six weeks old and enjoying the spring weather as much as we are.



The first tractor should be done this weekend and we can start sending the meat birds outside.  They're pretty much fully feathered and ready to handle the NH spring weather.

Should be lots of updates in the coming weeks as we get ready to try to actually grow something.

Running amok

Remember those cute little balls of fluff that we got about 3.5 weeks ago?  Well, this is what they look like now.

Notice where the draft shield is?  Yeah, the little monsters have started taking it down and running wild through our sun room.  The water jugs were a failed attempt at reinforcing the barrier.  I think I need to borrow one of my mom's Border Collies to get them all back under control.  But the good news is that all 25 are still with us and growing like weeds.

You can see the new watering system in the background.  Joe built a nipple watering system for them after they started knocking their regular waterer around and jamming it with sawdust.  It took very little to get them used to it and weaned over.  So between the new water system and the 11 pound feeder in the middle, I can take care of them in the morning and be done for the day.

Of course, that doesn't include any of our attempts at getting them back into their area and not pooping all over the sun room.  We're going to have to do some serious carpet cleaning after they move out.  And don't get me started on the amount of dust they generate!  I'm going to have to move my seedlings away from them so they have a chance of growing.  The coops are well started, we're just waiting for the snow to melt so we can get them outside.  Come on, spring!