Hen House Predator

Today’s post was going to be about feeding the other animals from the almost market garden, but last night changed that. 

Justin and I were watching the much needed storm last night when we heard yelling.  I went to our son’s room but he was ok.  Justin checked on the chicken coop, I got a call from him on his Droid (doubling as a flashlight) asking for his boots (he was in sandals) and heavy gloves.  An opossum had one of the New Hampshire Red hens and was dragging her off to the corner.  Justin and Freya, our Chesapeake Bay Retriever had her free and had it was cornered. 

It is funny how something goes from being a nice fuzzy wuzzy animal and live and let live to it must be out.  Freya had killed it and I was strangely ok with that even willing to finish it off to end its suffering.  The hen that had been nearly breakfast was running around the yard with decent speed and agility and in the dark seemed ok.  No blood was found but, her feathers are auburn anyway.  I made sure this morning that it was me that went to open the coop this morning and she was just as hungry and spry as the others.

Now to find the access point and make sure we don’t have anymore coop-raiders.

Composting: The Art of Cooking Dirt

This is our first year experimenting with compost.  Justin’s mother was a natural with it, she seemed to toss some stuff in.  Her lab would rip it up.  She would rebuild it and then spread it on her garden.  The end result was amazing tomatoes.  

She claimed, when I asked that year, that it was her first year composting.  I have not been that lucky with ours.  It has been a slow process, and has not been very usable this year.

Technically we know how to compost.  But it definitely is like cooking, you just have to get a feel for it.  For anyone who may not know the essentials include kitchen scraps (we avoid meat), yard waste, air, and moisture.  In general you want to maintain a balance of green and brown material.

We add things like news paper that doesn’t get burned in the grill, brown cardboard, clippings from the shrubs.  We started a lot of new garden beds this year too, so we have been mixing in layers of chopped up sod pulled from the top of the new beds.  And chicken litter.

It’s kind of a mess right now because Justin was worried about adding too much chicken litter and sod at one time.  So we have to peripheral piles beside the compost and they get mixed in little by little.

Tell us how you do your compost!

By Amber Anderson 

unexpected talents

This experiment in self sufficiency started as a way to save money. It has really lead to some cool discoveries about ourselves. I did not know our 9 year old son was the best baker in the house! He is able to make mouth watering bread and asking for more recipes to try. Justin's attempt in jam making was a smashing success (hehe yes I know not funny) far better than store bought (strawberry by the way)! I started to make our christmas presents for family and am really proud of them. I want to give more than money this year. I know myself, if I don’t start now it wont get done. We are constantly trying to figure out what will work by reading books blogs and trying out what has worked for others and seeing if it will for us. The laundry soap has been tabled at least until temperatures drop below high of 90's it just couldn't keep up.

Chicken Feed

Guess what chicken butt.  I love the site of 15 chicken butts (and the back end of two ducks) in the morning.  But these guys are always hungry.

We were challenged by the realization that ducks and chickens might not eat the same feed store fare.  And we were correct initially.  Medicated feed for chickens is  supposed to be unsafe for ducks.

But around 5 weeks old, the weather was warm enough for them all to spend most of the day outside and we were immediately presented with a solvable.  How do you keep chicks out of duck food, and ducks out of chick food when they share the same run?  I was prepared to build a separate run.

But an old hen at the farm supply explained that she has always fed her birds 22% game bird feed to ducks and chickens and never had a problem.  So we decided that experience probably trumped web-wisdom.  So far so good.  Their about 11 to 12 weeks old now and doing fine.  Eggs should be coming any day now.

Breaking Ground

I am looking forward to writing about our adventures.  I hope some people will come along with us.  Next post soon!