Meet The Ladies Of The Holler

Over last Fall and early winter O Wise One was busy with his honey do list. On the top was a new hen house. I had missed having chickens since moving to the new place and as soon as we completed the coop we ordered 10 brown egg layer assortment chicks from the hatchery. Thank goodness we did it early before the run on chickens as a result of the virus. For awhile around here chickens were more scarce than toilet paper! While we had been purchasing yard eggs locally I just missed having my own ladies. It had been many decades since I had not had a chicken on the place. 

Well my 10 ladies are now teenagers. All 10 did wonderfully and we never lost not  one chick. I have no idea of the breeds but just enjoy having chickens again. They process the weeds I pull out of the gardens and beds and keep me in plenty of compost. 

Their house with a roof and nesting boxes is 16 feet long and made of local native lumber straight from the mill. Eventually when the lumber seasons and dries out O Wise One will add batten boards and I will paint the coop. I'm thinking barn red. He also added on an additional 20 feet of run beside it where we dump our weeds and such and turn them into it daily. 

We are on the look out for a rooster for our girls. But for now we are waiting for our first egg sometime this summer. It will be nice to again have our own eggs. Not a huge flock but enough to keep this old woman happy.We will keep you updated on the egg watch.

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter

Rooster Spurs

Spring must be in the air because my turkey gobbler has been fluffed up for a week and yesterday they were breeding! Now that the chickens are laying again soon we will start thinking of setting chicken eggs to hatch.  

But we started noticing that the roosters spurs were getting awfully long and we don't want him hurting his honeys so we decided it was time to take care of the problem. 
 

As you can see he is a big healthy boy with some healthy claws but he is gentle with humans. 

 

If you look in the picture of the hen above you can see that when a roosters spurs get too long they can tear up the back of the hens. If you have too many roosters they can keep the hens backs absolutely bloody. Sometimes I have seen a rooster pick one hen over and over and injure her back as well.    

They also make saddles for hens to prevent this but they can be pricey. I have seen patterns online for making them yourself. But for us we simply remove the spur. 

 

 

It's rather simple. You will need pliers a paper towel and some antibiotic spray or ointment.

 

O Wise One   simply holds the rooster firmly on it's back with his head under O Wise One's arm. He takes the pliers and gently grasps the base of the spur and gently turn or rotate until you hear a slight pop. The hard outer covering of the spur breaks loose and you can simply slip it off. There will be a little blood but not nearly as much as if you cut that. What you are removing is the hard outer cover of the spur itself. It is similar to your fingernails.

 

The part remaining is actually an outgrowth of the leg bone itself and you do not want to damage that in any way. We simply use a paper towel to blot any blood drops that may form on the remaining stump gently and spray with an antibiotic ointment. 

 

The rooster is then isolated from the hens for a week to heal.  Once healed he is placed back with the hens. Doing this once every year or two greatly reduces the damage to the hens backs. The hard outer covering will eventually grow back.   

I have read that some people take hot cooked potatoes and place over the spurs and allow them to remain on the spur for a couple minutes. Once the potato is removed the spur comes off easier. I have not tried this method though. 

We do like removing the spurs so much more than cutting the spurs the way many do. There seems to be much less trauma to the bird and much less bleeding.  

Blessings from The Holler 

The Canned Quilter

Eggs Again!

During the last few months the ladies of the hen house had really slowed down on egg production as the days grew shorter and darker. 

Sunday night we had freezing rain and Monday morning there was a thin layer of ice on everything. Then Monday about mid day it started to sleet. By the afternoon the sleet had quit and the temperatures climbed to the high 40's and the 8 or so inches of snow that have been on the ground for weeks now began to melt.  

Thankfully in the last 2 weeks I am back up to an average of 10 eggs a day from 12 hens. I am so glad because I absolutely can't stand store bought eggs! 

And for lunch .... egg salad made with our own eggs....

And homemade Dill Relish.....

And homemade bread too !!

Blessings From The Holler

The Canned Quilter

Henhouse To Table

Back in the spring and early summer I had a neighbor who also has chickens come by and wanted to trade a clutch of her chicken eggs for some of my Buff Orphington eggs for her to hatch. I like the Buff Orphington breed of chicken as I think they make a great farm chicken. Large enough to be able to use them for meat, docile so that I am not being chased by flogging roosters and reliably laying large brown eggs throughout the year. And even better the willingness to hatch their own eggs. I always have at the least two hens go broody a year to ensure that my flock always has a clutch or two of chicks to replenish the flock.  

Not wanting to eat the neighbors eggs because I did not know how far they were in the hatching process I put half the fertile eggs under a broody hen and the other half in the incubator with turkey eggs that I had just set. Once the eggs hatched the chicks were all black but one and I put them all back under the old hen to raise. 

The old hen out in the shed was shut up in a partitioned off corner of the goat barn. She was snug and warm with lots of straw and a safe place to raise a brood.   

Behind a wire fence and locked door nothing could get to the chicks and they were raised there until they were old enough to turn out into the goat yard. 

 After the mother and other  chicks almost pecked the little yellow one to death she was rescued and brought into the house and became a pet we call Paula. O Wise One is convinced Paula is deaf because of the pecking to her ear area and she lives away from the black chickens. 

I had hatched out some young Buffs earlier in the spring and they were integrated back into the main flock and will become part of my main egg production flock. The Bourbon Red turkeys will also be butchered other than the ones that are out with the gobbler and hens and raised by the turkey hen. These young hens and gobblers already a part of the flock I will keep as my gobbler is getting up in age and this young stock will eventually replace the older gobbler and hens. They themselves are a sealed flock isolated from the turkeys that I intend to butcher. 

I know many people buy meat chicks to raise and butcher. I do not! We butcher what we raise on the farm and this year it was the neighbors black chicks now half grown. Raised off some grain and a steady diet of grass and garden culls throughout the gardening year and kitchen scraps.   

With cool weather arriving it was time to begin the butchering process so that we can get it over before the severe winter weather arrives. 

So yesterday my spring black chicks became canned chicken meat and rich bone broth for the pantry. Healthy and farm raised and used regularly for casseroles, soups, noodles and gumbos throughout the year.   

And chicken breast are freezing in the freezer. They will eventually be vacuum sealed in serving size portions. Lean white meat, farm raised and butchered.  

So as the leaves continue to turn and fall off the trees and the weather cools, a soft autumn rain falls here on the holler. It has been raining off and on since yesterday and is predicted to rain again tomorrow. So as the weather worsens I will continue to cook down my butchered birds and once we finish then start butchering turkeys. With 16 chickens and 9 turkeys to be butchered we will try to do a few every day or to. Once they are processed then we butcher some more. 

It may take us a week or two but slowly we will get it all done. 

Blessings from The Holler 

The Canned Quilter

Spring Babies

Our first batch of turkeys are out of the incubator

There is another batch in the incubator that should hatch next week and one of the hens is broody. Looks as if we will again have plenty of Bourbon Reds for the freezer and jars. 

The first two batches of baby bunnies were also weaned yesterday. Remember they were born during that last snowstorm : ) The mothers have already been bred for one more litter hopefully before it turns too hot. 

These are also destined for the freezer and jars.

Those cute little fluffy chicks are also growing like bad weeds and will make nice contributions to the the freezer.

We are considering setting another couple dozen eggs or hoping a hen will go broody which would be even better. Our winter meat provisions are coming along. Next on the list is the baby pigs and we have already put in our order for piglets.

How's your winter meat production coming along?

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter 

Chicks

It just isn't spring until you have a few of these little bits of yellow fluff peeping on the farm. O Wise One hatched out his first batch in the incubator over the weekend. I'm starting to see a pattern here. Baby rabbits in a snowstorm, baby chicks during a weekend rain storm.  

Won't Hank have a ball with these?

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter  

Work Continues On The Goat Shed

 

As time allows, in between mowing and gardening, we continue to work on our goat shed addition. The original front part of this building houses the chickens on one side and a small room on the other that the baby goats have grown up in. Now that they are big goats we have been working on this new addition added to the back of the original structure. It will be partitioned down the middle and will provide two new pens. Each with a door, window and it's own fenced enclosure. The best part is that everything has been either foraged or recycled. The neighbor had a barn blow down last year and in exchange for my husband helping to tear down the debris was given the materials that built this structure so it has cost us nothing so far but labor. I have a 5 gallon bucket of red barn paint on order to complete this project and it still needs doors and some trim but for the most part is done. Once that is done the pens will be sprayed with vinegar and pressure washed and I have several sacks of lime to whitewash the interiors.  

In between rains we dig holes and set posts for the enclosures. With this project completed this will actually give us four total pens and two of those extra pens completed for whatever we happen to have that needs one. All four pens will have their own fenced in area and a barn/shed area for bedding down at night. We have some used wire that was given to us and some that we have already purchased for another project long ago. It won't be anything fancy but it will be nice to have extra pens to separate animals if necessary. Sometimes that odd animal that is injured requires separation from the flock or maybe that mama hen with chicks. This allows us that room.

As you see we still have much work to do and our summer is pretty well planned out between gardening, canning, mowing, painting, and fence building. Last week we had grandchildren on three different days as well. We are not as fast as we once were on getting chores like this done but are thankful that we still can. We always manage to have more projects than we do summer weather! 

How are your summer projects coming?

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter     

Guests In The Chicken House

During our early May snowstorm we had a great many limbs fall in the yard. There were also a great many that were damaged and are still in the trees. So now every time we have a small rainstorm with any little small wind involved we are still getting limbs that fall. 

   

Rocky and Bullwinkle love it when they fall in their pins. They can strip the bark and leaves off those limbs faster than any critter I have ever seen. 

And somehow during all these falling limbs we have ended up with these little guys in the chicken house. My guess is that they are some sort of Martin, (Mom looks like a Purple Martin) but even more strange is that the chickens do not mess with them at all.

Despite the fact that they are no longer in the giant maple towering over the chicken yard the mother has obviously continued to feed them. They have nestled out a small nest in the straw in the corner of the chicken house and are surviving nicely it seems. 

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter

Setting Eggs

We set our first clutch of eggs yesterday. We set 13 turkey eggs and 36 chicken eggs. If we are lucky in about a month we will have babies. This is this years chicken and turkey breast and strips in the freezer and jars of broth and meat. Anyone else setting eggs?

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter

Still Composting

This is the time of year that all the cages, sheds and animal pens get a good cleaning before that winter snow starts flying. 

O Wise One cleans out the poop from underneath the brooders and takes the pressure washer to them. Once dry he will cover them with tarps until next spring when we again have babies to go in them.

Needless to say the gardens and compost piles are getting plenty of attention right now.

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter

Farm Babies

Pork and Beans the two little fattening pigs are weaned now and are eating lots of over ripe fruit and veggies not only from my garden but also from the vendor at the farmers market that lives near us. Between that, table scraps and a little grain along they are growing like mad.

Baby turkeys that just moved to the outside brooder...

We have 9 baby Buff Orphington chicks that hatched out of the incubator a day or two ago. 

And I would like you all to meet the newest additions to our menagerie.....Rocky and Bullwinkle.


This is what my 16 year old daughter drug home yesterday. Most kids drag home puppies or kittens. Not Baby O, she felt these goats needed a new home as I guess they were in a bad situation. Guess she and O Wise One will be building a goat pen for the rest of the week : ) 

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter

Frazzled

Remember not long ago I posted about old mama hen with the 5 baby turkey chicks. 

Well she still has all 5 turkey poults and has raised them well. She provides early morning entertainment for O Wise One and I on a daily basis. These days we let her free range since we tend to be out there most days anyway. Every morning we open her pen and all 5 turkey chicks take off flying. Those rascals fly like eagles I'm telling you. Poor mama hen is at a dead run all day trying to keep up with those 5 hooligans. 

She naturally does not fly as well as the youngsters and they give her quite a run for her money most days. Every now and then though she gets her licks in and chastises one real good. As the mother of 5 I can so commiserate with her. 

Notice in most pictures the poor thing is at a dead run. I think after this year she deserves to actually raise chicken babies next year.  Those baby turkeys consume gobs of grasshoppers though which is a good thing this year. 

And every night like clockwork at dark she and her 5 chicks fly by themselves into an empty brooder over by the rabbits and O Wise one closes the door so they are safe all night. Every morning he opens the gate and they fly out to start their foraging. The hen and chicks follow him all over the yard when he is near because he gives them corn on the cob and sliced cantaloupe.

Since these 5 are so tame we plan to keep them as breeding stock so they will become a permanent fixture on the farm eventually replacing some of our older stock. 

Seems like just yesterday they were tiny doesn't it ? Don't worry we just put a new batch of baby ones out in the brooder out of the incubator. It just seems like the ones hatched with a hen are so much more docile and calm though. She did such a good job!

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter