Wordless Wednesday: Chickens

best buddies...

I love my lil' South (a chicken)

Just pulled South's (our chicken we never thought would make it when she was a chick) second egg of the day...I love her so much! Yes she can be a brat but I can't help but love her...I guess I really am a momma!

This is a pic of her nesting area...no one else is allowed. I am now starting to think that maybe she is in charge, head of the pecking order. As you can see it is under the nesting box. :)

My favorite, South. A pretty tight fit...but I guess that's the way she likes it.

Oh and here is the new style nesting box with West in it. All our girls, except South are laying in it now. As you can see it is an old tub with the front cut out.

We are planning a chicken share., you commit to 1-2 chickens and receive said amt of eggs each week. Let us know if you are interested and close to where we live? One chicken would be about 6 eggs a week

We can start girls in Feb, which means 6-7 months til eggs but we almost always have extra eggs from our current girls. The eggs are so much better...its amazing.

Latest update on keeping our girls

So the doctor just got off the phone with the code enforcers office...

Someone (most likely the college students behind us) called saying we had a rooster! Once we explained that we have them as pets for our son and that they are all girls, who are laying eggs, she cancelled the case! We let her know that we would be happy for her to come out and check to make sure there is no rooster if for some reason someone else complains.

Sorry for the drama I caused...I was just so worried and simply could not wait til monday to start researching. I also wanted to be as prepared as possible in case we did have to fight!

Thank you for all your support and our family is thankful for this to be over!

Harvest Monday 11/8-11/14 2011

lots of oregano, set out to dry

four eggs a day pretty much every day

We also had salad this week from the garden a few times, a mix of red romaine, deertongue lettuce, red kale, and claytonia. The swiss chard is coming back nicely since its weird unidentified disease. We also harvest herbs for all our dinners straight out of the garden every night. Our mache is finally almost big enough to harvest a bit, I cannot wait to have some of it. We have one pumpkin still on the vine and I am holding off as long as I can to harvest it.

I posted a few days ago about how we were told by the county we have 30 days to get rid of our girls. I have been on forums and talking with neighbors trying to find a way around it. This morning I make the call to the county to find out exactly what are options are. We have a back up plan for our girls but I want to fight as hard as we an to keep them here with us. We have a neighbor (she is awesome and gave us a half gallon of raw milk, making butter and cheese today)  around the corner who can keep them with her girls for awhile if we need her to but I hope we don't get to that point.

It is really frustrating because our landlord is happy with them, our neighbors are happy and they are a part of our family. We are not allowed any other animals as pets but were allowed to get chickens so to us they are a pet. It will be hard to explain to the little guy (2.5 years old) where his little girls are. If anyone has any advice, it will be much appreciated. click for the latest update on keeping our girls

We are linking up with daphnes dandelions for Harvest Monday. It is were people from all over the world share their harvest from the week.

Help us keep our girls...

We just received a notice from the county (Butte county) informing us that we are in violation of county code for having chickens. Our neighbors are okay with them and so is our landlord. If we were in city limits we would be able to get a permit for them but since we are outside we thought we thought were in the clear. I guess we are considered residential, so we are not allowed to have poultry. We have 30 days to get rid of the girls.

Please if you have any helpful information or ideas on how to combat this, we would greatly appreciate your help. Comment on the post or email me at violastitchstudio@live.com.

Ugh...one more thing to deal with. What harm can backyard chickens really be!?

Harvest Monday 11/1-11/7 2011

I did not take any harvest pictures this week...so here is a picture of one of the raised beds.

This raised bed has swiss chard, dragon carrots, red kale, spinach, parsnips, claytonia, mache, red romaine, beets, and deertongue lettuce. Along with a few random volunteers of garlic and onions.

We had salad all week from the garden, a mix of whatever was ready from the raised bed. Our first planting of root veggies never came up so our 2nd, 3rd, and 4th are a bit behind and will not be ready for awhile. Our swiss chard has something weird going on with it and I read through all our books to try and figure it out but I couldn't quite pinpoint it. So I just cut the bad away and I hope the new baby leaves will come back strong and provide for us soon.

We "harvested" 6 cornish cross birds this week and all four of our laying girls are laying. We are getting about 2-4 eggs a day now, which is awesome! Please send me any fun egg recipes or let me know if you want eggs (if you are near me, of course)!

We also built a "hoop" house (blog post to come) for the raised bed pictured and the rest currently have tarps over them at night. So far I feel like the fall/winter garden is going pretty well, especially since this is our first try! I am really loving it a lot more than I thought I would...there is something about eating out of your own backyard. I never want to stop...it is so enjoyable.

We are linking up with daphnes dandelions for Harvest Monday!

Harvest Monday 10/25-10/31 2011

Kale, spinach, deertongue and red romaine lettuce salad. We had 3-4 this week.

More tomatoes

Happy Halloween everyone! We have been eating salads all week long trying to eat from the backyard instead of buying from the store. We are still getting tomatoes but they are taking a long time to really ripen and we end up losing a lot of them before they are ready. I think we will be able to make one or two more batch of sauce. Our awesome neighbors brought us a whole bucket of pomegrantes and we will be making something out of them later this week.

In other news, yesterday I found 4 eggs in the chicken coop! Two of them were in the new nesting box we put in and the other two were where they normally are, where South and West always lay. So this means we probably have all four girls laying. I was lazy the last few days about getting eggs, so it may be that the day before I didn't check the nesting box and we only have three girls laying. I guess we will find out later today! :)

Don't forget to enter our first giveaway (free seeds). Today is the last day to enter and all you need to do is take a guess!

We are linking up with daphnes dandelions for Harvest Monday!

Chicken adventures: dealing with our first broody hen.

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I wrote earlier this week about our sneaky hen South who was hiding. Well after a few days of her hiding all day everyday. I decided to get to the bottom of it. What pushed me was finding two eggs in one day. Wait! I thought I only had one girl laying and I caught her (West) in the act.

I found South (the smallest of the bunch) way under the shed and pecking at me once she was found. I left her and kept checking every hour or so until she finally come out! She was broody and had two eggs she was "hatching". We pulled out the eggs and placed wood and large rocks so she couldn't get back under the shed. Who would have thought that our first layer would be the smallest of the bunch. I know she was the first because West has always laid inside the shed right in front of the nesting box and we found our first egg outside right in front of where South was "nesting". At least we figured it out and now have two girls laying! We managed to deal with our first broody hen! whoo hoo!

After all of this I realized that South is my baby and I really don't think I will let her be in a stew pot...she has a stand out personality and I helped her back to life, story here. As much of a snot as she is...she will always and forever be my favorite chicken!

Here is an article I read to help figure out what to do with our broody hen: broody hen

Oh and Happy first day of Fall!

Harvest Monday 9/13-9/19 2011

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Millet, green bell peppers, tomatoes, Thia basil and regular basil

Green beans from our second crop, zucchini

more tomatoes

the first egg our girls laid! We got a second two days later.

We are slowly taking out the tomato plants that are not really producing anymore (ten this week) but we are still get enough to make about a batch a week. They have really slowed down and I now know that we really probably only have a few weeks left. Change is good and I am now looking forward to fall...the cooler temps as of late reminded me how nice it will be to have fall here...even if it means no more tomatoes.

I am so excited that the girls started laying...well at least one of them. We just need one more egg and we can all have breakfast together! hehheh. Funny story...I have been out checking about every hour trying to catch the chicken who is laying. Then the other day I went out and we had only three chickens....I freaked out. At first I was like...am I just not seeing the 4th one?

There were no signs of a chicken being taken, no holes to get out of the outside portion of the coop. So we looked everywhere and then started asking neighbors. About 40 mins later, we decided there was nothing we could do...and then low and behold....she reappeared in the coop. We think she found her way under the shed. So now the outside portion of the coop has a large rock blocking their little secret hideout! Silly girls and of course it was South who did it...she is so sneaky. Since she is the one we all nursed back to health, she pulls on my heartstrings a little more even if she is the biggest brat of them all.

Anyhow...Happy Monday. We are linking up with Daphne's Dandelions for harvest monday! So go check out what other people all over are harvesting this week!

The girls (chickens)

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I was just about to write a post about our free-loading chickens since they are 6 months old and still not laying eggs...

But I just walked out to say hi and what did I see...the first light brown egg!

Go North or West...most likely! I am assuming that it is one of the two because they are the biggest and have had bright red combs for the longest. I really have no clue who laid the first egg...it might have been East the (now) smallest who is always the last to leave the roost in the morning (most likely not her, since I found the egg in the outside part of our coop...but hey...who knows).

PS: I always check in the morning, which is when they usually lay...I guess I will have to start checking all day long...typical females, right?

How to turn an old shed into a chicken coop

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We tried to buy as little as possible and use things we already had to build most of it. Our landlord told us he wanted to tear down the shed, and we asked him not to so we could turn it into a chicken coop. We found old tree branches and screwed them together to make the roost for them to sleep on, and every morning before they depart you can find them all on our make-shift roost.

Here is the outside caged area for them to run around in during the day, we will need to put them in at night to protect them from raccoons and sort. We kept it simple using old scrap 2X2s and posts to build somewhat of a cage. Then we covered the bottom half with poultry netting and the rest with deer netting, using staples and zip ties to keep it together. The girls did manage to get out of this part when they were still pretty small, so we placed old chunks of concrete and old pipes around the base to keep them from finding their way out.

This last part is the ramp/door combo we made for them. We just cut a large rectangle out of the side of the shed and attached it with a hinge and lock. This way we can pull them in at night and they have a ramp to get in and out.

We used these tubs for our garden last year and we had to drill holes in them to let water escape so they will be perfect as nesting boxes for the girls. Our neighbor grew nest egg gourds this year and kindly gave us a few as decoys for the girls to get the idea of where to lay their eggs.

We also cut holes up near the top of the shed and placed netting over them for plenty of ventilation. Chickens make a lot of moisture...I cannot stress enough how much moisture they make. So we attached a large fan near the top to create even more ventilation for them. The next project will be keeping them warm; something we'll worry about come fall.

How to build a chicken brooder

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We tried to buy as little as possible and use things we already had to build most of it. We started with a large rubber-made tub for our brooder. To give it ample ventilation we drilled a series of holes in the sides (not pictured). We attached a wooden bar across the top, using zip ties to create handle and place to rest the cardboard to keep them from flying out. The last step is to place pine shavings in the tub and attach a heat lamp to the wooden handle. Then add a feeder and water for them.

Our girls took 10 weeks before it was warm enough outside, and we kept them in this tub the entire time without any problems at all. We did let them play in the yard at least every day, they absolutely loved it, and so did Gnar.

A little bit about our girls...North, South, East and West.

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I love my girls...

Here's North, she is the head of the flock and the biggest. After several pictures she finally came over to get a closer look at what I was doing.

They are 17.5 weeks and doing really well. We are now at the point where we have to start checking for eggs. I'm planning on making a couple fake eggs to place in the nesting boxes so they get the idea of where they should lay.

South is the smallest but I think she is second in command, always hoping she might take over. Since she was so little she had to develop a big attitude to make sure she didn't get pushed around. East and West are followers, they kind of do whatever North does and are almost like twins.

We get most our information from a friend but I also spend time researching on two helpful websites...

Backyard chickens

My pet chicken

Check them out if you are interested in starting your own flock or you can bug me with questions. :)

Chicken update

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For the last few weeks I have been so concerned for our little runt of a chick named South. She was having trouble walking and not growing for the longest time and I was so worried she wasn't going to make it. After many conversations with friends about what to do and a visit to Wilbur's, we started letting her be on her own for a few hours every day. Which meant I had to take our other girls outside and play with them and leave her to herself with some milk soaked chick starter. It was hard on me because she is my favorite and she seemed so sick, but it was a good reminder for me that they are livestock and I can't get to attached. I knew the other girls were not really picking on her because I keep a pretty close eye on them. We think she may have been stepped on or something.

This is her now...up and running around with the big girls and holding her own. You can see is still has some catching up to do in size but she is much much better.

Here is North the biggest of our girls, you can see the real difference in size when you see these two girls next to each other. North was a momma in all of this, she kept an eye on South and let her snuggle under her at night. I guess being a mother is an instinct after all. East and West are like twins, always together and protecting each other. I also can't tell them apart, but the Doctor can. South will need to stay inside with us probably a couple extra weeks, but at least she is doing better. The other girls get to go outside in a little over a week and we are all excited. I know they are dying to be in a bigger coop and be able to eat bugs whenever they want. I will get some pics of the coop up when it is finished along with some info on how we did it.

Tired but filled with Joy

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Our lil' girls are doing well. I am enjoying the chickens a lot and I can't wait til we can move them outside. I love the little peeps, the little guy saying Hi to them in the morning and bye to them on his way to bed! The Doctor and I have a goal and we made one small step closer to the goal this last weekend when we got our girls. I also just ordered the One-Block Feast book that Sunset Mag just finally released yesterday. With all the chicken up keep, watering our veggie starts, planting more seeds, and taking plants in and out every day...I'm getting tired. Looking forward to 45 degree and above nights and hopefully catching up on my housework one of these days. I'm going to try and start bloging a lot more too! I follow a bunch of blogs but I never seem to make the time to write on my own.

The garden and CHICKENS! YEAH!

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We already started our garden this year in Chico. We have most of it in pots so we can bring it in at night but I garlic, onions and potatoes are in the ground. We also got some cute little chicks so we can have fresh eggs! YEAH!