It's Vacation Time...

With my vacation time comes lots of projects and things that I want to get done around our little farm.

Over the weekend we started one very important project - building new nesting boxes for the hens. The pet carriers are functional and all, but they are a bit haphazard and kind of janky too.

How the egg cart looked at the beginning.

The first set of nesting boxes were as you can see above. A couple of pet carriers and an old hooded cat litter box that we found at Goodwill for cheap. Over time we add three more pet carriers and it worked for a while. The whole system is not a bad concept...just looked...well, janky. Especially since the litter box is now on top of a pet carrier and, since it is so large, will have at least two hens sitting in it. That's not a bad thing if they both lay an egg. Anyway - with the addition of several more hens we decided an upgraded system would be good. I might still hang on to three of the pet carriers and the so that there are options. It would look nicer for sure.

Today is Monday and I have an outing planned with a friend so there won't be nearly as much happening as we'll be going for coffee and Pokemon catching opportunities. Lunch may be part of the outing, but I'm not sure yet.

Tomorrow is our meat chickie pick-up day - so we'll be heading south to Tanget to do that. I love that there is a hatchery so close to where we live. So today we'll need to get the brooder all cleaned up and ready for new tenants - 30 of them!

I will be posting here each day and sharing what we have accomplished each day. Right now, I need to employ good time management skills. My list of things to do is a mile long and I only have a week off.

Here's to farm life!

February Happenings

Wow, it's crazy that a month has gone by since my last post! So, what's going on at Pigs 'n Poultry? Well, let's get into this!

Our Greta girl decided to pop out an egg that had no shell. Not so unusual for a first egg so it wasn't totally a surprise. It was a surprise that she is now at laying age. She's been with us since May and boy that took a long time for her to start laying! I was curious so I did a little research - geese only lay during the spring months and they usually only lay somewhere from 10-30 eggs per season. I had read somewhere that geese CAN lay as early as their first fall, but it's not common. She did do something that looked an awful lot like nesting and it was in the yard in between two garden boxes. Weirdo! This week we got a big surprise - and I mean BIG...

This mutant weighed in at 248 grams!

This egg almost looks fake-o, but it's real. The grass and blood stuck on it when it was brought in...man I felt so bad for Missy Greta. To go from a pretend egg that just had a leathery "shell" to this behemoth! She can't go back now! Fortunately, her routine is every other day since this big one.

The waterfowl egg collection

We used the goose eggs to make a frittata and it was delicious! I think that if we were to use the goose eggs for breakfast we could probably get two servings from one of those eggs! I'm accustomed to the duck or chicken egg size. We will enjoy these while we have them though - they won't be coming all the time. I'm excited about these eggs and look forward to more eggs from Greta. It will be interesting to see how long her laying season turns out to be in the end. Once she is done laying she'll go into her first real molt.

The other thing that happened in the last couple of weeks - my co-worker/friend and his wife dropped off 10 more young hens. It took a couple of weeks, but we got the new hens...

So that afternoon our flock increased to 31. When Clint asked how many we had now, Tom first said we had 26 chickens I quickly piped in and said 31 because of the little girls. We tend to not think of them since they haven't started laying yet, so I'm sure that's why we kind of forget about them. They don't offer anything but a lot of cuteness!

The Buttercups tend to want to be together, but they have been accepted by the older girls. Back when they were a couple of months old Tom decided to convert a dog house that we got down the street from our house.

November 2, 2019 - The Buttercups are finally out of the Brooder!

The best sight ever! Chickens out on grass.

The dog house got a door, a heat lamp and a perch too! So for three and half months they have grown accustomed to their home. I doubt that they will want to move in with the big girls.

So the chick shaw is filled a few more chickens and they are getting along better with each day that goes by. The first day we had to catch each of the new girls and physically place them in the chick shaw. This is actually a funny sight in the morning when the girls are first released for the day...23-26 hens coming out of the chick shaw. You wouldn't think that so many chickens would fit, but they do! Can you say Clown Car?

We have been keeping an eye on Fiona and her belly! She is looking good, but not huge. According to some research that I did recently, she may not even REALLY look pregnant until she is about 3 months after she has been bred. So when we do our willy-nilly calculations based on iffy memories we think that she was in heat last in mid-November. So that would put her around 3 months now. Gestation is 3 months, 3 weeks, 3 days - approximately. If she continues to have her hangy belly swaying back and forth when she is running toward us at feeding time we might see piglets during my vacation time or sooner, maybe.

We know that she is not fat because they have been on a diet since last summer and Rex is looking pretty darn good. It's taken some time, but he is finally not looking like a....well...a pig.

This month has been quite rainy and I'm ready for some dry weather - especially on the weekends. I have so many things that I want to do!

Also, looking forward to the day when I can be home doing the farm life and making my own schedule with the time that I have in the day...

This is my happy place!

Winter Mode

It has been a few months since my last post...and to be honest, I don't feel so bad about it.

The ladies on the garden.

A lot of life has happened since that last post, the garden has been cleaned up and the chickens are now working their magic for the upcoming season. Honestly, the chickens LOVE the garden! There is so much for them to do...there are all sorts of treats to be had in there.

Ms. Fiona 

Fiona is quite possibly pregnant. It has been a while since we last witnessed Rex hassling Fiona, so she might be with bacon bits. So for the past couple of weeks I've gone out to the pig pen to observe the two of them and really study Fiona. It's hard to say, kinda like the first time she was pregnant - I just stood there looking at her and wondering until all of a sudden there she was putting herself in an impossible situation. So the answer for now is a strong possibly.

Seed catalogs are slowly trickling in the mail...oh how I love a seed catalog! I have received catalogs from Seed Savers Exchange, Baker Creek, Territorial, Johnny's and a couple of others. My favorite is Seed Savers...love everything about that company! Check them out!! I want to love Baker Creek, but the seeds just didn't work for me for some reason. They do have a really nice Whole Seed Catalog that I purchased last year, I don't think I'll be getting it this year. Johnny's is great for garden tools and cover crop seeds. Territorial is local (Cottage Grove, OR) and I would LOVE to visit their store. That would be quite a trip though, just far enough away to not be a day trip. It would be more of an overnight trip. Overnight trips are out of the question right now - we need a farm sitter.

And I'm starting to do a few more indoor activities. Last week I broke in the new kitchen work table and baked some cookies. Last night I watched a quick tutorial on crocheting and learned how to do a single crochet properly. This coming weekend I'll be baking something and sewing.

the addition of this table makes the rest of the kitchen look really bad!

So yeah, I'm settled into winter mode alright.

As I look back on last year's gardening effort, I feel pretty accomplished at all that went well (beans squash and tomatoes) Then I think of what did not go well (onions). As I start planning for the next garden I am thinking about doing more - nothing new there. However doing more requires more time, and I don't have more time. This year I will learn time management!

I'm also thinking about how I need to replace some of the laying hens as they are starting to really slow down with their egg laying. The original girls are nearly two and a half years old and even though they are still laying, it's not nearly as much. In fact, we had to suspend our egg sales to our few friends due to the girls starting to get broody or just not laying much.

We have already got some chicks back in September, Sicilian Buttercups...

These little girls are so cute!

Also, there is an opportunity to gain a few young hens from one of my co-workers who lives not far from us. He and his wife have quite a flock of chickens and they have experienced some loss due to a predator and he is thinking of downsizing. This will be a good thing even if we have to pay a little bit of cash-ola for them. He said that they haven't started laying yet, so this would be perfect! We'll see though...nothing is for sure.

This winter I'm going to try to rest up for all of the activities that I have on my agenda for the spring and summer. Lots of things are on the list already - Freedom Rangers will be on the farm again in March, new hens, need to build another chicken tractor...chicken harvest in June. Hopefully there will be a puppy in May. All that AND getting seeds started for the garden and possibly for sale.

AND there needs to be time for....

POKEMON!

When the Garden is Done

The garden that produced so much for us and is still actually producing some stuff is finally winding down. Last weekend we started to pull up plants, harvest Sunflower heads, clean up some hardware and then let the feathered creatures come in and enjoy some gleaning.

For weeks, I had been trying to get Walter & Leona to come into the garden and root around for stuff. They had a chance to come in a few weeks ago, but found it too intimidating I guess because they wouldn't follow me in.

This was the one and only time this summer that we had waterfowl in the garden:

At that time they just hid out behind the Three Sisters corn and when it was time to get them to go, they showed how stubborn they can be, very stubborn.

The geese are so veggie-centric that I KNEW that they would have to stay out. Until now.

Gus & Greta can't believe their good fortune

When they first walked into the garden, they just stood there not understanding what they should do. Then they saw the bean plants and that was it...they started to nibble on the leaves. This is a surprising thing about these two, they are not 100% into the bean leaves, but they LOOOVE the beans. Lenny was the opposite, loved the leaves and couldn't understand that the bean was food too. Since the weekend they have been able to come and go into the garden whenever they please. Of course that is available while we are home.

The other day I suggested to Tom that they be corralled into the garden when he has to leave for an extended period of time. That works out well because it is a sad sight to see them in their house and when they are in with the ducks the ducks are unhappy. This is the perfect solution. Well, until the garden is planted again.

The only thing that I will put in the garden this fall is the garlic when it finally is delivered. The season between the fall stuff and getting the spring/summer crops in can be a little on the longer side. This way we won't have to put the chickens in the garden...not just yet anyway. The chickens do great at tilling and spreading things like compost around.

I do like to put tarp down over the garden to smother weeds that have come up and give the garden a chance to recover during the late winter, so the critters will have to stay out. I might put down some cover crop after all of the plants are out, but I haven't decided for sure just yet.

Anyway, the feathered critters have been enjoying their smorgasbord of leftover beans and some sunflower seeds and corn stalks. The geeses REALLY like the corn stalks. I'm not sure what it is...maybe they like the feel of the leaves. They are so weird...they try out everything!

All of the waterfowl including Betty

Betty and the duckies she hatched

There are a couple of Butternut squash still on the vine, so I'll have to wait until they are appropriately ripe before pulling up the three sisters plants. I would like to dry the corn stalks and maybe line the rest of the fence with them. We'll see.

This time of year is always a little sad, but I still try to grow something during the Fall and Winter. Then I'll start planning my 2020 garden!

Farm Life - growing food for people and animals!