Friday, July 28, 2006 - Mystery at Circle Z |
We spent a day at the fair last week. When we came back, there was an extraneous
guinea perched on our backyard fence. It fit in with our other four
guineas right away, even though it was obviously older than ours. There
was the initial new-kid-on-the-block pecking, but they settled down
rather quickly. How do you all of a sudden acquire a guinea without
even trying? As far as I know, we have no neighbors with guineas (at
least we have never heard them).
That night we found, upon counting the chickens when it was time to pen
them up for the night, one plymouth rock hen missing. This is highly
unusual as the hens are creatures of habit, and they always get in
their pen for the night. Especially when tempted by that tasty treat
known as scratch grains. We feared that someone's dog had
misappropriated our hen, and the neighbor, not wanting to admit his
dog's crime, simply left a guinea to replace the hen.
But ah, the plot thickens. Two days later in the morning at
"breakfast", here comes little Miss Missing Hen. We have no roosters,
but is it possible that this hen is brooding somewhere unbeknownst
to us? Thinking (mistakably) that she will soon have a passel of
chicks? Since this bird's reappearance, she has disappeared and
reappeared several more times. We try to watch at feeding time to see
where she is coming from, but haven't been able to catch her yet.
Where is our hen carousing? Where did that guinea come from? Caring for free-range poultry is never boring. 
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Saturday, May 20, 2006 - Fowl! |
Our 22 chicks are about 1-1/2 weeks old now, and they are all healthy
and growing fast! We will have to separate the ducks and turkeys pretty
soon. They are fun to watch, and since we've never had the turkeys or
guineas before, I'm interested to see how they change as they grow.
We found a bird on the edge of our pond last night. It was rather, how
shall I say...lifeless. We had never seen one of these before, so we
came inside to look it up. It wasn't difficult to find out what it was,
what with the peculiar white beak and strange-looking blue legs. It was
an American Coot, apparently migrating through Ohio (according to the
maps we found on the internet).
Maybe these are more common than I think. I'm somewhat new to paying
attention to the birds around here. Here's a picture we found:
We thought it was a duck at first, but as you can see - no webbed feet.
If we weren't homeschooling, I probably wouldn't have the least bit of
an interest in birds. I'm glad I'm not missing out!
Amey
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Thursday, May 11, 2006 - You've Heard THIS Before |
Our chicks are here! How many times have I read THAT headline on a
Homestead Blog over the last two months? Now it's finally our turn. We
got our chicks yesterday. 12 pullets, 4 pekin ducklings, 2 turkeys, and
4 guineas. The turkeys and guineas are new to us. They are all in a
huge black cattle watering trough (I think that's what it is) in the
garage. My husband set the heat light up to hang over them, and the
thermometer we put in with the chicks went straight to 95 degrees. Is
he good, or what? I was impressed, anyway.
I've started reading Trial and Triumph,
by Richard M. Hannula, which is a book on the Ambleside list of reading
assignments, and I'm having trouble putting it down. It is a great book
on the heroes of the Christian faith. The chapters are short-ish, and
the shortcomings of the "heroes" are mentioned, but downplayed. And
there are several heroes with some significant shortcomings
(Charlemagne comes to mind), but all of them furthered the Kingdom of
God in a big way. I'll be reading it with my older son for school soon.
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Thursday, April 20, 2006 - Turkeys? Guineas? |
We ordered our spring chicks this week! We're fortunate to live close
enough to a hatchery that we can pick them up rather than having them
mailed. That means no minimums! As long as we order at least 6 birds.
Here's what we're getting:
12 Rhode Island Red pullets (for eggs, of course)
10 Muscovy ducklings (for mosquito control)
2 Bronze-breasted turkeys (for the freezer)
4 French guineas (for tick control)
4 Pekin ducklings (because they look pretty on our pond)
This is our first time trying turkeys and guineas. We'll see how it goes! They'll be yard roamers.
In other bird news, we discovered why our year-old chickens weren't
giving us any eggs. They were laying them, but they would eat them
almost as soon as they were layed! Our son saw them do it one
afternoon. After that, we let them out of their pen every morning, and
now they're laying eggs throughout their territory, and so far we've
been able to find them before their compatriots do. I guess the
chickens won't eat their own eggs. Or maybe it's just the change in
scenery and the availability of new spring grass and bugs.
Spring blessings!
Amey
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Thursday, February 23, 2006 - A Homesteader Homeschooler's Science Possibility? |
When I was growing up, I had the weakest stomach! Anything gross could
make me sick (literally). It still surprises me that my boys are not
the same way. I don't know why. It was usually boys that made me sick
when I was a kid, so I really shouldn't be surprised.
My husband butchered four chickens the other day, and I figured my kids
would not want to be around for the big event. So I kept them inside.
When the chickens were placed in the kitchen sink almost but not quite
all cleaned up nice and supermarket pretty, those two boys watched me
pull those chicken lungs out like it was the greatest thing they'd ever
seen. "What are those, Mommy? What's that? Cool! How did Daddy kill
those chickens, huh? I want to know."
I think I'll put down butchering day for an hour of homeschool science this week. 
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Thursday, January 12, 2006 - I'm No Chicken Expert, But Here's My Experience With Chickens |
Yesterday, Melanie at Jubilee Farm
asked about numbers of chickens needed. We are just figuring these
numbers out for ourselves, and it is really a trial-and-error process
for us. There are many factors involved.
We wanted our chickens to be free-range, grass-fed chickens. So
originally, we just let them roam around the yard. That turned out to
be a mistake, as there are more chicken predators in our area than we
were aware of. Our trouble over the last year was mainly due to hawks
and a mink. So we lost a number of chickens (and ducks) last year, and
would have done better to order more than we thought we needed. We also
got one chick (a hen) from the hatchery that died at about 2-3 days
old.
At first we were just interested in eggs, and planned to have around 6
laying hens. But the egg-laying really slows down in the winter and
when they begin moulting (usually in the fall, I guess?). We thought 6
would be plenty, but now I'm thinking we could probably use closer to
12. That would give us more than we need in times of plenty, and
hopefully would supply us with enough at other times (especially if we
could freeze some when there was more than enough).
As far as meat birds go, we just started doing that last fall, and we
got our birds too late. Not sure how we'll do that this year - we may
just get our meat birds already butchered from an Amish family down the
road. We haven't decided for sure yet. I would still like to do it
ourselves, but that is largely up to my husband, since he is the family
butcher (he does a great job, too - just doesn't have much spare time).
As far as numbers go, we just figure out how much chicken we eat a
month (we eat about 3 per month for a family of 5), then multiply it by
how many months until your next chickens will be ready. We eat a lot of
beef, so we use less chicken than many families, maybe. Also, we have
never ordered a large number of un-sexed chickens of a dual-purpose
breed for both meat and eggs.
I guess my biggest advice for new chicken owners would be to order a
few more than you think you'll need, and protect your chickens from
predators by using a moveable pen (chicken tractor) rather than letting
them run free (unless you'll be out there with them, of course).
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Wednesday, January 11, 2006 - Something Not About Sourdough |
Here's a picture of my favorite chicken.
She gave me an egg almost every day last year! I was sad when she
started moulting! All those beautiful feathers... 
And here is something about sourdough (sorry, I can't help it!  ):
I tried the bread again and it turned out much better. Personally, I
like my sourdough bread to be a little more sour than this bread turned
out, but my family likes it!
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About Me
I'm a midwestern gal, living my dream life on 7 acres in the country. I love Jesus, my husband, three children, Daisy the Wonder Goat, and our chickens. I'd still love to someday have a miniature jersey milk cow.
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