chickens

Multiple irons

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I have been playing catch up last week.  I am trying to do multiple things at once.  This is not working well for me. I just keep flitting from one thing to the next. I had to put the baby chickens outside. I wanted to paint and they are so dusty I needed to dust every day. I called it quits when they started sitting on top of the water dish. They are growing like weeds out in the baby area of the chicken coop. I have also managed to not catch the coop on fire this time with the heat lamp. I have enough concrete board to line the baby area this summer so it is fire proof.

I am currently trying to convince a coworker to raise two geese for me past the gosling stage or about 2 months old. I want to try keeping them up at the spring head and see if they cannot keep the waterway clean. If they can then I will move them to different sections of the waterway to keep it clean versus me having to pitchfork it clean three times a year. I am trying to let some livestock work for me. I hope it works. img_5553

I have one wall in the dining room done and the kitchen done. Next up is to get the color on the wall near all the windows. Our trim is stained and ready. I just need to get it delivered and then start installing it. That will be a big job. I figure it will take about 2-3 weeks to get it all in.

Chicks are here

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Annmarie and I were commiserating about our lackluster effort by our chickens on Thursday night. We came to the conclusion that we were going to have to start pullets instead of trying to buy adults. Pullets take a minimum of six months before they start laying. It was decided that sooner rather than later was good timing.

She called me on Friday morning to say that she had purchased 18 Easter Eggers! The local feed and supply store had just gotten them in and she snapped up half the easter egger pullets. They let her pick her 18 and she paid for them so they held them all day for her. I knew the brooder needed to be bleached out but figured I would have time after I got off work. I got off late and was bleaching the brooder, lid, waterer and feeder when she got home. I had pine shavings down in the root cellar so I figured all was good. I dried it all off and filled up the brooder with pine shavings from the root cellar. Cedar shavings are bad for chickens. I placed all this in the library downstairs and somehow managed to do it without Annmarie noticing then went out to do chores. She smelled the brooder and said it smelled like chemicals. I told her I used bleach only and it should be gone by now. It was then that Annmarie asked me if I was still storing herbicides in the root cellar and how long had the pine shavings been down there? After killing off most of my chicks one year by using varethane inside the house at the same time they were present we are more cognizant of chemicals. So I had to throw out the bedding and used a cardboard box and newspaper to get us through the night until I could go back to the store and get fresh bedding.

This also put the kabash on any painting dreams I had. I tell myself that I was going to tear it up and finish the entire house over this weekend but now we will never know because I was thwarted by baby chickens.

We like the easter eggers as they are very calm. They lay multicolored eggs and have been the best breed in longevity, laying habits and non broody.

Last little bit of help

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We took a few days off of the farm house to go work in town for my mother. This week we finished up the last few things that I needed some help with. The entire back porch is clean now and no longer a tile work area. This makes a huge difference in appearance. We also put the door display back together. They are two doors from this house that had been removed years ago and were out in one of the outbuildings. The shelves are made from the kickboard I removed from the upstairs floor. There was no kickboard downstairs. We had to trim off 1/2″ from the bottoms to accommodate the new floor height. I had cutouts in the door for the light switch and outlet that had to line back up. The new white color of paint we used is great! It actually makes the yellow cupboards look good. So we are going to paint the whole kitchen white and ignore the cupboards for a few more years. We thinned out the shelves by almost 50% on the cookbooks and the flower vases. Hard to believe Annmarie got rid of two full paper grocery bags of cookbooks and I got rid of 9 flower vases!

Mr. Experience and I moved the sideboard, piano, table, and TV stand back into the living area. We left them out away from the walls so that I can paint the entire downstairs. I also call and start badgering the trim place next week to get ours started and stained. They will deliver it all stained and finished. We just have to cut it to size and install it.

We cut the oak kickboards for in the kitchen. I was short on oak so need to buy another 2′. The last ten years we have hung our kitchen towel over one of the under sink doors draped over the door so it cannot close. Annmarie suggested we stick a hook on the side of the stovetop near the sink where we cannot bump it so we can actually close the sink door. It works very nice, now to just get in the habit of using it. We also leveled the fridge and switched the door opening to the left side. So now when you go to fridge from stove you can just open the door and don’t have to step around an open door to reach stuff. It makes the kitchen feel bigger.

I will be drawing up plans for out new kitchen island soon. We are going to have the frame made of metal. I will build custom wood shelves for it and top it with a solid piece of granite so that Annmarie can use it to roll out dough and cookies on. We will also design it to have a two seat kitchen nook so that we can eat our meals in the kitchen. The dining room table is for guests not mail and a horizontal storage area I am told. The problem with this is the front door is narrower than the island so it will have to be made in two pieces and bolted together in place.

We are still waiting on our wooden intake grate for the heating return box I made. They said 3+ weeks and they were not padding the timing schedule to look good.

Mr. Experience hooked me up with a source for food grade 50 gallon metal barrels with locking removable lids. I have two in the chicken coop now and have two more coming. Between these four and the two metal trash cans I can start stockpiling chicken food again. I really like to buy in bulk during the sales but now when the mice destroy it. Now I can just put the entire bag into the 50 gallon drum and pull out each bag individually. This lets me track my monthly expenses better. When I open the bags and dump them into the trash cans I charge them out for that month even if it takes me two months to empty the trash cans. So one month has a feed charge and the other does not. Its not as accurate.

My bladder made me do it!

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You ever get that feeling that says get out of bed? As I approach fifty this sense of urgency has gained prominent attention. Last night I had to wake up at 0300 to pee as I forgot to do it before going to bed. I crawled back into a warm bed hoping to spend the rest of the night warm and blissfully uninterrupted. I was dreaming about these weird deadly creatures that only come out at night and were wiping out mankind when Annmarie jabbed me in the side and whispered “Do you hear that?” Something had cut through my dream but I was unsure if the deadly creatures were on the run in my dream or if it was external. It was external, some odd chittering sound. I had sudden hope that I might get to avenge my untimely departed chickens. The real trick here is time and stealth. Every time I have stopped for a coat, made noise or tried to sneak around on this night terror it has gotten away. That was not going to happen tonight, I got out of bed very quietly and went right downstairs to grab Killer (Walther P-22 pistol with laser sights). I usually load the pistol outside but it was time to change up and get serious so I racked one in, slid the safety off and laid my finger alongside the barrel. I snuck back to to the laundry room and peeked out into the dark. It is dark, I cannot see anything! I reach over and fumble around for the outside light switch. I had left all the lights on the back half of the house off so the predator would not see me coming. I flicked the porch light on and there it was, my Nemesis, a raccoon! I flicked the light off, took one second to ready myself and flicked the light back on and ripped open the door. I led with Killer speaking the language of death. This is where each of our actions have led to our current relationship. I got one “word” off while it was still on the porch attempting to get away from the cat food. I got a second “word” off when it ran left in the back garden. It remembered that the old house was safety and flipped a U-turn and headed back that way. I got off a third “word” which caused it to run behind a trough planter. Killer and I were a team, we followed the predator’s every move and spat out our language every time we had a clear view. There was a fatal flaw in the raccoon’s plan, it had to climb a fence and once it got in the small walkway clearing it realized it could not squeeze through the fence. It was too late, my bladder had taken control of my body and insisted that this event end right now! I just kept pulling the trigger until Killer ran out of breath. Now was time for another crucial conversation, was my bladder going to win or could my desire to see this through to a dead nemesis prevail? It has been too long, we have suffered under the burden of being preyed upon and it had to stop. I ran back into the house and grabbed a second big breath for Killer so we could say our goodbyes. Now normally, I would have just stuck the holster onto my pants, pajamas, robe whatever I was wearing but since I was not wearing anything this did not happen. Killer and I rushed back because my bladder was disagreeing vehemently with our decision to finish the conversation. Annmarie hollered down and asked if “I had gotten it?” She offered to bring down the 30-30, her preferred raccoon eliminator after her raccoon attack but my bladder won this point as we knew the delay would cost us. When I went out onto the back porch the raccoon was not moving, three “words” later I was running for bathroom. I had to pause at the door to unload Killer and drop it onto the couch. My bladder had taken control but Killer and I managed to get the final word in.

I made it in time! Always a great feeling. At breakfast Annmarie informed me that a raccoon has been terrorizing my mother-in-law and tearing into her bird feeders and opening desk drawers on her front porch. Hopefully, we have eliminated the problem and now if my stupid chickens don’t get in before the automatic door closes it won’t be a death sentence.

As the world turns

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As always something comes up, whether you want it to or not. I was reminded yesterday that the cows probably needed food as they had tipped over the feeder. Usually I can get 1-2 days after the feeder gets tipped over as they are just trying to get to the stuff below the solid panels. But with all the snow on the ground I felt sorry for them so I opted to feed them early. I had been charging my car battery in the hopes that it not starting was just a fluke. So I walked out to the machine shed to start up the tractor with the dogs in tow. The dogs are a necessity as the cows will bum rush the large hay bale as I attempt to push it into the field. I jumped onto the tractor, put my hearing protection ear muffs on and turned that key expecting it to start. I was disappointed. It did nothing but light up a couple of lights, no tick, no noise whatsoever. Luckily, we spent $2500 last year to get a single 110v outlet and light out to the machine shop!

So I grabbed the charger from the car and put it on the tractor. I then had to unload the propane tank and all season tires from Annmarie’s car out of the back of the pickup so I could use it to haul hay. We still have some 100# bales of alfalfa in the machine shop so I loaded up six bales and drove them out into the pasture and tossed them into the feeder. The nice thing about a moveable feeder is I move it every time I feed otherwise the cows create a mud pit. We are still feeding at the far end of the field away from the houses also. In the spring I want to drag a set of discs all around the field and spread out all the leftover hay and cow poop, maybe I can get it to mulch in.

The horse’s hooves needed cleaning out as it looked like they were walking on ice bubbles. It takes some effort to get those broken up enough to scrape them off the hooves.

My chickens are causing me grief again. I thought I was down six hens due to the raccoon and then this week number 19 magically appeared in the coop one night when I was counting them. I had been spotting this random hen out in the barn before the snow came down. Annmarie spotted it yesterday in the barn. We have no idea where it is roosting in the barn but it is not returning to the coop at night. It is just wandering the barn digging through the sheep and horse poop as content as can be. Tonight when we went out to do chores it was digging through horse poop and we caught it. It is now living with its comrades in the coop. This is chicken number 20! So the raccoon can only be credited with killing four hens now.

Annmarie called me today to say that when she went out to feed in the morning that the twin miniature babies were ice cold. They were totally limp and not very responsive. I asked if their new mom had abandoned them but she said they were curled up against mom. All we can figure is that she is not producing enough milk for the babies and they are unable to get enough calories to stay warm. She called to ask if I would come tube feed them. We have never had to do it before but you just insert a tube into their stomach and give the formula in with a syringe. I told her they were most likely not going to make it and just try her best. She put them by the gas stove and fed them every 5-10 minutes little dribbles until they got warm and strong. They were both sitting up and looking around 6 hours later! We gave them to the housekeeper. She now has 9 bummers from us! Its crazy how many problems we have had this year. Including the two that have died that’s 11 sheep we have lost out on for a cost of $770. We still have at least 10 ewes that need to give birth still. They are all our older more experienced ewes. We figure they avoided the ram the longest. My sister is visiting family this week and is coming out on Saturday. We will tag and band all the babies again to get caught up. To know if the baby has been tagged or banded you just look for the floppy lowered left ear. The ear tags weigh down their ears for the first couple of weeks. Its easier to spot the low ear than the actual tag from across the barn.

On the plus side, I did not have to go fishing for a retained placenta in one of the ewes tonight. She had passed it today on the second day. I have a pack of 100 shoulder length gloves that I have only used 5 out of in the last 5 years. I am hoping to continue the streak of infrequent utilization.