Ugh — it was one of those days when I Could Not Get Anything Done. I mean, I got some stuff done — the chickens were mucked out — poor babies. It snowed a foot yesterday, then went into the 50s today, so my backyard is a lake. I got the chicken coop cleaned out and nice new shavings put inside, then bought them some new straw for bedding in their run, which seems to have put them high enough to be out of the wet — but my backyard was a lake, and the wind blew gusts into the…
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Chicken feed has been a problem lately. When I first got chickens, I bought regular commercial feed from the feed store where I bought the chickens — they carry the Nutrena brand (which is Cargill) and Purina. Regular layer feed runs about $16 for a 50lb sack, and scratch is about the same. Then a new feed store opened in town, and they carried a local organic feed and scratch milled just north of here in Fort Benton called Big Sky Feeds. This is a photo of their scratch mix — and here’s the label: — wheat, sunflower seeds and flax (although…
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My first post-deadline, post-travel weekend and although I was woefully short on new fiction pages produced, I did get some long-neglected house-and-garden tasks done. First of all, I’m feeling sanguine about winter because, at long last, we got our whole pig! It took a long time this year because, well, the small packer/butcher operation we buy from sold more post-fair pig specials than they had pigs. So we had to wait for them to get more local pigs (they promised me it wasn’t a CAFO pig), and then for them to make the delicious hams and bacon. There’s nothing like…
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Farewell, Delaware from Charlotte Freeman on Vimeo. Miss Delaware is the bigger of the two Delaware chicks I raised this year, and although I hesitate to say it, she’s my favorite chicken. I never thought I’d be a person who could tell the chickens apart, much less the kind of person who has a favorite. But she’s kind of hilarious — for one thing, she’s very very vocal. And curious. Even when she was a little chick, she’d come over to see what you were doing, or rather, would come over to supervise whatever you were doing. She’s also pretty funny…
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The new chickens have finally started to lay — one wee pullet egg a day. They’re about the size of bantam eggs — maybe half the size of a normal egg. But lovely bright marigold yolks that stand right up off the surface of the white. It’s such a relief to be getting my own eggs again. No offense to any of the very fine ranch egg purveyors here in the valley, but I there’s no comparison between an egg from your own backyard to an egg you buy from someone. Next chore, sending the rooster off to his new…
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A couple of weeks ago a post from Daily Yonder came up on my RSS feed about chicken waterers. It promised a way to water chickens without them wallowing in their own filth. Chickens will shit on anything, including the open water lip of their water container — which has always grossed me out. Plus, you waste a lot of water dumping out the dirty stuff for them and then they just make it all dirty again. The Daily Yonder article was about a couple, Mark Hamilton and Anna Hess who came up with a way to economically and hygenically…
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Here’s my first real harvest — I’ve been eating a little bit out of the hoop houses, some spinach here, a couple of scallions there, some komatsuna as it came in, but this is the first real harvest of the season. Today I picked a big bag of scallions, probably the equivalent of two big supermarket bunches, a huge bag of spinach, a big bag of arugula, two re-purposed tortilla bags full of broccoli rabe thinnings, and a big bag of mixed Chinese greens. Enough for the week at least. Here’s to give you an idea of the difference the…
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It’s hard to see but this is Raymond, and the new chickens inside a wire pen. Everyone’s outside today because it’s sunny and warm, and both the dogs and the big chickens need to get used to the babies. I’m hoping to get the babies out of the cold frame soon (in part, because I need it) but for now, everyone’s just kind of hanging out out there, separated by a little wire. Raymond has the most trouble — he really really wants those chickens. For a while this morning he was lying down next to the pen, as if…
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Chicken Movie2 from Charlotte Freeman on Vimeo. I’ve been meaning to post a chicken update, but I was a little behind the curve on the whole video thing. So here’s a short clip of the chickens, in their new, expanded nursery which is, as you can see, made from recycled cardboard. Eventually I want to just let them run around inside the cold frame, but they’re still so small, and there are some crannies in which I think a panicky baby chicken could get stuck. The cold frame has worked out splendidly. It’s less drafty than the dog crate/tarp setup…
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New chickens! I was going to order from my new local feed store, but they didn’t realize they’d have to order really early, especially these days, and they called last week to say the hatchery had run out until May. So I had to drive over the hill to Bozeman and take my chances. I called to see when their chickens were coming in, and although they told me Monday, they actually came in yesterday, which means that once again, I won’t be raising Arucanas. They were sold out by the time I got there. So, the luck of the…