Out Sneaks October

I honestly do NOT know where the month of October went.  Ask anyone around here, and they'll tell you it just flew by.  Being insanely busy; harvesting, cleaning, putting up, swapping seasonal linens, stocking up, winterizing everything BEFORE it gets too cold to do it, makes the time slip.  Falling into bed AFTER your eyes are already half shut and waking up before they can creak open for weeks on end takes a toll.

Couple that with the utter lack of light.  Luckily, Nebraska doesn't get socked in with clouds from mid August until Mid May like Ohio does.  I'd go bankers.  No, we've been cloud free.  Our lack of light is from the seasonal creep.  And what a bonus, we change clocks this weekend too. I won't bore you with my annual rant about abolishing the time change.  Let's just say I don't think we need it anymore in our 24 hour society.

I DO enjoy this time of year though.  The air masses from the north fought hard all summer long, and have finally won the right to stay.  The air is lacking the stifling qualities of summer.  The days are pleasantly warm, and the nights tease with a chill that requires a jacket, hoodie, and a bonfire.  The setting sun blazes as it sets, reflecting on the changing spectacle of leaf colors and sets the very air alight with gold and red.  The Earth seems to be giving off its last bit of heat and joy before the grey of winter take over.

The girls, despite their full blown molt, have remained moderately productive.  They have slowed down a bit, but I hope the light (on a timer) in their coop and run keep them going just a little bit longer into the chilly season.

I managed to snap photos of MOST of them this past week.  Most are past their ratty looking stage.  A couple still look like the wind blew through them through a knot hole backwards.  The coop looks like an outsourced pillow factory waiting for OSHA to show up after a workplace incident.  I giggle when I see one of the girls finish a dust bath and then shake.  They loose a silly amount of feathers.  I'm sure the neighbors downwind, wonder what on earth is going on over here!

Blogger is acting up, so I will continue this entry on the next page.

Hyacinth - pale,pink/brown eggs - Lavender Orpington

Violet - light tan eggs - Blue Laced Red Wyadotte

Rose - Light Brown eggs - Welsummer
She thinks she's an ewok.

Flora - sky blue eggs - Ameraucauna - she's my biter, can you tell?

Merriweather - light blue - Ameraucana My lovie broodie, snuggle buddy.

Blitzer - light olive- half Ameraucana half RIR
I call her an American Red

Cirrus - green- half Buff Orpington, half Ameraucana
I call her an American BuffO

Daisy - Sand Brown, usually with white speckles - Light Sussex

Donder - Light Brown - Another American Red
Blitzen's Sister



 

Lela - DARK chocolate brown eggs - French Blue Copper Marana
She's a little high maintenance, but fun.

 

 

 

Not pictured - Zap, the rooster - French Blue Copper Maran

Nugget- Dark brown with speckles - Splash Marana
Olive - Deep Olive Eggs - Olive Egger

Lucy - Dark Brown - Copper Maran
Ethel - Dark Brown - Copper Maran

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 





One from each of the girls

Station Update and What's the Scoop with COOPOURI?!

Let start with a hearty welcome to Meteorological FALL!

I am SO, SO, VERY ready for Fall.  This is not to say that I looking forward to WINTER.  Oh contraire, I can't stand being cold.  I do not like wearing 473,000 layers to walk to the barn or coop.  I do not like having to wear mud boots, mittens, and then peeling everything off so that you can move your ankle to drive, fit behind the steering wheel, or have to go inside pretty much anywhere as they all seem to have the heat cranked up to 78'!  The SAME 78' that they refused to set their Air Condition UP to in the summer, because they'd be too HOT! Go figure.

No, I want the dry Canadian air masses that bring warm DRY Fall air and crisp Fall nights.  The night weather where you leave the windows open for the fresh air and at 3 am get too cold, even wrapped like a giant burrito, and you refuse to simply expose a disposable limb to reach over and close the window - or Heaven forbid, get out of bed altogether and get another blanket.  Dry and warm, cool and crisp, yup, that's what I am ready for.


But to get to that, we in the Prairielands, have to pay for that for a couple of months.  I call it Mother Nature's Menopause. We have stretches of days that mind numbingly hot and idiotically humid, then a cold front will swing through and give us a couple of days that are downright tolerable.  As soon we get it into our heads that, "hey, I could do with this kind of weather for a few days. GOODBYE Icky Summer!"  A low pressure system will pulse across the plains, pulling up moisture and heat from the Gulf, and we're back to a living in a sauna.  This great swing in both directions brings our second round of severe weather of the year.  Luckily, we've been on the pretty viewers side of the storms, so far. 

After that blew through, parts of Lincoln had 5 inches of rain.  We had .04" inches.  It was cooler.  Sadly the humidity didn't go with it.  Which left us with FOG.  Lots of fog. 

The all day humid that we like to call the toilet paper killer.  You know the kind of day. You've turned off the Air Conditioning, but you shouldn't have.  You should have left it on to control the humidity.  Everything feels wet, all the time.  The toilet paper on the roll is expanding on the roll and feels pre-used.  I'll say this, I DO love the look of rising fog on a quiet morning, cows lowing in the pasture, an insane rooster crowing, waking half the valley.

Sigh.  The rooster, he's certifiably INSANE!  I am convinced it is some wacky surge in cockerel hormones.  Have I mentioned he hates my ankles?  He flogs my ankles.  This week, while sitting quietly in a chair, he wandered over and took a bite out of my ankles.  I know, all my friends are yelling, "stew POT!"  But he only does it to me, so I put up with it.  If he starts up with The Boy, he's soup.  For the boy, he comes over, hops on his lap, and naps.  He must see me as another rooster.  So for now, he gets the other end of the horse crop, and snuggles.

We've already covered the insanity of the birds in a previous post, so we won't tread into that pool this week.  I am going to speak towards the changing seasons and chicken care.  I know it's September and the days are still warm, and the cold weather seems to be SO far away.  But like so often happens, time just FLIES by.  Work, family, chores, school, or fall fun always seem to make the ever shortening days go even faster.  And honestly, most people don't want to think about the mighty cold creep, the deep freeze, the mighty chill.   This is, however, the best time to be thinking about what you need to do to get ready for the rapidly approaching season.  I'd rather work a little in the warmth (not the blazing heat), than to try to get outdoor work done in the freezer. 

There are many things that need done this time of year.  The garden is on its last legs.  I will be picking and storing the green tomatoes on Friday.  The sorghum is about a week away from being cut and hung to dry for winter treats.  The cantaloupe vines needs pulled.  The corn stubble needs pulled and tossed into the compost pile, which needs turned and dumped into the garden and allowed to mellow over winter.  The new pile needs started with the still green rubbish of the garden.  And MOST importantly, the coop needs cleaned and set up for winterization.  UGH, the "W" word.

I deep clean the coop twice a year: April, when the days warm and the funk of a closed up winter needs chased away, and October, when bedding needs replaced, corners need dusted for mites and flies, the run flooring gets swapped out.

As the weather will be decent this weekend, I may just tackle the run and the compost pile and get it out of the way.  The run is a deep liter run.  It started as 6 inches of cypress mulch on top of lawn.  Over the summer, it has seen spilled feed, treats, lots of green hay meadow clippings, melon rinds, beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, and poo - lots and LOTS of chicken poo.  I will rake out the larger pieces of mulch and loosen the rest with one of those twist tine garden tools.  I will remove most of this and place it in the garden to mellow over winter and some in the new compost pile to jump start it.  I will groom the whole area, and add the old large pieces back and toss in a bunch of scratch to encourage exploration, and then some more FRESH cypress mulch.  That's it :D  That will hold us until Spring when we do the whole thing again.

I will also install the run and coop winter lighting this weekend.  We are loosing daylight FAST!   I will not let the lights run all winter, as I want the girls to have a break.  But the current sunrise at 630 and pitch black by 8pm isn't working for me.  LOL.  All it is a 50 foot string of soft white LED Christmas lights.  Just enough to gently wake them up and keep them from going comatose at 730pm.

I need to really tackle how I am going to cover the outside of the run for the winter months.  I have a general plan, so I'll update on that later.

The inside of the coop needs a little weekly TLC.  With all the extra humidity and little wind, it is getting mildly stinky.  Not odiferous, but a little wet chicken, hot chicken, chicken poo stinky.  Besides a general sweeping and sprinkling of the coop with more DE, I also use a vinegar mix spray that I ferment myself and use to spray down anything that doesn't run away.  It not only knocks down the stinkies, but it won't harm the birds or their delicate fluffy lungs. 

I simply take a quart (or half gallon) mason jar (or any generic) with a good lid.  I keep it in the refrigerator as we finish off oranges, lemons, or limes, I toss in the rinds.  When it is about 80% full I toss in some rosemary, some cinnamon, thyme, mint leaves, basil, vanilla beans, or whatever I think will smell fabulous or have on hand.  I then top the whole thing off to within half an inch of the top with white, distilled 5% vinegar.  I let this sit for a month at room temperature.  After that, I transfer the strained liquid to a large horse spray bottle and just keep it in the coop.  I spray down the windows, the chicken mirror, roosts, and nests boxes and anything else while the girls are out playing.

I also take this opportunity to check the condition of the nest boxes.  Do the pads need replaced or cleaned?  I sweep out the boxes, and sprinkle DE into the deep dark corners. I wash the washable pads and hang them in the sunshine to dry.  When I return them to the boxes I sprinkle a liberal amount of my coopouri blend.  Yup, just like people potpourri, but chicken safe and for the coop only (especially since I live in a house full of allergy boys.)

Last Spring I found a FABULOUS  herb company online.  I still don't remember HOW I found it, but I DO remember that I found it by complete accident.  The Mountain Rose Herbs company has been not only a wonderful resource, but their customer service, product, and packaging is TOP NOTCH!
I ordered Calendula Flowers, bay leaf, catnip, chamomile, cinnamon chips, eucalyptus, lemon balm, orange peel, oregano, peppermint, pink roses, spearmint, tansy, wormwood, pennyroyal, and sage.  I had planned to plant marigolds this summer, but somehow missed that boat! LOL.


I took great handfuls of dried herbs, and mixed them together and crumbled bigger into smaller bits and placed the resulting product into 2 gallon size zip top bags.  I sprinkle a couple of handfuls around the coop and in the nest boxes whenever I clean, or the mood strikes me.  In the nest boxes, the girls play with and adjust the bits. 

I honestly don't know if it REALLY does anything or has any effect on the birds, but it makes me happy, and looks nice.  I do know that some of the herbs DO work against several kinds of bugs and crawlies.  So there probably is some help to the whole project.  I do know we don't have a bug or fly problem :D So that's a start.

The Build - Part 6

By now it's early March.  The Earth is starting to shake off it's winter blues, the days are getting noticeably longer, the days are getting warmer.  Heck, a couple of work days even made it into the 60, and I had to trade my winter coat, for a jacket, and loose the jacket and trade the jeans for shorts.

The on and off blizzards, cold spells, and snow storms were finding it harder and harder to keep a firm hold on the passing season and began to give up altogether. 

As the ground began to really thaw, my thoughts drifted to the non-existent garden and getting that project under way.  I was tired of the build.  The girls were tired of their little coop.  So I let them out to play while I worked. (By now we had purchased a 1962 massey ferguson mf204 tractor and I started tormenting the sod for the garden.)

Just look at the survey crew in action.  Ya, black compost soil and a white chicken.  I didn't think that through.  But she had SO much fun.
 When I didn't work, I planned or shopped.  Because every coop needs bling.


 And honestly, to borrow from Ferris Beuller, "who could possibly expect me to handle work on a day like this?!"

LOL.

Coop Décor.  I found these great metal rooster and hen cut outs at Hobby lobby and spray painted them white, and lagoon blue and attached them.  I also picked up solar deck lights to illuminate the steps, pop door, people door, and back metal art/window.  I purchased locking jars at a closeout store for mealworms, and coopouri (which I make and might make available to others), and chick grit.  I also found large, metal, red sugar and flour canisters which fit on the exposed studs inside to hold grit and calcium for refilling the PVC supply tubes.

More than anything, I felt like I was puttering on the project.  I still had a deadline.  Remember, I had birds coming.  But I also felt like I had Spring fever.  Remember that from school days?  Your heart just isn't into it anymore, but you keep putting one foot in front of the other.  Funny thing that.  Usually that feeling makes you want to get OUTSIDE and play, but I WAS outside, all day, everyday! LOL. 

Worse than Spring fever though, I caught the dreaded chicken fever!  Chick fever to be precise.  It's a horrible thing all chicken people get.  You don't know when it will strike, but it's usually in February to Mid March.  You'll be minding your own business, walk into the feed store and hear that tiny little "CHEEP, CHEEP" from deep within a store.  Like a nursing mother who can tell in a room full of babies, her own child's cry, you hone in on those giant metal tubes full of cute little, fluffy, wittle, teeny, poofballs.  AGH! I blame my hen Merriweather.  She chose March to go broody.  The sweetest, cutest, sit on your hand, doll of a hen, turned overnight into something that would make Freddie Kruger curl into a ball behind a door and start weeping and sucking his thumb. 

Having no rooster at the time, I thought I'd swap her eggs out for 5 cute little chicks.  She's have none of that.  So I ended up raising 5 fluff butts, dealing with a hormonal hen sitting on fertilized eggs I bought from another friend up the road (Thank you Frank!), and trying to finish this build.

"Here a chick, there a chick, everywhere a chick, chick", now has new meaning to me. I had the main coop (still under construction), the small coop, a broody coop, and a chick coop all going at once.  I was wondering if I was starting to loose my sanity.  (Who am I kidding?  It was gone long ago.)

March is also burning season.  Usually it comes the first decent evening of the year.  You know the one, you can finally crack your windows open for a night's sleep, breathing in that cool, crisp refreshing air, until a skunk -"fresh" out of hibernation wanders by your window at 3am?  Ya, that day.  So it's finally warm enough to open windows during the day and it's burning time.  Farmers burn the stubble in their fields, their rubbish piles, their piles of old trees and shrubs from pasture cleaning, and burn their pastures.  Prairie grass thrives on fire.  It is far more healthy for the grasslands to let it grow for a few years, and then let fire fly through and burn out all of the old grass and thatch that has built up.  Within a week, you can't even tell an area has been burned.  It comes up that fast, and new and fresh.  It was doing it naturally LONG before people were here.  The benefit now is that YOU set the time it burns.  Usually, you pick a nice day, with little or no wind and go for it.  Usually. 

You know that feeling when you are on the way home and you see fire trucks, and you say to yourself, "don't turn, don't let them turn..." and then they turn towards your place?  Ya, not a good feeling.  That happens a lot here.  Wild fires happen.  Accidents happen. Controlled burns get out of control.  One day, coming back home I saw black smoke rising from the neighbor's pasture.  He was clearing, when he hit a rock with the loader bucket and set half the acreage afire.  Another day, I was working on the coop and kept brushing snowflakes from my hair and eyeglasses, before I remembered it was 65 and I was in shorts.  The flakes were ashes from a wildfire on the next acreage. 

The state has been in drought so many years that fire is common, and dangerous, and unpredictable.  Like I said in an earlier post, the Universe has a sense of humor.

The Build - Part 8

Now that the inside is done, let's move outside.  The run needs to be just as much a fortress as the coop.  There are critters everywhere.  And except for bugs and earthworms, chickens are pretty much the bottom of the delicious food chain.  We have foxes, coyotes, curious people, stray dogs, dogs that belong to lazy owners, abandoned cats, cats that belong to lazy owners, hawks, falcons, raccoons, mink, opossums, owls, snakes, and bald eagles.

While I can't protect them all the time, you can do your best.  We lost one to a fox while free ranging in November, almost lost the whole flock to a dog that was allowed to roam (more than once), and just two weeks ago spied a fox - a large male fox- checking out the run.  And that's just what we happen to see.  What goes on when I'm not looking.  We have a game camera, but even that doesn't catch it all.

Our run needed to be large, covered in hardware cloth, provide shade, and easy enough for me to build.  A sturdy box frame with hardware cloth.  Check.

I began by coating the wood that would be on the ground, even though it was treated, with blackjack.  More coating couldn't hurt.  I made a box frame with long self tapping bold screws and attached this to the coop. I used this box as a guide for where to dig my post holes for the end supports.  This is about the time I discovered that big box wood stores have a clearance bin.  I know! Who knew?!  It might be slightly crooked over the span of 10 feet, but if you cut that down in to smaller pieces, they are straight!  Or over run orders, or refused delivery, or cracked!  LOL.  I just cut that bit off and paint.  $2 for a 4x4x10foot cedar post is better than $20! Anyway...

The survey crew arrives.

 

 

 

 I also covered the front underside of the coop with plywood to which I attached a hardware cloth skirt.  It is anchored to the ground under the coop with lawn staples.  The box frame has a similar skirt that flares out from the coop base 2 feet from the coop.  The idea is that a predator is not smart enough to hit the cloth near the coop edge, not be able to get in, and back up 2 feet and try again.  I'm not a fan of working with this 1/2 inch wire cloth, but it is a necessary evil.  On the inside backs of the boards, I attached the cloth with roofing nails and disks.

I painted as I went, instead of painting around hardware cloth.  The vertical 2x4s simply screwed on and then the top box frame added with deck screws. 

 

Once the frame was up, I added the hardware cloth with roofing nails with disks and then sandwiched that with a piece of painted 1x3 using deck screws.  The door was a ReStore find and cost me $10.  I took out the old metal screen and replaced it with hardware cloth and white trim.  It has a hook and eye INSIDE, for working inside, and two hasps on the outside to prevent low prying critter hands.  The roof frame is also covered and secured with hardware cloth.  Then the entire roof was covered in opaque white corrugated panels.

 

In the run I have a wood limb low perch, a small climbing ladder, an old barn ladder mounted up high for a roost, water bucket, pvc feed bucket, and a ramp with patio.  Some climb up, some fly up.

 

The new double/ single row perch allows for everyone to have a space, with room to spare. I did add a large 12inch square vent on the bottom corner (our right) below the poop board.  This allows for even more summer air exchange.   In the cold months this will be fully sealed and weather proofed to stop the exchange. 

 

Even on the windiest of days, with all the windows shut, it is a full 10-15' warmer inside the coop than out, and very little air is lost from the front windows.  Open the first row of windows and you drop the temp a few degrees and increase air flow.  Open the upper windows and you almost match the outside temp and create a nice breeze.

 

 

The old little coop has been repainted to match and moved closer to the new place, so I can use it for whatever.  LOL.

 

 

 

I have added an overhang above the top monitor window to help with blowing rain.

 

 

So there you have it.  Almost 200 square feet, inside and out.  Room for 20, but I am happy with my 15 pullets, and two cockerels.

 

It took me three full months, a silly amount of lumber, and almost $2500.

 

I have also just assembled a screen door for those really hot days and night.  I purchased a solid oak door at the Restore, and removed the window panel and covered with hardware cloth using large nail in staples.  The white board trip screws through the cloth and into the door, further securing the wire.  It has two critter proof locks on it.  OH, and it is upside down, so that fresh air comes in near the floor, where the chickens are and then freshens the coop as it exits through the upper windows.

 

Spring is a BUSY time in the Country

Mercy, land sakes alive I'm busy!

You can plan and plan and plan your long, cold, dark winter days away, but when Spring FINALLY does come, it seems to come all at once in this part of the country.  Which means everything seems to need tending to all at the same time.

Of course a great deal of that this year is because it is the FIRST year on the acreage.

The garden didn't just need tilled, planned, and planted like most Spring gardens, but it needed plotted out. It needed the 147 year old sod broken, tilled three times by my most gracious neighbor, posts put in, a fence installed, electric fence put up, gate built, boxes built, trellis put up, hay ordered. Then, and ONLY then, was I able to fulfill my winter plan of actually PLANTING the seeds. But not in the GROUND.  Oh no. 

There is a danger of frost here until at least May 15th.  Usually Mother's Day is a good bet.  But honestly, you're better off waiting it out, and then you still better be ready to cover the tender seedlings.  Tomatoes?  I don't even bother putting them in the ground until June 1st.  Of course, I started the seeds in the kitchen in the middle of April.  They just don't DO anything until not only the soil temperatures hit 74', but until the night air is warm.  So why risk it?  So today, I put in 28 various, long, leggy tomato plants.  They are planted laying down and very deep.  They are fertilized and deeply watered.  Tomorrow I will finish weeding the garden and lay the final thick layer of prairie grass mulch.

The broccoli, cabbage, scallions, shallots, grapes, blackberries, potatoes (both Viking  and Gold),and onions are going to town.  The corn is finally popping up after having to be replanted, as are the peas and green beans.  The umbrella sorghum, broom sorghum, cantaloupe, and giant dill are all just breaking the surface. The sweet potatoes look happy enough.  The banana peppers are struggling, and there is still no sign of the garlic or horseradish.

Then there is the orchard.  Normally early, early Spring is the time for pruning.  Mid-Spring is the time for spraying.  Not this this year.  We needed to plot the orchard.  Figure out what trees we wanted, and had to make sure each one was suitable for here AND had a pollinator partner.  They needed tracked down and purchased and hauled home.  I now know I can get 10 5-gallon 10-foot trees in my Chevy Traverse.  People look at me funny when I load that truck, but are shocked at what I can get into it! We ended up with 18 trees: 3 plum, 3 pears, and 13 various apple trees.

We found out, but are not surprised, that we need to put up deer fencing.  So that's another project.

We have a large hay meadow and clover field, which is now almost 3 feet high, (I LOVE clover) and that demanded that I put in a mason bee box and water station.

We were blessed with a mild enough winter that I was able to bundle up like a TaunTaun jockey and work on the coop. By February, Winter finally socked us with permafrost, which meant ANY digging, just had to wait until the thaw.

Wait, back up.  COOP?!  Yes, while I have been insanely busy with everything, everyday, my largest project was building a very large chicken coop.  I started with a tiny coop meant for small, urban/suburban flocks, the City Biddy Coop.  It was advertised as housing 4, but barely fit three.  (It's a good thing that our Penny went to Ha-wee-wee. But that is a story for another day.)  Well I wanted more than three, so I went bigger: MUCH bigger.  I went from 12 sq feet to 100, including the run- 200!  I also went from 3 chickens to 17!  I researched and asked what seemed like a zillion questions and settled on a coop.  I chose a 100 year old plan and just winged it!  I have many step by step photos and it will be a post all its own. So all of my patient backyardchickens.com friends, hang in there!

All right.  My break is over.  It's time to make dinner and get back out to the orchard.

Thanks for stopping in :)