This is a short video of my Anatolian Shepherd Dog with a half-grown Black Australorp cockerel, having a "discussion" about who's going to get to eat the dog food....
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This is the time of year Tractor Supply and the local farmers' co-op start getting in chicks. The chicks come a day old from the hatchery, and arrive at the local post office, the same way your chicks would come if you ordered them straight from the hatchery. Because of the variability of weather, the hatchery will not ship day-old chicks until the weather can be expected to be moving into a springtime pattern. This increases the survivability of the chicks. There are several ways to purchase chicks. My personal opinion is that ordering direct from the hatchery is the most reliable way. A hatchery vaccinates for Marek's Disease (discussed in Chickens, Pt. 2), and usually they send 23 chicks for every 22 ordered, in case one dies in transport, as often happens. This is a little more expensive, because you also pay shipping. The second way to order is to purchase at an online auction, like Eggbid.net. I have bought chicks this way, and since I purchased from a reputable hatchery -- through the auction -- I was very satisfied with the result. I imagine satisfaction would vary considerably, depending on who it is providing the chicks you're bidding on. The third way to buy chicks is from a farm-supply store. And the fourth source would be from an individual. If you order from a hatchery -- like Murray McMurray or Privett -- they will ship out your chicks at a time suitable for your local climate. And they usually ship them at the beginning of the week, so they won't sit at the post office over the weekend. They will notify you when you should pick them up at the post office. Tractor Supply and other farm-supply stores take shipment the same way. Usually, when they are expecting to take receipt on their first shipment of chicks, they will put up a sign advertising the fact. Just show up when the chicks arrive, and pick out the ones you want. If the store has chicks labeled "red layers" or "black layers," ask a salesperson exactly what breed that is. Red layers may be Rhode Island Reds or Red Sex-Link, and that will make a difference. Both will lay good eggs, but the Red Sex-Link is more likely to lay right through winter, and the RR Reds may go broody in the spring and hatch some eggs. Black layers may be Black Australorp or Plymouth Barred Rock, or something else. Make sure what you're buying. You will also have to choose between "straight run" or "pullets only." Hatcheries will also have "cockerels only," but the stores rarely have just cockerels (males). If you get straight run, count on a little over half being males. Usually, you can only tell which ones are males when they start to crow -- at about 3 months old. Excess roosters should be removed from the flock, as they will wear out your hens. My preference is to butcher them; fresh, home-grown chicken tastes delicious! But sometimes you can sell them. Just don't expect to get more than $5-10 for them, because in the spring roosters are a dime a dozen. Make sure you get a dozen or so chicks, so they can keep each other warm. Other items you will need to pick up when you buy your chicks include:
Make sure you have a box to put them in, and some newspaper for bedding. I always sifted through the trash at the post office every week when the local shopper came in the mail and got all the ones people threw away! A box about the size that a microwave or toaster oven would come in should be fine -- a little larger if you have more than a dozen chicks. When you buy the chicks, the salesperson will put them in a small box for you. Or, if you pick up chicks at the post office, they will come in a box. Don't open the box on the way home. Peek in, if you have to, but you don't want to stress your birds more than is necessary. Keep them in a warm place on the way home. When you get home, first set up their new quarters: Put the box in a warm corner of the house, close to an electrical outlet. Place a few layers of newspaper in the bottom. Plug in the heat lamp and attach it to one side of the box, pointed downward. Fill the feeder with feed and place it in the box. Fill the waterer with water and place it in the box. Then open your box of chicks and gently lift each one with your hand and place it in its new home. Be sure to notice if any chick is injured or sick. You'll want to isolate any diseased chick and notify whoever sold it to you. Leave the chicks alone, to get acclimated to their new surroundings. Daily chores to care for your chicks include:
You need to be sure to keep enough space for your growing chicks. When my 20 chicks outgrew their box, I moved them into an old cast-iron bathtub. I moved the heat lamp, feeders, etc., with them, and continued my routine of replacing the bedding each day. When the chicks got their feathers, I knew it was time for them to move out to the hen house. NEXT WEEK: Chickens, Pt. 4: The hen house When the chicks outgrew their box, I moved them into a deep, cast-iron bathtub. The heat lamp, placed at one end of the tub pointed down, provided the heat they needed to be comfortable. As you can see in the photo above, the chicks were able to position themselves in relation to the lamp in a way that was comfortable for them. Nobody wanted to be directly below it! Disease runs rampant in the winter time. People stay inside. There are fewer open windows to air things out, fewer opportunities to get out in the sunshine. It’s easier for viruses to spread from person to person.
So, how do we stay well through the winter? I have a few tips on winter wellness that I’ve found work well:
Anytime you add livestock to your homestead, you need to make sure you have a place for them first. We’ve done it the other way – Oh, look, what pretty goats! And what a good deal! – and, take my word for it, there are difficulties with bringing home some animals and then building or buying what you need to house and care for them. Chickens are fairly simple. They don’t require anything fancy. But if you build a good, substantial hen house to start with, it will serve through many generations of poultry, for years to come. The first thing you need to do in preparing for your flock is to make a few decisions:
A laying flock probably requires the most preparation, because a good flock of layers will be around for 2 ½ - 3 years. The hen house for a laying flock does not need to be fancy, but it should be sturdy and able to keep the birds comfortable through all kinds of weather. If you live in the city, there will be restrictions on what you can have. A rooster is not a good idea. His crowing (that starts about 4 a.m.) would not be appreciated by your neighbors, even if city regulations do not prohibit it. To find out what you can legally have, go to City Hall and ask for a print-out of all city animal ordinances. Don't say, "Can I have chickens?," because if there are no laws on the books regulating chickens, you don't want to draw their attention to it. Better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission. Look through the ordinances to see if any of them restrict what you intend to do. At least two towns I've lived in had not updated their animal ordinances in 50 years. The restrictions in one town said you could not let your ox, horse, goats, cows, or poultry roam free, and you were not allowed to have bees or pigs within 50 feet of another person's dwelling! If a close examination of your town's animal ordinance reveals there are no restrictions, you still need to be discreet. Keep your birds in a place hidden from casual view, don't let the hen house get stinky, and don't keep a rooster. It also helps to make a gift of fresh eggs to your closest neighbors. They will come to appreciate the occasional cackling from a hen that's just made a deposit. If you have never raised chickens before, I recommend starting with day-old chicks mail-ordered from a hatchery or picked up from the farmer's co-op or Tractor Supply. You can often find mature birds on Craigslist or in your local paper, but getting healthy, productive poultry that way is a tricky operation. Sometimes you’re buying someone else’s problems. The farm-supply stores start selling chicks about the middle or end of February where I live. That may vary, according to where you live, because they try to take shipment on new chicks from the hatchery when the weather begins to moderate and the chicks stand the best chance of surviving. When you go to the store to select your chicks, you will be faced with two main choices: What breed you want, and whether you should pay more to buy chicks already sexed (males or females) or go the cheaper route of buying "straight-run" -- where there's no telling if they are male or female. Unless you plan to butcher the excess males, I suggest buying pullets (young females) only. Even though it costs a little more, you generally know you're getting enough females to start a laying flock. Sometimes there will be a stray cockerel (male) in the batch, anyway. A rooster is not necessary to get eggs, but they do protect the hens. If you want a rooster, buy a couple of chicks from the straight-run selection, and likely as not you'll get at least one roo. Most chicks come already vaccinated for Marek's Disease, which is spread in the dander left by infected birds and can cause paralysis, tumors, blindness, and death in poultry 8 weeks old and older. If you buy chicks, you will need something in which to house them -- a large cardboard box is sufficient to start with -- a feeder, a waterer, a heat lamp to keep them warm, and some bedding to put down in the box. I use newspaper as bedding, and change it every day. You will also need a "chick starter" feed. No, you can't just feed them cornmeal; they will die. Most of these items you can purchase where you get the chicks. When you get home, you can set up the box in your living room or a utility room, but it needs to be inside, out of the weather. Chicks have to be kept warm until they get their feathers. Think of it....hen-raised chicks spend most of their time under their mother's feathers, huddled together with the warmth of the hen to keep them cozy. You have to reproduce that warmth mechanically. And because we don't know exactly how warm the chicks like it, I always put the heat lamp on one end of the box, so when the chicks are too warm they can go to the other end of the box, and when they're too cold they can get up under the lamp. Okay, take a look at the picture I've posted here of the chicks in their box. See if you can spot all the items you need to keep your chicks healthy and happy:
NEXT WEEK: Raising chickens, Pt. 3 -- Caring for my chicks One of the essentials of a sustainable homestead is the efficient raising and use of small livestock. One of the easiest types of livestock for the beginner is the chicken. Today, I will introduce you to the need for chickens, and some of the basics about raising them. WHY CHICKENS? Chickens have been around almost from the beginning of man's history. They are heavy birds that don't fly a whole lot, and as they became domesticated, they almost ceased to fly at all. Mankind bred chickens for meat and for eggs, and as the taste for chicken grew, so did the size of the bird. Most chickens now peck around on the ground, eating bugs, worms, and vegetation, flying only enough to get up on their roost for the night. A healthy hen will lay roughly five eggs a week during the long days of summer, with production declining as the days grow short in winter. Chickens are an easy choice of livestock for the small homestead:
Added to the price savings, the nutritional advantage is undeniable:
WHAT BREED? Today, there are many breeds of chicken, depending on the purpose for which they are intended. They range from ornamental bantams and small fighting cocks to heavy egg-layers. Many of the heavier breeds are considered "dual-purpose" -- raised both for eggs and meat. If you want to add chickens to your homestead, the first question you need to answer is, "What do I want, eggs or meat...or both?" Having raised a lot of different breeds of chicken, and having butchered quite a few, I will say that all chicken is edible. If you're picky about the color of the skin, there are some breeds that have a nice pale skin, while others have yellow or dark skin. If you like a lot of meat on your chicken, go with a meat breed like Cornish Cross. If all you want is eggs, and you're not concerned about hatching any chicks from your own eggs, Red Sex-Link and Black Sex-Link chickens are a cross of two breeds specifically bred for high production of eggs. (These hybrids go by other names in some of the chicken-hatchery catalogs, like "Golden Comet" for the Red Sex-Link....just read the description to see what exactly you're getting.) The sex-link chickens don't go "broody", which means they don't set eggs to hatch them. Lousy mothers, is what they are, but if you don't want to raise your own chicks that won't matter as much as a consistent production of good brown eggs. That brings us to another topic....the color of the egg. The color of an egg shell has nothing whatsoever to do with the nutrition of the egg inside. The color is strictly genetic: A Buff Orpington or Plymouth Barred Rock will lay a brown egg, a White Leghorn will lay a white egg, an Ameracauna will lay a green egg, and a Crested Cream Legbar will lay a sky-blue egg. French Copper-Marans will lay a gorgeous chocolate brown egg, but if you cross Marans with Legbars, the resulting pullets will lay olive green eggs! The nutrition in a chicken's egg depends entirely on two factors: The health of the hen, and what she's been eating. To educate yourself further on the various breeds of poultry, visit the Murray McMurray Hatchery web site, and click through their online catalog. NEXT WEEK: Raising chickens, Pt. 2 -- What do I need before I get chickens? For most gardeners, a primary goal is to provide food for the gardener. A garden is a source of fresh fruits and vegetables for the kitchen table – foods which are a known resource. Not only does the grower know the variety of plant and how it grew, but also what chemical or natural fertilizers and pesticides the plant absorbed in its life. Organic gardening goes a step further. The organic gardener tries to replicate the way nature produces a healthy abundance. By fertilizing with compost and manure, the organic grower can reduce or eliminate artificial chemicals which might not be as healthy for the plants, or for those who eat their fruit. Well, in recent years, some gardeners have gone beyond even organic in their efforts to imitate nature…..by using “permaculture.” According to Bill Mollison, in his book, Permaculture: A designer’s manual, “Permaculture (permanent agriculture) is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems.” Basically, this means that by looking at how nature works – and imitating it – we can grow plants that are beneficial to humans in a sustainable way. Once established, permaculture is pretty much self-maintaining. You plant it and go away for a few years, and you can come back and still find good food growing in abundance. Permaculture begins with a plan. By observing the lay of the land, water sources (whether a stream, a pond, or just rainfall run-off), the direction of the prevailing winds, and where buildings are or might be built, the gardener begins working with nature to make what he grows most productive. As the prospective permaculturist examines his or her resources, it might become apparent that a cold, hard wind comes whistling up the valley in the winter. Trees and shrubs planted on the north side of the property could provide a windbreak in the winter, as well as berries or nuts for eating. If there is a bad run-off whenever a heavy rain falls, a “swale” can be dug perpendicular to the flow, to capture the water and hold it until it soaks into the ground. In this way, the natural resources that we might normally think of as a problem are neutralized, or even put to use to our benefit. By starting a permaculture garden with plants that fix nitrogen, and then adding in useful food crops, the permaculturist improves the soil for the plants he or she wishes to grow. Even small livestock can be put to work improving the growing environment – ducks eat slugs and snails that damage garden plants and chickens can forage under fruit trees, eating the fallen fruit that might harbor pests or disease. Mollison and others in the permaculture movement looked at how plants grow naturally. For example, in a forest there is a progression from low ground cover plants to shrubs, to small trees, to large trees. And interspersed among those also will be root crops and vines. In permaculture, we mimic this growth pattern with what’s called a “food forest,” just replacing the wild plants with plants more useful to human beings. Nitrogen-fixing legumes are planted first, to begin enriching the soil. Then low-growing herbs and small nitrogen-fixing trees, like honey locust. As these grow, they are pruned in a “chop and drop” method. When the tops of the nitrogen-fixing plants are cut off or the tree branches are pruned, the roots of the plant begin to prune themselves, releasing nitrogen into the soil. Root plants and climbing vines are added into the food forest, some for their ability to improve the soil, some for their edibility, and some for both. As the first stage of growth begins to mature, more beneficial plants are put into the food forest – fruit trees, grape vines, root crops like sweet potatoes, medicinal and culinary herbs. The variety of plants in a fully mature food forest is amazing! Eventually, every square foot of a permaculture planting is producing something of value to the gardener. And the very diversity of the garden makes it self-sustaining. Pests are less likely to devour a garden when the squash plant grows beside an elderberry bush. The leaves that fall from the shrubs and trees are a natural mulch, helping to retain moisture in the soil and keep unwanted plants from springing up. The water is being harnessed to saturate the ground for the benefit of the plants, and ultimately, for the benefit of the gardener. A mature permaculture garden looks like a jungle, but the fortunate grower can stroll through the lush growth, picking food as he goes. With much less effort than that required by a traditional garden, the permaculturist provides food for the kitchen table… in abundance. And that’s what gardening is all about. |
AuthorI am Granny Fisher. I live in a small town in the valley in Tennessee. Archives
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Read about 7 women in the Bible that may remind you of someone you know. God found something in these women worthy of note...and included them in the lineage of his Son. Download for Kindle. Preacher
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