Posts
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Un Oeuf For a Meal
We found our first egg on March 14. On March 16 we found another, and on March 17, a third. Each one was a little larger than the first. The 3rd egg is the one at the top of the photo.
On Tueday March 18 we ate them for supper. (Monday the 17th was out because we had corned beef and Guinness.)
It was quite an event. RG opened each one with the greatest of care, and we carefully studied each one. Why so interested? Well, since there are two roos living in the coop, then these eggs will be fertilized.. Egg 1, the smallest of the three, did not appear to be fertilized. But 2 and 3 were. You can see the little spots in the photos below, esp if you click on the photo to view the larger size.
Oeuf le premier
Le deuxième
Le troisième
On Tueday March 18 we ate them for supper. (Monday the 17th was out because we had corned beef and Guinness.)
It was quite an event. RG opened each one with the greatest of care, and we carefully studied each one. Why so interested? Well, since there are two roos living in the coop, then these eggs will be fertilized.. Egg 1, the smallest of the three, did not appear to be fertilized. But 2 and 3 were. You can see the little spots in the photos below, esp if you click on the photo to view the larger size.
Oeuf le premier
Le deuxième
Le troisièmeI have been told that once upon a time, some folks believed fertilized eggs to be better for you. I think we know today that this isn't true. At least the USDA says it isn't. And if they say it, it must be true. Especially since commercially produced eggs are unfertilized. The USDA wouldn't say it if weren't so, right? Hmm. But I digress. I don't really think that there is any difference.
After careful inspection, each egg was laid carefully in the pan. I have never cooked a fresh egg before; I have heard that they don't spread out as much as store-bought eggs. As you can see below, one of these spread out a lot more than the other two. I'm guessing that was the first one (the oldest).
After careful inspection, each egg was laid carefully in the pan. I have never cooked a fresh egg before; I have heard that they don't spread out as much as store-bought eggs. As you can see below, one of these spread out a lot more than the other two. I'm guessing that was the first one (the oldest).
At last, the finished product. Tony had his with toast and a little bit of bison steak. RG and I had ours with salt & pepper (..and leftover corned beef & Guinness!) Very satisfying.
Perhaps this has been more than is necessary for a meal of three fried eggs. Look at it this way; I can never do it again!
Peace,
Suz.
Peace,
Suz.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Farm Fresh Egg
Well, yes, it has been a long time since I last posted. (I suppose most of my posts will begin with a remark something like that..)
There have been plenty of happenings here in the last 4.5 months, but this one can't go without a post. Last evening, March 14, I was standing by the coop, saying to RG, "No eggs yet." And as I said this I opened the coop door and what to my wondering eyes did appear!! [ Not a miniature sleigh with 8 tiny reindeer, no.] EGG NUMBER ONE!!!! And there was the creator, Penny, my number one hen, looking at it. I suppose she was wondering where that came from.
Next day, today, I was out visiting the chickens and I found another. This one was not in a nest box, but laying right out in their little yard. It had been pecked at. Oh, dear. I don't know if this one came before or after last night's prize, but it is certainly NOT a Good Thing that somebody took a peck at it. Fortunately, it was not actually broken open, so I don't think anyone has developed a taste for eggs. But I will have to be vigilant about looking for eggs now.
At this point, Penny (As in "Henny") is the only hen laying. She is the sole surviving hen from the initial flock of chicks. There are also two roos from that flock, named Popeye and Bluto. All three from this flock are quite tame, and I have grown fond of them. [Translation: They won't be in a soup pot anytime soon.] And in fact, Popeye actually loves me back. He literally PURRS when he sees me. In addition, we have 8 hens and 2 roos from a second batch of chicks that we received in November. None of these are quite as tame, as they have always been part of a larger flock and did not get handled daily as the 3 survivors did. The hens from this flock are living outside in the coop with the first 3, and the two roos are still living in the garage, in their own coop, custom-built by RG the handyman. These two are on a meat-bird feed. They aren't outside because they get into fights with Popeye and Bluto. Bloody fights too.
Other BHF Developments:
BOER GOATS!
Now, really, the Goats at BHF deserve their own post, and many of them. This is where I have really dropped the blogger's ball. In November, RG, T and I drove to Maine and purchased two South African Boer goats, Kelli and Taco. Kelli is a lovely 4 yo fullblood red doe, and Taco is a paint yearling wether (neutered male). At the moment, Kelli is "vacationing" in Amsterdam, NY. She is there to be bred to a very handsome red buck. When Kelli comes home in late April, she will be accompanied by two, maybe three other fullbred does, each bred to a different buck. The pictures below are of Kelli and Taco in Maine before we picked them up, and below that a slideshow of them here at home last December, before the snow came.
DAIRY GOATS!
Also in April, we will bring home two freshened Saanen does. Saanens are dairy goats. (Boers are a meat breed.) "Freshened" means that they have just kidded and are milking. The arrival of these does will really represent a paradigm shift for us. These gals will need milking every day, twice a day until the fall. Heh heh. You may never hear from me again!!
NEW BARN!
To accommodate our lovely goats, we got a little barn dropped in back last fall. Unfortunately, it didn't get here in time for Kelli & Taco, who are housed temporarily in our storage shed.
NEW PORCH
The last little thing I will report now is the addition of an enclosed porch onto the back of our house. It doesn't have doors and windows yet; those will be put on in the spring. It was built over our patio. So far it has saved us from the snow/ice buildup that we used to get in front of the kitchen door. This summer it will be a great place to enjoy the outdoors, sans insects and blazing sun. This fine porch was built by J Mabb Construction.
Well there is more but I think I'm going to save it for another post. This one is getting too long.
There are more pictures of chickens, coops, goats etc at the web album below. Look for another update when we eat our first egg. Right now it is safely in the fridge. We haven't decided how to eat it. Sunnyside up is my vote.
Peace,
Suz.
There have been plenty of happenings here in the last 4.5 months, but this one can't go without a post. Last evening, March 14, I was standing by the coop, saying to RG, "No eggs yet." And as I said this I opened the coop door and what to my wondering eyes did appear!! [ Not a miniature sleigh with 8 tiny reindeer, no.] EGG NUMBER ONE!!!! And there was the creator, Penny, my number one hen, looking at it. I suppose she was wondering where that came from.
Next day, today, I was out visiting the chickens and I found another. This one was not in a nest box, but laying right out in their little yard. It had been pecked at. Oh, dear. I don't know if this one came before or after last night's prize, but it is certainly NOT a Good Thing that somebody took a peck at it. Fortunately, it was not actually broken open, so I don't think anyone has developed a taste for eggs. But I will have to be vigilant about looking for eggs now.
At this point, Penny (As in "Henny") is the only hen laying. She is the sole surviving hen from the initial flock of chicks. There are also two roos from that flock, named Popeye and Bluto. All three from this flock are quite tame, and I have grown fond of them. [Translation: They won't be in a soup pot anytime soon.] And in fact, Popeye actually loves me back. He literally PURRS when he sees me. In addition, we have 8 hens and 2 roos from a second batch of chicks that we received in November. None of these are quite as tame, as they have always been part of a larger flock and did not get handled daily as the 3 survivors did. The hens from this flock are living outside in the coop with the first 3, and the two roos are still living in the garage, in their own coop, custom-built by RG the handyman. These two are on a meat-bird feed. They aren't outside because they get into fights with Popeye and Bluto. Bloody fights too.
Other BHF Developments:
BOER GOATS!
Now, really, the Goats at BHF deserve their own post, and many of them. This is where I have really dropped the blogger's ball. In November, RG, T and I drove to Maine and purchased two South African Boer goats, Kelli and Taco. Kelli is a lovely 4 yo fullblood red doe, and Taco is a paint yearling wether (neutered male). At the moment, Kelli is "vacationing" in Amsterdam, NY. She is there to be bred to a very handsome red buck. When Kelli comes home in late April, she will be accompanied by two, maybe three other fullbred does, each bred to a different buck. The pictures below are of Kelli and Taco in Maine before we picked them up, and below that a slideshow of them here at home last December, before the snow came.
DAIRY GOATS!
Also in April, we will bring home two freshened Saanen does. Saanens are dairy goats. (Boers are a meat breed.) "Freshened" means that they have just kidded and are milking. The arrival of these does will really represent a paradigm shift for us. These gals will need milking every day, twice a day until the fall. Heh heh. You may never hear from me again!!
NEW BARN!
To accommodate our lovely goats, we got a little barn dropped in back last fall. Unfortunately, it didn't get here in time for Kelli & Taco, who are housed temporarily in our storage shed.
NEW PORCH
The last little thing I will report now is the addition of an enclosed porch onto the back of our house. It doesn't have doors and windows yet; those will be put on in the spring. It was built over our patio. So far it has saved us from the snow/ice buildup that we used to get in front of the kitchen door. This summer it will be a great place to enjoy the outdoors, sans insects and blazing sun. This fine porch was built by J Mabb Construction.
Well there is more but I think I'm going to save it for another post. This one is getting too long.
There are more pictures of chickens, coops, goats etc at the web album below. Look for another update when we eat our first egg. Right now it is safely in the fridge. We haven't decided how to eat it. Sunnyside up is my vote.
Peace,
Suz.
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| BHF March 2008 |
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Chicks Update
Well now, the BHF chicken flock has had a bit of a setback. I have been thinking about writing about it for two weeks now, for it was two weeks ago that disaster struck.You can see my post about it in the poultry forum at Homesteading Today here.
The short version is that about 10 days after they arrived, 14 of our 18 Buff Orpington chicks DIED, all at once, in about 15 minutes. The consensus is that they died from stress. The 24 hours before the mayhem was not a very good time for them. They had a 40 degree temperature swing in the brooder, when I expanded their brooder area (by employing an old baby playpen) and lined it with heavy cardboard. The new setup retained heat much better than the thin walls of the plastic tote they started out in. So, when I left the heat lamp at the same setting, and ADDED an additional heat lamp, they got too warm. The temp reading under the lamp was 104 degrees. The temp was lower in areas of the brooder far from the lamp, and the chicks were all gathered in that area.
When the temp was finally corrected and stabilized, the power went out in the middle of the night, and the temp dropped to 65 degrees. Poor little pips.
So that was the first stressor. They seemed ok to me despite this abuse, but I didn't know at the time that you can't really SEE when they are that freaked out, and by the time you do, it is too late.
The second stressor was our cat Magic. He jumped into the new larger brooder setup and grabbed one of the chicks. RG rescued the chick and he seemed to be uninjured. No broken skin. A few wet feathers. We put him back in the brooder.
Then about one hour later, chicks started just falling over dead. Some of them spasmed as they died, and others just sort of went limp. It was horrible.
All this occurred right as we were supposed to be leaving for our weekend in Maine to learn about raising goats. We got off to a late start as we dealt with the dead chicks and waited as long as we could to see if the remaining 3 would make it.
Oh. I just remembered now.. we put the chicks in a bag in the freezer in the garage. I had forgotten about that. I guess we had better do something with them. [ This brings to mind the time that my cocktiel ALVIN died in my apartment in Haverhill, MA in the wintertime; sometime in the late 80s. I carried Alvin's dead body around in the trunk of my Subaru until springtime and then buried him out in the woods one day while on a trail ride. ]
My mood was very dark during Goat School (which I will cover in another post). I wondered how I could raise goats if my touch with chickens is so obviously bad.
The mood has passed, I am happy to report. The three remaining chicks, two males and female are growing very nicely. I wasn't planning to band my chickens, why bother? But I think I will now band these three because they are hearty ones and should be good for the BHF poultry gene pool.
I built a nice wire brooder top for the playpen last weekend and added some old canoe seat frames for them to roost upon. I have also started watering them with a rabbit waterer. The kind that is an upside down bottle with a steel nipple at the end. There is much less waste, and they don't fling bedding & poo into their water this way. They seem to have adapted to it just fine. This is good, because this is how I want to water them when they get into their big outdoor coop. I will make a waterer out of a heated pail with some watering nipples installed in the bottom.Anyway, as you can see in the picture at the top and those below, the 3 we have left have grown a lot, and are sporting some very nice feathers. The photo at the top is our one hen chick (pullet) and the headshot below is a boy. The boy is starting to grow a little crest. The hen has some nice tailfeathers happening.
The slideshows below are more pictures of the chicks we have now, and the whole flock before the disaster. Of course, if you are looking at this from your job, and your company blocks access as mine does to "Personal Network Storage and Backup" sites, like the Google-Picasa site where I publish my photos, you won't be able to see these slideshows from work. Sorry. I feel for you! (grumble)
Day 21:
Day 8:
A Rainy Day
I want to acknowledge that maintaining this farm journal blog is just going to have to be secondary to maintaining a farm. I think posts will come in spurts on rainy days like this one. I have a few things to post about today... I hope I will get to them all. RG has an "Octoberfest" gig all day. T is climbing the walls waiting for 6:00 to roll around, when we will go to the town Halloween Party. That is going to be a drippy event, no doubt.
There will (no doubt) be pictures up at http://picasaweb.google.com/suzaga of halloween costumes and other things.
In fact, updates to the picture albums come in spurts too, not a bad idea to check there from time to time if you want updates on what's in my camera. The camera card is only 128mb.. I usually update the web albums when I am forced to dump the card.
Speaking of web albums and blogs.. I discovered that you can subscribe via RSS to the google web albums, the same way you can subscribe to a blog. So if anyone reading this uses an RSS reader or site (I use Bloglines), you can subscribe to the web albums too, and you will be updated whenever I add new pictures.
So, on this drippy, runny day, I asked what I could do to forward BHF ? Not much, it turns out. So I'm blogging. I'm also making some kind of stew concoction out of some North Hero yellow-eye beans that my neighbor sells. I've wanted to cook those for a very long time. And I have a loaf of crusty whole wheat bread rising in the oven right now too. I didn't even use the bread machine. It turns out that kneading dough is a very satisfying activity.
I have no pictures of this day, unfortunately. The lawn is still bright green and it is increasingly covered by yellow-orange leaves falling off our big old maple tree in the front yard. The view to the lake is opening up more as leaves fall from the trees over there. In fact I can see some very hearty kayakers out there now, paddling along in a steady rainfall. It may not be raining as hard as I think it is; I am being treated to the sound of rain on the porch roof. It is probably louder than it is wet.
There will (no doubt) be pictures up at http://picasaweb.google.com/suzaga of halloween costumes and other things.
In fact, updates to the picture albums come in spurts too, not a bad idea to check there from time to time if you want updates on what's in my camera. The camera card is only 128mb.. I usually update the web albums when I am forced to dump the card.
Speaking of web albums and blogs.. I discovered that you can subscribe via RSS to the google web albums, the same way you can subscribe to a blog. So if anyone reading this uses an RSS reader or site (I use Bloglines), you can subscribe to the web albums too, and you will be updated whenever I add new pictures.
So, on this drippy, runny day, I asked what I could do to forward BHF ? Not much, it turns out. So I'm blogging. I'm also making some kind of stew concoction out of some North Hero yellow-eye beans that my neighbor sells. I've wanted to cook those for a very long time. And I have a loaf of crusty whole wheat bread rising in the oven right now too. I didn't even use the bread machine. It turns out that kneading dough is a very satisfying activity.
I have no pictures of this day, unfortunately. The lawn is still bright green and it is increasingly covered by yellow-orange leaves falling off our big old maple tree in the front yard. The view to the lake is opening up more as leaves fall from the trees over there. In fact I can see some very hearty kayakers out there now, paddling along in a steady rainfall. It may not be raining as hard as I think it is; I am being treated to the sound of rain on the porch roof. It is probably louder than it is wet.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Peeps!
Well here we go! After many months of pining and whining, BHF now has livestock. Poultry livestock, that is!!Our chicks arrived from Meyer Hatchery in Ohio today, Oct 2. We thought they were being shipped today. But that must have been yesterday, because at around 3pm, RG received a phone call from our postmaster, Jim. "You have some chickens here."
Then RG called me at work, and when I answered, all I heard was "Peep peep peep peep!"
So I left work and came home. I hadn't completely set up the brooder yet. I made it out of a 30 gallon tote several weeks ago, and I had tested the heat lamp control awhile ago, but it wasn't ready with bedding, food & water yet.
When I got home, I put in 1-2" of shavings, covered that with paper towels. I filled the 1-qt waterer and added 1/8 C of sugar. Just a little nip for the first drink. I mixed together some medicated chick starter crumbles and some pidgeon grit. Pidgeon grit is all they had at the St Albans Creamery Coop.. So that's what I got. I have the feeling that the exact details of all the info I have read about starting chicks is not too exact. Websites and blogs will tell you not to use the calcium grit but to use the granite grit for chicks. Well the farmers around here aren't too particular apparently. Otherwise, I'd bet the Coop would have more choices.
I hope T's grip isn't as tight as it looks!
After I got the brooder all ready, T got home from his buddy Ike's house. [ He went over there after school to take a shower.. we haven't had hot water since last Thursday...] He was just in time to help introduce the chicks to their new home. They were peeping up a storm all this time.So we all took turns, RG, T, and I all took turns taking chicks out of the box one at a time. We stuck their little beaks in the water and then set them down. They got busy with the feed and the water right away. So far so good.
Ready for more pictures? Here you go.
The first few chickies settling in.
Oh, by the way, these are Buff Orpingtons, 12 females and 6 males. And they seem to fit in the brooder just fine, for now at least. I was worried they'd be more crowded.
Our brooder box.
Uh oh...
Uh oh...
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