A Visit from an Old Friend

After the sound of the familiar clucking alerted me to her presence, I was surprised to open the door  this morning and find Loosey on the back patio. She hasn't done that in ages! She is pretty much the equivalent of a senior citizen so I'm not sure how she managed to jump the fence. We enjoyed her little visit and then I took her back to her home and friends. 

Loosey and her sister "The Red Evil One" (Annabeth calls her that) will be three years old in a few months. They are the only remaining chickens from our first batch of chicks and they have lived through quite a bit in their three years! They welcomed two new batches of chicks into the flock and survived a coyote attack. We hope they'll be healthy and keep laying for another year or two, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is the last patio visit we have.

Figs!

Until I moved to Arizona I had never eaten a fig outside of a Fig Newton cookie. When we bought this house it came with a sickly looking fig tree in the backyard. The past few years we have gotten a handful of figs that end up getting eaten by the birds.

It still isn't the healthiest looking tree, but this year it has produced a TON of figs. I'm not really sure why, but my guess is that the chickens have something to do with it. They love to hang out under the tree all day - which means they are dropping "fertilizer" under it. I also put a water dish out for them and in dumping it out and refilling it daily I'm sure the fig tree has gotten more water too.

We have tried the figs and none of us really care for them much. I've been giving them away to anyone who will take them in addition to dropping the really ripe ones on the ground for the chickens to eat.

I spent a little time on Pinterest looking for fig recipes. I ended up making some fig jam/spread figuring that the kids might like the figs if they were mixed with some sugar. It's not bad! A kind neighbor gave me some fresh goat cheese and I have been enjoying a bit of the spread on the goat cheese with a cracker.

Just 4 cups of chopped figs made 32 ounces of the fig spread so we gave away several jars and will give away a few more since we won't eat it all. I might try to make some homemade fig newtons with one jar of the spread since the cookie filling is pretty much the same thing. 

I also learned one other interesting thing about figs. I can eat them, but I have a skin reaction when I touch the tree. The first time I picked the figs, I thought I got bit by a bug. The next time I picked, it felt like I got into poison ivy. I looked it up and, sure enough, there is latex in fig trees and I am mildly allergic to latex! I got smart and started picking with long sleeve and gloves on!

So, if you want some figs or fig spread let me know!

Flock Update: One Down

We got our first little white egg from the new chickens a little over a week ago. Friday we got our first little brown egg. I'm not sure if it was one of the Barred Rocks or the Silver Laced Wyandottes as both lay brown eggs.

For some reason pullets seem to go a little crazy right before they start laying. It seems to be a phase (thankfully, it doesn't last long) and has happened with each of our three chicken batches. Maybe it's chicken puberty, I don't know!

One of the Barred Rocks has been trying to sleep on top of the chicken coop. Outside! On the roof! If you have seen our coop, you know the roof is pretty high up for a chicken. Every night we have to go out there and get her down and put her in with the others.

They have also started to jump the fence and we find them out in the main yard or worse in the neighbor's yard. We rigged up a device to try and keep them out of the neighbor's yard. I am still not sure if it's not working or if they are getting over there another way, but we found a few chickens over in the neighbor's yard last week. The kids helped me get them safely back over the fence into our yard.

Yesterday, it happened again and this time we weren't so lucky. The neighbor dog got to one of the Barred Rocks before we could save her. And just like that we are down a chicken. Ugh.

As I was doing my "farm" chores yesterday, I thought to myself… as long as we lost a chicken, at least let it be the one that had been on the roof of the coop every night so we don't have to deal with that anymore. That chicken obviously had a rebellious streak! Sure enough, when I went out to lock up the coop last night the roof was empty.

Third First Egg

We got our first egg from the 2015 chicks today! It was a little white one from one of the leghorns. They seem to mature a bit faster than the others. We had little white eggs about two weeks ahead of the brown last year.

I guessed we would get our first egg the beginning of May so I was off a by a couple weeks, but at least we are getting started! In a month or so we should be getting enough to sell or give away a few dozen a week. I can't wait!

Around the Farm

Spring and nice weather means getting a few things done around the "farm"...

The goats are settled in nicely. The weekend we got them we tossed together this little pallet shelter. It took us a few tries to find a good placement for it, but now it's their favorite spot. They can often be found napping on the roof or underneath in the shade. In the afternoons when I feed them, I pour a little bit of treat up on the roof for them. It keeps them out of my way while I fill the chicken feeders.

We cut the grape vines way back this year. They were getting out of control. The extensive pruning didn't seem to bother them too much, they were sprouting new growth just a few days later.

We cleaned out the shed as best we could so it was more useable for farm storage. Eventually we will have to either tear the shed down or jack it up to put a cement slab under it. The floor is rotting through. I would like to have a little chat with the person who thought a wood floor on an irrigated lot was a good idea.

You'll have to look carefully at the next farm "improvement". It's just two staggered lines of string on some fence posts. It doesn't look like much but we are hoping it keeps the chickens from jumping the fence on the side of the unfriendly neighbor dog. Unfortunately, we have lost several chickens that way.

I saw the idea in a chicken magazine. I liked this solution because it was easy, cheap, and not too ugly.  If you look at the photo below you can barely see the string. The idea is if the chickens are under the string and try to jump on the fence they will get caught in the string and fall back down. If they try to land on it they will quickly find it isn't sturdy enough to support them. I haven't seen any of the chickens try to land on it or get caught in it. I guess we won't know if it's a success until it isn't, but we haven't had any chickens go over the fence that way since we put it up. We have found one in our part of the yard a few times though; so, hopefully, it is making a difference.

We added a small double trough to the goat shelter so we could put out goat minerals and baking soda for them.

Since we cut the little door in the coop a couple years ago this little ramp was just resting on a cinder block. The chickens never moved it even once. The goats, on the other hand, knocked it over about 20 times a day so we finally used a couple small hinges to keep it in place. One of those why-did-I-wait-so-long-to-do-that type of things.

You'll also notice the piece of scrap wood across the chicken door. This allows the chickens access while keeping the goats out. The goats would love to get in there and eat all the chicken food if we'd let them.

Have you ever watched a goat drink? It's pretty cool. They don't drink like a dog. They suck the water in. Elf has a long neck and you can actually see the water going down as he drinks. I once read goats like fresh, clean water (who doesn't?!) and these guys really do. I dump and refill the water every day and as soon as it's full they run right over to get a drink.

I made a small compost bin out of some of the old fencing. Hopefully some day we can use the compost in a garden.

This little tool (a 10 inch taping knife) has changed my chicken keeping methods. We installed a poop board about a month ago and it has been working great! I use this taping knife as a scraper and clean up the poop daily in about 10 seconds. It keeps the coop so much cleaner and helps save on bedding costs since we don't have to replace it nearly as often. The poop goes right into the compost bin (see above).

The "farm" from the back corner; the big coop, little coop, and goat shelter. I am hoping to paint them "barn red" soon.

Everyone's favorite chicken: Loosey. Looking pretty good for being one of the two oldest gals in the bunch. She's still as friendly as ever.

There are still a million things to do and when we finish those they'll be a million more, but it's always nice to make improvements, especially if they are relatively cheap and easy like these!

And They're Off!

The new batch of chickens were released into the big wide world today. They did just fine. They stuck close to the coop at first. As you can see, the goats took advantage of the open door and went in to munch on leftovers.

The big girls weren't too bothered by the new. There was a little pecking, but nothing too bad. They have gotten used to each other slowly over the past few weeks. I know some people have trouble integrating new chicks into an existing flock, but we have been fortunate and not had much trouble. We did the same slow introduction last year and it worked great.

By evening the chicks were all back in the mini-coop so I just went out and shut the door for the night. I'll let them out in the afternoons for a few days before letting them out for good. Next I have teach them the big coop is their new home.

Mending Fences (Again)

Another spring, another fence to mend. Is that a saying? Maybe it should be. Two years ago, we fixed the fence along the road and had a gate installed across the guest house driveway. We left some of the fence on the inside of the yard un-fixed. It was good enough to keep the chickens in and that's all we needed it for.

Now we have goats. There is a saying "if a fence can hold water, it can hold a goat". Well, our fence wasn't even trying. Unfortunately, the fence guy we used two years ago is moving out of state and couldn't help us. I asked around on Facebook and got the name of another guy. The fence is fixed. (That is about as good of a recommendation as you're going to get from me. I liked the other guy a lot better.)

But like I said the job is done and it holds the goats so what more can I ask for?! We even got three additional gates for a decent price. Two new man gates and a bigger driveway style gate just in case we need to get back there with a truck at some point.

The new fence guys used an old horse shoe for the handle on the gate.

This back section of the fence (by the shed) was completely blocked off before. I'm still not used to being able to get out of this corner and have actually walked all the way to the middle gate once or twice because I forgot I can use it. This gate will come in really handy during the summer months when I fill a second water tub for the animals. Last year we ran the hose through the fence but I had to holler at a kid to turn the hose off and on for me, now I'll be able to step through easily.

We still have one more section of fence that isn't really the way we want it, but we haven't decided if we want wire fence or block. We're leaning towards block. I'd really love it if we could talk the owner of the lot behind us into paying for half of it. Fencing is not cheap!

Goats!!

I have wanted goats for a long time. I'm not sure when, or even why, this idea started. I just have always thought they are such cute animals. From the day we bought this house we have called the back part of the lot the "goat area", never the "animal area" or "chicken area" even though it was their home first!

Thursday evening I was on Facebook and saw a post on a farm and garden group about some goats needing a new home. I have seen goats on there before, but for some reason these just seemed like they would be a good fit. I sent the woman a message asking about them. We chatted back and forth and discovered that we actually knew her father-in-law! Jerry worked with him at TRW in the 90's. We had even spent time with her son when he was probably the twins age (and Roz was 5 or 6).  It seemed to be providence.

We made arrangements for them to bring the goats out to us (since we don't have a truck) on Saturday afternoon. We all - me, the kids, and even Pa - anxiously awaited their arrival. They finally got here right before dinner time. We had a nice chat with their owners when they got here.

The goats ran around a bit and almost immediately figured out how to get in the little door of the chicken coop. (We fixed that Sunday morning by adding a bar across the door. The chickens can get under it, but the goats can't.) In addition to the goats, they brought their waterer and feeder, a bag of goat treat, and a bale of alfalfa. Jerry ended up giving them a little extra money because he thought they went above and beyond. Even so, I think it was still a good deal.

They are pygmy mix wethers (which means neutered males for those of you who don't know). We didn't want to deal with babies or milking so we thought that would be a good place to start. These guys were hand-fed bottle babies born last April so they love people. They are also used to kids which was a big plus for us. They came with the names Elf and Squirt.

Elf is part lamancha goat and has little tiny ears. He is super sweet and friendly, as well as the leader of the two. Squirt looks more like a regular pygmy goat and has horns (his disbudding/dehorning didn't work). He is a bit more shy and follows Elf's lead.

We didn't really have much time to get to know them on Saturday. It was dark pretty much as soon as we got them. My dad checked on them several times Saturday night. We think they were nervous about being some place new and didn't sleep very much. Sunday they seemed tired and didn't really do too much. They were especially wary of Libby, even through the fence. But Libby's calm demeanor had them okay with her by the end of the day.

Annabeth took advantage of their laying by the fence and sat in the dirt to pet them.

Their previous owners said they were good buddies and they really are! They are pretty much inseparable. It was hard to get photos of one without the other in it.

Monday morning they seemed more comfortable and rested. To prove it they were also more mischievous. Elf got out into the main yard several times through a weak spot in the fence. Dad and I fixed it as best we could with some zip ties and chicken wire, but Jerry also called a fence repair guy. Getting the fence fixed had been on our list of things to do soon anyway. Gram and Pa took turns on goat watch and, thankfully, we didn't have any more escapes. We're really hoping the chicken wire holds until the fence guy can get here.

Jerry doesn't like to admit it, but I think he likes them. The rest of us aren't afraid to admit we love them already! We think they will be a great addition to our little "farm".

Flock (and Coop) Update

The new chicks are getting big. So big that it was time to move them out of their rubbermaid tub and into the mini-coop. But before we could do that we had to fix the mini-coop's broken door. It fell apart last year right as last year's chicks graduated.

We were able to fix the door with a few adjustments to the current hardware and a board we had in the garage. We didn't spend anything to fix it except time. Actually, we build this whole mini-coop for free last year with wood from pallets and scraps from the big coop. It's not perfect, but it's great to have.

We also made a few modifications to the big coop. We moved the old roost out and added two new 2x4 roosts that run the whole length of the back wall. We also added a poop board underneath to catch night time dropping and keep the nesting boxes covered. It was a pretty inexpensive change $6 for three 2x4s and a box of screws. Whether not it works out as well as I hope remains to be seen.

Loosey and the old gang seemed to figure out where to sleep without too much trouble. I felt a bit bad changing their "furniture" but I think this will work out better for when the new batch joins them.

Speaking of Loosey and the gang, they are doing very well. Loosey is back to her usual self. Her limp is gone. Everyone else is healthy too. Four of them, if not all five, are laying so we aren't totally egg-less. The girls are happy to have my dad here because he tosses them scratch several times a day.

The old girls checked out the new ones when we put them in the little coop, but they didn't get aggressive or cause any issues. By the time the new ones are ready to come out of the mini-coop the old gals will be used to them and all should be fine.

New Batch

After losing over half our flock we decided to get our new batch of chicks a little bit early this year. We get a new batch every year so when the old gals molt we can have eggs from the new ones. Last year it worked out great and the flocks merged very nicely.

Last year I chose to entirely new breeds so we could easily tell who was from the old batch and who was from the new. This year I decided I liked Buff Orpingtons and Barred Rocks enough to get more. So I got five each of those. I also got five Ameraucana chicks. We've never had them before. They lay blueish eggs instead of the usual brown or white.

The chicks settled in nicely under the heat lamp in the garage. The kids love chicks. They enjoy naming them even though the names don't stick and there is no way to keep track of who is who at this point. Eli named one TJ. Annabeth picked up a yellow one and said she wanted to name it "California". I have no idea where she came up with that! She later decided to change it to "Daniel Chicken".

She was talking about how she loves chicks so much. I asked her if she liked chickens and she said no. She was pretty sad to find out that these little chicks will be chickens in just a few short months. She told me she doesn't want them to grow up. Moms everywhere know just how she feels!

The yellow chicks are the Buffs, the black ones with the little light dot on their heads are the Barred Rocks, and the darker colored ones with lines are the Ameraucana.

It is hard to believe in about a month we'll move them out of the garage and then a couple months after that they'll lay their first eggs. I will say now that we are only getting two a day, I am really looking forward to that!