Today's catch

Chickens aren't fooled by our latest snowfall.  They know that the days are getting longer.  (It doesn't hurt that we've increased their supplemental light hours, too.)  Until today my record production day from this young flock was 2 eggs.  Today the ladies have started working in earnest with this 11-egg haul.

In addition, I've noticed the ducks "mating" again, so they must be getting ready to lay soon, too.  With our last thaw I've been letting ducks run loose instead of shutting them in their house at night.  They visit the chicken pen for food, bathe in an outdoor pan that I keep filled, and sleep wherever they like (barn, duck house, or under the porch).  They have found ample forage in the yard and pasture.  When they start laying, though, I'll need to reimpose some structure on their ducky lives.  Ducks usually lay in the morning and can be let out to forage after that, but they do not return to their house at dusk as reliably as chickens do.  Perhaps they should be confined with the pigs.  Then, the job of collecting duck eggs can fall to Trudy and Buttercup for their protein and calcium rations.

Enjoying the weather

 

Blogging break

Blog post frequency is inversely proportional to outside temperature and insolation.  That is, with the last week of warm and sunny weather, I found may other farm chores to tend to; now that it's 40 degrees and rainy, I'm back at the computer.  Some of the things we did this week:

- replenished our hay and alfalfa stores
- added a barb wire strand on the top and bottom of our paddock field fences
- started the late winter orchard pruning
- spread old hay in the former hog pen for future planting
- graded the new topsoil around Scott's shop building
- wandered the back 40 and neighboring fields
- groomed the cows to help shed their winter fur
- uncovered the garlic bed
- bonded with Trudy and Buttercup

New chicken house door

The flock has spent the winter "foraging" in the barn which hasn't done much to add to their nutrition, but has been good for moral.  Chickens need entertainment and employment to keep them out of trouble.  Left in confinement, even in a largish chicken pen, they are prone to cannibalism.  Usually the flock will choose the least dominant hen and pull the feathers out of her tail and peck her back until it bleeds.  Once they start this, it's a hard habit to break.  Last winter with the hens house-bound in the old chicken house from the ice and snow, I had to remove a hen for this reason.  She later was able to return when the flock started free-ranging again.  This winter with access to the barn I haven't' had any social problems in the flock (excepting the extra rooster).


Yesterday, Scott cut a hole in the barn to let the chickens access the cattle corral.  This was always the plan, but Scott outdid himself with this design.  The steel door slides up between two vertical channels with a tug on a string that connects through two pulleys to be operable from the barn without going in the pen.  The rest of the structure is a wind- and dog-baffle.  Chickens entering the barn can navigate the narrow hallway between the door and their pen, but dogs and coyotes cannot.  We tested a similar design on the old chicken house and it worked against Koda, the egg-eating dog.  Opossums, raccoons, and cats can still get in this way, but these are less of a problem around here with Holly, the dog, on patrol.  I'll still need to close the flock in at night for their protection and to keep them laying eggs where I can find them.

Happy Valentine's Day

Here's our kitten, Mark, getting some love from Abe and Mary.  He seems to have a fascination with his big friends and will cry until they rub him all over with cow snot.  He comes away crusty, but happy. 

Free at last

Buttercup, the Guinea boar

I shut the cows out of their corral yesterday and turned the hogs outside.  Both buttercup and Trudy enjoyed a little romp in the sun, but came back to their pen in the barn to snooze.  Today is warmer, so I let them out again and fed their grain ration in the clean hay.  This seems to have done the trick for keeping them outside for a while.  They rooted around, ate, and then bedded down in the hay. 

Trudy, the Guinea sow

I moved the hay ring out to the tall grass in another paddock for the cows.  Now that the snow is gone I want to keep them out of the mud they have made in their corral.

As best I know, Trudy will farrow her litter in early April, but if she met Buttercup in early December, it could be as soon as the last week in March.  Either way she'll soon reach her third trimester (last 5 weeks in hogs) and need a little pampering.  Soon I will worm them both (actually, de-worm them) and after 14 days I'll move her to a new farrowing pen.  I'm not really sure where that will be yet, but I have more than two weeks to think about it.  The 14 days gives her time to shed her internal parasites and not carry them to the new area.

First egg

At last!  An egg from my little hens.  By the blue color I know it is from one of my two Americanas.  The white one has become a special favorite of mine.  Scott found the egg, of all places, in the nest box, while putting in a chicken door from the hen pen to the cattle corral.