polyface farm! yeehaw!

i am so excited. i have booked the lunatic tour at polyface farm in swoope, virginia for jamie and myself! this is the farm that was featured in the documentary  food, inc.  surprisingly, this amazing farm is only about three hours away from our home, so a quick one day trip is planned. i am counting the days....can not wait. i need boots.

chickens, pigs, cows...grass fed...oh my!

just an egg pic to give ya something to look at, enjoy.

goodbye to good friends

my fluffy cheeked rosie chicken, the little green egg layer and.....

my lovable little mildred chicken(closest to the door) the newest welsummer......

killed by this man!


despite extra water and shelter the chickens just could not take it. chickens body temperatures run in the low one hundred's, so you can imagine what the heat wave does to them. i have now hooked up a fan blowing into the coop, so i can only hope that it won't scare them and they will go inside. silly birds.



meet ada and mildred....

they are my two new adopted welsummer hen sisters and they seem right at home, already. i named these girls ada and mildred in honor of two old sisters that i knew as a kid. you see, both of my folks were from lynchburg, virginia and on our many trips to see family we would stop at ada and mildred's rambling old farmhouse. i have no idea how my parents came to know these two women, one widowed and one a spinster, but i remember their house was green, old, smelled of body odor, bacon grease and full of beautiful antiques. they also produced the most tasty sweet and butter milks, as well as the most adorable boston terrier pups ever. my parents bought it all, the antiques, milks and puppies. what characters these two wonderfully large bosomed, shift wearing ladies were. they were the most eclectic coupla of old hens i have ever met. we loved exploring their old farm as kids on our visits. heck, my brother kevin even manage to rack up a few foot stitches courtesy of one of their rusty pitchforks on one trip! ow! can you say tetanus shot?

sadly, they both passed sometime in the 1980's. here are my ada and mildred....

this is ada, right in the front, next to rosie. i think both of the welsummers look very similar to my rhode island reds.

mildred and rosie hanging with dottie.

the two new sister wives making themselves at home in the coop. they figured it all out immediately. this was the easiest chicken integration i have ever done. wanna see what their eggs might look like? look here and scroll down. oh baby, come on ada and mildred. i have faith in you. hmmmm...faith...that would make a nice chicken name. hey jamie....

another interesting link. enjoy.

compost.... poop happens

and lots of it especially when you have chickens, so i want to start composting. i want to not only compost  the chicken poop, but all my kitchen scraps, etc.... so i want, scratch that, need both a compost kitchen pail and a compost tumbler. now, the kitchen pail ain't cheap, but i found one at lowe's reasonably priced. i like it. it is plain, but pretty.

there are fancier ones out there, but this serves its purpose, i just need it to haul my egg shells, coffee grounds, veggie scraps to the tumbler outdoors. it beats the old cool whip and coffee containers i had been using. now, the tumbler, dang, those puppies are expensive. the few we looked both at the local home store and online were over $150!! each. i don't think so. jamie's wheels started spinning and he got to making me a homemade jobbie.

first he rounded up a scrap barrel, wood, saw blades, steering wheel, pvc, etc... to get it going. so far, cost=free!

i think i might need a horn on that sucker....beep..beep!

then he bought two bearings=$16 not bad.....

awww, he tried to personalize it, no not really, it is part of an old road sign he used on the inside for support.

then he bought two cans of special plastic paint, in black, to draw the heat=$12, still not bad, so $28 later i get this!

i love it!!

it beats $150 any day! thanks honey. now we can churn some black gold for our raised veggie gardens. what? raised veggie gardens, wait till you see what he is cooking up for that one. stay tuned. meanwhile....

you girls get to pooping!! yea, like you need my encouragement. enjoy.

my first lay

now that i have your attention....i am talking chickens and eggs. teehee. you see my rhode island red, lucy, has been on hiatus to have a mini-molt and just starting laying again two days ago. i  just now went to the coop for a visit, share some grapes and i got to see her lay. although i have had my chickens for almost a year, i have yet to see one lay an egg. i go out there and the eggs are waiting for me or a girl is on the nest, but i never get to see mother nature in action. i mean to be there, right there, when it falls out of her bottom, that is until a few minutes ago. i quietly watched her as she turned around, scratched the bedding, turned around again, again, and again, threw a few pine chips on her back, stood up, sweetly chirped and plop! that beautiful egg hit the bottom of the nest box like a golf ball bouncing on wood. it was so coooooool. i know, i know, i am not right, but you knew that already. here is a picture of it minutes old, perfectly clean and warm.

i know some of you don't get it, but i think is fascinating. man, if only i could lay an egg like that without any expensive drugs, then maybe i would not have had such a hard time getting pregnant. way to go lucy girl!

enjoy, beth

dottie's eggs

well, it looks like my girl dottie is finally a happy camper because she is laying! ain't they purdy? her eggs are not dark like her roommate ruby's but just as lovely, all terra cotta and speckly.

i now know i picked the perfect name for my christmas gift. enjoy.

meet dottie

she is my new cuckoo marans hen. she is a bit nervous right now and has not come out of the coop, probably because the buzzards are circling....

well, right below her, just waiting to establish that pecking order. it's not a pretty sight, but it will all come together, eventually. i hope.

i think she is right pretty and

i can't wait to get my first egg. merry christmas to me. enjoy.

project "coop re-do"

well jamie had an entire week off of work, so you know what that means? it is "create a project" time and pass it off like beth asked for it. this time is was a new coop for the chickens. there was nothing wrong with the old one and i didn't ask for the new one, but it is nice. we retrofitted our garden shed to accommodate "my" birds.

so, we are leaving this behind, santa and all....

jamie got busy, first by dividing the shed....keeping one side for storage.

like the previous coop, he built this one with mostly recycled goods, like reusing our old screen door from our house garage....

nest boxes in the making....

i just couldn't resist hillbilly-ing it up some more....

inside shot of nest boxes, roosts and poop boards....yee haw.

the hinged gang plank to the nest boxes, which i can lift and latch to get in there and clean....no eggs today, ye must walk the plank matey, arrr!

installing super thick waterproof plastic, that will be covered in pine shaving, but will hopefully prevent the wooden floor beneath from rotting.

little extra storage created with the coop ceiling....perfect place for pine shaving, dust and feathers to accumulate. awesome.

pop door time! nosey critters keep running over to check the saw out. i was afraid one might end up like headless mike!! go look, it is for real, no hoax.

door cut, nothing fancy here, yet, we are planning to install an automatic coop door opener. i can not wait, no more trekking out there in the cold, rain, snow, you name it to let them out or in.

spoiled chickens....

well, it is pretty much done, maybe a little of bit of tweaking here and there, but they are in and they are confused. i have got some sleeping on the floor, in the nest boxes and the roosts. i have some laying on the floor and in the nest boxes. the first night, three made it in and the other four were huddle up on the gangplank to the old coop. i had to hand shove them through the pop door. they will figure it out. they better or it will be the stew pot. yea, right.

almost forgot, the backside of the nest boxes, where i can lift the doors and gather my bounty, well that is if they figure it out and not lay on the floor! santa, your alive!

as for the original coop, remember i said earlier we are big into recycling aka cheap, it is burning in the wood stove right now. actually, we had to take it apart to get it out of the run, but i truly wish i could have donated it to another backyard chicken beginner, like myself. oh well.

below is a link for a little chicken television for your viewing pleasure courtesy of me and my southern draw. enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtV2rmbpQXE

meet ruby

ruby is my new little black copper marans hen. i acquired her through a lovely woman, who due to health reasons, has decided to end her organic egg business and part with all her sweet little birds. ruby is getting accustomed to her new home and roommates. she is eating, drinking and gave me this beautiful huge, dark, brown egg.....

it is a masterpiece! i am sorry ruby that i could not bring more of your friends home or can i?

meet cora and rosie

our new easter egger pullets....

these gals are a birthday gift to myself. easter eggers lay tinted eggs, different shades of blue, green and pink. i am just so happy to get this little ladies. this is rosie.....

just look at those fluffy little cheeks. she laid me a beautiful green egg this morning. and this is cora....

she appears to younger, but laid the palest baby blue egg. both are so timid and scared. i am guessing it is because they are getting the ever living crap pecked out of them right now!! holy cow, the other ladies are reestablishing the pecking order and i do mean pecking order. these two have been afraid to come out of the coop for most of the day. i had to go referee earlier. i know things will calm down soon and peace and harmony will prevail. oh, wait, i forgot caroline and travis live here, scratch that. anyway,  

those two lovelies laid these....

no, not the brown one, that is from lucy. also, who does this chicken think she's fooling?

i guess with the two new additions, minnie must have thought her days were numbered, so she decide to act like a big girl. yea right, it was all show, no egg. oh well.

enjoy.

the chickens

just a few updated pics of my ladies....

poor ol'minnie, i don't know why that chicken has not matured. she has no comb or wattle and is not laying. late bloomer i suppose. i guess i need to pull up a chair and read her the ugly ducking.

my abby chicken who has turned into a sweet gal. she is the head hen and keeps the other three in line.

top and clockwise, daisy, abby, and minnie....

butt(s) where is my lucy chicken?

oh pardon me ma'am....