As you can see… the winds are blowing around here… Cody’s hairdo is much more wild and breezy. He looks a little like Rod Stewart back in the rocking 90’s if you ask me.
It’s funny to watch the chickens get their feathers all blown around like they are in a wind tunnel. They are puffed up already, looking a bit bigger than I’ve ever seen them, and then you get their fannies with a rush of wind and they look like weird little turkeys with their tushies all fluffed out! Still, they are brave little souls and come running out of the barn if I call them and spend sunny mornings in the courtyard, laying in the little dirt patches and waiting for me to let the dogs out and give them any dinner scraps from the night before. I feel bad for them… hours of scratching in dried leaves and dead grass doesn’t seem to yield them much to eat and they are going through about double the feed they did in the summer time. Even though it might feel a little weird, I think I might stop at a pet store in the big city and get them a bucket of crickets once or twice a month, to let go in the barn for a little extra protein and life enrichment! (Of course, not for the crickets… unless being chased by a modern day raptor is enriching… I doubt it very much!)
A bit of left over spaghetti gets them very excited and they grab those Italian worms like nuts, rushing about and jealously protecting their little worms from their hen friends! I think I might have to boil up a little extra spaghetti whenever we have it, just for the girls to enjoy. We love those birds, and I dearly enjoy seeing them run about and enjoy life.
Mildred and Josh are all puffed up! It’s funny, they all look about double their normal size with their puffy feathers. Our temperatures have been very cold the last day or two, down in the low twenties and that is CHILLY. We’ve been sealing up the house really well, plastic on a few troublesome windows, hanging curtains to seal off areas and yes… closing up any storm windows we can get closed. (Thanks to Junior for reminding us several times! haha… we may not be speedy, but we do eventually get to stuff, especially awesome suggestions that we would have overlooked! )
Actually, we are pretty fortunate… just before the folks lost this old house, they paid to have someone professionally weather seal and insulate the place. They tore off all the door trim and window trim and sealed up all the cracks with expanding foam and such like that. Aside from a couple old windows, we don’t find much leaking cold air spots. It’s very nice in the summer, because we kept the place nice and cool with just three little window air conditioners strategically placed. And now, the corn stove is doing a really good job of keeping the house very comfortable with only about one bag of fuel a day. We have a few little cool spots… mostly our kitchen because it’s very far from the actual stove. We run the kerosene heater in the late afternoon into the evening to take the chill off and that works fairly well. I would like to consider either an Edenpure electric heater for in there, or an old wood stove… and perhaps even both! Part of my consideration for a wood heater is the ability to run it without electricity. Out here, we can and do loose power. It’s not if… it’s WHEN… Now I know that I would like to get a small generator to be able to run the corn stove, power a few lights and charge up laptops… that kind of thing, but it would sure be nice to be able to cook and heat up water and such with our own power source. We have a lot of trees and wood available to us, right out the back door. We’ve been saving up the fallen stuff in our poultry barn to dry out nicely. And we have three dead trees on the property that need to come down soon and I think they would increase our wood resources considerably, if pressed to it. But, right now, we’re making due and thinking about plans for the near future.
My posse. This is how I roll. With a big 400 pound ponydog that follows me all over, about 20 chickens and the little sheepie flock. Oh yes, and Jack. I’m never alone. Isn’t Cody getting shaggy? He’s so adorable. I think in another month he is going to look just like his little Shetland Isle conterparts, all shaggy, wild and wooley. He’s getting long hairs under his chin and tummy and he’s got cute little whorly patterns on his back and butt. Unfortunately, he is rubbing some of his tail feathers off and making them short and wild with his need to scratch his behind on trees and such! What a goof…
I’ve decided that no matter how cold, I am going to be outside for at least a half hour or more a day. Chores have to be done, even though we’ve made it as easy and quick as we can. We’ve invested in several extra pairs of tough working gloves in good cold weather cloth. I finally got me a decent barn coat, a nice heavy canvas and fleece lined knock off of a Carhartt jacket and the girls have been adding to their hoodie collections. We look like we’re going on an Arctic expedition… t-shirt, hoodie, barn jacket, knit hat, both hoods pulled up AND tied, thermal insulated gloves and boots and farm jeans. We’re just about to invest in long johns because that wind can cut through jeans pretty fast! Layers sure do work.
Last weekend, Maggie laid new straw down in the barns and out in the sheep paddock and the lil’ coop yard. We’ll probably lay down another couple bales as well. The chickens love scratching in it and I read it can help to keep the weather off the bird’s feet and legs by providing a little protection from a nice deep layer that is starting to compost. Inside the barns we are definitely going with the deep bedding method of just laying more and more fresh bedding on top of the soiled bedding. It’s easier, of course, then mucking out the barns in the cold weather, and most importantly, the composting material provides wonderful warmth as it breaks down. There is little smell because of the cold weather and as you add more and more material, the birds churn it up and have something to do as they are confined during the coldest periods of the season. I like that.
Of course, in the spring, it will be some work to totally muck out the enclosures and get back down to normal bedding, but it will save in so many other ways, it will be worth it. And as I am to understand, a good deal of it will be able to be laid right on the garden areas in the early spring because it will be composted, airated and turned over by our little garden helpers, the birds!
That being said, we are softees, too… and just had to bring in a couple heat lamps to the barns. It’s really amazing how just one heat lamp in the big barn really brings the temperature up to comfortable. With the winds cut, and all the hay and bedding in there, the big barn is very tolerable. It’s so neat to be out working and getting cold in the yard and then go into a building and it’s wonderful! I really need to make myself a few little stools or benches for each building so I can go and just hang out with everyone. They like the visits for sure and it’s so nice and quiet, just a cool aura to soak up. I still can’t believe we have this place. Every day I just thank God… it’s so wonderful.
The Windhaven Electric Company… excellence in rural extension cords and duct tape!
I know this probably is not the best way to do this, but for right now, I think it’s okay. We did cover over the connections with a little extra plastic and tape. We have power to the barn and the sheep shack, but not the little coop. Our goal is to get a little solar panel to practice with and run the power needs out in the coop. Basically, a lamp. Maybe a regular light too, just for the warmer times. Or, I suppose if it’s warm, we won’t need the heat bulb, so we can put in a regular bulb. Yeah. So as you see, our energy needs out there are pretty low, so a decent little solar panel would probably do a GREAT job! And it would be a fun introduction to home grown power. But for now, it’s an extension cord and some well placed duct tape. We decided it would be better to have the cord up, and along the fence, and on the non-hooved critter side. This way no one might get tangled up in the cord by accident.
Wow, that one light in the lil’ coop REALLY makes it cozy! The big barn is nice, but the lil’ coop is one sweet little crib now. Dammartin and his lovely ladies are really enjoying it and it’s funny to go out there and see them all stretched out and enjoying the heat like they are in Miami or something. We left their little outside door open, it’s about a 10 inch square opening and they can come and go. It lets in a nice little draft of fresh air and keeps the place from over heating. Someone has FINALLY started to lay eggs in there! Yahoo!!! We got the sweetest little pullet egg yesterday, about half the size of normal eggs, but still, very pretty and it graced our pancake batter this morning! I ordered a few fake nest eggs and will be leaving them in the various nest locations to help keep the girls on track and laying where we want them to! The little pullet egg was just laying on the floor of the coop, like the young hen had no idea where to lay it!
Turkey Girl is really doing well. She’s really become one of the lil’ coop flock and she plays well with the others. You can see her in the top right of this picture above… she’s gray and next to Irene, the white and golden bird. We’re sure now that we have three roosters in the lil’ coop… Both Copper and Silver are developing spurs and beautiful tail feathers.
Right now, Dammartin, the beautiful Black Copper Marans rooster that I want to use as my other stud roo, is tolerating these two young boys just fine. I’ve heard that when young roosters are raised with a mature, dominate rooster, they will be very good at letting him rule the roost. Eventually, in the spring, I hope we will be able to create our breeding runs out in the poultry barn and Dammartin and a few select ladies will be occupying one of those luxury suites.
The beautiful splash Marans bird I have in the screen porch brooder is a roo, too! I just found that out a few days ago… he’s growing spurs! I was hoping that he was a she… but that’s okay. Since splash is a very rare variation in Marans, I suspect that he too, will be a foundation sire to our Marans stock! We’re calling him Flipper… haha… because of the splash thing? Get it? Water? Splash… dolphins…. haha… okay, well, hey, it’s something. We have three other purbred Marans in the brooder… two blues and a cuckoo. This brings our purebred birds up to 16. Three black copper Marans, 5 blue copper Marans, two splash, and 6 cuckoo Marans. Not too bad. I’d like more of course, but they are so hard to find around here! There’s a fellow on Craigslist with a pair of splash birds, a roo and a hen and he wants $75 for them!!! Shesh… Even though the summer effort of mail order eggs was not a good one, I did win a dozen Black Copper Marans hatching eggs on Ebay yesterday for $14. I am hoping that the cooler weather will make for better hatching success. We fired up the incubator again, and this time, we bought the egg turner inset for it, to see if that helps hatching percentage. I do know it’s much easier for sure, because the hardest part about hatching eggs is all the hand turning!!! We have been collecting all the Marans eggs and a few extras for the incubator. Right now, there are 10 in there with a due date of December 7th through the 10th. Going to be hatching some of the Jersey giant eggs from our neighbors flock, too! I figure that we might as well keep hatching chicks during the winter. Our new brooder could easily hold quite a few birds and if we hatch them now, they might actually be ready to lay in the springtime. It seems that pullets need about 4 to 5 months before they start to lay. So that means we will have beautiful home grown Windhaven pullets for sale in the spring.
We have so many friends that are considering keeping birds in their urban homes in the spring. I think it would be awesome to help them with some of our beautiful crossbreds and pure bred birds. And the sales of those birds will help to pay for our feed costs. It’s a win win situation for sure. And we can also use the young pullets to increase our own flocks for egg sales. Maggie really likes selling her eggs and lately, we have more demand than available eggs! This was our haul for the day… 5 eggs. Out of 40 some birds, this is pretty slim pickings! Of course, most are molting, and it’s very cold and dark, and that’s fine. I think the girls need a break from nearly daily production. As long as we have a few for the family, that is awesome. I would hate to have to BUY eggs when we have so many chickens! That would be hard to do.
The sheep are doing great. They are learning the routines of the farm and our own patterns. They are getting very good at coming to the paddock at night with a little grain bucket incentive and are starting to approach us out in the open for attention. Its so cool to have them baaaa at us when we come into the yard, or when we go to get in the car. Cody likes them, even though he won’t admit it. He will start grazing way far from them, but within a few minutes, they all start to clump up and then will graze together all day long. I think he likes the company. Since the goats moved on to their new gig, he’s been a little needy. But now he has fellow little Shetland Isle buddies to hang with. I would love to consider another pony, but right now, until we get a more secure back pasture area, that is just a pony dream. I know there is a lovely little Haflinger gelding out there that needs to come home to the farm…
The flock gets to be out on grazing time for most of the afternoon now. We let them out in the late morning and then they get gathered up when it starts to get dark, around 4:30 or 5 PM. Often the time gets away from us and by 6, it’s very dark. I hate gathering sheep in the dark, it’s just not as much fun. And trying to get Cody to go to his barn is tricky as well. He’s pretty good, with a cup of grain in his bucket, he’ll follow you to the end of the world, but I’d rather see what I am doing and pitch black is not good for that.
The sheep are getting wooly like Cody. It’s so cute to see the babies, they are postively rolly polly looking with their baby fleeces. There is a possibility that Iris and Ivy might be expecting and I have to say, Iris is getting fluffier than Ivy. I really didn’t want to get right into sheep breeding, but come the spring, I would not be surprised if we see a little lamb or two on the homestead. We shall see if our little yearling ladies were a little free with their affections before leaving their other home. Of course, Molly is too young for that and Angus and Fergus are well, not in that parade. My idea flock would be 7 to 10 sheep, but we’ll see how that goes! I was thinking that a couple lambs in the spring would be awesome, but was not totally sure about the whole birthing them here! haha… There are about 270 different scary birth presentation horrors in the sheep book. It’s enough to give anyone the willies upon reading it! However, as I am also told, many sheep are perfectly easy birthers and will not need that much assistance. I think I’d like to leave that experience for spring 2013, however…
This weekend, it’s supposed to be a heat wave of nearly 50 degrees and sunshine, so we are planning a big work weekend. Got to fix up the big barn doors… need to finish the storm windows… need to move a few hinges that are resting in rotten wood and making doors open poorly… would like to go and get some straw and move hay to the back buildings… want to find the wheelbarrow (it’s way in the back of our trash shed and well, a little hard to get to at the moment…) and fill up the flat tire… would like to lay out a few of my straw bales garden plans and see how it will fit the area… need to plant our garlic and move a little compost back to the garden for that task… and I’m hoping that we can build a little hay manger or two for Cody and the flock.
Nothing huge, but a nice little collection of projects. Everyone is helping, even Jessy! (As long as we lock up the free range flock for awhile… she likes helping out in the yard!) Partly it’s because they are waiting for this AWESOME AMAZING SUPER COOL UNBELIEVABLE video game release on Sunday… and they scored a HUGE 32 inch flat screen older TV on Craigslist for only $30 and plan on spending Sunday afternoon and evening GLUED to it and playing this game. Haha… and since that means I have to drive them INTO TOWN… to get it? They reserved a copy… that gives me awesome supreme bargaining power over a few last minute winter chores and projects to get done! haha… Hey, even here with my super wonderful kids, a little bit of dangling video carrot works wonders!!! And it will be fun to accomplish some stuff while it’s still relatively warm out! Better than trying to do it at 25 degrees, if you ask me!
Have a great weekend!!!!!
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