Spring has resumed

Well, the snow is gone.  Today it's raining and 42 degrees.  But we're supposed to have high winds and possibly more snow tonight!  I guess maybe a few more cold nights to come...  but that's to be expected.

I've got 34 eggs in the incubator.  I told a couple I know that I'd hatch some Rhode Island Red chicks for them.  While I was hatching, I thought I'd hatch some Brahma Cochin also, and a few of the Black Copper Maran.  I love having baby chickens!

Here's a few pictures of chicks in the past.

Rhode Island Red chicks from 2012

Newly hatched RIR chicks from 2011

John built me this incubator.  He's such a great husband!

Young mixed birds from 2010

 I didn't hatch any eggs in 2010... but I did get my birds I have now as adults from a lady we know down the road.  She raised birds for a living.  I raise birds because I like birds.  Not the same, at all.

Most of the chicks I raise I give to other people I know who are trying to get a small flock started at their homestead.  I've lost a LOT of young birds to blacksnakes, opossums, racoons... I've lost a few to cold, mostly banty.  They just don't have the body mass to survive the winter without some kind of windproof shelter.  We did much better this year, because I wrapped all the cages in plastic.  And I put much heavier mulch in all the cages.

Our peach tree is in bloom.  I hope they don't get frozen in the next few nights.  I really love having home grown peaches.

Let's talk eggs

I love my chickens.  I really do.  But the thing I love most about my chickens is getting fresh eggs every day.

Here's the haul from the past 2 days.

Eggs gathered the past 2 days

Fred, Pebbles and BamBam

It smallest egg you see here is from our Duck Wing Bantam hen, Pebbles.  She's a good looking lady!  She's a great mama. 

Gus and Greta

The smaller, lighter colored eggs are from our Braha Cochin Greta.  She's a nice hen & a great egg layer.  I haven't given her the opportunity to be a mama yet.  I may let her try this year.  We'll see.








The larger brown eggs are laid by our Rhode Island Reds Missy and Sissy.  They are great egg layers.  They each give us about 320 eggs a year.  I haven't let them be mama's yet either because I wanted the eggs... and once a hen starts setting, she's not giving you any more eggs for about 3 months.

Sissy and Missy

The darkest egg comes from our Copper Moran, Jet.  She's about 8 months old and just started laying in the last month or so.

Henry

Right now, Jet is housed with Gus and Greta, Margarette and Henry.  In the Spring, Henry and Jet will be getting their very own accomodations.  Henry is the same age as Jet.  He's a nice Rhode Island Red.  If I was a purest, I'd continue to keep my breeds separated.  But Gus, Greta, Sissy, Missy and Hexter were born during the 2009 season.  So, I need to get another pair mated and established before something happens to the trio's I have established now.  Margarette is the same age as Jet and Henry.  Being a Brahma Cochin, I'm going to keep her with her breed.  I'm hoping Jet and Henry will start my "yard chicken" flock. 

I don't let any of my chickens out "free range" right now because the guineas pick on them horribly.  And every other predator within 1000 acres wants to eat them for dinner.  But, I'd like to start raising some smarter chickens... my own kind of chicken... in hopes that I could have birds out and about free range.  So, having a mixed pair might help with that.  It's an experiment I'm going to try.  Anyway, when Jet has enough eggs laid that she gets broody, I'll let her sit on them.  And we'll see what happens from there.

Here's a picture of some of the chicks I've hatched out in the incubator in the past year.

Rhode Island Red chicks

I love my chickens.  They're my friends.  I'm very particular about the feed I give them.  Layer crumbles is what I prefer.  I don't give them medicated feed, since they have NEVER been exposed to any other poultry.  The chickens, guinea and quail get the same feed.  I even use the same feed for chicks (I just grind it up finer in a mortar). 

I love the sounds the birds make.  I really enjoy listening to them interacting with each other - even when Sissy and Missy have to argue over who's turn it is to be in the nesting box!  And we really enjoy the eggs.  That's the special bonus of having chickens.  Eggs. 

And we're an egg loving family.  Custard, pickled eggs, pudding, quiche, egg salad, cake, omelet, fried poached or scrambled.  We love eggs.

Another cold morning

Rusty

When it's really cold like this, my biggest concern is keeping my critters warm.  I don't want to let the dog or cat out too long.  I know they're covered with fur, but they can suffer frost bit too.  I may baby them too much, but I love them and want them to be safe.  Besides, who could leave these cuties out in the cold???

Peanut

I know Peanut would like to be outside chasing squirrels and chipmunks.  But she can wait until it's not 21F outside.


But, my real concern is for my birds.  You see, I have my birds in large runs.  I'd love to let them be free range.  I let the guinea fowl outside when the weather's nice.  But, we have all kinds of creatures here that would LOVE to eat bird for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Here's a sample of the woodland creatures we've seen here at Big Rock Farm.

Opossum

Racoon

These 2 are the biggest chicken theives.  We know they eat eggs & chicks.  We haven't caught them eating adult large birds, we're sure they've had some bantam for dinner.  

But, they're not the biggest killer of chicks or the main egg eater.  Here's the culprit  for that!  Black snakes have eaten my chicks several times.  They have also killed 2 different bantam hens and eaten all their chicks.  Around here, I have to keep chicks in a brooder on the back porch or they don't survive.  I can't put them out IN A CAGE OFF THE GROUND until there are more than a month old.  And even then, they might be snake food.

Black Snake

I do NOT kill snakes just because they're snakes.  But, if I find a black snake in my chicken cage, it's lunch.  Literally.


Who else has come looking for an easy meal??

Stripped skunk

Did you know that skunk blood stinks?  In fact, our porch by the workshop STILL stinks of skunk whenever it rains.  And it's been 2 years since Mr/Mrs Skunk came to visit.

We've also lost guinea and chicken to the pair of hawks that are nesting right here.  Peanut saw a hawk get a young chicken.  Now, she hates anything that flys over head.  She'll chase it across the yard.  Of course, anything flying over the yard results in guinea chaos!  And then the chickens start yelling too.

Hawk

It's illegal to shoot a predatory bird in Arkansas.  So, we keep our chickens in a cage.  It's a nice, large cage.  But it's still a cage.

We feel safe letting the guinea out.  Our flock has 9 members.  4 pair and 1 poor unmated hen.  We call her Number 9.  She's an unhappy girl.  We'll raise some more babies this year, and we hope Number 9 can find a boyfriend out of them.

We started out with 3 pair last year.  Here's a picture of some of them.

Curly Joe, Bruce and Dennis with keets.

My favorite bird is Curly Joe, he's the lavender one in the foreground. We raised him from an egg.  We had 5 birds that first year.  All got killed except Curly Joe.  Moe and Larry each disappeared over night...  The girls got old enough to start laying, but they both failed to show up to roost one night just leaving us with the bachelors.  Then Moe and Larry each got eaten, leaving poor Curly Joe by himself.  So, we invested in Bruce and Dennis.  And we got some young keets from a nice lady down the road, and got some hens.   Now Curly Joe has his mate, Vera.  And Bruce has his Babette.  Dennis got eaten last fall....


And who can eat a full grown guinea at night???  I'll show you.

Coyote

 There are coyotes in the woods here.  They will even sneak in during the day and take the guinea hens right off their nests.  So, that's why we have to keep them locked up when they're laying.  Otherwise they don't come home.

Barred Owl

And the owls can pick the guineas right out of a tree when they're roosting.  So, the guinea have to be locked up at night.

And whoooooo else comes to visit at night?  (Sorry I couldn't resist that pun!)  We have pictures of these from our trail cam.

Grey fox

We've not seen a fox anywhere near the house.  But the trail cam was in the trees by the "pasture" which was about 200 yards from the house.  That's pretty close if you ask me.

Who else comes to eat  birds?  These sneaky buggers come in day or night!  And they LOVE to eat birds, any birds.

Norway rat

I suppose I'm partly to blame.  What else to rats like to eat besides birds?  Why bird food, of course!  And so, leaving any food around in the open is an invitation to dinner in the rat's opinion.

I guess that ends my conversation on local predators for this morning.  We have many other critters around that don't ever bother our birds.  I'll talk about them some other day.