odds and ends

Apologies for not posting recently. I'll try to catch you up to speed.

First, all the plants are out. Here are small tomato plants and a garlic plant. The garlic is planted in the fall and roots through the winter and continues to grow through mid summer. So these guys have a few months left to go. But it is nice to start the season with something already in the ground! As far as tomatoes go, we have several varieties... two yellow cherries, a roma, a 'big pink', something striped, and a purple I think. I actually can't really remember, when I bought them I didn't label them, so we'll just be surprised!


Also, in case you were interested, this is how we started seeds inside. Roger has a huge setup of florescent bulbs (industrial plant growing kind) that we lower over the plants and slowly raise as the plants grow. If the bulbs are too far from the seeds when they start they will bolt and get really thin and fall over.


Also, an update on our favorite neighbor, Neighbor Bill. Neighbor Bill is so awesome. He watches our place like a hawk and tells us everything that happened while we were gone. 'A chicken hawk was eyeing your chickens', 'I saw a woodchuck in your field', 'someone turned around in your driveway'... He invited us to go camping with him and his buddy... they go fishing a lot, and I guess they go to this place that's an hour away and fish all day and then 'camp'. And when he says 'camp', it turns out it means make dinner over a fire, then sleep in the car. We think it will be fun and we're going to try to go with them. We will be using a tent. Here is Neighbor Bill and his buddy grilling pork chops:



Also, I cut my hair. I donated it to Pantene's Beautiful Lengths program
Beautiful Lengths I have a sister who is a cancer survivor, and it was important to me that my hair go to a place that makes wigs for adult women. Here is a kind-of picture of my new hair, plus me harvesting rhubarb. Yes, that is a rhubarb plant. The huge kind. In this picture it looks kind of boyish, but I think it works for me.

And lastly, here is a picture of my dear friend and coworker Sarah, holding a chicken for the first time.

chickens out to barn

The chickens got moved to a stall in the barn:

New camera!

We have a new camera! The old one broke... it was about 5 years old, so I guess it was time. The new one is very much like the old one, but it has some newer, cool features. Our old camera was 5 mega pixels, which was good for it's time, but this one has 12 and is about standard for the times now. It also has some anti-blurring stuff and other fun things to play with. Good price too... $100. The last one was $250. Reminds me of the time I bought Roger a 1 gig flash drive for $70 at a black Friday sale and now they're $10.

Check out the video at the end... I think it's clearer than the old ones.

Ugly chicks

Had to borrow a camera because ours appears to not be working... and this camera doesn't have sound, so here's a video sans sound. I'm trying to convey the awkward ugly phase of chick fuzz to adult feathers.

Chicks and painting

A video of the chicks:



When the chicks first came in the mail, I forgot to post the picture of them in their shipping box.



Also, today we put the primer on the bathroom walls, and Roger caulked the shower.

New babies!

Our new box of chicks came in!

Because our previous brooder was punctured by Dia, (inflatable wading pool) I built a new one out of plywood. It's 27in x 48in and 18in high.


And some pics, and a video.

Incubation!

Sorry again for the delayed update... life at The Gnome has become very much day-job oriented around here. We haven't started building the coop yet because we have a friend who has a mess of wood at his place that he's giving us, but right now it's not accessible because it's on a steep hill, and right now it's so muddy from the massive snow and then the melt we can't get the truck up the hill. After the next big freeze we'll go up there. I'm thinking about making it considerably larger since the wood is so long... considering putting the chicks in the kiddie pool again in the basement and making a separate, very large coop outside. We'll see what happens when we get the wood here.

Another friend of ours has Cuckoo Marans that he hatches and gave us about 15 hatching eggs. They look very much like Barred Rocks but a bit blurrier and lay very dark chocolate colored eggs. Wikipedia Article Here

We warmed up the incubator and are trying them out. He thinks we'll be lucky to get half of them to hatch because it was so cold when they were laid some of them were half frozen by the time he collected them.

The eggs are incubated at 99-101 degrees for 21 days or so.

Chicken slaughter

I've been putting off reporting this, but I suppose it's time. Our chickens were killed overnight by a predator. All of them.

I went out to the barn Christmas Eve and found 8 dead chickens strewn around the run and inside the barn. One even flew out of the run and got taken over in the field.

They had puncture wounds on their bodies, but they weren't eaten. It looked like they were grabbed on their backs, and whatever it was just held them down and ripped feathers out until they died. Feathers were everywhere, but their skin wasn't terribly torn.

When the hawk killed chickens, it ate the insides. When raccoons killed a chicken, they ripped off the head. This is... something else. We're pretty sure it wasn't wild dogs either, because none of the bodies were eaten or carried away. A cat wouldn't kill 8 birds for fun... maybe one or two.

A have a friend who studied weasels in California, and he's pretty convinced it was a weasel. He says, and google backs this up, weasels are known to kill entire chicken coops for fun. Also, all the eggs were crushed and eaten. He says a weasel would eat the eggs first, then kill the chickens.

So, for those interested in chicken predators, a quick rundown:

Hawks like to eat the crop and intestines.

Raccoons like to rip off the heads and drink the blood. (Ew.)

Dogs will carry off their prey to munch on later, or at least eat some of it.


I'm working on plans to build a coop. I'll be building one in a few weeks. I'm getting an order of baby chicks Feb. 1st... so we'll have eggs again in... 5 months or so. ::Sigh:: The new coop will be tight wire, and we'll make sure they sleep in it at night. The lean-to, even with the barn door shut, isn't tight enough to keep anything but dogs out.

I will update on the baby chick order soon.

Persimmons

Being a couple with roots outside Indiana, neither of us understand the persimmon craze here. Everyone has a persimmon tree, and those who don't buy persimmon pulp from their neighbors. We are lucky enough to have two large persimmon trees in the backyard, so we inquired from friends as to how to tell when they are ripe. Everyone said they would ripen and drop right after the first frost, and to pick them up off the ground.

We've had several big frosts, and the most I get off the ground at a time are 5 or 6.

Yesterday I went out with an 8 foot tall stick and banged on the branches. Remember, we live on a busy road, so there are many people who saw me waving an 8 foot tall stick in a tree. This knocked about 10 off the branches. Here's all I was able to collect:


Here are the chickens eating them: (What the crap was I supposed to do with 10 persimmons?)


And a video...


But the story isn't over! Roger went out and shook the trees for me and we gathered about half a gallon! I decided to try my hand at cooking a staple Indiana persimmon dish... persimmon cookies. (Not pudding, sorry, I've had it and it's not very good.)

Without a cheese cloth or netting, we made pulp by squishing the fruit in a colander with a potato masher. True to the rumors (UNLIKE the rumors that persimmons will just drop off the tree) all that fruit made about 2 cups of pulp. We saved out the stuff in the colander for the chickens.





And here's the cookie batter:



And the recipe:
1 cup sugar
1 stick butter
2 eggs, beaten
2 cups persimmon pulp
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cloves

Bake at 350 for 12 minutes.

The batter was pretty gross, but happily, the cookies were tasty!

Hawks

It's not a raccoon. We've been setting the traps for about a week now, and besides the chickens and possums, we haven't had any luck. And two days ago I went to check on the chickens and I went into the lean-to (at about 5pm) and there was dead chicken with a HAWK standing over it, ripping it apart. I yelled, and it flew into the back corner of the barn and all I could think was a string of expletives mixed with the desire for a gun. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could but let it fly out of the barn.

Turns out, it is a federal offense to kill any bird of prey. Not that that knowledge would have stopped me if I had had a shotgun with me. I mean, it's killing my livestock!

The good news is, we've probably seen the last of the hawk for awhile... all the teenage birds are dead now, and the big birds are about twice the size of this hawk. The hawk was on the smaller side... perhaps a teenage hawk.

I'd like to get a rooster... a really mean, big, ugly rooster. But as it is, I think the big birds can hold their own... neighbor Bill says he saw a big bird chase off a hawk last week.

Chicken update and persimmons

First, some pictures of the chickens, because we haven't posted pics of them in awhile. They're getting large and heavy.





Also, we have two persimmon trees on the property. Neither of us being from Indiana, Rog and I have been baffled by the persimmon craze here. From what people have been telling us, we're supposed to pick them off the ground when they fall... they fall off the tree when ripe. Well, there's a very fine line between on the ground and ripe and on the ground and rotten. They keep telling us the fruits all fall off after the first frost... well, we've had two good frosts now, and the trees have lost all their leaves, but the persimmons are clinging onto the trees. Whenever I go out there to see if there are enough to bother picking up I usually only get five or six. Then I throw them in to the chickens. The chickens love persimmons, ripe, rotten, stepped on, whatever.

Here's a picture of the bare trees, dotted with fruits that just will not come down.

Raccoons and possums

You know you're living on a homestead when you go home for lunch and have to change before returning to work because a possum bled on you.

A raccoon has killed three of our chickens. Ripped the heads right off and then left the bodies relatively uneaten. Raccoons, we have learned, kill for sport.

I bought a larger trap, this one with two doors. Pictures to come. I set the old trap on one side of the barn and the new one with the chickens and baited them with stale bread and catfood.

The first day we caught a chicken. I went down in the morning and noticed it was sprung and got excited... especially when I saw what we caught was huge and striped.

But it was just a black and white chicken, standing rather dumbly waiting to be freed. It of course had seized the opportunity to eat all the bait while it was waiting for me to find it.

The second day I caught a possum. Neighbor Bill shot the possum for me, and while disposing it of I got blood on my pants... big clots of blood. It was pretty disgusting.

The good news is that the chickens are laying like crazy! We had 5 eggs yesterday!

Luffas, crushed pepper, seeds

We went to the Walk for the Animals this afternoon and Dia did really well. People and children came up and petted her and she sniffed lots of dogs and she was very well behaved throughout.

*Sidebar: Roger just came in from mowing to report that he saw a chicken catch a mouse and now the flock is out fighting over it. Good chickens!


We're in the process of drying lots and lots of red chili peppers to make crushed pepper. We have about 3 pints of crushed pepper right now. These plants don't stop!



We now have three dried Luffas. We have probably 10 more on the plant still growing. We are also saving the seeds from the Luffas.



We're saving seeds from just about everything. We're packaging them in packs of 20-40 seeds. We'll be selling them hopefully at the Winter Market this winter. We'll also be selling the crushed pepper, the luffas, and dried basil and catnip.



And lastly, we caught an Opossum in the live trap yesterday. Woodchucks aren't terrible because while they dig huge tunnels and endanger the barn's foundation, they don't eat chickens. Opossums eat chickens. We also have noted mice, moles (which Jeza actually caught one and brought it up to the house), rats, and the neighbor says he has spotted a raccoon by the barn. Raccoons are particularly bad news.

We've talked about getting a barn cat. Of course, the first problem with that is that the cat has to somehow know that rats and possums are good to eat and chickens are not. Also, we wouldn't want to get a barn cat unless it was a feral cat. We'd feel guilty leaving a domestic cat outside at night. So where does one get a wild cat? It's something we'll have to look into further. Of course we'll wait until spring.

Seed saving

This new world of seed swapping is awesome. So far, I have scored:

Jamaican Hot Pepper
Spinach
Mixed Lettuce
White Pumpkins
Genovese basil

I'm also participating in a seed swap... a bunch of people send any number between 3 and 15 seed packages to one person (and postage) and the person collects them all, puts them in a pool, and then sends you the same number you sent in. I sent in 8 packs.

I'm looking for interesting tomatoes (striped, green, or black) and basil (cinnamon, spicy, purple), but also just collecting things as they come up.

Here's a picture of the seeds as we collect them. We have SO MANY SEEDS. We're going to sell seeds at the winter market this winter. I have at least 150 packs so far.


Also pictures: Dia gets a toy we call 'the worm', and a picture of an Australorp, as requested. The best chickens EVER.




Added: What is the Australorp eating? That would be a bowl of old yogurt that got kind of moldy. Chickens LOVE yogurt. And yes, in light of the moldy corn incident, I scraped off the mold.

Australorps

In all the tough times and bad news regarding the chickens, I should take the time to write about something awesome. This is my ode to the Australorp.

The Australorp is a large black chicken that originated in Australia. They are known to be hardy, meaty, friendly, good mothers, and prolific layers. The world record laying hen (at 364 eggs in 365 days) was an Australorp. They are a great dual purpose bird because while they lay phenomenally, they still pack on enough meat to be worth butchering.

When we ordered chickens we ordered three Australorps. They are the best. With this infection sweeping through the flock, they never got more than a bit sneezy. We’ve lost three birds of three breeds to various ailments… not one Australorp. Their combs and wattles are much larger than any of other the other breeds, meaning they’ll be the first to lay. We still have some chickens whose combs haven’t even turned red let alone grown any. They’re much meatier than the others… I believe they’ll be very hardy in the cold.

Rog and I recently took a homesteading class. The man who taught the class owns a goat farm and chicken hatchery. When asked what his favorite breed of chicken was, he said Australorp. He said he would keep only Australorp if they weren’t so plain looking.

So, for anyone thinking about getting a few chickens for their backyard flock, get Australorps. Seriously. You’ll thank me.

Botulism

It was 50 degrees this morning and it was so cold! I got my first taste of what it’s going to be like to stomp down to the barn and feed the chickens in the morning when it’s cold. It’s going to be particularly terrible when the days get so short it’ll be dark, cold, and wet. The chickens are usually up and running around at 7:45 when I get out there, but this morning half of them were still sleeping. I don’t blame them.

So another horror story. (This has just been a bad few weeks!) So, remember the bird that had botulism? Well, after I dispatched her, I left her way out in the field under a bush. Frankly, it’s way too much work to continue to bury everything that dies. Dia reaaallly wanted to eat it, but we have a rule based on what other people have suggested who have chickens: dogs can eat chicken as long as it doesn’t look like a chicken. No drawing correlations between tasty food and hens in the field. Anyway, so I put her in the backyard and went to work. I got home and THE GATE WAS OPEN. She was in the backyard, but as we have learned by now, when she lets herself out she explores and goes back in before we get home. I hadn’t tied the gate shut because after a few weeks of tying the gate she stopped trying to open it. So I walk down in the field to where I left the chicken and… all that’s there is the head. Sans flesh.

I am horrified.

I continue to walk around in the area and find the rest of the bird. (Thank God.) I roll her over and inspect her and she’s all in one piece. You know, except for the head. No bite marks. This makes me pretty sure it wasn’t Dia. Dia’s a bit of a pig when it comes to eating animals in the field… freshly caught or rotting. I know, it’s gross. I really wish things would stop dying in the field.

So I go back up to the house and start thinking about it. I wonder if something that ate an animal that had botulism could get sick? I internet research. Yes… yes they can.

Fortunately, dogs and cats are apparently very resistant to botulism. Probably an evolutionary thing, because birds seem to get it easily and eating dead birds is tasty for wild predators. All the same, dogs can get it and apparently always get it from eating something dead. Symptoms (weakness and paralysis of legs) are supposed to show up in 12 – 48 hours. We spent a worrisome 48 hours, and now it appears we are out of the woods. Dia is just fine.

I’m not convinced at all Dia was the one that ate the bird’s head. But it is odd that something found it in the 4 hours I was at work. In the middle of the day. It makes me wonder what goes on in that field when we’re not there. I know we have lots and lots of snakes out there. The snakes are pretty bold too… one of them just showed up to a neighbor’s bonfire in the middle of the night… just slithered on into the middle of the party. We also have lots of mice and therefore, lots of owls and hawks. We also have coyotes, but I can’t imagine a coyote would have showed up in the middle of the day. Also a handful of feral cats. Still, I don’t know if a cat could have dragged the bird as far as it went.

It’s a mystery.

A sad day on the farm

One of the large, non-sick chickens has been acting drunk. She started stumbling around yesterday, but was still able to walk. This morning, I found her draped over the roosting pallet like she had literally passed out. I picked her up and she was unable to hold her head up. I tried to get her to drink but she couldn't seem to swallow. I put her in a sunny spot in the grass and went to work, believing she would be dead by lunch.

I came home at lunch and she was not dead. She hadn't moved at all, but was still breathing. I picked her up and she had no control of her muscles. Her head flopped around. I tried again to get her to drink by dunking her head in the waterer. Still wouldn't swallow. She was also really really hot. I carried her around and thought about it. She was completely unable to move except for her eyelids. I decided it would be the kindest thing to end her suffering before she died of dehydration. It was the first time I'd killed one of them myself without help from Roger. I walked out to the back of the field with her and sat down with her. I sat beside her for a long time before I got up the nerve... I really wanted to just leave her and let her die... but she was counting on me to put my own squeamishness aside and help her. I'll spare you the details, but I did the right thing and she's gone.

I've done a lot of reading trying to figure out what it was. I believe it was botulism from some moldy corn from the garden I fed them. She must have been a hog and eaten way more than the rest of them. A link to the Merck Vet Manual and botulism symptoms is here:

http://merckveterinarymanual.com/mvm/index.jsp?cfile=htm/bc/205400.htm

Interestingly, before it was called botulism it was called limp-neck. Which was definitely the predominant symptom she had.

Infectious Coryza

We have a diagnosis for the chickens. I am 100% positive we know what the 'cold' is. It's called Infectious Coryza. In mild forms it causes some sneezing and in severe forms it causes massive sinus and eyelid swelling. Luckily, in the large birds, only Two-Face got hit severely. Now the babies have it and 3 of the 10 are on the 'severe' boat. Bad news is, Coryza causes a drop in egg production and beginning of laying, so that's most likely why we still don't have eggs. The good news is that it's only transmitted from chicken to chicken, so wild birds, humans, and other animals are unaffected, and it isn't transmitted from chicken to egg.

Good news: Two-Face's eye is opening! I never thought it would happen! I actually saw her, and then thought maybe it was another bird getting sicker and not her getting better because it was such a big difference. I ran around and checked all the other birds that looked like her just to be sure.

Go little immune systems, go!

Will it survive?

Ever see David Letterman's segment 'will it float?'... they take strange, random objects and toss them in water and see if they float. There's also a YouTube spinoff of this called 'will it blend?', where they take random objects and put them in an industrial blender.

Well, here, we play a game called 'will it survive?' Not that we intentionally put anything in harms way, but often there are those moments when something goes wrong. For instance...

An infection sets in a creates a bulb the size of a tumor on a chickens face that does not respond to antibiotics. Will it survive? (yes... she's strange looking, but fine.)

A chicken runs away and spends 48 hours living in the woods with coyotes. Will it survive? (she sure did!)

A chicken is caught and squashed by the dog but is rescued without outward trauma. Will it survive? (no... it didn't.)

A baby chicken is accidentally doused right in the face with organic pesticide. Will it survive? (yup!)

The 'cold' spreads to the baby chickens and 3 of the 10 have it so bad their eyes are crusted shut and can't see at all. Will they survive? (unknown.)

I've been flushing the crusted eyes with warm water and wiping them and trying to get them open enough so they can see... I worry that if they can't see they'll just lay around and get dehydrated. I also gave the really bad ones a tiny tiny shot of tetracycline.

Still no eggs. Three of the larger flock have all the signs of being ready to lay. Their faces are red, their combs are large... just no eggs. Not that I don't go out there and look three times a day.

Ugh, respiratory virus

The older birds have finally transmitted their virus to the baby birds. I can't remember if I've explained this situation before... basically, unlike humans, chickens will usually carry their respiratory viruses (colds) with them all their lives even after they've recovered. So they are always contagious. We knew the baby birds would get it eventually. We didn't lose any when it went through the original flock, so we're hoping this will be the same situation.

The baby birds have snotty eyes that they keep itching on their necks, so then their neck feathers are snotty. It's pretty gross.

Two Face's swelling has gone down A LOT, but we don't think she'll ever go back to normal. Instead of it being a huge red tumor on the side of her face it's a flat white blob. Like when someone loses a ton of weight and their skin didn't shrink? Like that. She must have gotten something stuck in the cavity because this morning it was filled with goo and I worked a really gross glob of what looked like cottage cheese out of the cavity. Now, I have held the still warm heart of a chicken in my hand and not even blinked, but this was gag inducing. So I've gone back to the routine of filling the cavity with polysporin.

Lord, I do not need more than one bird with only one eye. Let this virus run through the babies quickly and without facial tumors.

I read somewhere that chickens like watermelon and it's good for them when it's hot. I had a half watermelon in the fridge that we never ate and it started to get too ripe, so I just tossed it in the fence. This morning there is nothing but rind left, and they're picking the rind apart bit by bit.