Posted on 07/10/2009 3:59:55 AM PDT by Red_Devil 232
Good morning to all of you gardeners. Toward the end of last weeks Gardening Thread there was a short discussion about saving Heirloom Tomato seeds. Many of you might have missed the information so I thought I would start this weeks thread on that topic.
How do you keep your chickens when it gets cold in winter? My wife and I were in town Saturday and while in the post office a person at the next window was picking up a box full of chicks that had been shipped Priority Mail. The chicks were peeping and seemed not to like the process very much.
“How do you keep your chickens when it gets cold in winter?”
I let them have the run of the house in the winter months, Silly! What’s a little chicken poop between friends? LOL! (Just kidding!)
Well, for starters, chickens are birds so they have hollow bones and fluffy feathers which trap air to keep them warm. Down vest, anyone? ;)
I put heat lamps in the chicken coop, and they roost together for body heat. Between the two most times the coop does not get below freezing, though in very cold snaps there has been some frost bite to their combs, but they’re not vain.
I keep the coop lit 24/7 year ‘round to encourage better laying year ‘round, but if you raise hens known for being great producers (Leghorns and my FAVORITE hens, Buff Orppington; close to 300 eggs a year, EACH!) egg production doesn’t suffer much except in the deep darkness up here of February. Also, collect eggs more often, or they’ll freeze and crack if you don’t have reliable ‘setters’ to keep them warm.
The main thing is to keep fresh, unfrozen water available for them, which means a heater, or changing it out a few times a day. Keep the food coming, but I save some money in the winter months and cut back on the laying mash and just feed cracked corn, kitchen scraps and stale bread.
A treat of some greens in the winter months is wonderful for them; you can usually get cabbage or kale cheap from the grocer, or befriend him or her and trade fresh eggs for veggie scraps. A produce department throws away an embarassing amount of chicken-worthy food each day. ;)
I didn’t order chicks this season because I’m at capacity with 50 hens right now. When I do order them (every other year for the past 10) I order from Murray McMurray Hatchery in Iowa, and yes, they come in the mail in a box. I’ve raised over 300 chicks with very few fatalities over the years. :)
I’ll order 50 next April as i’ll need a few by then and BIL wants a few and I’ll sell a few. 50 chicks run about $100 and I’ll easily make that back selling and bartering with them. I raise them in a heated brooder pen in our 3rd floor walk-up attic. They grow amazingly fast, so I get them first week in April and by May 30th they’re all feathered out and ready for the smaller room in the coop. (Don’t put them in with the adult hens right away; BIG trouble, much bloodshed!)
The dogs (and cats!) help with the ‘Baby Chick Chores’ each morning, noon and evening and I’ve never lost a one to a dog or a cat. In fact, the chicks imprint on the Basset Hound something fierce! “Are you my mother?” LOL! He can saunter through the coop and they don’t ruffle a feather.
Hope I didn’t bore you...I can talk about chickens all day long. :)
P.S. Borrow or rent, ‘The Natural History of the Chicken’ DVD. It’s AWESOME and you will want to start raising hens right away.
DVD Description:
“Most people best know the chicken from their dinner plates — whether as thigh, wing or drumstick. Consumers barely pause a moment to consider the bird’s many virtues. Filmmaker Mark Lewis (Cane Toads: An Unnatural History and Rat) expands the frontiers of popular awareness and delightfully reveals that this small, common and seemingly simple animal is as complex and grand as any of Earth’s creatures.”
They really are little work and big rewards. :)
Late to the party here with a question.
But first....
Garden seems to be going well. Lots of green tomatoes that are starting to get big. I can’t wait to eat my first fresh one!!!
Newly planted beans are doing well, kidneys and limas are about ready to pick, cukes and squash and melons all have lots of blossoms. We have eaten our first zuc, and have a small, but growing pepper.
I do like gardening.
Now my question. We have built boxes and filled them with a compost that probably hadn’t aged enough. We have had a really really wet year so far, but the boxes seem to drain fairly well. I now have mushrooms growing in among the veggies. Should I be concerned, or just throw them out?
Thanks for all the info about chickens. I have been thinking about raising some for quite a while now. I have been stewing about how to get a coop, but my friend told me I should just put chicken wire around the base of the kid’s tree house (about 10 feet off the ground) and put a shelf in for them to nest on. If it is that simple I just might go for it!
I sure would like to have both the bugs controlled and the eggs!
Thanks for the great reply! How long do hens usually live? I have discussed this with my wife and she is OK with eggs, but would think of them as pets so no fried chicken if we get any!!!
A few others to examine:
tomatogrowers.com
victoryseeds.com
seedsavers.org
sandhillpreservation.com
let em grow and let em compost away .... Compost drains well, if it is closed to finished. Finished compost? lol I have never seen the stuff. I don’t wait, I top dress almost weekly with compost that is just 75% done. The only thing I must know is that the pile got hot enough two times to kill any weed seeds available.
But then I have practically eliminated that issue as well. I have a compost bin reserved only for weeds I’ve pulled.
Figures ... I am headed to Vegas for a week the end of this week and I have green beans and tomatoes coming on like gang busters.
Sure wish we could get some of your ,moisture. It has rained three times in 3 days here. A tenth of an inch each time. Just enough to make 92 degree days miserable.
Headed to vegas where it is a dry heat ... yeah, I belive in the tooth fairy also.
And just to enlighten you a bit ... Mushrooms reproduce from microscopic spores, that travel as fine powder from the gills (the underside of the mushroom) In reality, the gills eject the spores and under magnification looks like a basebal being thrown and then it drops dead in its tracks. Myocyleum is the resultant microscopic thread like structure that incubates and lays dormant in the soil of up to 5 years, in your cse compost ... when temp, moisture and humidity is just right ... a mushroom button develops rapidly (overnight) and then matures in just days.
The verbose one hs struck again. Someday I’m gonna get a life.
Oh your original question ... leave em be, unless they are morells and I will come by and take as many as you have. Delicious. (not likely either ... morells are not as scarce as truffles, but close)
not to mentiopn the chicke sh .... ooops ... fecal material all over the place as well.
Ok ... correct me if I am wrong, but tomatoes do no need a pressure cooker to can them. the acid content is high enough and my long past mother used to do a cold process (a misnomer in name ... it was still boiling water in a huge blue and white pot) and put up 300 quarts every year..
We freeze everything, tomatoes, sauce, corn, apples, raspberries ... .... no more pressure cooker in our house. Green beans are terrible frozen .. I loved the old time canned beans and bacon, just don’t have the time for that.
You can use that process too but pressure canning is just a safer way of doing tomatoes. :)
That makes perfect sense to me.
I think the only thing we purchased in town for groceries were things like sugar, flour, the staples ... not counting Mr. Whipple’s and Mrs Olson’s (uffda dats da richest kind) products.
We raised everything on that Iowa farm. 13.4 million hogs and not all were 4 legged. canned everything in sight ...loved and miss the cabbage, nobody loved the odorific results several hours later. Everything else was delcious as well and really do miss those days .... exception .... Please do not ever set another Iowa specialty (the beet pickle) in front of me.
Now, lefse and lutefisk ...look out laars here I come.
Here is our typical summer 10 day forecast for the Humboldt Bay region... More Clouds than sun
LOL
Chicken sh.... er... “stuff”... is not a problem for us. We live in the middle of the woods, so it won’t be new.... I got all kinds of “stuff” around!
If I had morels, I wouldn’t be telling *anybody* about them.... except as a memory!!! I have only found them once in all the years we have lived here. I am sure they are around, just not where I find them.
My only concern (since I am such a newbie gardener) was that these might affect the veggies, but since not, they can stay. I will just put more compost on top.
It seems that everybody and his brother decided to garden this year, and the guy we bought our dirt from was overwhelmed. We got some of his “newer” stuff and didn’t know it at the time. I might suggest to him he owes me another load.
We have gotten more rain then we know what to do with! We had an inch and a half in the gauge the day before yesterday, and got buckets more last night. May have more today.
If you are really in need of help with your beans and tomatoes, I will gladly take them off your hands. Mine are a while off, and I really want to try out my pressure canner, after a break of about 10 years.
I wish you well.
Just a suggestion for future use. Next spring before planting is even possible ... take a couple of soil samples from your beds, mix them together and have your local extension office send it off for a soil analysis. It costs between 8 and 14 bucks, but you will KNOW without a shadow of a dooubt, ph level, all macro and micro nutrient levels and a host of other good things. It will save you heartache in the long run.
Ooops. forgot to include the old farmers way of soil testing. If you dig a square foot of soil and find a handful of wigglers (worms) more than likely your pH levels are neutal and your soil is healthy.
Earthworms are a gardeners friend ... aeration, moisture retention, and a self generating fertilizer factory all in one little neat package.
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