Spring Chickens!!!

I just placed my order for spring, to say that I am excited is a gross understatement. I chose Far West Hatchery located in Tangent after checking around. We met the owner at the State Fair this summer and he was very nice and knowledgeable. Far West had most of the breeds I wanted, cost less and was local. Most large hatcheries are located in the midwest, so there will be less stress on the babies coming from so close.
Sticking with the theme of no two matching chickens, I ordered a bunch of varieties. I don't know why you would pick just a few when there are so many beautiful breeds. That being said, there can be issues with mixing and matching, so I made sure to chose breeds which are docile and tend to play well with others. Camilla has been kind of an issue, being so small. She gets picked on a lot and I have to make sure she gets enough to eat. I don't want any more banties for that reason. Here's the spring line up:

Blue Laced Red Wyandotte - for variation


Speckled Sussex - she will lay cream colored eggs


Black Jersey Giant - hens weigh 11 pounds! (Camilla weighs 2, a normal hen weighs about 6) Known as "Gentle Giants"


Blue Cochin - look at that puff ball!


Cuckoo Marans - These look very similar to Barred Rocks, which I don't care for. I wanted a Black Copper Marans instead, but it wasn't an option. I got her because of the eggs she will lay.


Marans lay the darkest chicken eggs. I want to have a rainbow of colors.


Rhode Island Red - a very common breed, they are good layers


2 Ameraucanas - the same breed that Bert is. They lay all different colored eggs (cream, brown, green, blue), which is why I got two. I don't know what color the birds will be.


Buff Brahma - She might look familiar, Camilla is a light brahma. These are also large birds - 9 pounds for a hen.


Welsummer - I saw these where we got some of our chickens this year and was drooling over them. I think they are so pretty. They also lay very dark speckled eggs.


9 Cornish crosses - these are for meat. They grow incredibly fast, ready to butcher at 8 weeks. If you let them live longer they have heart and leg problems due to their enormous size. I think next year we will get a breed called Rangers, they look more like normal chickens, but need more space because they like to forage. These guys will just plunk down in front of their food and eat all day and night if you let them. I'm hoping their disgustingness will ease me into butchering my own animals.


6 Bourbon Red Turkeys - After much research I think this year this is the breed for us. They are second best in flavor (we couldn't order the number one from this hatchery), and will be ready by Thanksgiving with the hatch date that I wanted. These are the girls:


And the boys:


We will get a straight run - not sexed. These are the ones I am worried about - turkeys get very tame. I like the noises that they make. I like their snoods. And that their face skin changes color with their emotions.

I will not get attached, I will not get attached...

Hopefully this will NOT be the scene at our house next year.

Walk

Aaron and I went for a long walk today to check out the area. We walked to Post Canyon, but decided not to hike in because it's hunting season and we were dressed in all neutral colors.


Check out this video of Post Canyon and what people do there.
Post Canyon

So we headed the other way on Post Canyon road, and looked at properties. There are many houses for sale right now with 3-5 acre lots. These horses are in the pasture of one house for sale. The house is from the 20's and needs to be torn down. $463,000. And we thought Corvallis was expensive...


You can see the house in the background here. This horse came over to say hi and to get some grass from me.


Lots of cute barns and houses in our area.


Alpacas


We stopped in at Cathedral Ridge Winery, also very close to our house.


The chickens are very resistant to change, they like routine and when life throws them a curve ball like snow, they don't like it. Today it was sunny and starting to thaw and I saw a grassy patch across the run. They wouldn't leave the coop without encouragement, so I called Buffy over. She is so eager to please and loves to be around us, so even though she didn't like the snow she decided she would rough it just to get to me. I wish I had a camera to capture her walking funny across the snow, feathers blowing everywhere in the wind. Because she is the alpha, the others followed, but they decided to fly most of the way to avoid the snow. Once they got to the grass they hung out for quite a while. I want them to get used to the snow, or they are going to be spending the whole winter indoors.


The expanded coop area now has a roof! I have been planning for new chicks in the spring and I CAN NOT WAIT. I had trouble finding a hatchery that had the breeds I wanted, didn't have too high of a chick minimum, vaccinated and that I trusted. But I think I found one, I am going to call tomorrow to work out the fine details. We should have babies in February!

Brrrr!

Man oh man it's been cold here! Today is day two of a high of 25. Last night it was 10 degrees.


The coop window this morning


The feed can


Banties are especially susceptible to cold because of their small size. Camilla was shivering this morning so I tucked her in my coat to warm up for a few minutes.


I've added lots of pine shavings for warmth, covered all their walls and have been giving them warm food and water every few hours to keep their strength up and their furnaces going. I have resisted adding heat because it is not recommended. Being exposed to cold allows their extra feathers to fill in, they can become dependent on heat sources and if your power goes out you can lose chickens. It's also a fire hazard, an extra expense and can create moisture problems. So even though I badly want to throw in a heat lamp, I know it's for their own good. Keeping down drafts, giving food and water, and giving them a dry place to be are the most important things. The temperature will be going up after today - I am thankful for that!

Crumpets

The chickens had a small tea party yesterday. I gave them some stale rye crackers soaked in milk with flax seeds on top.




We spent most of the day together, working on the never ending list of improvements to the coop. I patched and hung the gutters, filled the coop floor with sand, put silicone sealant on the holes in the roof from its previous life and put up plastic sheeting as a wind block. The coop is no longer cute, but it is functional. Mabel (the brown one) seems to have a strong aversion to sand. She would not go into the coop after I placed the sand. I had to push her through the door, and she does anything to avoid walking on it. What a funny bird. She seems to be adjusting now, and the others like it. I wanted to put something down over the muddy ground, so they would have a dry place to be. They can dust bathe in it as well. Most people put down straw or wood shavings, but my chickens like to eat those things, and I am not going through a Camilla surgery again if I can help it.

Unearthing.

So many boxes.


The Pyrex is emerging.


Luckily we have a hutch for all of our vintage treasures! Someday when it's finished I'll post a picture of it.

Coop Expansion

This chicken coop, which dominated our small city lot, is almost embarrassingly small out in the country.


This might put it into perspective.


It's all uneven and ghetto because we were able to place it where we wanted it, but it was dark and rainy, so we weren't able to make a foundation and level the ground. It is also still lifted 4 inches. So there is an intricate system of plywood and cinder blocks covering gaps and keeping animals out and chickens in. We put up fencing this weekend, they now have a 1700 square foot run! We also began an expansion project, which will give them 3 times as much floor space. I'll feel better about leaving for overnight trips knowing they have more room.
It's hard to see how big this is, but this is the current garden space, I'm thinking about doubling it. You can see the hives in the background for scale. If nothing else it will leave lots of space for different times of year. It seems like I am always waiting to harvest something before I can plant again. I want to plant lots of things that store well - potatoes, onions, squash, garlic.

To Move a Coop

This was easily the most difficult move I've made. Between the distance, moving the coop, the bees and the live birds, it was a doozy. It was a week ago and I am still recovering.

Can I just say I am so thankful for intelligent and generous friends. They made moving the coop a cinch. Aaron jacked up the coop with a car jack and put several 4 x 4s under the coop to act as skids. We bolted these to the coop for stability.

Our friend Howard brought over 4 logs which served as rollers. We literally just rolled the coop out of the backyard.

Aaron had to take out one panel of the fence to get it through.

The curb seemed like it was going to be a big obstacle, but it turned out to be no big deal.

Once we got the front of the coop onto the trailer, a Comealong was attached and with some pushing it made it all the way on.

The bee hives were locked up the night before with a screen, strapped up and carried to the back of the truck. That is our friend Rocky helping Aaron with the hives. Those were some unhappy bees I tell you what.

Moving the bees and the chickens in one day would not have been too big of a deal if we hadn't been moving all of our other earthly possessions the same day. I boxed up the chickens early in the day. Buffy and Camila were in a box in my front seat the drive up, the other three were in Aaron's front seat. Whenever I got on my phone and the chickens heard my voice, they would talk to me, begging me to let them out of the box. I could hear that their throats were dry from being without water all day and it about broke my heart.

Aaron drove the UHaul up, towing the coop and bees. People waved at him on the way up.

We got in just at dark. The first order of business was to get those birds out and get them some food and water. We set up a temporary pen in the garage, which was perfect because we could put them in a lighted room. It had already gotten dark, so they would have just gone to bed without eating, and we still had to move the bees and figure out how we would get the coop off the trailer without any help. Aaron stuck a rake through the fencing to act as a roost. After they ate and drank I gradually dimmed the lights and they all went to bed.

We dropped the bees off and were just debating how we were going to deposit the coop in the backyard when our landlord drove by. Thank goodness! He jumped out, got on the phone and within minutes we had 6 helpers. They made fast work of moving it around the backyard and we were able to place it just where we wanted it.

We unloaded the UHaul, slept for 4 hours (forgetting about daylight savings) and drove back to Corvallis to clean the old house. Finally we are all in one place.

I am so glad last week is over!

The Big Move

Posting may be erratic for a week or two. We are in the middle of moving. I am trying to get over a week long illness with limited success. My problem is that I HATE taking naps. I really, really hate it. It throws my whole day and I think about what I could be doing instead of actually sleeping. But it turns out if you don't slow down when you get sick, you get sicker. So I took 3 naps today (!!) trying to ward off a secondary infection.
We have to be out of our house by Sunday, chickens, bees and all.
The good news? We are moving to beautiful Hood River where we will have an acre and a half to do mostly what we please. The spring may bring:
The biggest garden ever!
Raising our own meat - chickens, turkeys, maybe even pigs!
Milk goats?

The sky is the limit and I'm excited about all the possibilities.