Palazzo Rospo

Selecting a Chicken Breed

2010-03-04T08:05:00.004-05:00

When we decided to get chickens, we knew we wanted a dual purpose breed, which means it's a breed that's good for both meat and eggs. Meat birds take about 10 weeks to get to butchering size but they never get old enough to lay eggs. Dual purpose birds take about 3-5 months to get to butchering size so that's a lot more feed expense if all you want is meat. Egg layers lay an egg a day and most will lay right on through the winter time although production may be reduced. However, they make a scrawny carcass that's not worth the trouble of butchering. Dual purpose birds lay an egg two out of three days and their laying almost stops in the short winter days unless you provide supplemental light. So if you're not going to be butchering that's a lot of feed expense for just a few eggs.

So one of the main things you should consider when choosing a breed of chickens is why you want to raise them. Do you want meat? Eggs? A little of both? Are there ordinances against butchering where you live? Would you be happier with a dual purpose breed or would you prefer to have a permanent flock of egg layers and then raise meat birds a couple of months each spring? Or do you just want the companionship and entertainment that chickens provide? In that case perhaps an ornamental breed would be better for you.

We also wanted a bird that was good at foraging. We have a lot of land and we figured the more they could feed themselves, the better it would be on our pocketbook. As you can see in the video, our chickens love to get outside even if the foraging conditions are, well, sub-optimal. They have a strong foraging drive. This is great for us but if we lived on a small lot in a town then we'd prefer a breed that is happy being confined to a coop and a run. The Sussex would be miserable under such conditions.

We also wanted a chicken that would occasionally go broody. The less we have to deal with incubators, the better. If you live with close neighbors though, you won't want a rooster because they crow a lot and they are quite loud. With no rooster you won't have fertile eggs so there's no point in having a breed that goes broody. That's just one hen that's not producing eggs: hens don't lay when they are setting.

We also wanted to raise a rare breed. The Speckled Sussex is listed as threatened by the American Livestock Breeders Conservancy. It is a dual purpose bird that lays brown eggs and has strong foraging tendencies. For us it's a great bird.

To help you pick a breed that suits your needs I highly recommend the Henderson's Chicken Breed Chart.

Greenhouse Icicles

2010-03-02T10:11:00.001-05:00

Our home has a heated greenhouse attached to it. The idea is brilliant but the execution was poor. We lose a LOT of household heat through the greenhouse. We can't just let it get real cold in there because it is also our bathroom and the pipes would freeze (not to mention how uncomfortable baths and showers would be).

I imagine the people who built it thought the sunlight would warm the bathroom in winter. If it were double-paned and somewhat sealed I think it might. As it is, it just pours heat out into the great state of West Virginia. When snow falls on the greenhouse, it melts, and makes fantastic icicles.

Bird Netting and Snow

2010-03-01T09:59:00.000-05:00

We have bird netting over the rabbit colony, to keep winged predators at bay. Some people think the netting will discourage raccoons and similar, but a raccoon will tear right through bird netting or even chicken wire. For them, we have electric scare wires. But for hawks and owls we have bird netting.

The first year we didn't have any problem with hawks and owls but the second year they all but decimated the colony in two or three nights. That's when we decided to put up bird netting. It worked beautifully.

After two or three years, the netting was getting old and tatty, all torn and fallen down in places. I kept thinking "I need to replace that netting..." but never quite got around to it. Then overnight I was down to four rabbits! When owls strike, they are effective. So I made a trip to the hardware store and got bird netting and put it up. Within a couple of weeks it snowed... and snowed... and snowed. And the bird netting fell down. I had strung it up on old clothes line that I ran up the middle of the colony from a gate post to a tree, and secured it to the fencing with regular old string. The weight of the snow was just too much.

This photo was taken in January. When the snow finally melted enough to dig the netting out, I re-hung it. It was down again within the week. It's been a trying winter in the rabbit colony. If/when we build another one I think we'll construct the "roof" of 2x4 or 4x4 welded wire on a wooden frame.

Snow pics

2010-02-26T08:53:00.002-05:00

I haven't blogged recently because it seems like there's nothing to blog about. It's been snowing since mid-December. This is more snow than we had in our previous three winters in WV and more snow than I've ever seen in my life. We parked the ATV near the house and it seemed like a good idea at the time but now it just seems foolish. If the snow ever lets up we'll drive it over to the shed and park it under cover again.

The bridge that my husband built over the wet-weather creek. I'm not sure if it's a wet-weather creek or if we had amazing droughts our first two years here. The first year it flowed off and on. The second year it didn't flow much at all. Seems like it's been flowing most of the time this last year. Anyway the bridge is lovely and we use it all the time as we park on the other side of the creek from the house.

A close-up of the bridge railing showing how deep the snow was earlier. That's a 2x4 that the snow is piled upon.

I just thought this was a pretty cool picture. I'm easily amused (and amazed) by snow. My husband, a snow veteran, just laughs at me when I run around taking pics like this. He derives happiness from my enjoyment of the snow, even though he teases me about it. We have a lot of branches down in the yard now. Will be good for kindling next year.

Sledding

2010-01-13T12:02:00.004-05:00

I grew up in the South. We didn't get a lot of snow and when we did it was cause for huge joyous celebrations. One flake and businesses closed, grocery stores ran out of milk, bread, and toilet paper, and children all over town started watching anxiously for accumulation.

In WV we have plenty of snow. Enough for sledding! We found a particularly good hill the other day.

Driving to Town

2010-01-11T17:11:00.003-05:00

This past weekend, my husband and I had to go into town to get prescriptions filled. I took a few pics. This is the most snow I've seen since I've been here. We had more a couple of weeks ago but I was out of state visiting relatives.

Here's a beautiful scene snapped out the window on the way to town. This might become my desktop background, despite the fact that it's not too clear.

The creek is doing its best to freeze over nice and solid. I've never been ice skating on a pond or a stream. I would love to try it! Skating on a stream is especially attractive to me, because I'd get to see the area from a new vantage point.

Icicles!! There were much more impressive ones than these, but these were convenient and we were going slowly, so these got photographed.

After we arrived in town, the back of the truck looked like this. It's interesting how clearly the wind patterns show up in the drifted snow. Now I understand why, when I forget and leave my back window open on the highway in the summer time, all those leaves and/or hay blow out of the bed and into the cab!

Cherry Pie

2010-01-08T09:54:00.000-05:00

We had a delicious cherry pie for our New Years Eve meal. I like to have a nice meal on New Years Eve. I'm getting better at pie crusts. DO use store bought flour, DON'T use home ground wheat flour -- it's too heavy. DO use butter, DON'T use margarine or shortening. This one still had some problems. The filling stayed juicy and never set. I mean, it was juicy like juice you drink. Like water. But good! We just put it in bowls and ate it with spoons.

The cherries are from summer of 2008. We didn't get a cherry crop in 2009 for some reason. Gotta love that deep chest freezer (and that kid that climbed up in the loader to pick cherries!).

More snow chicken stuff

2010-01-07T09:22:00.000-05:00

Here's the chicken house after I gave them their water and opened their little door. The little door is on the other side of their coop and it opens into the fenced run. The door slides up and down to open and close. I open it with a cable that goes up through the roof and across a pulley, then hooks onto a screw to keep the door pulled up and open. I had to brush some snow aside to find the cable and the screw to hook the cable around.

The dark spot on the right is where I backed up the truck too far and the hitch went through the wall of the chicken coop. It wasn't one of my prouder moments.

Snow is surprisingly heavy. I sweep the snow off of the coop roof and then prop it open with a scrap of 2x4. We have cylinders in the coop to help lift the roof but after rain or snow it's just about as heavy as I can manage, even with the cylinders. With the roof propped open, I can get eggs, fill their feeder, throw down some scratch, and check that everything is generally okay. I put the scratch down on their litter (wood shavings) and they stir it up. This keeps the chicken house cleaner and less stinky than if I just allow the poop to pile up and cover it with a new layer of fresh shavings every so often. I am sold on the "let them scratch through the litter" method of keeping chickens.

Here they are happily in the house, eating up the scratch. We currently have one rooster and eight hens. Our rooster is a beautiful fellow, keeps a good eye on his girls, and is not at all mean to us. We like him very much. The purple blue stuff is Blu-Kote and when the chickens get wounded or naked from the rooster pulling their feathers, I spray them with the Blu-Kote to help them heal. I like to spray them in the evening when they're on the roost, because they are still and calm then. So I sometimes hit the interior wall of the coop with overspray.

Snow chores - chickens

2010-01-06T09:02:00.002-05:00

We've had a lot of snow recently (yay!) and the temperature has been below freezing for several days. A week? Two? I haven't really paid attention. But I do know that the chickens' and rabbits' water dishes are frozen every morning and evening when I go out to check on them and give them food and water. I took some photos this morning whilst going about my chores. It was that early blue twilight time of day.

I water the rabbits and the chickens with rubber pans that hold about 3 gallons of water. The rubber stays flexible even in extremely cold temperatures. I've not had any problems with them at temperatures of about -10F. I flip them upside down and stomp on them, hard, with my boots.

Most of the ice pops right out. Any that clings to the dish can be popped out by flexing the dish or by poking at it with a gloved hand.

I carry warm water out in old vinegar jugs. I used milk jugs at first but the vinegar jugs are more sturdy and last longer.

Yay! Fresh water! The chickens are hesitant to come out into the snow. They will, but they must first get their courage up :)

Tracks in the Snow

2009-12-30T12:56:00.002-05:00

I went hiking in the snow yesterday and came across some odd tracks. I´ve been looking for images on teh interwebs to see if I can identify them but so far no luck.

It has two little foot looking marks and a swishy tail looking mark.

The tracks are small. I put a penny beside a track, for scale.

Here are three tracks, with the penny still beside the center track. These tracks came out of some brush, went across an old logging road and up the hill into some more brush. I have no idea what created them, but they sure are interesting. If you know, or have an idea, post a comment!

Problem in the bee hive

2009-10-01T14:40:00.003-04:00

Ugh.
One of my hives is suddenly queenless. Yellow jackets are everywhere, including inside the hive. AND I have something funky going on with the pollen. That's shadows in the shot above, not raggedy comb. I took the pic in bright daylight with the sun directly behind me (so I could see into the cells). I avoided catching my own shadow as best I could but alas.

I'm going to consult with a guy in my bee keeper club about whether I should re-queen or combine the queenless hive with the other one.

I replaced my screen inner cover, which allows access along both sides of the entire length, with a solid inner cover, which allows access only at one small point in the front. I also put an entrance reducer in place. This way the honey bees only have to defend against the yellow jackets in a couple of strategic locations, rather than across the entire entrance and down both long sides of the inner cover. Makes it harder to bring in pollen but I think we're in crisis mode at the moment.

And I have *no* idea what this stuff is on the pollen. Looks like mold or fungus of some sort. Going to ask my bee keeper guy about that, too, and consult the folks on the beekeeping forum at Homesteading Today. My stress meter just jumped :(

Spring Snow

2009-04-09T07:34:00.000-04:00

After almost a week of 70F degree weather, we had a couple of nights in the low to mid 30s with snow showers. It didn't stick around, of course, but it was sure pretty.

We've got days in the 50s and nights in the 30s for the next week, apparently. The asparagus is starting to sprout and it's time to get peas in the ground. I have seedlings in the greenhouse. There are two litters of kits romping around the rabbit colony. The world is full of promise.

Where Meat Comes From

2009-03-26T12:46:00.001-04:00

Yeah, I ended my title with a preposition.
So sue me.

see more pwn and owned pictures

The Grass is Always Greener...

2009-02-23T18:03:00.004-05:00

This is Komiko. She is fascinated by something that is happening on the other side of the door. What could be so enticing?

Ah. It's Louie and Rolf looking back at the door, convinced that all the GOOD stuff is on Komiko's side.

Snow Critters

2009-02-20T17:55:00.000-05:00

Rabbits hanging around in and on their favorite hidey-hole. They don't mind the cold at all. They'll lie out there on the ground in sub-freezing weather like it's the most comfortable thing in the world.

The chickens, on the other hand, are distrustful of the snow, mostly because it's different. They stand and stare at it for a long time before setting foot in it. Once out, they'll walk kind of funny, trying to keep their feet out of the snow. But Speckled Sussex are insatiably curious and love to scratch and be outside, so eventually they just get out in it and do their chickeny things.

More Snow Pics

2009-02-19T18:47:00.000-05:00

My poor laundry.

Rolf making his rounds and checking everything out while Louie looks on from the porch. This photo was taken in November before Louie died at the end of December. Rolf has always been a conscientious worker dog, helping feed the chickens and rabbits and generally getting underfoot no matter what you're doing and no matter what the weather. Louie was more of a supervisor during snowy weather. The ice and snow caked up in the long fur between his foot pads pretty quickly. He liked the snow, but only for quick runs and romps.

Weird Bush Thing in Snow

2009-02-18T17:41:00.000-05:00

I've got some snow pics I'm going to post over the next couple of days or so. They were mostly (all?) taken in November when we got our first snow and I was real excited about it. I've calmed down some now, but I wouldn't mind another good snowfall in the slightest.

This weird bush thing caught my eye because it looked like a string of beads against the snow.

Closeup of weird bush thing. I'm sure the cats have gotten tons of these stuck in their fur by now.

Happy Birthday, Mom

2009-02-17T18:37:00.000-05:00

My birthday was a while back. The kids presented me with this delightful birthday plate.

It's chocolate chip cookie dough formed to make two festive balloons and "H B M" which of course stands for "Happy Birthday, Mom". The plate also sports two candles made from pieces of candy cane.

Nice!

Barn at Sunrise, in Snow

2009-02-16T20:32:00.000-05:00

This was taken in December one morning while I was out feeding the rabbits and chickens. Usually when we get snow it's gray and cloudy. This sunrise was a nice surprise. You can see my poor garden never got properly put to bed for the winter. Ah, well... the old dead stuff will still be there waiting on me come spring.

Power Outage

2009-02-15T12:09:00.005-05:00

We had a big storm come through here Wednesday the 11th. We lost power for three days, almost to the hour. It was pretty fun, actually, and very relaxing. It was very quiet and we could hear the coyotes on the hill with crystal clarity. Our place is pretty quiet, we don't have sirens or traffic or manufacturers near us. Still, losing power for an extended time does give one the opportunity to realize how much noise is created by the fridge, freezer, computer fans, well pump, and other daily power activities that happen in the background without our being conscious of them.

The easy stuff - we sat by the window and read a lot during the day, we got some stuff done around the place outside once the weather settled down, we lit candles as night fell, we ate canned soups, chili, and similar heated on the gas cooktop.

The manageable stuff - we ran the generator occasionally to keep the fridge and deep chest freezer cold, and during these times we filled water containers for the rabbits and chickens, for ourselves, and made coffee in the coffee maker. We filled the bathtub so we'd have water with which to flush.

The stuff that concerns us - the gas pressure here is poor and the gas fails when demands are placed on it. Our generator runs on natural gas but we only got 7 to 15 minutes out of it at a time before the gas would fail. In extremely cold weather we'd be unable to drip water to keep the pipes from freezing, even if we put out the pilot lights on the two heaters and the hot water tank.

We're re-committed to getting the solar panels up and the control panel in place, so we can run the freezer, fridge, and well pump off of solar. The batteries are in place and the rack is on the roof, so much of the work is done. We have the materials to do the rest. And so it goes.

Snowing at My House

2009-01-30T18:03:00.000-05:00

It's snowing (again!) and it was just so pretty this morning that I had to make a quick little video of it. The above video was made from just outside my front door looking out across the yard.

This is also from the front porch, but looking into the north field.

I just LOVE snow. I think it's because I lived all my life in the south (until recently). Snow is always magical and exciting to me.

Popcorn!

2009-01-28T18:01:00.002-05:00

This summer I grew some bantam popcorn, just for fun. The ears are tiny, about 3" or 4" long. Many of mine were even shorter due to incomplete pollination or maybe lack of water. But I still got lots and they're beautiful! They're colored like "Indian Corn" and some of them have purple husks.

The kernels are teensy tiny.

And when they're popped they're still teensy tiny! This popcorn has a great flavor. I put some salt on it and no butter. It's delicious. One nice surprise is that the kernels, being so small, have very thin hulls so even the old maids are easy to chomp on and eat. They don't hurt my teeth at all.

Frozen Bee

2009-01-23T18:30:00.000-05:00

After several days of below freezing temperatures, and lows near or below zero, we had a warm sunny 45 degrees yesterday. The bees took cleansing flights, so they could poop and get comfy again. Some of the girls strayed too far from the hive and got too chilled to fly back. I found this one on a cleaning rag on my clothes line this morning, dead, with frost on her feet, back, forehead, and one antenna.

On the one hand, things like this make me sad. On the other hand, it's natures way of ensuring only the most capable bees eat the food stores and raise the new brood.

ATVing in the Snow

2009-01-22T18:03:00.000-05:00

We have some beautiful snow on the ground. A couple of days ago we decided to go out on the ATVs and look at animal tracks. We went late in the day, shortly after 5:00 p.m. The light was fading and we ended up circling back to the house with our headlights on.

We saw some tracks but they'd been filled in by snow so they were only divots in the surface. It was impossible to tell what made them. We had a ton of fun anyway, and I only got stuck once!

Deer from my Greenhouse

2009-01-21T18:36:00.000-05:00

This photo was taken from our greenhouse which, interestingly enough, is also the bathroom. Hey, *I* didn't design it! Actually, there are a lot of good ideas in it - the greenhouse space is heated, and water is readily available. It does make one feel a bit exposed when stepping out of the shower though :)

Closeup of deer showing how clean and lovely my greenhouse windows are :p

Thanks to everyone who sent kind and helpful comments about Louie. He left us on the 31st of December. It was time. He was hurting and grumpy. He had a very happy, rich life and his last moments were with people who loved him feeding him his favorite treats while he snuffled the breeze contentedly. We grieve his absence from our lives but we celebrate the time we had with him.