Late April life on the sub-urban farm

It's nearing the end of April, and I'm wondering where the year has flown to?  The summer crops are all planted, except for the sunflowers; they get a new bed this year. Much like last year, this year I've planted: okra, two types of bush Lima beans, pole Limas (from last year's harvest), cilantro, basils, sage, stevia, onions, garlic, several kinds of peppers, Hansel and Ichiban eggplant... and edamame.
Tomatoes include Roma, Celebrity, Cherokee Purple, Yellow Pear, and a new one: Radiatior Charlie's Mortgage Lifter!  What a name!

The over-wintering crops did so-so. The Romaine lettuce was killer! Unfortunately, the cruciferous veggies (brocolli, cauliflower, kale, and brussells sprouts) got hammered by green caterpillars.  I'm trying to show the chicks how to eat them, but to their credit the caterpillars are well camouflaged. I pick them off and give them to the girls, and then spray the plants with Dipel dust... One broccoli plant did well - it's right next to the onions, and no caterpillars.... lesson on companion planting learned!

Saturday I went to Ambrose Family Farm on Wadamalaw and picked organic strawberries in the rain. They had a great year, which they attribute to the cold weather. I made 8 pints of strawberry preserves Sunday... yum!

I love the early mornings before work, when I go outside with a cup of coffee and watch the girls jump and bump and play in the coolness of the morning...

Helen and Geneva waking up on a cool Monday morning... Geneva flew on top of the coop to find goodies in  the chestnut tree...

Bedtime

The girls are 6 weeks old today!!!

I got home from work with a little light to spare, so I let the girls out to explore in the yard... And then it was bedtime. They've gotten pretty good at going "upstairs" for the evening. I had the side to the coop down so I could change their water. They decided it was time for a nap...

a very tired Dixie Chick

front: Gladys, Janie, Geneva
back: Percy Buff Orpington, Helen, Dixie

 

View from the Coop

With and without flash - a bird's eye view of the new coop interior

Moving Day!!!

After the Saturday morning group bike ride, I came home and set to work at finishing the Poultry Taj Mahal (aka my version of the Catawba Coverticoop).The inside of my house is covered in fine sawdust, and the chicks are do big I'm sure they were feeling cramped in the brooder box that had been home for almost six weeks.

And, about dusk, it was pretty much done. Complete enough to say "Girls, you're outta here!"

The coop is designed as a lower run with a ramp up to the roosting/nesting area. The clapboard sides are removable for ease of cleaning.and moving (they weigh a lot). Likewise there are two end panels for the run, so I can get underneath to change the food and water, and so the girls can have access to free range in the yard. The upstairs is wired for electricity, and I had both a 100w bulb and their 250w heat lamp turned on for warmth on a chilly evening.

Getting the girls into the coop was a challenge. They didn't want to leave their happy spot in the yard..  Getting them upstairs was a whole other level of challenge. I finally had to gather them into a plastic bin,  take a side panel off, and put them upstairs by hand.

 by the dawn's early light

I'll tell you that about 1am I was worried that the heat might be cranked up too high, and that I would have baked chickens in the morning. But fear not - they were fine and seemed quite please with the new digs.

This morning I went out to the roost, cut off the electric and hung the feeder. I figured they'd be out of there as soon as I lowered the ramp. Wrong! Two cups of coffee later and no chickens. Sleeping in, I guess. I ended up pulling a side panel back and putting each of them on the ramp so they could hopefully have a clue.

Today I'll prime the exterior, and make one or two small modifications, but mostly I think I'll clean MY house!

what? you're kicking us out?

When they get to be a little closer to egg laying age I'll put in a MP3 player with speakers in the nesting boxes.

The Brooder

This is for John & Jana - photos of the brooder. It measures 24"w x 36"l x 18"h. The heat lamp is suspended from above. There is a piece of 1x2 screwed to the sides that serves as a roost.

I fashioned a lid using plywood and hardware cloth to keep the cats out and chicks in. I also put felt pads on the bottom so it wouldn't scratch the floor, and put a rope handle on it...

Electrical: I got a two outlet plastic electric box from Lowes, an outlet, and a dimmer switch. Power goes to the dimmer switch, first, then to the outlet. I can control the heat output without adjusting the height of the lamp. It works well. There is a $2 thermometer in the brooder that I use to keep tabs on the temp.

At about 3 weeks the chicks were flying around, and able to fly up and out onto the top of the brooder - they seem to like it there. They are 5 weeks old now and rapidly outgoing this brooder. I would suggest that a good brooder could be constructed from two cardboard bicycle shipping boxes - tall enough and long. At 5 weeks they need more space.

Chicken Tractor

Sorry for the posting delay, but I've spent quite a bit of time this week building the girls' new home, a chicken tractor (or chicken ark). It's based on the Catawba Converticoop, which is a very nice chicken tractor. However, I needed more space, so I changed the dimensions and made it 5 feet wide instead of 4, which means that most other dimensions have to be scaled and calculated. The author made it easy for non-builders, but for folks like myself with woodworking and homebuilding skills, it's been very hard to follow his instructions (parallelograms, trapezoids, etc).... yikes!

The chicks are getting bigger and faster by the day! The hardest part about letting them out to play is catching them to put back inside. Hopefully by this weekend the tractor will be finished and I'll have them outside permanently.  Then I get to clean the inside of my house!

The tractor in progress. This thing is heavy - I'm engineering a set of wheels to go on the end so I can roll it around the yard.