Veggie Garden Girl: February 2013

Friday, February 22, 2013

Chicken Sneezes!

This video of the girls catches Butterscotch Sneezing! Turn up your volume!

Monday, February 18, 2013

So I went to the Mission Hills Nursery thinking they might have some chicken feed because they have a couple chickens at the site that run around and free range.

I saw one of the chickens there, a Plymouth Rock, and she was a big girl! I imagine this is what Oreo will look like when she grows up.

Big girl at the nursery

Talk about some big hips

My little Oreo -- who just learned how to jump for a treat today

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Victory Garden

I saw this neat graphic that I wanted to post here. It was on a blog asking "are you a typical victory gardener"?

http://redwhiteandgrew.com/2011/06/14/are-you-a-typical-victory-gardener/

Saturday, February 16, 2013

Chicken Books

Here is my library on chicken raising:

"City Chicks: Keeping Micro-Flocks of Chickens" by Patricia Foreman
"The Working Chicken" by Anna Hess
"A Chicken in Every Yard" by Robert and Hannna Litt

All good reads....

Chicken Waterers

I'm not using the traditional waterer with chicken nipple, like this below.

Chicken Waterer with Nipples
http://www.chickenwaterer.com/BriteTap-Chicken-Waterer-and-Cooler-Combo-Pack-p/bt100-2gal-combo.htm

I'm using regular pet store rabbit (or small animal) waterers, like you see in this picture below.

Rabbit waterer

As you can see, I've also got a bowl of water in here. I was worried, in the beginning, that they wouldn't know how to use the hanging waterer, and in the first few days the birds were too scared of me that I couldn't pick them up and teach them. However, Oreo (the little one) learned immediately how to drink out of the rabbit waterer with no help from me. So I didn't have to worry about her. Eventually Butterscotch picked it up too by watching Oreo, but it took a week. I just now removed the bowl of water from the cage because I see them going to the hanging water and not using the bowl. So now there's a bit more space available in the cage, which is nice.

I had to use these rabbit waterers, instead of the large hanging chicken waterer (with nipples) because these rabbit waterers could hang on the outside of the cage (yay more room!) and hang at an angle (since the coop is a triangle). The chicken nipples have to be pointed directly downwards (so you have to hang them above the chicken's head) or else they leak. The rabbit waterers can pretty much be hung at a variety of angles and they won't leak. So I like the rabbit waterers alot better.

I think the rabbit waterers put out less water than a chicken nipple per peck. But I think the girls just have to peck a bit more to get their full drink. And I think it's worth the extra room and cleanliness. And as you can see, I've hung two waterers, at different heights, since the two hens are pretty different in size. These rabbit waterers are glass bottles, so I don't have to worry about plastics contaminating their water. So I'm happy!

I think this is the one I got from the pet store:

Rabbit waterer
http://www.drsfostersmith.com

Work Today

What did we do today? We put handles on each end of the tractor, to make it easier to move around.

Handle on one end of tractor

Another handle

Then, just for good measure, we added a cabinet knob. This knob was taken out of my girlfriend's house during a remodel. I asked her if she had any leftover knobs, and this is what she gave me.

Lovely gold cabinet knob

My laundry sure is stacking up. This is the second time today I've been pooped on.

Poop magnet, I tell ya

What to Feed Chickens

What should you feed your hens? It's not very straight forward. I suppose once you know, it's straight forward, but the first time I was at the feed store (City Farmers Nursery) I realized I didn't know what I was supposed to feed them. I finally bought a few pounds of what Farmer Bill recommended, and by the time I needed more food, I'd forgotten which one I had originally I bought -- so there I was again at the store, trying to figure out what age they were and what I was supposed to feed them. So here I've made a little chart for you:

Starter
Starter feed is for the baby chicks, up to 8 weeks for chickens you intend to be layers (egg producers, rather than chicks you're raising to eat).

Grower
Grower feed is for the teenage girls, about 8 weeks to the time they start laying (4-5 mos).

Layer
Layer feed is for the ladies who are laying eggs (4 or 5 mos and on).

Scratch, Mealworms, Oyster Shells
These are all treats for the lovely ladies.

I found a great site that sells non-GMO, organic, no soy and no corn feed: Scratch and Peck Feeds

Scratch and Peck Feeds

So what am I feeding my hens? They are 9 and 11 weeks now, so Grower feed. I bought organic grower (Kruse brand) from City Farmers Nursery. But I just ordered some Scratch and Peck online organic, non-GMO, no soy, no corn.

House Call

Yesterday Josh from San Diego Sustainable Living Institute (http://sdsustainable.org/) made a house call at the Point Loma Chicken Farm (my house!). He helped me catch the chickens, trim their wings, and gave things a look-see to make sure I was doing everything right.

I specifically wanted their wings trimmed becuase little Oreo escaped from her cage the other day and it scared me to death. Anyway, so we trimmed their wings (way less scary than I thought)...

Check out a how to on it here:

http://www.backyardchickens.com/a/how-to-clip-trim-the-wings-of-your-chicken-to-prevent-flight

Then we spent some time with Oreo, since she's less scared, getting me comfortable with picking her up. Now I'm ok with things, and not afraid to let the girls free range.

Thanks Josh!

Speaking of Poop....

I've had to reference the poop chart twice now... It's a great page -- who would have thought chicken poop had so much variety?

http://pluckandfeather.com/chicken-poo-chart-graphic.html

http://pluckandfeather.com/chicken-poo-chart-graphic.html

Pictures of my Girls

Here are some pictures of the girls: Oreo and Butterscotch (the cat's name is Snickers)

Here's Oreo, she's very photogenic, and she's my favorite (but don't tell Butterscotch). She follows me around the yard. She's 9 weeks old now, and is a Plymouth Rock (brown eggs). She's tiny, and I can pick her up. She loves her crunchy mealworms.

Here's Butterscotch. She's 11 weeks now. She's uber skiddish, and is an Easter Egger (green eggs). I've held her twice, but she's too scared to get around me.

So here is what they are eating today... I want them to have a good veggie diet, but they don't seem too interested in veg right now, they really like their feed. So I pulled out their feed this morning and swapped it for the veg.

Green veg that my mom supplied

Also, the girls are a bit sneezy. So I had a chicken expert house call last night and he said to put some garlic in their water as an immunity booster.

Garlic in water

And last but not least... This is what happens when you hold a chicken. So don't wear your Sunday's Best... This happened last night too. I'm just a poop magnet.

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Chickies!!!!

I got my chicken delivery! From Dare To Dream Farms -- they deliver! I got a Plymouth Rock (the black and white spotted one) and an Easter Egger (the brown one).

We're thinking we'll call them Oreo and Caramel?? But that's to be determined I guess....

The Plymouth Rock is much smaller (2 weeks younger) and a bit smarter (IQ = 3 instead of 2!!), and less skiddish.

The Plymouth Rock is drinking out of a water dish right now -- they are too skiddish for me to catch and teach how to use the water bottle and nipple. The Easter Egger hasn't figured out the water dish yet.

We're also worried they aren't going to know how to climb into their coop later tonight (up their little ladder -- check out the post below this one for what the tractor looks like). When we got them we immediately put them in the coop part, up high, and the Plymnouth Rock came down immediately. The Easter Egger stayed up there a long time. I don't want to have to climb into the little chicken tractor tonight to catch them and put them in their coop. We shall see.....

The Easter Egger is going to lay green eggs in a few months! The Plymouth Rock will lay brown eggs.

http://polloplayer.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/ee-eggs.jpg?w=455

Homemade Chicken Coop

Look what the Hubs made me!!! A chicken coop!!! We built this one by taking several ideas from chicken coops on the web. This is actually a chicken tractor. We're going to put a handle and a wheel on it for easy moving, and we're going to wheel it around the yard (the goal for me is to spread the chicken poop and desctruction as evenly as possible throughout the yard). So we still have a bit to do (will probably add the wheel and handle next weekend). But the lovely ladies arrive at 2pm today, from Dare To Dream Farms.

Lady Bugs

I bought a bucket of 1500+ lady bugs (though I don't think it really was 1500). I think it was about $6.99.

Bought these lady bugs from the refrigerator at the nursery

An hour or so after I dumped them around the backyard garden I came out and found them all over the wood of the raised planter. I wonder if it's too hot out for them? I wet things down first, and there are still a million tasty aphids... I dumped them in other parts of the garden as well, but they don't seem to be gathering like this elsewhere. Some websites are saying they gather like this to hibernate.... Maybe I've done this out of season?

About an hour or so after I dumped them around teh backyard I saw them gathering on the wood... Wonder if it is too hot?

Saturday, February 9, 2013

OMG, Aphids!

Wowzers, do I have aphids in my vertical plant stand. There are a million of them. So I was reading up on all the natural ways to get rid of them, besides just washing your lettuce REALLY REALLY well. I've decided on 1) companion planting, 2) sticky traps, and 3) potentially some lady bugs. Below are some pictures of the aphids and sticky traps. I ordered some marigold seeds, and am standing by for delivery. Also, I may goto the nursery tomorrow and grab some lady bugs....