Serious Squawking

The ladies are starting to get annoying.  We just moved to a new neighborhood -- before I really only had one neighbor, as I was on a corner, and had a wide alley behind us.  Now we're packed in with people on either side, and someone behind us, with a narrower alley.

The ladies wake up at about 6am or so, and start to get rowdy shortly after wanting to get let out.  I get really stressed in the morning when they start squawking and I think it bothers the neighbors.  However our bedroom is right near their cage, and I suppose if the neighbors bedrooms aren't at the back of the house, it might be ok???  We go to dinner with a bunch of the neighbors in a couple weeks, so I suppose I'll ask then.  But in the meantime, it stresses me out.

Our latest experiment is that we've closed off the henhouse (inside their cage), after they go in it at night.  So now they can't come out of the henhouse and down the ladder, to the fenced in area, until we let them.  1)  This blocks off alot of light, and may make them sleep more, and 2)  hopefully they'll just stay quiet till we let them down?

Anyway, if anyone has any suggestions, I'd listen.....

San Diego Unified Farm to School Program

I saw a truck driving around town today promoting SD Unified's Farm To School program.  Didn't know anything about it so looked it up:  http://www.sandi.net/page/993

The program's goals:  We do not expect to meet them over night but we will use these goals as our guiding principles for implementing our Farm to School program.

• 15% of the fresh fruits and vegetables purchased will be sourced locally.
• Serve one “all local” lunch per month.
• Use sustainably raised hormone and antibiotic free meat and/or protein sources in school meals, use locally raised proteins when possible.
• Develop supplemental Farm to School activities and experiential learning opportunities for students.
• Create community partnerships.

Panera Commercial

While I don't think Panera's food is the best, I did however like this commercial:

Chicken Bath

We're going to be moving to a new house soon and turning our house into a rental.  So I've slowly been getting rid of the veggie planter boxes.  When I remove those boxes it leaves behind nice dirt baths for the chickies!  And the other day I caught them bathing:

My Next Chicken Coop

I'm up in Napa Valley doing the wine country thing...  We stopped past the Castello di Amorosa (http://www.castellodiamorosa.com/) for a bit of wine tasting and a tour of the castle -- and of course to see all their farm animals.

Anyway, while there I saw this neat looking chicken coop and I swear I'm going to have to do this sometime if I can find the right tree!!!!

What a nice long curvy ladder up to their coop!

Show Chickens on CNN

Ohmigoodness, will you look at these chickens!

http://cnnphotos.blogs.cnn.com/2013/11/06/chicken-portraits/?hpt=hp_c3

http://cnnphotos.blogs.cnn.com/2013/11/06/chicken-portraits/?hpt=hp_c3

Seriously, goto the link and look at all the pictures -- this is amazing!

Chickens strutting their stuff!

Chicken Toys!

Ohmigoodness, I bought the girls this toy:



They love it!  I fill it with dried worms, and then they kick it around the yard till they get all the treats out.  Only problem -- they work full time at it and it only lasts about 20 minutes!!  I need a BIGGER one!

Chickie Snacks

Mom and Dad tried growing watermelons, and were able to muster one about 4" in diameter.

We'll see if the chickies like this.....

...sometime later...

Yep, they did!!!

Cracking an Egg

So in a previous post (http://veggiegardengirl.blogspot.com/2012/10/exceptional-eggs-i-read-something.html) I said that what made an egg easy or hard to peel was related to its age.

And then yesterday evening I got my Rachel Ray magazine and saw this:

"the more acidic the egg (the lower its pH level), the more difficult it is to peel -- and an egg is more acidic when it is fresh.  Age your eggs in the fridge for 10 days or so before boiling them or fast-track things by adding a teaspoon of alkaline-rich baking soda to the cooking water."

http://www.tablespoon.com/-/media/Images/Articles/qd/2012/04/2012-04-05-how-to-peel-eggs-586x322.jpg

Feed

So I've been playing around with my chicken feed.  I had been using Scratch and Peck Naturally Free Feed:  http://www.scratchandpeck.com/products/nflayer   It's organic, non-GMO, no soy and no corn.  And is available on Amazon!



Anyway, the ladies loved it...  And it was delivered right to my door!  Well, I started thinking about it and realized I was paying $36 for the luxury of getting 25 lbs delivered to my door.

So I decided to goto City Farmer's Nursery and just buy the best feed they had, as I was sure it was cheaper.  The best feed they had there, as far as I could tell, was Modesto Milling, organic, no soy, no corn, 50 lbs of feed for about the same price -- $36 (twice as much feed, for the same price).  Granted, this was less convenient (I had to drive about 20 minutes out to the nursery, and 20 minutes back) and more difficult (50lbs is hard for me to lug).  But I thought the cost savings might be better, and maybe the chickies would like it more.

Well, the girls are only so-so with the feed.  Actually I think they don't like it to much.  We've probably got about 25lbs of it left.

So my husband suggested that I just go ahead and switch back to the Scratch and Peck feed.  And last night I did -- I got 25lbs delivered to my door, I mixed it with the remaining Modesto feed....

and.....

They loved it!  In fact, I think they're picking around the old feed and not really eating it.  Oh well.  We'll see now if there is any difference in the eggs.

Potatoes

This was a large bowl of boiled potatoes...  Man the chickies like potatoes.

Ms. B and the Chickie Gate

We made a little gate with some chicken wire, to stop the chickens from coming down the stairs and pooping all over the patio.  Here you can see the gate, and the ladies:

Ms. Butterscotch, on the left, has now figured out how to hop down, onto the steps, and then hop back up.

So she only does it every once in awhile -- and she doesn't go very far (because I haven't seen poop on the patio).  So I'm not sure what she's thinking when she does it.

But as you can see, from the first picture, Ms. Oreo is "thinking" about doing the same thing.

Hawks!

Ohmigoodness...  there was a hawk in my backyard this morning and the chickies were screaming under a bush.

I scared it away -- but I assume it will come back?  Does this mean I can't leave the chickies free ranging unsupervised anymore?  We had started to think we'd leave them out all day while at work (we haven't done that yet, but have left them out for hours on the weekend while we ran errands).

Anyone else in San Diego (city -- not the boonies) have trouble with hawks?  What do I do?

Neat Farm Website

Saw this cute site and had to share it:  http://www.rahalfarm.com/farm_fresh_eggs.php

http://www.rahalfarm.com/farm_fresh_eggs.php

I sure like the blue egg carton and cute label.  These folks are in TN.

Nice Site on Farm Fresh Eggs

I stumbled upon this good read about commercial eggs versus the all natural, free range, good for you eggs:   http://www.crunchybetty.com/12-things-you-should-know-about-and-do-with-your-eggs

http://www.crunchybetty.com/12-things-you-should-know-about-and-do-with-your-eggs

It's a good read with a funny ending about 1 out of 1 cats choosing farm fresh eggs over commercial eggs!

Raw Milk

We drink raw milk in our house...  specifically Organic Pastures brand whole milk.  I get it at Sprouts.

http://www.organicpastures.com/

I love it, since after starting to drink it my allergies went nearly 100% away.  It's really changed things.

Anyway, I digress.  What I wanted to say was that as the milk gets a bit old, we give it to the ladies.  Boy do they love milk.  And I can only imagine what the healthy raw milk does really good for their eggs!

Anyway, I encourage folks to give their chickies milk every once in awhile.  Does good for humans and chickens!

Regularity

Ms. B is pretty regular....  She lays almost every day of the week.  I think there's only about one day a week where she doesn't lay an egg.

Ms. Oreo is VERY regular.  Only on a rare occasion does she miss an egg.

I keep thinking I should try to figure out their cycles -- do some predictions on what days will be missed!  Eh...  sounds like alot of work.

Survey!

San Diegans -- please take my survey!!

I want to know how many chickens you have and what zip code you're in!!

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/W799KXL

It's quick, it's easy....  Thanks in advance!

Pretty Picture of Green Eggs

Saw this picture online an thought it was pretty...

http://www.lespetitesgourmettes.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/greenblue.jpg

Update on Ms. B

She's an on-again-off-again layer.  Not every day.  Couple days in a row, then a day off, then a couple days.  Eh....  I'm ok with that.  Considering she didn't lay for MONTHS, I'm good with on-again and off-again.

She laid one leathery egg a few days ago, so I upped her calcium and protein.  And one day I think she stepped on her egg, because it was broken in half.

I'll feed her milk, yogurt, and meat some days when I think she needs to improve on her egg shell.  I hard boiled some eggs last night and one cracked and got nasty -- so I fed that to her this morning.  Folks at work get queasy when I tell them I feed my chickens leftover chicken and eggs.  What can I say?  It's perfectly ok to do that.