Spring Cleanup

Yesterday was a beautiful day in Kansas so the family decided to get out and get some spring cleaning done in the garden and animal areas. I was so excited to finally get out and get my hands in the dirt after a long winter. I am still so thankful for the garden space the previous homeowner started. It makes getting the spring garden in this year so much easier. Just look at the great soil I get to work with. The only thing we added last fall was some old bedding we had saved from cleaning up from the chickens. Hopefully we will have a good year. 

While cleaning up the garden space we found lots of these onions growing that we did not plant. They must have been leftovers from the previous owner. I decided to go ahead and pull them to free up as much space as possible in our small garden.

We had plans to go ahead and expand the size of our garden this year, but we have not had a chance to get around to it. I may still go ahead with our plans...maybe. If I do I am sure the hens would be happy to pull their weight around here and clear an area for me if I pen them up where I want the new plot. They are great at their job. 

I told this little cutie I would pay her if she would help me pull some weeds that have already popped up. She was so excited to get to help, especially when I told her she could use the new gardening tool we inherited from my parents. Work is always more fun when you get to use a new toy. 

Ignore the mess behind her. Like I said it was cleaning day and there was stuff strung all over the place from the shed clean out. I am not sure if you can see or not, but we more then doubled the size of the chicken pen since we are not allowing them to free range as much as we have in the past. They were just too destructive in the garden last year. We will let them out if we need some clean up done. 

This is Olaf, our new puppy. We were told he is possibly part Greater Swiss Mountain dog. To be honest I am not sure what he is. The Humane Society can only give us their best guess. After looking up the breed he definitely has many of the behavior characteristics and markings. So far he has been a great guard dog and he just LOVES our kids. At 6 months old he already weighs 57 lbs! I think we have a potentially huge dog on our hands. I am excited to see how big he actually gets.

From my research this dog was bred to be a working dog. Unfortunately there is not a ton of herding to be done in my backyard. The website suggested we get him a doggie backpack to wear on walks to help him feel like he is helping. I think we will get one and see how it goes. This breed is also known for pulling carts. I am sure the kids will have no problem hooking him up to a wagon or sled in the winter so he can "help". 

The chickens were very excited about cleaning day. We kept finding lots of bugs and weeds to toss into their pen. 

                           

I have been wanting to get this shed cleaned out all winter. I hate it when things are disorganized. I was grateful to have the help of these two. My oldest does not like having a small farm in her backyard or getting her hands dirty. I just had to get a picture as proof that she does help out occasionally. If she had her way we would be living in an apartment in New York City. 

After about an hour of work I looked around and these two had disappeared. Apparently they decided it was time for a break and helped themselves to a snack. 

There is still lots of work that needs to get done, but it decided to go from 70 degrees yesterday to snowing today! You have to love spring in Kansas. I did manage to get in some radishes, spinach and lettuce in some planters on the porch. I had planned to start the snap peas and beets today, but that will have to wait until the weekend. 

How We Have Kept Our Chickens Laying So Far This Winter

These are 2 dozen eggs we collected from our 7 hens in about 6 days in January.

I have been told by multiple people that chickens tend to stop laying in the winter or at the very least slow way down. When we had chickens at our previous home this is exactly what happened. We finally broke down and had to start buying eggs that winter. I am not sure if it was their diet or the fact that that winter had tons of snow and very cold temperatures. 

With my current hens I decided to see if there was anything I could do to encourage them to keep laying. From what I read chickens will usually stop laying as the temperatures drop and the days become shorter. I did lots of research and it seemed the only thing I could find was to add a light in their coop to help extend the daylight hours and trick their bodies into producing eggs.

I thought about adding a light, but was very uncomfortable with having unattended electricity in the chicken coop. I decided to try and find a different way to keep them laying. 

One day I stumbled on this video from Becky's Homestead about how she keeps her hens laying all year round. I decided it was worth watching since it was short. Her advice was so simple. She doesn't use a light, but simply changes their diet depending on the time of the year it is. 

The video recommended crimped oats and whole corn, but I decided to use what I had.

I started using her feeding schedule probably late October early November just as the weather was starting to change. Basically her advice was to feed crimped oats in the summer or 6 months of the year and switch to corn in the winter or the other 6 months of the year. She also recommends feeding bread everyday of the year. 

Her reasoning was that the corn had more calories in it and helped give them the energy they need to produce eggs in the winter. 

Not the most glamorous photo.

Of course they can't eat just the small amount of corn or oats in the morning so we also feed them kitchen scrapes and layer pellet from the feed store. I would prefer to buy organic feed, but since we are trying to finish paying off our last student load by the end of this summer we have to cut some corners somewhere for now.

Make sure that if you are feeding scraps you are only feeding fruit, veggies and grains. No meat, dairy or citrus. 

After giving it a try for the last several months I can say that it seems to be working. Out of our 7 hens we typically get 1 egg each during the warm months or about 7 eggs a day, but this winter we have averaged 4-5 a day. That is a win in my books considering most people say their hens stop laying altogether in the winter. 

Here is a sample of my daily routine with my hens...

8:00 a.m. I take out a little over 1 cup half oats half corn. Becky recommended only corn in the winter, but my girls were too picky and would not eat it without some oats mixed in. I then shut the pen to keep them in for the day and change the water. Keeping them in makes sure they eat the corn and gives my poor yard a break from the scratching and pecking. Plus the kids appreciate some playtime without them bothering them. I also check for eggs at this time and replenish their layer pellets. 

1:00 I take out the scrap bucket that I have been collecting since the day before. They get very excited about this. Especially when I have been either canning or dehydrating and have lots of peels for them. Again I check for eggs at this time and make sure the coop in in good shape. I usually have to clean the hay out of the water mid day. Or thaw the ice out of the water bucket. 

4:00 I check for eggs one last time and let the hens out for some free range time. The reason I check for eggs 3 times a day in the winter is because my girls lay all day long and I don't want to chance frozen, cracked eggs. This has happened before and you basically have to trash the egg.

Bedtime I make sure everyone is in and safe for the night. I don't always make it out at this time. It just depends on the day. 

Now, I will admit that we have had a pretty mild winter here in Kansas, but we have not yet had a day without at least 2 eggs even when there was snow or ice on the ground. 

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Our Super Cheap and Easy Chicken Coop

The last time I wrote a post about our chickens was how we were building a cheap fence for them and temporarily moving them into a converted doghouse until we had time to build something more permanent as well as larger. 

Several months ago before the cold weather really set in we finally got around to making them something. It took a bit of head scratching and to be honest some good natured arguing to come up with a plan that was not only cheap, but met the cities requirements for housing chickens in city limits. 

We knew we didn't want to invest a ton of money into the project, but we still wanted something that would protect them from the elements. 

Our solution was to convert part of our current shed into a makeshift chicken coop. The girls have been in it for around 2 months now and they love it. We love it as well because it is easy to access the eggs and did not take up anymore space in our yard. 

One of our biggest dilemmas was how to cheaply make nesting boxes that would fit in the shed. I watch watching some youtube videos by Becky's Homestead when I saw her describe these nest boxes. (If you need some beginner homestead tips check out Becky's youtube channel. Her voice is really annoying, but she has some good advice)

The idea could not be easier. All I had to do was buy 3 storage totes at Walmart and cut a chicken size hole it in. 

The above picture is of the girls getting acquainted with the new boxes. They were quite curious. At the time I only knew of one chicken that was laying. That's probably her getting ready to head in.  

The reason I love these boxes so much is that all you have to do is lift the lid off and get your eggs. I was so excited about discovering this super simple nest box. And the chickens LOVE it!

The next step was to figure out how to divide the inside of the shed into a storage side as well as a chicken side and still be able to access both sides without disturbing the other side. 

Our solution was to use more of the bamboo poles we had left over from building the chicken fence and make one inside the shed. 

To build the divider we zip tied 4 poles to the frame of the shed ceiling and then zip tied the chicken wire to the poles to create a fence. 

Have I ever told you how much I love zip ties? They are useful for so many things. Lately I have been using them to keep the 1 yr old I babysit out of my kitchen cabinets. 

We left enough room at the bottom to allow the next boxes to slide underneath. 

With the bottom of the fence open we can pull the nest boxes out and slide the pole over to the side if we need to access the chicken side to clean or feed. 

I am sure you can see there are some gaps between the boxes. The chickens are a bit too  large to fit through them, but to be sure we blocked them off with items stores in the shed such as the bag of peat moss in the photo. 

Now that it is winter I have taken out the wood chips and put in lots of hay for them to build nests and sleep in at night. I am anxious to scoop everything off the floor of the coop in the spring to add to the garden as compost. 

I am a bit concerned about how the concrete floor of the shed will hold up to having chicken poo and hay on it all the time. Hopefully it will be ok. 

The last step was to add a door for the chickens. We built the interior fence so that it does not interfere with the sheds door, but that also meant the chickens could not get in. 

This step made us cringe a bit, but the only solution we could come up with was to cut a hole in the side of the shed. We looked at adding a doggy door that we could close up at night, but that was too expensive. Instead we can just stick a large board in front of it at night for now. 

In total I think the only thing I had to buy was the hay and storage boxes. Everything else we already had. I think with the supplies we bought I spend around $25-$30! That is so much better then the cheaply built coops we were looking at that were in the $300-400 range. 

There you have it folks, a cheap and useful coop.

Some Of My Favorite Homesteading Books

I have read lots of books and blogs on homesteading, but these 3 are my current favorites.  Ok, I realize that Mother Earth News is not technically a book, but you know what I mean.

Some of my favorite book:

Mother Earth New Magazine

Mother Earth News is such a fun magazine if you area at all into gardening, homesteading, or country living. Each issue has something for everyone. I find myself getting so excited every time a new issue comes in the mail. It is so sad that I can't wait for the kids to go to bed that night so I can dig in. 

If you decide to buy any of the Mother Earth News magazines you will get a better bang for your buck if you go ahead and buy a 1 yr subscription. If you buy just one magazine at the store you will spend $6, but if you get a subscription you get 6 issues for a total of $12! 

The Backyard Homestead: Produce all the food you need on just a quarter acre!

The Backyard Homestead is one of the books that gave me the homesteading bug. It is an excellent source for beginners. The great thing about this book is that it has info for homesteaders no matter how much land you have. I particularly liked the photo in the book (pictured below) of how you can set up a working farm on as little as a quarter of an acre. The yard in the picture is laid out a lot like mine. I am hoping to someday have all the things in the picture actually up and running. 

The Backyard Homestead has chapters to help you get started with garden layout, animal care and preserving. If you are looking for a great beginner book this is the one I would recommend. 


The Five-Year Guide to Self-Sufficiency: Simple Living Made Simpler

My third current favorite book is the Five-Year Guide to Self-Sufficiency. This is not really one I have read cover to cover, but have used it more as a reference guide. Since it is meant to be used over a five year time period. 

The chapters are broken up into how and what to concentrate on each year for 5 years to help you be successful on your homestead adventure. 

I love that it starts out very slow and reminds you not to take on too much at one time. It will walk you step by step through deciding what land to buy and what to look for when purchasing your land. 

I have to say my favorite part of this book is that it recommends as your first step to homesteading is getting our of debt. Ugh. Unfortunately we are still working on that one. At least we are not taking on anymore. 

What are some of your favorite homesteading books?

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Bird Flu In Kansas Affecting Egg Prices

This is a post I wrote last month for one of my other blogs. I thought it would be a nice fit for my homesteading friends as well.

If you go into the grocery store here in Kansas you will notice the price of eggs has skyrocketed...that is if you can even find eggs. On a recent shopping trip I noticed that nearly all the eggs were gone and the ones that were there were very expensive. Bird flu has caused the death of many chickens in the state causing this shortage. (As of this posting date it seems eggs are easier to find in the grocery stores.)

Kansas has had to go so far as to ban chickens from all fairs this year.  There is a really great article in the Wichita Eagle from June 10th describing how this will affect this years state fair. 

I am so thankful that we have our little flock of backyard chickens. The girls we have currently are not old enough to lay eggs yet, but I know we have them as a backup later in case this shortage continues long term.

This is our second flock of chickens (the first set from last summer met with my mom's Great Dane and lets just say things did not end well). They make some of the best pets I have ever had. I was shocked to see that each one has a personality. Growing up I never really thought of them as pets, but just a farm animal. Seriously, if you have a backyard you need to look into getting 2 or 3. You might be surprised how many cities allow hens, just not roosters.

Another great reason to keep chickens is you know exactly where your food is coming from, what it ate and how it was handled. My birds are spoiled with full run of my large backyard. Homegrown eggs are not necessarily cheaper then store bought once you add in the cost of raising chickens, but they are MUCH tastier and, in my opinion, better for you. You will never want to go back to store bought eggs once you have had a fresh egg straight from the nest.

Try comparing a store bought raw egg and a farm fresh one next to each other in a bowl and check out the color difference in the yolk. We found it amusing once when we tried to make a blue cake for a birthday and it turned out very green.

If you want more info on keeping backyard chickens you can go here to learn everything you need to know.

Clipping Chicken Wings

One of the things I don't like about backyard homesteading is that I have to clip my chickens wings. They don't like it and I always feel bad doing it. I know if doesn't hurt them, but I still feel a bit guilty putting them through it. We try to make is as stress free as possible.

The reason we clip our chickens wings is to keep them from flying on top of something in the yard and then flying over the fence into a neighbors yard...or worse over the back fence into the high school parking lot.

That could be interesting on a busy school morning watching a bunch of high schoolers help me wrangle a stray chicken back into my yard. Let's hope it never happens.

Clipping wings really isn't hard and only takes a couple of minutes. Honestly the hardest part was getting them all caught and into their pen so we could release each one back into the yard after they were finished.

We decided to get out a bucket if oats. Most of them fell for it and walked right into the pen and happily munched on oats. All except 2. We managed to catch one without too much trouble, but the last one had figured out what was going on and RAN.

You should have seen us chasing the poor thing all over the yard in the 90+ degree heat. Our toddler thought it was hilarious. We did eventually catch her, but not before Roger and I were both dripping in sweat.

To get started you need to try and get the chicken as calm as possible. Then spread out her wing like this. The feathers you are cutting are the long flight feathers.

Only clip ONE  wing per bird. This will throw off their balance when they try to fly. If you clip both wings they won't be able to fly, but there is always that one stubborn one who manages to fly a bit more then the rest. Save yourself the headache and only clip one wing.

Make sure you have a good, sharp pair of scissors. Clip just the flight feathers being very careful not to hurt the chicken by clipping too close and cutting into bone. They usually hold pretty still for this.

This is what it should look like when you are finished. And that is all there is to it. 

Now off to clean the coop while everyone is off catching bugs...well I didn't clean it, the hubby did.