Chickens | Maria Zannini

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State of the Homestead: July 2016

By Maria Zannini • July 13, 2016 Homesteading

Despite the heat, the homestead goes on. The garden is nearly spent except for the hardiest of vegetables–the ones not tasty to deer, rabbits and raccoons. Here’s the rundown.

Garden: Every year it gets better. More compost in the beds, better weed barriers around the plants, and more permanent walkways. The walkways are a slow process. My plan is to eventually accumulate enough brick to cover the walkways.

My first task is to keep them clear of weeds. Weed barrier helps but it’s flimsy and short term. I’m opting now for heavy rubber matting, the kind used in horse stalls. It’s expensive, but nothing will grow through it.

On top of that is the brick. It will take many thousands of brick to finish the walkways. I’ve already lay nearly a thousand brick now and it’s barely covered the perimeter. At this rate, it might take the rest of my life, but it’ll look nice when it’s done. I don’t buy my brick. I look for free brick on Craigslist whenever I can.

Deer and rabbits have decimated my chard, soybeans, strawberries and sweet potatoes. Greg said he’d build me a fence. I hate to do it because it looks nice the way it is, but it’s either that or he’ll have to get all Elmer Fudd in their furry faces. At this point either is an option. I’m really tired of getting robbed nightly.

We did get some corn and strawberries before the greater damage was done, but no soybeans at all. The sunflowers are over 8 feet tall. I had hoped to bag the flower heads as the kernels ripened (to save them against birds and raccoons) but there’s no way to reach the tops. Next year, a shorter sunflower variety.

Tomatoes were so-so. The plum tomatoes weren’t as prolific as last year, but there’s a large yellow variety that popped out fruit like a machine. The yellow tomatoes are tasty but they over ripen fast. I barely have time to preserve them before they go bad.

I am getting some nice spaghetti squash and okra. The beans and peas were few but delicious. Must plant more next year.

Chickens: I incubated several dozen eggs but my hatch rate was low. Why? Because I have a certain rooster who’s rather picky about his mates. Half the eggs from his harem were infertile. The other half turned into cute little chicks.

Never in my life have I heard of a picky rooster! I still have his father. I might put Picky in the pot and keep old Dad. He loves all his girlfriends equally.

We did have a terrible murder in the chicken coop just the other day. We found one hen gutted. At first we thought it strange because a raccoon or possum would’ve eaten the whole chicken. This poor thing was simply murdered and disemboweled, that’s when we found evidence of a different predator in the coop.

A dog had dug under the wire and entered the coop from the pen. He left his calling card on the hay. It had to have been a little dog because it was a pretty small pile of poop but that would explain why he killed the chicken and didn’t eat it.

I know this chicken. All the others roost way up in the rafters, but this hen liked to roost at a lower level. The dog must’ve snatched her right off during the night. He had the nerve to come back and try again, but Greg used concrete blocks to bar the way.

(Click on each image for full size.)

Rabbits: Bunnies are going in the freezer this week. I’ve held back two for next year’s breeders.

Goats: We’ve put it off too long, but we really need to get a new doe. Since we lost Daisy, we’ve been a doe short.

Our plan was to get smaller goats, but I think we’ll have to transition to that more slowly since I don’t want to get rid of the Boers before I buy their replacements. Buying a new herd is expensive, so it’ll be bit by bit as funds allow.

I’ve decided on a Nubian doe. First for her milking abilities but also because I can breed her to Ray Charles (the Boer buck). They’re close to the same size so there won’t be delivery issues with babies.

The solar panels are working beautifully on Greg’s shop. I think it’s safe to go ahead and create a solar array for the main house too. It’s going to take some time to find the right place because we’re so surrounded by trees. I’m sure one or two will have to come down. But first the fence. We’ve needed that for a long time. I hope we can start on it this fall.

Thanks to Greg being home full time, and despite him crying foul for depriving him of retirement status, we are doing a better job keeping up with homestead chores. It really is a 2-person job. It was awfully hard when I was alone.

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State of the Homestead: May 2016

By Maria Zannini • May 25, 2016 Homesteading

Ray Charles Time again for another update on the State of the Homestead. The weather continues to be pleasantly weird. Last year we had an exceptionally mild winter. This year we’ve had consistent rain. Not that I’m complaining. Most of the rains were brief showers, though we did have a couple of gully washers that flooded roads leading into town. Despite the rains, I’ve got the garden planted and some of it is ready to be harvested.

We’ve been picking asparagus for nearly two months. The experts say we need to stop picking now and let it go to seed to replenish the crowns. I’ve got plenty in the freezer so I don’t mind.

Future Limes

The Garden: The tomatoes are in full fruit. We’re picking the cherry tomatoes now. I found a real winner with a yellow cherry tomato called SunSugar. It is absolutely delicious! Very sweet. We’ve been eating them as soon as they ripen. They’ve yet to make it to the salad bowl.

The green beans are also ready to pick. It was a small package of plain old Contender green beans and each one sprouted. I tasted one off the vine. It was pretty good. Better than the French Filet beans I planted last year.

Squash, eggplant, and cucumbers all have blossoms. I hope to see fruit soon. I’m a little disappointed in the cucumber. I’m trying a new seed for Armenian cucumbers. The plants don’t seem to vine much but they do have lots of flowers so maybe they’re just shorter than I expected.

The sunflowers and my token beds of corn are shooting up. So is my edamame. It’s old seed that was buried in the back of the fridge for two years so I’m surprised it’s still viable, but I had nothing to lose for trying. If I get pods, I’ll be saving seeds from these plants.

My peppers and okra are doing well, but I think they’re waiting for more sunshine and less rain. They should start producing more by summer.

Spinach, kale, and Swiss chard look good. The ones in the full sun seem more robust. That’s good intel for next year.

Rabbits: The plan is proceeding to replace Frodo, the mixed breed rabbit with one of his so Frodo, looking for a new home ns. I’m keeping one of the daughters too. I’ll keep breeding for a larger sized rabbit until I breed his smaller size trait out. I still hope to find a home for him. I won’t rehome him until his son is old enough to take his place.

Goats: I thought I was getting rid of these guys but we’ve discovered they have a better use. A very nice lady at the tax assessor’s office helped us fill out AG exemption papers. I had kept enough receipts, photos, and sales information to prove we used the land for agricultural use. We now call the goats our Tax Breaks. We still want smaller goats. I hope to find some Nigerian dwarf goats this year to replace these bigger guys.

And…

Greg has been considering sheep. The tax assessor has sheep and she gave us a lot of good information. They seem less trouble than goats (and less aggressive), so there’s a chance we might add a few sheep to keep the grass mowed. I’m kind of steering toward Barbados blackbelly sheep. The Barbados variety don’t have horns. The American blackbelly do. The Barbados also don’t produce wool which I prefer since I don’t want to add sheering to my list of chores.

My research suggests that what I feed my lambs will give the meat a milder taste, so I’ll be interested to see if that’s true. If we decide to raise them, I want to sell the lambs as a cash crop, and keep the adults as lawnmowers. I’m not seeing too many Barbados blackbellies in the area, so it might be a good way to diversify from what’s already out there.

Here’s a link to show you how they look.

Chickens: The evil duo who liked to eat their eggs are back to being good and leaving their eggs alone. I’ve changed their diet a little so that might have something to do with it. Also with spring in full force, they get more greens too. I’m wondering if it’s a deficiency that made those two cannibals.

The dogs: I wasn’t expecting to add animals to the homestead since it impacts our ability to travel, but we can still do day trips. Aside from the surveillance cameras outside, we also keep two cameras inside to watch the dogs while we’re out.

We’ve discovered they’re amazingly lazy while we’re gone. Nana (the border collie who wants to rule the world) does the most patrolling. She lets big brother, Iko know when there’s real trouble. You do not want to see a paranoid rottweiler coming at you. That is just too much dog.

Nana is clever though. She can hear when the camera is moving. We operate it through our cell phones. If we pan the room her head snaps to the sound of the camera. We bought a second camera that allows us to talk to the dogs. Yes, we talk to our dogs.

The camera says it’s really a baby monitor. The dogs are my babies so I guess I’m using it right. It’s got two-way communication and night vision. It gives me peace of mind to see that everything is all right. The neighbor is just down the road if we need someone to investigate further.

The future: I finally bought the trays and seed I needed to start a fodder system for the animals. I’ll probably only do a test run during the warmer months and do the big trial for the winter months when there are less fresh greens available to feed the animals. I found the perfect shelving system at a garage sale. The trays I bought new because I wanted to make sure there would be no cross contamination from previous plants. You’d be surprised how many diseases your plants can pick up while they’re being shipped or stored.

Tip: If you reuse your plastic trays or pots, be sure to spritz them with bleach before you reuse them.

The other plan for later this year are mealworms (for the chickens). Mealworms are an excellent source of protein. I was going to do red wigglers but the place where I want to house them is not quite ready yet. Mealworms on the other hand require minimal housing. I’ll post pictures on the next homestead update.

We’ve been busy despite the weather. We’ve had some serious appliance malfunctions too that will be costly. How costly we’ll discover today. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. If you read my Sunday post, you know I’ve been malfunctioning too, but I really think I’m getting better. No more spinning rooms.

How is it in your neck of the woods? What’s new?

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Dog Alley, Our Trip to Canton Trade Days

By Maria Zannini • April 11, 2016 Homesteading

We finally made it to Trade Days in Canton, TX. If you’ve never been to a Trade Days event in your area, you’ve got to try it at least once.

Canton Trade Days, or First Monday as it’s called locally, covers over a hundred acres. It’s so vast it spans several locations. You could walk from one to another if you were 20 years old and on a sugar high, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

Trade Days is divided by pavilions that cover crafts, antiques, general flea market stuff, animals, and junk. Occasionally we hit the antique and craft pavilions but since it takes all day, we’d rather spend the day on the animal grounds. The old timers used to call it Dog Alley, but the sign reads, Dog Town.

They sell a lot of dogs there, something I try to avoid since it breaks my heart to see them peddled like that. I go mainly for the livestock and farm/garden equipment.

This little piggy almost came home with us.

This month, I was on a mission to find a piglet, a blue New Zealand rabbit, or some quail. The quail were too expensive and there were no rabbits that interested me, but there were a couple of vendors with piglets. I almost bought one but he was too big for the crate I had brought. I was hoping for much younger piglets.

We left empty-handed, but we did get to see a fire juggler on a unicycle. I also had a nice chat with a lady about my egg-sucking chickens. She was willing to do a trade with me, but I didn’t want the breed of chickens she had on hand. Had it not been so far to travel, I might’ve traded her for something else since she didn’t seem put off that my chickens ate their eggs.

Dog Town is a mish mash of old country farmers and newbies trying to unload their stock. Like all flea markets you have to go in with a wary eye. I hate to see the animals cooped up in such small pens and cages, but that’s the flea market trade. All you can hope is that they’ll be sold before too long.

This turkey was sidling up to the hen, but she seemed uninterested.

After Canton, we hit a few garage sales on the way home. We hit some sweet deals mostly because it was late and people just wanted their stuff gone. One garage sale had already closed and they had put all their unsold stuff on the curb.

We came home with a nice Oriental rug (similar to the one the dogs had destroyed), a big clay pot (I can never have too many pots), and a small dog carrier. I collect dog kennels. A couple I keep for myself for when I want to transport livestock, but we always pick up extras when we can and donate them to local shelters.

In all, it was a great day. The weather was beautiful and we got to drive down some gorgeous countryside. We needed the break after the week we’d had. Two more weeks of running around and then I can tell you why I’ve been so frazzled.

Have you ever been to a big flea market? Do you like them? I’m not a fan of the craft markets, but I love to hunt for bargains or unusual items. Have you ever been to Canton, TX?

It’s a great place for inspiration if you’re an author or artist. I’d go for the cast of characters alone. You meet all kinds of people in Canton.

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State of the Homestead

By Maria Zannini • March 28, 2016 Homesteading

It’s been an up and down month on the homestead. On the up side, today is my birthday, which is always a good thing. I don’t plan to do any cooking today so I leave it to Greg to fill in the details. I plan to play a diva today. Ha!

Garden: In Texas, spring comes early. We had an exceptionally mild winter with hardly a week of really cold weather. This year, spring actually arrived in February. I’ve been suckered into false springs before so I didn’t put any plants out except for the cooler weather greens like kale, spinach and Swiss chard.

I thought my comfrey had died out but they came back. I love plants that come back every year.

My big winners this year were the asparagus and carrots. This is the first year I successfully grew both. At first the asparagus only came in one a day, but now we’re getting a regular supply (6-10 spears a day), which is enough to freeze. It is without a doubt the BEST tasting asparagus we’ve ever eaten. It’s such a treat, especially considering how expensive (and tasteless) they are from the store.

Greg bugs me for carrots every year. Late last year I had a bare spot so I threw in a few seeds. If I had watered it more I think they would’ve been bigger, but for throw-away seeds, I thought they did great. I still have more carrots in the ground. I’m only pulling them out as we need them.

I’ve put out tomato, peas, and pepper plants, but I’ll wait a few more weeks before I start the sunflowers, okra, and soybeans. This year I also plan to plant a raised bed of veggies exclusively for the rabbits, goats, and chickens. Last year I fed them the extras from the our garden, but I thought I’d plant more turnips, beets, and greens especially with them in mind.

Goats: This is our one low point on the farm. Daisy, the younger of our two does was due to deliver soon after Pan. I felt the baby kicking and I knew it was a matter of days. But something went wrong and the baby died in the womb. Daisy didn’t seem herself one day, and the next she seemed worse.

Out of options, we took her to the vet and he gave her a heavy dose of antibiotic, pain reliever, and anti-inflammatory drugs. She didn’t improve. We dosed her again, but she was getting worse. I finally asked Greg to shoot her to put her out of her misery. We buried her in a nice deep grave so nothing could disturb her.

We’ve raised goats for three years now and this is the first time we’ve ever had a serious problem. These things happen. For years, we heard some awful horror stories from other goat herders. We had been lucky until now. RIP, Daisy and baby.

Chickens: I had it in my mind to sell our existing flock of laying hens but I can’t justify selling hens who eat their unborn young. They had stopped for a while but now they’re doing it again. There are ways to stop them from pecking at their eggs, but I’m lazy and don’t want to go through the trouble. So now, the girls are going in the pot in the next few weeks.

I do have a small flock of new layers in another pen. They’ll keep us in eggs until I hatch the new batch for next year.

Rabbits: I kept back one buck from the last litter that Belle had so he could be a future mate. The white doe will go in the freezer, but I hope to sell the original buck because he’s quite friendly. I think he’d make a good pet.

It’s funny. In December of 2015 I had these big plans on how I would make a little side income from the animals. The goats would give me the usual twins to sell later in the year. The chickens would lay enough eggs for me to incubate and sell chicks, and the rabbits would give me enough bunnies to sell and put in the freezer. (I make the most money with the least labor from incubating chicks, so I was really looking forward to this.)

None of it came to pass. Pan gave me a little buckling but that was it. (He’s doing great, by the way.) Daisy and her baby died. My chickens act like idiot zombies and eat their unborn. The rabbits have never been good mates for one another and they refuse to breed without assistance. I need to either get a bigger male or another blue New Zealand.

If you couldn’t already tell, I’m not used to having problems with my animals. Sometimes the puzzle pieces don’t fit and you have to start over. I think this is where I am now.

I’m hoping to find a piglet this year, but they are awfully pricey in my area. We’ll have to wait and see.

Dogs: I’m happy to report Nana and Iko are getting along famously. My only concern lately is sometimes I have to leave them for up to 18 hours when I travel. I generally feed my dogs twice a day. The first meal is always cooked food, but dinner is dry kibble. When we travel they refuse to eat. I feed them before I go, but they refuse to eat anything else until we return.

It’s not a big deal but I worry because I’d like to go on vacation at some point. I hope they won’t go on a hunger strike if we leave them at a kennel. I had a dog do this to me once before. Luckily, I have a wonderful friend, (thank you again, Mel) who hand-fed my nervous pup at the kennel until I returned home.

Moi: As it’s my birthday, I get to be queen for the day, but I might have to take a rain check since we have a million errands to run today. I’ll be happy if the next four weeks go smoothly, then I’ll be able to breathe again.

For my birthday, I’d like to visit another bookstore but we’ve already hit the nearby ones. I’m looking for a cookbook for my electric pressure cooker. More about this handy machine later. Best thing I’ve bought in years!

I also want a birthday cake, but it’s unlikely I’ll get one unless I bake it myself.

I think I’ve neglected some friends on Facebook or their blogs. I’ve tried to keep up but there are days when I don’t even have time to look at my computer. I’ll be back to a more normal schedule by the end of April. Bear with me. Great things are happening, but not without a lot of stress and hair-pulling.

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Homestead Expo in Belton, TX

By Maria Zannini • February 24, 2016 Homesteading

We attended our first ever Sustainable Living Fair sponsored by Mother Earth News. Mother Earth News has held these fairs before but this is the first one to come to Texas. What took them so long?

It was jammed packed with speakers and events on topics from beekeeping to preserving food. Although it was a two-day event it hardly scratched the surface. I could’ve gone all week on one topic alone.

There were some well-known speakers like master organic gardener, Eliot Coleman, Howard Garrett (the dirt doctor), and the amazing Joel Salatin.

There were over 150 workshops and lectures over two days so it was impossible for us to catch them all. Greg and I ended up splitting up so we could go to as many presentations as possible.

It was standing room only for every workshop I attended. Unlike writer conferences, this expo spanned three humongous buildings plus the outdoors. We got a workout sprinting from one end to the other.

I had several favorite speakers, but I was really impressed with butcher, Meredith Leigh. She was a tiny little thing with the physical prowess of a linebacker. She demonstrated cutting up a whole hog while making it look easy. I’ve butchered whole hogs in the past, but I learned a lot about where best to put my knife so I didn’t work so hard at it. I think I’m going to get her book, The Ethical Meat Handbook.

Another lively speaker was Marjory Wildcraft. She was a hoot and a half. Her time on stage went by in a blink of an eye. That’s when you know you have a great speaker. I was only able to attend one of her lectures about growing food efficiently. I liked how she put things in perspective by showing hard numbers about the calories we need to take in and what kind of livestock and crops to grow to achieve that magic number.

Tiny house, 500 sq ft

The exhibits were equally awesome. We got to talk to a lot of experts on beekeeping, chickens, and even wind turbines. One of the coolest things I saw was a 500 square foot house. From the outside it was barely more than a cabin. Heck, my master bathroom has more square footage. But what this guy did to the inside was nothing short of amazing.

The bedroom was in the loft. There was a full bathroom, kitchen, and a sitting area with office–all in 500 square feet. It didn’t even feel the slightest bit cramped. I don’t know if the picture does it justice, but anyone who says you can’t live in a tiny house, never saw this one. It was a marvel of efficiency and clean design. And the best part? The entire house was powered by a solar panel and two car batteries.

The one thing I regret not photographing was the exhibit for Claborn Farms. They had the most beautiful chickens I had ever seen. We plan to buy some of their fertile eggs and hatch some chicks. They claim the size and health of their flocks is due to years of selective breeding and not to feed or supplements. If that’s true, I’d be willing to spend the extra money for some of these birds. We’ve reached a point in our homesteading efforts that we’d like to take our livestock lines to the next level. Quality over quantity.

Here are a few more pictures from our whirlwind trip.