September recap

September was a busy month, that's for sure! We wrapped up the breeding season with a few more Guinea hatches and the Mother Earth News Fair. The Guinea flock was pared down by a few mate-less males and a few keets were selected to add to the group. Only time will tell if they are the right sex or not. If not, you'll be seeing them up for sale as adults...a very rare occurrence for us! We have added a new color to our flock for next year. Slate. We also pared down the pearls and added more lavender, royal purple and white to keep up with the demand for colors.

Mother Earth News fair was awesome as usual. The Brinsea booth was way too cool! I got to check out the Clifton coop and the various incubators and brooders they make. Our chicks hatched in the incubators and hopped around under the EcoGlow all weekend long. Thanks to the fabulous Brinsea crew for letting us join them again this year!

I picked up a few giveaways for the blog this month and we started our first one. It ran for 1 week and finished last night. The winner of the Purina feeds egg basket is Jennifer E. Congratulations Jennifer, your basket will be in the mail tomorrow! 

The chicks in the brooder showed me that just when I think they can't get into trouble....they do! Lucky for this little Marans chick I check on them every hour. She was happy to be unstuck and ran off to play as soon as I set her free!

Lastly, I started blogging for Backyard Poultry Magazine's blog! My first post goes live tomorrow so make sure you head over and check it out. I'm so excited to be working with them. I'm joining a stellar team of bloggers over there and I just know you're gonna love the blog. Go check it out!

That's it for September. I'm filling boxes with shavings for the auction in the morning. The last of the keets are leaving tomorrow. Big decisions are currently being made about the future of our hatchery. To stay the same or to grow? I fear that we've grown all we can without shipping.....but that requires quarterly blood tests, yearly inspections and more. Decisions.....decisions...stay tuned for the outcome!

~Lisa

Question: Your most frustrating problem with raising chickens

Today I pose a question to you: What is your biggest frustration in chicken keeping? I ask for 2 reasons...mostly I'm just curious, but also maybe we can find solutions to our problems together! Sound good?

I'll start with my number 1 frustration: How do I get the chickens to stop pooping on the patio? It drives Mr Roboto nuts! The patio and the front walkway are the most bothersome. They know we come out those doors though and they wait for us to come out. They think we should give them treats every time we come outside. They don't always get treats, they just think they should!

My number 2 frustration: How to get the dog to quit eating the chicken feed? Why on earth does she want to? Her feed has pretty colors and 2 flavors with different shapes! Why layer pellets? They can't taste good, yet every time she walks down to the coop with me I find her face first in the feed trough *sigh*

Free feed, garden rejects

This is the time of year when the chickens just get to go crazy eating fresh produce. The ones that can't free range especially love it! They get to 'help' me garden by eating up all the produce that I deem not fit for human consumption. 

This can include a tomato that split, some cucumbers that something or other crawled all over and ate trails into, corn that the corn worms found, zucchini that hid under a leaf until it grew too big and seedy or even peppers that got knocked off the plant too soon. Everything gets chopped up and fed to the chickens.

I cut off any moldy spots, but if I find some corn worms or cabbage worms...I just leave them. That's extra protein! I chop the whole bunch of veggies up and add in any weekly leftovers, stale bread etc. The chickens and Guineas love it and as I've said before: the more free feed I can give them, the more the feed bill goes down. 

I also grow a few plants just for them. Mostly 'volunteer' tomato plants that just sorta pop up on their own. I'm sure it's from tomatoes dropping the year before, but the seedlings grow wherever they want and I tend to just leave them if I can and then harvest the veggies for the chickens. This year I forgot that I started green pepper plants from seed and bought some seedlings at the nursery. I planted the extra seedlings and fed the extra peppers to the chickens. 

Mother Earth News Fair in Pennsylvania

I just wanted to give a quick reminder that the Mother Earth News Fair is coming to Seven Springs, Pennsylvania this weekend: September 20-22! I will have the honor of providing chicks and hatching eggs to the Brinsea booth to help showcase their products.



What better way to see how well something works then to see it in action, right? Chicks will be hopping around under the EcoGlow brooders and hatching in the incubators all weekend long!

Last years Mother Earth News event was awesome of course! There were just rows of booths set up outside, and in several ballrooms inside. Not to mention the presentations! I got to visit with several local and international vendors. Without too much chat...here are a few phone snapshots from last years event:

Mother Earth News Fair in Seven Springs

Maple cotton candy. For realz! It was amazing!

I loved this greenhouse design. This might be the direction I head in when I get one next year.

Alpacas! Is there a cuter face anywhere? This was even better because as I tried to snap the picture the critter gets up and walks over to smell my sons hair. He doesn't want to turn around till I'm done with the picture but he just knows something is going on behind him! I about died laughing

It's really an amazing event, and if you have any interest at all in organic practices, sustainable living, off grid living, farming, homesteading or even the more mainstream practices of gardening, natural healing and backyard chickens...this is the place to be this weekend! 

A quick word about Brinsea. I am not an affiliate. I don't get paid to tell you how awesome they are, in fact I already had bought 4 of their incubators when I met them before the fair last year. They are truly a great company both to buy from and work with! I cannot say enough good things about them and I think they will be your favorite incubator company also. 

I love the fact that I never have to fiddle with dials or switches on their incubators. The smaller ones (like the Octagon 20) are factory set, just plug them in and go! The cabinet bators (like the Ova Easy 100) are fully adjustable and run perfectly once adjusted. It is an absolute advantage to be able to rely on that! There is no 'it's a warm day today, turn the incubator down' or worse yet, humidity fluctuations! Never! I know you're gonna love them...and if you decide to give them a try you can enter the code word MURANO at checkout and get 10% off your order. Awesome, right?

Alright folks, I'm out of here....have a fabulous week, and I hope to see you at the fair!

~L 

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Finding mites in the poultry bedding

I'm going to start by saying that I don't actually know if they are wood mites...that's just what I was told and it certainly looks like it from the pictures online. They don't look like the chicken mites I've had the misery of knowing, but thankfully I've only dealt with the Red Mites and only once. 

These bugs do look like some of the poultry mites I've seen in pictures though, so they very well could be. Read on to see why it's so confusing!

Mites in the poultry coop bedding

This story starts a few weeks back. I reached into the nest boxes in the silkie house and noticed there were some little bugs on the eggs.

Tiny little brown things, barely bigger than a speck. Gross, right? Just a few in the bedding, but when I checked every bird every where I could, I found nothing. 

So I decided to empty the nest box bedding into the fire pit. More on this here: 6 Ways to Dispose of Coop Litter. I wiped them out, put a layer of DE in and more wood shavings and called it done.

Days went by without another sighting, admittedly I kept checking the birds not the bedding.