how i became a crazy chicken lady

note: i posted a version of this post over on my main blog, but since i've shared most of our chicken adventures here, i wanted to post here as well, since not everyone reads both. i did make a few changes as well, so it's not completely the same.

as you all know, we got nine hens and three roosters last summer. i was a bit skeptical of keeping chickens, since they don't seem to be the brightest animals around, but the lure of fresh eggs was too great. we got two nordic heritage breeds - danish land chickens and black swedish ones. and i got a bit of a kick out of them, way more than i thought i would. late in the winter, several of them became broody. pretty soon, the nest boxes were full of broody hens and the egg production had ground to a halt. husband built an addition at the back of chez poulet. all that early brooding resulted in one single little chick, just in time for easter.

he's now grown into a funny, motley rooster that's clearly a combination of both breeds. until his mother hatched out more chicks recently, he was even still getting in with her at night, sitting on top of her in the nest box, tho' he was getting far too big for that. now he's bottom rooster and has to content himself with a corner of the perch, rather far from everyone else. poor dear.

in recent weeks, the five brown hens have managed to hatch out another 14 chicks - 4 little brown ones and 10 black (which i suspect will be combination chickens like the motley rooster - as one of the brown roosters is top dog). the black hens were clearly very sneaky at getting their eggs under the brooding brownies, getting them to do all of the work of hatching out the chicks. we are consequently referring to the chicks all as SHE this time around, as we want them to be future hens. we certainly don't need another rooster around here. in fact, in the near future, one or two are going to be dinner.

there were 5 little brown chicks, but they killed off the first one that had hatched out. he did seem to be a little bit off in the eyes, so we think they knew something we didn't, tho' i was still unaccountably sad about it when i found him. it has made me a bit worried about the rest, so whenever i need a break from writing and editing and planning workshops, i head out to check on them. at the beginning, i needed gloves to lift the brooding hens, but now i just ignore their attempts to peck me and unceremoniously lift them up with my bare hands to see what's going on with the eggs. i find little peeps and help them find their mama again when they've wandered too far away into the tall grass. in other words, i perform all the duties of a crazy chicken lady. i can almost see the hens rolling their eyes at me.

the chicks are of varying ages, hatched out several weeks apart, but there are four brown hens sharing the tending duties between them. there's still one brown hen, sitting on a nest that's down to 7 eggs - and one more hatches every few days. then, when they're big enough to jump down from the nest box, they go and join the others and one of the tending mamas takes them in. the little motley rooster does a mighty duty in chasing the over-interested cats away and thus far, all the chicks have been safe thanks to his efforts. it really does seem to take a village to raise the chicks.

it's funny, when i rushed in to google all i could about the hatching out, care and tending of baby chicks, i found all kinds of scary scenarios and if i'd believed it, i'd have thought it was nearly impossible to let your hens hatch out their own chicks and have them survive. and i didn't find any advice that said you could let them remain in the henhouse with the others - which we have done (we tried to move them into the addition at the back, but they didn't want that). the chickens manage to do it all on their own, totally naturally. for all my worries and fussing, they don't even really need help from the crazy chicken lady.

nature is cool.

charming chickens

svensk sortehøns (black swedish chickens) - this rooster (aptly named "blackie") is my favorite.

as you know, we got chickens back in june. and then husband built them a veritable mansion that we dubbed chez poulet, because it's so fancy. the coop has two entrances - one into a totally enclosed area, where we give them table scraps and one into a back yard, where they can fly (and yes, i assure you they can fly, tho' it's not the most elegant sight) over it and get out to explore.

in fact, they were letting themselves out to explore so often, that we've just left the gate open of late, to make it easier for them. it's nice to have them wandering in the garden, cleaning up, tho' i have found them as far afield as over in the shelter belt near our bees. but charmingly enough, they come running from wherever they are when you go out there and talk to them. i hadn't expected that. they're really quite charming. and a bit funny. and their plumage makes a perfect fall fashion statement.

dansk landhøns (danish land chickens)

the three roosters can spend hours trying to outdo one another with their cries of cock-a-doodle-doo. and the other day one hen was a rather insistently clucking midwife to another one who was in the nest and clearly laying an egg. it was as if she were a little chicken cheerleader. later, i realized it may have been more of a complaint, because i found that hen in the same box, laying an egg of her own, so she was probably just telling that other hen to hurry up. there are five nest boxes, but as they've begun to lay eggs, i've noticed that they stick to the first one and the fourth one. it's hard to know what chickens are thinking, so i'm not sure why that is.

we're getting 2-3 eggs a day and they're starting to be a little bit larger now (they were pretty tiny at first). i've already checked an all-eggs cookbook out of the library, as once all 9 hens start laying, we're going to be eating a whole lot of eggs around here! at the moment, we can keep up.

in all, i'm enjoying this chicken thing much more than i thought i would. they're easy to have around. plus, we've cut back significantly on the amount of garbage that goes into our bin on a weekly basis, because so many scraps go to them - the only thing we don't give them is chicken, but otherwise, all greens, leftover rice or couscous, cheese, other kinds of meat go to them, anything we didn't manage to eat all of ourselves. in return, we get plenty of eggs and quite a lot of amusement.

already dreaming of next year's garden

200 new strawberries

our gardening year is winding down. we've just had 4-5 days of sunshine and warm temperatures (in the 70s), which breathed a bit of life into the tomatoes and eggplants in the greenhouse, so they're not as done as i thought they were, but they soon will be. we're also hoping that the sunshine will prove to have ripened the sweetcorn so we can actually eat a few ears of that before the season is completely over. but largely, the garden is in its last stages.

waiting for the corn

big successes were strawberries, raspberries, artichokes, kale (until some kind of caterpillars took it), swiss chard (which strangely was right next to the kale and the worms ignored it), borlotti beans, broad beans and runner beans. my herb bed, which is over closer to the house, did very well - apparently cool, rainy weather is perfect parsley and sage weather, as my parsley and sage have been phenomenal.

less successful were the patchy carrots (tho' i'm feeding fresh carrots to the bunnies every morning these days). not a single beet came up, nor a single leaf of spinach (i planted that twice!) only a single kohlrabi grew, our brassica bed resulted in 3 small heads of white cabbage and tho' the red cabbages are leafy and lush, they're not actually forming proper heads. the broccoli was only enough for a few spindles in the odd stir-fry and the cauliflower, which started off beautiful went strange and black - possibly because of the wet, cool weather. my onions are small and the tops died off quite early, tho' some of them are growing new tops no (which i can't explain). the onions themselves are ok when you pull one to use in a salad or to cook with, but they should have been much better. some of this, i don't know what to learn from it other than to say that we'll just try again next year.

kind of a lot of grass grew up in the paths!

in the greenhouse, we had enough tomatoes for salads, but not enough to can any. the aubergine had loads of blooms, but i think the cool temperatures prevented them from really growing into something, tho' we've had enough to be hooked on home grown aubergine as opposed to store-bought.  plus, some of the kinds i bought were actually petite varieties, so the size didn't matter that much.  the cucumbers produced well, after we saved them from the aphids, but with a cucumber-addicted child in the house, there weren't enough for pickles.  it's partially because we had a cool, wet summer and partially because we didn't have the greenhouse up 'til the end of may, so we missed quite a lot of the growing season. next year, it will be better.

black plastic on the left is where next year's garden will be.

we have super sandy soil and while it has great drainage, it seems like the nutrients quickly wash away as well. we conducted a few experiments, putting horse poo only on one squash and not another and learned that horse poo is KEY. we've prepared a large area for next year's garden - loads and loads of horse poo went into freshly-turned soil and then were covered in black plastic to prevent weeds.  luckily, our neighbors have eleven horses and love to be rid of their manure pile.  husband has built an elaborate composting area, so we'll have compost to add to the soil next year as well.

the new compost staging area

but i find i'm already thinking about what to plant next year. i want to try some new things and do better at some of the old ones. we planted 200 new strawberry plants, so i'm going to be busy making marmalade next june. i want more herbs and i want to try some unusual things, like mustard and horseradish. i'm also feeling pretty inspired looking around the chef's garden website. and despite our dark winter, i would like to try to extend the season a bit by planting lettuces and things inside the greenhouse. hmm, maybe i'd better go pull some weeds in there...

chez poulet

the chicken enclosure was finished this week, so we could finally move our chickens from the rabbit hutch where they were temporarily living over to chez poulet, their posh chicken coop. the outdoor part is lined with zinc, repurposed from an old refrigerated container that was on our property, to make it rat-proof. apparently rats love eggs. we haven't seen any rats here at our place, but we have seen them at the stable next door, so they're in the neighborhood.

i was able to pick up the black swedish chickens yesterday - four hens and a rooster. they're completely black - including their combs. i read that even their meat is black! but we want them for the eggs. they're a bit smaller than the others, but they seem to get along quite peacefully when we put them together.

the dansk landhøns have really grown since we got them. they're nearly ready to begin laying eggs. and now they've got nesting boxes all lined with straw, ready for them to begin.

the black swedish rooster. i think he's actually quite cute.

husband got to indulge his inner engineer on this project and he has built a rather ingenious door that we can lower to let them out during the day.

he was inspired by castles and draw bridges, i suspect.  he didn't even spend endless hours looking at designs online (like someone else in this family would), he said he had a vague picture in his head and he just started building it, modifying along the way as he encountered problems. i do admire that about him.

the chickens were pretty suspicious about going in last evening, but we managed, between the two of us to shoo them in. we want them in at night, so they don't get eaten by a fox, tho' husband has built quite a secure enclosure, so they should be ok anyway.

the door is raised and lowered by this handle on the outside.

here's how the mechanism looks on the inside. the chickens managed to open it sometime last night and let themselves out, so husband has made some more improvements so it can be locked into place and they can't get it open.

i couldn't resist showing you the beautiful door he made, repurposing one of those old round windows we've collected. it really is a cool chicken coop.  on the righthand side of this photo, you can see the turning device for the door that's on the other side, where there will also be a pen they can be let out into. but that will be for another day. you can see he used a bit of a different design on that side.

woody was pretty interested in the whole project. he was wondering if they were a bit big to be an afternoon snack.

let the chicken adventure begin

at last, progress was made on our chicken coop this weekend. it's just been a foundation for awhile, but now it's beginning to look like an actual building with a roof and everything! those poles sticking up at the back are for the fenced enclosure where they'll be able to be outside. according to danish law, you have to have even the outdoor areas completely enclosed, in case there's a bird flu scare - so you can keep your chickens separate from wild birds.  it will also undoubtedly help secure the chickens against the mama fox and her two babies that i've seen meandering in our field in the evenings.

i, of course, couldn't wait to get the chickens 'til their coop was done, so i found an ad in the blå avis (our craig's list equivalent) and went off on a chicken acquisition mission. i think i was also hoping to speed up the building process on the chicken coop a bit by having the actual chickens waiting in the wings, as it were.  luckily, they can live in the outdoor bunny cage 'til their coop is finished.

i went to the chicken farm, intending to get a 1.4 as they call it - four hens and a rooster - but while i was there, i was talked into one more hen and they threw in an extra rooster for free. there was also a possible commitment on my part to buy a very cute little pony, but thus far, we're just whispering about that.  we are going back to get some cool swedish black chickens that are a nordic heritage breed and good egg-layers - they weren't quite big enough (you couldn't tell which were boys and which were girls as of yet). the chickens we got are 2 months old and are dansk landhøns, another old nordic breed. tho' i do still want a couple of araucanas, which aren't a nordic breed (i need those martha stewart blue eggs).

the poultry farm was a marvelous place and next time i will take my camera (how i managed to get out the door without it is beyond me). they're raising all sorts of traditional nordic breeds and contributing to bringing them back to commercial viability. they also had all kinds of turkeys, guinea fowl and even some gorgeous peacocks! they were really fowl people! (sorry, i couldn't resist) i'm always so excited to meet people like that - people who are passionate about what they're doing, have loads of knowledge and enthusiasm for it and are contributing to sustainability. all of their birds had a great life, with lots of fresh air and outdoor space to run around in. they had electric fences to protect against the foxes and said they hadn't had any trouble with them.

it's funny, my high school boyfriend knew all about chickens (he'd been in "country school" 'til the 7th grade) and i remember teasing him endlessly and thinking he was a bit of a geek. and now, some thirty-odd years later, i find having chickens to be cool.

beekeeping: a word about the investment

checking the frames in our bee hives.

 one of the things we're doing with our little bee adventure is that we're trying to keep track of how much we're spending on it (not something we're usually very good at, i have to tell you). i was thinking that a good way to do that would be to share the tally of it so far with all of you here. of course, these prices are what it costs in denmark (where everything's shockingly expensive), but they may give you a rough idea, or at least a comparison, should you decide to investigate in your area.

lighting the smoker with my williams-sonoma kitchen blow torch!

thus far, our investment has been as follows:

membership in the danish beekeeper's association: 670DKK ($133) for 2011. this is a family membership, so we can all 3 go to the meetings and the lessons if we want to.  it also includes a very informative monthly magazine.

once you are a member and you are assigned a local branch of the association, the lessons (bi-weekly from april 2 - september 12) and your mentor are included, so it's very good value for money.  the lessons take place at the school hives, which are near a little museum about 15 minutes from our house. it's very hands on, learn by doing. or what those of us who have worked in the training business call legitimate peripheral learning. :-) 

the bees are looking good.

as you know, our mentor, who is 84, has not messed around - he took us very seriously when we said we wanted bees already this year. we've been to two lessons and we've already got two hives in full swing. because he's been a beekeeper for years, he has connections and he was able to get us our hives for a song. we paid 250DKK ($50) each for the two - so a total investment of 500DKK ($100) in the hives (they can be around 2500DKK ($500) for new ones!). as you can see, they're used and not the prettiest ones ever, but they're perfect for us as a beginning.

looking for the queen - she's got a blue dot on her back.

we got two bee families as well, which each cost 700DKK ($140) for a queen and 500-1000 bees. tho' both are hard at work, one family is thriving better than the other and working faster and it's an interesting contrast. but our bee mentor says that's quite normal and the family that's not growing as quickly is just fine, so he says not to worry about it. some are just stronger than others.

a view of the frames down in the hive. later in the summer, there will be two "stories" of these.

in order to work with the bees, especially when you're new like we are, you need protective clothing. we bought a set for husband - it's a jacket with a built-in net hat and it cost 350DKK ($70). a pair of good bee-handling gloves for 120DKK ($24) and he was ready to go. we'll eventually get jackets for me and sabin, but for now, we know that husband will be the one handling the bees, so his is enough.

an old basket carries the new frames - you can see the wax plate is attached.

the bees are really busy here with the spring in full bloom, so we needed to quickly get our hands on some frames. the frames cost 6DKK apiece (we bought 25, so 150DKK). you could probably make them yourself, but it would be fiddly and for $1.20 apiece, we think it's totally worth it to just buy them. we bought a roll of the thin wire you have to string on them for 52DKK and a thread tightening tool for 109DKK ($21). you also need a package of wax plates - the bees can build them themselves, but you help them out by starting with a wax plate base. as you can see above, it's already got the hexagon-shapes started to help the bees. and it is made of beeswax, so it's quite natural. we got a package of 100 of those for 300DKK ($60) (included in that price were two boxes where you can hold the frames that are full of honey until you process them). in order to attach the wax plates to the frame, you need a device that heats the wire so that it melts fast. those cost 600DKK at the bee store (yes, there is a beekeeping supply store), which struck me as ridiculously expensive for an ugly piece of MDF with a lawn mower battery attached to it, so i didn't buy one. husband has made one himself, using an old computer cord and some neat ceramic insulators that were lying around in his workshop, so we got a much more steampunk one for free! (strangely, i can't find it in his workshop to photograph it, so i'll have to show it to you another time.)

a gentle puff of lavender-scented smoke calms the bees.

smoke calms the bees and moves them where you want them to be, so we needed a little smoker. it cost 240DKK ($48). i bought a big package of tobacco to put into it for 35DKK ($7) and some little starter blocks that help you get it started for 25DKK ($5). the packages i bought should last us throughout the season. husband appropriated my small kitchen blow torch for starting the tobacco, so we didn't need to buy that. the tobacco has lavender in with it as well, which makes it smell very nice and has a relaxing effect on the bees.

the smoker is going very nicely

so for a total of 3951DKK ($787) we are in business with bees! of course, there is a lot of equipment for extracting honey that we don't even know about yet and i can see a price range on that of anywhere from about $400 for a hand-operated separator to $6000 for a fully automated centrifuge. i think that this year, we can learn how it's done on the bee association equipment and decide what kind of investment we'd like to make.

at the moment, we don't really see this as a business, more as a way of covering our own honey usage and even upping that...i intend to learn ways of using honey in recipes instead of sugar. but we have quite a honey habit already - we use four 450gram containers a week in our tea alone. since our bee families can produce anywhere from 40 to 80 kilos of honey in a season (it's a wide range because it depends on so many factors), we should have plenty for our own use and as presents. i'm looking forward to having the wax to use as well - for candles and possibly to embark on some experiments in encaustic art.

Why Wait?

We've been pondering different livestock options and thinking about ways to use what they produce.  B keeps coming back to goats.  One of the things that we've been toying with is making goats milk soaps.  Well, we have been pondering this for a while and have not fully decided (there is a lot of ground work structurally we need to get completed to bring them on here).

In this months Martha Stewart Magazine, there were recipes for making soaps from herb and fruit purees.   As I was drooling over all of the luscious descriptions, I decided we should just start experimenting...why wait?  What is so nice about these soaps is that they are easy, made with a glycerin base (so I don't have to worry about scary lye concoctions with the kids around), and they can have components like goats milk added to them.  The craft store didn't have any of the clear soap pieces so I went with opaque.  This is after all experimental right?  So here goes....

As you can see from the photo, I decided to use some of the lavender that I dried from last years garden.  I figured that it would not get lost in the opaque base and would also have a mild exfoliating quality to it.  The first thing that I did was strip the flowers off of the dried lavender bunches and then ran a rough chop over them with a kitchen knife.

I then took the soap base, chopped it up, and tossed it in a microwave safe measuring cup (so the melted product would be easier to pour).  I microwaved in 30 second increments stirring in between(don't let it boil).  It starts to solidify very quickly so you have to be on your toes once it gets to the smooth consistency. 

Once it got smooth and liquidy like water, I quickly stirred in 3 tsp. of the chopped lavender flowers and a 1/4 tsp. of lavender essential oil.  Then very quickly poured them into apple sauce or pudding containers that I am recycling for this purpose.  They measure 1/2 cup each.  The article says you can use any kind of container and if you use something larger, then you can slice bars too. 

Once in the containers you let them sit on the counter for 20-60 minutes (depending on the size of the container you are using), so they can set.  At this point put them in the freezer for 2 hours.  This is a great tip, because the soap shrinks away from the container edges just slightly and pops out of the cups easily.

Voila!  Soap!  I linked the article above, there are tons of cool fresh recipes you can use, or just read through and wing it on your own!  I'm thinking these will make it into farm boxes for sure.

**quick tip...The glass container was a challenge to clean, I wouldn't let it sit for too long to solidify once you pour.  I think now that I know what I'm doing, I'll probably buy a dedicated container for this task :)

Winter Reading List

There are so many things to accomplish once you start changing your way of life, it is difficult to resist the urge to want to do all of the things you want to do....right now. The reality is, you have to pick, choose, and do a lot of investigating into what will work for your family. We began this process in earnest almost 4 years ago. I think for me the hardest thing is feeling a little guilty if I can't get as much done as I would like. I have come to the realization that any steps that we take are important. What I have found so interesting is how many people are interested in what we are doing and how so many people are also taking steps for their families. I think that making healthy choices for our families is precious and something each and every one of us has control over, especially in today's crazy world .

This time of year especially when we are bitterly cold and there is lots of snow, the focus comes down to planning and doing a great deal of reading. Some of my favorite resources I keep handy. The first book we bought when we were waiting for escrow to close on our little homestead was John Seymour's Concise Guide To Self-Sufficiency. From there I loved reading the family journey in "Animal, Vegetable Miracle". It made me focus more on what I was buying at the store. I began to only purchase things in season locally and then as our garden and food preservation efforts grew, I can say that I've purchased next to no produce other than fruit and a few extra onions in the last couple of years. I'm excited to see if the berry patches that we established last year bare us lots of fresh fruit this year! A great book for people on any sized property is The Backyard Homestead. It has loads of invaluable advise on about everything you would want to dabble in. I received "Canning For A New Generation" from a staff member for Christmas and I'm getting ready to crack it open this evening. What is on your bookshelf right now that you reach for?