Mother Clucker!

Only 3 eggs this morning...we're blaming Mother Clucker but it may have been any of the ladies who slacked off today. 

In other news, finding Tilapia for the aquaponics was turning out to be the hardest part of the setup - Nathan was thinking he was going to have to order them online and have them shipped for a pretty high cost. We were looking through the local newspaper the other day at lunch and just happened to look at the classifieds...and we spotted this! The only ad in the section:

He should be ready for the fish soon, maybe this weekend.

I planted some more bush beans, edamame and butternut squash today. Everything seems to be growing well (the weeds, too!).

Empty Nesters

The chicks moved out today...to their new coop. They seemed pretty happy to have more room to run around. We hung the heat lamp on a chain attached to the ceiling and zap strapped the wire up the chain, along the ceiling and out of the playhouse coop. We closed the coop door tonight to keep it warmer but we'll open it during they day so they can have the outdoor part to play around in, too.

We had 4 fresh eggs again for breakfast and then a giant harvest of our veggies for dinner!

Yup, that's the giant harvest. 8 arugula leaves. That's ok, they topped our delicious homemade pizza.

 Hot genoa salami, green olives, onion and garlic (and the patented sesame seed crust). 

Ham, sundried tomatoes, blue cheese, onion and arugula. 

Mohawk Chick

 Just sitting down to do some blogging...

Look at Magpie's new head feathers! Very strange.

We got 4 eggs again this morning! Even later though...this time they only laid them around 11. 

The little brown chicks hang out together. They all like running around in the sun in their coop (they come inside after 'play time'). 

Today Nathan worked some more on the aquaponics set up - he siliconed a piece of aluminium mesh over the bottom of the big tank and started building the drain pipe.

I prepared the rest of our greenhouse beds and transplanted the cucumbers, melons and gold nugget tomatoes. Then we got the rest of the drip irrigation set up - it's set up for 40 minutes every morning at 7:00 am.

Morning scritches for Barney.

Eggs!

Look what we woke up to! Well, kind of. It seems that we are up earlier than our new hens lay their eggs. They laid these for us at 10 so we went back inside and had a late breakfast.

Perfectly poached eggs! They were delicious.

Two of the chickens went on a little adventure before going back into the coop to pop out their eggs. They somehow got out of the fenced area (maybe flew over the low fence near the garage) and were clucking around in the driveway. We brought them back into the fenced area and they happily stayed there all day until they (the same two) escaped again in the afternoon. The other two had gone back up into the coop on their own like good chickens...a wing clipping may be in order tomorrow for the offenders. We want to let them free range eventually but we don't want them free ranging over the fence into the neighbour's yard!

Speckles is definitely the ring leader.

We built a door for the playhouse coop today and let the chicks hang out in the sun in there all afternoon. They're fun to watch! 

Everything that we transplated into the greenhouse yesterday looks good today! We woke up to a frosty car and were worried that the tomatoes might have died, but they seem fine. Tomorrow we'll prepare the soil in the other half of the beds and transplant the cucumbers and melons and start some more seeds.

The Farm is Growing

Grazing together

We got a lot done today! First we picked up our 4 new laying hens. They were in a pretty crowded barn and had been replaced with this year's model...they might be a year old, as we were told, but who knows, really. We'll see if they lay us any eggs in the next few days! Omelettes tomorrow? Or roast chicken next week? (just kidding....)

Checking our their new digs. One is big, one has white speckles, and the other two look alike. We had to catch them tonight to put them in the hutch-coop and they weren't very nervous of us. We haven't finished the fully enclosed outdoor part of that coop yet, or they would have been locked in there today to get used to it. 

In their coop this evening. It's small but they'll have the enclosed outdoor area too, and they'll mostly be free ranging.

The playhouse coop with the netting over top. This is when we realized that we'd fully enclosed a chair by accident.

The chicks had their first day outside today! This is how they reacted to the great outdoors at first:

Luckily they had their trusty guardian looking over them.

Perhaps not so much of a guardian...Ryan seems to think he has a stake in a chicken share. Raise the chicks now, get a chicken later?

 While the chicks hung out just outside the greenhouse (the nice warm air blew right out into the xpen), we worked. I transplanted the hot peppers, bell peppers and tomatoes. 

Nathan cleaned the dust off the expanded clay balls that will serve as the grow bed for the plants.

 The bathtub will be the grow bed - it will drain back into the fish tank.

Fred deciding if he wants some hay.

Prepping

We got the playhouse-coop done! Well, almost. We just have to attach the first 'level' of mesh to the second one, and attach the top netting to the mesh. Oh, and make a door.

We also got started on the hutch-coop today. It shouldn't take too much more work before it's ready for the 4 laying hens that we can pick up tomorrow. I'm trying to figure out what kind of material to put on the floors of the coops - it sounds like straw, pine shavings and sand all have their pros and cons.

The chicks are still sniffling but original sick-y sounds better so hopefully they'll all get through it. Zebra Head sounds the worst right now.

Yesterday after we finished mulching we went and picked up Nathan's aquaponics tank from the hatchery. They gave us 3 smaller tanks too - they were so nice to give them to us! Today we got the rest of the supplies (clay for the growing medium, a shelving unit, polypipe, etc.) - just need some fish!

The new tank and the bathtub.

None of the seeds that we planted outside or in the greenhouse seem to have germinated yet...but the seedlings all look good. They seem to be doing ok even though it's been getting down to 3 degrees at night.

Sniffly Chicks

Not too much to report today - it was pretty cold and rainy so we spent the morning doing some errands and then organizing the house. We've been here a week and we hadn't even unpacked our suitcases yet! The house is looking more organized now. 

Later in the afternoon we went out to bring the horses in and give them (and the cows) some hay. We went to check the greenhouse and it was nice and warm so we ended up staying in there for a bit and planting some lettuce (a mesclun mustard mix and romaine), arugula and shallot sets that we got today. We checked the weather and it shouldn't go down past 2 degrees tonight so we'll chance it and leave the tomatoes and other potted seedlings in there tonight. 

We got some garden bird netting ($8 for 12' x 12') to use for the top of the chicken runs - hopefully the weather will be better tomorrow so we can finish those and do the rest of the mulching in the orchard (we didn't put enough mulch down the first time...oops!).

The feed store had oxy-tetra (oxytetracycline hydrochloride) antibiotics in stock today for the chicks. About half of them are occasionally snuffly so I think it's better to be proactive before it gets any worse. We'll use if for 5 days or until the symptoms go away. We also got some apple cider vinegar to add to their water (supposed to have a variety of benefits for them). 

One of the little Rhode Island Reds...possibly the cause of all of this snuffling!

Zebra Head is HUGE. Look at her compared to lil' red!

Magpie (...I'm not naming them or anything) is still tiny and agile.

 She always goes up on the platform now. I don't even think the platform would support Zebra Head and the other meat birds...

Zebra Head taking a rest after eating...before eating some more. And then pooping. And then eating some more.

One of the Light Sussex chicks. This one always comes out and sits on my arm.

Brave lil' red.