Author: Anna & Mark

Preventing heat exhaustion in your flock

August 16, 2010 Posts No Comments

A hot chicken pants and holds its wings away from its body2010 is currently on track to be the hottest
summer on record, with July already beating out the scorching Dust Bowl
summer of 1936.  We’ve felt the heat on our farm, and are keeping
a careful eye on our flock.  Heat exhaustion is nothing to mess
with, as we discovered during our first year of chicken-keeping when
two of our birds succumbed to the heat.



How do you know if your
birds are too hot?  In an effort to cool down, they will pull in
their feathers, stick out their “elbows”, and start to pant. 
That’s your cue to make sure your flock has access to shade and water
at all times.  If you’re worried, throw some ice cubes in your
homemade chicken waterer — your chickens will adore
the cool treat, and the ice water will help lower their body
temperatures.



Chicken
tractors can be
dangerous at this time of year since chickens are confined in a small
space.  Turn the tractor the wrong way, and your hens will have no
shade to retreat to during the blazing afternoons.  We are careful
to situate our chicken tractors so that the protected side is aimed
toward the sun on summer days, and when temperatures soar into the mid
90s, we add a tarp to provide extra shade.



I have to admit that
this year I counted the days until the dog days officially ended on August
11.  It’s all cooler from here!

Buckeye chickens

August 11, 2010 Posts No Comments
Feeding scraps to Buckeye chickens

Buckeye chickensEverett’s
free range chickens are Buckeyes, so I felt him out about the breed’s
potential as foragers.  At first, Everett
told me that the
chickens were great foragers, but it turned out he meant they were
quite predator resistant — he hasn’t lost a chicken to the elements
yet, despite allowing them to roam free next door to the woods.



Upon further
questioning, I discovered that Everett feeds his
chickens about the same amount of laying feed every day that I feed
mine, in addition to scraps from the kitchen and all the bugs they can
catch.  He said that when he cut back their laying feed, egg
production plummeted, which tells me the Buckeyes are getting the
majority of their nutrition from the storebought grains.  I was
disappointed to have to scratch another breed off my list of potential
forest pasture scavengers.


Our homemade chicken
waterer never spills
or fills with poop.

Grain paddock for the chickens

August 6, 2010 Posts 1 Comment
Grain paddock in the forest pasture

Droopy buckwheatI
spend a lot of time reading up on homesteading topics over the winter,
and this year I fell in love with buckwheat in the abstract.  But
as I experiment with the crop in real life, the scales are falling from
my eyes.  In our vegetable garden, buckwheat
failed as a cover crop
in our dense clay soil, and I’m not all that impressed with its
progress in the grain
half of the chicken pasture either.



I opted not to irrigate
in the forest pasture despite a moderately dry summer since I want to
eventually grow trouble-free crops that can be planted and then
forgotten about.  The buckwheat doesn’t enjoy this decision —
every afternoon the plants wilt and look very sad.  They bounce
back overnight, but the chicken pasture buckwheat’s growth is slower
than that of the later-planted buckwheat in the irrigated garden, even
though the chicken pasture soil is a well-drained loam enriched with
copious chicken manure.



Unfortunately, our old
field corn seed didn’t even come up, so our droopy buckwheat and some
beans are the only plants currently growing in the grain paddock. 
In retrospect, I wish I’d planted the whole area with oilseed
sunflowers — next
year!


Our homemade chicken
waterer is a great
addition to any pasture, coop, or tractor.