April 2020 – Lazer Creek Apiary

When I walked into the RV to check on the chicks yesterday morning, all three were perched on the wire mesh that is supposed to keep them inside the cattle trough until they are big enough to move outside. Surrounding the trough was “evidence” that they had been exploring for quite a while, and they appeared to be smirking at me! Their new home was almost ready, so we moved up their move-in date, set about completing the final necessary construction, added a brooder lamp to the coop just in case we have some more cool nights, and and moved them over. I had one more RV chicken wrangling rodeo and then they were in their new home.

We’d expected them to be nervous, but they immediately started exploring and searching for motivational meal-worms. Within half an hour, they were climbing on their ladder and by the end of the day they had become quite adept at walking up and down the rungs. The high point of the day was when Hubby found an earthworm in the soil he brought up for the planters and we got to watch two very determined chicks chase one highly motivated chick around while she gobbled up her treat! They looked remarkably like a picture I remember from one of my daughter’s story books many years ago.

20200411 Grayson Chicks — Curious Cat Checks Chickens

Grayson, one of the twin cats, has been sniffing around the empty dog crate where the chicks have been vacationing for some time, and it didn’t take him long to show up and see what we were all up to. He did a very good tiger imitation as he walked around the coop and chicken run many times while checking out the measures we’ve taken to keep him, coyotes, raccoons, and other critters out.

Coop protection

Chicken run protection

We have field wire extending out about 2 feet from the coop and run to keep predators from digging under the fence. On the sides of the run, we have chicken wire going all the way to the top. Along the bottom, we have hardware cloth covering the ends of the field wire and chicken wire. On top of all that, we have cinder-blocks that I will use as planters, and the remaining field-wire is covered with gravel on the high traffic areas and soil where a future wildflower garden will be. After my sister-in-law’s surprises last summer, we hope the hardware cloth will provide a challenge for any snakes that want eggs for breakfast, but we know that snakes and mice can be pretty determined critters.

20200411 coop inside — Inside the coop. We’ll add the nesting boxes later.

The two The two Red Sex Links went right into the coop last night once they realized I was throwing meal worms into it. The baby, which I’d name Speedy if I were going to name chicks, was reluctant to enter, to say the least. Trying to get Speedy in while stopping the other two leaving was getting everyone hot and bothered, so we closed the chicken door. After a while, the inside chicks and Speedy started calling back and forth to each other. Speedy walked up to the door, kept chirping, and then walked right through when I opened the door up for her. It took them a little while and a few meal worms to come out this morning, but now we have a routine started. The chicken door is automatic, and my brother-in-law says that their chickens very quickly got used to going in when they knew the door was about the close. We have a storm coming through tonight, so we’ll probably herd them again this evening, but as quickly as these girls figured out how to escape the brooder pen after their first accidental escape, I’m sure they’ll figure out where it’s warm at night very soon.

Maggie with chicks — Maggie guards the chicks

Okay – Now it’s time to stop calling the youngest chick Speedy as I am determined to not name the chickens, especially not that one as there’s a possibility that she may not be a she! At some point, I will need to wrap my head around having a chicken in the crock pot! Maybe.

We still need to add the nesting boxes and paint the trim, but today has just turned into another rainy day. Our bodies are telling us that it’s time to take a day off from heavy lifting, and we need to mentally make the shift to our return from spring break!

Stay healthy, everyone, and we will try to do the same because life is just too good to miss on the farm.

The chicks are rapidly outgrowing their space, and moving them outside to the dog kennel so that I can clean their indoor home is becoming more of adventure with every passing day. The baby can now fly out of the cattle trough, and the bigger girls can fly out of the plastic crate I use for transport. Moving them is no longer a one-man job! Luckily Maggie is just fascinated with them and wants to herd them like she herds everything else and she’s smart enough to realize they are not new dog toys! The chicks are becoming accustomed to being handled and one is eager to be picked up when she hears dried meals worms in a Dixie cup. That’s a trick I learned from my sister-in-law; she has her chickens trained to follow the sound of worms in a plastic Dixie cup, which they love even more than my gifts of chickweed and tender dandelion leaves.

20200401_chicks larva — Chicks April 1, 2020

Wax moths had moved into one of our swarm capture hives, so the chicks got a treat of larvae in a bowl followed by a couple of bee frames to clean up. They enjoyed chasing small hive beetles and I enjoyed watching! I kept an eye on them to make sure they weren’t eating anything besides the wiggly invaders. After three minutes, I had clean frames to put in the freezer and maybe reuse later this week.

This week is spring break, so Hubby has been able to make good progress on the coop and chicken run. We’ll move the girls into the coop once we have the door on and then we’ll finish up the run. It started raining today while Hubby was adding rafters to the run and I was painting the screen door, so we ended up with a non-construction day. We both have indoor chores to catch up on, and it’s probably good to give our bodies a break too.

While we currently plan to have a maximum of five chickens, Hubby is building the coop large enough to house more because we’ve learned that our plans are always changing here on the farm. We may eventually have enough honey and wax products for sale that we’d have a market for eggs too. I made my first batch of glycerin-honey soap last week and plan to attempt my first batch of soap using lye later this week. When we harvest honey this year, I need to weigh the wax we refine from cappings to get an idea of how much beeswax soap etc. I can make. So far, I’ve been using wax from previous years for my experiments, and I don’t plan to make any products with purchased wax.

Hubby just arrived home and announced that the only self-rising flour he could find came in a 25 pound bag, so I guess that I’ll be spending more time than usual baking over the next few weeks! Even if I bake a cake every day until it’s safe to socialize again, we’ll be eating healthier than we have been doing. It’s amazing how far we’ve slipped back into our “city” eating habits since the start of the school year. It takes very little time to make a pitcher of red rooibos tea, but we’ve been drinking sodas for the past few months. Likewise, I used to eat scrambled eggs for breakfast and they take no longer that Toaster Strudels, but we slipped into a Toaster Strudel routine. I didn’t realize how many convenience meals we were eating until I noticed how often I was running the dishwasher now that I’m cooking from scratch again! I hate that it took a pandemic to get us to rethink our eating habits, but that’s also a very small piece of silver lining in the huge cloud that is hanging across the world right now.

Life remains good here on the farm, and our thoughts and prayers are with all our friends, family, and blog-readers in this scary time.

Month: April 2020

The Great Escape!

Rain break