newbies

Aw, look who joined the farm last night! Eleven sweet little teenager hens and 1 little rooster man were brought home from friends in Cedar Springs to bring our flock back up to speed.  We were down to 11 hens- which is totally fine, but I find that our ladies really do best when there are 20-25 friends to hang with.

Plus, my girls are all on the down-side of laying. Hens only lay for 2 years… did you know that? They start laying at about 6 months and are finished laying at 2 years. They live to be about 7 (or so I’ve heard… ours don’t get much past the 4 year old range thanks to the foxed, raccoons, opossum, and hawks around here). All ours are 2 or older and still laying, but it’s time to add some young ones into the coop to overlap the cutbacks that are bound to happen soon. They would make perfectly fine chicken stock for soup after their laying days are over, but we don’t butcher our older girls.  They get to hang out here as long as they’re happy… or fast.

Gideon was less than impressed. But I’m excited. New animals on the farm are always exciting.

Todd and a little bantam

sizing each other up

Isa Browns, 2 white leghorns, & a few bantams

“Deez MY chi-kins?”

 

•

Alright.

I finally got all the details worked out for some new sweatshirts!

If you’d like to order, THESE are our 4 options! Super fun, right?  These are all adult unisex sizes and I’ll only be ordering what you ask for, so there won’t be any wiggle room.  The hooded sweatshirt is GILDAN brand and the crew-necks are ALTERNATIVE APPAREL brand, if you want to do some sizing research. Best to order up a size if you’re unsure of shrinking or in-between sizes. I have some plans for youth and kiddo sizes, but I’d like to see where we stand on this order first.

Some things to consider:

• the logo will be printed on the front in white ink
• these are all adult sizes
• there is no XS in the green hooded sweatshirt
• 2XL sweatshirts of any kind are $5 extra
• shipping for each sweatshirt is $5 each

solid green hoody $20

solid green crew neck $31

green & grey crew neck $31

solid grey crew neck $29

 

Clicking HERE will take you to a page that will allow you to order. I’ll respond with an email invoice that will include your total and double-check your order. Let me know if something’s funky. I’ll let you know in the next week if we’ve reached our 25 sweatshirt minimum.

Happy Monday, Folks!

We love you here at TexasNorth!

humble pie

Oh, Friends.

I stand before you a broken woman.  Innocent, no more. The days of blissful Farm-Maiden-ness… well, they are long gone.  I spent better (?) part of 7 hours on Saturday mucking out, hosing down, spraying with vinegar, and whitewashing the inside of the coop to rid our farm of mites and lice and other things we shall never speak of. My boots, which work on a regular basis, had never seen the likes of our Saturday.  They are officially broken-in.  No fashion wellies on this farm.  You gotta pull your weight.

Now, to be fair: it’s not the chickens’ fault.  They’re birds. Birds get bugs.  All the nice people in all the farm stores and internet farm forums said the same thing: birds get bugs.  I just thought… I hoped… I pretended… that two people who love each other and have the best intentions of keeping their animals happy would NEVER have bugs in their chicken coop.  Apparently, it takes a little more effort than that.  Well played, Nature.  Well played.

The coop- the big house– has been in action since 2008. I read that post and I laugh.  I roll on the floor and cackle.  “But they are so easy and so funny.”  Blah. blah. BLAH.  I’ve always gathered eggs daily and freshened hay accordingly.   It’s not always pretty- rain makes mud, raccoons ravage, winter is long and stale- but you clean as you go and life goes on.  Amazingly, it 4 years for any buggy creature to realize there was a nirvana within the walls… hay, feed, feathers, a little mud, and the occasional broken egg.  Add in Michigan’s recent summer of 100° days and you’ve got a perfect storm for a crawly explosion.  Good intentions, be damned.

While the coop (and water and feed and nesting boxes) gets cleaned out regularly, this was the first time it received a Deep Clean.  After clearing out the feed bins and tools, I brushed, scraped, and pitch-forked all the bedding out of every crevice and corner.  Then I sprayed it down with regular ol’ water from top to bottom.  This cleared out all the cobwebs and dust that had moved in with the ladies over the years.  Messy.  By this time, I was soaked and nasty and completely emotionally defeated.  Also, I gagged a little bit.  There may have been a few tears.  I used 100% vinegar and a backpack sprayer (similar to this one) to disinfect the coop before whitewashing. I used this recipe (Mother Earth News has one, too) for my whitewash:

1 gallon water
1 lb. salt or 2 cups
5 lbs. HYDRATED lime (white and fine like talcum power)
-mix in a 5 gallon bucket little by little (aim for pancake batter consistency)

Whitewashing brightens everything up inside small, dark barn spaces and has a little antibacterial action going for it, too.  It’s also much cheaper than paint.  I also painted the bottom of our apple tree saplings to help keep the sun and bugs at bay.

Everything I know, I learned.  The hard way.  So, lest you think I am SuperWoman living a dream out here in the country where the stars are bright and the moon is high… well, I am. But it’s not always local beef  and free-range bliss.

Because birds get bugs.

And I, I am a better farmer for it.

Surely, you’ve had some humble pie in your lifetime as well, Friend?  Lay it on me.

postcards from Texas

The Mulder family is off the farm this week visiting KatieKate’s motherland of Texas.

I’ll be posting postcards every day this week!  Y’all come back now, ya here?

freedom ranger chicks, 5 thru 7 weeks old

Sorry for the delay, Folks.  The Mulder fam went camping for a week and a half- and I did not take the chickens or the computer with me.  I did manage to take some pictures before we left (top: 5 weeks old), and then some today (bottom: 7 weeks old).  The 6th week is gone forever… with their baby feathers. I was shocked to find them all looking like full-grown birds upon our return.  No more junior high… these peeps are varsity now.

I’m not sure if you know this, but chickens aren’t the brightest of the animal kingdom.  It’s fine.  They don’t have to do my taxes or anything, but MAN if they could just figure out that sleeping IN the coop is so. much. safer. than perching outside.  Every night after dusk I shoo/herd/man-handle the 10 or so rebels that nestle down just outside the coop window and put them inside for safe-keeping.  Granted, they are getting a bit crowded for the mini-coop, and I need to work on an overflow area so they can be contained but roomy after dark.

They are so much heavier/denser than my egg layers.  It’s wild.  They continue to burn through the feed- at least 50# every 5 days.  It’s all in one barrel now, so I can no longer keep track of bags depleted.  I know I bought 1 bag of starter mash and 14 bags of broiler mash all total.  We’ll see what’s left at the end… if any.  Now that they are old enough to graze and wander, they’ve added grass and hay and bugs and veggie scraps to their diet.

I think they’re pretty happy.  Stinky (as we all are after bedding down with 49 of our closest friends for 2 months), but happy.

These bottom pictures crack me up.  If they look like they’re ticked at me, it’s because they are.  It’s beautiful afternoon here and they simply don’t want to be bothered with photo shoots.

freedom ranger chicks, 4 weeks old

Annnnnnd, we’ve reached the month mile-marker.  50 chicks, all still happy, all still sassy.  Their sass is actually increasing to compensate for the awkwardness they feel in losing their baby feathers.  There’s a bit of Saved By the Bell action going on in there… lots of posturing, lots of flapping, lots of mischief.

This week, they’ve killed another 50# bag of feed and I have officially let them out of the circular pen to wander at will during daylight.  They still choose to stay close to the water and mound of grain but are learning to explore and peck with each day.  It’s hard to remember they’re only a month old… they’re enormous!

freedom ranger chicks, 3 weeks old

The Freedom Ranger meat chickens are now 3 weeks old!  Tonight they graduated to an outdoor pen which will allow them to roam and hunt and peck a bit during the day.  They will still sleep in the minicoop at night to protect them from critters.  You can see the skepticism on some of their faces… it took a bit of convincing before the first few would venture outside.  Chickens.

As of today, they have finished their 2nd 50# bag of feed.  That’s right: 1 week.  Let it not be said that I am not feeding them well. 

freedom ranger chicks, 2 weeks old

Our chicks are now 2 weeks old and SASSY.  Non-blurry photos are almost impossible… these guys are so active now!  They are already so much bigger than your average egg-layer chick.  You can feel the muscles in their little bodies under all that fluff.  As of today, they have finished their first 50# bag of food. 

The first picture is just a quick snap… it was taken immediately after I had to chase 45 of them down in my yard when they escaped their outdoor pen fencing.  I thought, incorrectly, that they would be too big to fit through the holes.  I was immediately and shamefully proven wrong.  Never fear: everyone is reluctantly back in the coop.  Tomorrow, I will head out to the farm store for supplies to make them a nice, portable, lightweight, and un-escapable outdoor pen so they can graze at-will. 

Crazy birds.

freedom ranger chicks, 1 week old

After one week, the chickies are super cute.  They performed well for their first photo shoot and are a huge hit with the kids.  We check on them multiple times a day.  The heat lately is fabulous for them as they begin to grow into grown-up feathers, but they are going through 3 gallons of water every day!

and the adventure begins

Regular Monday/Thursday postings are on a little break for awhile, but I wanted to pop in and let you know that the 55 Freedom Ranger chicks for our first Old School class arrived this morning!

At 5:45am.  Yes, ma’am.

They arrive by priority mail (naturally) in a ventilated cardboard box.  Chicks can survive for 2 days without food or water, thanks to the super-duper eggshell they are born in.  Eggs are amazing.  This allows them to be shipped pretty much anywhere.  These chicks were born Wednesday at 9am and were sitting at the post office bright and early this morning.

We chose Freedom Rangers (awesome name) from Pennsylvania. (website HERE)  They’ll grow with us for 10 weeks and then they’ll become, sigh, food.  That’s it.  Ten weeks.  These birds grow crazy fast.  We outfitted the mini-coop with a sliding plexi-glass window/door that allows for easy viewing.  In 3 weeks, the chicks will be allowed to graze outside and then return to the coop for bed. 

So, come on out and visit!  They’ll be here until Saturday, September 24th.   Bring your own chair because it doesn’t look like these kiddos are moving any time soon!

Blessings,

KatieKate

new digs

Curt returned from a business trip to Birmingham last night… we are fortunate to know some really incredible people down South, and we are so blessed to say they are all unharmed.  Everyone has such remarkable stories.  No one in the area has gone untouched- either physically or emotionally- from the fury that tore through last week.  If you have the means, may I recommend donating to the American Red Cross?  Growing up in a military family, the ARC was our emergency connection to home, and it will always stand for help and rescue in my book.

• • • • • • •

the mini-coop

I’d like to show you the new digs for our little peeps… finished and relocated on Sunday.  The mini-coop was designed and built entirely by Curt.  I believe I asked for “a box that opens.” I love my husband.

On Friday (before the coop was finished because that is how we so often roll) we managed to bring home 15 buff orpingtons that were ‘on sale’ at the local feed store.  One dollar each.  These ladies were a bit older than the other chicks, and I think the store was hoping to reduce their stock a bit.  Sure. Why not?

Chickens live to be about 7 years old.  Not that I’d personally know that.  We’ve had so many, erm, non-Disney-esque incidents that I no longer blink when a few ladies don’t punch their time cards in the morning.  Fencing and shelter are simply no match for our regular relentless visitors of raccoon, opossum, fox, hawk, and neighbor dog.  Also, sometimes I forget to close their door at night.  Because I am a terrible person and my children have caused me to lose. my. brain.  In my defense, it was never my life dream to be a Chicken Lady.  We got our first batch of chickens by accident and it just kind of went from there. 

Initially, I has grand visions of my children sitting on the porch, hugging their favorite fluffy bird and reading it bedtime stories. Big heart laugh, glowing smile, sunshine all the time.  Our reality at TexasNorth is a bit more practical. No names, no leashes, no serious long-term attachment.  Easy come, easy go.

Despite what our history implies, we do very much love our birds.  They’re super fun to watch.  Their compost supplements our garden and they eat oodles of bugs.  Not to mention, their eggs are fantastic.

This will house chicks, present and future, until they get their license to be with the big girls.  The mini-coop addition measures 4 feet by 6 feet and has 3 roof sections that open.  There’s also a side door (not quite finished yet) that will eventually give them access to the great outdoors and allow me to clean ‘er out.  The wood is left over from the basement project, and the roofing is left over from the big coop. Mini will get some blue paint and stars soon to dress her up, but for now we’re just concentrating on survivial.   These ladies are about a month old.  They’ll start laying eggs around 6 months of age and will continue for about 2 years.

Lord willing.

Obviously, they could use your prayers.

We should have bought more birds.

*sigh*

building coop #1  •  building coop #2  •  our first chicks