Innovation in Raising Chicks...

So! I just realized that this post was completely unfinished. Now is the time to finish it!

Chris and I came up with an awesome way to raise chicks. As far as we know, no one else has done this before, but please don't hesitate to comment below to tell us if you have done this! We would love to share the credit!

This NEW WAY to raise chicks came about because Chris doesn't like to clean up poop. His train of thought probably went something like this:

"I am so excited about baby chicks! BUT I really don't like cleaning up the poop, and you know they poop alot... Maybe Lindsay will do it... (Lindsay shoots glaring eyes in his direction) Nope, that's out of the question... I have worms composting stuff already, I wonder if they will compost the baby chicken poop. I could keep them IN the worm bin and then I won't have to clean anything up! I just have to keep the top from getting compacted...I'll use a cultivator to rake and turn the dirt. OH! and by the way, this will give the little guys a chance to learn how to scratch and eat worms! Great food supplement... This is a really great idea! Let's do it!"

Here are some things that we learned from it:

1.) Don't use newspaper unless it's shredded up really small. It compacts too easily. Instead, use sawdust or wood shavings. These work really great for retaining the moisture for the worms and they don't get too compacted.

2.) Keep the birds in an appropriately sized container. Too many birds = Too much compaction/poop/eating of worms = No more worms = No more worms composting the chicken poop! I'd say that 6 chicks or less in one of those big plastic totes is plenty. We had almost thrice that many. It was too many. (Yes I just used the word thrice! Isn't that awesome!)

3.) Don't forget to add kitchen scraps like onion peels, bell pepper leftovers, and the like. The worms need food, and so do the chicks. They will both benefit from eating these. You will probably still have to feed the chicks some sort of chick feed and grain, but you'll certainly need a lot less of it, and your birds will be healthier. (or so I think)

4.) Don't forget to provide your chicks with some sort of roost. Otherwise, they WILL roost on top of each other and some of your birds may get smothered. Just a warning...

5.) Make sure to turn the worm dirt at least every couple of days. It will keep the "dirt" from getting compacted and give the chicks a chance to eat the worms that are lying below the surface. Chris really liked to get in there everyday, but I think that you could do it every other day and be just fine. 

19 Chickens and Counting!

Actually we did have 20. We decided to use Chris' rotisserie to get rid of a rooster that was being meddlesome. But that's besides the point!

WE HAVE 19 CHICKENS AND ONE OF OUR HENS IS SITTING ON A CLUTCH OF EGGS!

I'm so excited to see if we actually get some little chicks. It looks like our hen Millie is sitting on about 10 eggs. It would be cool if we got just one little chick! But we will have to wait and see.

All in all we have 4 Ameraucanas, 4 Red Fryer, and 5 Australorp chicks that we bought from our local feed store on the 11th of April. We have what looks like a Rhode Island Red Rooster and a couple of interestingly colored hens of unknown breed that were given to us shortly before that. Plus we have a rooster 

That we bought to butcher for Chris' class that didn't get butchered.

We let them free range and we love everything about it. Well, everything except the poop and getting into the garden! That's why we have fences...

Just in case you are looking for a little education on how to keep chickens, let me 'esplain a few things:

Here are some reasons to keep chickens:
1.) They produce eggs! If you do it right, raising hens to produce your own eggs can be cheaper and more rewarding than picking up a dozen from the grocery store... IF YOU DO IT RIGHT!
2.) They make great compost! When you manage your chickens properly, you can produce all of the compost you will ever need for your garden and yard.
3.) They can keep your lawn mowed, aerated, and fertilized!
4.) They make great pets... Not necessarily the kind you keep on a leash, but it has been done!

Really the list goes on.

As far as how to keep chickens, it's really simple. Here are some things that your flock will need in order to be happy:

1.) Feed. This can come in the way of food waste in a compost pile and be supplemented with the proper grains, insects from your garden and yard, forage from plants that you planted for them, etc. You'll have to wait for another post from me about feeding chicken's for free or check out this video from Geoff Lawton, or read this book. Both are awesome.

2.)Hen House. The Chickens need some sort of house that will contain the nesting boxes and roosts. This can come in so many different forms and can be anywhere from permanent to movable. There are lots of options here!

3.) Roosts. Chickens like to roost at night on sticks, trees, anywhere that is up high and protected. We have a hen house that is currently under construction, but when it's done I'll post photos. Roosting is instinctual for chickens. They'll find some place to roost no matter what so it's important that you give them a specific place to do it or else you'll have to deal with the consequences of birds pooping where you don't want them too!

4.) Nesting Boxes. These boxes provide a designated spot where your chickens can lay their eggs. If you don't have nesting boxes, be prepared to go on egg hunts and find rotten eggs all over your property!

5.) Fencing, and the like. Chickens will go where they want to go. If you need to keep them contained, or restricted from certain areas, then you will need to invest in some sort of fencing, plant borders, and more.

6.) Grit. Chickens don't have teeth. They have a really cool organ called a gullet and   they need grit like sand or oyster shell to "chew" their food. Mostly chickens find their own grit but you can also provide them with it in a dish separate from their food.

If you can have chickens, I highly recommend it. It is one of the most rewarding and exciting experiences for me as a city-turned-farm-girl.

AND if you want help designing a system for keeping chickens, give us a call! Chris is starting his Permaculture Design Consulting business and needs some clients! Chicken systems are one of the many things he can do for you.

Building a New Rabbit Hutch

When we bought our rabbits last fall, we built a temporary hutch over the garden for them. It was made out of a couple of logs and a couple of poles. The roof was a tarp with some tin on top. It has been working really well, but now, it's time to build a more permanent hutch. So Here's what we built:

If you remember from one of my sketches, we are planning on putting worm bins underneath to help compost the bunny droppings. I had the idea after reading an article about rabbit droppings and then we read about it in Toby Hemenway's book, "Gaia's Garden." It was fun to make the connection. The roof will be a little different, but the idea is still the same.

 The rabbits love their new home...

This is Claire the Hare. She is the most rotund of the bunnies. She was just content to sit in the corner and watch it all happen.

This is Roxy the Rex. She was the most curious.

This is Barnaby Buck. He was sniffing around and then he was like, "I'm just gonna lay down for a minute..."

Anyways, we'll post more photos as soon as it's finished.

Learning about Bees

A Warre Hive that Chris Built.

One of the many facets of our homestead will be bees. We love bees. They help pollinate plants, and honey bees provide you with another harvest: Honey! Not to mention we have heard that they are a very rewarding hobby. We have been studying bees and beekeeping on the internet, and it was a natural segue for me to take the certification course through our local beekeeping association when the opportunity arose.

I really enjoyed the course from the Lewis County Beekeeper's Association. They are a very knowledgeable group and they tend to have a very open mind when it comes to doing things naturally. I really appreciated that! I am a certified Apprentice Level Beekeeper now.

That being said, I am still on a journey to finding my own best practices for beekeeping, and I may end up doing things differently than they taught. I also listened to a podcast from Paul Wheaton at Permies.com titled "Reverence for Bees" with Jacqueline Freeman. She lives here in Western Washington and she has her own ideas about keeping bees! I really enjoyed her style, but I haven't learned enough to share yet, so I'll post more later. For now, I will say that she says to leave the bees alone, horde your own honey incase you need it to feed your bees, and she likes Warre Hives (which we like too!). This seems to me, to be a very natural and healthy way to raise bees. Hmmm.... I'm still learning!

Roxy the Rex had Babies!

Even though I haven't mentioned the rabbits much, they are a part of the daily routine here on the homestead. Not only are they routine, they are also an integral part of "The Plan." When I say plan I mean the overarching plan for what we want  to accomplish here on Haven Homestead.

Something that we have learned from Geoff Lawton's Online PDC is "Each element performs more than one function, and each function is provided by more than one element." This is how diversity breeds stability. (SOOO COOL!) 

You can see the nest of hair in the corner in front of the nest box.

So our rabbits fit into the master plan by providing us with compost/fertilizer and meat, not to mention they are really nice to hold! Now, they are not the only elements providing us with meat or compost or entertainment (see the post on my artsy blog about chicken's deflating...), but those are the functions that they provide. 

So in the order of providing meat, we had Barnaby (a Silver Fox) mate with Roxy (a Rex). Chris knows more about why we have those kinds of rabbits, so I'll ask him and report back, but that's another post for another day.

Little Benny-Angelina Abby Hodge. That is what Emma says his full name is.

Friday of last week, Roxy had her first litter! It was quite unexpected because we have been trying for a litter for a while. She didn't pull the fur out of her tummy to make a nest until that night (we were expecting her to give birth a few days before, and Chris thought she'd pull her fur a few days before giving birth) Then we woke up and went to check on the animals on Saturday morning and she had little babies lying in a nest of fur ON THE FLOOR OF THE CAGE! We had given her a nesting box but we think it was too small. We read that you are supposed to leave the rabbits alone for the first 24 hours after birth so we check on them on Sunday and we were sad to find that of the litter of 6, only one little kit survived, and he was hungry.

Nursing the baby on Roxy was really stressful for all parties involved, but we felt it was necessary for the first few feedings. 

We did our best to try to save him. We held Roxy still and let him nurse off of her for the first two feedings, but that was a two person job and Chris wasn't going to be able to help during the week. We read that kitten milk replacer was the best option, (DON'T use cow's milk) so we went to the feed store and bought some. We fed him 2x a day, stroked his tummy so he could defecate, and we left him alone the rest of the day. That's what the momma rabbit would do, so we did our best to replicate nature.

Unfortunately, little Benny-Angelina (Emma named it) died on Tuesday Morning in spite of our best efforts.

Emma and Benny-Angelina

It was exciting to have the litter, dissapointing when we discovered the faulty nest box, exciting to try to take care of a kit, and sad when he passed on.

We will be trying for more litters, and now we know better. Here's to better results from our next litter.

Trouble with the Dogs

What happens when you purchase a hunting dog to help you be a better hunter, but you decide to become a homesteader instead? Sometimes your hunting dog hunts the animals you are trying to raise.

I've talked a little about how Molly, our Weimaraner of 4+ years, ate our ducks and chickens. It isn't getting better and we've tried everything we can think of.

Now, with Hunter's allergies and ear issues, and with Molly's determination to eat our farm birds, we have come to the burdensome decision to find them a new home. They are good dogs, high energy and highly intelligent. They just deserve a better home.

They are going to a foster home tomorrow. It's a bittersweet time for us here on the homestead.

To Vet or Not to Vet?

As a homesteader you always try to do things yourself. You save money by doing this, and you also become more self reliant. So what happens if you have an animal that is sick or hurt? Do you take him to the vet? or do you try to resolve the issues on your own? How hard should you try for your animals? How much effort and money should you spend on your animals?

Hunter has his Cone of Shame on and is drowsing on the way home from the vet.

Those are hard questions to ask, and I do not ask them lightly. This week has been a struggle with me and our animals. On Thursday I came home from buying dog food and went to feed the dogs, only to find Hunter covered in blood. Last night as I was feeding and checking on the bunnies, I noticed that Flo wasn't doing very well.

At first I thought Hunter had been attacked. There was a lot of blood. I called Chris and asked what I should do and we decided to take him to the vet. Turns out he's just a big goofy dog that gets his ears caught on things. Almost $100 later, I felt like we could have taken care of him better ourselves.

Chris and I went online to try to figure out what was wrong with Flo, but everything we read said they would have to do expensive diagnostic tests to figure out what was wrong. She was covered in urine and here stools were too soft. She hadn't eaten or had anything to drink. We couldn't see spending thousands of dollars on a vet visit, so we did our best to take care of her here. She didn't make it through the night and I wonder if we should have done something differently.

I think that it definitely comes down to why you are considering a visit to the veterinarian, but I am sure this is one question that I will never quite know the answer to.