My Star Roosters

I currently have 8 roosters. That is about 3 too many.  I need to weigh them to see which I want to keep.

There is one Rhode Island Red, 2 Partridge Plymouth Rocks and 5 White Plymouth Rocks.  The Partridge Rocks are the best looking. The Rhode Island Red is at the top of the pecking order as far as I can tell. I can barely tell the white ones apart. There is one that took longer to develop than the others. At first I thought that was not a good thing. Then I read about the Jersey Giant chicken. They are a meat bird that take a long time to develop. The benefit is that the roosters meat does not get tough as fast as other breeds do. If I can get a strain of White Plymouth Rocks that is slow to develop, they would make a really nice meat birds. 

 Partridge Plymouth Rock

 Rhode Island Red

 White Plymouth Rock

Lots and Lots of Fresh Eggs

Our Egg output has increase substantially. Our record so far is 26 in one day. The rate decreases with lower temperatures in winter and with the higher temperatures in summer.  We are getting a nice spectrum of colors as well. We sell eggs to those we go to church with and I also sell them at work.  I have often been asked what makes fresh home raised chicken eggs different from store bought eggs.  I reply that it is the same difference between a garden fresh tomato compared to a store bought tomato. There is really no comparison. The store bought tomato is the idea of a tomato. It looks like a tomato but it does not taste like a tomato nor does it smell like one. This is the same principle with a fresh egg that you get from your own chickens. Each one is different depending on what that chicken ate during the time that egg was developing. My chickens have the opportunity to forage for bugs, eat plants and dig for worms.  Store bought eggs on the other hand are from chickens that spend their whole life in a small cage eating only chicken feed. No sunlight, no bugs, no worms. All of those natural things that make an egg taste like an egg are absent. So all you are left with is man’s manipulated egg. Mass produced, lacking taste and character.

Here a chick, there a chick, everywhere a chick chick...

Because we recently decided to expand our chicken collection to increase our egg output we needed a larger chicken run and chicken house. With some hired help I was able to get the run and chicken house done in about a month of evenings and weekends. That included 400 feet of wire fence, netting and electric fence. A new gate finished the run. The chicken run encloses about a quarter of an acre.

 

Our front yard afforded a nice place for the chicken house. The ground underneath the coop was very rocky which never grew anything anyway but provides a nice place to catch the nice manure for the garden. It is 10 feet wide by 8 feet deep and can comfortably fit 60 chickens. We used a recycled window and recycled  metal roofing for the siding. It features a wire floor, one large window, a full size door, 3 large ventilation flaps and a light on a timer. It sits right under two trees that provide shade in the summer but not in the winter.  All together the chickens now have more living space than we do! 

More nesting boxes still need to be added before all the new hens start laying. When all the hens get up to speed we will be getting about 2-3 dozen eggs a day!

The itsy bitsy spider

Once while working under the vehicle I was laying on the driveway. All of the sudden I noticed something moving toward me on the driveway. I turned my head just in time to see this little guy heading for me.  It is an understatement when say I got out from under the vehicle in a hurry. He was not intent on eating me but was just passing by.

We have a few of these little guys walking around when we walk our dog. They are never very large and don't seem worried about us.

My dad came to visit us in Texas this summer. We took him to the best places in our area. The Temple and the Alamo. He liked his first time in Texas. We had the opportunity to show him our chickens and garden.

New Chicks Arrived...Very Early in the Morning!

We have decided to drastically increase our flock size for a couple reasons. First we would like to sell some eggs so others can enjoy them farm fresh and second it would be nice to have a few extra chickens around to eat - just in case. These little guys hatched yesterday.

We got 30 Plymouth Rocks (25 Hens 5 Roosters) and 7 Partridge Rocks (5 Hens and 2 Roosters)  I got the phone call from the post office that they had arrived at 4am. Picked them up and had them happy and warm in their brooder by 5 am.

Garden of 2012

We had a good gardening year! New this year are the cinder block rows which elevate the garden to a new level and provided deeper soil. Extra manure was added this spring along with a ton of compost. Shade was also added for the hot months. As you can see the extra work paid off. Tomatoes were very good this year with the extra rain we got. Cantaloupes were also very good.

Spring showers

It finally rained one Spring morning and I was so overjoyed that I thought I would have a little camera fun with the raindrops falling off of the side of the roof onto the tarp that is covering our water collection tanks.  Since I am not really experienced with our camera, I took a ton of pictures and saved the one or two that turned out amazing.
Jared had a tech fair at his work and some guy had a camera set up to take a picture every time a water droplet fell into a pan of colored water and snapped a picture.  That inspired me to use nature and my own camera when the opportunity presented itself. 

Woody Woodpecker

We were in the backyard the other night and I heard a baby bird making some noise.  I looked down to see if I could see it only to find it hanging onto the fence.   We brought it inside because the sun had set and it was beginning to get dark.  We figured that some predator would eventually kill it if we left it outside.  Jared bought a bird book a few summers ago so we referred to that and found out that it was a juvenile woodpecker. 
We put him in a box for the night and put some water in there.  He did fine although the cats were very curious to know what was in that box.  The next morning we released him and away he flew hopefully to his nest.   

Jared posing with the woodpecker

Close-up of the baby

It Still Fits!

Kristen and I were called to be Primary teachers for the 11 year old children.  Along with the calling, I was called to also be the 11 year old Scout leader. I pulled out my scout shirt I got when I was 12. It still fit...kind of. All of the buttons stayed on anyway. I enjoy scouts much more as I have grown older. Teaching the life skills that will bring these young scouts success in life is the most rewarding part.

Does this shirt make me look fat?