Sunshine, Daisies and Little Black Silkies

Today's forecast, wet, droopy daisies and no sunshine but we'll take it, we're desperate for rain. Our part of the state is in a moderate drought.  Seeing these waterlogged flowers got me thinking about sunshine and daisies. Of course it would be great if life were always sunshine and daisies but that's not how it works.

In Farming and Homesteading (just like in life) there are great days and awful days but most are somewhere in the middle, a daisy of a different color perhaps or a partly sunny day. When you're dealing with lots of living things; pets, farm animals, vegetable plants, fruit trees and bushes there are so many things that can go wrong. This year our vegetable gardens are mostly doing great. That is despite the fact that we were without running water for 16 days and it barely rained for weeks and weeks. A few young crops died but most parts of our gardens thrived. The lack of rain seems to have affected some fruit bushes the most and we haven't had a great blueberry crop this year. The fruit trees though have had a pretty good season so far in regards to weather anyway although one dwarf fruit tree that we've had for several years just up and died.

Dead Plum Tree with its own kind of "daisies".

The weather affects our plants and animals but there are other factors too, another things that affects our plants and animals is wildlife. Something, most likely deer or moose, ate the top of a small apple tree and most of the not yet ripe fruit on that tree. That apple tree probably wasn't a great choice for us since it's a very short tree. We bought it on sale only to realise a couple years later that it's a columnar apple tree meant to stay short and skinny, best for urban areas where it's hard to have a fruit tree. Oopsy Daisy! Probably we'll have to move that little tree close to the house... if it survives being partially eaten!

Top eaten right off apple tree

I've also noticed some greens being eaten down in the lower garden, I don't know yet if they're insect or four legged critter eaten. At least whatever is doing the eating is sticking to a few select areas in the garden.

As for the animals we've had times of no issues and smooth sunshine and daisies days and weeks and even months but just lately we've had a few issues in a row. A bear tore out a window screen in the chicken coop but thankfully got no birds, we've reinforced the window and added more electric fencing. We've had not one but two hens who became egg bound. First an Easter Egger hen for whom I was able to quickly resolve the stuck egg issue. She just needed an epsom salt bath and the egg soon came along. A couple weeks later a NH Red hen was more egg bound and the epsom salt bath and some massage didn't help the egg move along. I had the hen in the bathtub while running back and forth to my laptop to look up what to do next. Crushed up Tums, (she liked the yellow ones best), vaseline around and into the vent, (ummm good thing I have a pack of those clear disposable gloves!), Rest in a quiet, dark area (Put a cage in the bathroom with the light off and set her up there). It took a few hours but eventually I heard the egg laying song and Miss New Hampshire was able to be returned to the coop for bedtime.

Sometimes the animals bring on their own problems. We have at times been able to let our rabbits have limited free range in the large fenced farm yard. That is until they learned how to dig great deep holes into the adjoining dogs large fenced yard. That was a trying 24 hours trying to catch them and return them to their own area. They had created an entire underground tunnel system overnight and I had to eventually let the dogs out into their own yard for a potty break, the dogs scared the rabbits enough to flush them out and back into their own area otherwise I might never have found them. If they dug past one more fence they would have had freedom...and one of our vegetable gardens!

Sometimes the problems are easy to solve and sometime not. This past spring we had a Crested Cream Legbar hen break her neck or spine and she had to be put down. She was a real flighty one and came down hard from high in a tree. More recently our only White Leghorn hen died for reasons unknown, she had only just laid her first egg in the days before. Then there are the little black silkies that were supposed to be Marans Pullets. Well one of those silkies is almost certainly a boy and the other has a hurt leg/foot. The little limping silkie has to be in the house to rest and heal for the most part though I return her/him to the pile of buddies each night since little silkie likes her little group of friends. The Little Black Silkies are endearing but they're not the Marans females we ordered, one is a little rooster and one is extra work.

Silkie Soakin' Sore Leg.

These are the issues involving plants and animals that I can recall from the past 6 months or so, it seems like a lot but we have a lot of vegetable plants, fruit trees and bushes and animals thus we have to expect times that aren't sunshine and daisies. When people say that they would love to get into this lifestyle I try pretty hard to not make it all sound sunshine and daisies because realistic expectations are better. If you don't think you can give a chicken a bath, put awkward netting over vulnerable plants, deal with losses, make time for sick or sore little (or big) animals, pick caterpillars off your vegetables, muck out coops and cages, set up, fix, move or upgrade fences and always know there will be a next thing to deal with then you probably won't be happy farming or homesteading.

Baby chicks are fun, fresh tomatoes are tasty, new animals are interesting, The first fruit of the season off your own tree is delectable and new infrastructure exciting but they come hand in hand with many issues and situations that will not be as fun and delicious.

Some days you get sunshine, some days you get daisies, some days you get neither and some days you get sunshine, daisies and little black silkies.

Snow White and Her Three Chicks, Details About 3 Chicks from 10 Eggs

Snow White, our white cochin hen is doing a great job as a mama hen. She's teaching her chicks how to do all the things they need to do. Although Snow White is a great mama hen, and a bonus that she lets us interact with the chicks, she was not the most attentive broody to the eggs. She often would be found with one of more eggs beside her rather than under. Cochins are very large hens and 10 eggs would be no problem for them to cover but she was not so good at juggling those 10 eggs into position! This is probably why she ended up with just 3 chicks from 6 fertile eggs. We started Snow White with the 10 eggs knowing that our fertility among the large fowl hens was around 50%. At the mid- way candle of the eggs I was able to remove 3 eggs that were definitely non fertile, no chick had started to develop. I had 5 eggs left that I felt were likely to have growing chicks and 2 eggs that were too dark to know for sure at that stage though I felt those were not likely developing chicks. Eventually I was able to remove one more egg as non fertile. Snow White then had 6 eggs and 3 chicks hatched and they hatched quite early on days 18 and 19. She sat a little longer but eventually abandoned the nest. The remaining eggs were cold the morning I found that she'd abandoned them but I felt I should check them very carefully and possibly set up the incubator if we were just going to have late arrivals. First I listened carefully to each egg. With chicks at term you will be able to hear tapping and/or cheeping. The eggs were silent. Then I tried very careful candling. I felt that 1 egg was nothing and 2 might be quitters. In other words chicks that started to develop but never made it to hatch day. My next step was to open the not good egg carefully and discard, it was a bit rotten but not too bad. Then I turned my attention to the possible quitters. I learned from the site backyard chickens that you can start to open an overdue egg without harming the chick. It's a long process and you must be very careful. If anyone needs this info I would say go to the backyard chickens website and forums. In short I made a tiny hole into the air sac without piercing the inner membrane. Still I heard and saw nothing so I proceed carefully through the steps I had read about. Neither egg needed rescuing though as they were indeed quitters that never finished their development. I would say this is very likely due to Snow White and her propensity to leave an egg or two out to the side or falling out the back or even right in front of her. In the end we're very happy with the three little chicks and I'm glad that I made the decision to set the 10 eggs under Snow White. With the fertility issue (we have a lot of large fowl hens to one large fowl Roo at the moment) and Snow White not always paying attention to what was under her we may not have gotten any chicks if I set less. I was slightly worried that all 10 might hatch and that would be too many for right now but in the end my instincts were right to set 10 in hopes for at least 2 but no more than 5 or 6 chicks.

And here is the happy little chicken family! Snow White is their Mama Hen but they came from eggs that were laid by two Cream Legbars and one Easter Egger. The daddy is Mo our Silver Spangled Appenzeller Spitzhauben. Looking forward to seeing how the chicks feather out.

Mo sees his chicks, I think he approves.

Garden Update

Considering that our gardens weren't able to be watered for 16 days, we got scant rain in that time and it's been a heatwave kinda summer so far...they're doing amazing! Yes we had some crops die and some that were planted soon before the well  problem never took off but a lot of the garden produce coped with no water quite well. It was very hard to see the gardens getting drier and drier and I don't know they could have taken much more. Today we have the well water back and I gave things a good watering. Tomorrow some rain is in the forecast I think the gardens have had a good save there, water just in time.

Harvest totals so far:
Strawberries- 6 pounds, eaten fresh and made into jams.
Rhubarb- 5 plus pounds made into pies.
Kale- several good bunches used in stir fry and soup etc. Some also given to lizards, rabbits and poultry.
Collards- a couple big bunches used in cooking and fed to bearded dragons, rabbits, birds.
Cherries- About 3 pounds mostly eaten fresh.
Blueberries, About 2 pounds so far eaten fresh and some planned for pancakes.
Tomatoes-1 whopper eaten fresh

Snow White Is Now A Mama Hen!

Snow White, our broody cochin sitting on eggs is officially a Mama! Her "due date" day 21 is not until Wednesday but her chicks must have been in a rush.One little chick hatched on day 18 and two more in the night between day 18 and day 19.  These are not bantams, those do typically come a little early but it has been hot, hot, hot with many days in the mid 90's. I've a feeling the heat sped up their development. Snow White has three more eggs under her. I'm not sure that anything will come of those but we'll just have to wait and see. If they go past day 21 I'll give them a good look, listen etc and then decide what to do next. If Snow White decides not to sit anymore  before then I'll investigate and decide if the incubator has to be brought out. For now we're enjoying the three little chicks. They are Mo the rooster (Silver Spangled Appenzeller Spitzenhauben) crossed with cream legbars- 2 eggs and Easter Egger-1 egg. There's another EE egg still under Snow White as well as a couple brown eggs from random hens, one might be the Turken but I'm not sure they will hatch.