Maple season 2020 a slow start

I had grand plans to be boiling down maple sap during winter break from the school but there's no sap to boil down! Or not enough anyway. The weather looked hopeful a couple weeks back and I started tapping trees but the weather has not been right most days. We've had some warm ups but not enough and the temperatures have plunged right back down to well below freezing again. I have 9 taps in the trees but only gathered about 8 gallons of sap so far and that was all from 2 decent days. the other days the sap hasn't been running at all and everything is frozen. I hope it will just be a late season not a short season, we will see. So much depends on the weather with various homesteading things.

 KitKat helps me to get the maple trees tapped.

Some of the maple trees we tap are in the fenced farmyard, the chickens and ducks are interested. 

 The chickens line up to watch from afar as they don't want to walk on the snow.

 The ducks don't mind the snow and get up close for the best view of the interesting proceedings. 

The maple trees have been tapped for a couple weeks now but only a bucket and a half to show for it, maybe 8 gallons of sap so far. We won't start boiling until we have several more buckets filled and sap flowing regularly. 

Maple syrup and candy will have to wait. 

The birds enjoy soaked feed, even in winter.

Having kept chickens for quite awhile now I'm convinced of the benefits to be had by soaking their feed. Soaking chicken feed in winter can be more challenging so I would tend to give the feed dry in winter. One time a couple years back Hayley said to me: why aren't you giving them wet feed, they really like it. This led me to consider if wet feed could be given even in the colder months. Now I give wet feed as long as it's not too far below freezing or if the day starts below freezing but the temperatures are expected to rise above freezing later in the day.  The chickens and ducks eat quite a lot of the wet feed right away when it's given. Then if some does freeze up it will defrost again as the temperatures rise. If a day starts at 0 F and doesn't look to get over 32F by noontime then I'll usually do mostly dry feed. Just a smaller amount of wet for the birds to have right away.

I'm talking about soaked feed not fermented feed. While I ferment some of their grains in summer, (letting the food soak for 3 days stirring a few times a day) I don't want to deal with that in winter. Also our house is not always very warm so the fermenting process may not even begin.

Here is what I do to soak the poultry feed. First thing in the morning I fill a large bucket with warm water, usually some nutritional yeast powder (needed for the ducks and fine for the chickens) and a couple big cans of layer pellets. I will sometimes add in a scoop of scratch or mixed grains or oats as well. I stir it all up and leave this while I get other animals chores done and water container filled to bring out, since the hose doesn't work in winter. It doesn't take long for the feed to soak up all the warm water. Once ready I bring the soaked feed out to the birds putting a few good scoops into each of several bowls we have spread around their area. Then I open up the coop, chickens and ducks race to their food bowls and enjoy their warm, soaked breakfast.

Our birds do very well on soaked feed, it's more easily digested and they seem to enjoy it a lot more than dried pellets. This is a small thing which doesn't take very long to do each morning.

On a related note we start our birds out from the beginning with soaked feed. For baby chicks some wet chick starter in a small bowl in their brooder is always enjoyed and seems to help any chicks that might be struggling.

Chickens and ducks of all ages enjoy and do well on soaked feed here so the little extra time it takes to prepare is well worth it.

If there is one downside to this method of feeding it might be that some flock members are not very tidy eaters (Dipsy the Frizzle!!) thus leading their sister (Po) to get a little angry :-D.

PO SAYS: STOP THAT MESS MAKING NOW DIPSY!