Chickens Have New Home

Last weekend we finally got the chicken coop finished and moved the chickens from their small brooder pen to their new home.   


The term "coop" refers to an enclosure that can be secured from predators where the chickens can roost (sleep).  In researching how to build one of these, we found there are about a million different kinds.   The link below gives you some idea of what I am talking about.


http://www.backyardchickens.com/a/large-chicken-coop-designs-pictures-of-chicken-coops

Then, there are chicken "tractors" that can be moved around.  The following link shows some of these.


http://www.backyardchickens.com/a/chicken-tractors-mobile-chicken-coop-designs

If you notice in these links, all the coops are connected to an outdoor area called the chicken "run".  The advantage of a chicken tractor is that it can be moved around from place to place,  thus, giving the chickens access to fresh grass from time to time.


At some time in the past, some previous owner built a metal shed attached to the south end of our garage.  The shed has a dirt floor and is enclosed by a fence where a horse or other animal may have been kept at one time.  At any rate, we decided we could close off one end of this shed and use it for a chicken coop.  Then we could make part of the fenced area into the chicken run.


Tom spent a lot of time and sweat equity on this project.  And, my job was to line the floor with some old paving stones we had laying around.  Talking about HARD work.  This entailed loading the pavers into the back of Tom's pickup, hauling them over to the shed, unloading and carrying them one-by-one into the coop where it was somewhat like putting a jigsaw puzzle together.


We put the chickens into a large dog crate for the move.  At first they were very hesitant about leaving the dog crate and entering their new home.

However, one of the little New Hampshire Red chickens showed her adventuresome spirit by being the first one out of the crate.

Notice that we enticed them out of the crate with fresh lettuce.  They have learned to love lettuce.  And, if the lettuce has a caterpillar or two on it, so much the better!  Yum!  Also, notice the metal water dispenser (behind Tom's legs) and the feed dispenser to the left of the lettuce.  It is difficult to see, but the feeder is suspended on a rope from one of the rafters.  It hangs a couple of inches off the floor.  This helps to keep the feed clean.  


One of the chickens refused to come out of the crate.  We finally had to take off the top of the crate before she decided it was a good idea to join the others.  But, soon enough they were exploring their new home and had torn and scratched the lettuce to pieces.

Notice there is a bar that is a couple of feet off the floor across the back of the coop.  That is the "roost" where the chickens sleep.  They can already fly a little bit, but Tom thought they might need some help getting up to the roost, so he leaned a piece of cattle panel against it to give them a "ladder".


Finally, notice my fine paving job on the floor.  Okay, so the coop is not built along square lines and there is a crack there between the wall and the pavers.  Life is not perfect!

Aerobic System Sprinklers

Last month I wrote about our aerobic septic system.  There seemed to be some interest in that so I wanted to show the sprinklers that I mentioned in action.  Normally, these are on a timer and go off around 2:00am.  However, if we use more water than normal, they will go off during the day.  This happens sometimes when we have company.  And, I was able to get pictures of one of them in action the other day. 

There is another sprinkler, like this one, farther out past the white building.  Between the 2 of them, they can dispose of a lot of water.   There is no smell what so ever in the water that comes out.  This is a result of the aerobic decomposition used and the fact that, after the water is processed by the aerobic bacteria in the waste chamber of the septic system, it flows over a basket that contains chlorine tablets into the holding tank where it waits until the sprinklers come on.  The chlorine tablets are specifically made for this purpose. 

How to Dry Herbs

You don't have to have a dehydrator to dry herbs.  I've stumbled onto a method you can use to dry them that requires no special equipment.  I discovered this quite by accident several years ago when I had a lot of basil I had harvested and planned to make pesto with.  Something came up and I didn't have time.  So, I ended up just laying it out on newspapers in our dining room.  Every time I passed by, I picked some of it up and turned it over.  After a week or so, I had some nicely dried basil that was better than I could buy in the store.


The following sequence of pictures shows how I used this method recently to dry Oregano.  First of all, here is what Oregano looks like growing in my herb garden.

I harvest it with scissors, cutting the stems about 3 to 4 inches long.  Here is a bunch I just harvested for the Farmers' Market.  I divide it out into sandwich bags for sale.  Then if I have any leftover, I dry it.

So, the first thing you do is strip the leaves off the stems, like this:

Strip off enough leaves to cover a paper towel one layer deep.  Cover the leaves with another paper towel and leave them out on your kitchen counter or somewhere that it will be convenient for you to "fluff" them every day.  By fluff, I mean to gently turn them over.  It needs to be done at least once a day and more often if you can manage it.  After 2 to 3 days, you will notice the leaves beginning to dry.  After about a week, they will be fairly dry, but not brittle.

At this point, you can put them in a plastic sandwich bag for storage or you can go ahead and grind them up.  You can crush them between your fingers or use a mortar and pestle.  However, I like to use a coffee grinder.  You probably would not want to use the same one you use to grind coffee, unless you want herb flavored coffee!  In our case, we have a coffee grinder we bought years ago, but never really used much for grinding coffee.  So, I commandeered it for grinding herbs instead.


I fill it full of dried leaves.  It doesn't hold much, so I have to process them in several batches.  

 Then, I put them in a plastic bottle that I saved from Oregano that I bought one time.

Ready to use for spaghetti, pizza or any other recipe that calls for Oregano.

And Now There Are Five

I have bad news to report.  A snake got in with our chickens and ate one of them!  I'm glad I did not find it or I would have freaked out.  Tom called me at work one morning this week and told me he had bad news and proceeded to tell me how he had gone out to check on the chicks and only saw five of them huddled together in one corner of the pen.  On the other side was a big black snake with an obvious lump in its middle.  


Now we have these chicks in a pen made of boards and chicken wire inside our detached garage.  Inside the pen is a circle of cardboard about 18 inches tall that keeps drafts from reaching the chicks.  Tom said the snake was able to crawl into the pen through the chicken wire, but was unable to crawl back out since it had grown considerably in diameter.  I asked him if he killed it and he said, yes, that he shot it.  Now I had visions of our garage having bullet holes in the walls.  But he got a rake, fished the snake out of the pen, threw it outside and shot it with our 410 shotgun.  Yes, we have a gun.  You don't live in the country without some sort of protection.  Although, I'm not at all sure I could figure out how to shoot it if I were faced with an intruder.


At any rate, the snake is dead, and I really hate to have had to kill it.  It was a non-poisonous snake and most likely had spent the winter in our garage eating mice and rats.  But, I'm not sure what other option we had.  It would surely have come back and got another of our chickens as soon as it got hungry again had Tom let it go.


The good news is that the remaining 5 chicks are growing like crazy.  We have started giving them lettuce and swiss chard from the garden and they love it.  Here they are eating some that I hung in their pen this afternoon.

When we first started giving them greens, we just laid them in the pen.  The chicks were very wary of them at first and it took them a day or two to learn they were good to eat.  However, now they get excited when they see you coming with greens.  Today, I decided to try hanging them on the side of the cardboard ring.  It was hilarious to watch them figure out how to best get at the greens.  They could stretch their necks and reach them until they had eaten them up about half way.  Then they had to "hop" in order to reach them.  Did you know chickens could hop?!!


Tom has been working on a place to put them when they are big enough to move out of this brooder pen.  At the rate they are growing, it won't be long.  Stay tuned.

The Drought is Officially Over

On January 14, I wrote about some of my thoughts on the drought that gripped Oklahoma for the most part of 2011.  At that time, the Oklahoma Climatological Survey showed our part of the state being in a severe drought area.  Since that time, our area has received some much needed rainfall and GLORY BE the same website now shows us as being drought free.


http://climate.ok.gov/index.php/climate/map/u.s._drought_monitor_oklahoma/oklahoma_south-central_u.s

I stopped by Eagle Heights Church and took a picture of the same tree in that post.

Notice the sewer line has disappeared below the water again.  Let's hope that it does not reappear for many years!

Novice Poultry Owners

That's right, everyone!  We now have chickens.   I've been buying eggs from a co-worker for several years now.   Her husband keeps a few chickens as a hobby and I've got to tell you that if you have never eaten a "home grown" egg, you don't know what you have been missing. 


I've been working on Tom for a couple of years to get some chickens.  He was staunchly against it at first, but I kept pecking away at him.  (No pun intended).  Then several weeks ago, he came in and announced that Atwood's had baby chicks and when did I want to go pick some out!  After I picked myself up of the floor, I stammered that perhaps we'd better do some reading about chickens first.  So, off to the library we went.


Some of the books we read were downright alarming regarding the number of different ailments and parasites chickens can get, not to mention them pecking each other as well as their owners.  So, now, I'm feeling a little worried about our ability to handle this new responsibility.  However, I have a good friend who has chickens and has been mentoring me in all aspects of being a responsible chicken owner.  I won't mention names here, but she reads this blog and will know who I am talking about. 


So, yesterday we went to Atwood's to pick out our chickens.  They must have had 20 different kinds.  We decided to forego the tiny chicks and get some that were a little bigger thinking they would have a better chance of survival in our novice hands.  After reading a pamphlet they had there in the store about the different kinds, we ended up getting 3 New Hampshire Reds and 3 Gold Sex Linked.


Here is what wikipedia says about "sex linked" chickens.  Apparently, they are not a real breed, but a cross.  And, you can tell the sex of the chicken by its color.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_link

New Hampshire Reds descended from Road Island Reds and were developed more for meat than for egg production.  But, apparently, they are still good egg layers and we really didn't have much choice if we wanted chickens that were a little older than the tiny ones.  


So, here's a picture of our little flock.

They are definitely cute.  But, they are very wary of us.  Maybe it has something to do with the fact that they each had a small metal band clamped to their wing when we got them and I had to hold each one of them still while Tom removed the band with a pair of pliers.  But, I think it is more instinctive, rather like baby quail will hold very still when they sense predators nearby.  At any rate, I think as they get older and learn that we bring good things, i.e. food and water, then they will be okay.

Sand Plums

Many people are disappointed when they buy a tree from Walmart or Lowe's  or one of the big box stores only to have it perish in the fickle Oklahoma climate.  Many times the trouble is not that the owner did not take care of it, but simply that the type of tree they bought is not well adapted for living in Oklahoma.

Well, I have good news for you.  The Oklahoma Department of Agriculture - Forestry Services Division has a wealth of information on trees that ARE adapted for Oklahoma.   They even offer these trees for sale at very reasonable prices!  Here is a link on their web site listing trees that are proven to do well in Oklahoma.

http://www.forestry.ok.gov/Websites/forestry/images/Species%20Descriptions%20V2.pdf

They also have "packages" you can order.  Last year, we ordered a "Wildlife" package.  It consisted of several different types of trees and shrubs that provide food and cover for birds and other wildlife.  There were several "Sand Plum" trees in the package.  Sand Plums are native to Oklahoma and are more like a shrub than a tree.  They have small fruit that are very tart, but that make excellent jelly.  I even found the following YouTube video of how to make Sand Plum jelly. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sMvZANmXSU

The first couple of minutes consist of some video of Sand Plums growing wild.  The wind is blowing, as it usually does in Oklahoma, during that part of the video and the sound is not very good.  But, if you can fast-forward past that part, then the part of making jelly is well done and informative.

Well, anyway, back to OUR Sand Plums.   We planted them in 2 rows between the front lawn and the garden area.  They should eventually form a dense hedge and hopefully will have fruit at least every other year or two.  This far north we may have trouble with late frosts killing the blossoms.  We'll just have to wait and see.  At any rate, these sand plums are in an area not easily watered.  I think Tom watered them once or twice during last summer's drought.  I was afraid they had all died.  So, I was delighted when I noticed almost all of them had survived and were leafing out. 

Here is a picture of them.

It is difficult to see them very well because they are the same color as the grass which is greening up too.  

I noticed several of them also have flowers.  The flowers are frilly little things.  I had trouble taking a picture of one, but after several tries, I succeeded and here it is.

Sand Plums are also called Chickasaw Plums.  They are drought resistant and flourish in sandy soil or heavy clay.  In southern Oklahoma around Chickasha where Tom grew up, they grow wild in thickets along the roadsides.  He remembers picking them and taking them home for his mother to make jelly with.  So, I made a deal with him.  If he will pick them, I will make jelly with them.  I think I've got the best part of this bargain.  Sand Plum bushes/trees have many short stiff twigs that often end in a spine, so they are a literally pain to pick.