Happy Spring!

It was a busy weekend at our house.  We spent the entire weekend on the chicken coop.  First we had to level the area where the coop will be.  This area of our yard is very uneven and this ended up taking a lot longer than we had anticipated.

By the end of the day, we had the support corners level and all four walls assembled. 

We called it a day after that and headed in for some St. Patrick's Day fun.

My son and his girlfriend.

We had a huge downpour during the night, so on Sunday we spent even more time leveling the four corner supports.  We pretty much had to start over. Even with all the frustration, we considered it a successful weekend and are looking forward to next weekend when we will be starting on the roof.

Chicken Update

We have had the Silkie chicks for a week now.  They have noticably grown and are a lot more active now.  If they are not sleeping, they are eating and they move about the full length of their brooder.  They are also considerably messy.  They have started to make huge messes with their water.  I'm not sure how they are doing this, but a large area around their waterer will be soaked at times.

I completely cleaned their brooder today and gave them fresh cedar shavings.  While I had them out, I took a few pictures.  This was kind of tricky since I had them on my dining room table and they are more active now.  With the help of my youngest son, we were able to keep them corralled in the center.







My Blue Silkie is a week older than the other two.  His wing feathers

are a little longer than before and he has a tuft of fuzz on his posterior.

The two Splash are now getting their wing feathers in.



This little one was falling asleep before we finished.

Backyard Homesteading

This year I am venturing into backyard homesteading. Raising chickens is part of this venture.  I am also adding a couple raised beds for vegetable gardening this year. We've all heard the stories about "pink slime" and "meat glue."  This and other food news really got me thinking about what is in the foods that I eat.  The short version is a lot of sugar, sodium, and chemicals.  I decided to make an effort to eat more naturally made products with fewer ingredients.  Food self-sufficiency is one step towards this goal.

The Backyard Homestead suggests considering the types of food we eat most.  Salsa was the first thing that came to mind.  We go through an unusually large amount of salsa in our house.  I eat a lot of salad.  I added spaghetti sauces to my list, since the same vegetables are used as in the salsa.  My final vegetable list included tomatoes, hot peppers, sweet peppers, onions, garlic, several varieties of lettuce and various herbs.  For fun, I added a few tea herbs.  This is where I started, with the idea that I would expand a little each year.

So on Tuesday, my husband woke up with a migraine and didn't go to work.  By afternoon, he was feeling much better and I put him to work building the raised beds. And yes, I did help.  :)  Things didn't go as smoothly as we had planned, but then most projects don't.  We did get all the wood cut and the bed partially assembled before we had to quit for the day.  We plan to finish the first bed tonight.

Chicken Momma

I brought my first chicks home on Monday afternoon.  We loaded up the whole family, dogs included, for the two hour drive to Bloomington, IL for Silkie chicks.  I had already ordered my laying hens online from chickensforbackyards.com, but was undecided on the Silkies at that point.  After more thought and a trip to Niabi Zoo where I spotted a Silkie in their aviary, I knew I wanted a couple for my flock.

A quick search on Craigslist connected me with Diane Weer who raises show quality birds, including Silkies.  We boxed up two splash, which are grey, and one blue chick.  I was concerned with keeping the chicks warm on the long drive home, so we cycled the heat on and off all the way home.  It was in the 70's on Monday and extremely warm in the van at times.

The chicks arrived safely and we settled them into their new home.  I made sure they all took a drink of water and showed them their food.  They nibbled a bit, explored their new space, then fell asleep.



All evening, I never saw the chicks drink again on their own so I was a little concerned.  The next morning I checked on them first thing.  They all got up and walked over to their water and drank, then headed to the food bowl to eat.  No need to worry.  They were adjusting just fine.

One of our cats, Puck, spends a lot of time downstairs with the chicks.  We're not sure what to make of this.  He likes to sleep on a dog bed that is laying next to the brooder.  When we take the lid off, sometimes he'll poke his head over the top, then lays back down.  Hmm...