So... you getting ready for your garden this summer? Anyone doing anything new or different? Don't care about gardening? What do you think?
I really wanted to start some cool heirloom tomatoes from seeds, but last time I tried starting seeds they didn't do so well. Too weak. The weather turned cold right when I wanted to harden them off. I don't have the special bulbs to put right next to them...
Anyway, last year we basically had tomatoes and beans. This year, I want MORE!
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Life is tough but it's tougher if you're stupid. -John Wayne
I've been waiting for 3 weeks to get things going, but it's just too muddy here. It keeps raining, which is good, because we definitely need the water. But I can't get anything done! I did plant 2 apple trees a couple of weeks ago, but I'm not sure how they'll do.
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"There is order in the way the Lord reveals His will to mankind. . .we cannot receive revelation for someone else's stewardship." L. Tom Perry
Planted 4 fruit trees last fall. hopefully I didn't kill the mini nectarine off this spring. Otherwise we bought a compostumbler last month in the hopes of making compost for something akin to square foot gardening, but I'm going to start slow, like with raspberries or something like that.
We have five tomato plants that have little green tomatoes on them. Corn and peas are up. Squash and cucumbers are up and getting bigger.
We should have our chicken coop and run finished soon and we get our chicks in a few weeks.
We should be getting eggs daily by Christmas.
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no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing... the truth of God will go forth till it has penetrated every website, sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished and the great Jehovah shall say the work is done
Peas should be put in the ground before the last frost anyway, so you might think about starting those already.
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If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen! - Samuel Adams
Arbi, dude, last average frost date in my neck of the woods is May 23.
Up here the May long weekend is traditionally when people put stuff in the ground - although we'll sometimes cross our fingers if it's been an early Spring, and start planting the frost-hardy stuff like peas near the end of April.
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They might not look it, but bunnies can really take care of themselves.
Yeah, most breeds start laying at 20-22 weeks (5 months) old. Some earlier.
I ordered my chicks yesterday, but they won't come until the end of April at the soonest. :( Gives me more time to get ready for them, though, and the weather will be better too. Kids are excited to finally have chickens again.
Time to buy another extension cord.... What do they need, 12 hours of light a day?
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no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing... the truth of God will go forth till it has penetrated every website, sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished and the great Jehovah shall say the work is done
Yeah, 12-14 total I'd guess... isn't that what you get in the summer? So give 'em an extra 5 hours in the evening or something. You can kinda mess with the young hens' light - shoot em some extra long days once in a while and you'll get more double-yokers. Those are awesome.
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Life is tough but it's tougher if you're stupid. -John Wayne
Don't give them extra light until they start laying. Developing pullets will come into production too early with extra light, and if their bodies aren't fully developed they can have problems. Just let nature do its thing, and then when daylight hours begin to shorten in the fall (late september), put a light bulb on a timer to come on in the morning early enough to ensure they get 12-14 hours of light. I don't like to have it at the end of the day, because then the light suddenly shuts off and they can't see to get on the roost. Living as far south as you do, you won't need to supplement as much light as we do up here in the arctic north...
Well yeah... duh. You don't give them light until it starts getting darker.
Can you actually cause hens to lay too early with more light? I didn't think that was possible.
They don't need to see to get on the roost. They just stop exactly where they are, mid-step, like a Foghorn Leghorn cartoon, and then carry on the next morning when the sun comes up.
Oh, and if one of your hens takes to perching on something and hollering this death-cry thing, you've got one of the 2% that are actually roosters.
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Life is tough but it's tougher if you're stupid. -John Wayne
Oh, and if one of your hens takes to perching on something and hollering this death-cry thing, you've got one of the 2% that are actually roosters.
No, I've got dinner.
I read that birds that mature when days are growing longer lay earlier than ones that mature during decreasing day length. Beginning to lay eggs to early can result in prolapse and other nasty problems that ruin production.
So just buy yer chicks in the spring like nature intended, let them start laying eggs naturally in the fall, then supplement with light as the days fall below 12 hours. It's all good.
So... if nature continues its course... those eggs laid in the fall would be next year's chicks... born about 21 days after they are sat on... and the chicks mature during the winter... Okay. Then, if your hen's as baby hungry as our blonde one, she's laying on eggs again just as soon as the little ones are up and about. So... we've got chicks pretty much getting hatched year-round, unless we gather them.
Yeah, definitely time for humans to intervene. Look at the mess otherwise.
-- Edited by Cocobeem at 13:10, 2008-04-01
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Life is tough but it's tougher if you're stupid. -John Wayne
If you buy Aracuanas, it's really hard for them to determine the chick's sex. I paid for all females but one of them turned out to be a rooster anyway.
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If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen! - Samuel Adams
I learned how they sex chicks by watching "Dirty Jobs" on Discovery Channel. People sit on a stool in front of a big crate of chicks. They pick one up in each hand, and squeeze it until the reproductive organs protrude enough to identify the sex, then place them in the appropriate bin. They do it as quickly as possible, so of course it isn't 100% accurate, except for the sex-link chicks. On the website for the hatchery I bought my chicks from, they have a disclaimer that they guarantee only 90% accuracy in sexing, so if you get more than 10% males in a pullet order of 25 or greater, they will refund the difference in price between pullet and male. So, when buying pullets of regular breeds, it might be prudent to buy an extra chick or two to be sure you end up with the desired number of hens.
Or you can just buy Golden Comets - females are yellow and males are white at hatching. I had four of those beauties, and I got four eggs a day 3 days out of four during peak season. It was sweet!
True, sexing chicks is difficult with any breed - it's just especially difficult with Araucanas
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If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen! - Samuel Adams
Okay, I thought they were sexed still in the egg. I mean, we're buying day-old chicks here, aren't we? Don't they shine some light into the egg and see ... something?
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Life is tough but it's tougher if you're stupid. -John Wayne
Yeah, Coco, I'm sure I saw something on Discovery channel where they were sexing chicks that way! Though I seem to remember that's hard to do; maybe there's not enough people who are good enough to do it that way?
Har har beefie. I'll have to find a cow story somewhere. Just for you. 'Cuz I Luuuuuv you so much.
The "dirty" part about the job of sexing chicks is that when squeezed, well, they poop. And the guys were joking about how when people ask them what they do for a living, they reply, "I squeeze the crap out of chicks".
When people who know me find out I'm getting 25 chicks in just a few weeks, they just laugh and wonder how long they'll last. I guess they don't know me very well. Cept we are going to have to have BIL come down from SLC to do some wiring so that I can get hens to lay in the winter.
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no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing... the truth of God will go forth till it has penetrated every website, sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished and the great Jehovah shall say the work is done
TWENTY FIVE HENS? Are you going into the egg business or something? Even if they only lay at a rate of 66%, that's 16 eggs PER DAY. Yikes man. I guess you guys like eggs. Or are some of them for meat?
Bok, I don't know the reason why Araucanas are harder to sex, but I have heard from several people that is so. Hardly conclusive proof, I know. But of the chicks I bought, none of the barred rocks turned out to be cockerels. We may get rid of the Black Cochin rooster and keep the Araucana rooster. He's a more energetic crower, and we can only keep one. We don't want cock fights in our back yard.
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If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen! - Samuel Adams
BTW, we have 25 hens, and now that they're starting to lay we'll be giving away a lot of eggs. Either that or feeding them to the cats.
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If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen! - Samuel Adams
Wow. 25 is a lot! We started out with two hens... and one was a rooster. Too bad my odds aren't that good with the lottery. Not... that I ever play that evil game, of course. They were Rhode Island Reds. Guess he had a little doodle.
I squeeze the crap out of chicks???
Maybe bok can find something about preg-checking cows... see Pioneer Woman's blog or something.
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Life is tough but it's tougher if you're stupid. -John Wayne
I have a hen and a rooster like this. They are Black Cochins. The rooster may be destined for the stewpot because he's not masculine enough.
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If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen! - Samuel Adams
Otherwise we bought a compostumbler last month in the hopes of making compost for something akin to square foot gardening, but I'm going to start slow, like with raspberries or something like that.
