I’ve been waiting for this. We just got a double yolk egg, which is classic for a newly laying chicken. This happens when two yolks are released into the hen’s ovary at the same time and one shell develops around them. We haven’t checked inside yet, but I was told you would know you have one when you get an oblong egg.
After saving up enough eggs to amount to a decent breakfast, we scrambled them. They tasted great! We’re up to about 8 eggs total at this point.
In the evening on August 22, 2014, approximately 17 weeks from when we received our baby chicks, Drew ran into the house and proudly displayed their first egg. Hooray! We were a little nervous about their egg laying capacity, so I am very happy to report this news. We think we know which chicken it is, as there is one with a much larger comb than the others. We will be patiently awaiting more!
One thing I’ve been loving is making my own chicken broth. It is practically free because we would have bought chicken to eat anyways. I finally found a place that has free range chicken. It’s called A Place on Earth CSA in Henry County and they said they process their chickens in June. I ordered 5 chickens just to try it out and I made our first roast chicken last night.
I took all the drippings from the roasting pan and the leftover bones and bits, threw it in the crock pot last night, and filled it with water. This morning I woke to chicken broth.
I ended up with 10 cups of broth which I freeze in glass jars that I’ve collected from tomato sauce, apple sauce, sauerkraut, etc. Super easy and super free.
They’re getting big! We got them on April 17th when they were just a day or two old. That means they are about 2 months and 2 weeks old. I read that chickens start laying eggs between their 16th and 24th week.
Drew and his dad got to building a chicken ark right away. One that, they joke, is strong enough to keep a gorilla from escaping. They had already built two raised beds and we had filled those with horse manure from his mom’s horses this past fall. We were ready to go! Well…turns out dogs like to run around in raised beds, so on a following weekend we built a fence that is also much too strong for the original purpose.
Chicken Ark Construction
As far as planting, we followed the back of seed packets and this UK Ag. pdf to help us determine when to plant, transplant, and harvest. For the cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers we started them inside under a grow light. Onions and lettuce were sown straight into the raised bed. The thing I struggle with most is how much to water. When I figure it out I’ll let you know. I thought I for sure killed our tomato and cucumber plants when I didn’t water them for one day, but almost immediately after
The fence
watering them vigorously they started to raise back up, just as strong as before. Lesson 1: plants are not as fragile as I previously thought.
One Saturday in mid-April we picked up the Corgi puppy we had been waiting for, Willis. It just so happens that in that same week one of my co-workers had a large shipment of baby chicks coming in, five of which he did not need. They were Barred Plymouth Rocks, which is the variety we had wanted all along. We knew our time would be taken up by a new puppy, but we also couldn’t miss out on free chicks. That Thursday, my co-worker gave me the box, along with an extra thrown in, a Gold Laced Wyandotte. Hello six chickens!
That was almost the end of my entry until I remembered how nervous I was when we first got the chickens. I had so many questions and thought for sure they would die. It has actually been the easiest backyard project so far. During the first 2-3 weeks we kept them up stairs in our loft in a plastic storage tub with pine chips on the bottom and paper towels on top of that. We had little chick food and water dispensers that we cleaned and filled twice a day. We also changed the paper towels once a day. We hung a lamp from the ceiling and put in a heat bulb. Each week we raised the lamp a few inches.
Chick set up in loft
The first week of their life they should be kept at 95 degrees and then you decrease the heat by 5 degrees each subsequent week. Once they started ripping the paper towels to shreds we stopped putting those in. At some point they started jumping, so we put a screen from a window on top of the tub so they couldn’t escape. After 2-3 weeks we moved them, with their heat lamp, out to our shed. Once they had feathers and the temperature outside didn’t dip too low (around 65 degrees and 4-5 weeks of age) we moved them to their ark. If it was going to be a cold night we hooked up an extension cord to the heat lamp and put it out in their ark. At first we forced them to stay in the enclosed portion of their pen. After a few days, we moved the grate and let the roam around. Now it is just a matter of checking their water and food each day and moving the ark once a week. We are hoping to have eggs in August or September.
Really, easiest thing ever!
I dream of being surrounded by rows and rows of vegetables, all grown by me, that will feed my family all year long. I guess I’ll have to start with what I can manage in our quarter acre yard. I’m always disappointed when I read books or blogs of people saying they are a beginner gardener and then I later find out they come from a long line of farmers and it really isn’t their first rodeo. So I’m a bit of a skeptic when I see that claim and I never know who to believe. However, I do know that I really am a beginner in the green thumb arena and I want to document my journey into this unknown realm of seeds and pods.
I’m not exactly sure where this back-to-the earth desire came from, but I think it partially stems from the year my husband and I spent in Japan and a peak into a different way of living. It made me want to have less, but experience more. Specifically, to create something or bring something new into existence. Ever since then, we’ve been dying to have a yard that we can bring to life.
To begin, I’m going to have to backtrack a bit because it’s already the end of June and I’m just now collecting my gardening thoughts. But I’ll start at the beginning and bring things up to date.
Here we go…
