Looking Back
Another retrospective post, this one from 3/11/2013
And I am exhausted.
Thursday Al and I took the truck off island to the Dodge dealer. After having the shocks and brakes replaced by our local mechanic, we are still having issues with a bad shimmy when the brakes are applied. Turns out the tie rod ends are going. Fortunately it is covered under the extended warranty, so is replacing the stereo which has a bad audio input jack. Otherwise we would be looking at over a thousand dollar bill.
Did a little shopping, window mostly cause the prices were too high. Need a flexible drain hose for the drain system I am designing, rain gutters for the coops to drain into the rain barrels, and a wide diameter pvc pipe to make the worm composter. Decided I will have to put on my creative thinking cap and see what I can substitute for these things.
Friday did my usual chores, cleaned coops, fed and watered the 70 chickens, two tukeys, two geese, three rabbits, four dogs and three cats. And watered all the seeds I planted the previous week.
In the afternoon, I went through my recipes and tried my hand at pickling -- two jars of boiled eggs in pickled beet juice and two jars of "refrigerator pickles" (cucumbers in pickling spices.) Can hardly wait to try them.
Also started my next jar of extract, orange this time to go with the vanilla bean I started about two weeks ago. Still trying to find dark colored glass bottles to store them in when done. I know I found them online a few months ago, but can't find the page in my favorites. That's another to do for the list, organize my records on the computer.
My last food adventure for the day was to try a recipe for flavored coffee creamer. That I will count as a failure. It cost as much as prepared creamer and because I was using store bought ingredients I wasn't in control of, or even really knowledgeable about, what was in them. And the flavor was sorely lacking. Chalk it up to a lesson learned and move on. lol
That same day, Alyce, having cleaned and disinfected the incubator, loaded it up again with goose eggs. After our last spectacular failure, we did some more research and checked with our mentor, April. We learned we had the temperature too low last time and that the turkeys and geese require different temps and humidities -- how did we miss that? We had a lot of trouble with keeping the humidity constant, so Al taped up all the factory created holes and ran the incubator for three days and it now seems to be working fine.
We are running the 'bator only partly full as Zoe (our Australian herding dog) got curious and pulled the tray of eggs off the counter and broke several of the eggs. I am just not used to having a dog tall enough to reach the counter top.
Saturday my sister, nephew and I attended the chicken workshop at the lumber/feed store. It was geared for people thinking about or just starting to raise chickens, but we still picked up new info too, like a lot of things I have been doing wrong. Back to the drawing board...lol
I was surprised to hear my name called during the raffle. I got a nice brooder set up. As we were walking away, my sister's name was called and she got a large bucket full of starter equipment: waterer, feeder, two bags of feed, a book on raising chickens, heat lamp. All in all, a very nice haul.
The downside of the morning was learning the feed we have been using contains GMO grains. So I am going to be spending some serious time online to find a supplier of non-GMO feed or grains so I can make my own feed.
The afternoon was spent getting some work done in the garden and the run. One nephew and his nephews turned soil for garden beds and dug holes for the roses and cherry tree. The other nephew built some very special raised bed frames. My sister and I planted the roses and tree, and checked up on the irises she helped me plant a few weeks ago (they are budding --Yea!)
On Sunday it was my turn to travel. I took the ferry over to Port Orchard and went with my sister to a seminar on vegetable gardening. Picked up a lot of good info, learned some mistakes I have been making and then bought some trees. Got a 4 in 1 cherry tree and a 5 in 1 plum tree. These should start bearing fruit in about three years. I hope to get a few more varieties of fruit trees planted this spring.
This morning, it was off island again, this time to buy ink for the printer. Nobody on the island carries it and the only store that will special order it charges $40.00 for a $28.00 cartridge. We found the cartridge we needed for a reasonable price, but when we got it home and installed, we got an error message that the printer is low on ink. WTF. I am so sick of stores that put returned or defective items back on the shelf. It will cost more in ferry fees and gas to return the item than the item cost. I guess we will just have to bite the bullet and pay the local office store to do our printing for us.
While we were out, I checked in a few stores for rennet and citric acid to make cheese, but none of them carried it. Since I can buy it online, I didn't want to waste too much time or gas driving to any stores that weren't on our way back to the ferry.
With all the time sitting in cars and boats, my ankles are swollen and sore. I'm hobbling around like...well kind of like my chickens. But I am on a mission to get things done, so when we got home (after a quick nap) I headed out to the run. Remember those special raised bed frames my nephew made? Well here is the plan.
I am going to plant the seeds I bought from Grow Organic -- red clover, rye, alfalfa and several other grasses and grains chicken find tempting -- in these 4 x 4 frames right in the run. The trick is, I put chicken wire over the top of the frames so the birds will only be able to eat what grows up out of the wire and what little bit they can reach through the wire. I am hoping this will keep the birds from eating right down to the root so the plants can continue to grow throughout the summer.
Somewhere in all this time, though I can't rightly remember when, I made a trip to the local lumber store and found the wide diameter PVC pipe I needed at a price I could afford and inexpensive vinyl rain gutters (10ft for 7.99 vs the hard plastic with plastic grating on top 3 ft for 35.00.) So this week I will be making and installing worm composters and rain gutters.
Also this weekend, and again I don't know when, Alyce put pipe cleaners on a chick's legs. The condition I described in a previous post that we thought was caused by a stroke is known as Straddle or Splayed Leg. It can be caused by injury, overcrowding in the brooder or neurological problems. It is common in chicks that have a difficult hatching (Splitz was stuck to the membrane and had to be helped out of the shell.) The accepted treatment is to loosely wrap a length of pipe cleaner around each of the bird's legs, then join them with another piece (looks like he has little handcuffs on.) This pulls the legs back into the correct position and "retrains" the brain and muscles.
We didn't have any pipe cleaners, so I put little Splitz's legs in position and then wrapped fabric around him to hold them in place. He wasn't able to move, so I had to hand feed and water him using a syringe. He really didn't look to be in pain or uncomfortable, but he made me think of how the Chinese used to bind women's feet to keep them small and dainty.
After a few hours, we took the bindings off and China Splitz (as he is now known) was able to stand and keep his feet under him. Within a few hours though, one leg was starting to extend back again. So when I saw pipe cleaners during one of the shopping trips, I grabbed them. And at some point, Alyce fashioned his mini-manacles and put them on him. We have also been massaging his leg and bending/extending the joints, which seems to help as the leg is very stiff at first but by the end of chicken PT it moves quite easily. Today he was, albeit very clumsily, walking around the cage. He still relies on his wings for balance, but this is the most mobile I have ever seen him. Send him prayers and good thoughts for a full recovery please.
An update on the other chick with this same condition. Little Tuck (short for Tuxedo due to his unique penquin-like markings) is walking just fine, but is only about half the size of the other chicks he hatched with. Also, he is very timid and gets picked on by the others so after two days outside with the other birds, I had to bring him back inside with the babies. I expect he will be one of my special chicks and we will love him for whatever time he is with us. I know many would just cull Tuck and CS and move on, but I can't bring myself to do that. As long as they are not in pain, I will make them comfortable and keep them as pets.
Updates:
Sorry to say, the cheese making was a flop and the fruit trees never rooted. The in-run raised and covered beds were a success, I even made another one and grew radishes in it (the birds ate the greens and I got the root veggie.) But then we got goats and they destroyed the boxes. I will make more, stronger ones in the future. My nephew moved to another state but took his chickens and eleven of my turkeys with him. He is now happily homesteading on five rented acres while looking for his own property. He has added goats and sheep to his flock and hopes some day to add bison.
8/18/2017