Daily Celestial Challenge, Saturday Agriculture: Rotating of the Chickens and Rodent Problems
With all the Christmas things happening I've missed doing an update for a couple of weeks. Since the last update Roast’s flock has moved into their other run. They had a great time exploring the green jungle and scratching up bugs. I wish they could run among plants more often.
They actually took about a week to clear all of the green from the run, which is longer than usual. Sadly it is now back to dust bowl status.
Yesterday I harvested that last of the carrots in the other run and moved the other flock too. Sadly they didn't get such a lush green run to go into.
I haven't gotten around to preparing an area for the strawberry plant to go, so I put a little cage over it to protect it for the time being.
It seems one of our Light Sussex hens is moulting. I suspect the one with the bare bottom!
I harvested some of the kohl rabi. I actually left a couple a bit too long and they started getting elongated. The bottom halves had gone tough and stringy, but the top halves were still nice and sweet.
I'm going to leave this one to go to seed.
A couple of onions are starting to go to flower a bit early; probably due to some early extreme heat days. I'm thinking of leaving them so I can collect the seeds.
I started harvesting some of the first apricots and then rats found the rest! We've occasionally had to deal with mice before, but never rats. I make sure that the poultry don't have excess food to attract them in, but they seem to be coming in from the neighbours who feed their dog outside. I know they feed it more than it eats in one sitting, because the wild birds would drop dog biscuits in our garden most days. Because there is nothing to eat in the chicken runs, the rats have been eating our cauliflowers and now apricots.
We've cycled through various traps as they learn quickly and avoid them. It's not something I like to do, but I've resorted to poison bait now, because they're getting out of hand and you can guarantee we’ll get blamed for attracting them in because we have chickens. Plus, we're going to be relying on the garden for food all the more while my husband is out of work. The fact that they are finally taking the bait also leads me to believe that the dog owners have twigged that rats are coming for the dog's food and are being a bit more careful. I've not seen as many dog biscuits in our garden the last few days.
This post was inspired by @sirknight's Daily Celestial Challenge
Hey @minismallholding, may I include this in the Weekly Homesteading Newsletter tomorrow? Let me know! Thanks!
Absolutely. 😊 You're always welcome to use any articles.
Thank you - I've added you to the list of Steemians who have given me permission! & Happy New Year! This article has been included in the most recent issue of the Weekly Homesteading Newsletter! Please check it out if you have the time! Thank you!
It looks like the white chicken in the second picture has something on her mind! Lol
I think the look is, "who do you think you are coming in here without food?!"
Hahaha! I think you’re right!
What a beautiful flock and obviously well cared for! I just did a post about my 3 goals for the first part of 2018 and one of them was to finish the new chicken run. Now I have even more motivation :)
Thank you. I wish I had more room to range them, but you do what you can.
Have you already got chickens looking forwards to the new run?
I do not. We had to scale back due to some big life changes but are getting ready for new growth and new animals this spring!
I totally missed this post because I was traveling in SA at the time. How much land do you have or are we talking suburban backyard?
And you must produce a decent amount of eggs per day.
Permaculture is something I must get back to.
It's a suburban backyard, hence 'mini' smallholding! 😁 We've got just under 200 square metres of growing space to work with, so not too bad.
At this time of year we're sharing the eggs around with the neighbours. Winter is a bit slower though.