Category: Australorp

Australorp, Backyard, bees, black americauna, Buff Orpington, chickens, farm, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, sunflowers, Urban Homestead, veggie

Mini Farm Update

Olof
In my backyard I am trying to be more self sufficient. I have 4 chickens for eggs and entertainment, a veggie garden and a bee hive. I live on  an 1/8 of an acre so I don’t have much room but I am doing the best I can with what I have.
https://www.facebook.com/video/embed?video_id=10153098812410118
This video was recorded soon after we got back from Iceland. Since then the rooster (Cowboy) has gotten a new home and we got a Black Ameraucana Pullet as a trade. She is only 4 months so it will be a while before she lays her blue eggs.
First eggs laid in our backyard the day after we got them back from the friend that was nice enough to watch the chickens while I was in Iceland. The chickens started laying for her while I was in Iceland.
 One of the ladies kept laying double yokers and did that for almost a week straight.
You see the difference. The one on the bottom is the double yoker. You can tell be the thick band in the middle of it. 
 They made a nest under the deck so I put a bucket next box under there and they made a next right next to it so that I have to crawl under there to get them.

Chipmunk the Cream Legbar should start laying blue eggs by the end of the month and Mathilda the Australorp is the one that laid that egg next to the nest box.

Buff the Buff Orpington laid an egg for me this morning that I had already collected. She is like clockwork while Mathilda is a little off laying either double yokers, shell less eggs or oddly shaped eggs.
This is our new girl! A black Ameraucana and we named her Crow. She both looks like one and sounds like one when you pick her up.
 Sunflowers are really the only thing that I have grown well this year.
 My crazy overgrown garden.
As you can see in the video my garden is really overgrown since I went to Iceland and it was not being taken care of. I have had a hard time keeping up with it after mom died so I’m being kind to myself and not beating myself up for it. 
As you can see that the second deep is not full at all. They have a ways to go before there will be honey to harvest. The First Deep is full thought so that is good. 
How is your summer going? Growing anything? Knitting anything?

Wanting to read the book The Urban Homestead. Any of you read it? Is it any good?
Australorp, Buff Orpington, carrots, Cream Legbar, Creme de la Creme melon, eggs, Fava beans, French Copper Maran, grape vine, hatching, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Icelandic chicken, sweet peppers

Confession- Mini Farm Update

Olof
I have a confession to make. I just put seeds in the ground last week and I can’t remember where I put them or what it was that I planted. I just remember that it put down squash, cucumbers and some TamDew melons. Why you ask? I realized that it was JUNE!!!! and I hadn’t gotten these things in the ground. I had room but it all ended up all over the place because my kids were yelling and it was bed time and and and and…………… I guess I will just see how that goes.

Here are some photos from the ‘Farm’.

Buff the Buff Orpington dust bathing in the heat trying to stay cool

Mathilda the Australorp being careful not to get caught. 

Chipmunck the Cream Legbar and Fluffybum the French Copper Maran were not wanting their photo taken today.

No eggs yet but any day now!

Fava beans, Carrots, and red okra.

Creme de la Creme melon

Tomatoes

Tomato flowers

Grape plant

Sweet pepper plant

Bees buzzing in and out. Have to add the second hive body tomorrow! Exciting!

one of my veggie beds. Look at all of the collard greens and brocoli and Kale.

Just finished fencing the porch off from chickens so that we can use it and bleaching and scrubbing the deck. 

Icelandic chicken eggs in the incubator! I’m excited and hope I have learned my lesson.

The bees are busy, my garden is really doing well with what I have planted and the chickens are doing great and I hope to see the big girls start laying soon.

I got Icelandic chicken eggs from an Icelandic girl in Washington state. I hope that they are thriving in there and that I get at least one hen.

The back porch has been fenced off and cleaned so that the family can use it again. It had gotten really gross after the chickens realized that there was cat food on the deck. They love that stuff even though they have plenty of organic chicken feed and free range of the backyard.

I will take some photos of the bees when I open up the hive tomorrow and show you how much work they have done. There was so much honey in there and my queen was laying and there was brood! I’m so excited about how well things are going. If only I could keep up with mowing the backyard too. It’s a mess. I need some sheep or a horse borrowed for a day or two to eat all of this grass.

What is going on in your backyard?

Australorp, birthdays, Buff Orpington, chickens, Cream Legbar, Easter Egger, family, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Keeping Chickens

The Past Week

Olof
These AppleCheeks arrived in the mail and are new sponsors of my blog!

My big boy turned 5 last week!

Odinn decorating his cake.

Alex getting some tickles and wearing some of the AppleCheeks we already owned!

The new chicken coop almost finished but usable. Just need to cover the front of the coop so that rain doesn’t get in the feed.

Buff free ranging.

Got some plants in the garden

Mathilda.

He added an extra candle. LOL

Owl!

Guess you just started joining us at the dinner table?

The best play yard ever!

People ask me how I am keeping chickens and gardening. The trampoline is where Alex is happy and outside and playing so I get some free time to get stuff done. My husband also is a great help. He built the coop. I just painted it and told him what I wanted.

And last but not least….

Say hello to Chipmunk and Sassy! Chipmunk is a Cream Legbar and Sassy is a Black Copper Maran. They hatched on Sunday! I’m so stinken excited bout them. They are the newest additions to my flock and the first real baby chicks that I have had and OMG they are so fluffy and cute! I just want to hold and watch them all day long! Sorry the photo is not the best but they are just getting use to their brooder box in the kitchen.
Want to start your own backyard flock?
Check out:

Australorp, Backyard, boots, Buff Orpington, carrots, chicken, eggs, fava, garden, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, planting, sustainability

Mini Farm Coming Along

Olof
OK, so I was going to take a before pic but honestly I was too ashamed at the state of my garden and horrified that my neighbors back door opened up to it and has had to look at it. It’s the only place where we do not have privacy fencing since there was already a fence there. But so far, I cleaned out the beds, used my Garden Weasel to turn the soil, added 6 cubic feet of peat moss and some organic fertilizer then turned the soil some more to mix it all up and then watered thoroughly.

I know it’s a mess! Wish me luck!

 I planted some Fava Windsor Broad Beans a couple of weeks ago and waiting for them to pop up and this weekend I´m planting some Organic Carrot Seeds Carnival Blend, some beets, some peas, lettuce and other cold hardy plants.

A couple of years ago I put down some weed cloth and put mulch over it. This looked great and was an awesome idea until my cats and the neighborhood cats thought that this would be the ideal place to poop. Yeah, eeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwww. I kept stepping in it. I got to the point where I didn’t want to go into my garden area. That, plus the heat and the bugs just caused me to quit all together. My garden became a mess and my harvest was lost since I wasn’t keeping up with it. Now I have vines and weeds growing through the cloth. What do farmers do then (this is an Icelandic saying when there is a problem)? I´m going to clean out as much as I can put down even more mulch and then put down pavers for stepping on. This means that I need to go to my city’s free mulch site and pick up LOTS of mulch.

Mathilda the s/he bird
Owl, Buff and Mathilda getting lost in the weeds.

OK so the chickens are growing FAST! I know one of my Easter Eggers is a rooster so his name is Dinner. I live in the city so keeping a rooster is not being very neighborly. I’m still waiting to see if Mathilda is really a girl. I go back and fourth on if she is a he or a she so right now she is a s/he. LOL. I have just started letting them free range in the backyard. They are funny to watch and much easier to keep then I thought. Don’t know why I didn’t do this a LONG time ago. If you are on the fence on this one just jump in! If this is not the hobby for you then you can sell them and people will for sure buy laying hens and your coop.
Just make sure to read books on keeping chickens so you know the basics and have a library to reference to if you start having any problems and check with your local ordinands to see if you can legally keep chickens in your city. The entertainment value alone is worth keeping these birds. I could sit around and watch them all day. In June they should start laying if what I am reading about them starting around 18-22 weeks of age. I can’t wait! I’m still waiting on my Icelandics (lay white to pink eggs) and on a Maran (lays chocolate brown eggs) and Cream Legbar (lays blue eggs). It will be so much fun keeping these fun colors in my frig and giving them to the neighbors and friends.
Waiting for my boots to arrive from Amazon. Have to have proper attire for taking care of my mini farm.

What are you doing this spring? Trying anything new? New plants, animals, hobbies?

Ameraucana, Australorp, Backyard, Buff Orpington, chicken tractor, chickens, chicks

Chicks are Here!

Olof

I did it! I actually did it! I got chicks. We are now proud to introduce you to the newest additions to our family the feathery 4! No names yet. Need some help on that point. We have 2 Amereacanas (the brown ones that will lay some cool looking greenish blue eggs), one Buff Orpington (the blond one) and an Australorp (the black one). All four are 3 weeks old but boy are the Amereacanas big! Thought the Buff and the Australorp  would be the heavyweights but the Amereacanas are so much heavier.

Finding that I will have to change out their bedding twice a day while they are inside. They are stinky! Thankfully my husband is almost done with the chicken tractor and I will be able to take them outside as soon as they finish this ugly stage of shedding their baby feathers and getting their big girl feathers.

Welcome chickies! Now what to name you? Any ideas form you dear readers?

Ameraucana, Australorp, box, brooder, chick, chicken, chicks, Cube, egg, Eglu, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Orpington, Tulsa

Got Chickens on the Brain

Olof
Yep, I have got chickens on the brain bad! Yesterday I drove all over Tulsa County trying to find the chickens I wanted for my backyard coop (that we have yet to build). I want colorful eggs and good birds. I chose an Ameraucana, a Buff Orpington, and Australorp. I also want some Icelandic hens and will be hatching some out later this spring. I found a farm here that has all 3 breeds for me and a breeder of Icelandics sending me some eggs from Washington. I´m so excited! So then I have green or blue eggs, brown eggs and white eggs!


Yesterday we set up a brooder box for the chicks and now we sit and wait. I’m using a cardboard box until I have organized my deep bins in the basement and free one up to use for chicks.  Hubby is putting together my coop this weekend. Is it so odd to be so excited about feathery farm animals? The boys keep asking “Can we go get the chickens now?” I´ll be letting them decorate the outside of the box tomorrow.

I’ve read and researched and getting my chicks now against a wiser person’s advice of waiting til April (I do value this advice just to impulsive to go by it). Just getting a little start means I am just that much closer to having eggs, hopefully. Some of the birds I´m getting are even 3 weeks old already. Hope the stench in my house won’t get too bad if I change bedding every day until it is warm enough to put them outside.

Yay for being a step closer to being more self sufficient!

Is anyone else getting ready for spring? If so, how?

Here is the book I have been reading on the subject of chickens the last 2 days.

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Dreaming of owning one of these Eglu Cubes.


And getting some of these for my kids to run around in the backyard in this spring.