Decisions, Decisions...

I maybe should have titled this post “Farming 101”

We are certainly looking forward to a few dry days so we can make a few changes concerning the chickens. We have the upcoming and less desirable chores of owning poultry, scrubbing the hen house and raking/scraping the chicken yard and putting a few birds in the freezer. Right now, the chicken yards are a mucky mess with all the dampness we have had through the winter. This time of the year makes me think about the good old days, when we just bought our eggs and chicken from the store like most folks do. 

We have been thinking lately, we have too many chickens for the amount of eggs we are using. We have lots of eggs to share and we do but short of throwing them at folks on their way home, to get them to take them, I don't know what to do with all these eggs. We are constantly bugging family and friends to take eggs. I have learned too, most people just do not eat so many eggs. I do think that I will be checking down at our local Ronald McDonald house to see if it would be OK to take some there from time to time.

So, here are our numbers. We still have two Reds from our first clutch that Doodlebug and I started during her home school days. One of the gals, still gives us an egg almost daily. She is the smallest hen we have and gives the biggest eggs out of all the hens.  I am being truly honest in saying, she is my favorite gal. I've named her "Little Red." The other Red well, she has taken to eating her eggs. She is well nourished but she had one egg to break one day and that was the start of it. Now she breaks every egg she lays and it is time to put her in the freezer as a stewing hen.  Then we have eleven of the Lace Barred Rock hens and two Barred Rock roosters and one Phoenix rooster. You can see in the photo below, our Phoenix. He was a freebie/exotic when we ordered our last straight run.

Most of us learn as we go and we certainly have. We have decided, owning roosters are just not worth the trouble. When we ordered our second group back last summer, we ordered a straight run. We wound up with several roosters which many wound up in the freezer. A few have made awesome pots of soup and dumplings. We are down to three roosters. For what they eat, verses the cost of buying more baby chicks when needed, we have decided to take down our last three roosters. We have weighed the benefits for having them, thinking they would be wonderful protection if we free range our gals but that would raise another expense for us. If we were to free range, we will have to spend quiet a lot of money buying a fencing mesh to wrap around our garden to protect it from the hens.  So, now I guess you can see why I thought the title for this post should have been “Farming 101.” We all learn as we go and the big conclusion for us is, we can live without roosters. They eat more and take food from the gals. Maybe the hens will be able to plump up more. They may even lay even larger eggs when the roosters are no longer a factor in their daily ability to feed. The roosters are rough on the gals and several have the bare patches on their backs and we all know why.

So, I guess it is safe to say, we are just going to be hen owners from now on. We have weighed all the options for us and it just seem like the more practical thing to do. So, you won’t have to guess what will be for dinner this week at our house. I just hope we have a few days without rain, so we can get our chores done.

Many blessings to you all! 

Starting Seeds

Papaw kept saying this past week, that it was hard to think  it is already time to get seeds started.

Last night, I took some time to get a few packages of seed started. We have never used this brand brand before. We decided to try 100% organic seed. Some are heirloom and we are in hopes of being able to save seeds this year. I want to find heirloom squash seed. I hear squash is an easy seed to just freeze and save over year after year.

I must say, I thought these seeds were expensive in the scope of seed prices. We paid $2.18 per pack and each pack had very little seed in them so, if you are looking at 100% organic seed and need a lot, you may want to take that into consideration. I hope they sprout and produce good fruit this year. If so, I probably won't be as put off by the price that we paid for them.

Last year, most of our seed came from our local co-op and was not organic. We tried several varieties and were disappointed with many of them. Papaw had to replant a few times.  He wasn't sure he wanted to buy seed in bulk there again this year. I guess we will have to wait and see. 

We decided to give Asian snow peas a try this year along with sugar snaps, which we will be planting those straight into the ground in the next couple of weeks. They like the cooler weather. 

Our winter here so far has been very mild. We had one snow that left us a few inches that laid around for about a week or so. Since it has been so mild, we were able to keep collards, kale and turnip greens going in the garden most the winter, which made our chickens happy. I have been cutting and giving them greens for the past several weeks and it is a treat.

The spikes in the temperatures and the sunny days, sure are sure starting to get us itching to dig in the dirt. I know it is still a bit soon. I guess with at least getting some seeds started, it satisfied my gardening desires for now. 

Hope you all have a very blessed week!