Chicken update, overwintering, dry leaves and fiddle heads :)

Léo and I, collecting kindling for us and dry leaves for the chickens

This will be the first winter for most of our chickens, definitely the first winter for them as layers, and we are trying to put all of the eggs in our basket (haha!) and make sure our chickens are content, while still minimizing waste and spending.

While I was watching one of many chicken coop winterizing videos online, I realized that before there were wood shavings at the store, there was another material that was used to keep a chicken coop clean-er: dry leaves.  It's so simple, with the number of trees we have, and the quantity of leaves they shed, it would be silly of us not to use them.

The benefit of using the leaves in the coop, before composting them, is that the added chicken manure enriches your compost with nitrogen, and the chickens break up the leaves, increasing the turn over rate into compost.

So I started saving piles of leaves, before winter arrives, making sure they are dry and storing them in the barn where hopefully they will keep.  I changed all the chicken litter, and they loved their new leaf medium, it feels like being outside!

I have also now turned the 60w red light bulb back on to keep them a little warmer, and hopefully soon I'll have a little radio out there to play them some classical music.

Léo and I, on one of our many outings; Mr. Serious here keeps us all in check :)

I was so excited the other day when Alex and I were preparing the back forty for the potential arrival of our sheep next spring, when I noticed a big patch of ostrich fern!  Last week I found the Oyster mushrooms in the front, and now fiddleheads in the back.  More reasons to already get excited about spring!

Our dried oyster mushrooms

The spore-bearing frond, the dead give-away of the Ostrich Fern

Til next time, be well.
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Life with Animals on The Homestead

Rouminou (Red Cat) the guardian of the homestead, and the first animal on the farm.

This post is long over due.  And it's simply because there is too much to say. Every day is a new adventure living with farm (and wild) animals.  Just last week, right before sunset a mother deer and her two fawns came into our yard and munched on some of our fallen apples while we got to sit and watch their beauty from our window. My first instinct was to take a picture. Alas, the camera was in the car... Living closer to the natural circadian rhythms of nature here on the homestead has taught me however that some things are kept more sacred in the mind's eye.

When we first moved here I thought: how exciting! that our town has an ordinance permitting the raising of chickens within town limits.  I was so psyched about the possibility of feeding my own chickens and getting to eat their eggs.  Plus our intention was for the chickens to either roam free or have a mobile chicken tractor, allowing them to eat the insects and mow the grass all over the property.  It would have been a win win win all around.

One of the three raccoons we've caught so far

While it certainly is rewarding to have fresh eggs from your backyard, and the chickens do create hours of entertainment for the kids who visit us, it isn't as simple as I first imagined... First off, we were - and still are - amateurs when we got our first chicks, and there were many things we didn't anticipate. In retrospect I would admit and suggest to anyone who wants to start raising backyard chickens, to ensure your coop is predator proof BEFORE getting your hens... we didn't take predators seriously enough at first, and as a result we lost 3 adults and 9 chicks...

We'll never be sure who the predator was, but we caught 3 raccoons so far in the have-a-heart trap and have released them in a wooded area far away from any chickens (and other homes of course).  Its upsetting to find out some of your chickens were killed in the middle of the night, but when you think about that poor raccoon getting trapped just trying to survive, you have to also understand his position, and that is why it's ultimately our responsibility to secure the chickens from predators.

The coop is now (hopefully) predator proof, unfortunately it is no longer a mobile chicken coop, but we can now go back to living in harmony with the local wildlife without feeding them chicken for dinner!

Our flock is quite diversified, in breed and in age.  We got our first 6 juvenile chickens for New Year's Eve (3 of which turned out to be males so they ended up in the freezer when they started crowing) from a small farm in Maine. They were Sussex and Marans.  Of the three hens, only the two Sussex remain, and they are the Mamma's of the group!

The first chicks on the VenRosen Homestead

They started laying in early spring and since we have been enjoying the ritual of feeding and collecting the eggs so much. The decision was made that it was time for a bigger operation. We ordered Chantecler chicks, the only breed originating from Québec (I had to keep my roots alive!).  Chanteclers are extremely cold hardy and good for eggs and meat.  They were scheduled to arrive 1 week before Léo's due date... maybe not the best timing in hindsight! Mittendrinen (in the midst of it all), a neighbour wanted to get rid of his laying hens...so we inherited 4 new - 8 week old - chickens (I think they are New Hampshire Reds).

We now have Splecked Sussex, New Hampshire Reds and Buff and Partridge colored Chanteclers all of different ages living together.  And combining the flocks isn't always easy, as the older girls feel the need to show the younger ones who's boss.  But with regular surveillance from me, patience and ample food and space, they settled down and realized that there is plenty of room for everyone.

We are slowly getting more eggs than we can eat in a given week, so I have started pickling them to keep a good supply in case the production gets too low in the winter months or to give away as thank you presents for coming to visit us :).

So, it has been a challenge at times, but we get a lot of love and food out of it! And we are reminded every day of where our food comes from, and of our connection and interdependence with other beings.

Now that the chickens can't mow our grass anymore (and we would rather not have to use the ride-on lawn mower), Alex and I along with a good number of our neighbours are petitioning the town to further change the town ordinance to allow sheep, miniature goats and other small farm animals within town limits.  I think it would be a first in Maine, but bringing back our food closer to our lives is crucial in establishing more sustainable local food & economic networks.  Not to mention the beneficial educational and responsibility building exercise owning animals has proved to be for a community's youth and adults!!

We are excited, we should know by winter if the ordinance change is accepted, and hopefully next year we'll be raising two sheep, who will mow the still grassy sections of the Homestead, and provide us with meat and wool for the winter months.  This time however, we'll do more research before getting them :) and we'll be prepared.

'Til next time, be well.

Easter eggs :)

The homestead's hens are happy out in the field at last.  After spending the winter 'cooped up', the hens who are no longer little chicks have finally made their way out in the pasture.

Alex and I looked at many designs for DIY mobile chicken tractors, and this one seemed the best for our hens.  It was mostly built out of salvage wood from our renovations and old construction materials we found in the barn. From the cedar shingles, to the chicken wire, screen door and rooster decoration, all these treasures were salvaged by the previous owners of the farm, and are now being put to good use once again.  We did have to go buy a few 2x4 (and we made sure it was local untreated FSC certified lumber) and some good screws, but we would say that more than 70% of the coop is recycled (Eli, there is even a recycled inner tube to waterproof the seam, just for you!).

a removable side wall for easy cleaning

We get 2 eggs everyday now, from just 3 hens

It's a simple A-frame structure, with a shelter and 4 laying boxes in the back, and even though it's not completely finished, once it has its wheels in the back and handles in the front, we will be able to move the chickies to fresh pastures (and fresh new bugs!) on a daily basis.  At the moment we use a dolly to do the moving but that should be fixed by the weekend.  For this project, just like all our other projects, we wouldn't have been able to pull it together so quickly and resourcefully without the help of lots of friends, so thank you guys, we'll be saving some eggs for you!

A lot is beginning to happen now outside: the fruit trees are in bloom, the hammocks are up and we have relocated the vegetable transplants to the cold frames we found in the barn so that they can acclimatize to the outdoors before we plant them in their permanent home.

Last weekend, five of our girlfriends from Montreal came down to visit and they were instrumental in opening up the first garden plot.

Is it a pear? an apple? a cherry? who knows!

And with this blog post we really wanted to share that we value the help and the resourcefulness of people who are here with us in the present, but also of those who came before us.  Sometimes it can seem so easy to just discard the past, the old, the 'obsolete'.  But thanks to the thriftiness (or common sense!) of the previous owners, we built a mobile chicken coop, we protect our seedlings from bad weather with old cold frames and windows, and everyday we discover a new (old) treasure, or a new fruiting plant... and for all of this, nothing or very little new was needed.  There is something of a treasure inside everything, we humans just have to be patient and figure out what it is.

Until next time,