Cycle of Life: Cornish Cross Week 3

Cornish X at week 3.  They are really growing fast now.  Eating 3 1/2 times as much food as when they first arrived.

And speaking of food, here is the cost of their first two weeks of life.

End of week 1= $2.50 total for 12 chicks.

By the end of week 2 they have eaten 15.25 pounds of chick starter at $.50 a pound.

On these 12 chicks so far I have spent $2/chick plus $7.63 on food making a total of $31.63 by the end of week 2.

One of these days I will have to start keeping track of how much water they drink, since I do pay for that.  It will work out to pennies, I’m sure, since I haven’t really noticed an increase in my water bill in the last few months that I’ve been raising these birds.

And I will also need to work out how much bedding I use for each batch during their lifetime, as well as electricity for the heat lamp over their first two weeks.  (Daytime only.  At night I put a small cardboard box over them with small air holes, which helps to hold in their body heat, somewhat like being under a hen.  Well, anyway, it keeps their heat in and the night time chill out).

Since they are indoors, I start weaning them off the lamp after about 12 days.  With this batch it was easily done due to some unexpected high temperatures (A high of 79º F. for two day in a row during that time period).

The reason I take them off the heat lamp early, is to get them acclimated to outdoor temps faster.  It also stimulates quick feather growth.  Right now, their wings have filled in, and they have feathers on their backs.

In two weeks, if the weather is dry, and mild, I will begin transitioning them to their outdoor life gradually.  It’s important to get them outdoors quickly for their health and ours.  While they are feathering out, there is a fine dust coating their living space, which makes its way into our living space, even through the fine mesh screen, I have placed over their tank.

And by the end of week 4 no amount of bedding will disguise that faint fermented bready smell that goes with the microbiome of deep bedding and chicks.  Healthier for all concerned if they get into their outdoor quarters within four weeks.

That’s it for now.  Just biding time while they grow another week.

Cycle of Life: Cornish Cross: Week 2

It may be hard to tell in this photo, but the chicks have easily doubled in size in just one week.  The feathers have filled in on their wing tips.  I have been told that ground birds develop wing feathers faster than birds which nest in trees.  In my experience, chicks are usually able to begin experimental flying when they are about a week old depending on the bird.  (My Rhode Island Reds are incredible flyers and can even control their flight in a way that most chickens don’t).  Pictured below is a chick at one week old.  You can see the wing feathers at the tips.

In Permaculture Design, it is crucial to do an energy audit, in order to assess the true cost and what you get out of your investment.  It’s not just about dollars, but other factors are considered as well.  So for my own purposes...just as an exercise...I am recording some of my data here, so I can better analyze this process.

Feed: Organic Chick Starter.  I buy it from a local farm who gets theirs by the ton.  I bring a bucket which holds about 25 pounds of starter at 50 cents a pound.  I have been told it comes from Alberta Canada.  Additional cost: truck transportation food miles.  Other shipping?  Mono-culture farming methods? 

Bedding: Pine Shavings.  I get 100 liters/3.6 cubic feet compressed for $7.61 which lasts me about 6 weeks because I also use it for two cat litter boxes, and a composting toilet.  My biggest regret about buying the shavings is that it comes packaged in plastic.  The benefit to the shavings is that I am building soil when I compost it.  The shavings come from a local source, 190 miles/306 km from where I live, and according to the distance website, would use 6 gallons of gasoline if I were driving a traditional car.  A large truck making that trip would be using different fuel, getting different gas mileage, and it would be carrying a lot more freight to offset the impact of the distance traveled.  So on the credit side, I am getting a biodegradable material which serves multiple purposes and then breaks down to soil, on the debit side, it is packaged in non biodegradable plastic.  On the credit side, it is coming from less than 200 miles away, on the debit side, I don’t really know how it’s sourced.  The shavings come from a fairly local place, but where did the wood come from?  How is it grown?  How is it harvested?  Etc, Etc, Etc.

Housing: 100 gallon Rubbermaid stocktank.  This is not something I would have purchased brand new, or even thought to purchase at all under most circumstances, but I must admit, it works really well for my needs.  It comfortably houses twelve Cornish X chicks for up to 5 weeks.  It’s clean enough to keep in my house in the cold winter months, and it’s deep enough to use the deep bedding method which helps keep the chicks healthy, and keeps the smell down.  I got it from the same farm I get the feed from, because this tank sprang a leak and they were unable to seal it.  So the positive here is I got housing for the peepers at no cost, it’s a very no fuss/no muss solution, and rather than going into the landfill, which was where it was headed, it was given a second life.  If there is a negative to this component, I haven’t seen it.

Water:  When I first started keeping chickens years ago, I used tap water, which was chlorinated.  The community well I’m on had recently started adding chlorine when I first moved here nearly 20 years ago.  It occurred to me somewhere in the process, that chlorine was probably not good for my gut flora.  And if it wasn’t good for mine, it probably wasn’t good for the chickens’ gut flora.  Right now, I use filtered tap water.  I have a Berkey water filter, and  until I get some kind of roof water harvesting thing going, this is working fine.  Again, the Berkey is a multipurpose device, in that it serves our needs for drinking water, cooking, houseplants, and the animals.  It is a long lasting component which will bring more benefit than harm during its lifetime.  

Water Dispenser:  It’s a glass jar on a metal drinking base.  I chose this one over the plastic option because plastic is non biodegradable and because plastic leaches components into the water that have been said to disrupt the endocrine system.  Shortly after I bought the metal version, I read that galvanized steel items have been tagged by California legislation to be potentially carcinogenic.  So I did a little search and found it contained two substances  - Nickel and Hexavalent Chromium - both of which are listed on California’s prop 65 website.  Not to mention that after just a few weeks of use, the metal one is rusting inside.    I might need to find a different solution.

A Cornish X chick at one week old.

Life Cycles: Cornish Cross: Week 1

A new batch of chicks arrived on Wednesday March 6th.  I got a text first thing that morning to say they’d arrived at a local farm and that I should pick them up right away.  I rearranged my day and hurried out the door in order to be there before 10:15 am.

As I pulled out of the drive, it began snowing and I cranked the heat in the Prius (my one and only all purpose “farm” vehicle), to warm the interior for the chicks.

Handing over my small cardboard box to the farmer, he returned it with a dozen fuzzy yellow chicks nestled inside.

I was running low on bedding so I swung by the local feed store to pick up some pine shavings for the peepers, on my way back.

Back at home, I filled the 100 gallon stock tank with deep bedding, added a food pan and a water despenser and turned on the heat lamp.  I moved the chicks into their new home and congratulated myself that for the first time, I finally had a system that was ready to go within 5 minutes.

One less thing to thick about, as I headed out the door to restock my empty larder at the local food co-op before the snow got too bad.

This photo was taken on March 7th.  I know it’s difficult to get a sense of how tiny, but the chick is standing between a deck of cards and a coaster. 

Streamlining

A friend recently declared that I was a “master of whisper minimalism”.  I had to laugh at that and my reply was, “Oh, if only...”

My house is still filled with things that I don’t need or want.  And while I have been working over the last two or three years to remove excess “stuff” from my life, I don’t have the time to devote a feverish and driven effort to becoming a minimalist.

I am not interested in becoming obsessed with any one of my particular goals.  A gentle and conscious effort is good enough for me.  Slow and steady wins the race...even when the race seems to be running out of time.

So my motto has become, “Don’t Panic”.  And then I do the best I can.

Right now, I am more interested in streamlining.  This practice is all about taking a look around at my environment, assessing my needs, and putting my resources to work for me in the most efficient manner possible.  Admittedly, I am challenged in this area of my life, but I am learning.  Practice, they say, makes perfect.  And while I don’t seek perfection, I do look for ease.

Talkin’ Trash

7:23 am Sunrise.

Having a cup of coffee before I liberate the flock from their nightly accomodations.  It’s raining lightly.

Today is trash pick up day in my rural neighborhood.  Our last trash pick up was the first Wednesday of the month, November 7th.  Our last recycling pick up is today.  It’s been a long time since I began my quest to xtreme low waste.

About 4 years ago I made a commitment to engage in a plastic free July.  It made me realize that even though I thought I had been doing pretty well avoiding plastic packaging,  single use plastic sneaks into my life in unexpected ways.  Even when I am making a conscious effort to avoid it.  That’s the world we live in.

Never one to beat myself up, I adopted a “do the best I can” attitude and made some conscious changes in how I deal with my trash.

One of the first tools I adopted was a plastic yogurt cup that wound up in my house through a guest.  I covered it with some pretty scrap paper and stuck a label on it christening it Tiny Trash.

It helps to remind me how much actual TRASH I generate.  (TRASH meaning non compostable, non recyclable materials like most plastic).

Over time I have evolved my methods, until I realized that I wasn’t generating enough trash to pay for pick up.  For the past year, I have had my trash picked up once a month, but even that is too often.  I estimate, that it would take a year to fill my small trash can enough for pick up, at my current usage.  And the recycling bin is even harder to fill, because it’s so huge.

The thing that helps me keep my trash production low is engaging in homesteading.  Growing food, equals less packaging and allows me to compost almost everything, including some of the paper that I used to recycle.

I still have a long way to go.  I still buy some things packaged in plastic which I’m not producing, like cheese and butter, packaging which I can’t compost, and have to treat like actual trash.  That stuff doesn’t go away and I know that.  It’s this awareness that keeps me seeking new ways to provide for my own needs without generating that kind of waste product.  But today I’m celebrating my last day as a “waste pick up customer”, and that feels good to me.

March On The Homestead

Sunshine at 27 weeks old

Neverland Homestead sits on just under a half acre of land, which includes the house, buildings, gardens, trees, and of course the chickens.  My flock has slightly more than 1/8 of an acre or 5600 sf in which to range in the winter.  When planting time comes, their territory shrinks by necessity, down to 4000 sf.  

But with the extra birds, I have finally run out of forage in their range area.  There are still plenty of rodents, and worms and trees, but it's time to let the plants recover in the hen yard.

I decided it was time to start rotating the flock through the remaining space within our boundaries and to replant forage in the now fully primed soil within the hen yard.  I decided to plant bee forage plants, which will grow lush and be ready to receive the flock again in early Autumn.  I like housing the flock in this area during Winter because there are enough larger trees to shelter the flock during rain and snow as well as a metal shed which acts as a day barn for them to stay dry in.  Though they refuse to sleep there, they love to socialize and lay most of their eggs in that building.

In August I was introduced by my broody hen, Blossom, to 5 newly hatched chicks, three of which turned out to be cockerels.  As you can imagine, you simply cannot have 4 roosters within the confines of 4000 sf for long.  I had separated the youngsters from the flock for about 3 weeks and then opened up more land to them and reintegrated them.  This worked for another few weeks, but eventually the hens were being run ragged, and the fights among the male population were escalating.  Too much stress on the flock!  I had considered keeping one of them to start a new flock with, but it has become increasingly obvious that I simply don't have enough land to house two separate flocks.

In the end I chose to harvest two of the cockerels as food and keep one until I can no longer afford to.

Economics

One of the deciding factors involved in making this decision was that we have for a long time lived on a shoestring, to coin an old phrase.  Meaning, we manage to exist on very little money.  Currently, I buy grain for the flock as their main food source.  Good quality, organic, non gmo grain.  And I am lucky enough to get it for a really good price.  My cost is 17 cents a day per adult bird, or with 14 birds, $2.38 per day.  My seasoned Papa Rooster, and his predecessor before him always seemed to eat very little, putting the hens needs before theirs.  But my three hooligans were chasing the hens away from the food, and gorging themselves.  Also they were constantly trying to mate with the hens, and at times, 3 males on 1 female.  Sparky, my head rooster was run ragged just trying to keep the hens from being beat into the ground by those little ruffians.

I simply didn't have the time or the resources to manage 4 roosters, with only 10 hens.  It didn't make sense.  It wasn't good for the hens, it wasn't good for Sparky and it wasn't good for me.  So even with all that room, it just wasn't working out.  Plus I had to separate the cockerels at night from the flock, because I was afraid of the potential damage.

I went outside one evening to "manage" the flock into their separate buildings, and found my white rooster Sunshine, was pink.  He was covered in blood from fighting, and though not badly wounded, he was a mess.  In order to give him time to heal, I separated him from the flock, and he seemed content, but I began to notice he was always shivering with the cold, and that he was losing weight.  I could see that he would not be the logical choice to keep.

Meanwhile, the Weasley Twins (which is how I had begun to think of my two redheads with their vivid plumage and ability to get into trouble), were still with the flock.  It became clear to me that Sparky had less tolerance for Sunshine and Robin, then he had for Oliver.  For some reason, Oliver was not getting attacked, and while he was my last choice to keep for breeding stock, I decided since he was being tolerated, that he would be the one to stay on for a while longer, until planting time, when I began to rotate the flock through other "pasture" on the homestead.

So on the 1st of March, two of my young roosters fulfilled their last mission, and became food for the cats, us humans, the flock, and the land.  I had approximately $20 apiece into each of them, and they saved us further cost in grain, plus having to buy a chicken for the cats and us for a week, since we get it locally it typically costs us almost $40 for a bird weighing just over 6 pounds.  I have my reasons for spending that much for one chicken every week.
1.  It's local, so my food miles are ridiculously low,
2.  We have worked it out so that I don't have the bird packaged in plastic.
3.  I support a local small farm.
4.  I used to be able to trade services for it, although that option has recently changed back to trading for money.
5.  I know how the birds are fed, raised and treated, and have seen them harvested with my own eyes, so I know they are as humanely killed as death can be.  It is very quick and done gently and with respect.
6.  My cats are eating raw organic local chicken-and I have more quality control over their diet.
7.  1/2 the bird goes to feed my husband and self every week.

I just want to add that I have a very close relationship with my flock.  I love them, I respect them, and we have a partnership.  I provide shelter, food, and a place for them to live as naturally as domestic chickens can on a homestead.  I have had to be guardian to two broods hatched out here because their "mums" were finished with them after two or three weeks.  And I try to stay out of flock dynamics and not over manage them.

They in turn provide me with eggs, fertilizer, pest control, composting,  and light tillage.  Above all, they provide me with deep joy and the chance to know and observe them.  They are better teachers than any farmer, or online source of information, and I say it again.  I love them.  For anyone who can't understand how you can love and respect an animal and still kill and eat it, I can not possibly explain it.  All I can say, is that you can not know the answer to that, until you have lived life in this way.

Oliver (left) and Robin (right)

February on the Homestead

The Kale feels confused! 

With a bit of warm weather, it had started growing new leaves again.  

Now - another cold snap!

But Kale assures me, it can take it!

Why Homesteading?

I almost can't believe that I've lived on this piece of land for nearly 17 years.  When I first found it, we were desperate to find a place to buy.  We grabbed this place, because it was on a half acre lot, and we could afford it.  I had visions of growing my own food, keeping chickens and bees.

I was used to having fertile land to work with.  We always had gardens when I was growing up.  Even as a renter, I could grow food.  But this place!  The soil was like nothing I had ever experienced. It was like trying to grow food in a dessert.  And I'm not just joking.

It's the Maritime Pacific Northwest. The land of rain.  But the water would only penetrate about an inch into the soil.  Further down...dry, dry sand.  Hydrophobic sand.

I didn't find out how to deal with it until I got chickens.  After that, a soil miracle occurred.

I thought, my number one reason for Homesteading was to grow food, it turns out that my primary reason for homesteading has become, to heal the land I live on.  And it, in turn, is providing for many of my food needs.

A secondary reason, but every bit as important to me, has grown out of my desire to be a more conscious consumer.  My evolution of awareness has gone from, organics, to fair trade, to ethically sourced, to food miles, to the curse of plastic packaging.  I hit the wall with zero waste.

I realized immediately, that I couldn't fool myself with delusions of zero waste.  Because I couldn't see how I could live a zero waste life unless I was living a life in nature, like the birds, fish, animals, insects, etc. Nature doesn't generate waste.  Humans get to take all the credit for that practice...aren't we cleaver?

My plan then, has to do with meeting as many of my needs on this little piece of land as I possibly can, thus reducing my reliance on anything that may come packaged in plastic.  It's my goal to run this as an experiment, and see what can be grown-right here.  I want to find out, what can be substituted and what I can do without, if I can't find a way to provide it plastic free.

I have been starting tentatively with some easy things, and hope to work my way up to bigger things that have so far, been harder to overcome.

I have this land to work with, and I am beginning to grasp some concepts which may help me reach my goals.

First Experiment

Mike's Birthday was last month.  Once a year I make him a cake.  I've been making cakes from scratch for the last 15 or 20 years.  But even though I am not generating plastic trash from a box mix, I have been buying ingredients that may come packaged in plastic.  I say may come, because even though I buy many ingredients from the bulk bins, I don't always see how they came to the store in their original packaging.  One thing I do know is that, even if the bulk sugar isn't coming packaged in plastic, the powdered sugar I use to make butter cream frosting, most certainly is.  A very thick plastic package with a zip style closure.  I was determined to make that one change if nothing else, and it occurred to me that making powdered sugar wasn't rocket science.  Confectioner's sugar has been around a long time.  It must be something anyone can make.  

And so it is.  Simply put, regular sugar pulverized in a blender is powdered sugar.  However, it's much sweeter because factory powdered sugar is mixed with corn starch to keep it from sticking.  So in future I will use less in the butter cream frosting.

I had a little powdered sugar left over, and it has been sitting on the shelf in a bowl with a plate over it for 3 weeks.  I thought it might have gathered moisture and clumped, but it is still the same as when I first made it.

Second Experiment

I have the option of buying bread packaged in a brown paper sack, which I did for a couple of years.  But Even though it is a local organic sourdough bread, it has just never really agreed with me.  Another local organic bread which comes packaged in plastic does actually agree with me.  But because of the plastic packaging, I was avoiding it.

I don't know how it happened.  Maybe I just got too busy to pay attention, or maybe it was an issue of convenience, but somehow, I started buying the brand of bread that comes packaged in plastic.  Three or four months went by before I noticed I was building up a huge supply of plastic bread bags.  Yikes!  Somehow, I had closed my eyes to this for the sake of convenience.  I immediately stopped buying bread.  The bread in the paper packing is not sold in my neighborhood, so I have to drive across town to get it-which is probably how this all got started in the first place.  The more food I grow, the less often I need to make that trip across town to buy groceries at the co op or the farmer's market.  Now what do I do?

I've tried making sourdough before, and even though I had good luck with it, it didn't agree with me.  I was determined to try a different sourdough method.  The process on the new recipe was so involved, that I realized what my issue had been.  The recipe I was originally using was too quick.  The starter was too quick, and the bread recipes I was using were too quick.  If that wasn't enough, I was leaving steps out to make it even quicker.

I remember seeing Bill Mollison talking about being a baker when he was younger.  He talked about how the leavening times were regulated by law for bakers.  In other words, in order to be digestible, bread needs to go through a longer process before baking.

In hearing people talk about old world bread making, they always talk about a very long process.  I've heard of bread from that era taking anywhere from two days to two weeks to make.

I am in the process of making the sourdough starter right now.  It is very cold in my house, and so it has been taking longer to get to the point where it's ready to make bread, but I can see that it is very much alive, and I think the starter is almost complete.

Today's Experiment

Today I made my monthly trip to go grocery shopping.  I have been really wanting ice cream even though it's been really cold out.  Finally, I decided on this trip I would buy ice cream.  Then I remembered the packing.  There is a thick plastic tamper proof rim around the lid of the carton, and that deterred me.  I did my two pints of cream though, so when I got home, I was making a little whipped cream to go on my coffee, and I decided to experiment to see if I could make ice cream just by putting whipped cream in the freezer and giving it a stir now and again.

The answer is yes.  Whipped cream, with some left over homemade powdered sugar, and some powdered vanilla bean, makes lovely homemade ice cream. Mine was a very small batch to keep in manageable.  I put it in the freezer and gave it a stir with a spoon every 20 minutes until I couldn't stir it anymore.  Deluxe!

I won't apologize for buying cream in a paper carton that most likely is lined with plastic.  It was a plain carton, and didn't have a plastic pour spout, which is at least something.  I hope to one day find a local source for cream.  It's my go to dairy product.  I can live without milk, but I love cream, and creamy yogurt, and butter, and just about anything you can make with cream.

That is my goal.  To find local raw organic grass-fed cream in sustainable packing.  I know its time is coming!