Egg eating?

As we approach the chickens' second birthday, one thing we have learned during our many adventures with indoor chicken keeping is to always expect the unexpected. The girls haven't eaten their eggs in over a year and half...until last week. We came home twice in one week to find half eaten eggs in their nesting box. There is nothing like seeing dried egg yolk in their pin to remind you that they are here to be productive and useful not just pets. If we wanted an animal that was for companionship, we would have a cat or dog, but we have chickens. Chickens who have a job to do! The egg eating seems to have stopped for now, but I hope it doesn't start up again. At some point, we will have to face the possibility of having to eat the chickens which would be hard after living together for two years, but I hope that option doesn't have to come any sooner.

Molting Mania

Even after almost two years with the girls, they still manage to surprise. Last year we missed the bulk of their molting as we were on our honeymoon. (Sorry Mom and Dad for having to deal with that in our absence.) So a few days ago we began to notice the tell tale feather collection and realized that molting had begun. Molting is a winter once a year occurrence when chickens drop most of their feathers and make new ones- kinda of like a chicken reset. All their energy going to making feathers means there are minimal to no eggs and the girls are basically PMSing. They are moody, irritable, and LOUD!

This wouldn't be so bad if it was for the fact that we had a couple over for dinner over the weekend. Cluck walked right up to the wife and pecked her hand. I offered a few treats to the girls hoping that would smooth things over but alas she did it again. Our friend was very kind about the whole thing but still how embarrassing. I really thought Cluck had out grown that bad habit, but I think the molting stress overtook her manners. Ah, the life of an urban farmers' dinner party..... at least I will have plenty of feathers to re-stuff our couch pillows.

Video Tour of Chicken Coop

Happy New Year to all our readers! With the arrival of winter and the holiday season, we have been super busy getting the last of the garden vegetables and herbs harvested and dried, pickled, preserved, etc, etc. The garden beds have been turned over and mulched for the winter, and seed garlic is planted.  Little green shoots are already peeking up through the snow (garlic's awesomeness never ceases to amaze!). This fall's apples have all been crushed, pressed, and bottled, and are bubbling away as the yeasts work hard fermenting the apple juice into next year's hard cider. Finally, the beehive had to be bundled up and prepped for winter. It was so tempting to take some of the sweet delicious honey, already dripping from the frames, but that is what the bees need to live off while holed up all winter in their hive until spring. Beekeeping is turning out to be all about patience. This is the first winter with a beehive so we are anxiously awaiting to see how they fare this winter. Fingers are crossed!

Luckily for our micro-flock of indoor chickens in the basement, no such preparations are needed. They are warm and dry and sheltered from the snow and cold in their basement coop to await spring.

To make up for the sparseness of blog postings this winter, we have put together a video "virtual tour" of or clandestine coop. Enjoy!

Getting Everyone Ready for Winter

While the winter season has taken an unusually long time to settle upon the urban farm, it is finally here and with it come preparations for the cold season. It struck us how, yet again, keeping chickens indoors sure makes life easier not only for the girls but for us too. This fact is especially apparent when you contrast how we got the bees ready for winter versus the chickens. 

John, our amazing bee mentor, came over to help wrap the hive in felt paper to insulate, check for proper ventilation, balance the hive in such a way that the condensation will drip forward, and helped install a mouse guard over the front in order to prevent those pesky creatures from making a home in my warm, food filled hive. After he left, I ordered a special feeder that slides in with bees which I filled with sugar water, and then I made a candy board. A candy board is made of twenty-five pounds of sugar (yes the cashier gave us a weird look at the grocery store) and three cups of water and a half a cup of vinegar (to prevent molding). The mixture is pressed into a shallow hive box with a queen extruder (plastic screen that only worker bees can fit through) on to bottom to hold everything in. The sugar dries and makes the biggest lollypop you can imagine. The hive box goes on top the rest of the hive with more newspaper above it for insulation and this creates an additional food source for the winter. At this point, all I can do to wait and hope my girls survive to spring. 

As for what we did for getting the chickens ready for winter- nothing at all. 

We chuckle to one another as we read about the latest ideas for keeping chickens' water thawed over winter or how to prevent frostbite on combs. We have noticed that over the past few days the girls seem a little agitated; we wonder if this might have something to do with the furnace turning on more in the basement. Perhaps Jeff and I should take the girls for a drive in the country to introduce them to barn chickens!

Food Safety

Arsenic in apple juice? Another egg safety/cruelty scandal? It makes me shudder to think how our fragile food system is being slowly eroded away.

Check out this article on arsenic in juices (NPR Link).  I find it interesting that the arsenic based pesticides that were in use until 1970 are believed to play a part in this food safety issue forty years later. I wonder what we are using right now in agriculture that our children will pay the price for...

Then there was the story about eggs being produced in cruel/unsanitary conditions.

What really amazes me is the relatively little concern we show about these incidents. Sure I saw the egg story a few times on the news, but it was quickly over after a couple of major corporations dropped the producer. Are we all so addicted to cheap, fast food that we are willing to turn a blind eye to the safety concerns of this mass produced slop? 

Break Down in Aisle 5

It is commonly accepted advice to not go to the grocery store when you are hungry. Well a few days ago, I realized that one should also not go to the grocery store when you are tired either. What products found their way into my cart in my sleepy induced hazed?

• Laundry detergent
• Laundry detergent booster (I didn't even know that this type of product existed, but somehow I ended up buying it.)
• Dryer sheets
• Dish washer detergent (I even went so crazy as to buy the ones in those little packs so you don't have to measure the solution.)
• Kitchen cleaner

Jeff didn't seem to know what to think when he saw what was in our cart, but I think he had enough sense to realize if I was buying this stuff it was probably not in his best interests to question it.

I was shocked when I got to check out and my bill was about $30 more than usual! Yikes, all this convenience is expensive!

So was it worth it? I will admit my clothes did smell nicer, and I do think they are cleaner. Using dryer sheets instead of dryer balls, I didn't see much of a difference. The dish washer detergent is nice to not have to spend the time measuring the solution but no quality difference. And the kitchen cleaner is no different that my vinegar lemon mixture. In conclusion, I think I may stick with the laundry detergent but the rest of the stuff is just overpriced versions of what I can make at home. It really only takes me a few minutes to make my homemade versions so I don't think the cost of the convenience is worth it. 

Compost Mishaps

So I may have gotten ahead of myself on the composting front. The worm bins are going so well that I thought I should take it to the next level; bokashi. This is a Japanese anaerobic method of composting that basically pickles the food and then you put the pickled scraps through a regular composting process. Why go throw the extra hassle? With bokashi you can put in dairy, meat, and bones which you can't do in a worm or regular compost pile! So after a few weeks of research, I took what I like best from several sites and came up with this...

1. Buy a plastic, sealable bin making sure that it will fit in a trash bag just in case this experiment goes horrible wrong. Some web sites sell bokashi buckets that have a spigot on the bottom to catch the "tea" to use as fertilizer. I skipped this to save money, and since I have worm "tea" I don't think I need anymore fertilizer.
2. Most folks purchase pre-made bokashi bran. This bran is inoculated in effective microorganisms (EM) (good bacteria). They then layer the bran on the bottom of the sealable container put food scraps over that and then another layer of bran with a weight of some sort over that so as to keep air out. You continue layering until the bin is filled. You can then let the entire bucket ferment for a few weeks and take the pickled food and put it in you your worm bin, regular compost, or dig it into the ground. Being a DIYer, I found some web sites that talked about people who used newspaper which is much cheaper than bran. I also decided against buying EM solution. I went to the home brew store and bought lactobacillus.
3. To get the bacteria started, I put it with molasses and warm water kept it in a warm spot over night and then put it in my bin with shredded newspaper. As a test, I took a few handfuls and put that in the small plastic baggie. The plan was to allow everything to ferment for two or three weeks, dry out the newspaper and begin a bokashi bin.
4. I had mixed success. The newspaper molded instead of fermenting, and I now have a giant bin of funk! However the newspaper in the baggie is perfect. The only mold color is white which is okay and the mixtures smells sweet and sour just like it should. I have come to the conclusion that the problem with the bin was it had too much exposure to air.

In my next attempt, I want to make this even more of a DIY project. I plan on making my own EM solution from a old Thai farmer recipe. (Check out this site for the info.) Yes I recognize the fact that I probably shouldn't be trying to do more of this myself considering it didn't go so well the first time but it is just ingrained in my personality to always strive for more self sufficiency. Now the question is how to get a get the bin of mold out in the trash without Jeff noticing...

The starter yeast with molasses and oats.

Newspaper shreddings- pre crazy mold!