I took away the cage and let the younger hens to start “living” with the older hens. Right away the pecking problem starts. However, since the snow melts the hens have more access to the yard and more space to roam, it is not too bad. I can see they are splited into 2 groups – old and young. And whenever an old hen walks close to a younger hen, the younger one would avoid come into close contact. This does put more stress on the younger hens and I don’t know if they are going to lay eggs well.
I now turn off the light in the coop during the day and this helps the pecking somewhat because if the chick can’t see too well in the dark, it wouldn’t peck at each other too much. However, this will decrease the egg production rate because a hen normally needs 12-14 hours of light to lay consistently. Oh well, there is always give and take. But I thank the Lord that my family can have this opportunity to raise food ourselves.
I don’t give money to my kids in offering at church. I ask them to do extra work (chores don’t count because we think it is everyone’s responsibility) to get paid. For example, whoever goes out with daddy and brings water and collects the eggs get $0.10. When summer comes there will be lots of projects that I would enlist their help. I teach them to tithe their little amount of money. You see, I don’t think we should just give them “pocket money” to spend. They should earn money themselves so that they know the value of money, be thankful to God, and have a positive attitude towards hardwork. There is a sense of satsifaction after a day’s hard work.
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We purchased 5 ready-to-lay pullets
We got them last Wednesday. I have read that we should not mix hens with different ages because this would lead to pecking order and cannibalism. True enough, that is what happened. As soon as I put the younger birds in the coop, the older birds start pecking on them. And I have noticed that there is 1 hen that is particularly aggressive. She pecked the feather off from the new birds again and again. The new birds were so scared that they “hide” in the corner.
Since I have somewhat expected this to happen , I decided to put the 5 new birds in a cage inside the coop. I hope this would give some time both group to recognize each other. The new birds are debeaked, so they cannot defend themselves. I tried to debeak one of the aggressive birds but I don’t think I can do that unless I have the right tool – a hot blade to melt away the beak.
I read that on a pasture free range setting the feather pecking is minimized. Since I can only provide them a “yarding” setting, I might have to kill that old hen to save the 5, but I will wait for another week and try to mix them again. It is interesting to note that not all old hens are aggressive, so hens do have different “personalities”.
Kay is having skin problem
For the past couple of weeks, Kay is experiencing red patches on her face, neck and arm areas. And she is feeling very itchy from time to time. We thinks she might have something called seborrheic dermatitis (one of those big-words). Following the recovery from Christmas flu, she had chocolate every day to “recoup the lost pleasure” from the sickness. It looks like excessive white sugar might be the culprit.
Since we read the Nourishing Traditions, we have cut down on white flour and white sugar. And we found that we are now quite “sensitive” to the processed food, commercial bakery product or restaurant menu: we don’t feel right after we eat them. It is like the body is trying to “repel” those chemicals, preservaties and artifical ingridients in the food.
Kay has been applying solutions onto the skin containing comfrey and yarrow. She drinks herbal tea of burdock, alfalfa, yarrow and chamomile. She is also taking garlic to boost immune system. I have to tie her sleeves before sleep so that she would not scratch the skin during dreams. She has to wear gloves as well. It is just tough.
Please pray for her and ask the Lord for healing.
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We have added some good articles for those of you who are interested in finding out what we believe on some controversial issues regarding Christian life. But be prepared that you will be surprised that when it comes to these topics, the Word of God is very different from what the world presents.
Pruning Trees to promote better growth
One of the many tasks we need to do in early spring time is to prune the fruit trees. This involves removing dead limbs, removing suckers from the root and cutting back some branches to let more sunlight into the tree. The goal is to shape the tree so that only a few main trunks bear fruits. It is better to have less but large fruits rather than many small ones. We have to do this before the buds start to grow. As you can see in the photo we have cut down a considerable amount of brances. Don’t be afraid to prune (not excessively, but moderately) because it is good to the tree.
If you chop off brances more than 1 inch in diamemter, it is better to seal it with tree paint. Since I don’t have it on hand, I use latex house paint. This is to prevent moisture loss and infection to the tree and it gives the tree a better chance to heal overtime.
We had our biggest snowstorm
Last weekend we had a major snow storm. It was snowing from Friday night to Sunday morning. After the storm we had an accumulation of 25-30 cm. Thank God I had a snowblower, but even with the help of it, it took me an hour to clear the driveway and made a clear path to the chicken coop. Because of the drift, there are spots where the snow is as high as my waist. Everywhere you lokk there are snowbanks along the road. This is a great year for skiing.
Our apple seedling is dead
One of our apple seedlings we planted last spring was killed by rabbits. They totally girdled the tree bark off the Pristine tree. One side of the pear tree is gone and so are the side branches. All the side branches of the Honeycrisp are gone too. When I found out what happened, I quickly brushed some latex paint on the exposed stems and the tip of branches that were eaten. We should be able to save the pear tree and Honeycrisp. The next day I added chicken wire to surround all 5 remaining trees.Â
Before winter last year, I already put hardware cloth around the root of each seedling so the mice cannot access it. True enough, there were no damage to the root part. However, because of the accumulated snow, the rabbits were able to reach above the top of hardware cloth and helped themselves to the young tree. Well, thank the Lord that we still have 5 trees left. Good lesson learned.
Not much eggs this week
We have on average 7 eggs a day, down from 9. I suspect the reason being the hens are out of water for extended period of time during the day. It is too expensive to turn on the heater in the coop to keep the waterer from frozen. May be I can look into having a heat mat or something where the waterer can be placed on top of. We will need to purchase some ready to lay pullet this year to keep up with the demand. If we have 3 families who constantly require eggs each week, we would need to have at least 15 hens.
Egg Business Growing
Thanks to our homeschooling friends and a co-worker at work, we have 3 customers so far. All the hard work in breaking ice for the waterer, feeding, changing bedding finally pays off. May be we should add more hens to keep up the demand.
We also heard that someone enjoy reading “Nourishing Traditions”. We have contacted the publisher and will start selling this book on this site soon.