Old Lady Tractor

19 posts in March and 2 in June, I must not have much to say these days.

Actually, I've felt like ranting quite a bit but the thoughts have not been cohesive or they have been a little more personal than I am really comfortable spreading around (even though I still blog fairly anonymously). Plus I have been trying to keep myself pretty busy at my folks' farm.

Mom's chicks are here now. 207 baby buff orpingtons (as I recall) are now down to 203 but those remaining seem fairly strong. If we only lose 4 it will be a minor miracle. I would share a picture or two but it seems the pictures mom said she took, did not actually make it onto my camera (that she used to take them). Ah well, no cute pictures of me on hands and knees with baby chicks all around and on and under me for you all to see.

Getting their first home ready wasn't a ton of work but it did take some time. They are beginning their lives with us in a 8 X 8 shed that has housed mom's few hens for the past 7 or 8 years. Bit of a hint for people here....USB sheathing SUCKS. Don't use it if you can help and certainly don't use it anywhere that gets wet. The stuff just falls apart. I have nearly ranted about the looming USB failure in North America a few different times but don't want to get too off track here. So yes, the shed's floor was USB. As such, this mean years of having damp from food and water soaking into the floor through wood shavings, which left a floor that had many patched over holes. No amount of cleaning was going to make this an acceptable surface for chicks so I ripped out that old crumbling mess, hosed out the whole inside of the shed, scraped the walls down some (they weren't too bad but still gross), and put in a new 3/4" plywood floor. I likely should have painted inside with linseed oil or something but I just didn't get to it in time. Either way, the babies had a lovely clean shed to move into upon their arrival (after a 3.5 hour drive in the truck with my parents). Ill post about this again soon, when I actually have pictures to share.

The fact that this shed is full of chicks now means that I also got the chicken tractor finished and into operation. The 4 old ladies weren't too happy with their new digs to begin with, and my sister's puppy rushing up to the screen to say hello to them didn't exactly help either. 2 of the old dears flew right through the meshing and ran off! They finally made their way back into their old shed where I caught them and put them back into their mobile home.

The next day, I was worried about one of the escapees. She was puffed up and laying down a lot, so I was worried that she had hurt herself while escaping and might die. But then I was looking into the nests and noticed that some of the chicken shite laying around was very little other than stringy grass. Obviously this was very suspicious and I then noticed that the poorly looking hen, also looked bulgy in the chest. I got to wondering if her gizzard was perhaps not working properly, so I gave them a container of grit which was attacked hungrily. They went through a good half litre of grit that same night (although a lot will have been scattered about the ground too). Two days later all 4 hens were their normal selves, and one looking very grateful. It was completely our fault in the first place but its awful nice to figure out what is wrong before its too late.

To give a quick idea of the building of their mobile home, here are some more pictures:





There is a 2X4 sticking out each end for a reason. It was my original plan to move the tractor by lifting at opposing corners, but the one end was much too heavy for this plan to work. 4 of us hefted it into it's first position (don't ask me why I didn't just build it there...), which was quite a lot of work, but I used a two wheel dolly at the heavy end for the next small move at the end of the first week. This was so much easier that I think my parents could do it by themselves. Thankfully the little old ladies weren't too upset by the process.



Chickens need shade so the tarp provides that. The bales are in place as wind shelter because we get some incredibly windy days here. A little extra work on each move keeps the old ladies comfortable. I am thinking of building full bale walls all around the tractor over the winter, including a simple peaked ceiling. This will provide them with more space to wander, scratch and leave their shite, while keeping them protected from our nasty -45 C (often with heavy wind) days.

Overall, I am happy with how this thing turned out, even though the carpentry should be a lot better. These skills need work or they get rusty and it has been a few years now since I did much in the way of carpentry. The next one I build will include a larger nesting/roosting box that may take up the whole upper space instead of just at one end. I can also make the unit a full 16' long which should keep about 12 or so hens, complete with an upper nesting loft for them. I doubt this design would work well for solely meat birds as they might struggle with the ramp but it should be fine for dual purpose birds.

Anyway, tha..tha..tha...that's all for now folks. Peace and comfort to all.

Chickens and Bees continued

In my continuing attempt to learn to keep bees, I came across a little something that gave me the best laugh I have had in a long long time. My thanks to the Honeyflow Farm website for this little tidbit titled "when I grow up", and for the great pictorial of a year's beekeeping and honey harvesting activity.

For anyone interested in learning about beekeeping, Gobeekeeping is a great starter site. I highly suggest that anyone living rurally consider looking at keeping at least one colony if there are none around.

As link wandering will often do, I was also led to a delightful chicken video. I swear, anyone who can watch it without grinning and/or laughing and just feeling uplifted a bit overall, has no soul.

Chickens and Bees

So, I have been saving up a whole lot of ranting, so much that I have not really been able to sort it into any kind of coherent post. I may just blurt out a brief thought by thought rant one of these days.

However, on my mind right now are chickens and bees.

As most people who come across this page are likely to agree, chickens are pretty cool critters. Taken care of, they can be very friendly and quite intelligent. Chickens are also a fine source of food, either in their meat or from their usually daily egg production. While providing this food, chickens are happy to feed partially off of our non-meat household table waste (pigs are also a great waste disposal favorite of mine). Chickens also provide a certain amount of spiritual benefit, when well cared for. Walk into a room full of happy nesting chickens some early evening, most any human soul would be uplifted by their gentle song (keep a wary eye on the roosters tho). One may find this song to be intially chaotic, but speaking softly to the hens will tend to bring a certain cohesion, allowing one to be a sort of conductor. Its a pretty amazing experience if one is open to it.

Bees are another fascinating, tho far more overlooked, creature. Honeybees pollinate our flowering plants and vegetables in the spring and summer time search for food and honey stores. This pollination allows for the production of a large percentage of our global food supply. While other flying insects play a role in pollination, honeybees do the vast majority of the work in assisting human food production. Obviously they are the only flying insect to provide us with vast quantities of vital natural sugars in the form of honey. This vital insect is also experiencing a massive die-off in North America (I am not sure about globally). While the reasons for this die-off are unclear, I tend to blame chemicals and atmospheric clutter (electromagnetic fields, microwaves, etc etc), what is important is that we must stop leaving the responsibility for honeybee stewardship primarily to large scale business interests. Small farmers and acreage owners HAVE to consider either maintaining small honeybee colonies, or at least endeavoring to grow flowering plants and vegetables as well as severely restricting our chemical insecticide use.

Having said all this, my parents are looking at increasing their egg production and are interested in maintaining a couple of bee colonies on our two properties. As such, I am looking for local (to Alberta) natural heritage chicken breeders and honeybee breeders. I would be exceedingly grateful for any leads in either of these areas.

Peace to all, be wary in this dark world and bring light where you can.