Snow Day!

The storm has arrived and is going strong. 

Normally when we open the coop, the chickens explode out the door.  Today, they did not.  They don't want anything to do with that white stuff.

There's an old farmer wisdom that if chickens stay out of a storm it will be short lived but if they go out in it it'll last a long time.  I don't know if that applies to snow.

The good thing about this storm is that it's supposed to dump a bunch of snow, and then promptly warm up and turn to rain.  Shoving is optional!

That great big egg turned out to have two really big yolks.  We're wondering if a goose snuck into the coop and laid that egg.

Christina is too skinny.  It's normal for cows to lose weight after they calve, but she looks skinnier than she should.  I found a "body conditioning" guide on the internet with pictures of tailheads.  See those dips on either side of her tail?  They weren't there two months ago and they shouldn't be there. 

We're feeding her all the alfalfa she's willing to eat.  So we called the experts (the dairy we bought her from).  They said that when she's in milk, it's pretty difficult to gain weight and she didn't gain enough on her last dry period.   We gave her straight grass hay and should have giving her some alfalfa.  Dang.  Okay, we'll do that better next time.

We found out that we're also not giving as much grain as we should.  We should be giving 1 pound of grain for each 3 pounds of milk.  I did some weighing and calculation and she was only getting only half as much grain as she should.    She's pretty pleased with the new big buckets of grain.  All that extra grain means she needs some sodium bicarb to counteract any acid stomach.  We put the bicarb out where she could get it and it she's eating way more of it than I expected.  Now I feel bad that she's been needing it and we haven't been giving it to her (did I tell you I'm pretty good at guilt?).

Our goal right now is to prevent her from losing any more weight and then catch up on her next dry period.  Christina shares the suffering of my oldest child, the one we do all our good learning on.

Winter Storm Prep

While out gathering the eggs today, my daughters found a giant one.  Look at the size of that thing!  Frankly I'm surprised they didn't find a chicken dead in the coop.  Whoever laid that one must have had a bad day. 

My twins are so excited to  cook this one up for breakfast.  Often the big eggs turn out to have two yolks.  They call them twinnie eggs.  They speculate that this one has three.  We'll find out in the morning.

Today we had a load of sand delivered.  We want to build up that area in front of the feeder to keep Christina's feet clean.  Buying it by the truck load is way cheaper than by the bag.

Last Friday we took sample of Christina's milk into the lab.  One quarter is showing some reaction with the CMT test, then it clears up, then it comes back.  We finally decided to take it in and find out.  The lab said it was negative for bacterial infection.  I guess we'll keep watching it and see if it clears up.  I sure am glad it's negative.

A big winter storm is predicted to hit tomorrow, bringing 6-10" of snow.  Today we got ready.  We moved wood closer to the house and we filled some jars with water.  Otherwise, we should be able to survive a power outage.  The solar panels will keep the freezers running.  We'll use the cellar for refrigeration.  We'll use the BBQ and trailer for cooking.  And the wood stove will keep us warm.  We will have to go without computer, movies, laundry, and showers, but I think I can do it!  But without power our water pump won't run, so we need water.  Ooo, and the dishwasher won't run.  Ack!  There could be some suffering.

Pleasant Indoor Work

Our Arucaunas have started laying!  Their eggs are usually pale blue or green.  Yesterday, we got our first.  We thought maybe they had started but were pale pink, which isn't much different than our brown eggs.  When my daughter found it, she ran inside to show everybody.

This egg was one of 19 we yesterday.  It's been almost a month of getting 1-2 dozen eggs a day. You'd think we'd be overrun with eggs, but not so.  The kids are loving scrambled eggs every morning, hard boiled eggs for lunch, custard, pudding, and lots of baking.  Sooner or later we'll get tired of so many eggs, but it hasn't happened yet.

Pepper got some unscheduled time with his mama yesterday.  When we went out for evening milking, he was laying down in Christina's area.  We must have left the gate unlatched and he got it opened.  Our milk was almost a gallon less than normal so he had taken full advantage of the time together. 

Seed saving is new to me, but I'm slowly getting the hang of it.  I started with the easy ones like lettuce and marigold and grain corn.  This year I added pumpkin to my repertoire.  We just scooped the seeds out and let them dry.  I had put these in the other room a month ago and now they are nice and dry. 

I don't know what it's called when you pop the kernals off corn cobs, but we're doing a lot of it.  We finished the Anastasi corn.  It looks so beautiful in this jar and tastes even better in corn bread. 

I sort of miss being outside, but I am enjoying all this inside work.  Sitting in a comfy chair with the fire blazing pulling corn kernals off dry cobs is pretty pleasant.

Pre-Garden

As our egg production has come up, we are getting used to cooking with eggs again.  Our youngest is so happy to have scrambled eggs for breakfast every day and puddings have re-emerged in our menu plan. 

Everybody loves rice pudding.  After making it once the traditional way, I tried it with brown rice.  One daughter says it is better.  The others can't tell any difference.

Those sorry looking cabbages are looking less dead.  I trimmed all the nasty leaves off and new growth has already emerged.  I think it must have been sun exposure that did them in.  Okay, lesson learned.

It is snowing again today. Next week would be the traditional time to prepare the garden and get cold weather things planted like carrots, lettuce, peas, etc.  My older daughter said, "I hope it keep snowing so we don't have to work in the garden.  Wait!  You'll just make go out there in the mud.  I hope it dries up!"

Eggs?

Only eight eggs yesterday.  A few weeks ago we were struggling to keep up with a dozen a day, and then suddenly it dropped off.

This happened last summer.   Late one day we discovered that the coop door had accidentally closed.  We open it right up and laughed at the line up of hens at the nesting boxes.  The next day egg production suddenly dropped.

Two days later we found a dead hen in the coop.  The book said that sometimes hens die of being egg-bound.  The hen doesn't lay her egg and it gets stuck.  We think that's what happened, but because we weren't sure, we treated the hen like she died of disease and carefully wrapped the body in several layers of plastic before whisking it off to the garbage.

Afterward, we made sure the flock had lots of good quality feed and slowly the production came back up.  It took weeks, but it did come back.

Now it's dropped again.  We have one sick chicken, although she might be injured and not sick.  But then, how would we know?!  How do you tell a sick chicken?!   They don't have noses that run.  How could you tell if they were pale?  I don't even know how to check for a chicken fever, and I don't think I'm interested in learning. 

Then something else occurred to us.  It's still warm, but we are on the other side of the equinox.  The books say that chickens lay best with 14+ hour days.  By the end of December when we'll have only nine hours of daylight, production will drop by more than half.  In commercial egg farms they take care of that by using electric lights, but we're going to stay with the sun.  Today we have eleven-and-a-half hours.  Maybe our flock is on the normal decline from shorter days.  We haven't gone a whole year with chickens so we are still learning how their normal cycles work.

I hope it's just normal seasonal decline.

The sick chicken is doing the same.  My nine-year-old checks on her several times a day.  This morning she went out to check on her again.  When she came in I asked how Soody was doing.  "The same," she said confidently.  It's been a week with no change.  Then I asked, "do you think she is suffering?"  My sweet little girl dropped her head, leaned against me and and said, "yes."