Baby Chick Hatching in Genesis Hova Bator Incubator

1 week old baby chicks

These little baby chicks are so cute and fluffy!! They are 1 week old Cornish Cross meat birds. They grow quite fast and eat alot!!

Look at the legs on this fella!!

 They are very curious and love to see what I am doing...cause of course they assume I am  bringing them food! 

Dance time!!

Baby Chicks are here!!!

They arrived safely in a ventilated box picked up at the farmers market.

We transferred them over to their cage where they can huddle up under the heat light and keep each other warm

They quickly found the feed and water and dove right in!

Baby Chick Feeder DIY Super Easy Works Great!

We have more baby chicks here on our little farm and they sure do eat alot! Its quite frustrating to constantly be filling their food and then realize its all out again! I love these little feeders that hook to a mason jar but I do not like that you can only fill them with 1 quart of feed at a time. They take up minimal floor space on the cage but are quite a hassle if you have a lot of birds. I kept trying to think of a way to make them easier to fill (from the outside of the cage) as well as easier to keep full! I took our metal feed tray with me to Lowes and found all the lovely parts to make it work like it does in my mind!!

Supplies: 1 feeder tray (I used the metal tray so I could bend out the inside rings so the PVC would slide right in $3.50),  1 4"x2" PVC Coupling (In the plumbing section of your hardware store - $5), 1 4" PCV Pipe (I got the 5' piece and cut it in half so I can make 2 of these feeders - $8), 1 tube of All Purpose Caulking ($2.99)

Total Cost: Under $20! I also have half of the PVC pipe left to make another feeder as well as plenty of caulking for other projects! Or you could make 2 of these (by purchasing an additional feeder tray($3.50 and an additional PVC Coupling $5) for $29.

 Start by crimping, hammering, or pinching your ring so its completely flat (this looks like its got extra crimps, but they are pushed to the opposite side so as to flatten the inside)

Now its time for the caulking. Apply it generously so you get a good firm seal

 Wipe clean any goopy extra that has smashed out. 

 Now cut your PVC pipe if you want. I wanted to cut mine so I could make 2 and I wanted them short so my kids can easily fill them. If they were 5 feet tall, they would hold alot more feed, but the kids wouldnt be able to do all the upkeep. So decide what your needs are and modify as needed!

 Get your drill bit ready and make your wholes to connect your feeder with zip ties. 

Ready for Install!!

Hook up your feeder wherever is most convenient for you to monitor and fill it...also consider what will be easiest and most efficient for the chicks to gather around and eat from it! Dont put it in a corner or the backside of the feeder will be cut off.

 Zip tie the top and bottom in place so the birds dont move it around.

They LOVE it!! They are super curious and it doesnt even have any feed poured in it yet!

Pour away!! Its perfect height for my kids to reach it and peek in to see how full it is. I used an old pot as the cap to keep out bugs. You can purchase a PVC cap, but im sure you have a tupperware or old pot you can use...save the money for feed!

 

 All gathered around and eatin away! I have our feeder right in the middle of the chicks cage. I also have the whole cage up off the ground an inch or so to help keep them nice and clean. I use cheap plastic table clothes (2 for $1) to cover the floor, makes for SUPER easy clean up! I clean it as needed. I can also lift this cage quite easily and set them outside on the ground to get some good outdoors time. This makes for super easy cleanup, just by moving them! They will only be in this cage for a few weeks. In which we will increase their outdoors time till they are ready to scratch, run, play, and defend themselves outside.

Let me know if you use this idea!! I would love to hear how it works for you and what modifications you do to make it work best for your situation.

Thanks!

Homegrown Eggs Delicious and Nutritious

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From backyard...

To kitchen...

To table...

...within minutes! Delicious and Nutritious!!

Nest Box Adventures!

Its a race to the nest box to see which girls laid us some presents! The excitement of these 2 kids would make you think that they were golden eggs in there! Ummm, let me clear that up right now that there are in fact no golden eggs here. Bummer!

If you are considering raising backyard hens I highly recommend adding nest boxes to your coop. The hens love to curl up in the boxes where it is warm and dark and lay their eggs. The kids also love knowing exactly where to find treasures! We had to put a log stump at the foot of the nest box so the kids can reach up and collect the eggs without us...besides, its really cold outside and its alot easier to watch from the backdoor with a nice hot cup of tea while the kids run out in the cold to bring in the eggs! 

Our egg layin beauties!

These girls have proved to be quite the productive group of hens!

The chickens, who were baby chicks just a few months ago, are now full grown and proving to be excellent egg layers!! Addie has taken such good care of them from the time they first joined our little farm back in March. At the end of the summer I realized how hard Addie was working to take care of them and that she basically did all the feeding and egg collecting...so, we told her that if she wanted she could have all the chicken responsibilities...she gladly accepted! Along with the irresponsibility, we told her that if she sold any extra eggs she collected that she could keep the money in her jar. She quickly decided she wanted to sell them for $10 per dozen (decided upon due to only have 10 finger...otherwise Im sure she would have thought of a higher number!). I told her that she would never get $10 for 1 dozen eggs...quickly she exclaimed "Oh, Grandpa will buy them!". "Oh, yes Im sure you are right...but we are not charging grandpa $10 for eggs!"

We are down to 9 hens (several were roosters and a few were lost to the harsh summer we had) but they are layin very consistently! Addie was bringing in 7-8 eggs a day until just about a month ago as the daylight began to dwindle (chickens egg production is based dramatically off of hours of sunlight...as well as a healthy diet). With the slight temperature rise we have seen as well as a new organic chicken layer feed we have them enjoying, their production has taken off again and Addie is bringing in at least 5 eggs a day...some days we have 8. I'm sure the production will lower slightly as we enter the cold winter months, but these girls are definitely strong heritage breeds and I really look forward to seeing them in the years to come!

I think hens are a fabulous and easy way to start having your back yard produce something for you!

Welcome to the back 40...feet

Welcome to "the back 40" (as we call it)...I wish it were the back 40 acres, but its just the back 40 feet! Bryan built a cute picket fence and walkway in front of the garden to help section off the garden and bees from the rest of the yard. 

We have planted 1 bed of beans that is doing fabulous and are getting ready to plant several more beds of beans as a fall crop. I love the various beans we have coming up. We planted a variety of colors so when the kids go exploring for beans they get to find yellow, purple and striped beans instead of just regular green beans...although they are tremendously fun to find as well!

Once the busy time of goat milking is done in the morning our backyard quickly becomes a very peaceful place to relax! The bee hives are tucked into the corner of the garden bringing thousands of pollinators quickly into our garden as well as a growth of fresh honey :) You can sit back and hear the peaceful hummmm of the workers comes from their hives. Then glance to the other side of the yard and see Peaches and Poppy relaxing  after their morning milking. They love spending the cool breezy morning relaxing beside their bin of alfalfa while the chickens peck around the yard finding little "protein treats" (bugs)! Its quite a peaceful time of day! I fully enjoy the relaxation of watching my "backyard work for me". The garden is growing, the bees are buzzing around pollinating and storing up honey, the goats are "replenishing their milk supply", the chickens are laying eggs and being a fabulous bug pest control, and the chickens and goats are turning the compost pile as well as "producing compost" to enrich the soil! 

 It has been a tremendous amount of work to get our backyard to this level of productivity...but we have no intention of stopping here!! We are continually trying to find new ideas to put our little plot of land to work!

The front 3 beds are now empty after harvesting the leafy greens (arugula, lettuce, and spinach) and peas. We prepped those beds to plant more bush beans and here soon we will plant our fall crop of beans in those beds. 

Then we have 1 row of tomatoes, 1 bed  of beans, and 2 beds of tomatoes. 

Last year we planted a very wide variety of vegetables, all for the purpose of finding out what we like to grow and like to eat. Then after realizing there are some things we are terrible at growing we decided to limit our variety and use the "barter system". We can grow beans and tomatoes well and it is easy to trade those veggies with people who grow other vegetables well. Then of course we had to plant a few herbs for fresh garden herbs. We also have 1 row of quite a few different varieties of peppers and I am anxious to experiment with new recipes!

Taste the Rainbow!! Our tomatoes are taking off!! We planted a variety of colors and sizes and have already harvested a dozen pounds of tomatoes...that doesn't even count what Addie and Henry have eaten while standing out in the garden "harvesting".

We have 2 beds of tomatoes...its our "wall of tomatoes". I can not wait for these fresh balls of delightful flavor to flow out of the garden!! I have alot of canning I want to do as well as sun drying! We sundried several dozen pounds of tomatoes last year (which only ends up being a few pounds of dried tomatoes) and they were extremely fun to savor during the winter months! Sundried tomatoes are fabulous to toss into a winter pasta or salad...I plan to make much more this year!! 

 

I used t-posts and cotton string to make my wall of tomatoes and so far it has done quite well. Now that the tomatoes are growing and branching out I can see that the weight of the tomatoes might be a little heavy for the thin cotton string I selected. I tied up some extra rounds of string to make sure the wall wont collapse under the weight and pressure from the plants. Last year I used some vinyl twine that held up really well but I Wanted to go with a string that would be compostable and I sure hope the walls don't collapse with the stretching of this cotton string! This method easily contains the tomatoes and helps these 8 foot tall plants have somewhere to go as they grow taller and taller. Last year we had tomato plants well over 10 foot tall by the end of the season. 

I hope everyone's gardening adventures are going well!! I would love to hear about your garden, animals and harvest!