llama Grove Groove » chicknes

On the Move. Farm 3.0

kari — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 03:32:47 +0000

Step one:

find a new home for llama grove

What?

You heard me. Well, we needed to re-home the groovy grove, so, step one completed. Completed-ish.

I can’t say that there will be llamas. But there is a barn. See at the right? That’s a barn, yo! Sure, it needs work, but we can probably live in it instead of the house if we ever need to. And who knows, we might need to. The house has issues that we can discuss later.

Step two. Yes, let’s move on to step two:

move in llamas ?? I can’t answer to that at the moment. There might be llamas. Isn’t that a really bad

book? We can promise chickens, and maybe a dog. The little man didn’t do so well with Walter, our neighbor’s dog, but he loves dogs. It took him a while to warm up to horses, so we might get a dog. A ratter for the barn?

But definitely chickens. Orpingtons are a must. They are very protective of their areas, they lay at least one egg a day for more of the year than most chickens, and they are bright and affectionate. At least ours have been. Maybe a luxury bird like a silkie again? tiny little egg layers are cute and this farm is smaller than the last two, so maybe mini-chickens are the answer.

The farm house is more farm house than any Llama Grove farm house before it. It’s quaint and has barn siding inside. It’s awesome and scary. Let the remod begin! We can do this! Make it awesome! Any inspirational music out there? We could use it.

Let’s rething step two. Step two will be a garden this time. Let’s get some box planters and make an area for a green house to help the lack of CSA this year. Don’t worry. If you build it, they will come. The animals, silly.

Farm 2.0

kari — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 20:12:45 +0000

The farm is starting again. When the last of the animals left Llama Grove we thought it might be a long time before animals were brought to the new homestead. But a couple weeks ago, we did just that! Six baby chickens have made their way to the new Llama Grove. To the left is their chicken tractor. It’s pretty big, but we’re able to move it around the property. It also matches the house, with it’s steep angles and high-fronted design.

The kids love the little fluff balls. The chicks started off in the mud room. Today there is no wind and a lot of sunlight, so the chickens are outside enjoying the green grass and spiders that run through it. The chicks get a fair bit of handling, so we’re hoping for chickens that come to us and don’t jump when we reach for them. They already jump a lot. We never thought that we’d be trying to clip the wings of pullets before they were fully laying.

Homestead Here?

kari — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 01:54:13 +0000

We’re not sure if this is the permanent homestead. The view is unbeatable, but the slopes don’t accomodate the larger animals without putting the soil in jeapordy. The chickens love the space that used to belong to the female Alpacas! So roomy and full of worms. They also have the entire barn to themselves. We’ll be looking for a new site soon enough, but hope to return to the llama grove as soon as we can. <3

Chicken

kari — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 04:53:24 +0000

The chickens continue to lay as though it was summer time. They are doing great.

Doubling the Flock

kari — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 04:03:33 +0000

This weekend we doubled the size of our flock. A neighbor gave us five laying hens they didn’t want to keep any longer. There are four Rhode Island Reds and the big coup for us was a silver araucana that lays blue eggs! We’ve bought so many araucanas looking for one that lays blue or green eggs.

To this end, Ray built three more nesting boxes and another roost. The heating lamp was turned on, too, given the low overnight temperatures.

Roast Chicken

kari — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 00:55:27 +0000

Our second chicken.

Chicken Harvest

kari — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 19:20:34 +0000

Ray came home early today to round up the Cornish Crosses and the Australorp rooster for slaughter. He drove them down to another farm that has a plucker. We’ve decided plucking feathers by hand is for the birds. Minus driving and catching the rooster, the entire process was done in the time it would have taken us to pluck the feathers of one bird. To the right is a picture of some of the birds in the refrigerator. They will age in the fridge for a couple of days before moving into the freezer for use in the next year. You can really tell the difference between the rooster (middle) and the Cornish Crosses.

Gardening

kari — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 18:16:47 +0000

Ray has begun getting the weeds out of the garden. It’s had to wait a little bit, but just look at these results. We have more lettuce than we can reasonably eat. ( I will not be making cream of lettuce soup. I’d rather give away a couple dozen heads. Cream of Lettuce soup tastes like chlorophyll to me, anywya.) There are new broiler chicks in the barn. We’re not taking pictures since they won’t be with us long.

Here a chick, there a chick, everywhere

kari — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 20:07:42 +0000

Chicks are really hard to find this year, and since we aren’t looking for Cornish Crosses, people at the feed store don’t quite know what to make of our requests for a multi-purpose bird. We got a black sex link and three Australorps. These should be big girls that can lay eggs if we chicken out, so to speak. It took 7 visits to feed stores to find chicks this year. If you want a turkey, no problem.

kari — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 05:47:40 +0000

Though we said we’d try the cornish cross broilers, a little research proved that these are not the chickens for us. Any chicken that has to have it’s food intake monitored is not the right chick for a free-range, calf-pasture sharing bird. The side effects for not watching the feed ranged from the birds not being able to stand due to the weight of their breasts, to heart failure and a noted stupidity of the breed. So we’ll stick with our dual purpose layers and see how the year goes.

Cinnamon the cow has taken very well to her llama overloards. The llama ladies have shown a maternal side that had previously only been glimpsed when Mariah was indulgent towards alpaca cria. Now even tomboy pack llama Ursula is allowing the calf to try to suckle and none of the camelids spit at her. The horse is still routinely covered in spit, but he seems to ask for it. He’s indulgent in his own way, too. Yuri the Suri was spotted standing on his hind legs to eat from the horse’s feed dish, sharing breakfast.

Project for the weekend: Set up a chick area in the milk stall, maybe get the cupboards up in the feed area. Take time off if the weather is terrible. Get the fir trees trimmed back from stairs and garden areas if the weather is fine. Oh, and teach the darn horse some manners. He’s too smart for his own good.