Dog, Chickens, Farming and a Shameless Plug

Asuka the Best Dog Ever

After a bit of training our German Shepherd, Asuka, is able to be out with the chickens at any time. Now we don't leave her out long unsupervised but we can let her out to go to the bathroom and come right back. She doesn't even chase the chickens much anymore. She will go find them for me if I don't see them right away but she just casually moves them along.

I love my dog she is doing so well with very minimal training. Plus she is just a great dog and I am so glad to have her.

Stripe the Dominant Chicken

Now we have one chicken we call Stripe because when she was a baby she had a stripe on her back. Now has the most unusual coloring of the bunch and she is also the boss of the chickens. It seems to be the way in the chicken world but Stripe has a strange tendency to challenge the dog. My dog takes it rather well and just barks at the chicken but I wonder what is going through that chickens mind when it stares down another animal at least 10 times larger for a marshmallow or nut. It is really funny to see now that my dog just brushes her off.

Stripe and White Birds

Asuka Guarding Her Chickens

Then There is Farming....

Well working at the farm is great most days. I don't like working in the rain at all. I am finding that I can deal with the heat a lot better than I can the cold. I don't like it when it is raining but I can tolerate rain if it is warm but not if it is cold. I wimped out on the day I brought my hubby with me last week. It was very cold and wet and I stayed like an hour. I was in a very wet sweatshirt and jeans and I just couldn't get warm.

Other than the crappy days I have learned a lot out there. I have also been able to try some veggies I have never tried before. I have to say kohlrabi is now one of my favorite veggies now and I had never even heard of it before. I am still going out two days a week but somehow I have become extremely busy.

Business and Other Stuff

Well I am starting to sell Herbalife products now. They have a line of weight management products that I wanted to try. In just a little over a week I have lost 3 pounds and I feel great. I am full of energy which makes it easier to work out. I have a website if you would like to order any products. You can contact me at sundcarrie@yahoo.com if you have any questions or visit My Herbalife Store.

Other than that I have been fighting with some companies that have ripped me off and worrying about fixing the duplex we own that was broken into and the copper pipes cut out of the basement. I suppose I should be grateful that I am getting some of my money back from the con-artists and that the thief's turned the water off but it just comes at a bad time. It is driving me crazy that I have to sink time and energy into these people when I really want to get my sales business off the ground so I can work to buy that farm of my dreams.

The Great Chicken Escape

We went to my moms on Sunday and came home to just two brown chickens in the yard. One white chicken was two yards away and the other 3 were just one yard away in the opposite direction.

The lone chicken has gotten out once before it realized it could fly over the fence. The problem is when it gets out it freaks out. She gets loud and draws attention to herself but won't let us catch her. So they spent yesterday in their coop because I had to go to work on the farm. This morning my hubby and I clipped their wings.

I though it would be hard but they once we got a hold of each of them they would calm down after a few seconds. It was easy and it didn't hurt them. Hopefully we won't have anymore chickens running around the neighborhood. I am told once they reach full size they won't have an easy time getting over the fence but for now they will be grounded. I really don't want to loose my chickens to dogs who have not been trained to allow chickens in there yard. It took our dog quite some time to get used to them so I would only have myself to blame if they got eaten by a dog.

All About the Chicken Coop

Me and Asuka staining the chicken coop

Chicken coop with entry door open there is a drop down ladder so they can get to the bottom area

Chicken house built by Grandpa Sheldrick and stained by me 

I am sorry the pictures have taken this long to post. I have had a great couple of weeks aside from the sickness that just won't leave me. The chickens are growing at astronomical rates and they are doing great outside of their coop during the day. Around 8 or 9 at night they usually go into the coop on their own and all I need to do is close it so no predators can get in.

Now that it is warm we leave the drop down ladder down most of the time just in case I don't get up at 6 to let them out. The chickens can go to the bottom to soak up the sunlight if I am late and I don't have to feel guilty about sleeping in on days when I am super tired.

The coop also has a nesting box on the side you can not see and I keep the bedding in there very fluffy because they all gather up together in there at night. They won't lay eggs for quite some time but it looks like I will have to go on egg hunts once they do. They just love being out in the yard so I am not going to leave them in the coop when I don't have too.

For the next post I have a bunch of pictures of my dog with the chickens. She is shaping up to be a good at herding and protecting the chickens now that they don't looks so much like squeak toys.

Update Soon I Promise

Love this old picture of Asuka on the porch soaking up the sun.

I took a lot of pictures yesterday of the chickens, their coop and the dog. We had fun outside and I hope to get some pictures of the plants on the porch and the garden at my moms soon. I have a few posts planned but have not been organized enough to work on them.

I still have a bit of a cough but I have been going to the farm regularly and spending my off days working around here and reading when I feel really bad. I finished two books and have some reviews to work on for my Dark Novels blog. So I suppose being sick for nearly two weeks was not completely unproductive.

Well I must go and finish getting ready to go to the farm today. I found someone to car pool with at least some of the time. I should be able to save about 20 dollars a month in gas this way. Now I just have to clean out my cars so when it is my turn to drive they don't freak out about all the dog hair.

Chicken Coop Done

Before Enclosed

 Building A Coop

Wednesday we went out to the grandparents house to work on the chicken coop. Grandpa had been working on it all morning and my hubby helped him finish it. I tried but I with my limited knowledge of how things work I ended up being the hold this, hand me that girl.

By the end of the day it was finished and we were happy with it. Grandpa was not so he made some changes before bringing it over on Thursday. I need to get a few shots of the completed coop can't seem to motivate myself to do so today because it is rainy and gloomy looking out there. 

I spent seven hours at a grant writing seminar yesterday and then came home and mowed the grass and cleaned the kitchen and moved the birds outside to a temporary pen that I also created after the seminar.  I needed to clean their tub because they had knocked their water over multiple times and adding bedding just was not working. Considering that was becoming common place and I was having to completely change the bedding once a day we decided to leave them outside.

The Finished Product

The finished coop is completely enclosed on the upper half with one large door and a small side door. It also has a drop down ladder so the chickens can get down to the area on the bottom. All 4 sides and the bottom of the lower half have chicken wire to keep out predators. The only thing bad about the thing is it is super heavy and hard to move. 

Last night we put a heavy layer of wood chippings down and put all six chickens in the nesting area where I put heaping piles of bedding. I was very worried they would be dead this morning but they are fine.  They actually seem happier to have a place to move around in. They were all huddled together at 7 am and by 9 they were walking around the upper half. They were in the basement before and considering we don't have any heat on in this house it probably isn't much colder in an enclosed wooden house. 

All in all the coop is awesome! It looks great and it is functional it will just take some muscle to move it around. Once the chickens get bigger we might try clipping some wings and let them run around the yard a bit but for now I think they will be happy out there. When I put them in the temporary pen they seemed to be much happier they were getting very crowded in there tub and they were making a huge water mess every few hours.

Urban Farming Goals

Schooner Farms

I am officially a farm volunteer now! I visited Schooner Farms yesterday and I probably talked way too much and asked way too many questions. It was raining so a physical tour was out but Mr. Schooner showed me an aerial view on the computer. They have bees, chickens and fish as well as a huge variety of edible plants. They can teach me to compost and to plant things at the right time. I learned a lot in just an hour and a half.

I go back on Monday for my first day of volunteering. I am hoping to remember my camera so I can take some pictures and write about my adventures. I am so glad I made the 45 minute drive it was worth it to learn that I have been doing some things horribly wrong in my own urban garden, like planting broccoli at the same time I plant my cucumbers.  

Garden at Mom's House

I have a dining room table full of plants that need protected from the cold nights but there are a lot of started plants. I have a grant seminar tomorrow and after that my hubby and I will head over to till the ground and prepare it for planting. I have a lot of planning and preparing to do with that and having my hubby off will help a great deal. He can help me with the hard stuff and the planting and then I should be able to take it from there.

I also have a few things for the porch garden started but I have no soil to use at the moment to expand. I have a bunch of containers to use but no dirt to put in them. I don’t think I should just dig a hole in the yard. I have salad greens and herbs planted for the porch and I would like to get some green onions planted out there and keep a tomato and pepper plant for the big pots that I have. I am not sure what else I can grow on the porch but I will start researching that as soon as I get done with the big garden and the chicken coop.

Chicken Coop

Today we go to my husband’s grandparent’s house to build a chicken tractor. It will be easy to move and it will have a nice area for them to run around in. Ryan’s grandpa can build anything so I am going to have to take the camera and snap some shots as things come together. I am so ready for the chickens to go outside but I don’t want to rush things.

I have had a bunch of busy days and I miscalculated there age in the last post they were not 4 weeks old yet. If I calculated right this time they should have been 4 weeks on Monday. The days of vomiting made me feel like an eternity had passed I guess.

As I have read they can go out at 5 weeks so if they seem ready and we have the coop done they will go out sometime next week. I am going to set up a temporary fence and give them some outdoor time to get adjusted to their new environment. We took them out last week on the 70 degree days just to see what they would do and they just stood there huddled together. We were only out there with them about 10 minutes but they were probably cold and a little scared of the new environment. So the next nice day I will have to take them out for a bit. 

3 Week Old Chicks

Looks like they are getting to big for the brooder

Well today I finally got the camera out to take pictures. I can't believe it has been three weeks already. We did have to put a make shift top on the brooder and now I am thinking of getting a giant box for the last few weeks. They are getting to big for the space.

One of the white birds flew up on the the edge of the tub today about 5 times. It flew right up in my dogs face and just stood there. Asuka, my German shepherd, was stunned for a second so she didn't bite it. She has been doing well as long as they stay in the tub but I think she might feel like they are toys so she is always supervised. Enjoy the pics! Oh and by the way I cleaned out the water when we were done taking pictures.

You can see the darker colored ones getting brown feathers

Please Look at the Camera

No I don't want to!

Thanks to my hubby's patience we got a front shot

Urban Farming Update

Snow Rain and more Snow

I am seriously wishing I lived in a warmer climate right now. I have been saving plastic containers I can use for my porch garden and working on plans for the garden at my moms house.

I can deal with rain but I am so sick of the cold temperatures and the snow I want to pack up and move right now. I don't have enough room or light to grow a lot in the house. I am going th have to start some of the plants this week and then just hope for better weather soon so I can plant the rest.

It is so cold most days I can't even put the plants on the porch for the day and bring them back in at night. I am itching to get my hands dirty and plant something. I want to grow all or most of my own veggies for the summer and then learn to can, freeze or dry the leftovers.

Sustainable Living Planting Goals
I am working toward a life where I am less reliant on the grocery store and utility companies. I want to start by reducing my grocery bill. I eventually want to be able to make, raise, and grow much of my own food. I am a bit depressed about the slow start at this point.

I am really starting to think we might have to move further south to make a go of this sustainable living thing. If we don't move I am going to have to find a mentor that can help with gardening/farming in this climate. Most of the books I have been reading assume the weather is nicer by this time.

Sustainable Living and Back Yard Chickens
Because planting has taken a back seat for this week and maybe next I am working on learning to cook things that use a lot of eggs. In about 4 months I will be blessed with quite a few eggs from our 6 hens and by next spring I am sure I will have eggs coming out of my ears. People are already offering to pay for my extra eggs so that is good news.

Once the hens are producing I would just like to be able to sell enough eggs to pay for the feed I will need to buy. It won't take long for the chicks and there setup to pay for themselves once they start laying. Thus far they are exceptionally easy to care for and I really enjoy it.

I would really like to start raising some meat birds as well but that will have to wait until we have a place of our own. I am sure to get complaint from neighbors if I were to cram six hens and six meat birds into my backyard. Then if I try to process them myself I know I will get complaints.

Toledo Ohio doesn't have any laws against chickens but they do have quite a few policies that could get your chickens taken away really fast. I will have to keep the coop and the yard very clean once they go outside and I just have to hope they are not too noisy. I should not have any roosters and if I do they will be going back to the Tractor Supply store because I paid extra for pullets (sexed-chicks).

Living off the Grid
I was hoping someday to reach the status of living off the grid, where in my own home I was able to produce all the resources needed to live. I don't see that as a possibility with out a lot of capital to start with at least not in the Toledo area. I also don't want to live in a shack and wash my clothes on a wash board so what I would like to do is live off the land as much as I can without sacrificing all the luxury items.

I am going to try to test that as much as I can in the home I live in now hence the idea of an urban farm update. I hope more will join me and work hard to change the way things are in this country. I am not saying I don't love living in the USA but I would like to see a shift in how we obtain our resources. I really don't like to think of what they do to bring us our eggs, milk, beef and chickens because I still have to rely on that but someday I won't have to. I am starting small with laying hens so I don't have to buy my eggs from the grocery store anymore and then I will move up to meat birds and then up more until I can fill my freezer with meat and sell my extras.

HELP PLEASE
If you have some great recipes that use a lot of eggs I would love to try them. Remember I am learning to cook from scratch and I don't want a recipe that induces a lot of processed foods.  You can comment here or send them to my email sundcarrie@gmail.com with egg recipe in the subject line.

Baby Chick Pictures

Well here they are I brought them home today. I am hoping to find new homes for 2-3 of them and keep the rest. If not a few will be meat birds. They are super cute and they seem to be getting along fine now that there brooder is nice and warm. Enjoy the pictures!

I am Getting Chickens

After I wrote the post Backyard Chickens 101 quite a few things changed. I follow Toledo Grows a local organization that is teaching young people many things including how to grow your own food. They were on Facebook polling the public to see how many people would want chickens. I asked them what I had to do to have chickens in the city because the page I looked at for local laws was outdated. They said chickens are completely legal in Toledo just ask your neighbors to make sure they don’t have a problem with it.

With all the chicken research I have been doing I was kind of excited to learn they would be able to buy the chickens and divide them up so I wouldn’t have to get the minimum of six  from tractor supply. Not that I wouldn’t like six but I was thinking two or three would be enough for our yard. Then I asked my hubby who wouldn’t answer me even after I told him how I was going to take care of them and keep them from the local predators.  

My hubby’s answer was your mom and Mike (my step-father) will say no. I texted my mom who is on vacation in Florida and expected her to tell me I was crazy and there was no way I could have chickens in her backyard. I had a backup plan for that but it would have been a hard sell because I would be much less likely to get up and drive over to the other house to take care of chickens. We rent this house but two blocks away we own a duplex and the chickens could have stayed in that yard.

So now it was back to asking my hubby what he thought. I asked if we could have two laying hens and he said three would be better. I think he wants them he just does not want to have to take care of them. He works 46-52 hours a week and he does not want to have something else to take care of. I assured him that I would take care of them and if I don’t like caring for them I can stick it out until they are big enough to eat.

I still need to ask my neighbors but I am not so sure I will be asking as much as I am informing them. I don’t think I will have any problems with either of them but if it seems like I do I will just promise them eggs. With all the promised eggs we will have to get 6 chickens to feed us, two neighbors, my mom and Mike, hubby’s mom and my sister. Oh and let’s not forget the dog who loves a raw egg for a snack.

So there you have it once I have cleared the neighbors I will be well on my way to getting some chickens. When the process starts I promise to take some pictures and share my journey with you. I will share it all especially my failures so you can learn from my mistakes. Come along for the ride as I become an Urban Farmer.