Loss of Our Girls

It's a very sad day around The Patch. Some kind of wild vermin managed to get into our chicken tractor and slaughter all of our girls! The trouble began Saturday morning when I found one of them dead in the corner of the run area with minimal trauma signs that looked more like cannibalism by the others. Since there were no signs of foul play or forced entry, I chalked it up to a natural death followed by cannibalism by the other three. I had just picked them all up the night before and there were no signs of sickness. Vents were clean and heads, eyes and combs were bright and clear. Although one of them had occasionally laid a shell-less egg ever since we got them; a sign of internal reproductive abnormality that had gotten worse over the last few weeks.

This morning was bad. Two were dead outright, and the third, Nugget, was crouched in the corner hurting and barely alive. There were no morning eggs in the nest boxes or empty shells. I picked her up and a big chunk of her lower abdomen was missing. I had to euthanize her straight off as she was suffering and there was no way she would recover from that type of trauma. I can only imagine the commotion that must have transpired sometime during the night or early this morning as well as the pain and agony that followed.

The asshole that did this must have managed to wiggle through the lattice work of either the end or top hatches. All of the poultry fence was secure and there were no signs of anything digging in under the tractor frame. However, the culprit did manage to take a dump inside the run area. This scat had no visible hair but there were obvious seeds most likely from our own raspberry patch. The ultimate indignity; taking a dump at the scene of the crime after eating some of our own berry crop.

I WILL HUNT YOUR ASS DOWN AND THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY!

We'll miss you girls and the dozens of eggs you made for us over the last sixteen months.

Early Summer Status

 Things are filling in nicely even after two series of multi-day heat waves. We've been harvesting kale, chard, boc-choy, spring onions, cauliflower, brocolli, and various lettuce greens.  I still need to finsish up the straw mulching, but the critical things are covered and we've been lucky to have had sufficient rain over the last two weeks. The electric fence seems to be working too. No sign of rabbit damage since it went up about a month ago.

 Soon the peppers will need caging.

 And the raspberries are just starting to turn. I've been able to pick a few and it looks like a good crop for jam and wine. No sign yet of Japanese beetles!

I've also made sure to keep a closer eye this year on the yarrow and lavender so I can cut it for drying while it is in its prime.

Late Spring Update; Greens Edition

We've been getting ample chard, kale and lettuce for over a month now. Today we cut some of the first cauliflower and broccoli. A few weeks back we had a series of 90-degree days and I was a bit worried about these especially since the best brassicas are grown in the cool temps of the fall. But it looks like we will have a few heads to wet the appetite in preparation for the fall crop.

I've also trialed a new lettuce this year (on left). It is a mini romaine from Johnny's and so far appears to be a winner. I normally stick with leaf lettuce preferring the Johnny's Allstar Gourmet Mix. Of course I will continue with that. But this mini romaine is excellent as it is much easier to clean, harvest and store a compact head. I suspect it will find a prominent place in the weekly lettuce harvest.

Memorial Day Weekend 2015

Memorial day weekend is a time to reflect on past sacrifices as well as finishing up on springtime yard and garden chores like mulching and setting up tomato cages.

Even after two very tough winters in a row it looks like a bumper crop of raspberries by mid-June.

The chickens are really enjoying the mini-pasture rotation we are doing in the back forty.

And what is May/June without the narcotic aroma of honeysuckle?

A Slow Spring But Things Are Popping!

Its been a long slow spring but things are finally settling down. Some seedlings to get in the ground in the next day or so:

 The tomatoes are coming along. We are going with Romas for drying and juice and the rest are various grape varieties; Golden Sweet, two different varieties of red and Black Cherry. This should be an interesting combination for salads this year.

 And the raspberries are just now starting to bloom (preserves and a new batch of melomel is in the works).

For some reason the girls are hanging out in the hutch area of the tractor today:

But they seem to be enjoying the wonderful weather today too:

Been getting some early harvest from the mustard greens, kale, boc choi  and Swiss chard that was started inside back in the winter.

COOP Thoughts And More Quick Fix Engineering

You could almost hear the chicken equivalent of a sigh this week as the grass came in fully and I now can move the tractor to a fresh patch every other day. We can tell the difference in the eggs. The yokes are back to their deep yellow-orange color from the added carotenoid content.

Another smoldering issue we've been dealing with started last summer. One of the hens insists on sitting in her nesting box at some point during the night and filling it with crap. At first this was just an annoyance as we could shake out the nest pad in the morning before they lay. But now it seems that at least two others are doing it too. The odd thing is that they don't seem to stay in there all night long because we can hear them jump down from the roost pole when we let them out in the mornings. This doesn't seem to be tied in with broodiness either as they don't linger on the eggs once they lay. More QFE to the rescue. We now slip in a blocker panel in the evening before they go in. This keeps them out of the boxes at night. It is much easier to go out in the morning and take this panel out than having to shake pads and play with poop first thing in the morning.

And speaking of nest pads, those commercial grade pads we got in last month are really working well. Much better than the homemade variety.

First Turn Over; Spring Has Finally Sprung

Hot Damn! Spring is finally here! And no sign of snow in the forecast; isn't that a change of pace for a western Maryland kitchen garden! Easter weekend meant finishing up preventive maintance of all the power equipment and doing a good deep till today of the Food Patch and the tomato/pepper bed. I even managed to sneak in some early kale and chard seedlings into one end of that bed. The rest of the week is supposed to be rain so we'll have to wait a while to get in some onion sets, cauliflower and broccoli seedlings. And the strawberry sets are due in this week so we'll need to get those in soon too. I ordered 25 Sparkle and 25 Seascape from Johnny's. This cycle the strawberry bed will move to the center of the Patch. Sparkle is a classic June berry whereas Seascape is an ever-bearer used by many commercial operations. Between the two we hope to have a steady supply of strawberries all season; a large harvest of Sparkle in the spring and a smattering of Seascape the rest of the season. Of course that will have to wait until nest summer as this season will be taken up with bed establishment via picking off of all blooms to allow the plants to establish themselves for next year.

In other news, the girls were finally moved from their winter quarters by the Food Patch back over to their turf/pasture area. That part of the yard is till a bit sparse but the grass is beginning to green up and you could almost hear the chicken version of an "ahhhh" when we got them over there yesterday. Most likely we will need to move them every other day until the turf is completely back to full spring-time green but it is nice to finally get them back onto some semblance of turf. This week also will be the last flat of sprouted rye forage sprouts for them. That exercise was definitely worth the trouble and provided some much needed green forage through the depths of winter.

Hopefully Idun would be proud!