Big Island Chickens

Progress on the Big Pen! The Ideal: As mentioned in the last post, we are building a large (for us) pen to house both the chickens and the turkeys. We will be separating the flock by type, and by variety in the case of the turkeys. We are going to be selling the turkeys as purebreds and that means no mingling for the Bourbon Reds with the Royal Palms. We are also separating the turkeys from the chickens in order to monitor feed consumption better.  The size of the pen is going to be a total of 20' x 50' with a common run of 10' x 50' for an 'exercise yard.'  We have decided that while the chickens will have access all day every day, but to allow for the turkeys to also enjoy this area, and continue to be separated, the Reds and the Royals will have access on alternate days. Because we anticipate that the turkeys will return to their own space for the night we will be training them by not allowing exercise yard time for the first three weeks for any bir...

Back at it! Almost a year off, but time to get back into things happening here on our little farmlet. The changes: Chickens: We have lost a few chickens, but added a few turkeys,  40 or so chickens and 22 turkeys. We stopped fermenting feed and turned the sprouting station into a seed station using dirt, but that will be changing soon into a starting station for our soon to be built hydroponic / aquaponic  system. We have purchased a new to us, or used greenhouse that will be housing the birds. The cutesy coop will be replaced by a more industrial set up for the comfort of the birds. The new size coop will be 30' x 50'. Goats in the horizon! Originally we were having second thoughts regarding the 'old' coop and maybe selling it on Craig's list, but we have decided that it will be repurposed for use as a goat house. At 64 square feet, this is plenty for two or three kids as a shelter from the rain. We also will be supplying ample run room for them and their...

New and Improved Seed Station Or, protecting and taking the stink out of the seeds.   My last post was about the idea of sprouting seeds for our chickens gastronomical pleasure.Since then, I have run into a few problems that I think I have solutions for, we'll see. This is my Sprouting station as built: A standard set of big box store shelf racks set up on the ground near a water source. Seeds soaked in a bucket for 24 hours (convenience, as they need only 8-10 hour soaks) then spread out in an even layer on a 10" x 20" garden tray with pre-punched holes. Problem 1. Water distribution. Dry seeds in one side, flooded on the other. Problem 2.  During the night rats and during the day the birds  are getting to the seeds eating and fouling the trays with husks and their waste. Between the two shifts, I am losing almost half the seeds to these scavengers. This is my Sprouting station as it is today: We added 5 more shelves, a larger water recovery tub for...

Use Sprouted Grains How much can I expect it to save me?  Wow, that is a good question. In my last post I outlined what I was spending on the chickens to "save" money and I realized I needed to bring the feed bill down even further. I had a few options. Feed scraps only Feed commercial feed only Feed fermented food Feed sprouted grain or a combinations of the above. Wait, before the comments go off on the "Free Range" options, we choose NOT to free range our birds for a number of reasons. Some are based in our laziness in not wanting every morning to be the Easter Hunt / Bill Murray Ground Hog Day debacle on our one acre, we don't want to chase the wild child chickens roosting in the trees, and now that we have turkeys, we know that is where they want to be (that is a story by itself!) and then there are the Mongoose that are invasive here.  Yesterday the girls killed a rat that somehow got in. So rats are not a real threat for the adult birds, but...

Our "Teens" started laying The eggs are a bit on the small side for one of them. We got 15 eggs today, including the Peewee egg. We are ramping up our bid for food independence by raising our own chickens for meat and eggs, and for that, we need hens. We are building our laying flock up to 30 adult hens and will maintain that level until we feel a need to change. We obviously can't eat 25-30 eggs a day so the surplus eggs are to being sold to offset the feed cost. We are already selling to a local organic restaurant in a town down the road a piece.   We keep our hens in a coop and run so while they are "Free-Range" according to the US Government, they are confined for many reasons. One of which is that we do not want our chickens to become our neighbors dog's dinner. Their Coop is 64 square feet, with a second internal story, and the run is 20x20, so plenty of room for our initial flock. The small 'Mini-Cooper' on the left is the brooder we ...

Are there really such things?  Yes, Virginia. Chocolate grows on trees. Willy Wonka's ultimate dream! Rows of trees with bars hanging low for easy picking. 10-12 bars on each branch, 200 or more on each tree- Ready to make into Truffles, bars, creams, sauces and powders. What a dream but alas, all dreams fade in the mornings first light. Oh, Chocolate does grow on trees, but not like this, though it would make pruning less of chore wouldn't it? They grow like this. Medium height tree, with the seeds that chocolate is made from set in thick football shaped pods that grow directly out of the trunks and limbs rather than out on the outer portions of the terminal branches on fruit spurs like most other fruit.  And unlike other fruit, chocolate pods have to go through an intensive set of processing steps to become what we know as Chocolate. Fermenting, drying, classifying, milling, pressing, heating, mixing, tempering and a few I can't remember off...

The Pineapple Bed is in Start from a store bought pineapple I went for mulch yesterday and decided instead of putting it in the new chicken pen area (yes, I know that mulching the expansion should be this post, but...), that I would start a new pineapple bed.  I have been collecting pineapple tops from the ones we and our friends are eating and putting them into our saved and recycled pots. Its been a few months and many have really established roots on them. One or two needed to be planted as their roots are feeling their way out of the drainage holes.  I am a newbie to pineapple growing so most of my info is coming from interweb searches. This is a two to three year investment of time and space since I get the starts free.  This is what our little ones looked like in the front horseshoe last year. They turned a bright yellow and wow, did they small good! I have both the yellow and white varieties of fruit, white being preferred here by the locals. I s...