Super Genius

(Sample photo)

Just a quick post that we had a coyote visit this past weekend. We heard the chickens squawking loudly outside and I peered out the window toward the coop and saw what looked like a medium-sized dog about 15-20 feet into the woods behind Rose Cottage. We've had stray/lost/feral dogs come around a few times before, but then I saw the bigger ears and thinner face of a coyote. Before I could get outside, it did a double-take at the chickens and rather calmly walked back into the trees. It was either confused by the loud chicken alarm calls or simply on a reconnaissance mission. While we worry about the flock, we also realize that free-ranging has its price and there will be predation.

Snakes Like Eggs (Part 2)

Back in mid-July, we had a surprise visit from a large black rat snake in the back yard of our rental cottage. He was somewhat docile, so we relocated him away from our chickens and eggs. About a week later, Dionne opened the garage door only to find an even longer, more aggressive snake slithering around trying to reach the peacock eggs that we were incubating for Danna. The adrenaline kicked in and Dionne took charge of the situation.

We'll spare you the more gruesome photos, but this time the snake was decapitated and buried to avoid any future problems with our chickens, nearby livestock, or the kids. I had snakes as pets growing up so I felt terrible about this, but I'm guessing this isn't the last time we'll be killing wild animals in defense.

HarvestEating.com

Harvest Eating is an online resource for healthy family eating and home of the Harvest Diet & Chef Keith Snow. Keith, a Columbus-area resident, provides articles, advice, recipes, and instructional cooking videos all from his own home (I'm jealous). His site also offers social networking features, a discussion forum, podcast and more---pretty cool stuff. So, what are we getting at? Blue Harvest Farm is proud to be a supplier of organic, free-range, non-soy-fed chicken eggs for Chef Keith! Watch for our wonderful marigold-colored yolks at HarvestEating.com.

New Builder Begins

Big news: We decided to switch builders to someone more local and they are eager to start working today with a larger crew to pick up where the last builder left off. The homesite had not been active for a few weeks so we went out there yesterday and did some weedeating around the piles of lumber. Maya also found some watermelon sprouts coming out of the garage gravel floor where the previous workers had spit them out during lunch breaks! She transplanted them to a large pot which also contains some onions and carrots (we think). Anyway, Pharoah Construction is the name of the new builder and the business is operated by John Riley of Campobello, SC. They still plan on meeting our previous move-in date so I don't even have to reset the countdown timer on the lefthand menu!

4 and 5 Didn't Thrive

Hatchlings 4 and 5 were born this morning, but sadly did not stay with us. One was found lifeless in the nest, possibly crushed or born with some sort of internal defects. The other was born with its yolk sac on the outside of its body, having failed to draw it back within itself before finally hatching (they do this so as to feed off of the nutrients for the first few days of life outside the shell). After some attempts to remedy the fatal oddity, the chick was euthanized. There are three eggs remaining and they've been moved to our incubator in the garage. If they don't hatch within the next few days, we'll probably end up burying them.

Number 3 Has Hatched

Our third chick hatched overnight! This one appears to be another Araucana. No telling the gender on these little fuzzballs until they get older. There was a fun episode of "Dirty Jobs" that featured this not-so-desirable profession of chick sexing and "venting"...

New Week, New Chick

Just hatched about an hour ago was chick number two! Family members received a phone call from an excited Maya to let them know that we have a new Buff Orpington. It also appears that a third egg is slightly cracked which may mean another hatchling on the way. Stay tuned...

The Lone Chick

Our little Araucana chick is doing fine (and remains nameless due mostly to ambiguous gender), Beach Bunny is a good mother hen, and we've been having fun feeding them crickets and grasshoppers since they are sequestered away from the rest of the flock and cannot fully free-range at this time. Still, only one of the 11-egg clutch has hatched, and we lost two eggs which we found broken. Beach Bunny continues to incubate the rest although she seems to come off her nest more often now to demonstrate scratching and bug-catching for her sole hatchling. We'll give the other eggs a few more days before removing them, but here's hoping that at least one or two more are fertile!

We have peeping!!!

This evening when we went out to give the chickens their evening scraps I went in to check on Beach Bunny, one of our Buff Orpington hens who went broody on 12 eggs approximately 18 days ago. I smelt something stinky and thought one of the eggs had broken or maybe was rotten in the nest, so I checked the eggs under her. All the eggs were intact, so I figured it was something else. As I sat quietly feeding her bits of apple I heard peeping!!! WOO HOO!!! We have peeping eggs!!!

The eggs are not due to hatch until this Friday and I've heard chicks can sometimes peep for a few days, but then again our dates could also be off by a few days, LOL! So I called for the kids, ran inside to grab the digital camera and I was able to catch the sound of the eggs peeping under the her. We're so excited! Maya is beside herself with excitement since she's been waiting for this event for weeks. She says she is going to get up at the crack of dawn and go out to see if any have hatched.

Luckily last week I constructed a separate enclosure in the run area and moved Beach Bunny while in her nesting box into it. Now all I have to do is secure some chicken wire around the area of the enclosure that has larger spaced wire that chick can easily get through and get a feeder and watering jug from my mom's so we'll be ready for the chicks. Luckily in hopes of having chicks this season, I ordered chick starter and broiler food the last time I purchased feed.

My only concern is we have a recouperating hen, Chew Hair, in with Beach Bunny and her soon to hatch chicks and this may pose a problem. Chew Hair may peck at the new chicks and kill them if they aren't well protected by Beach Bunny, so I will need to set up a secondary enclosure for her... just in case.

I will post more tomorrow if new chicks arrive. I'm curious how these hatchlings will look since the eggs are a mix from our three breeds of hens (Auracanas, Buff Orpingtons and Black Stars) and will most likely be fathered by our head Auracana rooster, Fluffy... what a mix!!!!!

Snakes Like Eggs

Today, Foster was looking out the back sliding glass doors of Rose Cottage when he spotted a 4.5-foot-long Black Rat Snake (Elaphe obsoleta). These are non-venomous and generally avoid humans, but they do eat eggs. With Danna's help and a large cooler, Dionne decided to transport it down the road and into the woods near a creek and far away from our hen fruit.



If it were a King Snake (Lampropeltis getula), we would have released it on our 13-acre property since King Snakes will eat other, more dangerous snakes.

You Gotta Keep 'Em Separated

To prepare for the hatching of the eggs, we ("we" meaning Dionne) set up a separate enclosure within the existing chicken run---a cage within a cage, if you will. Apparently, other hens might be rough with the newborn chicks and the roosters may flat out kill them. The top level of our bucket nest structure was only held in place by its own weight which made it easy to relocate to the new enclosure, broody hen and all. Below you see the two roosters curious and desperate to get into the restricted area.

For now, our sick (but nearly recovered) hen Chewhair will share this space. In fact, when broody Beach Bunny got up to stretch her legs, Chewhair took over the incubating for a few minutes.

We also got a quick peek at the eggs to see if any were cracked or rotten.


You can see here that we marked them initially to make sure that no new eggs were added to the clutch which would make it hard to track hatchling schedules. We found out that using a regular pencil is better than a Sharpie because the eggs are indeed porous...you live and you learn.

Screams in the Night

Occasionally we hear some odd sounds at night out here in the country. While sleeping with the windows open one night, Dionne and Maya were awoken by some eerie screaming that came from the field between our rental cottage and the landlord's house. It lasted for about a minute and sounded unlike any animals they had heard (but you must remember, we're still relatively new to the country!). When the screaming stopped, the chickens could be heard quietly clucking amongst themselves as if to say "Be very quiet or we may be next!" A few nights later, on the weekend, we heard the same (or a similar) noise and I was able to capture it on my cellphone.

http://www.tk899.com/blueharvestfarm/nightcreatures.mp3

We're still not 100% sure what it was, but my guess is coyotes fighting over a deer carcass. Either that or the chupacabra.

A Better Mousetrap

This past weekend we woke up to find two dead field mice floating in the chicken's water bowl which was left out overnight. The water level was low so we assume the mice came to drink, fell in, and couldn't get out. Not the most humane way to kill mice, but no pesticides either. We tossed the mouse corpses into the woods but then remorse turned to hilarity as a chicken chase ensued with the hens competing with each other for the novelty prize (don't worry, they didn't eat the mice). In case you'd like to try this yourself, the bucket wasn't anything special...something like this:

A Sick Chick

This morning when we let out the chickens, Chewhair (an Araucana) stayed silently on her roost*, looking rather sleepy and weak. Dionne had to actually place her on the ground, and then help her back up into a nesting box when she continued her lethargic behavior. Dionne's mom provided us with some worming medicine (which means we have to take her out of production and discard her eggs), but this is worth the small price to pay to possibly save her life. We really don't know what's wrong with her at this point, so we've put Chewhair into quarantine just in case. The rest of the flock is being treated with Diatomaceous Earth and Apple Cider Vinegar as a precaution. We were planning on building a separate area for the broody hens this 4th of July weekend anyway, guess now we have a head start!

*I just thought of something while writing this post. Does the word "rooster" mean something that roosts?

Google Street View

Google Maps recently introduced "Street View" to its array of handy directional features and it's truly fun (even if a bit creepy) to see what locations look like. Google has apparently contracted drivers with special cameras to take panoramic photos from the road. While some may see this as an invasion of privacy, I don't believe we'll have to worry about this on our new property since we have a very long private driveway. The above image is the apartment we rented in Charlotte for several years. Our Suburban is circled in red and indicates that the photo is at least 8 months old since Dionne has had the truck in Columbus at the cottage for some time.

Assassinated!

I've been assassinated! No I'm not dead and I'm not communicating from the beyond, but I was assassinated today! While trying set up new accommodations for our broody hen, Beach Bunny, I was moving a wire cage and felt a sharp pain on my hand. At first I thought I had poked myself with one of the sharp points of the chicken wire, but I did not see a cut or any blood. So after about 10 seconds and the pain becoming quite a bit worse, closer inspection revealed a red spot beginning to appear. YEOW!!! Now it's really hurting... Stinging, burning, numb-tingly sensation radiating from the red site. MAMA MIA!!!! OOCHY OUWY!!!

Still not knowing exactly what happened I began to look around where my hands were placed on the wire cage and sure enough, there was a strange bug I'd never seen before. At this point the paint was getting worse and I needed relief, so I ran inside, rinsed the site and applied Benadryl. The area near the site had become red and blotchy and was spreading, so I started to become concerned that what ever it was that bit me might be dangerous! So I ran outside with my camera, took pictures of the assailant and sent them via e-mail to my mom, stepdad and Dean in an effort to identify and determine its threat.

Dean was the first to respond, "Don't panic, but it's called an Assassin Bug!!!".



WHAT?!! IS IT DANGEROUS? My heart began to race. He said it's also called a wheel bug (Arilus cristatus) and as long as I do not have any reaction to its bite (more like a puncture!) I should not require medical treatment, but to be on the safe side taking an antihistamine probably wouldn't hurt (in case I have an adverse reaction or break out in hives or something). EEK!!!

The site he read me stated that its sting was way worse than a bad bee or wasp sting, and boy were they right! Even now it feels as it there is a needle poking in my hand and from my wrist to the tip of my pinky feels all strange and tingly. Luckily I have a pretty high tolerance for pain or I'd be balling at this point and the kids would be panicking. So at the urging of my mom, Harrison and Dean, and in an effort to avoid any other reactions, I decided to go ahead and take an antihistamine. Benadryl knocks me out, so instead I took some liquid Zyrtec that Maya had been given for a seasonal allergy attack last Spring.

About this time my mom shows up to help me get lunch on the table for the kids, YEA! I was glad to have her come over because at this point I didn't feel up to doing much more.

Now I'm feel groggy and tingly, but the redness has stopped spreading and the pain has started to subside, after about an hour!!! Hopefully I'll have no other reactions and the site will heal quickly... several sites said it could take up to half a year to heal! The heck with that! I applied a good dose of Tea Tree oil, it always does wonders.

So here's to surviving an assassination attempt and to bugs with cool names! Next time I'll be more careful where I place my hands!