Bedtime for the ladies.

The hens are appreciating the roost Kyle and I built last weekend. Sleeping on the ground was so undignified :) You will also notice how much they have grown, they are just about half grown.

We got the Queen! (and chicken update)

We got the queen!!
I went out to the hive this morning to check the bees and remove the cardboard box. My Dad and bee advisor had suggested that I go ahead and check on them to make sure they were adjusting well to the hive. When I lifted the cardboard box off the hive, I was happy to see bees working in the frames and I noticed that the old comb seemed to be abandoned. The next job was to open up the cardboard box and dump out any remaining bees into the hive. When I opened the card board box I was totally blown away by the bees, for the second time this week. They had nearly filled the box with new comb! There was a complete functioning hive in the cardboard box. After my initial surprise, I turned the box over and dumped comb bees and all into the hive. The bees got some what upset by this, so now I am just hoping they don't pickup and leave because of my messing with them. But right now I am just so happy that we got the queen and she's taken to the new location! Here are some long over due pictures of the chickens and garden. This beauty of a Buff Orpington is one we call Colonel Sanders. We're pretty certain that he's a rooster, but he's super friendly and had quite the personality.

Here is last night's harvest. The garden is in full production and we are enjoying the bounty every day. Part of the fun is giving all the scraps to the chickens. They go nuts for lettuce leaves and beet tops. Also in the bowl not seen are sugar snap peas. Mmm!

Some times in the evenings we open up to coop and let the chickens roam the backyard. They like to nap in the shade on the east side of the coop out of the hot afternoon sun, and so does Rosco.

Under the willow is another favorite scratching and foraging place. And the post pile makes a great place for the hens to nap.

Here again is the Colonel, our friendliest chicken by far. The flock is now nine weeks old and doing very well. Although we lost one to un supervised dogs, the rest seem very happy and healthy. Whitney is expecting our first eggs in about three weeks. I can't wait for that, but it really is a lot of fun feeding them scraps and watching them become chickens. One of our favorite ways to relax now is to sit in the shade with the chickens in the evening.

KJ

A Bee Adventure

Last weekend we noticed there were honey bees moving into our porch ceiling. I had wanted a hive (at some point) and so at first was pretty excited. Then I learned this was potentially very bad. After doing some reading it became clear we needed to act quickly before the bees established themselves. We tried to find help from other beekeepers but everyone was busy, so we were on our own. The time for action had come.

I borrowed some equipment and made ready to remove the bees. The plan was to smoke the bees, open up the ceiling and relocate the bees to a box. From the box, I hoped to establish the bees in a hive in the back yard. I prepared by building a bee vac, donning the suit, and lighting the smoker.

As I opened up the eave, I smoked the bees so that they were not worried about me and were busy trying to save the honey. When I finally got the eave opened up, I was amazed by what I found.

It was now time for the Bee Vac. This is a simple device which uses a shop vac to suck up bees, but does not kill them. This was key since the idea was to relocate them to a hive in the back yard. My bee vac consisted of: a cardboard box with a small shop vac on one side and a hose on the other. Inside the box was a wire screen to keep the bees in the box, and not let them go into the vacuum. The box was duck taped up to make it more or less air tight.

As I vacuumed, I was also collecting the comb and putting it in a bucket. The comb needed to be saved and put into the bee hive so that the bees would know that was home. Most of the comb was white and empty, but some of it had honey. When the bees are filling the comb with honey it means they are established, and reproducing.

One of the tips I read about the bee vac was not to apply too much suction or you would kill them all. So, I was not able to suck up every bee, but tried to get the majority of the colony. The key was to get the queen. Without the queen there is no colony. So I did my best to get all the bees and comb, and then we headed out to the destination bee box.

I removed the center four frames and put the comb from the house into the box. Next I took the cardboard box and cut a hole in the bottom and placed it on top of the bee box. Then I tied it down, to secure it from the wind.

The idea is that the bees will find their way out of the cardboard box and into the bee box. There they will find the comb, decide that's home and then carry on with their business.

We are still waiting to see what the out come of all this will be because there are four possible out comes. I'll list them from best to worst. 1) The queen is in the box, decides she likes it and I have a bee hive in the back yard. (honey!!) 2) The queen is in the box, decides that it sucks and moves out. 3) The queen died in the move and the workers will wander around until they die in a few days. 4) the queen is still in the house and will rebuild her colony in a harder to access place (very bad).

It's too early to tell, but I am very hopeful we'll have a hive in the yard. When I checked today there seemed to be good orderly bee business taking place out there. However there are still quite a few bees buzzing around the porch. Truthfully I'd take any outcome but number four. More on this later when we know more.

PS. Sorry for the lack of chicken posts, but the girls are doing well and growing a lot. They are very chicken like now and nearly egg laying age. They have a large run, and have had access to the entire backyard on more than one occasion. On a sad note, we are morning the first loss: a barred rock hen died last night, and Sheridan lost our trust.

KJ

Week One

After a week with the little ones we noticed how different they are now. They have developed wings and tails and they are standing taller. Also now they have started dust bathing and scratching like crazy. They are starting to roost on things, but they're balance isn't that good. Once in a while they flap hard and jump and almost fly but not really. Whitney says they're also getting used to her more, and don't seem as afraid when she visits.
Here's a photo to compare. Above is day one, below is day seven.

Construction Part 1

After talking about chickens for a very long time, we finally agreed to invest the time and money into a coop. Since we had wanted a greenhouse too, we decided to do it all at once this spring. On Easter weekend Whitney's parents came over and helped us with the building. I really enjoyed learning a lot about building from Gary, and we all spent some good time togther.

We had asked around for people getting rid of stuff, so were able to find free windows, shingles, tar paper, a door and some of the lumber. This really helped us keep some of the cost down.

We built the 8' x 8' coop floor and walls on the cement driveway and then moved them into place after leveling the spot. The coop was build like a mini house, complete with insulation and electrical. We also framed in a chicken door and a special hatch for cleaning out the manure. We were pretty proud of the poop chute! This was supposed to be a quick project, but turned into the better part of a week. The next part was figuring out the greenhouse...

More on that later.

New Friends

After the first few days, we are glad to say everybody is alive and well. The chicks are starting to show some early developments. They run now, out of the blue. One minute they will be asleep standing or squatting on the floor and the next they are running across the brooder. Then they'll stop and go along pecking and peeping like nothing happened. Also they've starting preening and stretching a lot, and they love to scratch. Small things of course, but fun to witness.
Today, Whitney stopped by the feed store and heard from the owner that she had some chicks who needed a home. It turns out the other box at the post office was bound for Plains also. The chicks arrived only the person who had ordered them decided he didn't want them afterall. The feed store lady was in a tight spot, trying to find homes for these chicks. Whitney went to work calling around and was able to place many of the chicks with her chicken loving friends. Some of them needed to be brooded, so another 5 came to our place. These chicks were Barred Plymouth Rocks and Road Island Reds. We already had a bunch of Barred Rocks, but had not ordered Road Island Reds. The funny thing was that these red chicks look identicle to our mystery chicks. So now we know we got some reds along with others in our order. Some chicks were given to a friend already, and some are remaining here to be brooded. Tonight there are 28 chicks in the coop, so far so good!

First Introductions

This week our chicks arrived from the hatchery. They pecked their way out of a shell, were sexed and sorted, then placed in a box and mailed to us. Since a chick is hatched with no need for food or water in the first 48 hours, this really wasn't that stressfull, but is still amazing. We got the call at 9pm thursday that the chicks were in Missoula and we could come get them from the post office if we wanted. Or we could wait and they would arrive in Plains the following morning. The post office man was nice and said ours looked good, but the other box he had recieved didn't look so good, he thought some had died. He also said that he'd find something to put over them to keep the wind off. Chicks have to be kept above 95 degrees for the first week and in light of our recent cool wet weather Whitney decided that a run to Missoula was in order. She had planned and waited too long to have her chicks die on a post office loading dock. So as I went to bed in preparation for another 0530 work day Whitney headed to rescue the chicks. She found them at the post office safe and sound and brought the peeping box home to the brooder ready with heat lamps, making it home around midnight - thirty. I got up as she was headed to bed, exhausted but satisfied that all the chicks were safe and healthy. We had ordered 25, but the hatchery sent 29. Maybe because it's late in the chick season, or maybe because some do die often, but in this case all survived. Whitney spent the first day with them introducing them to the water and food and making certain that the temperature stayed constant. At the end of the first day she decided all four of the varieties she ordered were there, plus a few mystery chicks.