Winter is Almost done!! I hope...

We just got back from a weeks vaca in Mexico, with no children.  Great Great Time.  Seen some ruins spent some time in the sun and ocean.  loved the fact that the weather was mid 20's (mid to high 70's) all week, not to hot, but never cold, some nights were chilly.

Coming home was hard, the house was 8 (48) when we came home and I was only able to 60 (thats the mid teen's) before bed.

BABY CHIC'S:

So I have written a few times about getting the buff orpington chic's.  This has been one of the must frustrating things that occupies my mind must days.

Months ago I did my research and found no hatcheries in Canada that had the BO breed.  I did find two USA hatcheries that would ship them and there was only a larger shipping fee.  Since then I guess things have changed.  Both companies when I called could not ship over the boarder and only one would ship to a post office at the boarder (US side) where I could pick them up and carry them over with health papers that they would print for an extra charge, almost doubling the order price when you fact gas plus the papers charge.

Then I found two hatcheries, one on the east coast and one on the west coast (of Canada).  they both could only ship by air due to the distance they were from us and that again would double the price of the birds.

So then we found a group that was ordering from the USA and was already going to have someone go pick the chic's up from the boarder.  Great I signed up, paid my fee and then tried to get in touch the person that was placing the order.  Finally they emailed me back and guess what... they were not members of the group and they had only just mentioned to the head of the group that they were thinking about placing the order.  The head of the group I guess misunderstood and printed in their publication that the group as a whole was putting an order together and well... it was not what I had signed up for.

We did end up finding a person that was going to hatch some chic's from her flock, a very small scale business venture for her.  The only catch is that she is out by Ottawa, about 5 hours away.  So now we have our order placed and should have chic's by Apr., which is much later then I wanted them, but what can you do? I did change the order to 20 Buff Orpington's and 5 Rhode Island White, just because RLW mature early and start laying eggs at around 16 weeks old. I'm also not holding my breath though.

Before vaca we had to show the inside of the freezer to the last of our chickens since we wouldn't be able to get someone to feed them while were gone.  The process is getting better.  We used a laundry bottle with the bottom cut out and hung upside down for the kill station this time.  It worked great, but I think we need to use 6L bottle instead of the 8L bottles that we get from Costco.  There was a little to much room in it and some of the chickens got their feet down under them while we were trying to cut their jugular.

The Goat seem to be a sure thing since we stopped being picky about the breed (we are now getting a saanen)  and we are just waiting for the doe to kid and then we can go get it, again from out Ottawa way so hopefully the goat and the chic's will be ready at the same time and we can just make one trip.

I have yet to start the chicken tractors, to many things are going to, but with the steady supply of skids that we found we should have enough wood to build as many as we need plus do the two "top bar bee hives."
I did pick up a hot water tank the other day from some repair place and hopefully this weekend I will be able to go over my plans with the plumber I know and make sure nothing contradicts the principles of plumbing.

Wood is still the on going issue, because of the snow I can only pull out enough wood at one time for a few days.  Add to that the the wood is still wet (even though I am only cutting green ash) so it doesn't produce as much heat so you burn more to get the same BTU's.  Right now after I am done this I will go out and drag more wood in, there is literally two pieces of wood in the basement right now.

Cheryl picked up a bunch of canning supplies last night from someone just trying to get rid of them.  which is great for us.

That's all for now.  I am still looking for a play-pen either free or really cheap.

Thanks for reading.

Why did the chicken Cross the Road?

The Colwill's, Vaughan's and Brandy and Monroe all came over for the slaughter Party.  So things always take longer then you think.  What I thought would take 1hr and have it all done, took 2 and a half hours and still wasn't finished.  We did six birds.  By the end we made Paul take his turn at killing and he did alright, besides the constant hesitation.  Ryan was the supreme gutter, Paul did what he does best watched and entertained while trying to keep his hands clean, hence the making him kill a bird.

The kids surprisingly where ok with everything,  we talked them through what was going to happen and why we have to kill the animals.  We took the time to explain that we were not doing this to be cruel, but to make food.

While we were processing them two of them had eggs in them.  It was so cool seeing how the eggs come to be.  In one of the chickens there where eggs in all different stages, all the way to just these little sacks that looked like caviare. Now all the planning didn't work out that great.  It ended up that we got blood everywhere, so once we have our flock it will be summers only killing and and outdoors.  Since we have five left, I'm giving them to a week to lay an egg OR ELSE! They know what is coming, it was explained as they watched their friends.

So sat the family headed out and picked up some feed for the chickens, not bad $18 for 40kg.  The rest of the day I had to come up with a place for the remaining chickens to stay.  We spent next to nothing on their coop.
Materials
-4 skids
-Brad Nailer and nails
-handful of screws and gun
-circular saw
-wire cage material
and Ta-dah!

They have two nesting bowes, a perch and two feed troughs (one for feed and one for oyster shells). The water dish, as of today, is an ice cream bowl filled several times a day.  I have a light hooked up to a timer to come on at 5am to give them few extra hours of light a day to try an coax them into laying eggs. None yet!  5 more days and then more freezer space will be occupied.  I finally got that email about the Orpington order so hopefully I get a phone call soon and then I can have that behind me and done.

The goat I heard back and things look good the seller is going to contact me as soon as the doe kids and then we can come pick her up!! milk milk milk!!!

Till next time.

I want to try and clear up some old post with things that I said I would get to and I did but I didn't blog about so that will be my next task.

All the best,