This Moment

New baby chicks are here!  Currently they are residing in a cozy box in our guest space, until their feathers grow and the weather warms up. 

New at the homestead: Part 1 Baby Chicks

Spring brings many new things - and this spring we've added new baby chicks to the homestead again.   There are 4 cute little peeps currently housed in a large plastic bin with heat lamp in our living room!  Soon to move out to the greenhouse, and the eventually (when they are old enough to be outdoors with the other hens) we'll introduce them to our older girls in the hen yard.  These peeps are now a week old, and growing quickly.  The feather tips are sprouting and they are trying out their "flying" by darting around their enclosure and flapping their little wings.  We are using a great book called Fresh Eggs Daily: Raising Happy Healthy Chickens Naturally, (she also writes a great chicken blog) with loads of tips on getting the chicks off to a healthy start using herbs and other simple natural approaches to bedding, cleaning, an so on.  Our daughter and her friend made up a special chick herbal blend last week in preparation for the arrival of the peeps - using herbs like garlic, lavender, chamomile, chickweed, nettle in a dried mix to supplement the commercial chick food.  We've lined the bin with bran (which they can eat and does not cause complications for their digestive systems like straw bedding could at this age), and they sleep on a pile of old wool socks in the corner under the heat lamp. 

Here are a few photos of the little peeps when they had just arrived - named by our almost 8 year old: Cloud, Cranberry, Cherry and Freckles.

Happy hens in spring - sprouts & herbs

Our hens are absolutely crazy for any shoots of greens they can find at this time of year!  And we are happy to let them nibble around the garden as they like since our salad greens are protected under plastic in the grow tunnel, and new seedlings are not yet planted out.  We have also been supplementing the hens winter feed with sprouted greens, such as alfalfa and red clover sprouts, left over stalks of pea shoots after we harvest the tops for our smoothies, and their favourite - wheatgrass.  We pull out the whole mat of wheatgrass after it's been growing for about 10 days, and lay the mat in the hen yard.  Sometimes we sprinkle buckwheat groats among the wheatgrass blades, and the hens just love to graze and find these treats.

Herbs for hens have been another learning opportunity.  Since we already grow, harvest and use so many medicinal herbs for our own family, we thought we would find useful herbs to provide health benefits for the hens.  We have been tying bundles of herbs (lavender, sage, lemon balm) to hang around the coop as a way to help repel fleas and mites, as well as chopping up herbs like lemon balm, mint and parsley into their nest box - this boosts their health, gives them something to nibble at, and keeps them happily laying.  It also helps keep the eggs clean (we try to clean the nest box daily, taking out old straw/bran and adding new material, plus new chopped herbs).  Herbs can be fresh or dried. 

Other great herbs to add to hens food to boost their health include:
~ garden herbs like: chopped up garlic (bulbs and greens); oregano, yarrow.
~ wild herbs like: nettles,  comfrey leaf, dandelion leaves, and chickweed. 
~ sprouted greens like: alfalfa, buckwheat greens, sunflower shoots, pea shoots.
~ edible medicinal flower petals like: calendula, marigold and rose.

Most of these greens are readily available - easily to grow in your garden, or wild harvest locally.  To prepare a longer term herbal feed mix, harvest the herbs and dry them fully.  Then blend and crush them, store in a glass mason jar, and add a few Tbsp to your hens feed.  We sometimes mix in live cultured yogurt as well, when adding the herbs to the dry feed, as this is also beneficial for hens health and well-being.

A great source for Canadian organic non-GMO sprouting seeds is Mumms, based in Saskatchewan.

 Here the hens are happily eating their mat of sprouted wheatgrass.

This eggs was laid in a nest box lined with bran and lemon balm.  We also like to add mint leaves, rose petals, and marigold or calendula to the nest box.

Here are trays of pea shoots and buckwheat greens ready to feed to the hens as a treat.  We enjoy these sprouts too of course!

Chickens love the snow (man)!

What a funny moment today, watching our hens trying to eat the carrot nose off the mini snowman Maya built.  I think we might build a few more bird-friendly snow creatures around our yard, with sunflower seed eyes, carrot noses, berry mouths...

Marigolds for happy chickens

In the past weeks, since the garden is basically harvested, we've let the hens have the run of the yard.  They love the freedom!  Usually, during the growing season, we give them plenty of room to run in their extended pen and short stints around the larger yard to eat bugs and greens while still corralled in temporary chicken fencing so they don't devastate our veggie garden.

But now, with the whole yard as their domain, they are happily running about eating the last greens, dandelions, worms and odds of vegetable remains.  They love their dust baths, most recently a farourite spot has been under an old red wagon since it's the dryest place in the yard with our recent weeks of damp weather.

The funniest thing was how interested they all were in eating our marigolds.  We have loads of the African and French marigolds planted throughout the garden as companion plants to our vegetables.  Many of these are still blooming in the late fall and just now starting to go to seed.  The tall yellow marigolds are more than 2 feet high and so the hens stand below and jump up with long stretched out necks to taste the flowers.  It was so curious to watch how intent the hens were on eating these marigolds that I did some reading about marigolds and chicken health, and realized our hens know what they are doing!  Marigold extract is commonly added to commercial chicken feed, mostly to add darker orange colour to the egg yolks, but also to provide carotenes, flavonoids, and other nutrients.  Folk tradition talks commonly of feeding marigolds (fresh or dried) to hens or lining their nest boxes with the petals to repel fleas and mites.  Marigolds have natural antifungal and antibacterial properties so can be made into a tea or salve to heal chickens when they are dealing with skin irritations.  They aid in skin tissue repair, blood vessel growth, and are a toxin remover.  Amazing!  And so wonderful to watch nature follow it's own intuition.  These smart hens!

Green & blue eggs

We absolutely do not need more eggs around here!  But who can resist blue and green eggs?  We traded a friend our handmade soap for a dozen of the lovely eggs that her Araucana hens are laying.  Perfect for Easter weekend coming up...

This Moment

{This moment} - This moment - an end of week ritual, no words, just a special photo to remember, savour, enjoy.

In our garden right now...

Happy chickens

Happy chickens getting lots of attention around here.  A few simple (and cheap) healthy hen diet additions we've made this year: we've planted a huge comfrey patch around the sides of their coop so they can munch these nutritious greens all day as they like; and we bake our all our used eggshells to dry them out, then crush them and add to the hen feed so they get extra calcium in their diet. 

Asparagus season

Our first asparagus is upon us.  This is one of our annual rites of spring, seeing the asparagus poke up from the ground next to the other early garden regulars like rhubarb, dandelions greens, chives and sorrel.  We've been eating our fill of asparagus, delicious and simple when steamed and sprinkled with a little sea salt and oil, but soup is one of our favourite ways to prepare it.  Here is our recipe, easily adjusted based on what vegetables you have at hand.  As you can see, our hens love to come around when we are harvesting the asparagus, as any digging in the soil puts them into a frenzy!

Spring Asparagus & Nettle Soup

1 large bunch asparagus (about 10 stalks), chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 large potato, chopped
handful of chives
handful of fresh nettle leaves (picked carefully using gloves)
2 cloves garlic, chopped
optional - carrots, mushrooms, kale, dandelion greens, etc
2 cups soup stock
2 cups milk or milk substitute
sea salt and black pepper to taste
top with yogurt or cream

1) Saute asparagus, onion, potato, chives, nettle and garlic in a large soup pot using olive oil or butter.  Add other optional vegetables is you like or have available.
2) When asparagus is tender, add 2 cups soup stock and bring to a boil.  Let simmer over medium heat until all vegetables are fully cooked. 
3) Remove from heat and puree with a submersible blender.
4) Put pot back on medium heat, add 2 cups milk and heat stirring often.  Season with salt and pepper.
5) Add additional milk or water to thin the soup to consistency you like.  Serve with a small dash of yogurt or cream.

April at the homestead

Such a busy time!  New hungry baby chicks to care for, rows and rows of seedlings to keep watered, first seeds to plant outdoors, the last three of our spring homesteading workshops to host this month, preparations for the May Seedling Sale, and we are still tapping our trees (hoping to have our big sugaring day next weekend!).  We love spring around here, but it sure is a different pace than the winter months.