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!

Gratitude Sunday

We are grateful for so many things.  Here is what comes to mind from this past week:

~ tomatoes!  Finally, now in full force (reds, oranges, green striped, purple, cherries, pear shaped, pinks, yellows)...

~ freshly harvested and absolutely delicious honeycomb shared with us by our beekeeping friend, tasting of spicy summer blossoms (we did not want to waste a single drop of this knowing how much work of bees has gone into this treat) from a top bar hive

~ pollinators ALL over the property - we noticed 6 kinds of different kinds of bees on site just in one afternoon, not to mention the wasps, moths, butterflies and other insects offering pollination support here.  We usually think of bees when we consider pollination, and bees certainly are good at it due to the hairs on their bodies where pollen can stick and be carried to the next flower, but here are some categories of other important pollinators not to be forgotten:

• Hymenoptera (bees, wasps, and ants)
• Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths)
• Diptera (flies)
• Coleoptera (beetles)

~ new friends we have met through hosting them in our bed & breakfast here at Little City Farm

~ momentum developing on our local chicken bylaw campaign - for those of you locally who want to get involved in working to create a pro-hen bylaw for our city please go to the yahoo group for the Kitchener Hen Association here

~ rain this week!  and extremely grateful that the two large trees that were knocked down on our property due to high winds did not fall on any buildings (those of you who know Maya's climbing tree and the cedar with the swings, will be sad to hear they are no longer standing)

~ however, there is firewood for us, and also a huge sunny area of the yard where we can now plant fruit trees, hopefully from our local Whiffletree Nursery which specializes in cold hardy fruit trees

What are you grateful for this week?

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...

First big snowfall!

A few days ago...finally!  The first real snowfall!  In the morning it was so pretty topping each dried flower stalk, roof line, and tree branch in the yard.  Our daughter thought the echinacea garden looked like a jaunty field of little gnomes with snow peaked caps. Snow shovels are out and the piles have been started for snow fort building...just waiting for a little more snow.  The hens are not sure if they like it.  We spread straw sprinkled with sunflower seeds & buckwheat (their favourite snack) on the snowy ground to coax them out from the coop just so they can stretch their legs.  Luckily, all the hens who molted in October now have their new winter feathers grown - but just barely.  If it would have been this cold a few weeks ago they would not have fared so well.  Surprisingly, they are still laying eggs.  Usually by solstice they are slowing down with egg production (presumably reserving all their extra energy for keeping warm instead).

A Chicken Celebration

Today, it was decided, was a day that our hens needed a celebration.  More importantly, they needed a cake!  A very special cake.  It's been cold and grey the past few days and today was not exception.  So, our daughter thought the hens needed some cheering up.  Why not call it their birthday - all of them at once?  She decided to create a cake that included all our hens most favourite treats - delicious layers of leftover brown rice, chopped up kale, comfrey & dandelion greens, crushed eggshells, mashed over-ripe pears, sunflower seeds, and shredded carrots, blended together with yogurt, and garnished with raisins, buckwheat, strawberry tops, and a garden slug or two.  Mmmmm.  Our hens were delighted with this treat, served up to them in a fancy old cake pan that they scraped clean by the end of the day.

We were rewarded with fresh eggs to warm our hands on.  Thank you, lovely hens!

If you ever decide to make your own cake for hens, please avoid: avocado (pits can leach toxins into the flesh making hens sick); apple cores (seeds contain cyanide, enough to harm a hen); fruit pits and seeds of other sorts; long grasses (these can case problems in the hen's crop); meat, citrus and onion (all not agreeable to hens).

This Moment

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

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. 

New spring chicks coming

Our new baby chicks are arriving next week...there is a lot of anticipation around here (and artwork to celebrate the new arrivals).  Spring is definitely in the air now!

Love these hens

Can't get enough of our lovely ladies.  They are such great company, and provide gorgeous fresh eggs each day!   Here they are making short work of our left over halloween pumpkins - they are so good at taking care of compost and an important component of our permaculture vision here.  We overwinter them in the coop by stacking strawbales around the outer walls, then heating with a small heat lamp on the coldest nights.  This system seems to have worked well the past 5 years, though we have recently seen some beautiful and innovative designs for strawbale-insulated (and plastered) chicken coops that would provide much more solid permanent insulation.  Add that to our list of future projcects...

Chicken love

Yes, there is some chicken love going on at our homestead...

Being thankful

A few things we are grateful for at our homestead this week:

1. The two long days of cool refreshing oh-so-needed rain.
2. Our youngest hens are starting to lay eggs!
3. First ripe tomatoes from the garden.
4. Buttons, our 5 year old hen who appeared sick seems to be getting stronger again.
5. A little holiday time away where we got to reconnect with friends and family.

The henhouse blues

Inspired and enthralled by all the fantastic musicians at our seeding sale last weekend, our daughter has been busy composing songs to the hens and keeping them entertained with her guitar picking.

Loving our hens

We spend at least an hour with the hens each day...tending, feeding, playing, holding, cleaning, topping up their water, bringing them dandelion and other wild greens, collecting eggs, and helping to integrate the new hens with the olders ones (everyone has pretty much accepted each other now)....

Baby chicks growing

The chicks are nearly three weeks old, and have developed considerable wing feathers by now.  They love to flap around their little indoor pen or our living room trying out their flying abilities, and can now balance on a wooden perch (or anything else they can hop up on - a couch arm rest, an outstretched hand, their water dish, etc).  We love these wee gals who have now been named: Saphira, Dusty, Ruby and Moth (names picked by our 3 year old).  For anyone considering urban hen keeping, these books are useful resources:
Keep Chickens, by Barbara Kilarski; and Backyard Poultry Naturally, by Alanna Moore.

First snow at the urban farm...

First real snowfall came overnight!  Fortunately, the hens have had most of their feathers grown in by now (2 weeks of molting) but they are still huddling on our back patio in the warmest sheltered corner they can find.  This is actually good, not just because we want them to keep warm - we've also seen the neighbourhood hawk circling around our property the past week, and we'd prefer the hens to keep out of eyesight!  As some of you might recall from a much earlier post, we lost one hen (Neko) to the same hawk last fall.  This is the cycle of life though.  Now that winter is finally here, we have to make sure the hen's always have access to unfrozen water and extra food (as their foraging season is now over), and have insulated their coop with strawbales.  The heat lamp will be installed again soon.

Today's snowfall also gave us opportunity to play - and a little snow lady appeared.  She has a carrot nose, plucked from the garden of course; eyes made of little round black eyed susan seed heads, and long dried queen anne's lace hair - topped with a handknit hat she made a lovely attendant at our garden entrance.