New videos

This is the first of a series of videos that I am creating so that you may walk along side me while I try to maintain, improve, and survive my hobby farm. Wish me luck!
Tracey
The Heeby Jeeby Chickens mom.

2016 - A Year of Changes

    Happy new year! 2016 already, and I vow to blog this year. Yup, I know, it's about time. After opening a restaurant in 2014, and trying to keep up with that business, running our hobby farm and still taking care of the family, I had very little time to blog.  No, that's not true...I did not MAKE the time to blog. So, today I made several short videos of the farm to get things started that I will share with you over the next few weeks. My kids say I talk to myself all the time (Actually half of the time that's true, the other half I just talk out loud when I pray, kind of a "daily conversation with God" you could say), so I figured why not talk to you all instead. It will alleviate the need for an insanity plea later on I think.
    2016 is going to begin with us facing difficult choices.  The restaurant is not succeeding, which we knew was a long shot to begin with.   Feb 15th marks the end of two years and the day we decide to keep going or call it quits. Trying to keep a viable business in a town of 900+ is very tough.  The general population is divided into two groups; The ones that care about the welfare and prosperity of the town, who encourage growth and new business, and who attend every special event held by every local chapter, church, or school organization. We love that group, they are keeping us from going totally broke. Then there are the others who have no interest in anything town related (unless free food is offered), refuse to patronize local businesses (unless the beer if cheap), have never joined a local club, church, charity, or school event. They are the majority. They are also the reason our town struggles to stay afloat and businesses close their doors forever. Our business may be one of them. So what if the restaurant fails, at least I tried! God is good and He has a plan.
    Knowing this truth has helped spur on my sudden interest in our farm again. Everything seems fresh with possibility. I acquired 2 new goats last week. One is a Nubian/Boer/Toggenburg mix and was supposedly very pregnant and ready to give birth any day. Nope. She was fat from eating grain and bloated from not foraging properly. It figures. The other goat is a gorgeous 88% Boer buck that we are borrowing for awhile. Hopefully he will do his duty and do it well.  Our other two goats are ready for breeding again, and we are more than ready for goats milk!
    The chickens have started laying in earnest again after their molt, so we can start selling eggs once more. I have a new coop to build and an old one to refurbish and clean. I also want to build 2 more 5-gallon bucket feeders and a nipple watering system. Check it out on the Chicken Chick's website, they are an awesome way to keep the water fresh all the time.
    Then once the roof is finished on the donkey's lean-to shed, the shelter is built for the horses, and the last stall is rebuilt in the barn, I can start raising the garden bed! The floods this year turned it into a swimming hole. It's always something isn't it?!
Enjoy the videos, and I hope that by sharing them you can all learn along with me what works, and what doesn't, when running a hobby farm. Happy farming!

First Post in a While. **Save your birds from Eagles** and **Sitting Problems**

   Hello fellow chicken lovers!! Its been over a year since the last post, but the exciting move and all the busy lives have gotten in the way. I intend to be much more thorough about posts this time! I will be able to share more with you including the daily chicken stories along with a few DIY projects for your chickens and some helpful pointers you never would have thought of. First off, I will go ahead and catch you up on our current flock. We have been through quite a few chickens the past few years due to cold, critters, and mostly eagles. Yes, eagles. We never would have thought it either but it is actually quite common for your chickens no matter how big (although they tend to go for the smaller ones) to get picked up by eagles and hawks. 

**HOW DO I KNOW??**

If there are "pieces" or you see remnants of your bird left, chances are it wasn't a hawk or eagle. It was probably something more carnivorous like a raccoon, skunk, possum, dog, coyote, etc. The most obvious tell-tale sign that a bird of prey is picking off your flock, is you will see just a ring of feathers. Not a big pile, but just a small ring. If you can imagine... those eagles swoop down and pick the chicken up so fast that it just goes poof! And there is a little ring or feathers left behind... its kind of sad.

**FIX THE PROBLEM**

An easy way to prevent this is to make sure your birds have plenty of things to hide under like little lean-to shelters or even just a covered chicken run. You will notice that they aren't disappearing quite so often. :)

So  anyway, back to the flock. Yes we have seen our fair share of chicken deaths, but we have also made up for it with a couple broody hens. As of now we have hatched a total of 10 chicks our self without the help of an incubator or anything. We simply allowed nature to take its course. I have had a lot of people asking me how they can get their chickens to sit and how to stop the broody ones from sitting all the time. Well I can answer both quite easily.

**How Do I Get My Chickens To Sit??**

There are some breeds of chickens that are more broody (you'll hear me say that a lot; for those of you that don't know it just means they tend to sit on eggs) than other breeds. For instance, Buff Orpington hens are some of the more common sitters and you will be pleased with their ability to raise chicks. Other breeds, especially the more flighty ones, will refuse to sit unless they have no other choice. Okay so first of all, your hen will know if her eggs are fertilized for the most part. Even if they are eggs laid by other chickens she will know and she will kick the eggs out that aren't. In order to get her to sit what you will want to do is watch to make sure your Rooster is doing his job in getting those eggs fertilized if you know what I mean or if you are buying the eggs that way... that works too. But once you know they are fertile, go ahead and select the hen that you think would be best, if she doesn't already sit, and place her in the egg house. You are going to have to shut her in there for a few days until she decides she wants to sit and stay there. Make sure also that she has food and water that she can reach while still laying on her eggs. If she still doesn't take to them and simply refuses to sit, use a different hen or an incubator. The way I always do it, is if my chicken starts sitting, ill slip the other fertile eggs under her and she will hatch them all.
**How Do I Stop My Chicken From Sitting??**

Honestly, I don't like to stop mine from sitting just because I like to hatch my own chicks. But, whether you do not want more babies, or you just don't want her sitting, it's pretty easy to get her to stop. There are 2 ways to stop a hen from sitting. First and easiest is to just keep taking her out of the house and with the rest of the flock with some feed. You'll have to repeat it for a few days, but soon enough she won't want to sit anymore. Also make sure you keep the eggs collected so she doesn't have anything to sit on! The second is to give her what she wants! If you have a hen that refuses to quit sitting sometimes the best thing to do is just let her. Now, if you don't have a rooster and the eggs she is sitting on are most definitely not fertile, take them out. You don't want rotten eggs breaking in your house! EW! But the best thing to do is go ahead and purchase a few more chicks. (One hen can raise up to 20 chicks by herself!!) keep the chicks with a heat lamp for the first few days and then bring them out at night (<-- that's important) and slip them under your sitting hen. She will accept those babies just like they are her own and you dont have to worry about them. 

Our Heeby-Jeeby chicken flock is up to about 40 birds now and they are going strong. I will go into detail about all the birds in the posts to come. But in the meantime, I hope this was helpful and feel free to comment or email me any questions you want answered in this blog! 

Love,

The Heeby-Jeeby Chicken Girl

<3 heebyjeeby129@gmail.com

New home, New state, New chickens!

Since we last talked, my family packed up everything we owned including 3 horses, 2 chickens, 2 cats and a dog and headed for Missouri to start a new adventure on a 40 acre lake-side ranch. The weather here is incredibly different then Wyoming...no wind! Our planting season is 3 months longer, trees are plentiful, and the wildlife is amazing. Except the ticks. I hate the ticks! Which brings me to our topic...chickens! All of the locals claim that chickens (and guineas and turkeys) are natures best tick hunters.  So we have expanded our chicken numbers from 11 to 33, and are planning on purchasing some guineas, too.  The two chickens that we hauled all the way from Wyoming acclimated very quickly to their new home but unfortunately one was killed by either a raccoon or a fox late one night last summer. So our one original girl is still with us and is still laying beautiful brown eggs right on schedule. We now have 2 roosters with our flock so with luck maybe some of the hens will sit on their eggs and nature can take its course!
I will post pics of our newest babies soon. Stay tuned!

A new spring with new babies!

     I have been trying for the past 3 months to try to order chickens online, but a most of you know many of the hatcheries require something like a 25 chick minimum! I can not have 25 chicks running around my little back yard, so I had to find a hatchery without any minimums. The only 2 or 3 hatcheries that I found either did not have the breed I wanted or they would nit arrive soon enough! I was getting extremely frustrated. So finally I gave up. Luckily... our local feed and tack store to my convenience had another order of chicks come in on Monday, March 12th. We went and picked out three birds. 2 auricanas (same as Psyche) and 1 light brahma. The first auricana is named Delilah. (My mom named it!) The second auricana is named Aphrodite because in the Greek myth of Aphrodite and Psyche, Psyche thought she was more beautiful than Aphrodite (the Goddess of beauty) haha. So in memory of my first auricana Psyche, I hope that Aphrodite will be just as beautiful if not prettier. The final chick, the light brahma, is named Pippie. I thought this would be a perfect name for her because she is so lively and happy. Considering the babies are only a few days old, I will nit take pictures of them until next Friday. 
     On the other hand, Pelo and Houdini are doing well, but Pelo was a little but blodied up when our new puppy decided to chew on him a little bit. He is fine now though and you can not even tell that he was even hurt. They are most certainly boys though.
     Finally, the filler roosters that we had bought with our first batch of chicks were just butchered yesterday and today. We only got about 3 or 4 pounds off of each one, but that is because they are not supposed to be meat birds. 
     Hopefully, the new chicks will get along fine with the dog and the two ducks once they are older. As of now the dog is perfectly fine with the chicks and we have taught him not to bite or hurt the babies. This way when we get more babies he will refrain from hurting or eating them. 
    One last thing... As of Monday, we will be putting an offer on a house in Missouri because we are a little bit tired of Casper, Wyoming. The house we are looking at has 40 acres on a lake, so our chickens, horses, dog, and whatever other animals we want will have plenty of room to roam. I will still continue to post on here about the newest happenings with our chickens though so that all of my viewers can continue to keep up with everyone.
     Thank you for reading and have a happy St. Patrick's day!

Tears

I am so very depressed, but I must share all of my news.    
     Unfortunately, due to food poisoning Psyche, my favorite chicken and best friend, past away. I  will be burning her and keeping her ashes. All of the new chicks, not including the duck, also died. A raccoon climbed into their house and killed every last one of them. We were all devastated, but new chicks will be coming soon. The ducks, Pelo and Houdini, are still doing wonderful. Although, recently Houdini's tail has began to curl, meaning Houdini is probably a boy. Bummer........ I will post when the new chicks arrive, or if some excited event happens.
Thank-you to all of my faithful viewers

Sad Story

     I am sure you all saw the new pictures of the chicks that I posted two weeks ago. Everyone was doing alright until last week. From the start we had to keep the babies and the two ducks separate from one another. So we had all of the chicks in the cages in the garage. This worked perfectly until they started to outgrow the small cage. Well, that was not too terrible because it was still relatively warm outside, and the chicks were big enough to stand the cold as long as they had Psyche and a heat light near them. All of the male chicks stayed in their large cage to await the time when they would grow mature enough to be able to be placed out at my grandpa's 9 acres. This is because we are not aloud to house roosters within the city limits. But they are amlost big enough!