Chick Hotel

Well, we have had extra work with the little chicks this week. We decided to remove them from the coop where their mum and the rest of the hens are as there were too many dangers for them there. So here's box life for a chick.

The first thing to remember about little chicks is that they love to be warm, they cope much better without water than they do without warmth. It's pretty hot here in the summer, so our chicks don't need much additional warmth, certainly they do not need a heat lamp, though if you live in a colder climate or raise chicks in colder months of the year they will need a substantial heat source. We are quite amused as our chicks are being warmed by an energy saving lightbulb..... it seems to provide just enough of a heat boost for them.... very comical. Really they need 35 C (which is about 95 F), especially for the first week of their lives, but you can usually take it down to about 30-32 C (which is 90 F) in the second week....and more later.

I wont write a long post about raising chicks as there are millions of websites which do a far better job of it that I would. There are a few things that we feel help though....

• We like to give our chicks sugar water for the first few days, it helps them get a little energy boost and cope that bit better with life outside the egg.
• Raising chicks is not as complicated as it seems.... the best thing to do is remember to keep them warm and watered, food can be simple too, there are plenty of places that will sell you starter food for chicks, or you can make your own mix of corn and grains (if you can grind them)
  
• Don't worry if you lose one or two.... in fact the general recommendation is to have 25% more chicks than you need, to allow for losses
• If they make a lot of noise, loud peeping... something is wrong, this can be as simple as being stuck behind a feeder or being too cold. You'll know, just think of babies, they get noisy when something is wrong.

Of course, if anyone wants to know more about our simple and pain-free chick raising methods... or would like to critisise them.... feel free to contact us... We arn't very complicated people and we are generally good at replying.

The most important thing is keep it simple and in the words of the great Lance-Corporal Jack Jones "Don't Panic, Don't panic!!"

chicks and chutney

Well, it's been a busy week for us here, chicks hatched all last week to a grand total of 9.... not bad for our first home hatched batch. All 9 of them are currently cheeping away happily in a warm box in the house, except when they are helping with knitting...

This is the oldest chick, the little black smudge from last week... they grow so quickly and we are very pleased at how strong they are.



This weekend marked the end of the apricot season for us, finally our huge tree had dropped her last fruit and we thought we would make the jam. I have been collecting, preparing and freezing apricots for weeks, using only the really squishy ripe ones to make ensure the best possible jam.

Our end result was this ...


Lovely thick, really tasty apricot jam.... 34 jars of it.... woo hoo!



We also felt this weekend was a good time to make our chutney. We used about 7 kg of tomatoes, 2kg of onions and 1.5 kg of apples... you can imagine, that makes a lot of chutney. This is it at the 'Giant Salad' stage, before it started to boil.... The recipe is here from last year

To make our jam we only used the sweetest ripest apricots, as that makes for tastier jam and we always like to keep it simple. By using the ripest apricots we used very little sugar as it didnt need much sweetning (added on a 'taste it and see' basis). We dont add artificial preservatives to our food, so, for the jam we took the cores and peel left from making the chutney and we boiled them in a pot and pressed them through a seive to extract the thick pulp and pectin mixture and we added this to the jam, it's a natural way to add a setting agent. Anyway, we dont like the jam too thick, we like it to be what my gran always calls 'french jam'. I am aware that this isnt a recipe, but it seems a little silly to pretend that we use a recipe just so I can blog about it.

Our first birth.....

A couple of weeks ago, one of our hens got a little broody and just decided she was going to sit on all the eggs that were laid in the coop. we didn't move her to a broody coop and we wern't even convinced that she would keep sitting, but she did, so we left her, on about 10 eggs in the end.

TodayI walked down the garden and heard a "cheep cheep"..... I went to go check on our little broody hen in the coop who we estimated was due at the weekend.... Lo and behold, this little one apparently couldn't wait that long.



Of course, after an hour of warming and drying he looked a little more like this....



Hopefully we will have next years laying birds from this batch of chicks. The broody mum is still sitting determinedly on the rest of the eggs, who will probably hatch for the rest of the week now.

The temporary coop

The chickens are in temporary housing at the moment, until we move out to the Spare Oom. They were in a little box while they were getting up their weight, as it kept them a little better protected. However, they outgrew it and so we had to knock up a better living for them.


































As you can see, they were very happy clucking around in their new space....





























There are 13 chickens, they arn't mature yet, so none for the pot as yet. Though, we have put a duck aside to eat in a couple of weeks.

The Chicken Coop

Chicken seems to be a controversial subject these days, how much should we eat, which kind should we buy? We have made the firm decision recently that we don't want to eat intensely farmed chickens, however, we realize that's nigh impossible these days and so we also made the decision to only eat chicken we raise ourselves.

Which brings us to The Chicken Coop.... our 13 chickens who we bought as day old chicks. They cluck around happily having a peck at what they fancy. They are young yet, but we are hoping to get a couple of laying hens as well as some delicious chicken.

Admittedly, it isn't a pleasant thing to have to kill the chickens you raise from chicks, but we much prefer to eat our little chickens knowing that they have been raised fairly and we can be fully thankful for the meat we have from them.

You may well think that 13 chickens are not going to give us an abundance of meat, and you're right, it's not going to be much especially if we keep a couple of laying hens and a cockerel to give us next years chicks, then it's even fewer. But, we think quality and not quantity. We have come to depend on chicken as a daily source of food in the west and it's just not a healthy mindset. 70 years ago, chickens were farmed more fairly and eaten less often, and perhaps better enjoyed. It may be time, certainly for us, re-evaluate and learn to appreciate.

I should also say, we keeps ducks, geese and eventually rabbits for the same purpose. This way we can eat a varied, healthy amount of guilt-free meat.