Homesteading 101: Barn Cat Update

The cats are out of the bag… er… barn… er… shed? Yes, the cats are out of the shed.

In case you haven’t been following this harrowing tale, we adopted 2 barn cats from a local cat rescue. Cute little buggars from what I saw of them. One all black, one white with grey patches. Brothers. Only 6 months old and already deemed unsuitable for indoor living. They were fixed and all of that before arrival. My only job was to feed them and keep them cooped up in the shed for 6 weeks before releasing them into the backyard to catch mice and provide rodent control.

Well, I failed. About a week into it mother nature threw a bitch fit and blew the door to my shed in. The cats escaped. Fortunately, they’re pretty darn smart and they’ve stuck around. The kids saw them run across the back yard once or twice. I now keep a dish of food outside and some better (wet) food inside the shed. They eat both and the hay in their little cat shelter keeps getting smushed down, so I’m pretty sure they’re sleeping in it on the colder nights. They’ve stopped using the litter box in the shed and are now going outside (oh yeah, there’s a lovely aroma of cat pee all around the shed).

I’m going to call it a success. We haven’t planted the garden yet, so I can’t say for sure if the mice situation is under control or not, but the barn cats are out there and they’re still alive.

Homesteading 101: Coyotes

My town has a coyote problem.Like lots of other towns in the U.S., we’re growing in population and confrontations with coyotes are becoming more common. As a homesteader, that’s an issue. Coyotes can kill chickens, hunt barn cats and destroy a garden in a single night.

So what do you do when the 4-legged fiends come knocking on your door? One controversial management method is to simply hunt them. If you’re not a hunter, there are plenty of hunters for hire that will take out coyotes in your area. Your state may also have resources for particularly troublesome coyotes that don’t know when to give up.

Not comfortable with killing them? Deter them. The goal is either to make your your yard unappealing or to make your neighbors’ yard more appealing than yours. You can do this with fencing. Chain link or deer fencing — something not so sturdy — is hard for them to climb. Bury your fencing about a foot deep and you’ll have a good coyote deterrent. You can also limit their food sources by securing your trash, locking up your livestock and making sure all pet food is put away and secured. That includes chicken food!

If there aren’t any easy meals on your property or if food is easier to find elsewhere, the coyotes will simply move along. Walk around your yard and make a list of all potential food sources, then remove or secure them to take away the coyotes’ food sources. After a day or 2, they’ll realize there’s no food to be found at your house and they’ll be forced to leave.

Barn Cats: Natural Mouse Control

I intended to write this post complete with a picture or 2 of the newest members of our homestead — a couple of barn cats. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen them since they were relocated, last night.

We got the cats from a local animal rescue. They were being cared for by an older person that had moved and was no longer able to feed them. They’re about 6 months old and litter mates. They were fixed, vetted and deemed suitable for placement in an outdoor/barn type of environment only. We have been looking into natural ways to control the rodent population in our area and barn cats seemed like a good idea.

The rescue set them up with an insulated shelter inside of one of our sheds. We’re supposed to keep them confined for 4-6 weeks before letting them out to do their thing. They were brought over last night and set up. I went to check on them this morning and found that they had used the litter box several times over the night, but they didn’t touch their moist food (now frozen) and their water had froze solid as well. I replaced the water and cleaned the litter box. Then I left a small pile of toys and left — I did not see the cats. A little while later I went back to check and see if they had moved the toys. I figured that would be a sign that they were alive and well. The toys were not moved.

Panicked, I started looking around outside the shed. It’s amazing how many animals lurk in our yard at night. It certainly makes me not want to go backyard camping anytime soon!!

So hopefully the cats were just hiding and they didn’t find some way of escaping. Only time will tell, but I hope to find more evidence of their survival in the litter box tomorrow.

Fruit Trees

I’ve been gone for a while. Again. Not that I’d expect anyone to notice. But, the reason is kind of cool, so I thought I’d share. It’s the time of year where various home improvement stores put their fruit trees on clearance. That means, it’s time for my husband and I to stock up on fruit trees to plant for next year.

My husband has this little dream of having an orchard some day. While we don’t have the acreage needed to do it right now, it’s a pretty great dream. I commend him for it. I would like to have a massive amount of chickens. Some day, our dreams of chickens and trees will come true.

Until then, we’re going to have to be content with planting trees in the backyard and raising our little flock. Gardening and chicken raising is our small bit of independence. We would love to move somewhere a little more remote with a whole lot less rules where we could expand the homestead to include more chickens and maybe some goats. If it weren’t for our massive student loans, we’d have gladly moved to the midwest and taken up farming full time. *sigh* the dream of being food producers is lost because of student loans.

This year, we were able to add about 10 trees to our mini orchard. We have peaches, pears, apples and cherries. We also added a few hundred feet of deer fencing along the woods to keep the deer out. The trees have grown more this year (sans deer) than they ever have before. It’s a wonderful thing to see and it gave us the confidence that we were doing *something* right and could finally add a few more trees. The ones we had up until this point weren’t producing, probably because of the deer.

So, that’s the update. We’ve been planting trees and readying the flock for winter. This weekend we’re having a Halloween party and getting our family photos done for Christmas cards. Yes, we do photo cards. We are “those people” that you absolutely hate getting cards from. You’re welcome!

Homesteading 101: Making Money Off the Land

No matter how self-reliant you are, you will need money in this world for one thing or another. Whether it’s to pay taxes, buy the groceries you can’t grow or raise yourself or fix a leaky roof, money is a necessary evil. Sure, when you homestead you need a lot less of it, but you still need some.

Fortunately, the land that keeps you alive can also provide a small amount of money for necessities. We are just getting into using our land to make a little extra money. In fact, we’ve been making enough each month to cover the cost of chicken feed, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but makes our eggs (and favorite hobby) 100% free. Here’s what we sell:

• Eggs. $3/dozen. This is the obvious way to make your chicken empire self-sustainable. A little more than half of our flock are pullets, so I also sell pullet eggs for $2/dozen. I’ll be raising the price to $2.50/dozen on pullet eggs soon because they’re getting bigger. By the winter, they should all be $3/dozen. I only sell what we don’t eat and feeding my family always comes first.

• Veggies. When the garden is cranking out more eggplant, squash and tomatoes than we know what to do with, we sell them. They don’t go for much – $1 per eggplant or squash, 2/$1 on cucumbers or $2/pound on tomatoes, but every little bit helps.

• Chicks. We have an incubator, so in the spring I’ll be selling straight run chicks for $5 each. That’s a much nicer profit than the eggs sell for.

Now, if you’re thinking about selling things from your own land, it’s important to know your local economy. My father-in-law also has chickens and lives in a cheaper area, so he can’t sell his eggs for $3/dozen. They tried that. The eggs didn’t sell and they wound up with a fridge full of questionable eggs. I try to price mine slightly higher than the grocery store, but lower than the farm down the road. Since the store is $2.80 and the farm is $3.50, I priced mine at $3. I could have done $3.25, but I don’t want a ton of quarters hanging around and I figured people would be more inclined to make the extra stop to save 50 cents. It helps too that I’m on a main road.

The other thing I do is I advertise on Facebook. I don’t just put a stand by the road. I make an appointment and have people pick up their items. That way, they are willing to make the drive because they know I have what they want. It also helps prevent veggies and eggs from siting out for any length of time.

Do you sell anything from your land? If so, what?

Homesteading 101: Canning Green Beans

One thing I hear a lot from friends is that they wish they knew how to can. Guess what? It’s easy! Today, I’m going to share with you how I can fresh green beans for use during the winter. It takes a little work, but the flavor is so much better than commercial canned beans.

Step 1: Harvest those beans. Pick them when they’re about 4 inches long. We grow pole beans on a chicken wire fence around the outside of our garden, so they’re easy to harvest (no bending down). I’d add a picture, but my garden is a hot mess right now. Very overgrown!

Step 2: Sanitize your jars and boil your lids. I cheat and sanitize the jars in the dishwasher. I have a special sanitization setting, so it works for me. You can also boil your jars.

Step 3: Snap your beans. Snap them into bite-size pieces!

Step 4: Fill the jars with beans. Add 1 tsp of salt to each quart-size jar, or 1/2 tsp to each pint-size jar.

Step 5: Add boiling water to the next of the jar.

Step 6: Top with a hot lid and ring. Finger tighten.

Step 7: Prepare your canner by adding 3 quarts of boiling water.

Step 8: Add the jars. Lock the canner lid and put the 10-pound weight on top.

Step 9: Heat the canner on high. When the weight starts rocking audibly, set a timer for 25 minutes. At the end of that time, the beans are done. Let them cool in the canner before opening the lid and removing them to minimize the risk of burns. When the canner has cooled slightly, carefully open the lid and remove the jars to a towel on the counter to cool. You’ll hear them pop to seal. You’ll also notice the beans are slightly less vibrant because they are now cooked.

Homesteading 101: Post-Chick-Hatching Hens

My buff orpington, Penelope, recently hatched a chick. Yes, just 1. We gave her a clutch of 3 eggs to add to the 2 of her own that she was trying to hatch and out of the 5 she started out with, she broke all of them except for 1.

Anyway, her little chick (not even hers, really), was born June 23rd. Yesterday, Penelope laid her first post-chick egg. She also moved her and her chick from the “nursery coop” as we call it, to the main coop with the other chickens. They took over a nesting box for the night and she has switched from eating chick grower with the baby to eating layer pellet with the other hens. The baby is fully integrated into the flock and the rooster frequently moves to protect the chick when a hawk flies overhead or when I go into their area. It’s pretty cute.

So how long has it been? It has been 2 days shy of 4 weeks since the chick was born. In the last week, I noticed Penelope’s comb has gotten much redder, almost the normal color, and she has been shedding broken feathers and growing new ones on her breast, where she plucked herself bare during her time of hatching her egg. Subtle changes. And she is in no way “back to normal”, but she’s close.

I’d also like to note that the egg she laid was smaller than usual. Roughly 2/3 the size of a “normal” egg. Still bigger than the pullet eggs my Wellsummer is laying, but smaller than what she was laying before going broody.

With her coming back to the rotation, that brings our total number of laying hens up to 5. I can’t wait for some of the other pullets to start!

Homesteading 101: Getting Ready to Can

I have a lot of friends that have told me over the years that they really want to get into canning, but it seems so overwhelming. The jars, the lids, the pots and all of the accessories – it’s so much they say. I try to explain that you really don’t need all the gadgets, bits and bobbles to get started, but they never believe me.

If your’e thinking about getting into canning, the best advice I can give you is to focus on ONE thing to try and stick with it. Don’t plan to make salsa, spaghetti sauce, canned tomatoes, green beans and award-winning jelly in your first year. Instead, focus on ONE thing and learn to make that really well. Then next year you can expand on your supplies and your skills.

One of the easiest things you can start off with when learning to can are tomatoes. Just plain, canned tomatoes. For equipment, you won’t need much, just:

-Jars
-lids
-A large pot
-A jar lifter

That’s really it! Sterilize your jars, get your lids in warm water and start peeling those tomatoes. Pop the peeled and diced tomatoes in your jars, along with a basil leaf, a little salt and some citric acid, then cover with hot tomato juice, put the lid on and process in boiling water. The size of your jar determines the processing time. Once it’s done, use the jar lifter to remove the jars from the water and put them on a towel on the counter to cool. You’ll hear the lids pop as they close.

That’s it – you’re done!

Even once you’re canning a variety of things, you’ll still buy more equipment each year. Lids, rings and extra jars are always needed. You can upgrade your equipment, buy new recipe books, labels and other goodies. When you first start canning, it’s a bit of an investment. Ease into it to spare your wallet and your sanity.

Homesteading 101: Timeline of a Broody Hen Hatching Chicks

My posts about my broody chicken have gotten the most hits recently, so I’m guessing there’s some interest in what all happens when your hen decides to raise some chicks.

For starters, broodiness or going broody is just a way of saying the hen has gone into baby-raising mode. This involves becoming a bit on the temperamental side, fluffing up or turning out her feathers, becoming agitated with her humans and spending more time in the coop. Broodiness was bred out of most modern chickens, but some breeds, like buff orpingtons, are known for going broody with some frequency.

Signs of Broodiness

As mentioned earlier, there are some signs that you can look out for that might indicate your hen is going broody. Here they are:

• Becoming aggressive (i.e. pecking and waving wings at people that come near)
• Fluffing up feathers
• Spending more time in the coop
• Pulling feathers from her breast
• Making growling sounds
• Fortunately, these behaviors are temporary. Once the babies hatch, the broody will return to her normal temperament. Don’t try to disturb your hen too much once she has begun sitting on her nest, since this can lead to a failed hatch.

What to Do

There’s really no human interference needed once a hen goes broody. All you should do is stealthily mark the eggs in the nest with a pencil or permanent marker while the broody is eating or drinking for the day. You’ll only have a small window of time to do this, since most broody hens only leave the nest once a day or less. Remove any unmarked eggs from the nest every day. It has been my experience that the broody will stop laying once she starts sitting, but other hens may try to lay in that nest.

If your hen has nested somewhere undesirable, like outdoors or in the favorite nesting box, it’s possible to move her. Move the eggs with extreme care and make sure the broody can rearrange them before sitting on them.

It will take 21 days (give or take) to hatch the eggs. The hen will know when the hatch is over, and any unhatched eggs can be discarded at that time.

Hatching

Around the 18th day of sitting, the hen will get up and reposition the eggs. She’s arranging them to make it easier for the chick to hatch. Don’t disturb her during this process. For the final 3 days of the incubation period, she will not leave the nest. She may make soft clucking sounds, which may be alarming, but she is talking to the babies in the eggs. Near the end of the hatch, the babies will start peeping back at the mother hen.

During the last 3 days, the hen will not leave the nest and she will relieve herself in the nest, regardless of the eggs or chicks. Once she takes the chicks out for their first outing, the nest may be cleaned. During the first outing, the broody will teach the chicks where to find food, how to dust bathe and how to get back to the nest.

That’s all there is to it! The broody and mother nature will take care of the bulk of the work for you, leaving you free to enjoy the show.

Homesteading 101: Broody Chicken Day 5

It has been 5 days since my Buff Orpington started sitting on her eggs. So far, so good. In another 2 days, I’ll try candling them to see if they are developing. I’ve noticed that her jaunts outside seem to be fewer and farther between. In fact, I haven’t seen her leave the nest in a couple of days. I’m thinking about delivering food and water to her to make sure she eats and drinks. She’s still quite fluffy and ornery, so that seems like a good sign.

I’ve also noticed that the broodiness seems to be contagious. My Easter Egger female has also started sitting longer in the coop when she lays and the other day, she just sat for a couple hours on a pile of golf balls.

We have golf balls in the coop to deter egg eating. When I remove them, it becomes a problem again, so they are staying in there for now.

Hopefully my Buff Orpington will keep up with the hatch and we will see babies sometime around June 24th or 25th. I’ll keep everyone updated!