Workshop Opportunities!

Suburban Homesteading Workshop Series:

Including a Backyard Chicken Workshop!
by Sharon Gaughan, PCLF Education Program Director

The urban and suburban homesteading movement has gained momentum in recent years.  Increasing numbers of urban and suburban folks are striving toward a more self-sufficient and sustainable lifestyle – growing more of their own food (and in some cases their own small livestock, such as chickens and bees), as well as preparing more of their food, fiber, and other items from scratch. 

Greater numbers of suburban homesteaders are practicing small-scale farming in their suburban-sized backyards – and sometimes in their front yards, as well.

 

Our Learning Farm staff share a love of this homesteading lifestyle.  We live in the suburbs and we work on a suburban farm – we practice suburban homesteading both on the farm, in our own homes, and in our yards every day in a variety of ways.  We each have our areas of interest and expertise – and taken together the Learning Farm staff holds a wealth of knowledge and experience for the suburban homesteader.  Through these workshops, we can share our passion with those seeking a similar lifestyle.

The idea to start this fall Suburban Homesteading Workshop Series came to me while attending a presentation on backyard chickens earlier this year.  As a farm set in the suburbs, Prairie Crossing Learning Farm is uniquely positioned to serve as a resource for new suburban homesteaders – those looking to explore new homesteading topics or to further hone their existing skills.  My hope is that we will be able offer a new set of workshops each season throughout the year, moving the Learning Farm toward becoming a center for suburban homesteading.

Here are the workshops that we’ll be offering this fall (note that the first workshop date is this Saturday!):

 

·         Preserving the Harvest -> August 24

·         World Grains – Growing & Using -> September 14

·         Small-scale Composting -> October 5

·         Backyard Chickens -> October 26

·         Homemade Yogurt & Granola -> November 16

 

Visit our website for more information and to register! 

 

 

Reflections...

Reflections on Farming – and by Extension,

Reflections on Raising Our Chicks
by Sharon Gaughan, PCLF Education Program Director

I recently purchased and happily read three new memoir-type books on farming – and in each I found a quote that put me in mind of our experience raising our new flock of chicks during the past 7 weeks. 

Some of my thoughts and feelings are reflected in the quotes from these authors…

“A farm is a manipulative creature.  There is no such thing as finished.  Work comes in a stream and has no end.  There are only the things that must be done now and things that can be done later.  The threat the farm has got on you, the one that keeps you running from can until can’t is this: do it now, or some living thing will wilt or suffer or die.  It’s blackmail, really.”

Kristin Kimball (The Dirty Life: A Memoir of Farming, Food, and Love, p. 150)

“Farming is a beautiful thing, but it takes a lot out of you.  It’s not so much the actual labor but rather the relentless responsibilities that do it.”

Jenna Woginrich (Barnheart:The Incurable Longing for a Farm of One’s Own, p. 148)

“At last the chicks arrived…  From that day forward…  Up at four – start the kitchen fire – put the coffee on – go out to the baby chicks – come back and slice off some ham and sling it into the frying pan – out to the baby chicks with warm water – put toast into the oven – out to the baby chicks with mash – set the breakfast table – out to the baby chicks with chick food – open a can of fruit – out to the baby chicks, and on and on through the day.  I felt as if I were…fleeing down the track in front of an onrushing locomotive.”

Betty MacDonald (The Egg & I, pp. 107-108)

Now, not wanting these quotes to leave you with the wrong impression, let me end this post by saying that raising these chicks (from 1-day old to their current 7 weeks of age) has been one of the most rewarding things I’ve done yet as an employee of the Learning Farm. 

Some of life’s best experiences require a bit of effort on our part...

Photo Evidence 

that the Chicks are Growing Up!

by Sharon Gaughan, PCLF Education Program Director

Our chicks are 6 weeks old now – and they continue to grow and explore their world.  This past week they reach several small milestones (maybe those are called “quarter-of-a-mile stones”?), as well as one rather large milestone.  

Here are some of the small ones:

Practice perching on the adult roosts during the day…

Drinking from the new adult waterer…

Exploring the adult nest boxes…

Exploring the outdoors through the open door (they haven’t yet been let outdoors)…

As for the rather large milestone? 

Well, I’m still coming in to check on the chicks late at night (not quite as late as I was before, but I still don’t feel comfortable letting them go for a full eight hours without someone peeking in on them).  On Tuesday night I came in to find four of the chicks sleeping on the adult roosts for the first time, rather than sleeping near or under the brooder box!  While we’ve seen them perched on the roosts during the day, this was the first time any of them had chosen to sleep there for the night.  I was excited, and noted this new development on our “Chick Check Log.”

The next night, Wednesday, I found four chicks on the roosts once again.  It might have been the same four – but there’s no way to be certain, of course.

But then along came Thursday, and when Anya closed the chick house up for the night at 8:30 p.m., she texted me saying that there were 32 chicks roosting on “the big girl perches”!  

When I came in for my late night chick check a few hours later, 18 chicks remained perched on the roosts – the others had returned to the warmth and security of the brooder box.  

Every night since then, I’ve found 17 or 18 chicks sleeping on the adult roosts during the late night check – a definite sign that our girls are growing up!

This Week with the Chicks

This Week –

Several Milestones for the Chicks, 

and another Chicken Farm Camp!

by Sharon Gaughan, PCLF Education Program Director

The chicks continue to grow and develop way too quickly!  By last weekend – at 4 weeks old – several of the more precocious of the flock were repeatedly flying up and perching on the “chick corral.”  If several chicks chose to do this at the same time, the corral would collapse.  That would result in chicks running about outside of the corral and onto the bare cement coop floor, as well as around and through the supplies we still had stored inside the coop for our ease of access. 

Like a mother not wanting to send their child off to kindergarten, I still didn’t feel that the chicks were ready for access to the entire coop – but clearly the chicks felt otherwise.  So on Tuesday afternoon, I bought several more bales of wood shavings – and on Tuesday early evening, Anya and I spread the wood shavings, took the chick corral down, and gave the chicks the run of the full coop.

They are quite enjoying their expanded world!  Some of the chicks almost immediately started perching on the “window sills” and on the adult roosts (but only during the daytime; at night they all still return to the heat and security of the wooden brooder and its heat lamps).

This past week we also held our chicken farm camp for 7-10 year-olds.  With the chick corral removed, the campers were able to enter the coop (in small groups), find a place to sit in the wood shavings, and feed the chicks greens and/or mealworms.  That was a hit with both the campers and the chicks.

The chicks seemed to enjoy the food and the attention – as well as the additional objects upon which to climb!

As I type this, the chicks are 5 weeks old today – and today we started mixing their “chick starter” feed with new “chick grower” feed.  We’ll transition fully to “grower” feed during the next few days. They’ll continue to be fed “grower” feed until they start to lay eggs (at 5 or 6 months of age) – at which time we transition to “layer feed.”  

Our chicks are still chicks, but they won’t be chicks for much longer!

Hot Temperatures & Baby Chicks

Fried Chicken, Anyone?

by Sharon Gaughan, PCLF Education Program Director

As most of you reading this already know, it has been an incredibly hot week in the Midwest – and very hot temperatures can be hard on animals – chickens and chicks, as well as people.

I was only mildly worried about our adult flock.  They have plenty of shade and plenty of water available to them, and since they’re pastured, they get the benefit of any cooling breezes.  Several times this week, Anya or I also “watered” the hens with garden watering cans to help cool them down.  Some of them seemed to welcome the shower, but most danced away after feeling the first drops of water on their backs.

Our “backyard chicken” flock – Rhubarb, Rutabaga, and Radish – were happiest when we let them wander in the Children’s Garden, where there is more shade and shady mulched areas in which to rest and/or dust bathe.  They hadn’t been free in the Children’s Garden for a while (that would be rather distracting during our farm camps!), so I’m sure there were also lots of juicy insects to be found and eaten, as well.

But our chicks!  How we fretted over our chicks this past week!

At between 3-4 weeks old, the brooder area for the chicks should ideally be at 80-85 degrees.  With temperatures in the 90s this past week, that was impossible to maintain in the hen house – despite open doors and windows and two fans to help with ventilation. 

So, what else to do?  Books, blogs, and google groups supplied lots of suggestions – many of which we tried this past week.  Anya, Sara and I played tag team as we took turns doing the following, sometimes on an hourly basis:

• We raised the height of the brooder again.  This would help increase air flow beneath, as well as help to not (or only minimally) raise the temperature below the brooder at night, when we still needed to turn on one of the two brooder lamps. 

• The chicks have five waterers available to them, which we clean and refill every day with cold water.   In 3 of 5 waterers we add a bit of apple cider vinegar; most sources say this is good practice anytime, but some suggest it also helps the birds cope with heat.  During the hottest part of each day this week, we also added an ice cube to the tray of each waterer on regular basis to keep water cool.   

• We filled several half-gallon and gallon milk jugs with water and froze them.  We then set those frozen jugs on the floor throughout the brooder area.  The idea was that the chicks could stand or sit on these jugs and/or position themselves near enough to them to benefit from the coolness.  In addition to radiating heat from their combs and wattles (which I knew), chickens also radiate heat from their feet and legs (new information for me).  So, standing or sitting on a cold surface is effective in helping the bird cool down.

• Similarly, if chicks or chickens stand in a shallow pool of cool or cold water, that can also help to cool them down.  So, we put in several shallow pans of water, which many of the chicks stood in and/or walked through regularly.  Each time we added ice cubes to the waterers (see above), we also added ice cubes to these pans of water, to keep the water cool.  These “wading pools” also provided the chicks with additional sources of drinking water – but that meant we needed to continually remove the wood chips and chick poop that ended up in the pans of water.

• On Thursday evening, I attended a “chicken health” workshop in Chicago, where I learned yet another tip.  Set an open cooler on its side and place some of the frozen milk jugs inside of it.  The cool air takes longer to dissipate from the cooler, and the chicks can hang out inside the “air conditioned” room.  We tried it, and it seemed to work – as well as to give the chicks something else to peck at and jump up on.

• We had already been giving fresh greens to the chicks on daily basis, but this week we started soaking the greens in cold water before “serving” them.  This also helped to keep the chicks hydrated.

All of these tasks took a lot of time and coordination between Anya, Sara, and I.  I’m so thankful that I didn’t need to do it all – and thankful that this week of high temperatures happened on a week when we didn’t also have a farm camp to run!  It would have been a bit overwhelming trying to keep the chicks cool, while also trying to keep the kids cool!

As I type this now, the rain has fallen and the temperatures have fallen – and we’re back to somewhat normal.  My hope is that it stays that way.  I'd rather have "cool chicks" than "fried chicken" any day!

Chicken Breeds

We Have Seven Breeds of Chicks 

in the New Flock...

by Sharon Gaughan, Education Program Director

Before I ordered our new flock of chicks, I spent a lot of time pouring over chicken books and poultry catalogs. Our last flock of heritage breed chickens at the Learning Farm (which we had just prior to our current Bovans Brown flock) was made up of four heritage breeds: Rhode Island Reds, Buff Orpingtons, Barred Plymouth Rocks, and Black Australorps. We chose these four relatively common heritage breeds in large part because they are calm, dual-purpose breeds that also do well as pastured poultry.

I didn’t see a reason to eliminate any of these four breeds, but I wanted to try a few new breeds, as well. So, finally, I made the decision to order some of each of those same four breeds – but then to also add two new breeds: New Hampshire Reds and Columbian Wyandottes (I really wanted Silver Laced Wyandottes, but unfortunately they weren’t available for the shipment date I was requesting).

I thought that six breeds would make for a visually interesting mix, without having so many different breeds that it would be confusing for our various educational purposes. 

Unfortunately, very little goes as planned when it comes to livestock! Due to an oversight on the part of the hatchery that I ordered from, we received some of each of those six breeds – plus a seventh breed. It turns out that there weren’t enough Columbian Wyandottes to complete our order. If that were to happen, the hatchery was supposed to substitute with one of the other five breeds within my order, but instead they substituted the missing Columbian Wyandottes with a seventh breed: Light Brahmas.

Columbian Wyandottes and Light Brahmas do look very similar, but with two very important exceptions: 1.) Light Brahmas are much bigger chickens, and 2.) Light Brahmas have feathered legs and toes!

I hate feathered legs and toes on chickens!

For one thing, I just think they look rather silly (sorry, Brahmas!) – but, more importantly, I don’t like them because the feathers on their legs and toes get very dirty when the birds are outside in the dirt and the mud. I remember this from seeing Brahmas that were part of a much earlier flock of Learning Farm chickens.

The hatchery readily admitted their mistake in not following my order request, and did refund our money for the Light Brahma chicks that they sent – but we still now have seven breeds instead of six, one breed of which is larger than all the rest and will have dirty white feathers on their legs and toes.

On the up side, several of the campers in our chicken camp last week said that they really liked the Brahma’s feathered legs and toes!

Future Blog Post: An overview of each of the seven breeds which make up our new chicken flock

Growing Chicks at the Learning Farm

Our Chicks are Growing Quickly!

by Sharon Gaughan, 

PCLF Education Program Director

Our chicks are two weeks old today (we received them on Monday, June 24th, but they hatched and were shipped to us on Sunday, June 23rd) – and they are growing amazingly quickly.  They have more than doubled in size already, and their wing and tail feathers are beginning to grow in.  They’re still very cute, but it won’t be long before they reach those “gawky teen-age weeks”!

The photos I’ve included in this blog post were taken on Saturday, just a day shy of their 2-week birthday.

There have been many milestones during these past two weeks...

In addition to their organic chick feed and organic chicken scratch (which we grind more finely in a blender to make organic “chick scratch”), the chicks have been fed a number of treats and protein-extras:

• Starting on their very first day at the Learning Farm, they have been fed a few mashed hard-boiled eggs each day.  While it may seem a bit odd, they go absolutely crazy over mashed hard-boiled eggs!
• Starting on their third day with us, the chicks have been fed a variety of greens on a daily basis, which they also love – but for which they show definite preferences.  They prefer red lettuce over green lettuce, and they prefer Swiss chard over either red or green kale.  They don’t much like collard greens, but they love nasturtium leaves!
• On their fourth day with us, the chicks were fed meal worms from the meal worm colony we started last winter.  They seemed to like those almost as much as the mashed hard-boiled eggs.  Unfortunately, our meal worm colony is a small one and can only produce so many worms at a time.  We plan to feed the chicks a second serving of mealworms this week.
• Twice so far, we’ve taken the leftover powder from the chick feeders and made “chick gruel” (just like we started doing with the adult feed for our adult birds).  The chicks quite like the gruel at first, but seem to get bored with it fairly quickly.  We give any leftovers to the adult hens, who gobble it up. 

The brooder area has been expanded twice, the second time with a 24-inch high brooder guard or “chick corral” (the initial brooder guard was 16 inches high, and on the very same day that we expanded it, one of the chicks flew up and perched right on top of it!  An obvious clue that it was already time to install a taller one!).

Several chicks have managed to get up on top of the hover (the wooden box under which the heat lamps are affixed), despite the fact that the hover itself has been raised several times (to give the chicks more room to move below it, and to decrease the intensity of the heat lamps as the chicks get older and need less heat).  So far, each chick that has gotten themselves up there has managed to get themselves back down and into the brooder area again (vs. outside the brooder guard). So far...

The chicks now recognize us as a source of both food and entertainment.  The chick in the photo below is comfortably perched on my bare foot, while I sit inside the brooder and take photographs.

Taking care of this flock of chicks has taken up a lot more time than I anticipated – but thankfully, I'm not doing this alone.  Many, many thanks to Anya (our Hen House Helper Coordinator/Hen House Assistant and summer intern) and Sara (also a Learning Farm summer intern) for their daily assistance – and a special thanks to my three nieces (Hannah, Allison, and Amanda – who helped us a bunch during the first few days after the chicks arrived)!

And this Monday, our summer “Chicken Chore Crew” farm camp begins!  Some of the “chicken chores” this summer, will actually be “chick chores.”  I don’t think any of the crew will complain about that!

Chick Photos

Just a Few Chick Photos…

taken and posted by Sharon Gaughan, 

PCLF Education Program Director

and Primary PCLF Chick Mom

Learning how to eat from the chick feeder (vs. the paper plates that we started feeding them on)...

Learning how to drink from the chick waterer (it may look like lemonade, but it's water mixed with some sugar for energy and some "Quik Chik" for vitamins and electrolytes)...

More photos coming soon!