I Promise This isn't Photoshopped

Yesterday morning I went to the farm to walk Freddy. After his walk, I always feed him. Lately, the kittens have been getting in Freddy's pen and eating his feed. He doesn't try to scare them off; he just lets the kittens eat his feed. 

So I put some feed on the sidewalk for the kittens so they would leave Freddy's food alone. 

Except there's a different animal the kittens have to compete with now. 

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The Lucky One

Don't worry, there won't be anything graphic in this post. I was too busy working on the chickens to take any photos.

Saturday, October 13, Mom, Grandma and I butchered four of these brown leghorn roosters. We left one alive because I think they are beautifully colored. The whole process went a lot easier than I expected.

Mom and I watched several youtube videos on butchering and Grandma passed on her expertise.

This Saturday, my Mom, brother and I butchered four Buff Orpingtons. It went a little faster this time. 

You see there are five roosters in the cage? One of the Buff Orpingtons has a really great crow; it wanes/dwindles at the end of the crow, and he leans into it. I didn't want to kill him. 

He's the Lucky One.

Next year if we get new chickens to butcher, I'd like to get meat breed chickens, that have more meat on them.

I also brought home my first dozen eggs from this year's batch of chickens!

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Chicken Fricassee

I made this recipe for dinner Sunday night.The original recipe may be found here.

Chicken Fricassee

1 whole chicken, cut into pieces
Seasonings: salt, pepper, garlic powder, paprika
3 Tbsp unsalted butter
1 onion, diced
2 handfuls of baby carrots, diced
2 celery stalks, diced
chicken organs: liver, gizzard, heart, diced
2 Tbsp flour
2/3 c dry white wine (I used Chardonnay)
4 cups chicken broth
2 sprigs fresh parsley
2 sprigs fresh thyme
1 large egg (original recipe called for 2 egg yolks)
1/4 c half & half (original recipe called for heavy cream)

Season the chicken pieces with the spices.

Melt the butter in a large dutch oven. Then place the chicken pieces in the butter until lightly browned. Remove chicken and put on a plate; you may need to cook in batches depending on the size of the chicken and pot.

Add the veggies to the dutch oven and saute until tender. Stir in the flour until incorporated. Stir in the wine and cook until evaporated. Stir in the chicken broth, chicken organs and spices. Bring to a boil.

Add the chicken pieces back in and simmer for 25 minutes, or until chicken reaches correct temperature (165).

Remove the chicken pieces to a plate again....

In a heatproof glass, or a coffee mug, mix together the egg and half & half. Stir in 1/4 c of chicken liquid at a time, until mug is full. This is to prevent the egg from scrambling when it hits the broth in the dutch oven! Slowly pour the egg mixture into the veggies, stirring constantly. When all egg is in the pot, add the chicken back in.

Serve!

We ate this on top of mashed potatoes.

You'll notice the original recipe included mushrooms, which I forgot to buy even though they were on the grocery list... How does that happen?

I used one of our freshly butchered roosters for this meal. The rooster was one of those that ran wild in the cow pasture eating bugs and grass all day, and he had the darkest "dark meat" I've ever seen! Very tasty though!

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Curiosity

 I try to expose the puppy to the farm animals as much as possible. He's still attended, unless he's with the cats. They can defend themselves.

Last week I was changing the food, water and paper for the chicks and he finally got curious enough to hop up on the side of the box to see what was making all that cheeping-racket. Then he looked at me like "Mom, what are those?"

 The chicks started flying around A LOT more in their box and were perching on the side of the box and on their waterer. And it was getting a lot warmer. Last week we were in the 90s for several days.

 So Dad finished varmint-proofing the chicken house and we moved the chicks out there on Saturday.

The cats are curious now, too.

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Hot Chicks

 It's been rather warm during the day, so my brother turns off the heat lamp on the chicks. They get to hang out in the dark for most of the day, which means they seem to forget where the food is located until the light comes back on. But I suppose it's better than the alternative: baked chicken.

Two discoveries yesterday about the chicks. One is that they are flying around the box.

See the dark spot on top of the waterer? I went to check on the chicks and one was standing on top of the waterer and had just pooped. I tried to get a picture but it flew off too fast.

 The other discovery is that we may be able to tell their gender earlier than expected.They will be two weeks old on Sunday and supposedly you can tell the gender in week 3.

See on the chick above, how there is a ridged area between the eyes? I think this Brown Leghorn may be a rooster. In fact, 5 of the 6 Brown Leghorn chicks have this already.

 The chick on the left above is not doing so hot. Yesterday I noticed that he was laying down at the edge of the box and the other chicks were walking on top of him like he wasn't even there. So I put him in a separate box with only one other chick, a bowl of water and a sprinkle of feed. He is limping a little bit and doesn't like putting weight on his left foot.
Finding another chick for the box was a difficult task. I tried several others and they all flew out the top of it.

As for the bees, I gave them another full quart of sugar water yesterday. They went through a quart in two days, even though there are so many flowers blooming!

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Chicky Chicky Bee Bee

Almost, not quite, sounds like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

  Yesterday evening when I checked on the chicks they had finished off an entire quart of chick starter in 24 hours! The quart jar and the feeder base it screws into were completely empty. The waterer was almost empty.

Every evening, I change out their newspaper, then fill up their feeder and waterer.

 They apparently appreciated the feed. So much so that some of them were body surfing to get to the feeder.

Their feathers are starting to come in!

Also checked on the bees' sugar water yesterday. I filled their quart jar on Saturday and it was completely empty yesterday.

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Telling the Chicks Apart

We ordered several varieties of chicks, and were it not for the identification pages that Grandma Ettling had of the different breeds, we wouldn't have a clue which were which.

Since the Black Australorp and Black Sex Links are both black, we really couldn't tell them apart. Once they get older, we'll be able to tell the difference. The only way I can tell the Buff Orpingtons and Americanas apart is that the latter's feathers look dingy in comparison. From what I've read, the rest of us, who aren't trained in telling the difference between pullets and cockerels will be able to tell around week 3.

The chicks are a  week old yesterday. We have 37, and they eat about a quart of chick starter a day and about a half a gallon of water.

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Cheep Cheep!

 The baby chicks finally arrived yesterday. Grandma Ettling received a call bright and early (she said before 6:30 a.m.!) from the Post Office saying that the chicks were ready to pick up. They came in a vented cardboard box that had bedding in it.

 We ordered 55, and they sent some extra chicks, I guess in case of any deaths. 35 of the chicks now reside at the Fluegge Family Farm. We ordered from Cackle Hatchery in Lebanon MO.

Mom and I ordered:
15 Buff Orpington, straight run
5 Brown Leghorn, straight run
5 Black Australorp, pullets
5 Black Sex Links, pullets
5 Americanas, pullets

Straight run means they aren't sexed, so there is a mixture of hens and roosters. Pullets are hens. We ordered straight run so we could eat some of the roosters later this year.

They are in an old house right now, in two large cardboard boxes that are taped together. There's a heat lamp, a quart jar of chick starter food, and a gallon water feeder.

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Baby Chicks

Our 62 baby chicks will be shipped on May 7, when they are a day old. We ordered them from Cackle Hatchery in Lebanon, MO.

After a fertilized egg is laid, it takes 21 days for the chick to mature inside the egg. The eggs that hold our baby chicks were probably laid on Sunday.

Here's a website with the chick lifecycle.

According to this website, the chicks' hearts started beating yesterday. Today, the legs, wings and beak will start forming.

Oh, the wonder of life.

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Topless

The chicken house, that is, not me!

This weekend, Dad and I tackled the chicken house. He bought new plywood and shingles yesterday morning, and then we tore off the old roof. Then we put the new plywood on.

Before yesterday, the chicken house was looking a little worn down. The roof had several bad parts, and some of the shingles and plywood were held in place with pipe flanges.

A couple weekends ago, Dad and I shoveled the inside out. I think we had three loads of dirt/composted chicken manure that went to the garden.

  

After we tore off the old roof, we blew the inside of the chicken house off with compressed air. Dad has this attachment nozzle that he made out of copper pipe, that he uses to clean out the gutters. It worked really well for airing out the chicken house! So glad we waited until the roof was off to do this!

At one point, Dad went to the shed to get some brooms for us to brush off the walls with  and I grabbbed the air nozzle and started working. He said something to the effect of "That's not very lady-like" to Mom, and she responded "No, but that's Anna-like". It's impossible for me to be offended by this comment, because my whole life I've been rather tom-boyish. It just made me chuckle!

By the end of the day, we had new plywood in place. It was a little windy yesterday to tackle the tarpaper, and the shingles were a little cold. 

 Ended the day with a rather beautiful sunset on the farm.

Today, Mom and I are picking out which chicks to order with Grandma Ettling!

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Garden Update 2.25.12

We now have more garden goodies on the way from Burgess (Thank you Mom!):
6 blueberry plants for 34.99
10 Mary Washington asparagus for 3.96
2 Victoria Rhubarb for 3.99
40 gladiolas for 2.99

Last weekend at the Garden Show in Springfield, I also picked up:
Walla Walla onion plants 2.00
Candy onion plants 2.00
White onion sets 1.50
Garlic 4.98

Yesterday, Dad and I worked on the chickenhouse. We took down the old fencing around the chicken yard, and shoveled a lot of chicken manure/sawdust out of the chickenhouse. Dad estimates about 6 cubic feet of dirt. That's a lot of shoveling! The first round of chicks were available this week at the local farm store, Buchheits.

Then we repaired some of the siding.

Today we have more siding repair to do and we're also taking soil samples from the garden and hayfield to get tested at the local extension office.

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