Chick Days - by Jenna Woginrich

Chick Days

An Absolute Beginner's Guide to Raising Chickens from Hatchlings to Laying Hens

By Jenna Woginrich, author of Made from Scratch

Honestly this was a quick grab for me at the farm store because it was the first book I picked up that had specific info on the subject I was in the store for, Chicks! 

I was looking for something that had more info on raising chickens than the basic chapters in the other books I have on farming. Most of those touch on the vastness of the subject and not the daily ins and outs of owning a flock.

This book has it all as far as I’ve found so far. It’s got wonderful pictures showing stages of growth, breaks things down from the first week (day by day) to the week by week growth of your flock until your settled into owning chickens.

This isn't just written for those who have been at the business of raising chickens for years, but for anyone interested in owning either a backyard flock or a larger group of hens on a couple of acres. It’s wonderful in that it relates to the needs of chickens as well as the joys of owning them. It’s defiantly earned its place on my shelf of farm info. I'll be turning the pages often as my 10 little chickens grow from their small fuzzy selves into the fine feathered friends I cannot wait to see. 


* I'll be featuring the books we have picked up along the way to share what composes our farm bookshelf. These can all be found along the sidebar under "Favored Reads" and will be updated as often as we pick up a new book on any of the subjects we cover here on the blog. 

10 Little Chickens

Today we headed over to one of our local farm stores where they had advertised that chicks would be in this weekend. We knew we wanted 6 and headed out with that in mind.

We were apparently late to the party because the chicks numbers had already been depleted by quite a lot. There were quite a few speckled Sussex babies and two lonely bantams left. There was another breed, but it was more for meat than eggs and we wanted a more rounded bird, so we went with the Sussex and at the last min asked for the two little bantams. One was white, and the kids had already been asking since they'd seen it. This brought our numbers up to ten, which is ok, because there's always the possibility that some of these will be roosters. Roosters are  no go in our city, so we'll have to re-home any that are. 

We purchased the feeders and feed we'd need as well as a book that I had not seen before that seemed to have lots of good info. Most of our books had a chapter on the subject of raising chickens but this one is all about it. I'll review it soon for you ^_~ 

They are all quite happily enjoying their new home, the dogs aren't bothering them and the kids keep running back and forth to see them. I cannot wait until we can complete their house outside, it's going to be fantastic. 

: One of the little Bantams actually has fuzz running down the sides of it's legs, so we are interested in seeing if that one turns out to be a Silkie.  The boys are having a blast running to check on the chicks as they've all perked up nicely overnight. The dogs aren't sure yet what to think even though Gidget (our little Jack Russel mix) is the only one to have actually seen them so far. The other two dogs are just ignoring the box mostly... : 

Yesterday I decided to check on some carrot plants that I'd left alone after our fall bed clean up. When I say clean-up I mean that we knocked down the dying plants and laid them out over the top of the bed. We randomly tossed some banana peels from rushing out the door breakfasts in this bed and let the leaves lay on top since we planned on rotating this bed a different direction come spring. Basically just leaving it to compost a bit on it's own.

I noticed nearly every time I passed it, that the carrot plants were sticking it out. They had been transplanted up front with little hope of them surviving at all as the summer had been hot and unforgiving. They seemed to just stay perky and green all winter long. So I left them be.


When I went to pull a couple to check them yesterday I was surprised and yet happy to find strong plant structures and thumb sized carrots growing.

*please excuse the blurry carrot, I was just taking this one for scale

So my questions are, has any one grown year long carrots before outside a greenhouse situation? Are these no longer edible because they seem to have roots springing from everywhere? If I leave them alone until we rotate the bed can I replant them that day and just leave them to finish growing with hopes of tasty carrots later this spring?

The best I can remember the seeds were for basic average length carrots. This year I'm keeping a seed journal to help with this, I'm sure I put them in the seed bin but somehow I don't have their packet anymore.
They did not have any worm marks or rot on them and I immediately  replanted them back in the holes I pulled them from.

I'm going to be doing research on my end, but I haven't found anything just yet. Feel free to chime in even if you have any clue as I had honestly just given up on these guys months ago!

6 more weeks? Where?!

I know it's a bit early to call it spring, but things are certainly greening up around my house. The weather getting in the 60's and nearly 80 today means that everything in my yard believes it's come to stay.

While I know that there's undoubtedly a quick cold snap coming with the end of Feb/beginning of March, there's no doubt I've already begun to pull out seed packets and pods. My kids are ready for sprouts!

Since it's just around the corner no matter where you are, here's a list of things that are ready to start sprouts in our area* for February. Some of these will repeat in the coming months as they can be started within a window of time depending on your area's schedule.

Horseradish
Carrots
Broccoli
Cabbage
Brussels Sprouts
Swiss Chard
Beets
Radish
Lettuce
Kale
Mustard
Turnips
Irish Potatoes
Onions
English Peas
Spinach

Now things at the top of the list are the first to be done, and working our way down the list means working those things into the ground (or seed starter pots) closer to the end of the month. I realize this is nearly the end of February so I'm going to list the March list in a couple of days so you can begin working on that list as well!

I will start my sprouts indoors as I have not completed building the beds I've planned yet for this year and my kids really enjoy watching them in the mini greenhouses. If you plan to start yours outdoors, please remember that each has it's own depth to be planted and requirements for both space and soil. Also remember to keep an eye on the weather reports! Frost zones can make a big difference in your planting schedule. Our zone isn't in the clear from frost until mid March so we do not plant outdoors until after then.



*This information was issued by the UofA's Division of Agriculture and is based on the zones B and C for Arkansas. My area falls in the middle of these two (A-Pulaski County) and thus I follow it fairly closely. You can find out more from this group on their  website. 

This years garden plan.

Rain and more Rain, some fog and odd temperatures in this state have quelled doing much outdoors this winter.

That doesn't keep this young green thumb from planning for the spring that thanks to our odd weather patterns here, should be just peeking around the corner soon.

So last year we started with three beds, nothing large, just enough to get an idea of what grew best where in our yard and how much we could handle.

This year we would like to try to add a couple more beds, we feel like we can take a better use of the dead spaces in our yard that do get sun and hopefully really use the ones that are going to gain sun due to use needing to remove a couple of trees. 

*This isn't to exact scale , it's really just a quick sketch. 

There are two trees that have to go, and one that we are going to discuss with the tree guys when they are here. The one on the corner of the back deck is too close and is extremely tall so the fence will have to come down on the side of the house to allow for the truck to take it out. 

The one near the middle of the house is a really old tree and it has stretched some long limbs over the house in it's time there. It also is getting too close to the side of the house.  

Since the fence is going to come down, we'd like to take advantage of having to remove the old large stone flower bed and extend the fencing towards the street so we can use more of the yard for gardening. It would also allow us to help even out the slope of the yard as everything runs down to that area. 

Our house sits on a corner lot and the edges of our lot all run downhill to the street making the edges of the yard nearly useless as they are. Climbing ivy has taken over under the three pines on the street side of the house and we'd like to keep that from harming the house. 

The trees coming down are all very large and cover the majority of the yard, I probably should have just drawn the triangle in the middle touching each other. It's quite a canopy which doesn't lend it'self to growing much other than ferns. Taking out the trees is going to help the yard immensely as right now, most of the open ground, is dirt, rock and gravel. As sad as it makes me to take out some beautiful trees, I cannot wait to have grass. 

The chill has set in and all our plants that can move indoors for some prolonged grow time have been moved. We potted the jalapeno plant because it still had several babies growing and had bloomed in the past few days. The other pepper plant was potted to begin with so it just found itself a new sunny spot in the house.

The tomatoes are too large to move indoors though or I'd have tomatoes as there are still a few on the bush. We  pulled the majority and ripened them in a brown paper bag. They are all small but very tasty and a great addition to omelets and salads.

We lucked into a find, a friend of ours was cleaning out one of the buildings they own and found some panels that are covered in chicken wire. So half our chicken coop building supplies and cost are free! Even if we have to dismantle a few they will make a great chicken tractor.

We've gotten the first snow in state, but not quite that cold in our area yet, so the carrots that have been thriving in the fall chill are going to have to come up in a few days. I can't wait to see how they fared!

Usually our area has a nice long breezy fall, but this year, we are already in the 30s at night. Some days are still fall, and some times we even get a little leftover summer, but for some reason we are pogo-ing with winter. 

The first night the weather stations said there was to be frost we pulled all the edible sized tomatoes from the plants and then yanked all the potted plants in. *Horray for potted peppers!* 

That was about two weeks ago....and then the weather turned warmer again. So the tomato plant didn't stop producing.  I'm completely ok with this, but still feeling sorry for the weighted plants who are about to have a freeze tonight. So I'll be pulling more child palm sized tomatoes in hope we can warm them up to red in the house. 

Not long after my last post, I transplanted some carrot plants that had been sulking in the back yard beds. They seem to have enjoyed the odd weather and are steadily growing. I may have to pull them a bit early as well, but hopefully they had a chance to create some tasty young carrots. 

We have begun planning for next years growing season. As it stands we have 3 medium/large beds for planting. Two in a bit of dappled shade and the other which gets a decent amount of sun. Next year we plan on expanding to 8 beds so that we can plant more of what we know works, as well as a few new things.