Well, the temperature has dropped about 40 degrees in the past couple days, which has me super happy – I can finally start working on building coops and more videos for y’all!
The constant heat and bugs made it impossible all summer long.
I’ve been wanting to do a video web series about building coops, and it took a backseat because the mosquitoes took over the backyard.
Now that it seems fall has arrived, we can start working! I bought a new framing nailer to celebrate.
By the way, did you see this week’s YouTube video where we finish the duckling pen?
(if you watch the video and like it, please give a thumbs up & tell me what you’d like to see us build – that way YouTube knows people like our videos and it helps other chicken owners find us! Thank you!)
Luckily, we have electricity in the cabin, so we can add a heater for the chicks. The top of the incubator with the heating element has worked well, too.
The Brinsea Incubator we use has a piece of plastic that separates the heating element from the chicks, so it’s MUCH safer than a heat lamp.
We have the ducklings and chicks together. I’m normally not a fan of keeping them together, but we have just a few ducklings, and at least for now, it’s easier to keep everyone warm when they’re in the same brooder.
In a week or so, I’ll probably have to separate as the ducklings get older and messier.
We’ve been giving them PCM StrongHen (TM), and based on the amount of noise they make and the amount food they eat, it’s definitely doing something for them!
Eggs
We’re still getting eggs daily from the chickens – which means we’ve been making a LOT of egg custard. The chicks we raised earlier this year are all starting to lay!
And then there’s Goldie – my Ameraucana/Easter egger mix.
She lays blue eggs, but there’s some issue with her laying, because every egg has a lump around its “equator”, where the egg has cracked a bit and then had extra layers of calcium molded over it.
Sometimes things like this happen, and we know she has a good diet with lots of calcium.
It’s always egg-citing when the young ones become layers and we get their first egg. It’s a little like Christmas in the coop every morning! (You can see the coop in this YouTube video if you’re curious!)
Mama, our olive egger hen, reached the end of her long life this summer (she was about 5), and left us with several daughters.
I’m keeping my fingers crossed that some of these ladies will lay olive eggs also!
Maat van Uitert is a backyard chicken and sustainable living expert. She is also the author of Chickens: Naturally Raising A Sustainable Flock, which was a best seller in it’s Amazon category. Maat has been featured on NBC, CBS, AOL Finance, Community Chickens, the Huffington Post, Chickens magazine, Backyard Poultry, and Countryside Magazine. She lives on her farm in Southeast Missouri with her husband, two children, and about a million chickens and ducks. You can follow Maat on Facebook here and Instagram here.