chicken chores

It never seems to fail. I go for a week and can't think of a single thing to say, then all of the sudden the damn breaks and I'll post 3 or 4 posts in a single day.

I went out this morning to gather the eggs. While I was out there, I decided that the nests needed fresh hay, at least some of them did. So, I put fresh hay out, then I decided that the duck tubs (they're not big enough to be called ponds and the ducks refuse to swim in the kiddie pool) needed cleaned out. So, I did that, but while I was at the faucet I discovered that the horse trough needed filled. After my unfortunate water hose/ tractor incident, the auto waterer is temporarily out of order. So, after I filled the ducks up, I filled the horses' trough up.
While I was standing there waiting on the water, I thought of some frugal homesteading tips.....

1. Instead of buying ceramic eggs, Granny used to use Carmex jars. She turned the white part up instead of the yellow lid. The snakes seemed to prefer them because they were the ones that disappeared out of the nest first.
2. If you have ducks, but you or your customers don't like duck eggs, you can boil the the duck eggs, cut them up and feed the eggs, shells and all, back to your chickens and ducks. It increases their protein, but the cooking part doesn't promote egg breaking. I feed ours leftover scrambled eggs too.
3. Mom uses duck eggs for baking. She says it doesn't affect the flavor. I haven't tried them yet because I can't get past the smell of the egg. YUCK!
4. A little honey on the bit will get the most stubborn horse to take a bit easier.

That's all I can think of for the moment. I'm also thinking about reprinting some of the tips I've picked up out of some old Organic Gardening magazines that my Mom gave me. The first tip I'm going to try this year is to plant Cosmos flowers with my tomatoes and corn plants. Apparently the ear worm that attacks corn is the same as a tomato worm and neither like the Cosmos flower. I saw that tip a couple of times in that magazine, so I'm going to try it because I lost quite a few ears of corn last year to worms.

Today's Chores

Today we had to do some minor maintenance on the farm. The hubby welded up our metal stock tank. While he had it empty, he went ahead and cleaned all the gunk out, moved it to another spot, and hooked up an automatic waterer.
While he was doing that, I gathered up a bunch of loose hay to put in the chicken nests and to scatter on the ground for the chickens and ducks to eat. The ducks always crack me up because they get so excited about anything new added to the yard. I also cleaned out the duck and chickens' water tubs and refilled them.



Tonight I joined my first blog challenge. Melinda over at Elements in Time has challenged us to grow one new thing this year from seed. (Follow the link over there on the side.) Then we have to write about it on our blog. I'm really looking forward to the garden this year, as we have added a lot of organic material to our garden spaces. I'm hoping to get a better crop this year than last.

Today on the Farm

During the winter, there usually isn't much to do around here on the farm. It's too early to work the garden, at least for another month when I plant my potatoes. The chickens aren't laying, so we just have to throw them some feed everyday. Chores are just the basic day-to-day maintenance, for the most part.
Today is the day the farrier comes. We only have the horses trimmed. It won't be a while yet before we put shoes back on them. For the most part, the horses are only ridden around the farm, and we're lucky enough to not have too many rocks or other things that would hurt the horses' hooves.
So, since things are so slow, the hubby and I decided to do a little weekend getaway for our 12 th anniversary. We went to a really nice state park a few hours away and did some hiking and sightseeing. We has some beautiful weather, so we took advantage of that and got some much needed exercise, am I sore today, though. I have muscles that hurt that I was unaware that I even had! It was a wonderful weekend and we've decided that we need to get out more often and to take the girls when we go. I need to get into better hiking shape before my mother-in-law and I go to see the rock art in west Texas.
Well, I better go, the hubbs and the farrier should be here any time.