Quasimodo, with POTUS and FLOTUS, the adult geese

I shared this family photo as one of the 3 6 5 from my daily photo project. So some back story is in order.

The last group of goose eggs i Incubated included one that pipped and did not progress much further. Pipping is the inside puncture of the membrane into the air sack so the bird ca begin breathing, then pipping the shell begins the visible hatching process. The strength necessary to break an egg aids in the gosling’s development and survivability. Conventional wisdom is not to interfere with the hatching process.

But as the gosling failed to progress — part out of sympathy and part out of curiosity, I helped it along. The inner membrane was trying to the wings and neck.limiting the mobility of the soon to be hatched goose, so with care I separate the hard shell and waited to see how it fared.

The hatch results I also shared as part of the 3 6 5 here.

The gosling did well and survived the fist 24 hours, so I moved him to a plastic brooder with some additional heat, food and water.  It was clear from the beginning he has some deformity.  I dont know what a goose veternarian would call it, but its a cross between scoliosis and torticollis, the right “shoulder” is carried higher and more anterior than normal, and what results is a goose with a hunch back, so by day 4 or 5, I gave him the name “Quasimodo”, who after all, is the protagonist of the story, right?  If I manually straighten his neck, he has full range of movement, but short of finding a gosling sized neck collar, or a resident goose physical therapist, Quasi is what he is.

There is a small duck house / three sided shelter int he duck and goose pen.  There is a larger shelter there, too.  Most of the nesting and egg laying is done in the larger shelter, so after spending a few weeks inside, I decided to move Quasimodo out with the adults to have some socialization and to slowly integrate him into the flock.  I put him in the small shelter, with food and water and then closed the front with chicken wire so he could be near the others, but protected if they became aggressive or tried to push him out of the shelter.

All was good the first afternoon and over night.  Quasi was eating and drinking fine, and mostly ignored by the other birds.

The morning of the second night, I came out to discover Quasi has left the little shelter and was quite comfortable next to FLOTUS in the straw in the big shelter.  He either wriggled under the chicken wire, or POTUS and FLOTUS gave some help and wiggled the wire free.

Since then, its quite clear that both adult geese take their protection of Quasi quite seriously.

Enjoy the video below as POTUS defines limits for me.  As they get close to the pen, Quasi bumps into the door and ends up on the wrong side, and gets a bit of help.

A split whole chicken ready to smoke. Foil covered drip pan is on lower grid.

Over at Saveur.com, they have a page devoted to recipes to cook whole chicken.  They range in complexity and style and also in cuisine and origin.  If you are thinking of adding Two Mile Ranch or other whole chickens to your freezer this year, the Saveur site is a good collection of meal ideas.

20 Ways to Cook a Whole Chicken – Saveur.com.

I need to take care of a little business

I’m pleased to say this year’s turkeys are all growing and looking well, there is a mix of Bourbon Reds, Narragansett, and Royal Palms. These will be processed as an state inspected facility and available approximately November 20.

Air Chilled

The turkeys will be air chilled — not cooled in a water bath — these will be outstanding turkeys this year, unlike any store-bought Thanksgiving you have tasted.

Your reservation lets me know how many birds to plan for and who is interested. An order secures your delivery date and quantity. Final prices are based on dressed weight. I’ll try to guide nature to come as close to your desired weight as possible. But this is natural growing process, not factory controlled.

About our growing season

I’m not a commercial grower, I don’t have stock year around, but instead, raise a small number of birds each year and let their pasture and pens “rest” during the balance of the year. This helps keep diseases in check and gives their foraging pasture time to recover.

Chickens

The chickens are a Freedom Ranger chicken from French breeding stock, originally bred for France’s Label Rouge qualities. These chickens grow well, have nice white meat and dark meat to please all. A few each year top 7 pounds and a few finish closer to 3.5. If you have a preference, let me know

Raised free-range, in closed pen at night to protect from predation, birds fed supplemental feed from all plant (non animal) sources

Reservations accepted Beginning January 1, 2011
Delivery: October – November 2011
Payment (Balance due on delivery)
Sold Fresh (pick up only) or frozen (limited delivery area and times)

Chicken : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : $3.00 per pound (Approximately 5 pounds each) (some smaller, some larger)

At the request of some customers, I am sizing a few more birds this year in the 3 – 3..5 pound range, its the same great chicken, just less of it.

Dates Available:
October 4 (limited), 11 (SOLD OUT), 18, 25
November 1, 8, 15 (limited)

Turkeys

These are heritage breed birds, not the hybridized, broad-breasted sold in the grocery store. Typically these are Royal Palm, Narragansett, and Bourbon Red breed. Hens run smaller, toms dress under 20 pounds.

Raised free-range, in closed pen at night to protect from predation, birds fed supplemental feed from all plant (non animal) sources

Reservations accepted Beginning January 1, 2011
Delivery: November (Thanksgiving week) or December 20, 2011
Payment (Half due in June, balance due on delivery)
Sold Fresh (pick up only) or frozen (limited delivery area and times)

Turkey : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : $4.00 per pound (Approximately 9 – 20 pounds each)

Available:
November 2o 5 remain
December 20

Ducks (Ducks are sold out for 2011) contact me

These are Pekin (white feathered) ducks, raised for meat. This duck cleans easily and presents well if serving whole. Necks removed unless requested otherwise

Raised free-range, typically spend most of day on two ponds during day and in closed pen at night to protect from predation, birds fed supplemental feed.

Reservations accepted Beginning January 1, 2011
Delivery: November (Thanksgiving week) or December 20, 2011
Payment (Half due in June, balance due on delivery)
Sold Fresh (pick up only) or frozen (limited delivery area and times)

Duck : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : $4.00 per pound (Approximately 5 pounds each)

Available:
November 2o (Very limited)
December 20

Please let me know about the poultry you would like to buy for this season.

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Testing the roosts

The opening question is priceless: “Do you have to have a rooster if you’re gonna have chickens… if you wanna get chickens for eggs?”

Answer: “Chickens are just like us they in the fact that we will cycle through our own eggs whether or not we are dating someone.”

Five of the chickens are replacement  laying hens to add to the chicken coop. Three  Ameraucana and a Rhode Island Red. Yesterday, the last 19 chickens went off to freezer camp, and four laying hens are headed to the chicken coop when they get a bit bigger.

So for those of you keeping score at home, 68 of 75 chickens survived the season. Of the seven I lost, four of the deaths were preventable; they were killed by turkeys. This year, I  added turkeys to the poultry plan, and occasionally the turkeys and chickens would mix. This resulted in some pecking order showdowns that sadly the chickens always lost. Next year I’ll separate the pens even farther to keep chickens with chickens and turkeys with turkeys.

Some conventional wisdom, or old wives tales, suggest that when birds of the same type have pecking order disputes, they fight until one signals “you win” and then they go on their ways.  Apparently, turkeys and chickens don’t understand the “you win” signal and the turkeys keep fighting.  I never observed the attacks, just found the birds later.  On days I am on the ranch all day, I typically check on the birds 2 – 3 times a day and the attacks seems to happen within a short  time frame.

Which leads us back to freezer camp. Once the chickens are dressed, and cooled so that rigor mortis has left, I package and freeze whole chickens with a vacuum sealer. I use a home model Food Saver brand vacuum sealer, and purchase the bulk, 11 inch roll bag material to make my own bags.

This year chickens ranged from a huge 6 lbs. 9 oz to a smaller 2.5 pounds. They average about 5 pounds each. As I bag the birds,  I double seal one end and then on roll out enough bag to be longer than the chicken. I learn from experience it’s better use extra bag than to try and squeeze it shut into the vacuum sealer. I then place the chicken in the bag neck first, and then vacuum seal the open end, and then give it a second seal to ensure a good, airtight closure. I date and mark the weight of each bird and then into the freezer it goes.

In my experience, an 11 inch, 16 foot roll of bags seals 11 chickens.  Your mileage may vary.  I’ve eaten the birds a year after being frozen and still find them full of flavor with no freezer taste.  If you want to know the best and safest ways to keep and thaw poultry, be sure to look here at the USDA recommendations:  The Big Thaw — Safe Defrosting Methods — for Consumers

I typically keep 50 chickens for the year.  I’ll eat most, give away a few.  The deep freeze is holding about 250 pounds of awesome, hormone and antibiotic free, free range dinners.

A freshly vacuum sealed, hormone and antibiotic free, free range chicken

“It’s a hot item,” said Bill Niman, a prominent advocate for sustainable agriculture who this year jumped into the so-called heritage turkey market — older breeds of birds that had all but disappeared until championed by preservationists and foodies.

He raised 2,500 birds for Thanksgiving and “sold every bird.”

As I plan the bird cycles for Two Mile for this season, I’ll be adding a handful of heritage turkeys  to the planning.

Turkeys raised in a commercial farm, because of genetics and controlled conditions, may be ready for market in 14 – 18 weeks.  Heritage breeds, often raised on pasture, take 28 weeks.  For November turkey harvest, young turkey poults need to be here at Two Mile by the end of May.

Time to go shopping.

I am talking about  roosters.

Two Mile Ranch Inmate number 1: "Rotisserie"

When I bought the feed-store chicks in April, I wanted barred rock pullets, but the store had only straight run. So I rolled the genetic dice with the Z and W chromosomes and bought two chicks.  Both turned out to be beautiful roosters.  The barred rock, with their black and white striped feathers, reminded me of prison uniforms, so the two roosters became named “the inmates”.  This also came from their coop, the fabulous Chicken condo built with plans by Jenny Robson.  Her plans use so much hardware cloth and tight, predator proof construction that I call it the “chicken prison”.  So the inmates earned their name early.

Mike Perry, in his book Coop: A Year of Poultry, Pigs, and Parenting
councils his daughter not to name the pigs the family is raising for meat, to avoid the heartbreak of sacrificing a family “pet” for the dinner table.  But I suppose I’ve broken that rule by further giving the “Inmates” their own distinctive moniker:  “Stew” and “Rotisserie”.

Now when roosters grow up, mine are 16 weeks more or less, they start to establish dominance. And up until this week, the two boys have been getting along just fine.  But lately, the alpha bird has begun chasing the lower bird out of the chicken yard.    They are not fighting to the point of drawing blod, or injuring each other, but the lower bird spends his day free ranging near the pen and if I put him back in the pen, he quickly runs and hides in the nest box.

If Two Mile Ranch were a Warner Brothers cartoon, I would expect a Rhode Island Red to walking in from screen left saying, “Boy, I say, Boy.  You can’t hide in the nest box like that.  What’s everyone gonna say, boy?  You gotta get out there and fight like a rooster.”

Inmate number 2: "Stew" free ranging.

So it’s gone like this for a few days.  The best part is, if I just  let everyone be, they will work it out on their own. I would like them to get along for a few more weeks until I can put them in the the other chickens who are heading to freezer camp later this fall.  In those birds, I also have barred rocks, and will chose two pullets to move in with the other egg chickens.

As a final and funny observation, each night,  the chickens put themselves to bed. If the lower rooster is still out, I let him in the pen, and he climbs into the roost……and the two roosters sleep right next to each other on the same perch.  Go figure.

The Chicken Condo

The day ranger with front door open. Paper towels are on the bedding for the first few days.

Life on a small farm is both science and art. Designing shelters for animals, poultry, or other livestock is based on good thinking, local custom, and what you have  to work with.  In this case, I’m using all three and we’ll see the outcome.

In Storey’s Guide for Raising Chickens, there is a simple  shelter for free range chickens depicted on page 39.  Its basically a lean-to or half gable structure open on the front and side.

Interestingly, as I scouted around the Internet chicken sites, I don’t find many shelters like this.  Robert Plamondon’s site on building chicken coops and shelters has many designs, but none like this.

Using left over roofing panels, I outlined the basic shape. From this angle, it could be a water ski jump.

As I considered housing for 50 meat chickens, I schemed an idea to be able to build a dual use shelter – that could be a brood house for a few weeks, then re configured to be a night shelter from aerial predators like owls and hawks.  The entire shelter and pasture could be fenced with electric netting, keeping out or slowing down, raccoons, possums, and skunks.

I sketched several designs, based on a couple of limiting factors:

• I had left over roofing panels from the metal roof from the cabin.  They measured 10’4″ so that became my angled roof dimension.
• I wanted to use 4′x8′ ply for the brood house floor, and also use a half sheet 2′x 8′ as the front and back panels
• I was willing to take a few risks to learn from my mistakes

With the front door closed.

What resulted is something for day ranging , a concept designed by Andy Lee.  Unlike a chicken tractor, in which the chickens are confined in a movable cage every day, this allows the chickens to range (not quite free range) in a 40 x 40 pen that can be moved as they graze.  At night, the chickens return to the shelter.  As of today, I am undecided about whether or not to “lock them in” at night.

During brooding, the chicks will be in a brooding box built using the structure as a framework.  The floor is covered in bedding and paper towel to start the chicks.  The side walls are poultry wire and will be covered with foil bubble insulation to protect both from drafts and occasional rains.  The front opening is sheltered by the roof and is open for ventilation.

We’ve had a cool July, actually, the coolest on record.  I expect the heat will rise in August, so ventilation is important, but so, too, is keeping the chicks warm in the night.  A 250 watt infrared brooder bulb will be mounted inside.  The chicks ought to be able to find their comfort spot.

Through the side into a brooding area. The sides will be covered with foil bubble insulation.

Once the chicks feather out, I will take the back wall and floor out of the shelter, and line the floor with thick bedding.  The front door is still uncertain, but the top 2 feet of the opening will be covered with poultry wire, slowing down predatation.

The chicks arrived this week, and are in a short term brooder in the cabin.  I hope to move them outdoors in the next day or so.  And then we see how this works out.

From left to right, the duck egg, last week's pheasant egg, and a store purchased chicken egg

I shared the discovery of the first pheasant egg, and Sunday, I found the first duck egg.  It was broken and was on the wood platform the duck swimming pool rests on.

Whether the duck egg broke on the wood, was stepped on by one of the ducks, or had a soft shell due to it being the first egg and the warm weather?  I don’t know.  But it’s time to think about nutrition. Tuesday night, I found an intact duck egg.  smaller than what they will be in time and with the grey color described in early cayuga ducks.

I’ve been feeding a general flock raiser blended feed that has about 18 percent protein to both the  pheasants and the ducks.   The youngest pheasants are on a 27% protein feed through their 6th week, then tape to the lower protein.

The ducks eat from a dog bowl, and the grit and oyster shell is in the green container

The calcium in this feed is too low for laying birds , Storey’s Guide to Raising Ducks: Breeds, Care, Health suggests 3 – 4 percent, so its time to add calcium to their diet in the form of oyster shell.  At the same time, even though the ducks eat on the pond a lot, I don’t know for sure they are getting enough grit for their gizzards, so I added a container of grit for them to free choice from.

The chickens will also need calcium, they are still on a grower ration of about 20 percent protein and I’ll add calcium to the feeder for them to free choice as well.  The roosters eat the same feed, so the hens can ge the oyster shell as they choose.  I’ll  move the hens to a 16 percent layer ration in a month or when I see the first hen egg, which ever comes first.

I also removed the wood platform from the duck run and spread more wood chips around the pool to reduce the mud and make a softer area in case someone else decided to lay an egg or two there.  And sure enough, that’s where Tuesday’s egg was found.

Michael Perry, author of Coop: A Year of Poultry, Pigs, and Parenting, spoke at Barnes and Nobel to a small appreciative group in the lobby of the store. To start with, what’s not to like about a man who poses on the cover of his book holding a Barred Rock chicken? (My two roosters are both Barred Rocks, collectively named “The Inmates”)

Perry is the author of several magazine articles as well as Population:485 and Truck.  During his informal and warm chat, he shared personal stories and some readings from Coop. He also gave a shout out to Gene Logsdon’s books, praising All Flesh is Grass, which I mentioned here.

The striking thing about Perry is his candor and lack of proselytizing about any nuvo-rural movement.  He’s quick to share that this book is about his experiences, not a how-to for what readers should or should not do.  Although his story about “snot-rocket” — a phrased clipped from his text by a sensitive New York editor–might be considered how-to.

The writer’s life may seem glamorous, but to someone with a family and a small farm, I imagine being on the road, meeting strangers everyday in a new town is both thrilling and exhausting.  Perry did take the time to chat with each guest as he signed their books.  He and I swapped stories about ducks (“Do they put themselves in each night like chickens?”) and pheasants  (a neighbor of Perry’s raises them and a few manage to get lose each year) and the importance of starting small  (not trying to do everything at once).  He and his wife have 43 acres, which he shares is about 42 and a half too much, but he’s clearly proud of what he and his family are tyring to do.

In his forward to Coop, Perry shares:

I am grateful for anyone who reads my writing, even–or especially–with a critical eye, and one phrase never suffers from repetition:  Thank you, reader.