New Peeps Are Here!

I have a young bantam Lavender Ameraucana in my chicken flock.  I had only had her for a few months when she went broody.  We decided to let her have a shot at it.  We saved up the eggs that the three bantam hens were laying and then gave them to her all on the same day when she started to sit.  I watch them VERY closely since I am at home a lot. So I was able to see that she was not down doing her usual grazing in the bottom of the chicken tractor and she was ready for the eggs.  This is a pic of her.  Her name is "Misty", so named by the kids because of her color.  She lays a lovely light blue colored egg.  She is a very docile and sweet hen.

 

This is the nest box where she started out sitting on the eggs we gave her.  The eggs were from the 3 hens that live in "The Egg Hut" with their hut-mate a Silkie Rooster named "Pouf"(his name really should be "Big Sexy" because of his sass and fancy pants attitude!  Lol!) So "Pouf" is the daddy to all the chicks!  All three hens are different breeds.  There is "Misty" the Lavender Am, "Frizz" a white Cochin Frizzle and "Pepper" a Blue Silkie.  So while we do have some mix bred chickens there are also pure bred Silkies.  Mix breeds are fine though for laying eggs for us to eat.  They can actually be very hardy from mixing the different kind of genetics.  Of course they would never be an award winning pure breed, but that isn't our purpose here anyway.  We love our chickens and we love our eggs. 

Since this was "Misty's" first time being a mom I was pretty concerned and watched her very closely.  I have read many stories about hens that just did not follow through on the job.  Hatching takes 21 days for chickens.  The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to move the new mom and nest to a new location for safety reasons.  For one the nesting area where they lay eggs is up on the second floor of the "Egg Hut".  I do NOT believe it would have been safe at all for her hatch babies up there.  Secondly I had no idea how the other hens and rooster would react to the babies.  I didn't want to take a chance on them hurting the chicks.  So late in the incubation we moved her one evening to the greenhouse.  I just gently placed my sweater over top of her, nest box and all. We took her to a large cage that was set up for her in the greenhouse.  We moved her at dusk to lessen any disturbance to the hen.  Hatching began to happen about 8 hrs after we expected it.  Hatching occurred over about a 48 hr period.  9 fuzzy butts in all by the end.  Here is "Misty" with her first 2 hatchlings.  She was still keeping the rest of the eggs nice and warm.

 

All 9 of the babies right after they all got warmed and fluffed up.  The 2 black chicks are Cochin/Silkie. 2 Lavender Am/Silkie and the other 5 are pure Silkie.  I would have not added the Cochin/Silkie eggs to the nest in the beginning if I would have been able to tell the difference between her eggs and the Silkie hens eggs.  But truly they look exactly the same color and shape!  I am glad that we have more pure Silkies than the mixed though. 

 

 

There is nothing like a nice feather pillow after all that hard work getting out of the egg! 

 

Eating 101, Class #1

 

"Cupcake" this is a favorite of my youngest.  She named this little Silkie right away.

 

Serious cuteness!!!!

 

Blue Silkie

 

Lavender Am/Silkie chick.  Beautiful colored feathers just like Mom, coming out already! 

 

Cochin/Silkie chick.  This little guy was last to hatch but made quick work of it once he got started.  I don't know why I am calling it a he......lol.  Only time will tell.

 

"Misty" makes a great heater for the babies to get snuggle up with.

 

 

 A couple days old and they are all doing great, eating and drinking great and are very active.

 

We can't wait to enjoy all these cute little personalities and see how they feather out.  Lots of fun around here.  And thankful for plenty of fresh eggs we get from our hens.  Having backyard chickens is a great tool for teaching kids many lessons about life, sustainable living, responsibility, good animal husbandry and tons of fun enjoying their funny antics and over the top cuteness!  We LOVE our backyard chickens!!! 

Everyone have a great weekend!

Saving Time & Money For Dinner Time!

I love saving $$.  Not only is it a budget necessity for us to shop in a frugal, even tightwad manner......it is an art that can actually be fun.   Every week I look at the grocery sale papers that come in the mail.......for free ;)  I rarely ever spend money to buy a newspaper.  Sometimes there are good deals for me to stock up on, sometimes not.  If there isn't I just buy my basic necessities  and cook with what we have at home from previous shopping trips. 

Recently my local grocery store had onions on sale.  I use onions ALL the time!  So I bought about 12 pounds of onions.  By the time I got to prepping them for the freezer we had already used some so I had about 10lbs of onions that I could put up in the freezer.  This is a GREAT time saver when I am throwing together dinner or even an unexpected dish that needs to be cooking as soon as possible!!  (That actually happened last weekend and I was SO happy to not have to chop onions!)

So this is how I do it.  For starters, I pick a time, when there is TIME to get the job done, start to finish.  Second, if possible, I enlist help.  This last time it was the 2 kids, who were NOT thrilled but ended up being real troopers and pretty amusing in the process.  Then I set up my equipment.  Knives, bowls (1 for garbage, one for parts I save for using in stock and one or more for the chopped onion), cutting boards and my chopper. 

Onions are cleaned, sliced and the slices pressed through the chopper.  They collect in the bottom of the chopper and occasionally dumped into the bowl. 

 

Some people use onion goggles to keep from crying when cutting onions.  I don't have any and besides I wear glasses.  So if I wore onion goggles I wouldn't be able to see anything anyway, lol.  So needless to say as soon as we start this job we start crying.  I can handle it, but these kids.....lol.  They got a fan, opened the door, opened the kitchen window, turned on the exhaust fan over the oven and needed to take frequent breaks going to the door.  It was pretty comical.  Them calling out to one another letting each other know when the other had some of their "job" waiting for them.  We all had a good laugh for sure!!!

 

 

I make my own smaller vac-seal bags by cutting a large one in half and making sure it is sealed on the 3 sides before filling.

 

 

I fill, vac-seal, label with a sharpie then freeze.

 

 

Money saving & time saving.  I also do this with bell peppers as well.  I just pop the pack into the microwave if I am in a super big hurry.  30 seconds softens the package enough to pop them out into the pan. 

 

 

Here is wishing you tear free onion chopping!  And lots of sale prices at stores near you ;)  Happy cooking!