Babies on the Farm!

We had some new additions this past weekend!

We had 6 babies hatch from our birds.  3 come from our barred rock hens (black chicks) and 3 came from our rhodebar hens (2 blonde chicks and a 'chipmunk' chick).  Rhodebar's are an auto-sexing breed which means they have the rare ability to make babies where boys and girls are different colors.  As soon as they're born, when they're still wet and not at all cute, I can tell if it's a boy or a girl before it even fully emerges from their egg!

 The 6 chicks are now in their brooder in the garage - a 4' baby pool set inside a playpen.  They have a heat lamp to keep them warm, fresh food and water, and I'm starting to introduce natural elements like sticks to start climbing on, fodder to start 'finding' greens to eat etc.  Because these babies were incubated and didn't have a 'mother' sitting on them as eggs, I can't add them to our flock until they can fend for themselves.  Adult chickens tend to bully new additions into their pecking order, so without a mother to protect them, they have to be slowly introduced when they're large enough to run/flap away.

 I plan on raising them until they're more able bodied then will find homes for most of them.  The 2 blondes are boys and will go to a friend.  The chipmunk chick is a girl and will probably stay with us.  The 3 black chicks are unknown so I won't know if they are boys/girls until they are a little older.

 Even with them living in the garage, Nova and Naveen continue to be perfect hosts like they were with our ducks.  They watch the chicks occasionally but do not try to harm them. Zoey and Pepe come in the garage with me occasionally and Pepe looooves baby birds, they really bring out a sensitive side to him.  I always joke that Pepe wants to be a mommy when we have new baby birds around ;)

Eggs for Sale!

Now offering chicken eggs for sale!   

Our chickens free range in our 9,000 sq ft garden, allowing them to live as chickens should.  During most of the year, they forage for bugs like grasshoppers, june bugs and grubs.  They also eat whatever plants look delicious in the garden like grass, mallow, weeds, and whatever garden veggies I toss their way (tomatoes are their favorite!).

In the cooler months when there aren't many bugs or greens to eat,  I supplement both!  I grow fodder for them as well as raise mealworms, so they get to be happy chickens all year.

Our hens lay light brown eggs that come in different shades, and sometimes have a few 'freckles' on them. Shell color is strictly a matter of pigmentation, there is no nutritional difference between white eggs, brown eggs, blue eggs etc.  The only thing that makes an egg healthier is by the way chickens are raised and what they get to eat.

If you are trying free-range eggs for the first time, there are a few things to know that make them different than store bought eggs:

• The yolks will be much brighter/vivid in color than store bought eggs.  This is due to their free ranging diet of eating bugs, plants, and fresh veggies. Commercial eggs in the grocery stores are from chickens kept in horrid conditions, being fed only grain.
• They are much fresher than store-bought eggs.  This means they are not ideal for making hard boiled eggs unless you let them sit in the fridge for a week or two, or unless you know a few tricks.  Store bought eggs are SEVERAL days old, which means they have more air inside the shell than freshly laid eggs.  Air is what is needed to cleanly peel a shell after hard-boiling.  Don't worry, there are still lots of tricks out there for us to cleanly peel a fresh egg after it's been boiled.  My trick involves using a thumb tack to poke a small hole in the shell, introducing more air before I boil it.  Others steam their eggs.

I will have 2 dozen eggs per week for sale, though their laying changes with the seasons so it may be more or less depending on the month.  One dozen eggs are $3.50.  If you use your own egg cartons or return mine, they are only $3 a dozen.  Amazon has some great durable plastic egg cartons, or you can return your egg cartons each time I come to bring more eggs.  

Contact me for some delicious eggs!

Think Outside the Bag: Healthy Options for Treat Dispensers

I love food dispensing toys! Love, love, love 'em!  And I love how they can quietly occupy our 3 dogs.  The way I prepare them has changed over the years, to a much simpler healthier way.  Luckily the pet supply industry has learned that us dog and cat owners are happy to pay for all sorts of things that make our pets happier.  Companies have created dozens of treat dispensing toys in all sorts of shapes and sizes, allowing dogs to really use their brains on how to get food out of all the nooks and crannies.  Gone are the boring days of the classic kong , hello to Caterpillars, Biscuit Bouncers, and Goodie Bones !

All stuffed with Banana and frozen

Companies started cashing in on the treat dispensing toy craze and started producing treats specifically for these toys.  The problem is, most of this treats either look like cardboard (and are probably made with more ingredients than real cardboard is made of) or come in a can resembling spray cheese and no one wants to know what chemicals make up the can ingredients!

Peanut butter was the stuffable treat of choice for the longest time but for me, I didn't like my house smelling like peanut butter from all the dog licking.  Especially when my house smells of peanut butter from all the Breakfast Biscuits I make :)  I tried pumpkin but quickly realized that it makes orange spots on the carpet!  I often stuff them with the treats I make, but not many people have dehydrators so I came up with 3 great options that are extremely cheap, healthy and no special equipment needed.

Scrambled egg patties!

It should also be noted, the best way to utilize a food dispensing toy is to freeze them after stuffing.  This makes your dog work that much harder to get their goodies out!

1. Healthy Treat Option #1: Shredded chicken.  If you pick up a rotisserie chicken from the store and have some leftovers, keep them for the dogs!  Neither my husband or I like breast meat much, so I clean the chicken of whatever we didn't eat, discard the skin (very important!), and keep the leftovers to use in the dog's treat toys.  If there's a lot of leftover meat (like a huge Thanksgiving turkey) you can freeze some in a ziplock bag for future use. Fill the toy with the shredded chicken and freeze - your dogs will love it!
2. Healthy Treat Option #2: Bananas.  Yep, as simple as bananas!  These work best when they are still fully yellow and very firm. The toys that work best for these are those with larger openings like the classic kong, or the larger openings on the Barnacles.  Just slide a chunk of banana right in and freeze.  Our dogs are big fans of the frozen banana!
3. Healthy Treat Option #3: Scrambled egg.  We have a LOT of eggs these days between the chickens and ducks. Though I do occasionally use the duck eggs for baking, they primarily go towards our dog's food.  I will scramble up a few dozen duck eggs at a time and freeze them for the dog's food.  For easy container storage, I use silicone molds to cook the scrambled eggs as 'patties', which also makes them easy to stuff into their toys.  You don't need a silicone mold though, just scramble them into large enough pieces so they don't easily fall out of the toy.  Again, freeze after filling with egg.

There you go, 3 simple and healthy ways to fill your dog's treat dispensing toys.  I personally have 6 toys, 2 for each dog, so that I always have some ready in the freezer :)

Visit the links below to go straight to the toys I recommend!