All about Chickens and their eggs

We have learned alot while doing this whole homesteading thing. One lesson has been about these little beauties. I wish I could relay to you how much I really like chickens. I love the different varieties, shapes, and sizes. I am really getting interested now in the different shades of color their eggs can be. I am looking at adding Lavendar Orpingtons and Marans to my little flock to get some more color variation in my eggs.
Speaking of eggs.......
I really like it when we are getting eggs. However, for the last 2-3 months we have not been getting a SINGLE egg. I was ready to throw the whole batch out and start with new chickens. Our first problem was that I got a whole new batch of chickens in Nov. 2010. They and my older chickens all started a serious molt in about October. That slowed down egg production. Then came the shorter days and my egg production STOPPED. I wanted to scream. The whole time my husband was telling me it's ok, this is natural but all I could think is I am paying for feed.
We made the decision when we first started with chickens, about 6 years ago, that we would not use an artificial light. We just think that if God wanted them to have a break then we should give them a break. Chickens need 14 hours of daylight to lay.
I tell you though when you hear from other blogs and friends that they are eating farm fresh eggs in December it makes you want to go stand in the coop with a flashlight for a couple of hours. ha ha
But then all of a sudden it's like God flipped a switch in these little beauties and you go out to the coop to see this......

On, Jan. 9th, we got our first egg. I was singing the praises.

The next day we went out and got 4, and then 5, and then 6 and so on and so on. As of today, a week later, we have gotten 44 eggs. I still stand in amazement of the working of the hands of God through His creation on the farm. I am giddy with excitement at the site of this full egg basket. I am also going to try and keep a calendar record of how many eggs the girls lay and when. So that next year, I can reflect and know that it wont be long until my girls start laying.

How could I have ever doubted them?!!

By the way I want to leave a link to my oldest daughter's blog. She amazes me daily and I hope that she can encourage you too.
http://pressingonphil314.blogspot.com/

"He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing. He wraps up the waters in his clouds, yet the clouds do not burst under their weight. He covers the face of the full moon, spreading his clouds over it. The pillars of the heavens quake, aghast at his rebuke. By his power he churned up the sea.... By his breath the skies become fair.... And these are but the outer fringe of his works; how faint the whisper we hear of him! How then can we understand the thunder of his power?" Job 26:7-9, 11-14

I am linking this post up to the Barn Hop #45

......MayBelle.......

Here's a quick video clip of our...... drum roll please....... MayBelle. It took us a while to come up with a name but it's perfect for her. She is just the most fun cow. If there could be such a thing. We are currently working on halter and lead rope training. She is not loving the halter but she does tolerate it. :)

I also want to tell you about a great giveaway over at Life on A Southern Farm. They are giving away another 3 hole Hen Pals nesting box. We currently have the 6 hole nesting box and love, love, love it. I hope I win the 3 hole, as well. :)

I will also be linking this post to the Barn Hop.

Busy Days of Summer and Rendering Lard

Rendering lard, why would anybody in their right mind do this? Well, when we process the pigs they always send us home with nicely wrapped packages of lard, such as below. In the past I have promptly thrown it in the garbage, not wanting to tackle this project. However, the more I read about "Good Fats", I thought why not give it a try. I have to tell you it is a long process. I should have started earlier in the day. I just did not realize.

The lard starts out a nice white and pink color when first going in the pot.

You put little chunk pieces in a stainless steel pot on the lowest stove setting. Stirring often the lard will slowly begin to cook down.

Then it starts to turn a grey color as it is rendering down. You will be left with small pieces of cracklin. The end result of hours of rendering. I could not wait on it all to render down so I finally just filtered out what I could and ended up with 3 pint jars. I poured the lard through a cheese cloth several times to ensure a clear end product. The jars sealed themselves during the cooling but I still think I am going to run them through the canner for a little while. It's beautiful and I can't wait to make a pie crust!! Today, I am rendering more lard. I am starting wwaayyy earlier and using a smaller pot. I hope that speeds up the process.
The turkeys are now 12 wks. old and are just so interesting looking. I thought they might be bigger by now but they aren't. Lord willing by Nov. they will be a good size.

Here are the turkeys walking across the backyard during a good downpour. They just absolutely refuse to stay in the acreage that we fenced in for them. We need to clip their wings but I don't know that that will help.

Our days are full right now on the mini farm. We have been canning pickles, freezing peas, squash, and zucchini. We are also really busy with all of the animals around here.

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I will leave you with this last little snippet of happenings around the homestead. We have a small game chicken, who we lovingly call bird, because she looks like a bird up next to regular size chickens. Anyway, we had not seen her in weeks and thought that a predator must have gotten her, as she comes and goes as she pleases, out of the pen. Well about a week and a half ago we found her and 7 baby chicks in the barn. We promptly put her in the chicken tractor. I would have loved to let her walk around the yard with her babies but from past experience we knew that she would be too vulnerable to predators. Lord willing, when the babies get bigger, we can let them out to run around together. I am thankful that we have some chickens with the natural instinct to set and care for babies.

Have a great weekend!!!

The end of May already, here's what's been keeping us so busy

~~Now he who plants and he who waters are one; but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building. 1 Corinthians 3:8-9~~

This is the biggest cause of our busyness. Our very large garden. It rained and rained and rained and we were about 2 weeks late even getting our garden planted. Now that it's in the ground, it quit raining. UGHhhhh So for now we are water sprinkling it. It's not coming up great but my tomatoes look really good.
We are doing a lot of this......

My girls are doing their fair share of weeding, as well. Lord willing, we will have a bounty for all of this work. Working in the garden and putting up the harvest is one of my favorite parts of homesteading. Oh and by the way, the outfits below are not something we would ever wear outside of the garden! We like modesty!!

Our newest advenuture is beekeeping. My husband and son took a beekeeping class a few weeks ago. My son is hoping this will be a little side business for himself. He is so excited about it and loves his bees already. He has been in his hives every other day so far.

Here are the girls working hard.

My boys in their bee suits.

Smoking out their bees so that they can release their queen.

Another major project at the Spencer Family Farm is raising 15 Bourbon Red Turkeys. We have had them about 3 weeks and let me tell you, it has not been easy. We did not realize that turkeys are not the smartest of animals. We got them as day olds and thought it would be like the many chickens that we have raised in the past. However, turkeys we soon found out will starve to death standing beside their feed. They have to be taught to eat. Which we did for over a week. It has been tough and we have lost 3 but they are all eating well now and it seems they are doing good.

We plan to keep 3 hens and 1 Tom for future breeding. We are giving 2 to my mom and will process the rest for the freezer. They are so cute but aren't growing as quick as chicks either.

Here's Mrs. Phoebe. We have moved her to the big pasture to free range too. She has lost so much weight since having a bigger area to run around in. We are so crazy about this little missy. She gets two eggs at the end of everyday and now she is in the habit of running when she sees me heading to the chicken house. Who would have known that a pot bellied pig would be so much fun?

The girls are busy laying in their new Hen Pals Nest Box. I have to say I love this thing and the girls do too. We are getting about 20 eggs a day.

They also love the big new area that we have fenced in for their free ranging.

I hope you all have a wonderful Memorial Day and remember those that have given their lives so that we could have freedom!!

Finishing up the coop

Looky, looky, what came in the mail Friday...... Oh, is it not glorious.

It's a brand new, nice and shiny 6 hole nesting box system for my chicken coop. It was made by none other than the farm man from over at Life on a Southern Farm. I can not tell you how happy this little beauty has made me. I have wanted one ever since I first read about them. I love their blog and I love that they make these on their farm. The quality is amazing and I urge you to check them out!!

Oh, and the farm lady also makes soap. Look what she stuck in the box with my nesting box. It's her clean linen fragrance and it smells sooooo goooood. You can't really see it but the soap has a chicken on it. I don't think I will ever be able to use it, it's so pretty. Thank you so much.

Now down to the nitty gritty. Here is my hard working man putting the siding on my chicken coop. He did a great job.

My hard working little man helping to put siding on the new chicken coop. He is learning a lot with all of these farm projects. I just hope he still wants to do them on his own farm one day.:)

Here the girls and boys are checking out their new spread. They were not sure about all of this.

Here's that amazing nesting box in her permanent home. I hope our girls love this little gadget as much as I do.

This is the new roost area. Lord willing this will be enough room for all of my many chickens.

And the almost fisnished coop. I still need to put chicken wire on the front and then some white lattice. We don't have to worry about predators (other than my chicken eating dog, that's a whole other story) so we probably wont put a door on. I would like to add flower boxes to either side and a garden flag. It will be really pretty eventually.

This is what the two beauties did while all of this building was going on.

They got two of our cars sparkling clean inside and out. They haven't been this clean since probably last summer. They look so good. Thank you girls!!Well, I am off now to get us all packed up to head down to the Coast for a couple of days.

I am also going to link this post up to the barn hop, tomorrow. I am really loving all of the posts from the barn hop. It's fun to see what others are doing on their homesteads.

The Training of a Boy to be a Man

We have this great son, Peyton, who is 14 and he is growing up in a tough world. It's chock full of lazy, self indulging, men. I hate to say that, and I really don't have a great first hand account of it, but my husband is full time Army National Guard and he deals with guys fresh out of boot camp. He comes home with the most ridiculous stories of laziness and self gratification that you have ever heard of. In return, it makes he and I that much harder on this sweet 14 yr. old boy.

We firmly believe that if you teach a boy to work hard then he will never be unemployed!

~~For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order: if anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat, either. 2 Thess. 3:10~~

Now, don't get too worried. You can look around our place and know that no one is going without a meal. We do take it very seriously that God says we are to work and work cheerfully.

~~Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than men. Colossians 3:23~~

We are still working on the cheerful part. Ha Ha

Here are a couple of pics. of this work ethic training in action.

We live in the county and our septic tank is one that has the 99% clean water coming out of it through field lines. Well ours stopped in the soon to be chicken/ turkey/ pig and maybe sheep pasture. We needed it to run on out about 70 more feet. My husband could have rented a back hoe for such job but why when we have a 5' 9", almost 200 lb., scrapping, young man who could dig it out. We did pay for this job. We have very few pay jobs around here but this was one of them. We just told him that daddy can pay for a back hoe or he can give you the money for a back hoe. He jumped at the chance to dig it out.

It has taken him about two weeks to get it all dug out and running downhill. It has been tedious at times but he stuck with it!! They will be laying the new field line and covering it up next week.

I love to see a kid, that could be sitting in front of a TV, doing something that benefits his whole family.

That is my next point. We are also training, said young man, to TAKE CARE of his family. This is one that hits home for me, as I am the product of a single mom who was left with three small children.

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It is very important for us that our children marry believers. ~~ Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? 2 Cor. 6:14~~

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And also that they marry men who believe in taking care of their family and that we raise a man who does the same. ~~ But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his own household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. 1 Tim. 5:8~~ That is serious!

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We don't know how all of this will work out but we are praying hard for their hearts and that God will be glorified through our efforts.

And on a less serious note, I will leave off with a picture of my new girls mixing in with the old girls. They are doing well. I soon will have more eggs than a person should be allowed to have. Ha ha

I am linking this post up to the Barn Hop.

Wow, we are having some good weather in Feb.

It has been in the 70's this week and we are LOVING it...... The kids are having a blast in the warm temps. and we are getting lots done. I love the comradery here.
One of my latest projects is trimming and taming the overgrown muscadines. I got half way down one side today before giving up..... I will start again tomorrow.

We are also working on a new chicken coop. The old ugly coop is directly behind the muscadine vines and the newly framed coop is directly across from the old coop. I am so excited about this new abode for the girls. We should finish it up this weekend. We have to add siding, trim, and the tin roof.

Getting everything just right....

Oh, it's starting to look like something. To be continued.....

We have been planting trees, like this Little Gem Magnolia. I hope to have every tree and plant here that speaks "Southern". Lord willing, we will get a Live Oak in the ground in the next couple of weeks.
Here's one of the plum trees planted. We also planted more blueberries and blackberries. Hopefully, one day they will produce!!! Prov. 28:19

Here is the latest member of the farmette. Daisy. She is so much fun. We have had her about a month and she is 11 wks. old.

We got her because our beloved Shiloh, died the day after Thanksgiving this year. We had had him for almost 14 yrs. and we are still sad to think about him gone. We needed a diversion and so did Diesel.
Now, I wouldn't say that Diesel likes her as much as he did Shiloh but we are all gradually coming to love her.
To add to all of our great happenings, this wonderful young man turned 14 on Monday. When did this happen? Time goes by wayyy toooo fastttt. I hope to cherish the next few years, as I know they will be gone in a blink.

He loves any kind of gun or knife.

And what about this sweet girl. We elected this time not to name her and her litter mate. They have been loved on all the same. Her litter mate went to the butcher this morning. This one was the runt and now we know why "real" farmers kill the runt. She has had the hardest time growing and her litter mate would not let her eat. So we decided to go ahead and take her sister and keep this one another month to fatten up. She may even get a name but I doubt it. If you wonder why we raise pigs check out this movie but don't watch it if you don't want it to change your life, and thinking, regarding food. Food Inc.

And last but most definitely not least, here is Phoebe in all of her splendor. She is the most worthless farm animal we have but definitely the most entertaining. We are in the process of fencing off about an acre in our back pasture for her to roam and root. Right now she is in a pen in the barn where she is quite happy but we want her to have room to roam. Our chickens and turkeys will free range this pasture with her, Lord willing.

We have been told that a diet is in order....
I hope you are all getting some great weather and getting lots done.

~~ Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time because the days are evil. So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.~~ Eph. 5:15-17

I am also linking up to the new Barn Hop. I think it will be so much fun to see what is going on on other Homesteads.