Update on farm
8-24 -2015
Farm to Table Food
Or is that a Chicken on My Table
Well my original 8 chicks I had bought
earlier this year had been whittled down to 3 due to coon attacks in my chicken
house at night. After frustration of trying to stem the tide of chickens
disappearing, I resorted to moving them to the main barn where they could roost
with Whitey the seasoned pro chicken that has been here the longest and is
still laying eggs. I have had Whitey from the first time I started taking retired
chickens and giving them a home.
Whitey has seen other hens come and go and
in the meantime has maintained a schedule whereby you can almost tell what time
of the day it is by watching Whitey as she makes her rounds. I have found her
in the late afternoon fluffing and cleaning herself in the sun and dust as she burrows
into the dust and fluffs it up over her back and soaks up the sunshine.
In the morning around noon she will go and
sit in the garage and lay an egg if she is up to it that day as now not every
day she is laying. Currently she has a nest behind the guard that fell off the
baler m which gives her a sense of security. After laying an egg, she announces
to the world the remarkable miracle she had just accomplished. It is a miracle
due to her age. She was an old chicken when I received her and it has been at
least 5 years I have had her.
whitey and old red contemplating crossing the road
Well the Rhode Island reds took to
following Whitey around and it has greatly increased their chance of survival. They
have completely abandoned the chicken house for the garage, they still head up
there in the midday and can be seen taking dust baths and eating the laying
mash pellets I leave for them there, they will eat a little but instead are
into the free ranging much better and must be satisfied as they have good feed
available but still prefer the insects and doing it natural. This saves a lot
in feed.
The
free ranging thing is being taken a bit too far at times. If the door is left
open to the house, one hen comes right into the house and heads for the cat
food bowl and helps herself while strolling through the house. Sometimes I leave
the door open to allow the kittens in and after calling I go on about my business
doing other things, only to be surprised to finding a chicken strolling through
my house. Shooing her out and getting her excited only leads to her depositing
a token of her appreciation in the form of fecal matter on the floor.
This is the same hen that now is laying
eggs in the animal crate outside my door. I was surprised to find an egg in the
bare crate one day and after watching the crate the next day I saw the hen
going about her business. It is nice and convenient to have her laying right
outside my back door. The ducks have had nests there before and seem to have an
affinity towards wanting to have nests close to the house. It is nice to see my
red beauties starting to produce now. The
eggs are deeply appreciated. The two other
hens are borrowing Whitey’s nest and depositing their eggs there. Attempts to
make nests for them in old planter pails hasn’t produced any results, instead they
prefer to lay eggs on the ground in crude nest burrowed into the dirt of the
barn floor. I added straw to the carrier at my back door and managed to get a
picture of the hen sitting in it.
Another subject I would like to touch on
today is bee stings. I was operating the tractor helping a neighbor do some
work and was just about to quit for the day, and was doing some ditch cleaning
when I happened on a nest of hornets and I was amazed on how quick they swarmed
onto me and attacked me violently as I was trying to get away from them and
swat at them as they were stinging me. I must have been stung 20-30 times in
less than twenty seconds after hitting the nest. I finally gave up on getting
the tractor out of there because I needed to get away from the swarm that was
attacking me so I just reached down and turned off the tractor and jumped off
and ran off away from them.
I still had a couple after me and one had
managed to get inside my shirt and nailed me on my chest and arm. I managed to
swat them away finally, but not before them inflicting a fair amount of damage
on me personally. This is a hazard anytime you are out in the country and made
me aware of some emergency items on should be able to get a hold of immediately
after. The neighbor quickly offered me Benadryl and an Epi pen. I am not
sensitive to bee stings, having been stung many times before. But I don’t recall
receiving such a large dose of bee stings in one setting as I did yesterday. I was
hurting bad and loaded up my equipment and heading home after taking 5 doses of
Benadryl.
The Benadryl knocked me out early and probably
did a lot to reduce the swelling. In the middle of the night I woke up and took
some more as I was still hurting pretty good and after that I woke up this
morning still smarting from the stings but they are significantly better.
The point I am trying to make of this is
that I found myself inadequately prepared for that emergency without the Benadryl.
I doubt if my recovery from the stings
would have been quite so quick and a heck of a lot more painful. The Epi pen is
also nice and great to have around if you live in the country and could
possibly save your life if you have a violent reaction to the bee stings. It is
just a good idea to have both of these around to prevent a minor tragedy
turning into a major one. The pain that lingers from the bee stings is a
reminder of how important it is to be prepared. If I would have been home by
myself when this happened I wouldn’t have been so lucky I feel as I am now. If it
would have been just one sting I would probably hurt, but would be ok but one
never knows how many stings you can take before they overwhelm your body’s
system and shuts you down. It was a real fear of mine at the time.
I never had to use the Epi pen but it was
great to have it available.
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