Monday, February 15, 2016

Where do you start.....when HOMESTEADING...

It was three years ago (give or take) that we were the proud owners of a beautiful 5 acre piece of land.  I have always dreamed of living in the country and now that we are here...I sadly, don't know where to start! 

Our property came to us as an empty canvas. We had an old farm house built in 1892 and the carriage house to match, both in ROUGH shape.  Since then, we added a pond, a pole barn and have done a lot of work...with more to come!  We made the conscious decision to add chickens to our property as a means to having endless fresh eggs. We started a garden and have been tending it as best as we could, learning so many things along the journey.  From here...my biggest question is, where do we go?  I am overwhelmed with laying out our little farm.  So this is where the question comes in...


WHERE DO I START? 




{LEARN YOUR LAND}

I think that the most important thing you can do is to walk your land, listen to your land and don't "jump" into your homestead dream until you plan and learn for at least a year to see first hand such things as where your water runs when it rains heavily, where pockets of snow are deeper, and where all the dry land lays.  

Once you have this determination for your land, start with questions like, 

  • What do you like to eat?  
  • What do you like to do?  
  • What are your true passions for your homestead? 

If you take pictures to document your land over the seasons, you can use these images to reflect on what would be an ideal placement for different ideas you have for the homestead. I, personally, am a binder gal, so this, along with my notes, wishes, dreams would all find their way inside.  


The goal here is success. 
Planning helps gain success. 



A great example of planning is, say you want to plant an orchard.  The determining factor for deciding on a location for such orchard would be , "Where do we have open space?"  



Let’s look at the idea of an orchard as an example. When we plant our orchard, the determining factor for deciding upon a location should be, “Where do we have open space?” Our side yard seems to have the most room so logically we would think that this is where we need to plant.  But we forgot to think about the sun in all of the seasons in regards to shade. Worse than that though, we are not thinking about time of planting with regards to rain seasons.  It is this careful observation that will prevent unexpected issues, by waiting and watching what your land does throughout the seasons.




I think that it is also important to think about growing what you like to eat. It makes the investment and final results so much more worth it because there comes a sense of pride knowing that your hands sowed the land to give you and your family food. 



{AVOID AND REDUCE DEBT}


The first thing I’d advise is don’t get too far into debt because debt is enslavement. Do things that take time and not money and use your creativity to do for yourself.
I would not recommend building your homestead by digging yourself into debt. Quite the opposite. If you happen to have debt, take that first year and try to get out of it


Reducing your monthly expenses will allow you to fit a new feed bill into the budget and ultimately give you so much more freedom to grow and expand when you are ready… not when the finances will allow.

{START SMALL, START SLOW}

For many reasons “easing in” is one of the wisest things a new homesteader can do. Not only does it prevent burnout and help you stay out of debt, but it allows you to properly and thoroughly research each avenue you choose to explore. 

Starting slow, building knowledge, obtaining experience, gaining confidence,  and working towards mastering each new skill will allow much of the work to be done effortlessly and as a matter of habit. Going about these new tasks habitually will go a long way to improving morale when there is a bump in the road.
And there will be bumps.
We started with a small laying flock. Just enough (six) to generate a great deal of excitement within the family and a feeling of productivity (with four eggs on average a day), like we are doing something other than just playing the  waiting game.
Despite a lot of what you’ll read out there, chickens are relatively adaptable and probably the most foolproof of barnyard animals


We started with older chickens who already were laying eggs
It is recommended that you get a few new chicks each spring so you’ll have fresh layers in the fall when the older gals are molting and over the winter


They’ll keep you in at least a few eggs when everyone else is complaining of empty nesting boxes. After the 3rd or 4th year, cull out the oldest hens who are no longer laying and they can finish their contribution to the homestead by providing your family with a wonderful stock.  


You’ll also get the benefit of a new skill- chicken butchering.
This is the food chain, after all.
The second year on the homestead I would plant a garden in the spring. You could even start seeds in the late winter or early spring. 

  • You can start onions in January
  • Peppers in March
  • and tomatoes a couple weeks later. 
Make sure you mulch your garden. Mulching is a wonderful way to build soil fertility over time, reduce fungal diseases found in the soil from infecting your plants, and most importantly  keeping the weeds at bay


Straw or hay mulching can take weeding from a daily chore down to a once-a-week chore.
As to adding too much else beyond the garden and the chickens I would be hesitant to do so. 

It’s hard to be patient, but gardening and food preservation will take more time than you think.
Remember ease in. If you plan on putting in an orchard or berries, plant them in the late fall when the garden and all the related harvesting and food preservation isn’t consuming so much of your time.


For successive years… well...
  • What do you like? 
  • What “stokes your boiler?”


 Do that.


{BUILD SOIL FERTILITY}

Assuming that growing food in the soil will be a part of every homestead, I would emphasize the importance of building the fertility of your soil. It is recommend doing so via mulching, cover crops, composting, and aerobic compost teas.
Test your soil, make necessary holistic amendments using compost tea, compost, and mulch.
If you plan on putting in an orchard or berry patch in the first or second year, it is recommended that you take a whole year to prepare your orchard site for planting. 
Fruit plantings happen in one of two ways. The go-getter turns the lawn under and, plop, the trees and assorted berries are in. No real transition toward the fungal state occurs prior to the nursery order being made and delivered. The soil biology can recover from such unbridled enthusiasm- it’s not “wrong” to do this- but soil preparation prior to planting offers certain advantages worthy of consideration. People with just a wee bit more foresight understand that a year of cover cropping and woodsy mulching not only offers the grower a chance to build organic matter and correct fertility imbalance but can also hasten fungal dominance.
Finally, having that new flock of layers will come in handy while you’re building soil fertility. Either by encouraging your free-ranging flock to congregate where you’ll be planting by laying down thick mulches for them to scratch through (and subsequently leave their contribution) or by proactively managing the manure of a contained flock via composting, the fertile manure of chickens will give your soil a big boost ahead of that first year of planting.


{BUILD SKILLS}

This does not mean that you can't be actively homesteading. There is still much that can be done. My next recommendation is work on building your skills.
Food preservation such as canning, curing, smoking, experimenting with cheese or soap making will all go a long way to helping so that the future learning curve will be more focused on animal care rather than turning their products into usable goods.




You can spend your time reading and researching the ventures you plan on beginning with. Having that knowledge to draw on when you need it will be so helpful, allowing you to attack a problem immediately when it arises.
You could find a mentor. This part is not always easy, particularly if you raise your food unconventionally. (Not much sense wasting your time learning how to raise hogs in a barn on concrete if you want yours out on pasture.) If you could find a mentor to learn from, gleaning from their acquired wisdom and experience, what a blessing that would be! 


{BUILD INFRASTRUCTURE}

If you don’t already have infrastructure in place, barn, buildings, fences, etc… the first year, while you are planning and observing is a great time to work on it (without going into debt, obviously.) 

Having the whole year set aside to work on these projects will mean fewer impulse purchases.   
And if you already have these things in place, you could work on buying high quality tools and equipment. I emphasis high quality because frankly the tools you are going to get at a big box store are made for occasional suburban use. If you don’t buy high quality, plan on making an annual expense of the most used tools. (We have more shovel and rake heads than I can count!)
Finally, from the homemaker’s perspective, perhaps now would be a good time to get a mudroom if there isn’t one in your home.
Easing into building a homestead doesn’t mean that you can’t be busy building your  new lifestyle. There is always much work to be done and, as you’ll soon find out, the work is never really done




So relax and  enjoy the simple life and all the blessings and challenges it has to offer.

Friday, February 5, 2016

6 Tips for Keeping Chickens Warm in the Winter

Tips for Keeping Winter Chickens
By: Kel Amstutz

 

Over and over again,  the question keeps coming up: 
How do you go about keeping chickens warm in the winter?

Well…  chickens natural physiology combined with several strategies on our part are all it takes to keep our chickens happy and healthy through the bitter cold winter.
 
We don’t heat the chicken coop in winter, instead follow these six steps to #safely and #inexpensively keep your hens warm.

1. Get the right chickens for your climate:

The very best thing you can do to ensure your birds will be fine in winter is to start off with cold hardy chicken breeds

Cold hardy breeds have very small combs and wattles, making them less susceptible to frostbite. They also tend to be built a little on the hefty side, which keeps them warmer when the temperature drops.

The best cold-hardy chicken breeds:

  • Ameraucana
  • Australorp
  • Brahma
  • Buff Orpington
  • Cochin
  • Delaware
  • Dominique
  • New Hampshire
  • Plymouth Rock
  • Rhode Island Red
  • Speckled Sussex
  • Wyandottes

 

2. Insulate the coop:

It’s so important to insulate the coop as best you can before winter sets in. You can do this in many ways. If you have the money, you can use foam or fiberglass insulation in the walls of the coop then cover them with plywood. Just make absolutely sure the insulation is completely covered, because chickens will pick it at. 

Always remember that insulation doesn’t mean make the coop air-tight. 


Every coop needs proper ventilation, for polluted air and moisture to escape and fresh air to get in.

3. Close off a portion of the coop

The coop interior gets warm on cold winter nights from the chickens body heat releasing into the air. If the amount of space inside the coop is smaller, there’s less airspace for the chickens bodies to warm up. If your chicken coop is on the larger side, it will pay to make the usable space a little smaller in the winter.
This can be done by hanging plastic sheeting from floor to ceiling, or putting up a temporary wall.

4. Provide quality feed and water

Chickens eat more feed in the winter to regulate their body temperature and put on some insulating fat. 

Feed your chickens a little extra when it starts to get cold, and more importantly, provide them with fresh water at all times.
Drinking water helps with digestion, which helps with temperature regulation. If your chicken’s water source is frozen for even an hour during the day it will affect their ability to stay warm. 

You might want to consider using a heated water bowl or Water Heater Base during the winter to keep your water dish thawed at all times! 

5. Provide quality roosts

Roosting helps keep chickens warm by getting them up off the floor and allowing them to huddle together to keep warm. 

Roosts need to be big enough to accommodate all of your chickens. 
(If you see chickens on the floors or nesting boxes at night, more roosts are in order!)
The roost surface should be big enough so that a chicken can completely cover their feet while sitting on it.  

If the chickens can’t wrap their toes all the way around the roost, they are likely to get frostbite on toes that they can’t cover.

6. Use the deep litter method

The deep litter method works wonders for keeping the coop warm in winter.

Stacking six inches (or more) of litter on the floor of the coop helps to insulate it. Deep litter also produces its own heat.

Deep litter that’s started in spring is like a compost pile on the floor of your coop. The decomposing waste and litter create heat which help to warm the coop.

 

Other options:

If you live in a Northern climate in which temperatures frequently fall well below -10 degrees, and you feel your chickens are truly suffering from the cold, there are some options.
  • Hire an electrician to wire the coop for heat would be safer than hanging a heat lamp inside


 

 

Featured Post

How To Make Your Blog Go Viral

Blogging, Lessons on working, Stay at Home Moms by: Kel Amstutz Last year, I posted a blog post that went viral . (much to MY surp...