Hidden Place: December 2011

I moved my Sumatra pair into their breeder coop this morning, hopefully Lenore finishes her molt in the next few weeks and starts laying again. Poe seemed less than thrilled to be penned but he should acclimate and calm down soon enough. I made sure to toss them a few extra greens and milo as a treat this morning.

In preparation I'm going to pick up a Booda Dome that I found for cheap on Craig's List to use as a nest box. If you're confused I'll explain, instead of filling the litter box with kitty sand we use them as places for the hens to lay their eggs, filling it instead with pine shavings and straw. It works really well. The hens like the privacy that the enclosed litter box provides and they're very simple to clean. All you have to do is snap the litter box apart and spray it down with a hose. I've found that it's better to use plastic nesting boxes as opposed to wooden ones, they last longer and there's no threat of mites or other parasites taking up residence in them like they can do in old wooden nesting boxes.

Well, it's December 1st. I can't believe it's already December 1st, I'm literally having to type out December first for a third time now to fully come to terms that it's actually December 1st.

Anyways, why does it matter that it's December 1st? Well that means it's almost next year, we've got a lot planned for next year. Brookside Cottage Farms will be debuting at a few different farmer's markets in the spring of 2012. We'll also continue to work on getting the noise ordinance that prohibits keeping roosters in the city of Oakland either changed or completely removed altogether. Spring also means it's time to hatch again... heh heh, always something I look forward to. I've got a number of hatches already planned for next year, I'm hatching Wheaten Ameraucanas again, this time from a breeder whose line is suppose to have excellent egg color. From the same breeder I will also be receiving Blue, Black, Splash Sumatra eggs. I've seen photos of these Sumatra and I have to say they are some of the most fantastic examples of the breed that I have seen. I'll hopefully be using the resulting birds to continue my own Platinum/Dun Sumatra line, adding better type and confirmation to the Sumatra standard by outcrossing to this line.

Hm, what else? I know for sure that I am getting a second color of Orpington, a very special color but I'm not going to say which one just yet. We also plan to add waterfowl to our micro farm next Spring, I've placed an order with Holderreads for Saxony ducklings and an Embden geese pair... yes, geese... here in Oakland. Our neighbors say they don't mind the chicken noise so hopefully they won't be bothered by the honking of a goose. I'm really excited about adding waterfowl, baby ducks are so so so adorable and so far we've only ever raised land fowl, it should be interesting to add some webbed feet to our homestead. Our plan is to have the ducks for eggs and meat, allowing us to sell all of the eggs our chickens produce at markets. The geese are mostly an experiment, we'll see how easy it is to care for something larger and whether or not if we'll be able to eventually process our own goose for the dinner table.

Anyways, I'll stop rambling and get to what this post was originally about. I took some photos in the garden a few weeks ago before the weather really started to get ugly, when we still had several things growing and producing in the back yard. It's pretty bleak out there right now, most things have either died for the season or have gone dormant. We planted some cover crops last weekend in the raised beds, we should have got them in the ground sooner so we covered the beds with plastic tarp in order to hopefully speed up and ensure germination. ANYWAYS, enough rambling, pictures!

We're only getting about 3-4 eggs a day now, gone are the days of the endless rainbow dozens...