Today is the first day outside for our initial 9 that hatched in January. This is both a sad and happy thing for us – as the space is needed badly by the 20 babies that are just two and a half weeks behind them… and they go out in 2 weeks themselves.
Gary built a triple-stacked cage with rollouts that are covered as you can see here, and our two Italian hens will be joining our Italian roo and the other hens from that clutch in a breeder cage.
The bottom cage is intended to be a breeder cage as well, but we have a retrofit coming for the first cage built in January that will house both the 20 in the current baby box (which they have more than outgrown and is why they get to go to the reptile tank and wire cages today if we can feather sex them) and this will be our grow out /bachelor cage until the next cages are built.
Meanwhile – we also got the beginning of our raised beds in. They don’t look fancy, but honestly they are going to work and be what we need for a long time. We are using hugelkulture type fillings, and will have two more to put up outside the greenhouse to the right of where I stood when I took the picture.
The boxes are from a Nordic Track (no, I didn’t get one for Christmas, despite potentially needing to use one, I got the boxes for just this purpose.) They are filled with wood that is over a year over, then hay that has aged and we’ll not be using to grow in as a bale this year, then quail compost, and more cardboard for recycling, then more quail compost on top of that to help it break down further, then hay again. We are letting it settle a week or two before we put soil on the top, and by the beginning of April it should be ready to garden in… even if our seedlings don’t go in until Mid April. We still need to put stakes (Tposts most likely) at the middle of each side and I am considering a cattle panel arch in between the two beds.
In our garage we have an old four-poster frame, I have joked with Gary about putting raised beds inside it, using the bedposts as a support for the chicken wire, and then it truly would be a “Raised Bed Garden.” He didn’t seem to find that funny for some reason.
The greenhouse is starting to look more like a “Green House” and we will have seed starting trays on each shelf in there soon. I have to order the final two automatic vent openers – the two we have in there are doing an amazing job. If it reaches 85 degrees in there they open, if it drops to 75 they close. The hanging lights are up, and I need to learn about solar, considering using a Jackery or another system like it for our solar power for the lights, vs an outdoor extension cord.
So much of what I knew as a kid is being implemented here – and it’s just amazing how it’s augmented with what I’ve learned along the way. Later this month I’ll be helping another local homesteader on butchering day for her Rabbits, and learning if I want to take that on, and we still have a lot more to build up as we have the eggs in the incubator that are going to be water candled on the 9th as they go into lockdown for expected hatching somewhere between the 11th to the 13th. We will have all the current “teenagers” out and have another moving day for them on the 13th as we’ll need every brooder available.
Meanwhile over at the woodworks, Gary has to retrofit both the first cage he built for a covered roll-out, and support underneath the coated hardware cloth that they birds walk on. It’s all a learning experience, and before you know it – I’ll have my bench for seating while I work in the greenhouse, and a proper workspace too.
Annie is a semi-retired homebirth midwife, the Director and head doula trainer for the MattieMarie Traditional Birth Studies program, and a Farmer’s granddaughter. It all ties into her mad plan to be as self-sufficient as she can while returning to her roots.