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DrPrepper said:
Will the new chickens survive in the cold weather where you live?
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These meat breeds will be ready to butcher at around 16 - 18 weeks, so they should never see any cold weather. We don't want to winter any of the meat chickens. Eventually we plan to raise around 75-100 meat chickens for us and family.
Our laying hens do fine here in the winter. We picked the breeds that are most cold hardy and the best egg layers. We're getting up to 18 eggs a day now with 26 hens.
The hens don't like the snow too much until it packs down. After every snow I clear a large area with the tractor for them.
 
We were set to do some fence repairs today, I gone out 3:30am to warm a couple of vehicles and get them ready na, I only made it out to the porch... apparently we just got hit with a winter blast of snow that no one seen coming not even the weather people, project delayed.
 
Maverick said:
We were set to do some fence repairs today, I gone out 3:30am to warm a couple of vehicles and get them ready na, I only made it out to the porch... apparently we just got hit with a winter blast of snow that no one seen coming not even the weather people, project delayed.
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They posted storm warnings last night for our area. We had high winds all night and this morning I can see clouds moving in over the mountains to the west of us. They're calling for up to a foot of snow today.
 
Brent S said:
My sister in NY took a rough fall on ice today. Hope she is ok but still not sure why everyone doesn’t live in the south!
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It’d be a lot more crowded. Huntsville is getting bad enough as it is. This end of Alabama isn’t like the other 3/4s of the state and is growing fast. They project Huntsville to be the largest city within the next 8 years. I’m really (not) looking forward to that....

Besides, could you imagine more Yankees telling you how they did it up north? Lol...
 
Brent S said:
My sister in NY took a rough fall on ice today. Hope she is ok but still not sure why everyone doesn’t live in the south!
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I hope your sister didn't get banged up too bad. I fell on the ice this morning too while I was getting in my Jeep. As I was going down I grabbed the door handle and wrenched my shoulder pretty bad.
There are several reasons why I'd never live down south; too many people, too many bugs, too many snakes, too flat and too humid. But mostly too many people. Nope, I'll take living in the mountains any day. However, there are times, like when my fingers and toes are frozen, that living at a lower elevation does sounds tempting.
 
WGregMiller said:
It’d be a lot more crowded. Huntsville is getting bad enough as it is. This end of Alabama isn’t like the other 3/4s of the state and is growing fast. They project Huntsville to be the largest city within the next 8 years. I’m really (not) looking forward to that....

Besides, could you imagine more Yankees telling you how they did it up north? Lol...
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I get lost nearly everytime I drive in Huntsville . Took a wrong turn one time and ended up in a Trailer park and People started coming out and looking , I got lucky it was a Red Neck trailer park so I fit in .
 
Arcticdude said:
These meat breeds will be ready to butcher at around 16 - 18 weeks, so they should never see any cold weather. We don't want to winter any of the meat chickens. Eventually we plan to raise around 75-100 meat chickens for us and family.
Our laying hens do fine here in the winter. We picked the breeds that are most cold hardy and the best egg layers. We're getting up to 18 eggs a day now with 26 hens.
The hens don't like the snow too much until it packs down. After every snow I clear a large area with the tractor for them.
Click to expand...

Old poultry farmer and breeder here: cold is not the problem with chickens. Heat is the problem, in the summer. That's why you have to slaughter the very heavy meat chickens early. You COULD do Cornish hens, you know. With some of them. That would be so fun. Do you have one of those feather pickers, or are you relying on Amish slaughter/picking? They do a good job.

Not that there is anything wrong with hot nearly boiling water and doing it by hand.

Seven hens have always been enough for our one small family, for eggs. Migod, they lay so many! More and you've got a consumption problem, or at least we did. You can feed them to dogs and cats, put extra in everything you cook, eat more egg dishes ---- it goes on. I am betting you are selling the excess, with 18 a day.
 
What did I do for prepping this week?

Himself is pricing a new backhoe, a smaller one than the big used construction one he did a lot of work with but it's breaking down bad. I'd like to see one that can plow snow. Yeah, I know it's Maryland, but we have our moments.

I have continued to try out this incredible flour I bought from Honeyville, 50 pounds of "Artisan" European-style flour. It's new here, you can get it in the fancier supermarkets like Wegman's, 3 lbs a bag, but I don't know what I'd do with tiny little bags like that. Now I really wish I had not bought the bread flour and cake flour. (Okay, 50 lbs each. Oops.) If I were doing it again I'd skip both of those and skip the low-protein American type "cookie" flour and just keep around the Artisan flour, high-gluten flour, and all-purpose. Oh, and their 50 lbs of cake mix, which is really quite good and can be changed with flavor and pretty much anything added -- squash, applesauce, spices, chocolate, eggs of course, whatever you want. That's easy to learn to use.

But the artisan flour makes the kind of bread Americans really like! The soft, fluffy breads. The crisp pizza crust. I simply can't believe I never knew this before --- the baking industry has been keeping secrets, that's clear. But it has only been available to the public the last year or so. It's a low-protein but high-gluten flour (I don't know how that works either) that is rated very low in protein (000) and that is why it makes such soft breads. Apparently the Europeans use it in Italy especially.
 
Squirtgunsquirter said:
I use 4 and 5 pound bags all the time... how many people are you feeding?? lol
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It is not impossible I went a little overboard there ----- but it had to be shipped from Utah, so I just, well, had a lot shipped! We store it in the big Honeyville 6-gal. buckets with oxygen absorbers and then put it in five-pound smaller buckets, very handy. And carefully labeled, as it all looks alike, of course. :D
 
Just finishing up everything for the week! I’m just thinking of what kind of prepping plan I can do this weekend. I think it might be time to till up the greenhouse and get it started towards planting before long. I also need to finish pruning the grapevines, which should have been done a while back now. Somehow it seems like prepping is a lot of work sometimes!
 
I tend to keep at least 200 lbs of flour at all times. Its amazing how much you go thru really when you are baking from scratch. My bread recipe is anywhere between 5 - 6 cups to make a couple loaves of bread each week, depending on weather. plus whatever else you do with it. 500 lbs of sugar is not unreasonable either. . . specially when its canning time.
 
Me, I'm still working on my quilt but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. . . I really want to finish it up before I need to start planting. I did get out in the garden a couple days ago. We've had so much rain again this year my muck boots sunk around 3 1/2 - 4 inches when I got off my walkways. I've still only got my mustard, collards, turnips, lettuce and onions right now and I let them go to seed, except for some purple tops. I've got enough jars put up, but these will get dehydrated. The greens will go to the goats and cows. They will love them. Betsey Lou always looks forward when she sees her momma coming with a handful.
 
Danil54grl, I well remember my first, and so far only, quilt. Arrows pattern, I had the old singer set up in the attic crawlspace lol. Multicam, coyote tan, grey, and olive drab. I gave it to a friend as a top quilt for hammock camping. I hadn't read any books, or even watched a video, I found a picture in an old magazine and just cut out pieces and started sewing. I didn't know any better, and went back and stitched in the ditch in every single line of seam. There must have been 20 pounds of thread in that thing. Nice quilt though, if I do say so myself.

Makes me nostalgic. I do have a much bigger pass through on the Consew... So much easier.
 
I know what you mean. . . I've already gone threw almost thirty spools myself. . . but they only have 140 yards on each. They are made for quilting and such a nice durable thread, normally. I have gotten a couple duds in that group. I did have to learn that a denim needle is much better for me to use verses a quilting needle. . . I broke everyone in that pack!
 
Brent S said:
Just finishing up everything for the week! I’m just thinking of what kind of prepping plan I can do this weekend. I think it might be time to till up the greenhouse and get it started towards planting before long. I also need to finish pruning the grapevines, which should have been done a while back now. Somehow it seems like prepping is a lot of work sometimes!
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Huh, I forgot the greenhouse! Sure, that's prepping. Himself made me one, 10 x 12 feet, years ago, using greenhouse plastic for sides and roofs (you can buy that in big sheets, it can be googled). I keep a lot of ornamentals in there that go out to the cocktail table area in the summer, but speaking of prepping, this is a good size and so I start EVERYTHING in that greenhouse and right how have most stuff started. Too much, AS usual. I'll never get over that, I suppose. And we have a large cold frame backed right up to the greenhouse on the south side, so it takes a lot of heating from the electric heated greenhouse (The electric heater costs $250, is a 220 volt one, and lasts for years: we've bought two so far.) Really, everything was doing just fine in the cold frame, the hardy stuff like cabbage and lettuce plants and such, but I went overboard (what's new) and got a large four-foot heating pad for plants and now --- I can move stuff in there when the greenhouse flats get crowded.

But the big thing for me is the citrus trees. It's a hobby, and I'd advise don't go crazy over the really weird citrus like maybe I did, but Rangpur limes (they aren't limes but they are delicious), oranges, lemons, limes, and -- I didn't expect this -- grapefruits really grow well in a greenhouse. And huge fruits, who knew? We put them outside in the Great Migration every spring. You would be surprised how much fruit they set. No family would get scurvy eating a winter's worth of 10-20 pots of citrus. I buy from Four Winds and they are the best and the cheapest. Price check first, trust me.
 
Danil54grl said:
I tend to keep at least 200 lbs of flour at all times. Its amazing how much you go thru really when you are baking from scratch. My bread recipe is anywhere between 5 - 6 cups to make a couple loaves of bread each week, depending on weather. plus whatever else you do with it. 500 lbs of sugar is not unreasonable either. . . specially when its canning time.
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Ha! I'm not the only one. Thank you, Danil54grl.

I buy sugar by the 10 lbs, at least, same with white and that new "organic" which is a less-refined sugar and has a slight brown sugar taste which I like.

When I was a child in Tennessee the Revenuers would investigate any family who came out of the mountains and bought a couple 100-pound sacks of sugar, assuming they were moonshining. True story. My stepfather thought that was pretty mean, because in those days those mountain people didn't come down more than twice a year!
 
People here are starting seeds! I feel like if I start them now, they will be 2 foot tall with 2 leaves by the time they can go in the ground. I even have a little greenhouse to start them in, it goes on the deck. Still always start too soon.
 
I didn’t make it in my greenhouse or the garden this weekend. Did get the grapevines pruned at least. That’s about two days worth of work there. I have been building up lots of composted materials all winter long and am looking forwards to tilling it in in the greenhouse. Right now it’s dry as a bone in there as I haven’t watered since fall. I disconnect the pump and drain the lines every winter. One of these days I will freeze protect all that, maybe....
 
Danil54grl said:
Me, I'm still working on my quilt but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. . . I really want to finish it up before I need to start planting. I did get out in the garden a couple days ago. We've had so much rain again this year my muck boots sunk around 3 1/2 - 4 inches when I got off my walkways. I've still only got my mustard, collards, turnips, lettuce and onions right now and I let them go to seed, except for some purple tops. I've got enough jars put up, but these will get dehydrated. The greens will go to the goats and cows. They will love them. Betsey Lou always looks forward when she sees her momma coming with a handful.
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Well, I'm glad you have walkways. I went out to feed sheep this morning and the mire was so sticky my boots were coming off, and I started to fall --- in all that mud and thirty sheep!! However, I grabbed some wool at the last moment and she went forward fast and pulled me up -- so I was saved a very muddy pair of gardening pants.
 
Squirtgunsquirter said:
I got pushed down while feeding the hogs once, when they were fully grown and ready to send out. I went down swinging. They weren't so pushy for a few days after that.

Honestly, I was scared. Watching them eat walnuts like it was a peanut.
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The sheep took me out a couple summers ago. We feed kitchen garbage, which they love, and I went out with the bucket and someone sheepy started knocking the bucket with her head. "Stop it!" I said, and lowered the bucket enough to whack her a little, and enough that two sheep got their noses in. Sheep are built real close to the ground (not as much as your pigs! they really have a low center of gravity) and they pushed down the bucket, and me, and pretty soon there I was on the ground with some six sheep walking over me. Hmmmmm.

Yeah, hogs ----- you should be scared. 200--220 pound hogs, highly omnivorous, not safe.
 
Mundame said:
Old poultry farmer and breeder here: cold is not the problem with chickens. Heat is the problem, in the summer. That's why you have to slaughter the very heavy meat chickens early. You COULD do Cornish hens, you know. With some of them. That would be so fun. Do you have one of those feather pickers, or are you relying on Amish slaughter/picking? They do a good job.

Not that there is anything wrong with hot nearly boiling water and doing it by hand.

Seven hens have always been enough for our one small family, for eggs. Migod, they lay so many! More and you've got a consumption problem, or at least we did. You can feed them to dogs and cats, put extra in everything you cook, eat more egg dishes ---- it goes on. I am betting you are selling the excess, with 18 a day.
Click to expand...
The wife ordered Red Rangers. They are smaller and take longer to mature than the heavy breeds like the Cornish X, but she felt they would suit us better. They're better forgers too. We are going to buy a drum picker later this spring. I think the one we're looking at will plucked 5-6 birds at once. When I was a kid we plucked by hand, won't do that again.
We're selling quite a few eggs now, but we also donate a lot of eggs to the senior center in town.
 
Went down to the pump house last night to start the generator to pump water up to our holding tank at the cabin. The generator wouldn't start due to the cold temps. Jumped the battery with my Jeep and it still wouldn't start. Had to use a propane torch to heat the generator before it would finially start. Next summer I'll build a new enclosure to house the generator. Then I'll add an extra solar panel and battery bank to run a couple heat lamps to keep the generator warm.
 
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