On 2nd Year Egg Laying

I've been wondering about something. It's about chickens, specifically egg laying. It's based on my limited experience, so I'd like to ask you to share your own observations.

Before we got our chickens, I did a lot of research and gathered a lot of information. I relied on the experts, with their credentials and degrees, who told me things like, chickens don't lay during the short days of winter. After reading that, we decided in favor of the chickens' natural rhythms, and opted not to artificially light the coop during the winter. To prepare for the expected egg drought, I froze about 13 dozen eggs. I was pleasantly surprised then, when I got eggs all winter long. Production was down during moulting, but I never lacked eggs for baking and an occasional omelet. In fact, my Delaware finished her moult and resumed laying before the shortest day of the year.

Something else concerned me from my chicken studies. That was, that egg production is expected to drop drastically after the first year. So much so, that most producers replace their entire laying stock every year. I wasn't sure what to do about that. For one thing we wanted to raise our own chicks as replacements, and DH is dead set against incubators. He wants our chicks to be mother raised. Because of that, I decided to put my hope on at least one of my hens going broody this summer, so we could raise a few replacements for next year.

Well, my chickens have resumed egg production this 2nd year, equal to their first. Another very happy surprise. Still, I was puzzled as to why my chickens have been so non-compliant in these areas, according to the books anyway.

Now, I'm not one to argue with the experts. True experts deserve a lot of respect. However, was it even remotely possible, that the experts could be wrong?  I don't necessarily mean in their area of expertise, which is production and profit. To accomplish these goals, "improvements" are necessary: of breed, feed, and management technique. These include unnatural lighting during the winter and starting each year with a fresh batch of layers, specifically a hybrid breed developed for high egg production. Let's face it, it's easier for them this way.

Homesteaders and small scale family farms, however, often choose heritage breeds. We do this not only because the birds are beautiful, but to help preserve rare breeds the world might otherwise lose. Could that possibly be the difference? Could it just be that these heritage breeds don't shoot their entire egg wad the first year of their lives, but the hybrids do? That heritage chickens spread their egg laying out over two or more years instead?

Do you have chickens? Would you be willing to participate in some unofficial research? I'd be interested to know:

• What breeds do you have?
• Are they hybrid or heritage? 
• How did your first and second year egg production compare for each breed?
• Did you light your coop artificially during winter's short days?

Thank you to all who participated! You can see a summary of the answers to these questions in this post, Unofficial Egg Laying Research Results.

Click button for more or to participate!

On 2nd Year Egg Laying © May 2011 by Leigh at http://my5acredream.blogspot.com/

Field Corn Planted!

Thank you to everyone who has asked how we've been faring the severe weather this month. We've never lost power nor sustained property damage, so all in all, we've been very fortunate. The storms having been coming pretty regularly, and besides the garden, we we've been wondering what to do about planting our field corn.

Growing our own grain, has been one of our homestead goals. It's part of our desire to be food self sufficient for both us, and our animals. The easiest and most logical grain to start with is corn. Last January we chose and cleared an area for it, and at the beginning of the month our neighbor tractor tilled it for us. Decided when to plant, has been the topic of much table time discussion.

Our go-to book for information has been Gene Logsdon's Small-Scale Grain Raising. Besides providing the practical information we need, his style of writing is down-to-earth readable and confidence building. (In fact, if you're not familiar with Gene, check out his blog, The Contrary Farmer. Better yet, read his post "What's Your Game Plan As Corn Prices Skyrocket?" It will probably motivate you to grow your own corn too!) One thing he cautions, is to not be in a hurry to plant corn, because soil temperature and conditions are key to a successful crop.

A couple of days ago, our soil temperature was 67º F and the soil seemed fairly dry. Dan had a few days off before his next trip out, and the weather map looked like this.....

Weather map on Wednesday morning

With that system heading our way, we decided to go for it. If we got another deluge, there was no telling when the soil would dry out. Nor if Dan would be home when conditions were right. Real life decisions can't always go by the book!

Trying to get 'er done before the next storm

We figured the tiller could make the rows for us faster than a hoe, with the additional benefit of breaking ground that had been compacted by April's rains.

We planted Trucker's Favorite white,
an open pollinated variety.

We plotted out a plan, he tilled, and I dropped seeds and covered them with the hoe. As we worked the sky got darker, the winds picked up, and we got a sprinkle. We pressed on and it all blew over.

Half planted. 

By the end of the day there wasn't a cloud in sight, the entire area was tilled, and we had our first section of corn planted. You can see a strip of grass running left to right at about center of the photo above. That divides our two sections. We planted the section nearest to front, using about half of our 5 pounds of seed.

We've decided we're going to wait a few weeks to a month or so to plant the next section. Since this is new to us, it will give us two plots to compare, because experiential knowledge is a valuable thing.  As much as we hate to run into problems or make mistakes, they are the basis of homestead common sense and wisdom. It's why I often say "something is better than nothing;" because I know I'll always learn something valuable, even if the crop doesn't do very well.

My hope now is for good germination. Last summer's sweet corn didn't do very well in that department, so this is a concern. Then it will be pollination. I'd also like to grow popcorn, so hopefully we can plant to stagger pollination without crosses occurring. Another unknown is whether or not we've planted enough. Or not enough. This is something else we need to learn from this first patch.

Later I'll plant pole beans and some pumpkins in with the corn. After it's all harvested, we'll sow the plot with winter wheat. My experimental patch is doing well...

My wheat is heading out.

... and that's encouraging. That's the plan anyway, and hopefully we're off to a good start.

Field Corn Planted! © April 2011 by
Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/

April Gardening: A Race With The Rain

I reckon nearly everyone will agree that April hasn't exactly been cooperative when it comes to gardening. This is the month of our last expected frost, and when I can start planting our warm weather vegetables. This is the month when I ought to be working in the garden every day. This year though, it seems as though the ground barely dries out enough so as to be workable, when it rains again.

One thing I managed to do earlier this month, was to transplant the rest of my strawberries...

Mulching newly transplanted strawberries with feed sacks & wood chips

Because of the lay of our land, the garden areas around the house dry out more quickly than the big vegetable garden. I still have to finish mulching them, but at least the job is done. Happily all the transplants are doing well and we have strawberries beginning to ripen!

The vegetable garden about a month ago.

Our vegetable garden, which was freshly tilled and ready to plant in March, became overrun again with the annual rye we planted last fall as our winter green manure crop.

The vegetable garden this month. The annual rye was taking over. Again.

It's grown like crazy with all the rain and mild temperatures. I think we've decided we won't plant annual rye again. It does add organic matter to the soil, but for us, with only a tiller, it's impossible to get it turned under enough to not grow again. Perhaps it's better suited for areas that can be plowed.

The other thing we plan not to do again, is to till this garden. Our new garden plan calls for permanent, companion group beds (all about that in this post.) In discussing the execution of that, we took into consideration that there is a 4 foot drop in slope from the top of the garden to the bottom. Because of that, we decided that the best option for us would be to terrace the beds.

1st terraced bed. Winter wheat behind that.

Going has been slow because of having to wait for the soil to dry out between rain storms. I would have loved to prepared these in the same double dug Hugelkultur method we did in the front yard, but getting seeds in the ground before the next rain storm has been the priority.

Our soil has a lot of clay, but over the past two years we've worked on building it up. I hated to lose that top soil to permanent walkways, so I've been scraping and shoveling the top soil into the bed, down to the clay, which is fine to walk on.

Several terraced beds, created & planted

Eventually, we plan to use cinder or concrete blocks as the terrace borders. We'd need a lot to get started, so we'll add them as we can. In the meantime, we have tons of downed trees in our woods, which can create the terraces for a few years at least.

Because I'm preparing beds and planting in between bouts of rain, I am not strictly following my original garden group companion plan. I am pretty much following the plant groupings, but not where I put them. I'm preparing the beds from top of the garden down, and planting each one as it's ready, according to recommended planting dates. Hopefully the soil at the bottom will be dry enough to be workable by the time I get there! Fortunately planting dates aren't exact. Our first garden was planted late and did just fine. In the meantime, I'll just continue my race with the rain, and hope on the best.

April Gardening: A Race With The Rain © April 2011 by Leigh at http://my5acredream.blogspot.com/