What, You Don't Like My Chickens!

"As part of the City's "Comprehensive Clean-Up Program," city staff inspected property located in Knoxville at @%#$ North Seventh. It was determined that a violation(s) of City Code exists. More specifically, the violation(s) include the following listed items. These numbered items may be referenced to the coordinating numbered code sections on the attached page.

The City has recently received a complaint about this property: There is a violation of Section 9-6B-2:Farm animals are not allowed in the City. Please make other arrangements for them."

So, that is the letter I received in the mail yesterday (along with a phone call on Wednesday). The letter goes on to say, "blah, blah, blah ... you have 14 days to get rid of the chickens ... blah, blah, blah ... if you don't get rid of them you are going to have to pay some serious fines ... blah, blah, blah ... Please remember the character of a neighborhood depends on everyone taking pride in their surroundings to maintain quality and beauty for the entire community of Knoxville."

Okay, so above you can see the picture of our movable chicken pen if you have never seen it before. I know that it isn't very pretty, but what about the house around the corner that has over 200 action figures and stuffed animals covering the yard! Or, the house up the street that looks like it is falling down and is for sale for only $20,000 dollars. Possibly we should consider doing something about our neighbors who moved out and only mowed their lawn ONCE this entire summer!

The law is the law, and I have already moved my chickens down to my dad's (more on that visit tomorrow) because I don't want to be in violation of city code. It just doesn't look good for a pastor to be knowingly breaking the law! But, I guess I just don't understand why it is the law. In West Des Moines (really fancy suburb of Des Moines) it is legal to have up to 30 chickens in your backyard! But, in Knoxville (a smaller rural community) we can't have that kind of filth.

Oh well, I'm really not to concerned ... I'm just disappointed because it was my one connection to the farm this winter. The chickens were my "doing" instead of just reading about it all of the time. We had been experimenting with feed rations, winter shelter, and other stuff and we had been having good results. But, now they are just down in the corner of a shed near my cows.

Just to show that I can be a "glass half full" kind of guy ... earlier this week my church board approved a motion to sell the parsonage that I live in, now it has to go to the congregation. The sale of this house would do a lot to help get the church out of debt and that is my main concern, but it will also help us make a move to the country. If the house was going to be listed this spring we would have moved the chickens anyways, this just forced us to do it earlier.

So, the moral of the story ... if your moving to Knoxville, IA don't bring your chickens into town! :)

**By the way, the second picture in this post is of the chickens in their new shed home**

Winter Digs for the Chickens

You may remember my previous post about building a winter home for our five laying hens. It was great because I had some good ideas from Walter Jeffries over at Sugar Mountain Farm and from the comments on this blog ... but, to tell you the truth not much really happened. Life took over for a little while and the chickens seemed to be handling themselves just fine. So, I guess let's just chalk this year up as experimentation!

But, really they have continued laying at what I would consider a good rate because we aren't providing any artificial light. Our five layers have been giving us between 14 and 18 eggs per week (enough for us) through this winter. Most of the winter they have just been on the garden in the same pen that they were in all year. It is in a good spot so that they are pretty well protected from the wind, but it is still all open.

As you can see from the pictures my wife finally decided to take some initiative and went to Wal-Mart to get $2.00 worth of clear plastic. It's not going to provide much insulation, but it does help some and keeps the wind out. Also, we have added some hay because we have been thawing a bit and they were getting pretty muddy. Besides providing a clean base and a little warmth the hay also provides a little food and insulation for the ground. Just today when I went to gather the eggs (three) I saw some bugs moving around, so I know that our combination is working.

So, here is our recipe ... one $9.00 plastic blue tarp left over from our small boat we sold, two bales of grass hay (from the farm), a few bungee cords (also from boat), and $2.00 of clear plastic from the painting aisle at Wal-Mart. A little more insulation and some light would help, but this seems to be working for us in the snow of Southern Iowa. Plus, the eggs keep coming so these girls are earning their keep over the winter!

Winter Chicken Shelter ... An Appeal for Help!

Okay, this isn't as much as an informative blog, although I will include a couple of links to other helpful blog articles, as it is a plea for help! When we originally brought our chickens home we had thought that we would just keep them through the summer and fall and then make them into stew (or somebody would). But, we have decided that it would be a good idea to try and keep some layers over the winter to experiment and learn. Right now the hens are just in their normal movable pen, but as the temperatures drop and the snow flies I realize it is time to do something winterized ... or slightly winterized.

We would like the girls to keep laying a little bit over the winter just because... We have become accustomed to the eggs each morning and if we are going to be feeding them it would be nice to have something from them. I have thought about a few different ideas for a winter house (each of which include a light bulb or heat lamp), but I haven't really decided on anything. First I was just going to use some OSB I scavenged, some tin that we have down at the farm and some 2x4's to make a lean-to off of our shed. We would then attach our movable pen to give them a little room outside. It seems like a good idea, but then we would have lean-to that wouldn't really be used the rest of the year.

Another idea that we had was to park the pen in the garden and just slap some plywood all the way around (or most of the way) in order to close it up a bit from the wind and cold air. This idea seemed okay, and we could move it if we needed to, but I just thought it wouldn't work very well for bedding or provide much room for the hens.

Then my wife stumbled upon Walter Jeffries' post on his blog, Sugar Mountain Farm, about their "Winter Hen Coop". It is a pretty impressive structure (if practical is impressive ... which I believe it is) that also works as a summer coop. I like the idea and I think I could use a couple of cattle panels to make my frame. Possibly I would just tear apart my present coop in order to make this one because I think it would lighter and easier to move in the coming spring. Also, I love the idea of putting a base of hay bales around the bottom for warmth, bedding, and food. You can also read more about adding a sunroom by reading this POST.

So, do you have any great ideas? We are going to get some new hens in the early spring, but just wanted to winter these over in order to gain experience and keep a small supply of eggs coming in. Oh, I should also probably mention that we are talking about five birds right now, but it has been as high as six.

I look forward to hearing from everyone!

The Contrary Farmer :: Chapter 3 Book Report

I am slowly making my way through my copy of "The Contrary Farmer" by Gene Logsdon, but with all my other new reading material (Stockman Grass Farmer) it takes more time to make it to the end of a chapter. The other day I finished up chapter three of the book. This chapter was titled "The Garden is the Proving Ground for the Farm", and I really see it as a great philosophical chapter. Actually, I see most of Mr. Logsdon's writings as great things to help me wrap my mind around the whys and reasons behind farming the way we are starting to and the way we are wanting to in the future. Sure, there are some practical pointers sprinkled throughout every single chapter, but it also speaks to the philosophy and reason behind those practical ideas.

I won't go into a lot of detail nor relate a lot of stories or antidotes from the chapter for you, but I will tell you that this section of the book made me think a lot about what I need to be doing, thinking, researching, and learning as I'm at a point in my life where I'm not on "the farm", but I'm trying to work towards "the farm". Mr. Logsdon writes about the impact of the backyard garden on the working farm of today. How the methods used by today's gardeners can become the large scale workings of tomorrow's farmers.

As I read this chapter, I kept coming back to a couple of ideas. There is a particular phrase that kind of sums up my thoughts on farming and part of my Christian world view in general. I believe that you have enough time (or money, or passion, or whatever) for whatever you want to have enough for. Meaning, if you want to farm then you will make time to get you closer to that goal instead of going to a ball game, sitting in front of the T.V., buying the latest gadget, or whatever it may be that will keep you from that goal. The second thing that kept popping into my mind in this chapter is that quote from my uncle that I have repeated here on the blog several times. "Reading is good, doing is better!" To me that statement basically says that sometimes you need to make things happen and learn from your experiences.

In light of those two thoughts, we have begun a few things over the past six or seven months to take us on baby steps to our farming. First of all, we decided to take our garden up a notch this year. It didn't mean that we expanded the size of what we were doing, it just meant that we decided to try and do things more effectively. Along those lines my wife researched companion plants that would help keep pests away and nourish the soil for one another. We also started collecting coffee grounds from a local coffee shop and composting our household scraps in order to increase the good organic matter in our soil, and we began raking up our grass clippings to mulch around the plants in the garden to keep moisture in and weeds away. Those steps seemed to improve things a bit over previous years and gave us lots of new ideas to try next year.

Secondly, we decided to throw caution to the wind and build a chicken tractor for the backyard. We have been blessed with a decent sized yard so we built a 8 ft. x 5 ft. or so pen that we move around the yard each day. At the most this past summer, we have had six older laying hens in it, and we have received as many as 35 eggs each week. This has been a great learning and doing experience on so many levels. We have been able to experiment with three different types of feed (the mixed feed that my uncle used was the best hands down), to see just how much room these birds need and how much the grass supplements their feed, and we saw how much the birds thatched and fertilized our lawn (just think if had been our pasture!). I have loved having these hens over the summer and have learned so much. In fact, I'm going to be building a winter spot for them and putting in some light to see if we can keep them laying at some level over the winter. Next spring we plan on getting some younger birds to experiment with and sending these off to someone's stew pot.

The final thing we have done this year is actually a rather large step. We decided that we wanted to get a couple Dexters to experiment with and learn about grass-finishing beef and then preparing grass-finished beef for the table. So, after much ... much ... much research, we decided to go with purebred Dexters. We went out and got ourselves a bred heifer and a steer to finish for next fall. These animals were going to end up living at my dad's farm where grass was abundant. Well, two turned into six ... and lo and behold six turned into thirteen. Now we have nine cow/heifers and four bull/steer calves. The reason this research/experience developed so quickly is because we believe there is a market for Dexters right now in our area of the Midwest (either as beef or breeding stock) and because land on the farm just came out of CRP opening up much more grazing land. It is practically as easy to take care of thirteen as it is two ... you just need bigger fences, more hay for the winter, and a few other things. We decided we had all of those things and went ahead with the beginnings of the Stoneyfield Dexter herd. From this we have learned and practiced so many practical things dealing with fencing, grazing, pasture management, forages, cattle health, and so much more. Plus, I have now roped the rest of the family into this whole dream of ours!

The point being is that we are taking these "garden experiences" and trying to learn and grow from them so that we can work at a larger level. We don't know when or where God will take us, but we know that we have a passion for His people, His creation, and bring both of those together in the beauty and wonder of all that God is.

So yeah, it was a good chapter and really made me think!