At the beginning of year three on the farm, we started this blog to document
our journey into self-sufficient homesteading and voluntary simplicity.
We're glad to have you along for the ride!
Joel Johnson over at Boing
Boing posted this interesting net gun
that you can build for around 50 bucks.
The net is 90 square feet and will travel 15 to 25 feet using
compressed air.
This could make catching extra zippy chickens a bit easier, and it
provides a non-lethal way of dealing with those neighborhood kids who
keep jumping into your yard to retrieve their ball or frisbee.
This is a picture of hen number 6. Hen number
5 if you ask Anna. She's at the bottom of the pecking order and had to
be isolated because it was just too sad watching her getting picked on
by the other hens.
Now she gets to roam free on most days, adding a certain flare to the
place that makes me feel like I'm on the set of a movie and she's been
added at the last minute for additional atmosphere for whatever new and
wild scene is coming up next.
2008 was filled with a generous portion of good and happy scenes that
make me feel confident I'm exactly where I need to be and doing exactly
what I need to be doing. I offer everyone reading this a warm and
happy toast for good tidings in 2009.
Have you ever wondered what a world would
be like where humans and chickens shared the top of the food chain?
Gerry Alanguilan
has created such a world in his unique graphic series titled "Elmer".
He actually makes a chicken look natural in a three piece suit, which
might not be a good idea in the real world.
I'm sure the dynamic around the farm would be altogether different,
and maybe you could expect to get bigger eggs, but the increase in attitude would be a high price to pay.
Click on the link in the picture to download a free copy from the
artist.
Finally, the moment everyone's been waiting for --- time
to select the winner of the Avian Aqua Miser Giveaway! The winner
is....Cara Blocker from Colorado!
We had 22 entries, which was an all-time high for us. I wish I
could send a free Avian Aqua Miser to everyone, but for those of you
who didn't win and would still like to pamper your hens, you can buy
single units, groups of three, or do-it-yourself kits over in our store.
The photo to the left shows how you can make a waterer for your
chickens out of any reused bottle using our do-it-yourself kit.
This is actually the way we originally envisioned the product working
before we discovered that no one in our area recycles plastic and that
we wanted the water reservoir to be bigger.
Thank you all for entering, and I'll look forward to hearing from those of
you who make the plunge about how you like your Avian Aqua Miser!
Mark
is hibernating today as he refills his mind with quiet, but luckily I
have about twenty things I want to post about. Tonight, you get
the photos I promised you this morning.
My predator eyes hanging method is simple --- a wire strung through the
hole in the unit which slips over a screw I drove in various posts and
tree trunks. When scaring away deer with the predator eyes, it's
essential to move them every few days so the deer don't get used to
them, so I'm hoping the easy hang approach will make moving them simple
enough that I'll do it in a timely manner. I appreciate those of
you who commented this morning about your good experiences with the
product. I hope I have equally good luck!
On an unrelated note, for those of you who have chickens, I highly recommend that you check out
Harvey
Ussery's website. I've noticed recently that whenever I read
an article I really like in the Backyard Poultry Magazine or Mother
Earth News, Harvey is the author. Specifically, you must check
out his article about a Vermont composting facility which breeds chickens
on mounds of compost and manure with no added storebought feed ---
this is something I may have to try out on a much smaller scale once
our manure source has their next load ready for us!
Tomorrow evening, we'll return you to your regularly scheduled male
perspective of the farm.
We're
home from a wonderful visit with Mark's family in Ohio. As usual, I'm
thrilled to be home, even though coming home to the farm is never easy.
We carefully picked warm nights to be gone, but we didn't
think to check whether the warmth also equated to rain. It did. When we
got home with two big boxes of frozen food, we found that the creek was
nearly up to the footbridge --- definitely too high to drive the golf
cart across. So instead we filled backpacks and braved the footbridge,
slipping and sliding all the way home.
Luckily, everything else
seems to have gone according to plan. The
chickens still had plenty of water in their Avian Aqua Misers, though
one set had scratched up the earth under their tractor into a mass of
mud. Huckleberry seems to have caught a cold, sniffling and whining
around the house, but after half a can of tuna he curled up to go to
sleep. Lucy ran out to meet us, overjoyed as always by her adventures.
I forgot to mention the fact that these last two videos are of one of
the first versions of the Avian Aqua Miser. I started out with a small
plastic honey bottle, but found on hot days it was just barely enough
water to last all day.
The final product holds up to a half gallon of water, which makes it
wider and heavier and eliminates the problem of swinging, which the
hens seemed to not mind, but it made me dizzy after watching them
longer than a few minutes.
This video demonstrates how several hens can share the same Avian Aqua
Miser and be happy about it.
I took this 15 second video yesterday
to show the Avian Aqua Miser in action.
Our chickens will never drink dirty water again, and that's well worth
the admission price because that warm and fuzzy feeling continues to
grow each time you watch them drink with such enthusiasm.
The day has finally come for
us to announce and give away Mark's invention! Introducing ---
the Avian Aqua Miser!
Like most chicken owners, I used to moan and complain about the
vagaries of watering hens in tractors. Their waterers would tip
and spill on uneven terrain and one of our hens died of heat exhaustion
on a hot summer day as a result. When the waterers didn't spill,
it seemed like they got covered with poop within minutes of being
refreshed --- ugh.
So Mark put on his thinking cap, and four or five incarnations later
he's developed a product that I adore. In our six hen tractor,
half a gallon of water in our Avian Aqua Miser lasts for several days
in cool weather and the hens seem to get a kick out of pecking at the
nipple. Clean, clear water for our chickens!
And time to share the joy with a giveaway! Check out our usual giveaway
guidelines (but note that this giveaway will end on Saturday,
December 20 since I'm starting it so late in the week.) In
addition to an Avian Aqua Miser, we're going to throw in the e-books
and video we developed to go along with it which are explained in our store. If you have chickens
or think you want to get some, I highly recommend you enter this
giveaway --- I can't live without our Avian Aqua Misers now!
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This is a picture of hen number 6. Hen number
5 if you ask Anna. She's at the bottom of the pecking order and had to
be isolated because it was just too sad watching her getting picked on
by the other hens.
Finally, the moment everyone's been waiting for --- time
to select the winner of the Avian Aqua Miser Giveaway! The winner
is....
