"I'm molting! Molting"

 In the Coop

A couple of the girls are in a hard molt and it was downright scary!  I decided I had better do a little research about molting and how to help the girls out during this difficult time.

Shorter days can trigger a response in poultry to shed their old feathers and produce new ones for the upcoming winter.  Feathers help to protect the birds against rain, snow and cold temperatures.  This happens every year.  Old feathers are dropped and new ones grow in.  

I had read that young hens (less than 12 months) may not molt the first year but there are definitely a couple girls that are molting.  Notice how "mottled" their appearance is...

Molting can take between 3 and 16 weeks.  Feathers are about 85% protein (keratin protein, to be exact) so it is good to give extra protein while the girls are molting.  Sunflower seeds were mentioned as a good source of extra protein.  Our girls already get sunflower seeds for treats every day.  I had also read that you can feed flock raiser which has a higher amount of protein than layer feed.

Growing feathers is hard work so the chickens and ducks may temporarily quit laying eggs while their body puts all its energy into growing new feathers.  Molting can be mild or severe. Some hens molt slowly, just losing a few feathers here and there over a longer period of time. Other chickens molt quickly, dropping lots of feathers suddenly. These are called 'soft' and 'hard' molts, respectively.  Here is an example of a hard molt...

I have seen this girl get picked on a bit.  This may happen when they go through a hard molt.  I am keeping an eye on the situation and we will put her in the quarantine cage if things start to get out of hand.  So far, she has done a good job of getting away from the bullies.

A hen/ducks egg production is also tied to light, as mentioned earlier.  A hen/duck needs at least 14 hours of light each day to keep laying eggs.  We do provide lighting in our coops to keep the girls laying.  Our chickens and ducks receive good quality feed and treats all year long so we expect them to work in the winter too (after they have finished molting).

We did purchase some game bird feed.  It is 30% protein.  The girls eat about 23 pounds of feed a day so I would put out about 5 pounds of the game bird feed to increase the amount of protein available to them.  I have been feeding this through the month of October but I don't expect to continue this practice.  We also experimented with fermenting some feed but that will be for a future blog post...stay tuned...

Have an eggcellent day!

~Denise

The Plum Patch...

 The Plum Patch

When we moved here, the neighbor pointed out the plum patch to the north of the property.  We rode his ATV out to get a closer look...

It looks pretty nice from a distance but as you get closer you can see all the bryony choking out some of the trees.  Bryony is a terrible noxious weed that is almost impossible to get rid of.  It grows on some of the apple trees on our property but I am able to pull most of it out.

The brown vines on the trees is the bryony

The plum patch is also where the coyotes hang out.  Here you can see an entrance that goes back into the plum bushes...

So, we have been here 3 years and I finally got out to pick some plums!  There are 3 different kind of plums in the patch.  The first one pictured is what I consider a "regular" plum...

Then, there were a few smaller purple plums...

Finally, there are a bunch of greengage plums.  These plums are smaller green/yellow colored plums.  They are a European plum but originated from Iran.  They are considered a fine dessert plum.

I was able to pick quite a good size bucket of the greengages.  

I wanted to make some jam.  I could only find European recipes that used grams and milliliters in their measurements.  Luckily, I have a food scale so this wasn't a problem and I got the jam made.  This is the first pectin-free jam that I have ever made.  It turned a deep brown color similar to a plum butter.  I was kind of hoping it would stay that goofy green color...that would have been great for Halloween...

After making 2 batches of jam, I still had plums leftover.  If you have ever worked with plums, you know that once you pick them, they need to be used right away.  They don't really keep that well.  I decided to dehydrate some of the plums...

...and then I made an upside down plum cake with the last of the plums.  I am not sure how appetizing this looks.  It may have looked better with purple plums but it tasted great!

The plums were small and the pit did not really come out easily but I am happy with the results.  Hard to pass up on free food!  I "planted" the pits out by the chickens/ducks so we will see if I get any plum bushes growing next spring. 

A wonderful, egg delivery customer shared his Italian Plum tree with us!  I also made some Italian Plum jam.

I picked up some grounders, pitted them, and gave some to the girls!  They loved them!

Have an eggcellent day!

~Denise