Broody Hens & Hatching Chicks

We have new chicks at Sakonnet Farm, hatched the old fashioned way. This is the second time we had the mama birds do the work for us, my post about the first time can be found here. When the chickens get broody, they spend all day sitting on their eggs, regardless if you go in there everyday and take the eggs out. Which, by the way, is easier said than done. My new twitter friend Renee wrote about it very nicely on Examiner.com. I want to thank her for helping me with my in my struggles to get our logo to fit nicely into the avatar box which is also easier said than done! Anyway, someone asked if I would write about having 3 broody hens at a time and how did we manage the logistics.

At Sakonnet Farm, we have a large coop that is split into three separate pens. The largest pen had all the chickens with roosts and nesting boxes. When we decided to let these chickens sit on the eggs, we moved some nesting boxes into another of the pens that was empty at the time. We then moved the chickens & their eggs. They had their own food & water- not that we ever saw them eat or drink. They hardly ever move! Although the kids told me that they occasionally would switch nesting boxes with each other.

At exactly three weeks, Jonathan went in to check on them and there were the chicks!

Over the next day or two, there were 16 healthy chicks hatched. But now they were up in the nesting boxes, couldn't reach the food or water and there were three mama hens. How was this going to work? I gently transferred everyone down to the ground and there were no issues! The mama's didn't fuss with each other at all. The babies went right to the food and water following their moms. There were still a couple eggs left to hatch so at night the two black chickens would sit on them and this one tan chicken got the pleasure of caring for all 16!

Sorry about the quality of the picture, I only had my iPhone and it doesn't take the greatest pictures in the dark. It is SO cute to see all the chicks peeking out from all under the mama bird. Sometimes they ride around on the mom's backs, also very cute.

We have 3-4 other chickens who have decided they want to be mama birds. I was trying to break them of it by taking the eggs every day- we are trying to sell eggs here! But that wasn't working, so yesterday I moved two of them and their eggs over to the nesting boxes with these guys. They went the boxes and there was no issue. Today I will see if the others are still in the nesting boxes and I will move them too. I'm figuing by the time these chicks are hatching the baby birds will be big eough to move in with the others. If not, we still have another pen we can use for one of the groups.

The downside to hatching chicks this way is that the numbers are smaller and you get more roosters than if you ordered chicks from a hatchery. But the upside is there is no labor for you. The chickens do all the work! It is also SO cute to see the mama's with their babies and they are safer having adult chickens with them.

So that is how it's worked over here at Sakonnet Farm. I'd love to hear about your experiences with hatching chicks.

Preserving Summer's Bounty- Cucumbers

We have had a very hot and dry (not much rain, plenty of humidity) summer which began very early this year. This has put all the crops about 2 weeks ahead of schedule. My neighbor told me yesterday he was picking his sweet corn on the 3rd of July!! Strawberries came out when the kids were still in school, thankfully we were able to pick once before they were finished. Our first crop of raspberries have come and gone already and blueberries are in full swing. We still pick at Boughs & Berries here in Little Compton, and hope to get there this week. We do have our own bushes but this is their first year, and what they did produce the birds got.

What we do have a ton of right now is cucumbers! We love cucumbers, just cut up with a bit of Nakano seasoned vinegar- yum! But, one (or 6 in our case) can only eat so much, so I try to make time to get into the kitchen and can some for the winter. So far I have made bread & butter pickles and have plans to make sweet pickle relish, both from my tried & true Ball Blue Book of Preserving.

Bread & Butter Pickles

yield: 7 pints (you know I tripled it of course)

4 lbs 4-6 in cucumbers cut into 1/4 inch slices (about 7 med cucumbers, I leave the skin on)

2 lbs onions, thinly sliced (about 8 small, I found to be a bit much)

1/3 cup canning salt

2 cups sugar

2 tbsp mustard seed

2 tsp turmeric

2 tsp celery seed

1 tsp ginger

1 tsp peppercorns

3 cups vinegar

Combine cucumber and onion slices in a bowl, layering with the salt; cover with ice cubes. Let stand 1 1/2 hours. Drain; rinse; drain again. (keep going here- more is better) Combine remaining ingredients in a large saucepot; bring to a boil. Add drained cucumbers and onions and return to a boil. Pack hot pickles and liquid into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Remove air bubbles. Adjust 2 piece caps. Process 10 minutes in a boiling water canner.

Sweet Pickle Relish
yield: about 8 half pints
1 quart chopped cucumbers (about 4 medium)
2 cups chopped onions (about 2 medium)
1 cup chopped sweet green pepper (about 1 medium)
1 cup chopped sweet red pepper (about 1 medium)
1/4 cup salt
3 1/2 cups sugar (I try to decrease this by about 1/3-1/2)
1 tbsp celery seed
1 tbsp mustard seed
2 cups cider vinegar

Combine cucumbers, onions, green & red peppers in a large bowl; sprinkle with salt and cover with cold water. Let stand 2 hours. Drain; rinse and drain thoroughly (make sure they are really rinsed!!) Combine sugar, spices and vinegar; simmer 10 minutes. Pack hot relish into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch head space. Remove air bubbles. Adjust 2 piece caps. Process 10 minutes in a boiling water canner.

notes- I cannot stress enough the drain & rinse part of the recipe, nothing worse than too much salt.
If you have never boiled vinegar before, watch out for the smell, whew, it's strong!
Put the water to boil for the canner on first. It always takes longer than I think.
Make time for this, I know there is nothing worse than a hot kitchen in the middle of the summer but what could be better than opening a jar of homemade pickles in the middle of the winter?

Since I have been away from blogging for so long, there has been some major changes over here at blogger central. One thing is the new share- it widget, I'm glad they finally figured that out. So please, share away. Also new was something called Zemanta assistant. It suggests pictures, links to other blogs and wikipedia in-text links as you go- what a huge time saver!! That is how I got the picture of my favorite canning book in here, and I will link to a couple of the blogs they suggested. As a funny side note, when I looked over at Simply Cooking's blog, she linked to one of my favorites, Pam's Sidewalk Shoes, even the blogger world is a small place!! It's good to be back, but now I must go outside and give everyone a drink, it's going to be another hot one!!

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