Consolidated Kansas

[JiltdRoyalty]

I LOVE CHEESE!
Just saying!

 

[HEChicken]

Trish44, is the gander that follows Jasmine one of the ones that is staying or going? It sounds like he is staying....

Yeah, I'll keep you all posted on the cheese. Honestly, it looks like a cheese lab in here at the moment. I started making cheese to fix the problem of too much milk but now we have a problem of more cheese than we can eat (I know - first world problems, right?) Fortunately some of it is fresh cheese that needs to be eaten sooner while other varieties need to be aged so won't be ready until the milk glut is history.

That's the problem with farming....stabilizing the production. Its hard to have a year-round production of anything that only meets one's needs. Either you have more than you can use or not enough. A few months ago we were milking one cow and she was also raising her calf so the amount we were getting was barely enough to meet the family needs, let alone have any left over. Then the calf got weaned and another cow came on board and with two cows and no calf, it is a whole different story. The same with eggs. To have enough to produce eggs year-round, it means in spring we get more eggs than we know what to do with.

Hey - its a cooler day - custard is sounding like a really good idea!

Back to cheese.....I have a tray of camembert that are drying but are about ready to go into the cheese cave. They are starting to develop mold on their outer surface (what is supposed to happen for anyone unfamiliar with Camembert). I have an Alpine Tomme that has just gone into the brine. Once brined it will be waxed and will go into the cheese cave for several months. The chèvre is drained and in the fridge - tomorrow it will be turned into a cheesecake. I have a batch of cottage cheese at an intermediate stage to be finished later today. And a batch of Crottin de Chavignol (another French, mold-ripened cheese) in the early stage. It needs to rest for 24 hours before proceeding to the next stage. Those are all in my kitchen right now - the cheese cave has a bunch more that still need some kind of daily treatment, even if it is just turning it.

Oh - and I made a batch of yogurt yesterday as well.

And yet.....when DS opened the fridge this morning he said there was more milk in it than ever.

Enough about dairy products. My Royal Palm turkey's hatch is over and she started to move her brood to the chicken yard. Luckily I went out at just the right time to help her. She had jumped over the fence into the chicken yard and was in the process of encouraging her poults to go through/under it. I'm not sure what her plan was after that. She must have been hungry and thirsty as she's been sitting while they hatch for the past few days without moving. However she would have had to go into the coop to find food and I'm sure she wouldn't have wanted to leave the poults outside while she ate. So I want to think she was relieved to see me coming. I moved them all into the hoop coop with a minimum of fuss and she immediately dove into the food, the poults following her lead.

As of last night, I have no more broody hens for awhile - yay!!! That silly bird that went broody on the roosts, moved to the floor of the coop. I put a little A-Frame coop over her, waited 24 hours to be sure she accepted that and last night gave her two chicks. As of this morning she hadn't killed them and was making her soft cluck-cluck-cluck sounds, indicating she has accepted the chicks. She is a tough bird as she is frequently broody, and an excellent mother, but has very set ideas about parenting and won't accept ANY deviation from her plan. Moving her nest even a few inches will upset her to the point she'll kill a chick, so I have to move very slowly and gently with her to get her to accept chicks. Once she does, she will protect them fiercely, even though she is only a bantam hen herself. So it is always a relief to find that she has accepted rather than killed the chicks I give her to raise.

Fingers crossed for no more broodies for awhile - I don't need any more chicks hatched!!!

 

[JiltdRoyalty]

@HEChicken, I would love to come out for a visit, though it might be awhile before I can. Any thought to selling off some of your cheese?

 

[JiltdRoyalty]

Shoot, may have gotten you confused with @chicken danz, as far as that visit. I'm not wanting to buy chicks from TSC anymore. Lol

 

[lizzyGSR]

I decided to let my chickens free range for the first time today. So far, the dogs (even the puppy) have done really well. It is such a treat to see the chickens running around and exploring - and then all racing back to the coop when something startles them.

Now, I just hope that they all go back to the coop at bedtime tonight!

 

[sharol]

I decided to let my chickens free range for the first time today.  So far, the dogs (even the puppy) have done really well.  It is such a treat to see the chickens running around and exploring - and then all racing back to the coop when something startles them.      Now, I just hope that they all go back to the coop at bedtime tonight!  

Mine would follow me into hell if I shook a plastic cup full of scratch in their faces.

 

[HEChicken]

@HEChicken , I would love to come out for a visit, though it might be awhile before I can. Any thought to selling off some of your cheese?

Shoot, may have gotten you confused with @chicken danz , as far as that visit. I'm not wanting to buy chicks from TSC anymore. Lol

If you're in Wichita, I'm not near as far from you as is Chicken Danz. As for selling cheese....DH did suggest it. The problem is, until we cut into a cheese and taste it, we don't know if it will be any good or not, which makes it hard to distribute as I'd hate for anyone to go away with awful cheese. We may have to do a tasting day at some point.

*********

I did a batch of fermented cheese, using the mesophilic culture suggested in that article Trish44 linked to. I can see now why they suggest fermenting for four days as at the 72 hour mark it was still very actively fermenting which means the bacteria were still in the process of breaking down the food and boosting the protein content. I know from beer-making that its best to wait until the fermentation is complete before bottling or the beer won't be any good, so I'm guessing the same would be true of the FF - i.e., until the fermentation is complete, the benefits aren't achieved. Unfortunately, unlike beer-making, which emits a pleasant, yeasty aroma, I did not care for the more sour smell arising from the FF as it fermented. It probably didn't help it was in my kitchen so I could smell it the whole time. On day 4, I used cheesecloth in a colander and poured the entire bucket into a second bucket, then left it to drain overnight. Next morning I carried the FF down and fed it to the birds in a rubber pan, decreasing the dry pellets I put in the feeder by quite a bit. It got a lot of interest until it was gone and the pan was cleaned out next time I visited. However I don't think the hassle is worth it to me to do it very often. This was only a small batch - not enough to feed all the birds for one day - and it does seem that in order to really achieve the benefits, it needs to ferment until the bacteria quit working and die off which in this case took about four days. So in order to feed my entire flock exclusively FF, I would need to do more in each batch, and have 4 batches going at a time, which would take up a ton of space and that amount would really give off some unpleasant (IMO) smells. Plus, there was the mess and time of draining it and then hauling it down there. So, even though I have the whey and I'm sure that is a benefit in the process, I don't think I'll be doing it except as an occasional treat. Perhaps if my flock were smaller.....

Interestingly, I carried down the bucket of whey that I had drained off post-fermentation and put it in the pasture, thinking the LGDs might enjoy drinking it. To my surprise, the goats walked over, started drinking and finished it off! I never dreamed they would like it. This was whey that had fermented feed for 4 days and was then drained off so I'm not sure what the nutritional analysis on it would be compared to whey drained straight off the cheese. This morning I offered a bucket of the latter and the goats sniffed it but didn't seem interested.

My poor dogs are about whey-ed out. Used to be, they'd drink a large bowl of it without lifting their heads. Now I put it out and they drink some but leave some. It does eventually get finished, but they clearly have had enough that its not that great to them any more.

 

[lizzyGSR]

Mine would follow me into hell if I shook a plastic cup full of scratch in their faces.

How do you train them to do that? this is my first year with chickens, and I'm learning LOTS in the process. I've tried to teach them to come when I call, but so far it's only a so-so response.

 

[sharol]

Quote:
I use the same phrase every time: Chick, Chick Chiiiiiiiiiiii ic. Repeated continually. I shake a plastic cup I got at the zoo in Wichita vigorously (half full of sunflower seeds and scratch) and make the same sound each time. It only takes one or two who figure out that means treats are coming and the others will fall in line. it is the ONLY time they get scratch, so it is really special to them. They come running from all corners of the yard to follow me to the run to get the scratch that I shake around on the ground. Then, quick as a bunny, I close the door to the run. I make a practice of counting to be sure everyone is in (lesson learned when the dog killed a girl I had inadvertently left in the yard while I was gone). I've used the same phrase and noise with chicks as soon as I get them until they are ready to go out. Chick chick chiiiiiiii ik, shake shake shake (give them the scrambled eggs) in the brooder. They learn really fast if you are consistent.

 

[chicken danz]

Trish44, is the gander that follows Jasmine one of the ones that is staying or going? It sounds like he is staying....

Yeah, I'll keep you all posted on the cheese. Honestly, it looks like a cheese lab in here at the moment. I started making cheese to fix the problem of too much milk but now we have a problem of more cheese than we can eat (I know - first world problems, right?) Fortunately some of it is fresh cheese that needs to be eaten sooner while other varieties need to be aged so won't be ready until the milk glut is history.

That's the problem with farming....stabilizing the production. Its hard to have a year-round production of anything that only meets one's needs. Either you have more than you can use or not enough. A few months ago we were milking one cow and she was also raising her calf so the amount we were getting was barely enough to meet the family needs, let alone have any left over. Then the calf got weaned and another cow came on board and with two cows and no calf, it is a whole different story. The same with eggs. To have enough to produce eggs year-round, it means in spring we get more eggs than we know what to do with.

Hey - its a cooler day - custard is sounding like a really good idea!

Back to cheese.....I have a tray of camembert that are drying but are about ready to go into the cheese cave. They are starting to develop mold on their outer surface (what is supposed to happen for anyone unfamiliar with Camembert). I have an Alpine Tomme that has just gone into the brine. Once brined it will be waxed and will go into the cheese cave for several months. The chèvre is drained and in the fridge - tomorrow it will be turned into a cheesecake. I have a batch of cottage cheese at an intermediate stage to be finished later today. And a batch of Crottin de Chavignol (another French, mold-ripened cheese) in the early stage. It needs to rest for 24 hours before proceeding to the next stage. Those are all in my kitchen right now - the cheese cave has a bunch more that still need some kind of daily treatment, even if it is just turning it.

Oh - and I made a batch of yogurt yesterday as well.

And yet.....when DS opened the fridge this morning he said there was more milk in it than ever.

Enough about dairy products. My Royal Palm turkey's hatch is over and she started to move her brood to the chicken yard. Luckily I went out at just the right time to help her. She had jumped over the fence into the chicken yard and was in the process of encouraging her poults to go through/under it. I'm not sure what her plan was after that. She must have been hungry and thirsty as she's been sitting while they hatch for the past few days without moving. However she would have had to go into the coop to find food and I'm sure she wouldn't have wanted to leave the poults outside while she ate. So I want to think she was relieved to see me coming. I moved them all into the hoop coop with a minimum of fuss and she immediately dove into the food, the poults following her lead.

As of last night, I have no more broody hens for awhile - yay!!! That silly bird that went broody on the roosts, moved to the floor of the coop. I put a little A-Frame coop over her, waited 24 hours to be sure she accepted that and last night gave her two chicks. As of this morning she hadn't killed them and was making her soft cluck-cluck-cluck sounds, indicating she has accepted the chicks. She is a tough bird as she is frequently broody, and an excellent mother, but has very set ideas about parenting and won't accept ANY deviation from her plan. Moving her nest even a few inches will upset her to the point she'll kill a chick, so I have to move very slowly and gently with her to get her to accept chicks. Once she does, she will protect them fiercely, even though she is only a bantam hen herself. So it is always a relief to find that she has accepted rather than killed the chicks I give her to raise.

Fingers crossed for no more broodies for awhile - I don't need any more chicks hatched!!!

I wish I was close to you to try some of your cheese.
Using whey must be entirely different than ACV, it keeps fermenting as you add more water and grain each day and it takes on a very pleasing odor. However I just don't have the time or the strength to do it for my menagerie.
Quote:

Shoot, may have gotten you confused with @chicken danz , as far as that visit. I'm not wanting to buy chicks from TSC anymore. Lol

I've got gobs of chicks but it is a couple hours from Wichita. Trish44 is much closer. If you knew what you wanted my son plans to come up in a couple of weekends and he could take some home with him if you could pick them up right away. He has no experience with birds and they are a very busy couple. He lives in Bel Aire

I decided to let my chickens free range for the first time today. So far, the dogs (even the puppy) have done really well. It is such a treat to see the chickens running around and exploring - and then all racing back to the coop when something startles them.

Now, I just hope that they all go back to the coop at bedtime tonight!

Now you are finally getting to see the real joys of raising chickens. That is what I miss the most. Just being able to sit and watch them. No time these days.
Quote:

Quote: I just yell Cheekons! They know that is a word that means I have something good to eat. Also the free rangers see my feed wagon and come running regardless.