I just ordered chicks for the first time!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Beekissed]

I ordered:

Dominiques--5
Buff Orpingtons---3
New Hampshire---5
Partridge Plymouth Rocks--3 hens, 1 rooster
White Pl. Rocks---5
Black Stars---5

I wanted sooooo many more and different breeds but I couldn't afford it and I had to concentrate on the breeds that had characteristics I need:

Big brown egg layers
Heavy, meaty bodies
Good, consistent laying
Good mothers(as I want to raise my own chicks from now on.)
And, of course, for their beauty and variety of colors. I love to see the different colors sprinkled across the green lawn, so cheerful and restful. I chose the PPR rooster for his beauty and for the breed characteristics and I hope he turns out to be a gentleman like my RIR. I will keep my old RIR, as he is sweet and takes good care of his girls. I also admire the breed characteristics of the RIR, though he is pretty small for the breed.

I can't wait to watch them grow and develop the kind of personalities that lead to proper naming!

 

[kodiakchicken]

Quote:
I am!!! We already lived a fairly subsistence based lifestyle but we are going several steps farther this year. Last year I started a garden and got great lettuce and peas. My strawberries and rhubarb should be better this year and I'm going to plant a ton more lettuce. I'm also going to grow potatoes (if it ever stops raining). We got five hens and three ducks (hopefully they will be hens) and will use them for eggs. We also traded a fancy shotgun my husband won a couple years ago for a brand-new gill-net that will be used to net salmon to be canned and frozen. We don't have a boat but a neighbor has a boat and no net so we're going to combine efforts. Then there will be berry picking all summer for jams and frozen berries and deer hunting in the fall. Hopefully we can throw a couple halibut in and we'll be fairly set through the year.

I'm thinking next year I want to order a couple more hens and some of the "packing peanut" roosters and I'll cull the roosters out in the fall for freezer chickens.

What else is everyone doing?

 

[Beekissed]

I am growing a massive, raised-bed, no-till garden and I plan to sell the excess at the roadside. I plan to get honeybees next year, put in some flowers to cut and dry, to sell the arrangements. I am hoping the hens will get broody and start raising their own for replacement hens and broilers. I would love to get a Dorper ewe and breed her locally to a market ram and sell the babies each year, maybe milk her a little and use it for my soaps. I am going to make herbal soaps, lotions and sugarscrubs and sell them to the tourist

. I also plan to sell veggies, fruit, honey, misc. crafts, eggs and worms.

I recently completed a Medical Transcription course and hope to get an at-home position (to cut down on gas usage and spend more time with my remaining chick...the teenager!)

I plan to can and freeze everything I can get my hands on, sell the rest, donate some to local food pantry.

By next year, I hope to refine all the gardening choices for optimum marketing at the roadside and grow my own plants from seed. I have already built 3 large cold frames so I can have fresh veggies all winter. I hope to purchase some grow lights, I am saving all my 6-paks, pots, and flats from this year to utilize for my own mini greenhouse. My beds are 35 ft. x 4 ft. and I have 9 of them, but hope to develop more by next year.

I have an orchard of 15 of the best mountain apples in the world and this year we are picking and selling at roadside. If I can't pick them myself in the later years, I plan to have a U-Pick orchard.

I also want to plant thornless blackberries and raspberries, dwarf cherry and possibly blueberries by next year. I would like to achieve almost complete food independence by next year or the year after. A friend from church gave me 10 35# tins of red turkey wheat and a wheat grinder for my breadmaking! I have a sourdough starter and hope to eliminate using yeast for a riser.

Anybody else??? I think everyone is going to eventually have to make some choices about growing their own food...simply for health reasons, as well as the cost issue.

 

[CathyB]

You would not believe how many people I know that are planning gardens that never had them before! I wanted a garden and chickens this year. Dh told me one at a time and to pick what I wanted this year. I picked the chickens since I did not want to give him a chance to change his mind before next year!

So far I grow on my propertyeach, plum, cherry, and pear trees. Blueberry bushes. Basil, Tymne

I want to add: veggies (lettuce, carrots, peppers, tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, carrots, potatoes, ect)

I have a friend planting a large garden and I am asking her to barter! Fresh eggs fro fresh veggies!

 

[m_herrington]

Quote:
I am!!! We already lived a fairly subsistence based lifestyle but we are going several steps farther this year. Last year I started a garden and got great lettuce and peas. My strawberries and rhubarb should be better this year and I'm going to plant a ton more lettuce. I'm also going to grow potatoes (if it ever stops raining). We got five hens and three ducks (hopefully they will be hens) and will use them for eggs. We also traded a fancy shotgun my husband won a couple years ago for a brand-new gill-net that will be used to net salmon to be canned and frozen. We don't have a boat but a neighbor has a boat and no net so we're going to combine efforts. Then there will be berry picking all summer for jams and frozen berries and deer hunting in the fall. Hopefully we can throw a couple halibut in and we'll be fairly set through the year.

I'm thinking next year I want to order a couple more hens and some of the "packing peanut" roosters and I'll cull the roosters out in the fall for freezer chickens.

What else is everyone doing?

I am planting a garden for the second year. Sweet corn, hopefully with plenty extra to freeze for winter, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, garlic, onions, carrots, cucumbers, gourds, pumpkins, etc. I make my own spaghetti sauce and can it. I have strawberries and new black raspberry bushes to plant. I hope to make some jams and maybe freeze some berries.

I have ordered 15 pullets to arrive around June 5th. I am very anxiously anticipating their arrival. I hope to have plenty of eggs for my use and sell extras to friends. I am also considering getting some ducks... I have a small pond.

There is special local program that is going to set up 100 new beekeepers in my area and I have signed up for that... so hopefully I will be able to start beekeepong through that program. If I cannot get started through that program I would still like to get some bees in a year or two.

I have also bought a spinning wheel and started spinning my own yarn. I bought an English Angora rabbit for wool production and I am tentatively considering getting started with some Mohair goats or possibly sheep.

I would also like to plant some fruit trees, but my space is limited right now. I own 5 acres, but most of it is wooded and a very steep grade

.

I am doing what I can for now to try to be self reliant at least is some areas, I would love to eventually buy a farm and provide for all of my needs through that, but if that day ever comes, it will be a long time coming...

 

[Beekissed]

I am thrilled to see so many people doing the intelligent thing and preparing for a rough future!!!

M Herrington...what is the name of your local program for beekeepers? I would like to do a search and find if there are any such organizations in my neck of the woods. I really need help, both financially and with mentoring, to start beekeeping. I feel like everyone should try in every way to foster food independence right now and honey makes a healthy, great sweetener!

I also plan to apply for a deer permit this year and not wait until hunting season to kill a few out of my apple orchard. We have tons of deer in the orchard, right up until deer season, when they start baiting them with corn around here. Then they only come in after dark when they can't be hunted. We had 13 regulars coming in all summer and fall up until deer season. FREE meat for the freezer! Good, lean and healthy. Way too many deer around here, so the deer are all very small due to overpopulation. We killed an 8-point last year that was no bigger than a normal yearling!

Anybody else out there planning for greater independence this year?

I love the idea of spinning your own wool, Herrington! I've always wanted to try that!

 

[BaronRenfrew]

Oh no... it got you too! Birds on the brain!

So far I haven't found a place to go for rehab for this ailment.

If anyone knows of a place please let me know.

Godspeed, Bert

 

[m_herrington]

Quote:
The beekeeping program is through a bunch of organizations working together... Ohio State Beekeepers Association and Crossroads RC&D are the two I can think of ATM.

My boss got a deer permit very easily.. they can hunt until midnight and after 5 am i think and they let him pick how many he wanted to shoot...

I am really enjoying spinning, but it is something that is hard to find time for this time of year. I am sure I will be going crazy this winter with it, I am so busy now that i don't have much time to spend with it... and after tomorrow I will have 51 peeps to raise and no coop started yet! so its only going to get worse!

 

[rebeccakeesee]

I live in a town nome in the city. I garden from large containers. Squash Green beans Peppers I started a fig tree this year. And tons of tomatos. It has been a hobby But were planning on making the move to the country next year and home to aquire about 5 acres. Where we will rais a steer or two for meat and generally become less dependent on Grocery chains. I also sew alot of my daughters clothes. Its fun for me and I can make a nice sun dress for 4 bucks and it feels great when my girls tell people I made it for them. This year I stared keeping chickens as pets and egg layers. I plan to rotate my flock to keep production up and sell toe extra eggs. Here in the city fresh eggs are harder to come by so I shouldent have an issue there.

I honestly feel America needs to get a reality check and brace for the future. They say here in Dalles the economey has not suffered. I beg to differ. I was laid off a few months back and I know several others as well.

Time for us all to get back to our roots. I would love to be self sufficent some day in the future.

On The Bees. My granny keeps them and she just Keeps the boxes out on her property and has someone else tend them She gets loads of honey in return. She also keeps rabbits goats raises hunting dogs as well as her own beef and plants bout an acre each year In Mississippi.

 

[Shrader]

Quote:
So true, dreammaker, so true!