Kristen’s Chickens and Farming Ventures

[BY Bob]

Sammy does seem to love the camera... here are a few pics from my cockerel pen, there are 8 boys in here 4 barnvelder, 3 sapphires and “mr Eyebrows” my wheatbar. They mostly don’t cause too much trouble but they are LOUD. These are from moving time yesterday.

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Nice looking gentlemen. Thanks for sharing.

 

[BY Bob]

Three, I have two more but don’t seem to need them yet, maybe as they get bigger though? The really nice thing about the Brinsea plates... all three are pulling a whopping 90watts together. It will give me plenty of time to get the other 4 batteries hooked up to my new charge controller and existing 400 watt solar array. I’ve got 7 batteries now altogether, running two separate systems. Two are dedicated to my house batteries for the trailer, with a 100watt panel, the rest on my 2000watt inverter. I also have a 450 and 300 watt ones. I need more panels too.

It certainly beats running my briggs 10,000 watt peak generator, my smaller Honda ones 6800, and 3000 are in the shop. If we had had a little more time before they got here it would all be re-wired, but due to the shipping costs we needed to go in with another farmer for affordability... so today was delivery day.

That's a pretty sweet set up. It has to be better than running generators. Very cool

 

[Kris5902]

It all sounds rather complicated but probably isn't. So long as the new babies are warm & happy all is good. How are you doing? Will things be a little less hectic now they are here ~ or more so?

Probably going to be a bit of both, it’s less of a time crunch now, but I have two or three meat tractors to design and build out in the two weeks or so before they go fully outside, and I want to get a smaller hospital tractor for the rehab girls and Sammy.

Then I’ll give Chickie Hawk some girls that are laying to take care of and mate. He’s sort of improved and was showing the old ladies how to properly “chicken” in grass, but he did take another jump at me this morning when I was feeding and watering them. I am going to be very sad if I have to cull him, but I’m not appreciating the aggression. I don’t need cuddly boys like Sammy, but I don’t want jerks.

I can handle Mr Marans safely without any problems, and only one of my Barnvelders is questionable. Aside from Sammy, none of the other boys particularly like to be handled. But they also don’t try to bite, flog, or rip my face or hands to shreds. I can’t re-home a human aggressive Roo though... there are too many kids around the other chicken keepers.

 

[Ribh]

Probably going to be a bit of both, it’s less of a time crunch now, but I have two or three meat tractors to design and build out in the two weeks or so before they go fully outside, and I want to get a smaller hospital tractor for the rehab girls and Sammy.

Then I’ll give Chickie Hawk some girls that are laying to take care of and mate. He’s sort of improved and was showing the old ladies how to properly “chicken” in grass, but he did take another jump at me this morning when I was feeding and watering them. I am going to be very sad if I have to cull him, but I’m not appreciating the aggression. I don’t need cuddly boys like Sammy, but I don’t want jerks.

I can handle Mr Marans safely without any problems, and only one of my Barnvelders is questionable. Aside from Sammy, none of the other boys particularly like to be handled. But they also don’t try to bite, flog, or rip my face or hands to shreds. I can’t re-home a human aggressive Roo though... there are too many kids around the other chicken keepers.

Roos ~ the perennial problem. I've had them & am happy to have a flock without them. The girls do very well on their own ~ but then I'm not looking to breed either. I hope it works out. I've rather taken to your Chickie~Hawk.

 

[Kris5902]

That's a pretty sweet set up. It has to be better than running generators. Very cool

Cheaper and much quieter! I got the inverter on sale, and bought a 400watt solar kit from amazon. The charge controller was junk though, so my batteries weren’t getting properly charged. I just keep getting batteries as I can afford them, and will probably invest in a lot more panels for our house anyway. Right now our gas bill is down to $150/week, it peaked at $400/week when our furnace quit in winter before we could get a propane heater (that’s where our solar budget ended up going!). I’ll see how the expanded battery bank and new Charge controller do.

I’m starting to worry as I’ve been gone for a little too long for my comfort with a new setup and babies. But it’s pretty warm out, so even if it does kill that battery they should be ok for a bit!

 

[Kris5902]

I got almost 9 hours of heating safely (for birds and battery life) off my one 80 amp hour deep cycle. I have a bank of three set up now which should be more than enough to get me through 24hrs (28 actually, by the math) Chicks were completely unfazed by the plates turning off, they were off when I got back to the trailer with the other batteries, but had just switched off... the high pitched beeping of low battery alarm wasn’t very popular though. Within moments of turning the inverter off to switch the batteries they were right back to exploring, eating and peeping around.

 

[Kris5902]

Everyone survived the night! Active and healthy little things. I’ve decided I’m going to improve my brooder into something a bit more sturdy/ permanent, because I spent quite a while trying to figure out what to do for night time predator protection. I ended up with half a giant plastic dog crate attatched to my plastic brooder box lid by hay strings (they are way too small for the number of birds I’m going to be brooding, 15 birds to 2 weeks ok, but 40... not so much!) I put some random tools on top to weight it down so I could sleep ok. If I left them uncovered I’d be constantly worrying about them... the barn is very not predator proof.

 

[Kris5902]

Almost had a close call tonight. Put the lid over the littles at 6pm, carefully checked to make sure no one was out, double checked and triple checked. Went out at 10 pm to switch them off my generator and onto my inverter hooked up to a single full battery for the night. I’m still trying to charge up my battery bank with the solar, which isn’t very efficient in the rain we had all day yesterday, or at night. Didn’t see anyone out or hear anything.

1/2hr later I’m in bed and the frogs are being noisy, but I’m hearing a single constant peep from the barn, not the distress one, but definitely something amiss. So I went out and there was a little guy huddled up to the brooder wall chirping his little head off. I stuck him under the heat plate and he seemed ok despite not having heat for 4 hours. I seem more distressed by this than he did, but I’ll check everyone closely again in the morning.

I forgot how stressful little babies are, especially with no mains power, or secure space for them. I can only brood until the end of June in the barn and then it gets filled with hay.

 

[aart]

Even with mains power and in a contained brooder.....
..... sometimes the little buggers get 'lost'.

 

[Kris5902]

Even with mains power and in a contained brooder.....
..... sometimes the little buggers get 'lost'.

That makes me feel a bit better. I wish I could figure out where he was hiding though... husband and I very carefully checked the brooder after we put the lid over them. Solar panels are now getting full sun! So at least that’s one worry taken care of... my main battery bank will be able to take the inverter by noon.

I’m thinking something probably pretty crazy here, so please bear with me... you know those heated Milwaukee jackets that use the cordless power tool Lithium Ion batteries? I wonder if you could convert one into a cordless MHP arrangement, and if the temps would be adequate... I also wonder if Ryobi makes one so I wouldn’t need to buy a bunch of other batteries and charger?

This living off grid makes things interesting... a bunch of goats and I startled each other while I was turning on the generator at 6 am. I walked straight towards them, not really seeing them because no coffee yet, they stood very still until I was about 5feet away then bolted about 15 feet away and tried to stare me down, I chatted with them for a bit before starting the generator. I keep telling our hunters to stop wearing Camouflage when they come here. If they would just wear some high visibility hats and plaid jackets they would probably catch a lot more. You sneak around in the woods and the animals know you’re up to something!