Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[Hens and Roos]

Mornin' Vicki! Yes, it's been hot here, and again today getting to 90*!!! Had to mow the yard yet again yesterday, that makes for 3 times in March. I can't remember ever doing that? Got the weed whacker out and reclaimed some more land yesterday too. Today I hope to do some more, then cut down a bunch of small trees if I can get my chain saw going. Then onto the garden, never did get to it yesterday. Now, with all that said, I hope my energy and body hold out to get it all done!

Yeah

you could always send some of the warm weather this way- we are at 43* and overcast!

 

[Debbi]

samouw ~ Birchen is a color pattern. The chicks pictured are Silver Birchens. Black Coppers are birchens too, although instead of calling them "Gold Birchens", they are called Black Coppers. While the chicks are too young yet to show the full pattern, they will have silver hackles and saddle feathers, instead of copper. Hope that made sense, only one cup of coffee so far!

 

[Debbi]

Yeah

you could always send some of the warm weather this way- we are at 43* and overcast!

I'll blow some up to the north for ya! I woke up to near 60* this morning!

 

[flgardengirl]

Hey Neighbor,

My green tomatilos have yellow blossoms on them! Man, I am so excited! I have never grown tomatillos before....ANY ADIVCE? Do I stake them like an indeterminate or cage them like a determinate? Do I prune them? I've done some searches, but am still not sure what to do with them!

Hi Lisa, Did your garden get a good soaking yesterday or what? LOL OMG, I have standing water in one of the chicken runs past my ankles grrrr. I've got to re level that and do something about the drainage. That one pen is always a problem.
I treat the tomatillos just like cherry tomatoes. They will grow 6 ft or more easy in our climate. They will also reseed themselves everywhere if any fruit gets left on the ground overwinter. I had some in the midwest when we lived there and the seeds survived the freezing temps and we had volunteers everywhere in the spring lol. Just make sure to keep water off the tomatillo fruits and husks because they will get fungus and then rot the fruit. I try not to water anything edible past 3pm in the afternoon as a rule in these hot climates because they just sit and get nasty especially the squash etc. Soaker hoses are a good idea but can be expensive if you have a large garden. We expanded our side garden this year and I don't have soaker hoses in yet so will just mulch and water the old fashioned way until I get that done. The tomatillos are ripe when the husks get dried and brown and split open.
Do you grow cucumbers? I am trying again this year with them. Sometimes the pickle worms get them. From what I've heard they are a big problem here. I want to try and make pickles this year though. I've heard that you can plant radishes in with your summer and winter squash and just let them keep reseeding etc and it confuses the squash vine borers into not attacking the squash. I might try that with the cucumbers lol.

 

[Keara]

Garden Or trip of life time..... I think I would choose trip of life time too!

HOUSE SITTER willing to incubate eggs .... WOW.... I need one of those !

Keara, I hope you plan on sharing some pics from Greece, even if you don't find any chickens to take pics off....

The house sitter is a college student, Pre Vet, she owns a 3 legged sheep, so she is a good one! I asked her to incubate eggs as a backup incase something happens to the chickens.... I was so glad she agreed.

I plan on taking pictures of chickens, I chose a place to rent in the Peloponnese because the landlord had chickens and bees! I will share a few pictures especially if I see any Marans!

-Keara

 

[Debbi]

Vicki ~ Yes, got the wheaten eggs set the other day. today is day 2. They are in my LG bator, and so far with the ambient humidity what it is here, and also doing a dry hatch, I don't have to worry about the humidity!. I set this bator next to my King Suro bator that has the automatic humidity pump, so when the time comes to up the humidity in the LG, I can just stick the hose from the King Suro, into a hole on the top of the LG to pump in water as needed. I'm excited to see how these turn out!!

 

[Debbi]

All this gardening has me itching to get it done today! I don't dare plant anything yet, as I got fooled with early high temps last year, and lost the whole garden! I'm thinking now too, that those darned weeds, Dockwood/Knotwood?, got brought in with a bunch of steer manure I bought a couple of years ago? Thought at first it might've been my neighbor's hay, but yesterday I looked at them, and they are ONLY in the garden. I also noticed some really cute, indigo colored beetle type bugs on the seed heads of the weeds...maybe they'll eat them??

Never saw those bugs here either...

 

[flgardengirl]

I'm finding it hard to get caught up right now.... Back a few days ago, a comment was made about growing onions during the winter in Florida...
This is what mine are looking like right now...



The chickens pretty much leave the onions alone. HOWEVER, the collards are an entirely different story.

The chickens are mostly staying out of my garden except for one black copper hen. I don't know what she wants in there because she isn't really eating anything...just trampling the okra and corn. One day she pulled up a red onion but left it on the ground, decided it tasted nasty I guess. I still have a little bit of lettuce in there and she doesn't even bother that. Some nights when I lock all the others up she is missing so I go look in the garden and there she is running back and forth trying to get out of the fence. Silly girl why doesn't she just go back out the same way she got in? She seems to like when I go in there to get her so maybe that's it.

 

[Debbi]

Lynette, Is there anything I can plant that chickens don't like the smell of, and it will repel them from an area?? I was thinking of getting some of those wild Geranium plants to pot up and put on my deck for mosquitos, wonder if it would repel chooks?? I want to plant some herbs in my planter boxes on my deck railing, but between the cats and a few of the chooks, it looks like I may have to build some cages for them. I find they all like to lay inside of them, and that can't be too good for the herbs!

 

[flgardengirl]

I'm not really sure about the chickens and what smell would repel them. I know they seem to leave toxic stuff alone and don't seem to be crazy about the onions or chives. I have one girl who likes chocolate mint but the rest leave it alone...lol maybe she needs to freshen her breath!

Mine will eat fruit and squash and scratch up stuff in general. They used to leave my bell and hot peppers alone but then the turkeys taught them to eat those so bad news for peppers too. We had to put a fence around the garden this year due to the turkeys. I have all my herbs interplanted with the vegetables this year. I put a tomato plant, then a basil plant, then another tomato plant etc. Did the same with oregano and peppers. The herbs don't seem to take up too much space so I'm just mixing them in lol. We will see how it works.