What comes first the chicken or the coop?

What comes first the chicken or the coop? So when you want to start raising chickens for eggs there are a few basics things you want to think about, plan for ahead of time and then get your chickens. I had been planning for several years, so that when we moved from an area that wouldn't allow any farm animals to the country I was ready to rock and roll.

What type of chickens do you want? Yes, try to think ahead, Personally I knew I wanted chickens that laid large brown eggs, friendly temperament & cold weather hardy. I also knew I wanted pullets (chickens close to being ready to lay). Then when chickens were available to me, I checked the breed and knew if they were meeting my check list. Also I would caution you on getting chickens on Craig's List, Online yard sale posts and such. Simply because if you are specifically wanted to raise chickens for eggs, you want to insure that the chickens aren't over 3 or 4 years old, when they start dropping their egg production.
If you are able, find a local farm coop. They work with reputable farmers & are pretty reasonably priced. I got my pullets for $10 each & because of the breed they were all chickens. 
Before you bring any chickens home, it is really helpful to have someplace for the chickens to live. You can build your own coop or buy something pre-made. I suggest that you weigh out the costs, time, materials & labor. I have seen some really fine coops or tractors people have built. 
If purchasing a kit, read the reviews. Buying a inexpensive coop, may not be worth it if it falls apart within a few months. 
We opted for a fairly expensive, but extremely durable pre-fab chicken coop the Formex Snap Lock Large Chicken Coop Backyard Hen House. For us it was a great choice & I absolutely love how easy this is to use and clean. In fact we just bought another smaller version, since we are expanding our flock.

Know what you will feed them & have it on hand when you bring them home. Odd as that may seem, I see people leaving the Tractor Supply Store with their cute little impulse buy chicks and NO food. Now, I am not trying to be all judgy, I mean they may already have feed at home. 

personally I went with a soy-free, non-gmo feed. We travel a couple hours to get this from Sunrise Farm, Stuarts Draft, VA.

There are some other items that are helpful to have on hand when you start. Galvanized trash cans with a lid for feed & pine shavings (bedding). 

TIP: On the lids, where the handle is attached, we have found that there are two small holes that allow water to get in the cans if they sit outside exposed to the weather. Just this week, we sealed the holes with RTV (Room Tepurature Vulcanizer)
Water fount
Feeder
Also, it is nice to have a good chicken book(s) on hand. I have several. You are able to find this various items at your local coop or Tractor Supply Store. I have personally found that prices are often better online & are delivered, which is a bonus for me since driving to the city and hauling stuff home can be time consuming. 
Last, but not least...it is o.k. to have some fun items as you are beginning to raise chickens. My favorite fun item I have are Slogger Boots with a chickens on them. They just bring me great joy. Of course you don't have to have chickens for the fun boots!

What I do here is simply share our journey of becoming debt free, teach vintage skills and living a new life on our farmette. We would love it if your joined our Perky Gramma Teaches community on Facebook, comment or share. Plus it would just make my day.

  

  

Your order is so very appreciated, because anything ordered through my Amazon Associate links helps me to be able to stay home and write for you.

Perky Gramma Teaches is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Sweet Potato Treats for Furbabies..

The furbabies treat jar is getting low & dehydrated sweet potatoes is their favorite treat. These are my three furbabies & today is the day to make sweet potato treats for my puppies. As you are able to see, they really like sweet potato treat day.
Plus, the great bonus on this is; that if you need some sweet potatoes for dinner you could rehydrate the treats.

This is so simple. First, I slice the sweet potatoes: about a half inch slice and cut in half if needed.

I parboil (cooked until just soft) the sweet potatoes.

After they cooled, I squash them flat (skin and all) on a cutting board. Then place them on the dehydrator trays.

Set the temperature for 125 degrees and let them roll, until the are crisp.

Afterwards I simply tear them into smaller pieces. Now the treat jar is full again.

Just a couple extra tips:
I actually have both a Presto Dehydrator and an Excalibur 9 tray Dehydrator. 
1) I mostly use my Presto for smelly foods, which I make Mr. Perky take to the garage.  One of the neat things about the Presto is that you can purchase and add more trays that expands your capacity greatly.
2) The other items I have on hand and use frequently is the fruit roll up trays. But I use them in my Excalibur. The trays are thin, round, without holes in them and I actually have 8 & they just slide onto the Excalibur trays. Super helpful when you are doing liquid type dehydrating. 

   

What I do here is simply share our journey of becoming debt free, teach vintage skills and living a new life on our farmette. We would love it if your joined our Perky Gramma Teaches community on Facebook, comment or share. Plus it would just make my day.

Your order is so very appreciated, because anything ordered through my Amazon Associate links helps me to be able to stay home and write for you.

Perky Gramma Teaches is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

How to Count Change...

It is mystifying to some of us in the world as we watch people who don't know how to count change without a calculator or a pen and paper. Just this week, I watched at a big box store as two cashiers try to figure out how much change to give a man. They had to get out a pen and paper.
I realized several years ago that the problem is some people think that it is a subtraction problem. When they take out the paper, they write down how much cash they were given and then subtract the total cost of the purchase.
When in reality it is so much simpler than that.
What they haven't been taught it is really an addition problem, you simply count UP from the total cost, to the amount of the cash tendered.
That's it.
So for those of us who know, be patient because now you know the reason why. Be patient or teach others how to solve this baffling math problem.

What I do here is simply share our journey of becoming debt free, teach vintage skills and living a new life on our farmette. We would love it if your joined our Perky Gramma Teaches community on Facebook, comment or share. Plus it would just make my day. Here are some items I have used on the farm this week. 

   

Your order is so very appreciated, because anything ordered through my Amazon Associate links helps me to be able to stay home and write for you.

Perky Gramma Teaches is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Using Coconut Oil...

If listed out I could probably do "101 Ways to Use Coconut Oil", but long lists intimidate me. One of the great things about coconut oil is it doesn't get rancid, like so many oils. It will stay stable for years. Basically, since I started using coconut oil I use it for most anything. I use it as as a moisturizer. I keep a little tin with coconut oil in my bathroom or/or bedroom. I use it on my face, rough skin on feet & elbows, hands, I even use a dab for my hair in the winter.
I use it for cooking, for frying, even melt it down and substitute it for oil in recipes.
I use a small bit on my eggs, it extends the actual shelf life of eggs for months. 
You can use on it eggs you buy from the store or if you have chickens.
I use coconut oil to make hand creams, home made toothpaste and more like reconditioning wood items in the kitchen. 

 

 

What I do here is simply share our journey of becoming debt free, teach vintage skills and living a new life on our farmette. We would love it if your joined our Perky Gramma Teaches community on Facebook, comment or share. Plus it would just make my day.

Your order is so very appreciated, because anything ordered through my Amazon Associate links helps me to be able to stay home and write for you.

Perky Gramma Teaches is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Odd Eggs You Won't See in Your Carton...

Truly, egg production is a fascinating hobby. The eggs that actually come out of chickens are sometimes strange and very unusual oddities.
One of the first unusual eggs i got was a wind egg, rooster egg (learned this from a man who was born in Jamaica) or even called "fart" eggs (just reporting the facts here). I actually prefer to call them fairy eggs. 
There are some smaller chicken breeds that actually lay eggs this size all the time, this type for my chicks was a gal learning how to make an egg. It wasn't any bigger than a quarter & didn't have a yolk. 
Next I learned about "rubber" eggs. Actually this week one of my gals has been laying rubber eggs. Basically it is an egg without a shell (or much of a shell) just the membrane with an egg inside. you can actually touch the outside and it is flexible & it actually has the normal egg white and yolk inside. Today she laid an egg with so little shell it was brittle to the touch. I barely touched it and it would crack. She has been laying already and it getting extra calcium in her diet plus the rubber eggs have been fairly large. My guess is she is adapting to being a gal that is going to lay some of those...

 

..super ginormous eggs. My gals are red-sex link chickens. They are known for being friendly, cold weather hardy, consistent egg production and for laying large brown eggs. Well, actually extra large and jumbo are the average here on the farmette.

We do not get medium eggs at all & there are very few large eggs. These ladies consistently lay eggs on an average of 68 - 74 grams. With our largest egg so far has been 108 grams!

I will be adding more facts about eggs as we go along. Oh, and the reason we keep those ginormous eggs vs. putting them in your egg carton...they simply do not fit.

Last but certainly not least, are the wonderful double yolk eggs. This just happens to be one of the ginormous eggs from above. Fried eggs & bacon this morning. I really should have let Mr. Perky crack these because he too is fascinated by the various oddity eggs. Next time Mr. Perky. 

If you live local to the Central Virginia area, of course I sell our lovely soy-free farm eggs for $5 a dozen.








What I do here is simply share our journey of becoming debt free, teach vintage skills and living a new life on our farmette. We would love it if your joined our Perky Gramma Teaches community on Facebook.

You will notice there are links in my posts. This are items I actually use and recommend. Your order is so very appreciated, because anything ordered through my Amazon Associate links helps me to be able to stay home & write for you. Thank you. ~Perky

   

Perky Gramma Teaches is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

SAVE Money...

I am constantly looking at ways to save money and use less storage space, This has become more important in my new house which is half the size of our previous ho me. Plus I am sensitive to a LOT of smells. Sometimes just a conversation can change the way you do things.

A few weeks ago, I was talking to a friend bemoaning the fact I was have a difficult time finding unscented laundry soap online.
She then told me that she uses is Charlie's Laundry Soap.  
I have always liked concentrated soaps without fillers and garbage. You use only 1-2 of these really little scoops per load.

It is recommended that the first two loads should be rags, as Charlie's will actually clean up the residue that is in your washing machine. 

So I ordered some and started using the products. I must say I was VERY pleased. The biggest things I like about these products is 1) they don't smell. 2) they are very compact for storage. 3) they are green and non-toxic 4) Oh and they WORK!

This bucket below does 1250 loads of wash for $159.99. Think about it. That friend has a family of four with two teenage boys and the box lasts her two years!

What I do here is simply share our journey of becoming debt free, teach vintage skills and living a new life on a farmstead. We would love it if your joined our Perky Gramma Teaches community on Facebook.

  

Perky Gramma Teaches is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

We Started Composting

Once we got settled in some on the farm, we got started making our own compost. 
There is no way I could begin to tell you everything you need to know about composting. But, I will show you what we do and use. We started with a Spin Bin. I needed something that was fairly light weight and easy to move about.
Then Mr. Perky insisted on getting a counter top compost bin. I was perfectly happy using an old PET jar.
One thing I can tell you is if you go this route, get your bin from Amazon. We got the exact one listed below for $10 MORE at Tractor Supply store.
Now that I have my small bin, I must admit I like it. 
Composting is really easy to do. Basically I gather up my fruits, veggies, leftovers (no meat) put them in my bin.
When it's full, I throw it in the Spin Bin with some dead leaves. The basic ratio is 2 Brown/1 Green. This is when I was still using PET containers. My pups LOVE to roll around in the muck that drains out.

Once I dump the mess, I wash the container and line it with brown paper so I can dump it right into the the composter. That just adds a little more brown. :D 

That's the basics. For a lot more information on composting you can follow this link: Great composting tips at Composting at Home. Also below is a free book (at the time of posting) on composting. Got to love free!

What I do here is simply share our journey of becoming debt free, teach vintage skills and living a new life on a farmstead. We would love it if your joined our Perky Gramma Teaches community on Facebook.

 

Perky Gramma Teaches is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.