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Chicken update

We have not suffered a chicken fatality for several weeks. Having said that, about a month ago, Hannah was asking whether we could get more chickens and just as I was about to respond that we should wait just a little longer, something dropped almost straight down through a hole left in the baling twine I strung up across the pen. I shouted and began running up a small hill toward the pen. Suddenly, it leaped straight up and flew away. Hannah thought it was a falcon. I cannot say one way or the other. Anyway, no bird was hurt. Our rooster, who was reasonably new at the time, played some part in that as well. If someone tries to pick up one of the 8 hens, he's all hackles and squawking. Good Noodle.

Recall that our chicken coop is a re-purposed kid playhouse that I have written about in A New House and On Building Codes. For the last couple of months, the farm house tenants, Mary and Blair, have been helping us with the flock by suggesting solutions to some of the problems we'd been having . They also let the flock out in the morning and closed them in at night. Chickens are pretty easy that way; they willfully go out at dawn and in at dusk. All you have to do is put their food in a rodent proof container and close the coop door at night and the converse in the morning.

We leave the water outside through the night except when it's frosty in which case having the water in the coop can sometimes keep it from freezing. As a rule, though, keeping the water in the coop allows the hens to drink at any time (slight advantage) but also allows them much more time to defecate in the same water which is, gulp, a bit gross and a big disadvantage. The water also gets splashed around making an area already prone to winter damp that much wetter.

I once babysat a flock in which both food and water were kept in the coop full time. This basically forces the flock to spend an awful lot of time consuming and walking around in their own excrement. I had to hold my breath in order to go in and collect the eggs, the ammonia was so concentrated. And it showed on the hens. Dull, worn-out-looking, lethargic, missing lots of feathers (which was also the result of having too many mean roosters). Of course, the eggs were certified organic and fetched an attractive price at the health food store; that the SPCA would probably shut down the operation wasn't disclosed on the carton.

Maybe our experience there makes us go a little overboard with our own flock. Our coop is VERY well ventilated. I re-purposed a salvaged steel gate which just happened to be exactly the right width to fit inside the south doorway (I was in my very happy place when installing this gate). This allows us to keep the south wooden door wide open during the day. A sprinkle of lime in their bedding from time to time may also be helping. It also helps that the chickens congregate at the south end and deposit 2/3rds of their droppings there. We move the bulk of it to a compost pile every few days. As a result, there's hardly any smell in the coop.

But I digress. Sometimes Mary and Blair go away and are unable to do chicken duty so we have to do it. Since we live a 7 or 8 minute drive away, it kinda sucks to have to do this, if there's no other reason to drive into town. Solution: automatic chicken coop door opener. Made in Germany (I think), bought online from a UK distributor, this gadget is completely contained in a 6"X6"X3" clear plastic water-resistant box. Inside are batteries (included), a motor and some electronics including a photocell to measure light intensity. A 60cm length of fishing line is extended and retracted out the bottom to respectively lower and raise a door, based on ambient light.



The user has to build the actual door although this could hardly have been easier. Adjacent the north door, I cut a rectangular hole through the exterior .5" plywood sheathing big enough for an average sized rooster to walk through without ducking. Then I made two L-channels, each using two lengths of 1X2 screwed together lengthwise at right angles, which I attached to the sheathing on each vertical side of the hole. Then I cut a rectangular piece of plywood (maximum allowable weight 3kg) a little larger than the hole which slides up and down along the outside of the sheathing, guided by the L-channels. On the top of the door, I pounded in a fence staple which held the end-loop of the fishing line. You can mount the motor box in almost any orientation if you don't mind using pulleys but I chose the simplest; right above the middle of the door. Four screws and you're pretty much done.

Mary and Blair were curious about its operation and were concerned about the chickens getting left outside the first night so they went out around sunset and observed. The chickens, accustomed to entering through the human door, were pecking on it, as if the coop gods would open it for them...which they pretty much did since it was already cold and darkish. Shortly after, the chicken door closed (which takes about a 60 seconds; no cartoonish guillotine action to be seen).

In the few days after installation, they got used to the new door and the ramp that I built for them. With the human door closed, they had to figure out how to get in order to lay their eggs. After a couple of nights they got it. Any future birds we add should be fine as they will take the others' lead.

It got cold here in February with a few nights around -5C. I'm not sure what temperature the chickens are good down to but we started using a heat lamp just in case. We were also not getting many eggs. After we started using the light, production increased. I think we're of two minds about that, though. Hens apparently only have only so many eggs to lay in their lifetime; if you induce them out earlier, they will simply run out earlier in life. In general we prefer to let them live as naturally as possible. As long as it stays above freezing, I think we'll go without using artificial heat/light.

Uh-oh

Update: well that was a dud, fortunately. The poly covers on the LOW tunnels blew off, as expected, but the new transplant tunnel was fine as was the garage-in-a-box. There were some strong gusts here - stuff on our home south-facing balconey got tossed around - but the fact that our farm is on the north slope of Mt.Belcher prevented this south-winded storm from getting us. Some place on NW Vancouver Island got a 170km/h gust, though, so Environment Canada was right to put out those warnings.


I may have two high tunnels to build this spring...

Shopping Spree - Chorus Frog Farm Style

One if the laments I had the misfortune of hearing too many times from a very experienced farmer on the island was that farm supplies were very expensive and hard to find on the island. He cut his agricultural teeth in California where the scale of most things agricultural is enormous and where, naturally, farm supplies are ubiquitous, plentiful and cheap. All I have to compare to Salt Spring prices and selection are other places on Vancouver Island but, even with this small sample size, I can confirm that yes, things really are expensive or non-existent here.

Because a lot of the things I need on the farm cannot be shipped here economically, I make lists of required supplies and wait until a required off-island trip needs to be taken. Since we moved here, our 13-year-old's orthodontics appointments have been that reason, most times. Having braces is a joyous experience for a kid so we don't mind adding to her pleasure with an ortho day filled with ferries, driving and queues. Pauline always tries to get into the act by scheduling a decorating consultation for one of her clients.

The theme of this trip was high tunnel #2 (The Big One) supplies shopping. I needed polyethylene, poly track and galvanized pipe. We also wanted chicken feed, straw bedding, lime and potting mix. This is the anatomy of our trip:

(Prior evening: Pick up Duncan's F150 4X4 extended cab long box.)

6:30am Wake and breakfast


7:00 Go to town to drop off 12 loaves of bread baked evening before to health food store, feed vacationing friends' sheep and cat , and pick up almost empty propane tank from transplant tunnel


7:30 Back at home. Load truck with misc stuff for trip.


7:50 Make sure 10-year-old is almost ready for her ride to school in 15 minutes. Leave for Vesuvius ferry.


8:05 Depart Vesuvius


8:30 Arrive Crofton on Vancouver Island


8:45 In Duncan, BC, exchange Mastercrap 3/8" hammer drill for brand spanking new Mastercrap 3/8" hammer drill (for the second time. I expect to do this two more times before I realize that I should just throw the gall-dang thing out and stop wasting my time. I mean, you get used to the burning smell after a while). Meanwhile, Pauline shops for shoes for her new job and enquires at Rona about the price of their organic potting mix she sees inside a corral in the parking lot. When the bepimpled teen clerk tells her to go back outside to get the UPC, she realizes she would rather spend her money at the ag store we like in Saanich which is only 7 hours down the road)


9:10 Load up on organic chicken feed and hay at the feed store in south Duncan


9:30 Leave Duncan and travel the Malahat Highway to Victoria.


9:50 Pit stop in Mill Bay for gas. Probably the cheapest gas in BC is on a 50 km stretch from Mill Bay to Ladysmith


10:15 Arrive Victoria. At Evergro, load 32'X100' roll of polyethylene (which weighs 94 pounds, BTW), 228' of polylock aluminum extrusion with wiggle wire (more on this in a future post), and 12 bags of lime

10:45 Arrive Victoria Chinatown and find parking on Fisgard for the truck with 3' of aluminum extrusion hanging off the back (finding a spot this big here will NEVER happen again) while the girls buy 200 sheets of nori (we make a lot of sushi rolls)


11:00 Arrive Pier 1 and purchase counter-height stools for our new rental house on Salt Spring (yay, ocean view and room to spare come April 1)


11:20 Depart Victoria


11:40 Arrive Saanich and have 13-year-old's braces tweaked. Two more appointments and they're off. Wait one year and the next 12-year-old can start, cash permitting. I also find watch batteries (on sale!) for a Kill-a-Watt-like device that I'll use on the farm to keep track of how much hydro we're using which Mary and Blair are currently paying for. Meanwhile, Pauline meets her real estate agent/boss and exchanges documents. Pauline has a lot of jobs. Such is the life of a farmer's wife.


12:00 Lunch with good friend Marty from our farm days at Haliburton two years ago. Marty's specialty was plant starts and she made relatively good money doing so. Family commitments are preventing her from continuing this so she generously gave Pauline all of her planting schedules and sales records from the last year which has been a great resource. This is our thank you to her. In the parking lot after lunch, she slips us some salmon filets and ground moose, both harvested by her husband Steve. We slip her a raisin bread.

1:40 Leave Saanich and drive back to Victoria for Pauline's decorating consultation at 2:00. Meanwhile, I go to Staples for a printer ink exchange and then to the plumbing supply store for 210' of 3/4" sched 40 galvanized water pipe which is waaay cheaper than getting it through Windsor. Right in the parking lot, I cut the 21' lengths (no, I have no idea why it's 21' and not 20') into 2- ~8.5' lengths and a ~4.25' length so I can fit them in the truck box better. 10 minutes before I finish cutting, Pauline texts that she is done decorating.

3:15 Pick up Pauline and head back up the peninsula to the cheapest propane filler I know of ($18 for a 20lb BBQ tank compared to $21-24 elsewhere). Then further north to one of our favorite ag suppliers, Integrity Sales, in Saanich. Pick up 6 bales of potting mix, 25 128-cell plug flats, roll of baler twine, and a couple of pounds of crimson clover seed.

4:07 Step on it for 5:00 ferry to the extent that a 20 year old F150 can be persuaded to accelerate with its rear suspension sagging under so much weight. Who knows what the evening traffic will be to Salt Spring on a Friday in mid-February?

4:10 Wait a second! That potting mix we just picked up isn't the organic version!

4:13 Return to Integrity, unload non-organic potting mix, re-load with almost-identically-packaged organic mix while Pauline goes inside to pay the upcharge (that's why it was so cheap!)

4:20 Leave Integrity for the second time, with double the concern for the ferry.

4:35 Arrive Swartz Bay in Lane 34 (usually 31 when it's dead). This might be close.

4:55 Yay! Made it! Next ferry would have been 2 hours later.

5:35 Arrive Fulford Harbour on Salt Spring and drive to friends John and Lara to make sushi dinner and pick up 10-year-old.

10:30 Arrive home. Tired, but satisfied.

The shopping spree actually continued on Salt Spring the next day at Windsor where I picked up 34 20' lengths of 1.25" sched 40 PVC and 90' of 3" PVC sewer pipe for the top purlin. Why Windsor sells this stuff so cheap I cannot say but, hey, I'll take it. Also picked up some lumber.

Two-day total for high tunnel supplies: ~$1600

Other ag supplies plus ferries, gas and lunch: ~$450

I'm sure we'll make that up easily with all of our blue tomato plant starts and produce sales this summer. But seriously, the bulk of the total is capital expense meant to provide a means of income for several years. Many new small businesses have high start up costs and we fit that bill nicely. I do, however, look forward to being mostly built-up on this property and just concentrating on growing stuff and not spending so much cash. Despite these recent purchases for the high tunnels, this year's expenses should be less than last year's which were much lower than '09, when I bought all the tractor stuff. And, presumably, this year's revenue will be much higher than last year's.

Mexicowichan: The Soils of Chorus Frog Farm

Recently Pauline was helping her co-workers at the Salt Spring Island Conservancy clean out some old resourses in their library. They had an extra copy of "Soils of the Gulf Islands of British Columbia: Volume 1 Salt Spring Island" survey done in 1987 so she was allowed to take it.

What a gold mine. The publication itself is comprised of a 4'X6' full color map that depicts all the occurences of about 30 different types of soils on the island. The book describes the island's topography, geology, hydrology etc and then discusses each of the soil types depicted on the map with comments on their suitability for agriculture.

Roads are not drawn particularly well nor are there a lot of other obvious landmarks or street addresses to help the individual pinpoint his or her property. But based on the roads that are shown and some topographic clues, plus my own observations of the soil itself on the property, I'm pretty sure that the two distinct types I have observed on the property are the same two that appear contiguously on the map, in about the same place.

The one we first encountered from last year's initial two plots (one of which was then abandoned), is called Mexicana. From the book: "Mexicana soils are moderately well drained soils that have developed on gravelly sandy loam to gravelly loam morainal deposits overlying deep, compact, unweathered till within 100cm from the surface". I can attest to this description in that, after harvesting many tons of stones last year, there are still many bumper crops remaining. A few weeks ago I tilled up a couple of beds. This is itself evidence of the soil type; few other soil types could be rototilled safely in January after months of rain. The second giveaway is the new crop of stones that came up when I did that.

If this were our land, I would probably plant a nut orchard, a berry patch and an asparagus patch. The fertility is probably decent but the drainage excellent. Not having to work the soil again would be a huge bonus. From the book: "The major limitations for agricultural use are the droughtiness, topography and stoniness. Mexicana soils on slopes not exceeding 15% could be improved with irrigation and stone picking to grow a small range of annual crops. Tree fruits and berries seems to do well on these soils under irrigation".

The other soil type is Cowichan which, contrary to the Mexicana, is described as one of the best types on the island. Damp and mucky until the water table drops but...full of nutrition. "Cowichan soils are poorly drained soils that have developed on deep (>100cm) silty clay loam to silty clay marine deposits that are usually stone free."

Under 'Land Uses', it goes on to say:

"Cowichan soils represent one of the most important agricultural soils on Salt Spring Island. The surface soil is well supplied with organic matter and nitrogen. They are strongly acid (pH 5.1-5.5) soils. Poor drainage is the major limitation for growing a large variety of agricultural crops on these soils and, for this reason, they are mainly used for pasture and hay crops particularly on Salt Spring Island. With improved drainage, these soils are good for growing a wide variety of crops including vegetables, berries and small fruits."

Now, I'm not sure whether I've got the whole drainage thing licked on that patch but, if so, all I need is a couple of loads of lime and it should be pretty good for my heavy feeders. Having said that, tomatoes apparently shouldn't get too much N or else they put on too much foliage at the expense of fruit but I'm willing to live with that problem.

Now to find the on-line version of the map...

Stoopid tools

While working on the high tunnel a couple of weeks ago, I vowed to write a post on tools. The impetus? Yet another sub-par Canadian Tire special doing its best to thwart my progress.

Dad and I were trying to attach the polyethylene-wrapped 1X2 to the base of the .75” schedule 40 galvanized posts (which also had 1.25” sched 40 PVC around it). So, wood, plastic, steel. Through that we would turn a single 2” #12 wood screw. Doing this required first drilling a hole through the whole material sandwich.

Out came my Mastercrap Titanium drill bits. Fail. Bit broken off in the steel. New bit from 50-pack of assorted replacements. Fail. Fail. Success! Fail. Fail. FAIL!

So we headed over to Windsor, which has a very passable tool department, considering the size of the population it serves. Maybe because people expect things to be more expensive here, many of the tools and supplies tend to be just a little better than the average. Not to say that they don't also sell junk. Just that their junk isn't all that much less than the good stuff, so may as well get the good stuff.

For the price of half a jumbo pack of Crappy Tire's drill bits, I bought a single cobalt-tipped bit. And while I was lamenting our struggle to the helpful staff, Ken suggested that we go super slow with the drill. I said we were using a slow (but powerful) .5” drill. He said 'Make sure you can see the bit turning'.

We got back and tried the new hardware and technique out. Success! Still not easy, but very do-able. The old half inch drill only has one speed, 600 rpm, so I just pulsed it, maybe once every 3 or 4 seconds. Then I put in one of my old bits and used the super slow technique, just to see whether the technique alone was key. Still not much luck getting through but I didn't break the bit.

Needless to say, the old bits will be relegated to drilling wood and plastic. On the other hand, that probably just makes life more complicated. I might just give them away, after I find a multi-size assortment of the good ones to replace them with.

So it is in this second week of February 2011 that I vow to be MUCH more selective in anything I buy from Canadian Tire and its ilk. When I go to Vancouver Island next week to pick up a bunch of stuff, I will be exchanging my Mastercraft 7 amp corded drill for a new one, for the second time (it's bad if you can smell burning when you pull the trigger, right?). If I could exchange it for something else – like something that was supposed to only be used once … I wonder if they sell Motomaster toilet paper - I would. I may also try to take back a router bit set that I bought a couple of years ago but still haven't used. You know, not having a router and all.


* * *


In other news, we must have gotten a pretty fierce wind the night of the 6th. Not only were both of the low tunnel poly covers blown off but there was lots of unfastened farm supply strewn about. Most disconcerting was the farm stand which appeared to have been blown over backwards. Fortunately it sustained only minor damage; a cracked cedar post; a portion of its tin roofing bent. And, best of all, the newly constructed high tunnel was unfazed. Now I can hope for the other big test: a big dump of wet snow. Don't tell any of my co-islanders I said that.

Voila! A high tunnel

In the interest of making this post less long-winded, I think I'll let the pictures save me writing (and you reading) a thousand words and just briefly outline the basic info. My dad drove in from Calgary the day after Duncan and I put up the basic frame. Dad and I then took about another 6 days to: install the polyethylene; install 2X4 supports underneath each hoop; replace the 1X2 side purlins with EMT, build removable ends, one with a door; attach purlins to the line of 2X4's running down the centre of the tunnel; install plant shelving and a potting counter down the centre; wash the inside and outside of the polyethylene; build a secondary enclosed and propane-heated volume within the tunnel for seed germination at higher temperatures; lay down lumber wrap over the whole "floor"; and move all of our potting stuff into the tunnel. Before he left, 10 or so days after arriving, Dad also helped me build a slanted wash station, prepare another seed bed adjacent to the 13 we already used last year, and prepare the squash plot.

He must be worn out. I know I am.