Spring at the Farm

This past weekend we went up to Wisconsin to visit uncle's farm. It was nice to finally spend some time outside without having to be too bundled up in layers of various clothing. The temperature was rising and the snow was melting in front of our eyes. Kids were coming home muddy with huge smiles on their faces... and everything was the way it was suppose to be.

I thought I would share with you some Spring animal moments from our farm visit. 

Few weeks old lambs are getting into some trouble in the turkey tractor...

Mama goat is trying to see if she can get some treat out of me :-)

Her baby is soon to follow... coming closer but still keeping his distance...

All the kids behaving well because daddy is nearby watching (his head is behind the pole)...

Mommy with her little lamb... only one week old... 

So far we are still dreaming the dream around here and waiting what God has in store for us...

Happy soon-to-be Spring everyone and I hope these images brought you some joy and smiles on your faces!

Monika

Linking up with The Chicken Chick!

Growing Sprouts in Your Home

If you are living in a place with 4 seasons like me, you are probably bored by now... especially if you are a farmer or gardener at heart! If the snow is in your way, try to garden inside! Kids and I had a fun time growing some microgreens/sprouts. And here is how to do it very cheap - actually almost for free...

You will need:

package of sprouts seeds (preferably organic non-GMO)

Used salad box

Soil

Water

Some salad boxes already have holes on the bottom, but if they don't, just use a sharp stick, such as skewer or a tooth pick and heat it up above a flame... then melt the holes into the plastic box to create drainage. 

Fill it up 3/4 with organically fertilized soil (I used soil from the garden mixed with soil from my worm box - great stuff ;-) - You can use any soil you have at hand but adding some natural fertilizer is a bonus for your plants. 

Now it's ready for the seeds.

Spread the seeds evenly in rather bigger amount. Sprouts thrive in a big crowd ;-)

... and cover them with little bit of soil.

Next spray water... don't be shy, they like really moist soil.

You should see this in about 5 days! Kids love this indoor gardening project.. it's short, they get to dig in a dirt for a bit, and the result comes pretty quick. I like to seed new ones every 5-7 days for continuous harvest - so I have 2 boxes going at the same time... 

...and look how yummy it looks in your chicken sandwich! ;-) Now think about it - you grew it yourself in your home... isn't it the best? When you know where your food comes from... when you know how your food was taken care of? ... no middle man here... ;-)

Some helpful links for you - you can make your own worm box... look at my post 

here Red Wigglers

And you could make your yummy homemade bread by clicking here Homemade Bread

Enjoy growing your food with love and have a wonderful rest of the week!

Monika

Snowstorm at The Little Backyard Farm

Couple of days ago, it was snowing all day here at The Little Backyard Farm. I must admit that I like when it snows and I can look outside and see the scenery changing. -- Of course if I had to drive somewhere, that would be a different story. --

I thought I would show you some shots from this magical day... during and after the snowstorm... 

...Winter is for farmers what summer is for teachers...

--- When the winter winds are cold,

and the sheep are in their fold...

for my cozy home and heart...

thank you Father God above ---

Even during the winter months... the stillness in my garden gives me a certain peace... it warms my heart and heals my soul...

-- Do you wanna build a snowman? --

And that's all dear friends... I will go ahead and make myself a cup of hot coffee... and you don't forget:"Some people are worth melting for!" Warm hugs to you all and have a great rest of the week!

Feeding Eggshells to Your Chickens

Feeding eggshells to the chicken has been around what seems like forever. If you are like us, you don't like to waste any leftovers and you like to use as much as possible. Of course, you can compost the eggshells but if you feed them to your girls, they will provide some extra calcium in their diet, which they so badly need. Every egg contains a large amount of calcium and if the hen is lacking it in her diet, the rest of her body will suffer. 

Benefits of feeding the eggshells to the chickens

1. No wasting leftovers

2. Providing some extra calcium to the chickens' diet

How to prepare the eggshells

You have to dry the eggshells before you can feed them to the chickens. The reason for that is (as I heard it from our grandmother) that the chickens don't eat any of the actual wet part because that might promote egg eating in you coop. I have double oven and I mainly use the top part. I have a big cookie sheet ready in the bottom oven and every time I have some eggshells I place them on the cookie sheet. You can find any spot in the kitchen... I heard people keeping them under the sink, in an empty cupboard, or in their pantry. Just make sure they are in a place, where they can dry.

After you dry the eggshells, you would want to break them up into tiny pieces. Hens don't really have the brain capacity to realize that you are feeding them the eggshells from the eggs that they lay but they could visualize the round objects and connect it (like when people place golf balls into the nesting boxes to promote egg laying there... golf balls are very similar to the egg shape). Hens sometimes start eating the eggs they lay because they lack the calcium in their diet or they are simply bored. I have never have it happen but I sure heard a lot about it. You can avoid this problem by drying the eggshells and breaking them into tiny pieces - see bottom picture.

Now you are ready to bring them to your coop. I mix them with their regular feed and they gobble it up no problem.

How it all started ... The Chicken Coop

I decided to reminiscence a little about the start of our little backyard farm. I am talking about going back 11 years and show you how it all started. I am talking about going back to the time when I had no digital camera (which means I had to scan and fix every photo in this post). But this was lots of fun! I completely forgot how different this place looked 11 years ago...

First I got my first chickens as a birthday gift from my husband the first year we bought the house! We had two miniature chickens (one got killed by a fox - yes in the city!) and two White Crested Black Polish. They needed a home!

I had to take a picture of our first eggs! The chickens used to live on the ground in a small space we were able to separate for them in the shed. We were a little disorganized at the time but made the best of it ;-)

I don't have a picture of the original red shed but you can somehow make it out from the following.

With some help from our friends and family, we were able to put new roof and siding on the original shed. The helpful thing was that there was electricity in shed because someone used to live there before (it was a teenager style house ;-)

- everyone is looking so young ;-) - 

This is the back of the shed with original siding. Look, the compost bin used to be right by it. So much have changed...

View from another side. This is the side, where the outside was built for the chickens to be able to get out and get some fresh air. (NO GARDEN)

The front - it looks like we did tons of work to this cute little "residence"... We also got rid of all those bushes.

Inside also got a complete makeover...

My husband is working on the outside part of the chicken coop. Wow, it all looks so clean and new!

And here is the picture most of you had a chance to see on top of my page... The Present Look

And of course we let the girls push their boundaries ;-) 

Next stop will be the construction of the pond.. stay tuned!

Saying Good Bye to Our Turkeys

... is never easy for me. This was our second year of raising turkeys for food and both times we grew close to them. They are so social and fun. 

Our turkeys have a big enough pen to sleep in and spend minimum time in (usually just waiting till we make our way outside to let them out). And then they roam the backyard all day. They do minimal damage - we only have to get rid of their poop. They don't dig like chickens do. After about 6 months, they seem to grow way big for their own good. We fed them organic chicken feed (layer) and then they ate whatever they wanted around the yard. When we weighed them, after everything was done, they came out to be 41 pounds each. Say what? Last year the turkey was "only" 26.2 pounds. 

Behind the scenes - Say hello to the farmers

This year I finally decided to have my friend take some professional pictures of our family and our little farm ;-) Usually it's me who is behind the lens so it was time for to switch. I will use some of the pictures for our Christmas card, some for my Facebook page profile picture and blog profile picture, and couple for canvas prints that will help decorate our house.

Yes, we got some good ones but I simply had to share the funny, behind the scenes photos that came with it ;-)

How is this one for a farming bliss?

Trying to catch our pet chicken Brownie since I so desperately wanted her to be in at least one shot... No, T doesn't want to smack her over her head with a plastic bunny... he is just trying to be helpful and removing obstacles that are in my way ;-)

And she didn't make it into any of the pictures...

Is it really that difficult to hold a chicken for 5 minutes? Apparently yes ;-)

And this happened after I said to my husband to hold her because the kids will surely let her go lol

No way can this family photo happen without some wing flapping

Look who is in the spotlight now...

Here is some turkey love!  

Turkeys in our tiny backyard

Wow, I can't believe how big these boys got! We got our first turkeys last year in May and we raised them with success! Our Thanksgiving turkey weighed 26.2 lbs so we called him "The Marathon Turkey". He fed all our guests and we made many more dinners - pierogi, meat balls, and soup.

This is our second attempt and so far it has been going very good. My husband built them new home and they are loving just roaming our tiny backyard, finding spots to rest and chill. They also love getting in the middle of whatever we do...

I scoot down to weed and in few minutes I turn around and there they are, right in my face ;-) Here the kids are trying to blow up Diet coke and Mentos for science and the turkeys are right here in the middle of the chaos. 

And here they are trying to take over our meat birds' food. They won over the whole batch so I had to chase them off and give them their own bucket of food.

I have to say that it will be difficult to say good bye to these two but as always I am glad to know that they were loved and cared for in a great way and that we know where our meat comes from. 

Little house in our backyard

I love cute little knick knacks in our garden and this little bird house was given to me by a special friend... She was really getting rid of it so it wasn't meant to be a gift but it still feels meaningful to me. We hung it at the end of our yard by the pond so the birds would have some privacy and could raise their little family in piece in a little "pond house".

 Only sparrow could fit in the small opening. They even built a comfy nest in there. We like to watch the bird families that move into our backyard!

Here, take a look at the mommy!

We have a new turkey!

We actually have 4 baby turkeys right now but that's only because we are keeping 3 for someone else till next week. We are not sure which one will be ours even though I feel the white one is the best and most friendly. However that one will be going away and we have to keep one of the dark ones. :-(

We had the idea to put them together with the new baby layers, hoping that since they are all babies they will get used to each other faster and there will not be a need for us to build a separate house for the turkey. So far it has not been working out so good. The chickens, especially Brownie, are pecking at the turkeys' backs and when the turkeys hide they actually go as far as looking for them in the corner just to get a peck. Can you see Brownie viciously eyeing the white turkey?

I will be googling what to do but so far we are keeping our fingers crossed that they will get over the introduction and become friends. I feel bad for the turkeys because they look a bit scared. Anyone has experience with this kind of friendship that happens early on? I know that adult hens will not like anyone new in their flock but babies.

Chicken tractor

Now that you know from my previous posts that we have several new baby chicks, here is an update on our broilers. Since they have been growing very fast and started to fill up the box they shared with our tinny layers, we had to take that next step and move them outside. The temperatures started to climb so we felt confident to do that. I will tell you more about their new home that my husband built - the chicken tractor! 

It looks pretty cool, doesn't it? It took him three evenings to complete it but he didn't spend a dime - which we both like ;-)

He found some left over pieces of wood in the chicken shed and used a piece of left over roofing and our left over chicken wire fence from the coop. He figured out the space our 10 chicks will need in the next few weeks to be comfortably growing and have a happy life. 

He followed the Joel Salatin - Polyface farm chicken tractor model. 1.6 sq foot of space per bird. Due to the small size of our yard we decided on a 5ft x 5ft version.  It can hold up to 15 birds.

After looking for hinges for the top gate and not being able to find any around the house he just improvised : )

He got these wheels from our kids old toy cart that we were no longer using. Wheels make it easier to move the tractor around our yard. 

Fun in the sun! The Natural Heat Lamp.