Avoiding Baked Chickens :: How We Keep the Ladies Cool in Summertime Heat

Like many of the states in the western U.S., we went through an intense heat wave a little over a week ago at our house. The temperatures were easily over 100° F for days. Ugh. We avoided a good portion of the heat wave by camping in the mountains and then the rest of it by staying inside our air-conditioned home. Unfortunately, our chickens couldn't enjoy the cool comfort inside our house; they were stuck outside in the 100°+ heat. As a result, we (along with one of my favorite girls in the neighborhood -- she took care of them while we were camping) employed a variety of methods to keep them cool in the blistering heat.

In many ways, summer is a lot harder on chickens than winter. Chickens can endure temperatures as low at -20°F.  High temperatures stress chickens' bodies out much more than cold ones. Chickens don't sweat; they release heat through their combs and wattles. This can be a problem because more blood goes to their combs and wattles, resulting in less blood to vital organs and extra stress to their systems. Chickens also pant to release heat. However, panting can put extra stress on their hearts and respiratory systems and it can lead to dangerous condition called acidosis. (I learned all of this from this awesome chicken blog)  Basically, the heat is really hard on chickens and they need extra help when it's hot.

Here are a few ways we keep the ladies in the backyard cool throughout the summer months...

1. Plenty of drinking water, often with added electrolytes.

The first rule we hear whenever there is hot weather is to drink plenty of water. A lack of water leads to all sorts of problems, whether you're a person or a chicken. Sometimes when your body is extra depleted, electrolytes are needed.

For my chickens, I mix up a gallon of water with a 1/4 tsp of an electrolyte mix I got at my local feed store. I keep the jug of water in the fridge (hence the labeling so no one drinks it, thinking it's lemonade or something. My two-year-old even knows now that it's, as he calls it, "chicken juice").  I didn't know at the time when I bought the electrolyte mix (which I bought last summer), but you can make your own electrolyte mix from scratch (recipe here from that aforementioned awesome blog). Now that I think about it, you could probably even use my recipe for homemade Pedialyte (sans Jell-O powder), too.

2. Shade 

Since we have a chicken tractor, we have the luxury of moving the tractor anywhere in the yard. Unfortunately, we only have one corner where they could go that's fairly shady all day. We do keep them in some areas where they're shaded for a portion of the day, but it's close to impossible to keep them in the shade all the time.

If shade for your chickens is limited you can employ my method: toss a towel, sheet, or light blanket over their run.

As you can see in the picture at the left, my method actually does a pretty good job keeping the bright sun out of there. The girls will usually huddle in the shaded part or in the hen house on particularly hot days.

Shade is a no-brainer, up there with plenty of water. Whether you have plenty of trees or you have to improvise with some kind of cover, give those ladies some shade!



3.  Wet Fabric + Breeze = Old-Fashioned Air Conditioning

I can't quite remember where I read this years ago, but I learned that back in the pre-A/C days, park rangers in Death Valley used to hang wet towels and sheets in front of open windows in the ranger station. When any sort of breeze or wind came through the window, it would pass through the wet sheets/towels and cool the air. Remembering this, whenever the girls seem particularly hot, I'll soak the old throw-blanket I use for their shade with water from the hose and then drape it over their run.

4.  Ice, ice, and more ice. 

If I ever notice that my hens are panting, I immediately get some ice and dump it in the tractor. This cools them off quickly. They love standing on it and, as you can see in the picture above, eating it. I've also made ice cubes with mint (mint is naturally cooling) in them and they seemed to like that, too. (Makes having mint growing rampant in my flowerbed slightly less irritating. Grrr.).

Another way to use ice to keep chickens cool is to freeze bottles of water and then set them in the run with the chickens. We had our chicken-sitter do this for us while we were away camping -- before we left, I gave her a couple washed-out juice bottles full of water to keep in the freezer (since they had the extra freezer space). As the ice in the bottle melts, it cools the area around it. The chickens also like standing by it and sitting on it to keep cool.

5. Cold and/or Frozen Treats 

In addition to ice, I'll often give my chickens a handful of frozen vegetables from my freezer. Sometimes, I'll give them a little cold yogurt (I don't do this often since chickens don't really digest dairy -- but let me tell you, they LOVE the stuff). Watermelon is a great summertime treat for chickens, too. My chickens' favorite cold treat:

Frozen shredded zucchini. I have some left in my freezer from last year's zucchini harvest. Once in a while, I'll unwrap a cup-sized block of frozen zucchini and put it in their run...

...and they go nuts (as shown by the blurred chicken heads).  They love it!

6. When all else fails, use the hose.

Sometimes, after all I've done, they'll still be panting. One sure-fire way to cool them down -- spray the run and even the chickens with the hose. They don't necessarily love it but it does the trick.  Last week it was kind of funny -- the chickens were looking totally miserable, so I got the hose out (despite our city's water restrictions about using culinary water outside) to spray the grass in the run and the ladies themselves. Two of them predictably flapped, ran, and squawked as I sprayed in there; however, my Rhode Island Red, Princess Leia (pictured on the left below), simply stood in one place and enjoyed herself. Seriously. I could tell she was digging it, like she was thinking, "Ahhhh....that's the stuff."

The water cooled them right down, plus the wet grass kept their feet nice and cool (which helps keep the rest of their body cool as well). Plus, it's good for a laugh -- the girls look pretty funny when they're wet.

"Oh, the indignity!"

How do you keep your chickens cool in the summertime?

{This post is linked up to Homestead Barn Hop, Creative HomeAcre Hop, Simple Lives Thursday, Little House Friday, From the Farm Blog Hop, and Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways.} 

In the Backyard: My May 2013 Garden Report; or, Why I Haven't Posted Anything in a Couple Weeks

The weather is warm, the trees have leaves on them again, and gardening season is in full swing!  As a result, it's a lot harder to sit at the computer and work on a blog post. Don't get me wrong: I love blogging, but it just feels so good to get my fingernails dirty again. And even if I didn't want to go and work in the yard and I did want to sit here and type, my boys wouldn't let me. If they had their way, they'd both want to be outside all day.  Ahhh...it's nice to have the warm weather back.

Anyway, I thought I'd show you what's been going on and what I've been doing in my backyard.

I came. I saw. I mulched.

Confession: I've never mulched my garden before. I had a lot of straw left over from the winter (it's what I used in the chicken tractor this past winter. I bought way more than I needed to last fall.), so I thought I'd give mulching a try this year. Now that I have, I want to kick myself for not doing it in seasons past. Mulch makes gardening easier, period. I don't have have to water the garden nearly as much as I usually do. There are less weeds, too. It's awesome. If you're a newbie to mulching like myself, check out this helpful introduction to the why's and how's of mulching here and here.

Like last year, my milk jug mini-greenhouses are sort of stressing me out. I know for a fact that this method of seed starting works, but the seeds took longer to get sprouting this spring, due to some unseasonably cold temperatures this spring (it snowed here on May 1st!). Almost all of the milk jugs have growth in them (except the cherry tomatoes -- again), but they're still not as big as I would've liked them to be by now. I've got a variety of tomatoes (slicing and paste), broccoli, and herbs (parsley, oregano, and thyme) starting in the milk jugs this year. Keeping my fingers crossed that they'll start growing faster as the days get warmer and warmer.

On Wednesday, I opened our last jar of homemade jam. Since I've become a jam snob and can't bring myself to buy the jam at the store, I've been pretty excited to see the raspberry and blackberry bushes start coming to life. My raspberries even have the beginnings of little flowers on them. They can't come soon enough!

My first planting of greens didn't result in..well...anything. I don't quite know what happened there. But I planted again (lettuce, Swiss chard, spinach, kale, mesclun) and it's coming up this time around. Gardening can be kind of weird like that.

Speaking of greens, I'm trying to grow all my kale in a pallet. This one isn't leaning up against my shed like my other one; this one is flat on the ground. I just laid some newspaper down, filled it with grow-box mix, and planted. So far, so good.

I'm also experimenting in that pallet with growing stuff from the ends of vegetables. I've seen ideas for re-growing with the ends of vegetables on Pinterest and figured I'd give it a go with some romaine lettuce. It's not growing super-fast, but it's not dead, either (as you can see in the picture above, there is new growth). I also want to try this with other vegetables, like celery and cabbage. I'll let you know how it works out.

This season I've planted a few vegetables I've never tried growing before. Take beets, as pictured above, for example. I didn't even know I liked beets until last Halloween, when my mom put raw beets on a vegetable tray for our Halloween party. They were surprisingly delicious. I've since juiced them with some carrots and oranges and found that they're awesome! When I make green juice with my boys (they love green juice), I've been adding beet greens to it. How awesome is a vegetable when you can eat the entire thing, leaves and roots? Anyway, I'm hoping that my beet crop pans out.

Another new plant to my garden is cabbage. I bought some seeds to start but forgot to plant them in a milk jug (duh), so I picked up these cute little starts at a nearby nursery for 50 cents each. I have dreams of making coleslaw and sauerkraut (haven't tried that one yet but really really want to) with homegrown cabbage. I'm also giving cauliflower and broccoli a try in my garden for the first time, too.

One thing in my garden I'm feeling particularly excited about is my garlic. It's going nuts! A few years ago, I tried growing garlic but I didn't go about it the right way. I just planted some garlic cloves I had in the pantry and hoped they'd work. They did sprout leaves but when I dug them up, the bulbs were about the size of a walnut; the cloves of garlic were teeny-tiny. This past fall, I ordered bulbs from my favorite seed company, planted in late October and covered them with straw. In late February, I saw little leaves poking out from the straw. Since then, they just keep getting taller and taller. I've heard that homegrown garlic is stronger and more flavorful than the garlic at the store. I keep wanting to dig around them a little and peek to see how big the bulbs are, but I am trying to resist; I'm doing my best to wait another month or two before I do.

No backyard report would be complete without some mention of the ladies.  The three girls are doing fine and laying regularly. Even though I've been collecting eggs from them for almost a year, I'm still not over the happy novelty of getting eggs from the nesting box -- especially when there are three eggs at once in there. The girls seem glad to be able to peck in the green grass again, eat all the dandelion leaves my two-year-old can give them, and enjoy all the snails (grrr) I find in my flowerbeds. I just love having chickens in the backyard, even when they look like they're gossiping about me (as they seem to be doing in this picture).

My garden is looking pretty good and I feel really excited about it. It's a lot of fun.

That said, it's not perfect. And being all about honesty here, I thought I'd post pictures of some other projects and/or frustrations in the backyard.

This flower bed is making me crazy. I took this picture a couple weeks ago and it doesn't look much better since then. What do you do with grass in the flower bed? I'd spray it with weed killer (of the homemade and storebought varieties) but I don't want to kill all my perennials. I've tried digging, hoeing, even pulling the grass out by hand. What would you do?

Another flowerbed frustration: mint. I like mint, but there's no way I could use as much as I get in my yard. The people who lived here before planted mint in the flowerbed. As nice as the people seemed when we bought the house eight years ago, I can't help but curse them every spring when the mint starts coming back. It takes everything over -- the flowerbed, the plants, my grass, anything remotely near it. I can't tell you how often I'll be hunched over it in my yard, pulling at it, and wanting to shake my fist and yell toward the sky, "MIIIIIINT!!!!" (a la William Shatner in The Wrath of Khan). Please, reader, take this as a public service announcement and never plant mint anywhere except in a pot.

I've mentioned on here before that my lawn is a frequent source of frustration for me. Right now, an entire area is covered in dandelions. See how the grass in the top-left is clear? Yeah, that's kind of shows how my lawn looks, dandelion-free then -- BAM! -- dandelions. It's like a dandelion island. It's crazy. You know, every time I go to the store, I see in the produce section bunches of long, fat dandelion leaves and I can't help but think, "Who was the brilliant person who decided to go into dandelion farming?"  Judging from my dandelion patch, I think I'd be a fantastic dandelion farmer.

At least the ladies in the backyard love them. I wonder if they'd like mint...

Even with the weeds, the rampant mint, the dandelions galore, and the slow-starting seeds, May is one of my favorite months. I mean, how can you not be happy when there are lilacs blooming? {The lilacs always remind me of my parents and grandparents' yards and of this song.}

Even our kitty can't help but smile a little now that it's May.

Happy gardening, everyone! What's growing where you live?  

Note: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have disclosed.

Observations & Lessons Learned from My First Winter with Chickens

I live on the corner of my neighborhood -- as a result, everyone in said neighborhood can see what's happening in my yard. As you can imagine, I get a lot of questions about raising chickens. One question I got a lot in the late summer and fall was, "What are you going to do with them this winter?"  I would just give them a non-committal, "Oh, I'm still doing some reading about that. We'll see."

Truth was, I was feeling pretty nervous about the whole wintertime chicken keeping thing. What was I going to do with them?  I couldn't move the tractor around in the wintertime, so I'd have to figure out some sort of way to keep things clean and un-muddy. My usual method of dealing with chicken poop (move the tractor, rake it up, put it in compost pile, repeat) wouldn't work during the winter months. Then there was the question of using heat lamps and artificial lighting. I asked some of my chicken keeper friends on Facebook what they thought I should do in that regard: half said yes to lamps, half said no. Even my chicken book I'd consulted for months and months didn't really have much information about keeping chickens in the winter.

So, with a little extra research, some prowling around in forums, with the help of a couple of great chicken blogs (I particularly like this one), I trusted my gut and hoped I wouldn't kill my three chickens this winter. Tomorrow is the first day of March and I'm happy to report that all three of my ladies are alive, well, and laying.

Here are some of the observations I made and some lessons I learned through these past cold and snowy months:

1. Chickens are tough.  
So after I put the whole "heat lamp or no?" question out to my Facebook friends and got mixed answers, I went searching around online. Again, mixed. I asked a couple people at the local feed store. They said to go with the lamp. I even had a kid from my church ask (when I told him that my girls weren't laying as much at the time), "You got a light on your chickens?" And to be honest, I felt bad about the ladies being out in the cold.

But I couldn't shake the arguments from the "no heat lamp" camp and the testimonials from chicken keepers in the Northern states like Michigan and Minnesota. I also couldn't help but think, "How did the pioneers take care of chickens before electricity?" It finally came down to what I read in an issue of Backyard Poultry magazine: I learned that chickens can survive in temperatures as low as -20°F, as long as they are sheltered from drafts. Chickens have over 8000 feathers which they fluff out and trap air with; their body heat warms the air and they stay surprisingly warm.  Plus, it's better to have them get used to cold temperatures instead of relying on a heat lamp -- if chickens that are used to having heat lamp lose that source of heat (like, say, in a power outage or if a bulb burns out), you could lose your whole flock.

So the girls didn't get a heat lamp this winter (though I still put in there -- hence the yellow cord in the picture -- just in case I changed my mind). Even in January, when we went through a stretch when the high daytime temperatures were in the low teens and the nights got as low as -10°F, they were fine. On those super-cold days I took extra care of them, which I will explain later in this post (see #5).

2. I miss the "chipple".
This past June, I learned about the chicken nipple (or as my husband and I call it, the chipple) watering system. Instead of having water dishes that get poop, food, and bedding kicked into them, you can hang the water containers and the chickens drink from the red nipple on the bottom of the container. The water stays totally clean and you don't have to change it numerous times a day. It's the best way to water chickens, in my humble opinon.

The downside to the chipple: it doesn't work in the wintertime (at least not in my experience).  The metal part  that the birds tap with their beak to release the water gets frozen and stuck in place. So even with my attempts to keep changing it and filling it with water, the first thing to freeze was that metal part. Knowing that I would eventually have to give up the chipple for the season, I ordered a heated water bowl (there are lots of great DIY ways to make heated waterers but with the limited space in the chicken tractor, I just went with the bowl).

The bowl works really well at keeping the water from freezing (it didn't even freeze when the temperatures hovered below, at, or barely above 0°F), but I forgot how messy chickens can be with their water. That bowl gets full of straw, poop, and food in no time. Sigh. I'm partly excited for spring just so I can go back to using the chipple and not have to deal with poopy water several times a day.

3. Chickens do lay eggs in the winter, even without artificial light.
I had lots of people tell me that they wouldn't lay in the winter if I didn't have a lamp on them. False. Granted, they definitely slowed down in their egg production, but they still laid eggs. I figured that chickens slow down in the winter for a reason, so I decided to let nature take its course. One of my neighbors told me that his hens have never had artificial light in their coop and the same hens have been laying for nearly four years!

My Rhode Island Red, Princess Leia, has been reliably laying for the entire winter season. My Black Sex-link, Foxy Cleopatra, has been off and on, though she pretty much stopped in January. My Ameraucana, Lenore, actually started laying her first eggs (I was so excited to finally see those blue-green eggs!) when the temperatures were coldest in early January.

At one point during the winter, I was only collecting getting one egg a day. This wasn't enough to keep up with my family's egg consumption, so I ended up buying some from one of my neighbors (her eggs are not only pastured but fertile, too). Most of time, though, this season I've collected 1-2 eggs a day; it'll be nice when I'm collecting three daily.

(Sidenote: If you do use lamps in your chicken coop, that's great -- I know lots of people who do and they did get more eggs from their chickens than I did this winter. I'm definitely not trying to stir any sort of debate up, I promise.)

4. Chickens can get bored and turn into jerks.

Since my hens have always been on the grass in the chicken tractor, they've never seemed bored. In the warmer months, they loved pecking and scratching around in the grass, digging little holes, taking dust baths, and eating all the worms and grasshoppers my boys could find. Then winter came and kept their chicken tractor in one spot. Some days it got so cold that they'd stay in the henhouse for a good part of the day. There was not a whole lot for them to do.

I had read about chicken boredom and tried to help them out by giving them treats (dried mealworms are their favorite). I'd sometimes toss a head of cabbage or lettuce into the tractor for them to peck at and eat. They liked pecking around for scratch, but I could tell that they were still feeling a little restless.

Then one morning as I was changing their water yet again, I noticed that my Black Sex-link was missing a lot of feathers on her neck. My first thought was, "Oh great, she's sick". So I took a picture with my phone (the picture you see in this paragraph) and sent it to my brother-in-law, my go-to chicken expert. His answer? Since it was only in that spot, it looked like she was at the receiving end of some pecking. I did some reading and found out that chickens are more prone to do this kind of thing in the winter. The feathers grew back on Foxy, but Lenore soon followed as the next victim with a section next to her tail plucked away. I'm suspecting it's Princess Leia who's the bully, especially since she pecked at me the other day as I was feeding them some kitchen scraps (and she's usually quite docile.).  I guess even chickens start to feel crabby when winter has worn on too long.

(I actually just found this blog post about keeping chickens occupied -- it's a little late for my ladies now, seeing as winter is almost over and they'll be back to the grass and bugs they love, but I'll still implement a few ideas.)

5. My chickens are spoiled.

Behold -- hot breakfast for hens.

On those below-zero mornings especially, I just felt bad for the girls in the backyard. They were fine but I still felt for them. So whenever it got really cold, I'd whip up nice steaming bowl of oatmeal for the ladies. I sprinkle in some scratch, a few tablespoons chicken treat mix, and some raisins. I always tried to do this on the sly in the mornings, a bit worried about the looks or teasing I might get from my husband (he finds it funny how I spoil our chickens). The ladies loved getting hot breakfast -- at least, they seemed liked they loved it, the way they would gobble it up.

That was just one thing I did for the ladies when it got super-cold this winter. I also paid attention to their combs, coating the combs of two of them with Vaseline so as to avoid frostbite (our Ameraucana has a short pea-comb, so the risk of frostbite is far less). I swear, my Black Sex-link liked getting picked up and having her comb rubbed with Vaseline; I could feel her body relax under my arm and she would sort of close her eyes as I took care of her comb.

So, yes, my chickens are bit spoiled (though still not as spoiled as some others I've read about, where people decorate their coops, knit them sweaters, and put diapers on them so they can roam the house). My husband finds it amusing the way I research and read about keeping chickens, the way I get all concerned over them. My rationale: healthy and happy chickens produce the best eggs -- and I'm pleased to report that my hens, considering the freezing temperatures and the many feet of snow we've gotten this winter, seem as healthy and happy as can be expected.

Note: Some of the links in the post above are "affiliate links." This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. 

{This post is linked up to Simple Lives Thursday,  Little House Friday and Your Green Resource}

Peel Appeal: 7 Ways to Use Citrus Peels

Don't you find it interesting/awesome that citrus fruit comes in season when we need it most? These delicious fruits, packed full of Vitamin C, are at their best when the cold and flu season is at its worst.  Like I said, it's awesome.

What's even better is that citrus is at its cheapest right now. We've been especially stocking up on oranges (Cara Cara oranges are my favorite) and clementines.  And while the fruit is wonderful and nutritious, I think that one important aspect of citrus is often overlooked: the peel.

Here are seven ways you can make the most of your citrus:

1. Zest them.
The peel holds many of the oils that give citrus its wonderful flavor. Adding zest to foods gives it a nice lift, I think. I use lemon zest all the time when I'm cooking and baking (I use this grater whenever I need lemon or orange zest -- works better than any other fine grater I've tried).  The peel of citrus fruit is also healthy -- the limonene in the peel actually stimulates your body's antioxidant detoxification enzyme system, actually helping prevent cancer (I learned that from a book called Superfoods Rx).  It's a shame, really, that we throw this beneficial part of the fruit away!

2. Boil them.
Want to freshen the air in your home? Bring some water to a boil, add the peels (I sometimes add a little vanilla, too), let them boil for a little bit, then reduce the heat to low. Let the mixture simmer for as long as you want, but be sure to add more water as needed.

3. Scrub with them.
I found this great tutorial about how to use dried peels to make a homemade scouring scrub. She simply let some grapefruit peels (I'm sure you could use other kinds of peels) dry for a few days, then she ground them up in her food processor until they were a fine powder. Add some borax and baking soda and you've got a pretty great scouring scrub -- and the author of the post says that it smells "heavenly".

4. Clean your disposal with them.
Citrus peels are great for cleaning and deodorizing your sink's garbage disposal. Just stick them in there, turn it on, let them grind away for a few seconds with some water, and you've got a sink that doesn't stink.

5. Sweeten them.
I've never tried it, but you can candy orange peels. I saw this recipe last month and was intrigued. Have you ever made or eaten candied peels?

6. Burn them.
I wish I had a fireplace. I'll have to pass this tip from Apartment Therapy on to my parents. Dried peels apparently make really good kindling. The oils in the peels fuel the fire.  Not only will using dried peels make your home smell like roasting oranges, but they emit less creosote than paper thus keeping your chimney cleaner.

7. Soak them.
For the last couple months or so, I've been soaking some of our orange peels in vinegar. The result? Orange-infused vinegar.  It smells so nice! (a pro for people who want to clean with vinegar but don't like the smell. I'm not one of them, but I do prefer the smell of oranges to vinegar!) Plus, oils from the peels are antibacterial, so I figure it'll give the vinegar an extra little cleaning kick. I use orange-infused vinegar everywhere in my house -- it's a great all-purpose cleaner.

I also used this concoction to do my semi-annual serious scrub-down of our chickens' home. Not only did it help clean out all that chicken poo and make it smell really fresh, but the citrus helps deter insects from making a home in the henhouse (I learned that here - and I'm going to make her mint-lavender-vinegar refresher spray for the ladies' coop this summer).

To make citrus-infused vinegar, simply put the peels (you could use orange, lemon, grapefruit, any sort of citrus) in a jar (I've used both pint-sized canning jars and reused spaghetti sauce jars), fill with white vinegar, and let it sit for at least a couple weeks. Once the two weeks are up, strain the vinegar into a spray bottle. For hardly any effort, you get an effective all-purpose cleaner that smells great and costs only a few cents. It's one of those simple things that makes this frugal girl's heart happy.

Note: Some of the links in the post above are "affiliate links." This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. 

{This post is linked up to Homestead Barn Hop, Simple Lives Thursday, and Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways..}

18 Ways I Use Vinegar at My House

My husband teases me whenever we go grocery shopping because I usually buy more gallons of vinegar than gallons of milk.  I tell him that someday, when the zombie apocalypse finally happens, we will be the envy of the neighborhood because of our stockpile of vinegar. It'll be a hot commodity, I tell you (we'll have to guard our stash with a double-barrel shotgun), because it's useful in so many ways.

Here a few of the ways I use vinegar at my house...

1. All-purpose cleaner.  This is the #1 reason I think that vinegar is a great thing to have on hand (zombie apocalypse or no):  vinegar (straight 5% solution -- the kind sold at supermarkets) kills 99% percent of bacteria, 82% of mold, and 80% of viruses. Because of this, I use vinegar to clean just about everything in my house. To make an all-purpose cleaner,  mix equal parts white vinegar vinegar and water in a clean spray bottle. That's it (though sometimes I add a few drops of orange, lemon, or tea tree essential oil). I use this cleaner in my kitchen, bathrooms, everywhere. Best of all, this all-purpose cleaner is way cheaper than a store-bought all-purpose cleaner. I also love it because it's just vinegar -- no funky chemicals to worry about. (One word of warning -- don't use vinegar on marble or granite surfaces.) Your home won't smell like vinegar once it dries, I promise.

2. Dishwasher rinse aid. Fill up the rinse aid dispenser in your dishwasher with straight white vinegar instead. Totally works for me, even with my hard water.

3. Garbage disposal cleaner.  A great way to combat stinky kitchen drains is to freeze white vinegar in an ice cube tray. Once frozen, pop a few vinegar cubes into the disposal and turn it on. It not only gets rid of the stink but it also helps sharpen the blades of the garbage disposal, too.

4. Stain remover. I use vinegar in the laundry room a lot, especially since white vinegar works well for getting rid of stains.  I think it works particularly well with food stains. Here's a link to the stain fighting chart I have in my laundry room, courtesy of Martha Stewart.

5. Fabric softener.  Did you know that vinegar is a natural fabric softener? I pour around 1/4 - 1/2 cup of white vinegar into the middle of the agitator (that's where my machine's fabric softener dispenser is) and it gets released into the rinse cycle.   The vinegar keeps our clothes static free when I use the dryer - I haven't purchased dryer sheets in over two years. Vinegar is also helpful for the clothes that I dry outside on the clothesline -- it makes them less stiff.  And don't worry about your clothes smelling like vinegar -- once they're dry, the vinegar smell disappears.

6. Eliminating boy bathroom smell. I grew up with three younger brothers. I have a six-year-old boy now. I am well acquainted with "boy bathroom smell". (Is it really that hard to aim? Really?) What's the best way to clean the floor around the toilet? With vinegar! Not only does it neutralize the smell and kill germs, but it's also a safer way to clean. Mixing bleach with anything with ammonia in it (read: urine) can create a dangerous toxic gas. True story. Anyway, I splash vinegar around the base, let it soak for a while, then mop it up.

7. Toilet bowl cleaner. I've been cleaning the toilets in my house with only vinegar for years. When I clean a bathroom, the first thing I do is flush the toilet, add about a cup of vinegar while the bowl is refilling with water, and close the lid. I clean the rest of the bathroom (with spray bottle filled with vinegar) while I let the vinegar in the toilet do its work. Once I've finished cleaning everything in the bathroom, I'll scrub out the bowl with the toilet brush and all stains come right off. Flush and the dirty work is done.

8. Cleaning up vomit. I've mostly have experience with this from my (recently departed...sniff) cat. Let's just say he had a sensitive system and grazed on grass as if he were half-cow. Anyway, vinegar is good for cleaning up vomit because it has a more neutral acidity level than stomach acid, which helps neutralize that horrible vomit smell. I usually attack those stinky spots with a mixture of water and white vinegar (about a 2:1 ratio) and the smell goes away pretty quickly.

9. Glass cleaner. I'm a big fan of the "Alvin Corn" glass cleaner recipe I found on Pinterest. To make it, you only need vinegar, rubbing alcohol, cornstarch, and water. It's inexpensive and it works really well.

10. Pickling. I used so much vinegar canning this fall. Pickled peppers, dill pickles, sweet pickles -- delish.  You certainly can't pickle without vinegar.

11. Salad dressing. Vinegar goes great with salad. I like splashing some red wine vinegar or balsamic vinegar straight onto my salad and eating that way. You can also make your own Italian dressing with vinegar -- for the super-easy recipe, go here.

12. Coleslaw. My husband served an LDS mission in the southern United States. After spending two years in the South, he come home with a love for slaw (especially when it is piled up on a hot dog with some chili. I thought it was weird until I tried it. YUM.). Lucky for him, I've been making it pretty often since I discovered Paula Deen's recipe (so easy, so good!). Without vinegar, coleslaw is just cabbage and carrots; vinegar is what makes it work.

13. Turning milk to buttermilk. Real, cultured buttermilk is always best in recipes, but sometimes I don't have it on hand. In those instances, I make do by mixing a little bit of vinegar with milk. To make a subsitute for 1 cup of buttermilk, mix 1 Tbsp. of vinegar with a cup of milk. Let it stand for about 10 minutes -- this will give it time to curdle the milk and thicken. Only use this method if you'll be cooking or baking -- it's not meant for recipes where you would use buttermilk raw, like in a salad dressing.

14.  Health drink. Drinking a couple teaspoons of apple cider vinegar mixed with water a few times a day is supposed to be really good for you. My husband used to drink it every day when he was in high school and said it helped him with colds and such. I've been trying to drink it regularly, but the stuff is strong. I'm trying to get used to it. I'll let you know if any of those health benefits start kicking in. I've also mixed a little bit of ACV with my chickens' water because it's supposed to be beneficial for them, too.

15. Hair detangler. Believe it or not, you can actually use apple cider vinegar as you would conditioner. I used apple cider vinegar in place of conditioner for a while back in 2010. It totally softened and detangled my hair. I don't use ACV conditioner as often anymore, but I do use it whenever I'm in a pinch. To make vinegar conditioner, simply mix 2 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar to a quart of water (I just kept a quart-sized Mason jar in my bathroom); pour over your hair (I usually just focused on the ends). Let your hair absorb the vinegar-water mixture for a minute or so, then rinse. I promise your hair won't smell like a pickle.

16. Dyeing Easter eggs.  Never buy egg-dyeing kits again. Making your own Easter egg dye is ridiculously simple. For the how-to, go here.

17. Cleaning the chicken coop. I decided to give the ladies' housing a good scrub-down last month following the instructions from this helpful post about naturally disinfecting chicken coops with vinegar.

18.  Baking soda + vinegar = cheap entertainment.  Kids love seeing vinegar and baking soda combine. Who am I kidding? I still think it's fun to mix the two.  My husband helped Max build a little volcano out cardboard last year. Then, he put a shot glass in the middle (the souvenir one that he got as a joke for me after a business trip to Austin. It says, "Don't Mess with Texas" ). Add some vinegar, food coloring, and baking soda and Max thought it was the coolest thing ever. We've also done the fun activity with the pan of baking soda and the colored vinegar in a dropper (if you have no idea what I'm talking about, click here). Who knew a chemical reaction could be entertaining?

Oh, vinegar. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

{This post is linked up to Homestead Barn Hop, Simple Lives Thursday, Your Green Resource, Farm Girl Blog Fest, Frugal Fridays, and Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways.}

Backyard Flock Update + A Giveaway!

It happened a little over a week ago: we got our first egg from our chickens!

It wasn't my brightest moment. I first saw it when I was taking some ice out to the chickens (when it gets really hot and the ladies start to pant a little, I dump a bunch of ice into the chicken tractor. They walk all over it, peck at it, lay on it, and, consequently, cool off.). I lifted the door to put the ice in and I saw an egg, right there on the grass. My first (brilliant) reaction: "Why is there an egg in here?"  A second later it all clicked in my head. I picked the miniature egg up and marveled at it for a while.  Once I was done, I went into the house and announced it to the family -- Max was extra excited. We oohed and awed over it together and then cooked what little there was in the small egg. The three of us crowded around the plate and each took a taste of bits of scrambled egg. It was awesome in every sense of the word.

Since then, our Black Sex-link, Foxy, has laid us an egg every day.  She hasn't quite figured out that she should do it in the nesting box, but she'll come around -- especially since our Rhode Island Red, Princess Leia, just started laying almost a week ago (she lays it in the nesting box every time so far). One of my favorite things is when I send Max out to check for eggs and when he retrieves them he almost always says thank you to one of the hens.

In other backyard chicken news, we've added another member to our flock. Since our Easter Egger turned out to be a rooster (and not the true Ameraucana I thought it was), we were down to only two chickens. Anxious to get another pullet before the fall, I looked at some online classifieds and found an advertisement for a heritage breed Ameracauna. I was interested since I wanted to get the colored eggs (the ones my rooster was supposed lay for me), so I drove out to the seller's home to check it out. The bird looked healthy (though, if I'm being honest, a little scraggly) so I decided to take her. We put her in her own little pen since it's recommended to keep new birds separated from the rest of flock for a few weeks. (Ideally, I would have gotten another chick and raised it, but it's hard to buy just one chick. The minimum for many places, online and locally, is three.) We've had her for almost two weeks and everything seems fine so far.

Since our rooster was the chicken I named, I got to name his replacement. Our new pullet is all black and resembles a raven, so the dorky English major in me couldn't resist naming her Lenore. She's about four months old, not that  much younger than the other two, but she looks quite a bit smaller. When she starts laying, she'll lay blue eggs. I'm hoping we'll start getting some eggs from her sometime in September.

Now, for the giveaway...

As I mentioned earlier in this post, one of our hens isn't laying in the nesting box. It isn't a huge deal, but they are a little trickier to retrieve and they get a little dirty when she lays them on the grass. After doing some reading, I decided to get a couple wooden eggs and put them in the nesting box (I ordered them before the other hen started laying, so maybe they're unnecessary now). Supposedly, the hen is supposed to see the wooden eggs in the nesting box and figure out that she needs to lay there.

Anyway, I got my shipment a few days ago, except that it came in a medium-sized box and was pretty heavy. It didn't make much sense. I opened it up and found three 2-lb. bags of chicken treats instead of the wooden eggs. I called up the company I ordered from to find out what was going on. They were really helpful and found out that there had been a mix-up at one of the shipping facilities. The nice customer service lady told me I could keep the bags of treats and that the wooden eggs would be on their way shortly.

I was pretty happy about this, as you can imagine. Who doesn't love free stuff (especially when each bag runs at about $12 a pop)? Not only were they free, but the treats are full of healthy stuff I knew the ladies in the backyard would like. Each bag of treats contains an all-natural, organic mix of pumpkin seeds, buckwheat groats, quinoa, cracked corn, flax seeds, sunflower seeds, alfalfa leaf, coconut, and marigold petals.

So, do you want one of the three bags I received? I figured I'd pass on part this happy (for me) accident to one of you lovely readers. To enter the giveaway, just leave a comment telling me what your chickens' favorite treat is. You have to live in the United States to enter (sorry, international friends. I just can't afford the shipping!). For an extra entry, become a follower of my blog; another entry for mentioning this giveaway on your blog, Pinterest, Facebook, or Twitter (if you do any of these extra steps, be sure to leave a comment for each).

The giveaway ends Thursday, August 9, at midnight MST. I'll announce the winner on Friday.

Good luck and I hope you win!

Note: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have disclosed.

{This post is linked up to Little House Friday and Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways.}

How to Spot a Rooster in Your Backyard Flock

It's hard to tell if you've got a rooster when he looks like this...

(Awwwwwww.)

It's a lot easier to tell when he starts to look like this...

One morning around the end of June, I was in the kitchen cooking breakfast when I could have sworn I heard a crowing sound coming from the hen-house. And then it started to click. That's why our Ameraucana/Easter Egger,  Betsy Ross (we gave her an all-American kind of name), looked so different than the other two chickens. I thought it was just the differences in the breeds.  I then called my brother-in-law, the one I refer to as "the chicken whisperer", and I told him about the situation. He told me not to jump to conclusions just yet and to wait it out. Then I showed him some pictures of "her" the next day. He told me I definitely had a rooster on my hands. 

Sigh.

I can't blame the store where I got my chicks -- they told me that they were 90% sure that all the chicks they had were female, but there was a chance we'd get a boy. So I was warned. But since I was only getting three chickens, I thought my chances were pretty good that we'd only have hens. Oh well. It's been a learning experience. As such, I thought I would share what I've learned about identifying a rooster, with the help of some photos of Ross the Rooster (though we still kept accidentally calling him Betsy).  

1. Crowing.  

That's the obvious way to tell. It took a few days after that initial "did-I-just-hear-one-of-my-hens-crow?" moment for him to crow regularly. Granted, it wasn't a very respectable crow; it was pretty much the equivalent to the way a teenage boy's voice cracks. At first, he'd only do it in the mornings (right around 6:30 AM), but then it happened numerous times a day. It didn't bother me much, but I worried about him bothering the neighbors. It got louder and clearer by the day.

2.  Saddle Feathers

My brother-in-law told me that one of the big giveaways in distinguishing a rooster from a hen is the pointy saddle feathers that drape down by the tail. On our hens, the feathers around their tails are rounded and they don't point down. As you can see, his tail feathers are characteristically rooster-ish. 

3. Tail Feathers

Ross's tail feathers aren't very impressive yet, but you can see how he has a long, curved tail feather sticking out above the rest. Those are called sickle feathers. That was one of the first things I thought odd about our "hen" a couple weeks before I heard that crow: "Huh. Her tail feathers look kind of like a rooster's."  I didn't give it much thought after that. I was still excited at the prospect of getting green eggs from "her".

 4.  Neck Feathers

Another thing I noticed about Betsy/Ross the Rooster before I knew he was a rooster was how his neck feathers (also known as the hackle) were different than the other two chickens. Not only were they pointy at the bottom, but they looked different than the rest of his feathers, almost like he had a sort of mane. Plus, he would regularly fluff and puff them out (it always reminded of that of that scene with the frilled dinosaur in Jurassic Park). Pointy neck feathers are a sign of rooster -- the feathers at the neck of a hen are more rounded (as with the saddle feathers). 

5. Posture 

This one is a little tricky to explain and maybe even a little vague, but our rooster just carried himself differently than the other two chickens.  He stood taller than the others and walked with his chest puffed out a little more. It was this sort of "I-rule-the-chicken-tractor" way he stood and walked. 

6. Demeanor

"Betsy" was our favorite of the chickens -- he/she was the friendliest of our three birds. Whenever we checked the brooder, he was the one to always poke his head up curiously, as if he were saying hello. He wasn't skittish or shy with us ever -- he was definitely the bravest one of the group. He also never pecked any of us -- not even my baby, who loves to stick dandelion leaves (along with his little chubby fingers) through the chicken wire to feed them. 

That said, he was nice to us, but not so nice to the other chickens.  As the chickens got older, we noticed that "Betsy" was pretty pushy with them, chasing them around the tractor, herding them up into the hen-house (as pictured above), hogging food whenever we fed them snacks (he would run right up to them and snatch whatever was sticking out of their beaks), pecking them, and, frankly, just being a bully. As he got older we also...um...saw him putting the moves on the hens. (Maybe that was what all the squawking was about. The couple times I saw this happen, the hens were not at all happy about his advances.) 

7.  Other Features (i.e., the ones I've read about but didn't really see with our rooster)

There are some other indicators to help you distinguish a hen from a rooster, but I've read that these are the less reliable indicators. One feature can be the comb (roosters have bigger/wider combs -- this wasn't so helpful in our case since Easter Eggers have wider pea combs no matter what sex they are). Another indicator is spurs on the back of the legs. However, this isn't really the best way to distinguish either because I've read that some hens have little spur buds on the back of their legs, too. I've read also that rooster legs are often thicker than hen legs, but this is can be misleading because different chickens come in different sizes.

Maybe you noticed that I've been referring to our rooster in the past tense. Before I got our chickens, I checked with the city for any sort of rules and regulations regarding backyard poultry. One thing they told me: no roosters in residential areas. Ross the Rooster had to go. My brother offered to give him a good home...in his stomach. We didn't want to go that route, but we were prepared to do that if needs be. Just as I was about to tell my brother to come pick him up, someone from our church told me she had a friend who would take him. I'm happy to report that Ross is living on a farm now -- he gets to roam in the pasture and crow to his heart's content. The people we gave him to also happen to have eight hens. Basically, life is pretty good for our rooster friend.

Is there anything I missed? I'm new to chicken raising and welcome any further wisdom on this topic.

{This post is linked up to Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways, Homestead Barn Hop, and Little House Friday.}