Feathered Friend Friday: Herbs For The Coop

Welcome to our "Feathered Friend Friday" series. Each Friday I write a post with interesting facts, photos, or funny stories about our chickens and guineas. If you need to catch up, you'll find all the Feathered Friend Friday posts here.   

Last weekend I gave the coop a good fall cleaning. I swept out the cobwebs, wiped everything down, sprinkled some diatomaceous earth on the coop floor and roosts, removed all the pine shavings and added several bags of fresh shavings on the coop floor. After reading Fresh Eggs Daily and learning about all the benefits of using herbs and flowers in your coop, I decided to cut some thyme, sage, lemon balm, and oregano for the floor of the coop as well.

In addition to making it smell wonderful in the coop, fresh herbs also have health benefits for your chickens and can repel bugs and rodents. Even if the chickens don't eat them, they will rub up against the herbs while scratching around in the shavings and release the scent and natural oils from the herbs - a sort of aromatherapy for chickens!

We also collected some herbs and flowers to dry out and use in the coop and nesting boxes over the winter when we don't have fresh herbs. Last night we got our first hard freeze, so I gathered even more herbs to dry for the chickens (and also for the humans of course).

Not only do herbs and flowers seem to make the chickens healthier and happier, I enjoy seeing some green and bright pops of color dotting the coop floor and nesting boxes. It just makes the chickens' home a happier one and I do like to spoil them whenever I can!

Do you use herbs in your chicken coop?

~Tammy

Shared with Backyard Farming Connection Hop 

Homemade Living: Failed Cake Turned Into Cake Pops

My brother recently had a birthday, and David and I made plans to hang out at his house to watch a movie and celebrate. I thought it would be nice to make him a cake to bring along, so I got to work on the cake I always make for birthdays (recipe here).

I've made this cake many times before with great success, but this time, something went horribly wrong. The cakes came out of the oven just fine, but when I went to frost the cake, it totally fell apart on me. As I tried to fix it, things only got worse.

Just in case you aren't grasping the colossal level of failure from my words, I thought I'd share the embarrassing photographic proof.



I mean really, what the heck is that?! (I finally figured out that my frosting was too thick so it wouldn't spread evenly.) I was feeling pretty defeated but didn't want to waste the cake. It still tasted really good, but it was clearly a big mess.

I remembered a while back one of my friends made some cake pops and she was telling me about the process. You start with a baked and cooled cake, then crumble it all up. Mix in enough frosting to make a "dough" out of the cake and form into balls, then dip into melted candy coating and let harden. I figured it was worth a shot to try and I had nothing to lose, so I made cake pops out of my failed cake.

Sorry about the scratches - we do have a kitten after all!

They didn't turn out perfect, but hey, I was proud of myself for thinking outside the box and trying to salvage my epic cake fail. Next time I'll just make my frosting a little thinner!

Have you ever managed to save a baking fail?

~Tammy

This week in the Homemade Living series, I am joined by Mary and Jackie in posting about how we incorporate homemade items into our lives. Next week Daisy, Staci, and Sue will be up. If you have some free time, please check out the other posts in this weekly series!

Plant Garlic In 5 Easy Steps

I have been wanting to plant garlic for several years now, especially after seeing all the delicious uses for garlic scapes. I use garlic quite a bit in my cooking, and have recently learned about its antibiotic, antiviral, and antibacterial qualities, so that made me want to plant garlic that much more. Here's how we did it, and how you can plant garlic in five easy steps.

Step 1 - Buy your garlic.
We bought our garlic online here. We researched to see which variety was best for our area and went with a hardneck called German Extra Hardy. It can withstand very cold winters (we can dip down into the single digits here in Missouri) and also is great for long term storage. 

Step 2 - Prepare for planting.
Garlic needs plenty of sun to grow (at least six hours per day). We decided to plant ours in two smaller beds in the garden that get a good amount of sunlight. We cleared the weeds and worked the soil well until it was nice and loose while Sylvester supervised the operation.

Step 3 - Break apart the cloves.
The bulbs need to be broken up into individual cloves for planting, so we carefully separated each clove. I've read that it is best to leave the papery skin on the cloves to help prevent against rotting and disease, so we tried to keep the skin on when possible. 

Step 4 - Plant cloves in rows root end down.
We dug a furrow about three inches deep, and planted each clove several inches apart. Each row was at least six inches apart, and we were able to get three rows in each of our two garden beds. We made sure there was at least two inches of soil covering each row of cloves.

Step 5 - Cover with mulch.
I cleaned out the coop over the weekend, so we used the pine shavings with composted chicken manure on top of the garden beds. This will protect the garlic from the winter cold and also prevent weeds from growing up (a necessity since garlic doesn't compete well with weeds).

I was pleasantly surprised at how easy the process was, since for some reason I had it in my head that garlic was difficult to plant and grow. I've read that garlic actually doesn't require much maintenance, so I'm hoping for a good harvest next year. We'll definitely keep you updated on the progress!

Do you grow garlic in your garden?

~Tammy

Shared with From the Farm Blog Hop, Backyard Farming Connection Hop 

Feathered Friend Friday: Rooster Antics

Welcome to our "Feathered Friend Friday" series. Each Friday I write a post with interesting facts, photos, or funny stories about our chickens and guineas. If you need to catch up, you'll find all the Feathered Friend Friday posts here.   

I mentioned in a previous FFF post here that we ended up with four roosters when we let our hen, Ellie, hatch out some eggs this May. We had been keeping them all in a separate coop and run area, but the run was a little too small for them and they started to fight. We decided it was best if we let them out to free range each day instead of keeping them in an enclosed area together.

There is always the risk of a predator attack when you allow chickens to free range, and that is something that we understand and have come to terms with. However, we feel it's in their best interest to have more room to roam and free ranging gives them the happiest lives possible. And so far, it has been working out great. At first they stayed close to their coop, but recently they have been ranging out across the yard and up to our back porch and picnic table!

It cracks me up when I look out the kitchen door and see them on the back porch, stealing any leftover cat food they can find. They have so much personality and are really fun to watch. They tend to follow me around everywhere I go, begging for treats. And I usually indulge them, so I'm sure that's why they keep following me around. When I go down to the chicken coop in the evening, I usually have a train of roosters and cats following me down there. It's like my own little animal parade!

With all these roosters (our current count is six!) of course there is some crowing going on. It's pretty much constant crowing around here, but you know what, I really like it. The crows aren't so loud to be unbearable, and they sort of blend into the overall symphony of the homestead. It's music to my ears.

Do you have any roosters in your flock?

~Tammy

Shared with Tuesday Muse