Feathered Friend Friday: Little Girls All Grown Up

Last weekend we integrated our five new pullets in with the main flock and it has gone really smoothly (thank goodness). So far, the new girls are staying to themselves away from the other chickens and trying to keep a low profile. Smart girls! Our run is huge, so there is plenty of room for them to get away from the hens and roosters if need be.

I spent some time with them yesterday to make sure all was still going well, and I began to reminisce about how much they have grown since early April when I brought them home. It's still hard to believe that in just a few short months, this...

Penelope, aka Penny

Turned into this...

Their fuzzy fluff is long gone and has made way for such soft, beautiful feathers! They are starting to get a little spunky lately with their new found freedom and room to roam, so they don't like me to hold them and keep them from exploring. I oblige and just end up watching them have fun in their new environment.

Summer

Cheddie

Goldie

Pearl

They probably have several months to go before they start laying eggs, but I am excited for more gorgeous colors in my egg basket. Summer will lay dark, terra cotta colored eggs that I can't wait to see! But for now, I'm just enjoying watching my girls turn into little ladies. The eggs will come soon enough.

~Tammy

Shared with From The Farm Blog Hop 

Egyptian Walking Onions

Have you ever heard of walking onions? I definitely had not up until a few weeks ago when David's aunt gave us some of her plants for our garden.

What makes these onions unique is that they form a cluster of tiny "bulblets" where other onions would only produce flowers. The onions emerge from the ground in early spring and continue to grow all season long, eventually reaching up to three feet tall. At this point, the bulblets are too heavy for the tall, thin plant to hold them up, so the plant falls over and the bulblets hit the ground forming roots and new plants where they land. Hence the term, walking onions!

Little bulblets from the top of the plant.

The whole plant can be eaten, with the main onion in the ground appearing similar to a leek with a pungent flavor. The young greens can be tossed into a salad, and the bulblets are great for pickling. These perennial plants are very prolific and will yield bigger topsets of bulbs each year and will produce new onion bulbs in the soil so you can even divide the plants each year. 

Occasionally the plant will grow tiny flowers with the bulblets.

Since we just planted them this summer, next year we may only see greens pop up, but the year after that they should be well established and come in at their full potential. They are very hardy plants able to withstand cold winter temperatures, so they should be just fine in our climate here in Missouri.

For more information on these neat onions, you can visit this site. From there you can even order some if you wish, or if you're lucky, maybe you know someone who will give you a few starts from their plants!

Do you have walking onions in your garden?

~Tammy

Power Granola

For the past few years now, I've been a big fan of granola for breakfast. I prefer something sweet over savory for my first meal of the day and I like to eat a lot of fruit in the mornings, so granola is perfect. Here's my go-to recipe lately that I like to call my "power granola."

Power Granola
Ingredients:
1/2 cup granola (I really like this recipe)
Chia seeds
Hemp seeds
Pecans
1 banana
Pomegranate seeds
1/2 cup almond or soy milk

I've found that this is my favorite combination of add-ins to my granola, and it keeps me full and satisfied until lunchtime. I look forward to eating breakfast each morning when I know it's going to be this good!

If you've never made granola at home, I'd highly recommend giving it a go! I just started making my own granola last winter and haven't stopped since. I've gotten into a routine of baking it each Sunday night so I have plenty to last through the week. I keep it in a pretty glass jar on my counter so it's ready to go.

Do you like granola? What are your favorite add-ins?

~Tammy

Shared with Tweak It Tuesday, Sunny Simple Monday, Healthy Vegan Friday, From The Farm Blog Hop, What I Am Eating   

Feathered Friend Friday: Chicken Saddles

Have you ever heard of chicken saddles? About four years ago when I was a fairly new chicken keeper, I heard of them but had no clue what they would be used for. Surely nothing was going to be hitching a ride on my hen, right? Eventually I figured it all out and have found saddles to be very useful in my flock!

The saddle is made from is a piece of fabric that rests on the hen's back for protection with two elastic loops fitted over the wings to hold the fabric in place. We put this saddle on Lucy because our head rooster, Cam, is very fond of her and mates with her quite often. Roosters can be rough with hens during mating and actually pull out some back feathers while positioning or "treading" on the hen. Poor Lucy's back was getting pretty bare so we put a saddle on her to protect her skin from Cam's nails. With no feathers for protection, Lucy's skin could easily be cut open by Cam's nails resulting in a very serious wound - this has actually happened a couple times with our other hens and it is quite traumatic.

The saddle will keep Lucy's back safe while allowing for feather re-growth. The saddles are fairly easy to put on and my girls don't seem to mind them at all after they get used to them. For a few minutes they usually fidget around, but soon enough they seem to forget the saddle is even there.

Even if you don't have a rooster, saddles are great to have on hand. Back when I just had my first flock of pullets, someone developed a bad habit of feather picking and lots of the girls' backs were totally bare. Saddles would be great in this situation to prevent any injuries from pecking (and cannibalism - it happens in rare occasions - yikes!). Also, if a hen is broody and sitting in the favorite nesting box, other hens may peck at her to try to get her off the nest so they can lay their eggs in the box. A saddle would protect the hen's back if you are unable to move her to a separate enclosure with her clutch of eggs (which is recommended in the case of broody hens).

If you have chickens, have you ever used saddles on any of your hens?

~Tammy

Shared with Backyard Farming Connection