"This year i want to..." Homesteading.

[Demonwolf444]

Okay, i have had a lot going on around the family home where i still live, had a large oak and ash come down, destroying some stuff in the process, but also clearing some space, and also a house being built in the back garden. Also having to be financially independent which turns out weather you work or work for your self, takes up a lot of time.. who knew.

Anyway with all this going on out garden is all over the place, full of building junk and a ton of logs.

Could do with being inspired so would like to hear your homesteading plans for the coming year.

As it stands mine are.

Clear an area for a chicken coop. I miss having chickens so badly, the eggs and their personalities are so worthwhile. I want to clear a large enough area for about 6 chickens. Build the run and create automatic feeders and drinkers to minimize workload.
Hope to start with that this week. Also have a separate rearing coop. The flock is intended to be pure breading Light Sussex. Excellent utility breed. Separate rearing coop is useful so when something goes broody or i hatch some out i don't have to panic and slap something together last minute. Means also that i could keep some rabbits or feed up cockerels separate for meat. Keeping pure breeding flock means i can sell them at auction as well.

Fertilize the green house, and turn in the fertilizer on the veg patch.

Find a decent place for the ferret hutch!

Generally tidier garden, get rid of unnecessary junk, make better use of space for food production.

Future plans for a pig or two ( plenty of space ) but have too much on at the moment and not enough time.

 

[Demonwolf444]

Add to that to properly harvest our fruit tree's and investigate different ways to preserve the fruit. Mostly apples, have some cherries i think too.

 

[milius2]

Ah, it's nice to share your troubles...

Mine is as follow:
1. Plant trees around the perimeter. 1km and 1000 trees. DONE!
2. Build fence around garden. 300m, a must do before winter...
3. Build fence around perimeter. 1000 meters, so I could keep some sheep. sometime next spring would be great.
4. Build house. 3 months of the summer. The foundations are set, the rest is up to luck.
5. Fix farm house for sheep. maybe next year.
6. Extend pond, make drainage system for fish collection and build entrance road on the channel. Anytime would be great.

Job now, get the tractor going so I could start doing the rest.....
Anyway, one good thing, I'm done with the big stuff in my work, so I can devote all the summer to the house. And I have the funds (I think) for the best part of it, so fingers crossed.

Andy

 

[Kerne]

My list:
build a new shed for the garden tools so there's more room in my workshop;
paint the wood on the greenhouse;
put up a cage around the soft fruit bushes;
repoint the back of the house (BIG job this...)
build 2 or 3 new deep beds.

doubt that I'll manage it all.

 

[Demonwolf444]

Got a lot done yesterday! Exciting - If anyone wants to hear exactly whats happening i could perhaps run a thread in more detail.. the results will be lots of living things for eating and eggs...

 

[British Red]

For sure, its always nice to see what people are up to!

 

[TallMikeM]

this year I want to double the size of the vege patch (mind you, I intended to do this last year as well, things move slowly when it's all done by muscle power). Got a barn to build, need to set up a brooder system so I can use the top paddock for table birds. Mrs TallM wants an area of decking ripped up and a pond dug. I need to clear a spoil heap stuck away in one corner then establish a mini forest garden there. All this and we still have to earn some description of living as well. At this rate I'm gonna need at least 2 of me to get even half of it done.

 

[Demonwolf444]

Plans always seem overwhelming, but an early start and a bowl of porridge works wonders!

Best of luck guys, feel free to post updates to your homesteading efforts on here. ( with pictures! ) I might put a couple up if i make some progress.

James.

 

[bigbear]

I want to transform our new allotment which has been sadly neglected and left empty for some years before we got it.



THis looking from the gate down past the first beds we have made and a barrel we re putting strawberries in.
You can see its a jungle at the back.
Will post more as the thing develops if anyone is interested.

 

[Demonwolf444]

Yeh keep posting back guys! The short story is i have bought three light sussex girls and three silkies, and caught up my two remaining wild bantams.

Long story here is as so;
Age around 11-12 i got really into breeding and selling rare breed chickens, it was my money pit. I made my pocket money then spent it right back on chickens. At one stage my pure breeding flocks were.
Arucana.
Frizzle.
Chamois Poland.
Buff Orpington.
White Sussex hybrid Rhode Island Red.
White Sussex.
Cream legbar.
and some Wellsummers.
oh and some silkies..
I have a large garden by most peoples standards with a small wooded area. Anyway on an extended holiday, first visiting grandparents for a couple of weeks and then going on holiday proper, i came back to a lot of missed calls and a tree that had come down killing my chamois poland cockeral, and destroying all their separate enclosures.. As you can imagine it was true carnage. 8 different breeds running together for three weeks. Whats worse was my dear fathers collection of scrap metal provided an unknown number of places they could go off and nest, along with lots of nice low branched yew tree's providing perfect roosting locations.

Anyway in all i think i had total about 60 chickens at one point. A fox got in and cleared a few out which did me a bit of a favour. I lost interest and sold a large number of the chickens and culled a few more till i had none. Or thought i did. Despite being sure i had got rid of all the cocks and the only ones left unaccounted for were hens ( which i put down to foxy ) in a few weeks i got a nice surprise when my first mother returned with a clutch of 20 chicks.. great. I couldnt bring myself to get rid of them and noone wanted the hybrid unknown chickens, which i guess now were arucana x something because they all had the arucana tuft but not to the extent of the poland's.

Anyway i had about four more clutches hatch from disappeared assumed dead birds. And got rid of as many as i could, sticking them in auctions under bizarre made up names, and giving them away to local schools. I could never get rid of chickens entirely but at this point i no longer had any hutches, runs, in fact i did not actually look after them at all, they just existed off of our garden. Some how a couple of hybrid hybrid hens stayed and bred with other hybrid hybrid cocks to get some real oddball hens who's only redeeming feature was that they made excellent broodies and were completely wild in instinct. These chickens would perch on branches with their chicks 20 ft up, as soon as the first wing feathers had formed ( which is only a couple of weeks ).

Anyway i tried to get rid of most of them but they are impossible to catch and 8 generations down the line it was like trying to catch wood pigeons at roost. Which is why i call them wild bantams, i dont feed them, house them, look after them in any way, and if there was a cock bird with them at the moment i would have more. They breed better than any wild game bird, fly better, and sustain a population better. I gave a breeding trio to a farmer who wanted some to potter about the farm yard; he has 50 last count and that was three years ago.

Two remain to this day which i finally caught using some ingenious counterweight live trap's, and are now housed in the new bantam run along side three silkes. It is also the temporary home of three excellent light sussex hens till i get their run built and get looking for a cock bird. The silkies and my inbred bantams are for the hatching of game birds and anything else. While the sussex are for eggs, and meat when i get to breeding them ( got to wait for them to lay first! ) Its soo nice to have chickens again in a controlled manner! I will have to get pictures!

 

[bigbear]

Well, here is the first stage of clearing the jungle,


Most of the tree growth gone, got to get rid of that wreck of a shed next.
onwards !

 

[British Red]

If those doors are glass, keep them for makig cold frames out of. You might be able to take a circular saw to the walls to make the body of the cold frame. Sledge hammer the rest and torch it!

 

[bigbear]

Sadly it is a right old wreck, no glass to speak of, its destined to be dropped and burned or used as fencing, as
if I keep the football out there is no need for the kids who kick it to need to get in. Looks ugly but tree growth and a shed will cover a multitude of sins........

 

[Paddytray]

I'm in my second year of growing my own fruit and veg in our tiny garden .
I have much to start planting out from the greenhouses in the coming weeks .
I want to extend our chicken run and coop so we can rescue a few more chickens .
I need to re-roof the man cave as the storms have battered it and it now leaks.
the whole house needs a lick of paint .
the kitchen is being pulled out because of floods .
I have to then plumb in a dishwasher.
stain the fences and build more pallet planters and wait to see what swmbo adds to the list .

 

[bigbear]

Another days work....



Shed gone, either part of the border at the back or burned, a bench between the two ponds to sit and enjoy, the first leisure thing I have done on the allotment, its all been practical so far and that feels like a milestone.
Cleared along the border between the ponds and found a crown of rhubarb and a gooseberry bush growing under all the grass !

 

[mrcharly]

Anyway i tried to get rid of most of them but they are impossible to catch and 8 generations down the line it was like trying to catch wood pigeons at roost. Which is why i call them wild bantams, i dont feed them, house them, look after them in any way, and if there was a cock bird with them at the moment i would have more. They breed better than any wild game bird, fly better, and sustain a population better. I gave a breeding trio to a farmer who wanted some to potter about the farm yard; he has 50 last count and that was three years ago.

Don't they make a lot of noise when the sun comes up?
I tried keeping chickens in a suburban garden. It was a nightmare if they weren't locked up by dusk, as they'd take off into the trees to roost. Try climbing a 30ft leylandii and catching a chicken.
If they were left up the trees they started cackling and crowing at sunup. Neighbours didn't like that in summer.

 

[Parbajtor]

Don't they make a lot of noise when the sun comes up?
I tried keeping chickens in a suburban garden. It was a nightmare if they weren't locked up by dusk, as they'd take off into the trees to roost. Try climbing a 30ft leylandii and catching a chicken.
If they were left up the trees they started cackling and crowing at sunup. Neighbours didn't like that in summer.

Which side of the leylandii did the rooster lay eggs?

 

[Demonwolf444]

luckily I'm a country boy. Do they make a lot of noise.. Not particularly, i don't hear them when I'm asleep. Generally always had more eggs than i knew what to do with so let the neighbors help themselves to any eggs they wanted.

You can pull the flight feathers or just cut a good few inches off the wing tips generally stops them flying, but wont stop them climbing, most people make the mistake of not taking enough of the wings or regularly enough. If there is a good climbing route they find into the tree's your pretty screwed as its instinct for them to climb at night. Best bet for that is to go for a heavy weight breed, they wont be able to jump or fly in any respect. Small breeds if left to go wild will cope pretty well.

when i first get chickens i put them in a hutch and run for two weeks, then after that let them out just when i am around the house then herd them in. After a while they should get the idea and they can generally be relied upon to look after themselfs provided you shut them in. I would say as a rule if you want farm yard birds that will look after themselves go for the smaller traditional breeds that look more like the fighting game birds of old. If you want something for small gardens a two of three buff orpingtons wont be wondering far, being such a large bird. And will give enough eggs for the most egg crazy house hold.

 

[Demonwolf444]

Other advice would be that if you find your chickens are not laying and you find no eggs in the laying boxes, they have probably found elsewhere. Chickens of all breeds will lay anywhere that is secretive and dry, you may stumble upon nests of 40 plus eggs ( leaving nests of eggs will encourage hens to go broody, and you can tell as they hen will be giving off heat and will often have lost condition and feathers on the underside, from spending time tending to eggs. ) If you leave eggs watch out for egg eaters, squirrels can be a culprit but often a bird will develop a tenancy to eat eggs, as sure way to stop this is the old trick of replacing fresh eggs with very rotten one's ( marked with pen so you don't get caught out! ) the chicken will eat the rotten egg and be put off eating eggs pretty quickly! Look in dry, warm, sheltered, dark places for egg nests in the garden, check your log pile, under your oil tank or in a thick flower patch, collect all eggs, you can easily check which eggs are old or not be floating them. Fill a basin of water and submerge all the eggs in the basin, any which either float, or bob about looking like they might float should be thrown away; it means they are rotting, or rotten.

 

[mrcharly]

Which side of the leylandii did the rooster lay eggs?

Eh?

I guess you've never kept chickens. It isn't just roosters that crow, and you don't need a rooster for the hens to lay eggs.

If I lived on a smallholding, I'd have loads of chickens. They are fantastic farm animals. Let them loose in an orchard and they eat all the pests and fertilize the orchard!. That's probably the best place to keep them as they'll destroy veg crops.