The Flock in Winter

In addition to our usual flock of laying hens, which is doing very well this winter, we have a small flock of ducks and even some turkeys.

Here in Western Oregon, where it rains like crazy and often freezes at night, but the daytime highs are almost always above freezing, poultry don’t much care about winter weather. Getting clean eggs in spite of the additional mud is more burdensome than the cold.

In snowier climes, it’s a little different. Free-range poultrykeeping is a challenge when snow lingers for long periods on the ground, while my birds can just tough out the few days per year with snow. And watering systems that freeze and stay frozen are not useful!

But in the more mild climates, the biggest challenge is in the mind of the poultrykeeper! Why would that be?

Do you remember the first time you raised baby chicks? And your determination to keep the adorable, helpless chicks safe and warm and away from chilling drafts? It’s a vivid experience, and as the chicks turn into chickens, we still remember, and tend to apply the same kind of nurturing even after it’s appropriate.

But the fact is that adult chickens are surprisingly hardy in cold and wet weather, and suffer more from attempts to keep them snug than they do from the winter itself. In Fresh-Air Poultry Houses Dr. Woods talks about a flock of his that insisted on spending a New England winter in a grove of pine trees instead of their nice, snug henhouse, and was far healthier than his enclosed flocks. This is a common experience, and the book (which I have reprinted), tells you how to get the same benefits for your own flock.

To give just a few quick pointers:

  • Keeping the flock dry is more important than keeping them warm. A house that has condensation dripping from the ceiling or walls, has wet litter, or has an ammonia smell needs more ventilation, no matter how cold it is outside.
  • Frostbite on combs and wattles is caused more by dampness than cold. (Get rid of bucket or pan waterers that let a chicken get its whole head wet when drinking!)
  • The rule of thumb is that hens don’t lay well when daytime highs are below freezing, but don’t suffer from cold above -20 F if they’re dry and out of the wind, and have plenty to eat (they need to burn more calories in cold weather).

Every Farmer Needs a … Used iPad?

My old first-generation iPad has mysteriously become the property of my son Karl, so I took a look at the price of a new one. Yikes!

On the other hand, used, first-generation iPads have fallen to around $300, or about one-third the price of a new one that’s similarly decked out with 3G and lots of memory. iPads are built like tanks and have bright screens, and are up to the challenge of being used at a Farmers’ Market.

One practical use for the iPad is accepting credit cards, using teeny-tiny card readers like the one from Square, which plugs into the headphone jack. Square has made their product very easy to use (they’re saying, “Use it at your next garage sale,” and they’re giving it away for free. I like it — the money shows up in my bank account within a couple of days.

So I’ve purchased a used first-generation iPad and am very happy with it. It has 3G, but I haven’t activated it, since so far I haven’t needed it, and I’m not going to pay for it until I do. Since 3G-equipped units don’t seem to cost more than WiFi units when purchased used, it’s a good idea to get all the bells and whistles, just in case.

Big Turkey Payday

Karen sold so many turkeys this year that she left the van behind because only the pickup was big enough to take all those coolers full of fresh turkey to the farmer’s market! This has never happened before. Everyone who had pre-ordered a turkey showed up, and that took care of every single turkey, so that went off splendidly.

We (and when I say “we,” I mean Karen) raise old-fashioned Bourbon Red turkeys on pasture. The turkeys are in floorless pens that get moved to a fresh patch of grass twice a day. This gives the effect of free range without having the turkeys fly away into the woods, where they provide an early Thanksgiving for coyotes. I’m all for wildlife, but I think they should pay $6.00 a pound like everyone else.

A few potential problems loomed like storm clouds on the horizon, but then blew away. Our ice machine gave Karen some trouble a couple of times but not enough to interfere with production. A few turkeys got out of their pasture pens (yipe!) and needed to be herded back. Our water tank from our very slow wells got low as turkey butchering proceeded but we ended with a couple of hundred gallons to spare.

Customers were enthusiastic, and rightly so — Karen’s turkeys are the best! Because we sold every turkey we butchered, Karen found a 2009-vintage turkey at the bottom of the freezer and that’s what we had. Delicious!

Google: Are the Smart People Leaving?

There’s a stage in every company’s development when the smart people leave and the company runs on autopilot from then on, in a zombie-like half-life. It happened to Hewlett-Packard when Dr. Hewlett and Dr. Packard passed on; it happened to Apple when Steve Jobs left the first time, and it happened to eBay and PayPal ages ago (as anyone who has ever tried to find an actual human being to help them with a problem knows to their sorrow).

Now I’m wondering if it’s happening to Google. Their “new look” for Gmail is a train wreck. Where did all the emphasis on tiny, faint gray text come from? Is everyone over thirty supposed to find a new mail provider right now?

Some mail threads are extended by adding comments to the top of the existing material, so there needs to be a “Reply” button at the top of the message as well as the bottom. Where did it go?

I’ve found no advantage in the new look, and, so far, I’ve heard of no one else who does so, either? So why is Google riling us all up by telling us that the old look will soon go away forever? It’s not as if they don’t have hundreds of thousands of servers! They can keep the old version, the one their smart people designed before they all left, as a sort of shrine to the company they used to be.