Backyard Farming Chicken Coop Fire

Saturday night while we were leaving a wedding reception, we received a call from our neighbors asking if we knew our chicken coop was on fire.  At first first, I thought it was a joke, but realized that's not something you joke about.  I got off the phone and my other neighbor called to let me know the coop was on fire. Michael and I rushed the kids to the car, and I was about to rip my hair out as Michael was driving the speed limit. In my opinion, speeding was warranted. The 10 minute drive felt like an eternity.

Both neighbors worked together to find our hose and keep it contained. I had a few neighbors calling, giving me the minute by minute play by play, and taking pictures (above). At this point, I was told that 3 of my 7 chickens had escaped into the run area. I immediately broke into tears. I got a call back that the coop was completely gone, nothing could be salvaged. We arrive home, and as I got to the backyard, there were a few of my friends there, I couldn't help but bawl my eyes out. These sweet women wrapped their arms around me, offering comfort and words of encouragement.

We rushed over to the run area where the chickens were huddled, and we were able to count all 7 chickens. They looked pretty battered and beaten, but they were all there! I can just picture Barry White (our rooster), with his deep sexy voice, telling the girls to stay calm and move into the run.

The firemen were able to secure the run for the night so the chickens couldn't get out. In the morning we moved our Red Barn Coop into a dog run that was left from the previous owner of our home.  It is such a blessing that we have our Red Barn Coop as well as the dog run. There were so many times that I almost got rid of the dog run. 

One of our sweet neighbors tried to salvage a star from our old coop.

We are so lucky it wasn't worse, the field and our garden has started on fire. We were told that the wind was blowing quite hard toward our house. 

 

We suspect that our heat lamp had something to do with the fire. 

 

The money we had allocated to fencing for a goat, may have to be used to build a new coop. It is really disappointing, but I'm just grateful it wasn't worse. We are all safe, our house is okay, and our girls survived!

Thank you so much for your comments, prayers, and words of encouragement!  We really appreciate each of you!

~marisa

Chickens in Heat

Something terrible happened last night. Stay tuned for more information!

Backyard Farming Disaster - Layer Apocalypse

It seems that we have more than our share of backyard farming disasters. But then we have been at it for 11 years and our backyard farm is bigger than urban farms. So maybe our disasters are relatively average.

It has been one year since our old dog Cinder succumbed to cancer. We decided it was time for a new dog. It wasn’t easy finding one. We agreed that everyone in the family had to like whatever dog we chose. After weeks of scouring the animal shelters and want ads, we found Dixie, a beautiful 11-month-old Golden Retriever cross. Her personality was nice and we thought she was perfect.

For several days there was someone home to watch her. We finally thought she was ready to be left alone for a day. We set up a 100 foot zip line and halter for her with her food, water, and shelter within reach. All was well when we left. We returned to an absolute massacre. The halter was not on her tight enough and during the day she got her mouth under the neck strap and chewed it off. She got into our layer pen and killed every one of our 19 layers. Our two boys got home from school as she was finishing off the last one. There were dead chickens and feathers everywhere. It was shocking.

We were anguished not only by our chickens, but that maybe Dixie was spoiled. When I was young, a dog got in to the neighbors sheep and killed a hundred of them. They said it made the dog crazy so they euthanized it. After talking to several people, we concluded that Dixie might be okay. She is just a puppy who thought she was playing. But we will be extra careful in the future. If anyone has advice for us, please comment below.

My wife, LeAnn, knew I was taking the death of the chickens pretty hard. So while I was at work the next day, she went to a neighbor and bought six adult layers for me. So at least I don’t have to eat eggs from the store.

Goodbye, little hens, may you rest in peace… and thank you for all the eggs.

Mother Nature's Destructive Forces

After a large wind storm this afternoon, I went outside to play with my kids. To my dismay, I found all my tomato plants had been flattened. I have never had this problem in the past and wonder if it was caused by the grow boxes we used for our tomatoes this year. The tomato cages weren't able to anchor themselves as deep as normal, and is it possible that the roots of the tomato plants can't dig as deep as well? Causing them to be flattened completely? Aghh...I just want to cry. 16 tomato plants flattened. I have done my best to get them back up, but some major damage has already been done.

Oh how I wish I had made Jennifer's Industrial Tomato Cages!!!

~marisa

Backyard Farming Disasters 2009 - Garden Apocalypse

We are proud of our garden. It is productive and beautiful. We were bloated with spring crops – salads, cooking greens, onion, broccoli, cabbage, etc. Our summer crops reach for the sun promising tomatoes, peppers, beans, cucumbers, and squash. It all came crashing down last week. Much of it was eaten to the ground. Particularly distressing was the damage to the peas. We were just starting to harvest them. We only got a couple of bowls full from gleaning the remnants. We are thinking about changing the name of our backyard farm from Antietam Glen (after the creek that skirts our property) to Antietam Apocalypse.

The culprit this time? Deer. The herd that roams the neighborhood has never bothered us in years. We thought we were immune. We thought the deer were afraid of the horses in pastures that surround the garden. Not so. It’s more likely that our Labrador retriever that died last fall did her job and chased them off in previous years. She certainly went after groundhogs. The family is lobbying for a new dog but I am still mourning Cinder. Maybe I will give in when we come home from vacation in August. In the mean time we have baited and charged the garden fence. We painted a peanut butter/vegetable oil mixture at intervals on the polywire rope. When the deer go up to check it out, they get a 4,000 volt jolt in the nose or tongue. I get satisfaction just thinking about it.

The garden will rise from this apocalypse. I will wake up to my twenty minute breakfast. I will eat tomato salad and squash frittata. We will have a successful garden in 2009.

Peanut butter/vegetable oil deer attractant on polywire rope.
Notice the bare wires that carry a 4000 volt charge.

Backyard Farming Disasters – Pumpkin Apocalypse

NOTE: This is another in my series of articles on backyard farming disasters. When a friend read it, he said that some people will take issue with my actions. After considering this, I decide to go ahead and share it with you anyway. In the context that we use fauna for our purposes, I consider myself a pragmatic animal welfare advocate. For example, I am critical of industrial layers houses which I consider cruel – see my article Liberate the Layers – but I accept industrial broiler houses which I feel are reasonably humane. I have been in both. I think we need discussion to moderate the extreme viewpoints on both sides of the animal welfare debate. I much prefer the phrase “animal welfare” to “animal rights.” Judge for yourself my actions below.
We decided to get into pumpkin production. The first year was great. We grew about a quarter acre. The pumpkins were beautiful and they sold quickly out of the pickup bed following soccer practices. They second year promised to be just as successful. But in mid October we didn’t check the patch for about a week. When we finally went down to start harvesting for the Halloween market, we found half eaten pumpkins and deep tooth marks and gashes on all the others that were still intact. Hardly one was spared. We soon discovered the culprits, a family of groundhogs. There was hole right in the middle of the patch and several around the periphery. As we were assessing the damage, a ground hog came out of the hole and our Labrador retriever “Cinder” drew first blood. She is normally very docile & lovable but when she saw that ground hog she went after it with a vengeance like she sensed our emotions. It was a real fight for a couple of minutes before Cinder prevailed with us cheering her on. It was Herbert Spencer’s “survival of the fittest” in action. We then hooked up our irrigation system - a pump and a 2 inch hose delivering 50 gallons of water per minute out of the creek. We shoved the hose down the ground hog holes and flushed the rest of the family out in seconds and dispatched them quickly. It was very aggravating to see a whole year’s crop of pumpkins worth $500 for the kid’s hard work destroyed. Ground hogs present another more serious hazard. Their deep holes in horse pastures sometimes go unnoticed. When a horse runs across the pasture and plants a hoof in the hole, the leg snaps requiring that the horse be euthanized. If a horse has a rider, they can be thrown and seriously hurt. It is usually not practicable to trap and relocate groundhogs like it is a black snake out of a chicken coop. In my area, groundhogs thrive in natural habitats – and there are plenty of both to perpetuate the species.

Dale Johnson

Backyard Farming Disaster - Broiler Apocalypse

This is the first in a series of backyard farming disasters that I will share with you over the next few weeks so that you can learn from our mistakes. The second year on our small farm we decided to get into pastured broiler production. We would raise 100 chickens, put 25 in our freezer, and sell the rest to neighbors and friends. In late March we ordered the chicks and brooded them in our garage. In the meantime we built three pasture pens. They were 8’x8’x2’ half covered with plywood and half covered in chicken wire. They each had a 5 gallon bucket attached to a waterer and a bin for supplemental feeding. When the chicks were old enough, we put them in the pens. Each morning the kids moved the pens to fresh pasture, replenished the feed bins and filled the water buckets. The chickens grew fast and in early June they were up to market weight. A couple of days before slaughter, I was working at my office in the afternoon. A coworker came in from outside with sweat on his forehead. “Wow! It got hot all of the sudden out there!” he commented. I didn’t think much about it. A while later my phone rang and when I picked it up, a sobbing voice cried, “DAD! THE CHICKENS ARE DEAD! THEY’RE ALL DEAD!” I jumped in my car and raced home. Under the shade trees on the lawn, my kids were trying to revive some of the heat stroked chickens by forcing water down them with eye droppers. I went out to the pens to survey the extent of the disaster. Broilers are dumber than _ _ _ _ and when it got hot they panicked and started piling up and smothering each other at the back of the pens where the temperature was the hottest. The death toll – about 70 dead and 30 survivors. My oldest son and I formed a burial detail. It takes a big hole to bury 70 full grown chickens. When we were down about 2 feet and both in the hole, we started hitting each other accidentally with our elbows and shovels. Finally I turned to Allen and said, “Allen, there are two kinds of people in the world, those who dig holes and those who fetch dead chickens. I will dig while you fetch.” For you youngsters, this is reminiscent of Clint Eastwood’s lines to Eli Wallach in the cemetery at the end of “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”. Allen brought down wheel barrow loads overflowing with the dead chickens. He offered his own comic relief from Monty Python’s Holy Grail, “Bring out yer dead! Bring out yer dead!” I was hoping one chicken would perk up and say “But I’m not dead yet!” The whole experience was painful. We felt so bad for the chickens and the kids lost $1,120 for their 2 months of hard work (70 broilers x 8 lbs. avg. dressed weight x $2/lb.) We learned our lesson and since then we have raised several flocks without incident.

~Dale