Tag Archives: backyardchickens

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recipe: bacon and blue cheese breakfast tortillas.

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recipe: bacon and blue cheese breakfast tortillas.

so i’m standing, staring at the fridge wondering what i can whip together and a plan slowly comes together. a wonderfully tasty plan. a plan so wonderfully tasty that i can’t believe it had never occurred to me before – BACON AND BLUE CHEESE BREAKFAST TORTILLAS!

i scrambled some fresh eggs from The Girls and started a traditional omelette, then added a bit of cooked and crumbled of organic prairie bacon and organic valley blue cheese and folded it and let it cook for a bit while steaming some sonoma organic, yellow corn tortillas until soft. for a spicy finishing touch, i added a few drops of hot sauce.

i’m not sure the picture does the amazing taste of the bacon and blue cheese breakfast tortilla justice.

it’s definitely going into regular breakfast rotation.

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finally, fresh eggs from The (new) Girls!

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finally, fresh eggs from The (new) Girls!

some time ago we gave away The Old Girls to a nice farm in the country. after two full years of laying they weren’t producing many eggs anymore and were old enough that they probably wouldn’t have tasted any good on the dinner table. as luck would have it, a local organic pumpkin patch was looking for friendly hens who were used to being handled by children to add to the friendly farm ambiance for their customers. a win-win for old girls!

we wanted to get some new girls that were close to laying age and got a tip that if we hung around the poultry barn at the end of the county fair we could probably pick up some 4H hens after the poultry competitions were over from kids who didn’t want to take their chickens home. so we did! and we did! we got the blue ribbon winning blue-laced wyandotte and an americauna that took second place. later, we bought two year-old black marans to round out the flock.

i haven’t taken many pictures because right after we got them they went into moult, lost a bunch of feather, stopped laying ( this is a perfectly normal seasonal process ) and looked rather pathetic.

but now after about 2 months, they’ve got their feather back and have started laying again! so we’re very, very happy to once again have a supply of super fresh, super tasty and super colorful eggs ( the americauna lays blue eggs, the black marans lay the chocolate brown eggs and the wyandotte lays regular browns ).

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wanted: reliable poultry water warmer.

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we had a poultry water warmer similar to this $50 farm innovators model ( i can’t recall if it was that brand or not but it was the same price ) that stopped working after barely a full season and now that it’s cold enough to freeze the their water over night, i’m wary of plunking down $50 again for something that might only last a season or two again ( maybe it was a fluke? ).

any backyard chickens types out there have a suggestion for a reliable water warming setup to prevent freezing in winter? maybe a thermo cube thermostatically controlled outlet with a higher quality warming plate?

update: a long time reader sent me an email with this awesome and easy suggestion from the art of doing stuff on building a DIY Water Thawer and another commenter left a link for a great tutorial for a slightly more complicated but similar concept. i’m going to give one or the other a try since they’re both a lot more affordable than a $50 poultry water warmer that might or might not last more than a season.

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chickens for pest control ( especially ticks )

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chickens for pest control ( especially ticks ).

with the early warm weather greening everything up, The Girls are out happily foraging around the yard looking for Anything That Moves. it’s really amazing to sit and watch them scratch and peck with what appears to be incredible specificity as they look for bugs and ticks and whatnot where the whatnot is most likely something creepy and crawly ( ’cause, you know, chickens are not vegetarians, right? ).

while guineafowl are often cited as the premier pest controllers, i think any poultry is going to do a great job at reducing all manner of pests in the yard and garden, including dreaded deer ticks which carry lyme disease which has a high prevelance in southwest wisconsin.

with the mild winter and and warm spring i’ve been hearing a lot of reports of people finding deer ticks in town on their animals so i like to imagine The Girls are eating every last one of them as they excitedly run here and there through the yard.

in fact, if you’re in an area with a lot of deer ticks, i think it’s your duty to keep backyard chickens. i think someone should update the uncle sam expects you to keep hens and raise chickens poster to say “two hens in the back yard for each person in the house will keep a family in fresh eggs and keep the deer ticks away!”

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a vignette of Life With The Girls and Pushkin.

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a vignette of Life With The Girls and Pushkin. I.

and so, after moving 3 yards of dirt from one place to another i thought it’d be nice to take a rest on the lawn and say hello to The Girls who are normally a little wary of The Big Man, but are willing to abandon The Raspberry Patch to investigate when he has A Bit of Food.

a vignette of Life With The Girls and Pushkin. II.

being well-versed in The Way of The Chicken, i do believe they are thinking, “WHATCHADOING? WHATCHADOING? WHATCHADOING? GOTSOMEFOOD? GOTSOMEFOOD? GOTSOMEFOOD?”

a vignette of Life With The Girls and Pushkin. III.

and more, “WHATCHADOING? WHATCHADOING? WHATCHADOING? GOTSOMEFOOD? GOTSOMEFOOD? GOTSOMEFOOD?”

a vignette of Life With The Girls and Pushkin. IV.

being The Great Defender of All Members of The Pack, pushkin decides it’s time to investigate The Situation.

without being too anthropomorphic, i recognize well the slight furrowing of his brow indicating Worry that Someone or Something May Be In Distress.

a vignette of Life With The Girls and Pushkin. V.

all is Right As Rain, though, with a good scratch behind the ears.