Problems on the Farm

Squash bugs, chicken health, and chicken behaviors are problems that sooner or later all hobby farmers must face.

1. I have been noticing over the past couple of weeks that my garden hasn’t been doing too well. I figured it was because my thumb was turning less green and more brown but I found the cause. I called my Dad the other night and explained to him what was going on and what I saw on my last pass through and he knew right off that I had…..dun dun ddduuuunnnn…….SQUASH BUGS!

Below is more info on these creatures that spread like the plague. I have to get some Seven Dust and douse all my plants and put around my garden or I’m not going to have many crops left. I also noticed recently that all the fun of this little garden adventure has gone out the window. Now that it’s getting hot I dread having to go out and weed. I am always worry about the water supply…am I giving it too much? Is it too dry? What am I going to do with all these damn peppers? I need recipes to put all these good things to use now and to can and use later on. I am really going to have to research this more so I can be more successful. It used to be “Oh look at the cute baby bell pepper….etc” Maybe once I take care of my bug infestation I will be happy about my garden again because it really is living a bit greener.

Click HERE to find out about squash bugs!

2. Like my garden, having chickens is a first for me. As you may recall we started out with 11 chickens, 2 roosters and 9 hens. We cooked one rooster, Lincoln accidently shot the other one and last week a hen died just out of the blue! We are now down to 8 originals but Lincoln plans on getting more hens and for sure one more rooster. I was really surprised the hen died because really I hadn’t noticed any problems that were making her act different. There was one issue and apparently it was the cause of her death.

**Disclaimer this may be graphic/gross to some**

A about a week before her demise I was collecting eggs and one had blood all on the outside. I thought it was strange and mentioned it to Lincoln…he didn’t think much about and to tell you the truth I didn’t think it was anything MAJOR. A few days after that I was out collecting eggs again and one chicken was up on a perch and I saw her rear feathers were all bloody and a mess. (light bulb) The same chicken that gave me a bloody egg. I told Lincoln about it and he just made an off color joke about her and said oh it’s no big deal. UUHH yeah it is, no matter the thing it’s not good for something to bleed from its ASS! Well I was right, of course, the next day I get a text from him saying the chicken is stiff as a board. I said yeah that’s the one I told you yesterday about bleeding!!!! So I immediately got on my phone and was Binging chicken bleeding from butt. WOW! So I found something that sounded pretty good and texted Lincoln to not do anything with it I wanted to inspect the chicken for this injury to see if I was right. Not only did I want to confirm my research but I also wanted to make sure that this wasn’t something I needed to worry about when it came to all my others hens…like a disease. Well come to find out what I found on the internet was right. What it boils down to is my pore little hen had chicken hemorrhoids that made her bleed and she died because of it. There isn’t anything we can do to prevent this from happening, it happens to hens that are overweight, old, or pretty young. I feel like she was a pretty young hen just by her build and comparing her to my others. L So sad her little body just couldn’t take it and the bad part is you can’t stop a chicken from laying eggs so it’s something that happens sometimes.

3. While on my phone with my Dad about my garden I mentioned to him how all my hens except one are missing A LOT of their feathers. I mean the poor little things look like they have the mange. The one who is perfectly fine is a big, fat, ugly thing that I dislike now because I’m convinced she’s a bully. Lincoln had spoken with some co-workers about chickens and they said that it’s normal for them to molt and stuff but I felt like this was more than that because new feathers weren’t coming back they just kept getting balder and balder. When telling my Dad about it he said that I need to put a rooster in with them so he will be like the head honcho and will knock that mean hen off her pedestal. LOL Lincoln had also mentioned that without a rooster one hen will become the dominant one and use these bullying techniques to rule the coop. Well I got news for her NOT IN THIS HOUSE YOU AREN’T, MISSY!!!! Hopefully in a few weeks we will have it sorted out.

So as you can tell…it’s all fun in games until you get bugs and hemorrhoids!

Awe the life of a hobby farmer…such bliss…and to think I want more! J

Happy Farming