Roots 'n' Shoots: June 2014

Why is RnS Moving to whiskerflowers.wordpress.com?

Google had brought out an algorithm update in May 2017. With previous updates like Panda or Penguin, Mr G had penalized blogs or websites with low quality content and those more focused on aggressive adverts (including multiple ads or pop-up ads in articles). However, many blogs/websites that weren't shady got penalized beyond recovery too and a lot of people lost their income. The May 2017 update has had wide-scale effect on blogs and websites, but without any explanation from Mr G as to why or what it does. RnS has been hit by it too and hard. RnS organic search stats (i.e. users from Google) have dropped by 75% since. Even though RnS is not a source of income, I tried to figure out why RnS is being culled. It seems that it doesn't really have anything to do with RnS per se, but likely because RnS is FREE and not paying for page ranking (via AdWords or Ad Ranking). Now it is likely being aggressively shoved to lower page rankings to accommodate the paid ads.

I cannot rely on Mr G anymore to get RnS' content where it is needed. So I am busy moving RnS to Wordpress where you can find me as Whisker Flowers @ https://whiskerflowers.wordpress.com/

I am also imposing 301 redirects from already moved posts and pages!

- The Shroom - (AKA Whisker Flowers)

Saturday 28 June 2014

The C Files: How to raise chickens – Layers & Nest Business



One would think that chickens were first domesticated for their egg and meat production, but in fact they were initially kept for cock fighting in Asia. These days chickens lay eggs on a daily (or nearly-daily) basis for human consumption, before we get to all the nitty gritty about nesting let me first start off with why and how chickens lay eggs.

The Why

A fertilised egg is laid; wherein an embryo develops and ultimately a chick hatches from. Reproduction and egg laying in most birds only happen when conditions are favourable, such as in spring, a single or clutch of eggs are laid to ensure the survival of the species. With domestication and selective breeding, humans have developed a chicken that lays unfertilised eggs every day. This is extremely wasteful from a biological sense as a lot of energy goes into egg production of which no chicks will result, but it is advantageous for humans who seek a cheap and relatively reliable protein source. Therefore chickens would sadly never be able to fend for themselves.

The How

Understanding how chickens lay their eggs also gives us some clues as to when to expect eggs, how many eggs to expect and what their colour might be. So the journey of an undeveloped yolk to the final egg products starts in the female’s body.

Hen reproductive system (left oviduct): egg laying process

Each hen has many ova (or immature yolks), so much so that she would never be able to lay all of them during her life. The ova are contained within two ovaries; the right ovary remains inactive whereas the left releases ova and is functional in mature hens. Ova are released individually during ovulation or one hour after the previous egg has been laid. The ova travel through the oviduct and become wrapped in various layers of albumen (or egg white) then two protective membranes. Calcium carbonate is deposited within a protein matrix to form the eggshell, where the protein acts as biological glue to keep the shell intact, but remains porous so that developing chicks can breathe. Pigments are also deposited on the shell resulting in the final egg colour. Lastly the egg is coated in a layer of bloom or cuticle. This seals the egg presenting moisture loss or bacterial infection. The whole process takes about 25 hours and each day the hen will lay an egg an hour later. When it becomes too late in the day to lay the chicken will skip that day and lay the following morning.

The Who

Chickens are divided into two categorised, meat birds and egg layers. Hens from meat breed will lay eggs, but not nearly as prolifically as those bred for egg production. Here is a list of egg laying breeds to be on the lookout for:

Egg laying chicken breeds:
Ancona
Leghorn
Amber (hybrid)
Malay>
 Appenzeller
Minorca
Aseel
Maran
Blue Andalusian
Modern Game
Australorp
Naked Neck
Buckeye
Norwegian Jearhon
Barnvelder
Nera (hybrid)
Californian Gray
Old English
Barred Rock
New Hampshire
Californian White
Phoenix
Black Sex Link
Orloff
Campine
Polish
Brahma
Orpington
Catalana
Redcap
Chantecler
Penedesenca
Crevecoeur
Shamo
Cochin
Plymouth Rock
Cubalaya
Sicilian Buttercup
Cornish
Red Sex Link
Dorking
Silkie
Delaware
Rhode Island Red
Fayoumi
Sultan
Faverolle
Rhode Island White
Hamburg
Sumatra
Frizzle
Speckledy (hybrid)
Holland
White-faced Spanish
Goldline (hybrid)
Sussex
Houdan
Yokohama
Hyline (hybrid)
Welsummer
Kraienkoppe

Java
Wyandotte
La Fleche

Jersey Giant

Lakenvelder

Langshan

Ameraucana
Araucana
 Colour coded according to egg colour. Breeds on bold are some of the best layers.


The When

Alright, so you have got yourself a flock of young hens and would like to know when the girls will start to lay. Young hens that have not started to lay are known as pullets. Normally hens start laying when they are about 20 weeks old (± 2 weeks for light breeds), heavy breed might start later at around 26-28 weeks. The point at which a hen is mature enough to lay is known as “Point of Lay” and is around 18 weeks, so add another 2 weeks for your first eggs to arrive. The best indicator that your hens are about to lay is the colour of their combs, face and ears. Pullets not ready to lay have pale pink combs, whereas hens about to lay (or laying) have bright red combs (an I mean really bright!). Also hens who are very near to lay or already young layers do a submissive egg squat when you walk by or when you touch their backs.

Pullet vs Laying hen
I circled Koekoek here, she was about 12 weeks old.
On the right she is about two years,
combs and wattle may not be so large in younger hens

The Where

Providing a suitable nest for your hens where they can lay eggs makes it easier to collect fresh eggs every day. The nest should come with a few standard features, such as the nest should be a bit darker than the rest of the coop to make the hens feel safe when laying and have a nice thick layer of grass or saw dust to sit upon. Some books specify specific dimensions for nests and well as a minimum number of nests, such that you must have one nest for every four hens (dimensions in the table below)..

Nest box dimensions:
Breed
Width, cm (inch)
Height, cm (inch)
Depth, cm (inch)
Heavy
35 (14)
35 (14)
30 (12)
Light
30 (12)
35 (14)
30 (12)
Bantam
25 (10)
30 (12)
25 (10)
For more coop building instructions and specific dimensions, check out my Housing and Coops post


The number of nests and nest dimensions are good to incorporate into your coop, but I find that chickens have their own ideas about “Nest Business”. We have two nests that can accommodate two chickens each, but we have noticed that all of the hens want to lay their eggs in the same nest (they switch between the two every so often). That means that we find either two nesting at the same time in the same nest, or one (like Koekoek will peck at the others who want to join) hogs the whole nest and the other hens literally queue outside the coop waiting for the occupied nest to become available (I kid you not!). The queuing hens make and awful lot of noise about the hold-up and refuse to go to the other nest that is not occupied… so don’t be surprised if only one of your nest boxes are used at a time J Most of the time only one hen is laying and queuing happens rarely.

Nesting Shenanigans

Chickens can get up to all kinds of Nest Business shenanigans. This is when they decide where they would like to lay their eggs regardless of the fact that a nice comfy one is available in the coop. I see that most people refer to these kinds of nests as “Secret, Hidden or Garden nests”, but we call the Bush or Veld Nests. Every so often you will notice that one or more of your hens are not laying as there is a sudden decline in the total amount of eggs each day. Another indication of chicken misbehaviour is that that one or two rush out of the coop early in the morning (not interested in their breakfast even if it is their favourite thing: tomatoes) and will make a bee-line for the veld nest. I have a few pictures and examples of secret or veld nests so that you can identify them (in the absence of following the chicken in question) or to prevent any future veld nests. Veld nests can be under a low growing bush that makes a hollow or even under some side-swept grass.

Some likely Veld nest candidates with hollows. Flatten or remove these to prevent veld nesting

Veld nest discovered!!! Reclaim the eggs and promptly destroy the nest!

The best way to stop secret or veld nesting behaviour is to ‘ground the chickens in the coop’. I would suggest doing this on a cloudy day or if you don’t have one of those around the time veld nesting is going on; then keep the chickens cooped up for a few hours every morning (for about a week) and let them out before it gets too hot. This should reinstate the idea of egg laying in the nest box since the naughty chicken will see the others nesting there or she just can’t hold back the egg long enough until she can get to the veld nest again – you can call it nest discipline J

Good nest discipline
Adding a “Nest or Fake Egg” to the nest boxes also helps to show and re-affirm where eggs should be laid – you can easily make one yourself by removing a small piece of egg shell from one our your eggs, draining the content and refilling it with plaster of Paris. The nest/fake eggs might get pecked or damaged over time and may require replacement.

That concludes nesting and nest business, next round I will discuss eggs as there is a lot to say about chicken eggs!


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Please share with fellow gardening enthusiasts via the various sharing buttons at the end of posts/pages! Else you can vote for posts through the Google reactions bar at the end of articles. To stay up to date I have provided several reader and social networking platforms with which to subscribe: TwitterPinterestRSS Feed Reader or Email/Follow directly using the Blog Followers widget on the left hand side toolbar. Thank you for reading and please feel free to ask if questions arise - I appreciate comments and ideas too! 😆
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Friday 27 June 2014

Grow Your Own Food Summit, July 7-14, 2014

7-14 July 2014


Here is another free online summit announcement with many of the same speakers as the previous ones I have posted on my blog, so if you have missed out of the previous ones, don't fret! Here is a chance to catch-up on the necessities.

For more information about the 34 speakers, you can visit their website at http://growfoodsummit.com

Saturday 14 June 2014

Penny Royal: The Living Mulch

 Living Mulch,
Penny Royal
 Mentha pulegium

I am really tired of weeding and get very irritated when new ones pop up in the garden, especially in the areas that border my veg plots – AKA ‘The Weed Zones’! So I decided I would like to plant something there that would compete and displace the weeds, preferably something that is useful to the veg garden; such as attracting insects, or repelling pests or has some edible use.

I settled for Penny Royal for several reasons:

ü It is a matting ground cover
ü It grows quickly
ü It has a pungent aroma that repels some garden pests (or I would assume disguises the smell of the veggies from the pests)
ü Water friendly because it belongs to the mint family
ü Low maintenance
ü Flowers to attract beneficial insects
ü Leaves are used for herbal mint tea or can be applied to treat insect stings

Growth rate of Penny Royal in The Weed Zones
Before pic: Late Summer
After pic: Mid-winter

As well as all the benefits of Penny Royal by itself; it acts as a living or green mulch with most of the benefits that traditional (dry) mulch also has:

ü Retains water (green ground cover is able to capture water from just 1mm of rain!)
ü Keeps the soil warmer for longer during the winter months and cool in summer
ü Controls weeds
ü Assists with maintaining a healthy soil community (microbes and small insects can take shelter)

I would suggest either pruning or digging out sections with a spade that start to invade the veg plots. The clumps you remove that have roots can be easily replanted elsewhere and it’ll keep on growing there – propagating Penny Royal could not be easier!

Weed guard
Penny Royal
Mentha pulegium
- Update - 20 September 2015


You can find information on clovers as living mulches @ Natural Biofertilisers & Edible Legumes post


Related articles:

Green manures and cover crops
Mulching – Watering Page
Attracting beneficial insects to the garden - Insectary
Pest Control

______________________________________________________________________________

Please share with fellow gardening enthusiasts via the various sharing buttons at the end of posts/pages! Else you can vote for posts through the Google reactions bar at the end of articles. To stay up to date I have provided several reader and social networking platforms with which to subscribe: TwitterPinterestRSS Feed Reader or Email/Follow directly using the Blog Followers widget on the left hand side toolbar. Thank you for reading and please feel free to ask if questions arise - I appreciate comments and ideas too! 😆
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