Worm Suicide

I was being harrassed by the Office Skeptic last week (nothing new there).  He was complaining that I hadn't written about the worms.  It has been all chickens, all the time. 

It's not like I have been ignoring the worms.  I look in on them daily.  I find they like banana peels the best of everything I've put in there.  Any time there are banana peels, I know where the majority of the worms are. It's a big gross looking pile, but kinda cool, too.

Also, I was way premature and added the second level onto the worm bin.  I thought I could move one of the banana peels with all the worms to the upper floor and they could start to work up there while the rest finished working downstairs.  Wrong.  All the worms decided to move upstairs.  Not sure why, but they did.

Anyway, over the holiday weekend (Friday I believe), I noticed dead worms on the table and floor around the worm bin.  I figured when I took the second layer off to check on the bottom layer, that some may have fallen through.

I picked up the dead, dried worms off the floor and went about my business.  I checked back later that night and found more worms on the floor.  I got to these ones in time so I was ble to put them back.  The next morning, I went about fixing the problem.  I found that on the edges of the lower level, between the newspaper and wall of the bin, there were hundreds of worms that got stuck during the great migration north.  I'm not sure how or why they got to wehre they were - no dirt or food - but there they were. 

I went about moving all the worms from the lower bin, setting new newspaper in there, so the paper went up over all four edges.  I got them moved back in, new shredded wet paper over them and some fresh veggies to go with them.   I would go in and check on them every couple of hours to see if I missed anything and whether there were more suicides.  All seemed right in the world.

Until last night.  There were a number of little dried worms sitting on the table this morning.  Didn't have time to look into where they are getting out, but I'm hoping there aren't more when I get home tonight.

What have I gotten myself into?

In the few months since I first started thinking about worms and rearing chickens, I have done some research on what to do.  I got a housewarming present from my brother's girlfriend about raising chickens.  I spent down time during my vacation in November reading and researching.  The http://www.backyardchickens.com/ site has been both a blessing and a curse.  I've gleaned lots of information on what I need to do to get started.  But it's also given me pause on whether I really want to do this or not.  It's not a cheap hobby.  I'm not going to get rich selling eggs.  And it's going to be a lot of hard work just to get up and running, not to mention keeping it going.  But I'm committed to this (and probably should be, too).

One of my co-workers - he's asked to be identified as the Office Skeptic - has lots to offer in the way of encouragement and skepticism.  Mostly the latter...but that's okay.

So like with the worms, I found myself with plenty of free time over Thanksgiving.  Particularly on the Saturday after when I was sitting on the couch while on call for work.  While waiting for a call that never came, I spent a lot of time on e-bay looking at auctions for different kinds of eggs.

I don't know why, but I thought it would be better/easier/more fun? to hatch eggs than to wait until spring and buy day old hatchlings. 

With that free time, I researched different kinds of chickens and decided to buy some eggs...in December...from different folks from around the country.  That would have to ship the eggs to me.  In Minnesota.  In December.  Did I mention that it's December and it's cold here?  No?  Well, it is.  What was I thinking?

For the types of chickens, I narrowed my search to cold hardy breeds, that were calm and readily took to confinement, and are brown egg layers.  I finally settled on three breeds:



Black Australorp

 Black Australorp:   

Black Australorp are a popular producer of large brown eggs and are known for their hardiness and persistence in laying - even in hot weather. When mature, these birds have glossy, all- black feathers that show a gorgeous green sheen. From the time these chicks hatch until they are fully grown, their feathers have white tips. Average mature weight: Rooster 51/2 lbs., Hens 5 lbs.

 

 

 

 

Black Jersey Giant



Jersey Giants:   

The term "giant" is right for these tall, stately birds with shiny black feathers. In fact, they are the largest chicken breed. The breed was developed in the 1880s in New Jersey by breeders who wanted a large roasting bird. While Jersey Giants grow to a large size, they do it slowly. Average mature weight: Roosters 13 lbs., Hens 10 lbs. (Good eating if I get any Roosters in my batch of eggs).

Rhode Island Red: 

Rhode Island Red

A popular dual-purpose breed that is a familiar standby in many chicken coops. These deep red colored hens are calm birds that lay large brown eggs. Roosters are a shiny dark red with greenish- black tail feathers. Average mature weight: roosters 7 to 71/2 lbs., hens 6 lbs. 

I've decided on the types of chickens I want (really, there are others, but I am not sure I could take them on right now.)  I found sellers on ebay and proceded to bid on eggs.  I won the RIR and BA auctions, but lost out on the JG auction.  Bummer.  I consoled myself by bidding on a "mystery" lot of eggs.  Basically, the seller was just going to send me a dozen of whatever she had picked that morning.  I won that one, too.  So now I have three dozen eggs on the way.  Two dozen that I know they types of eggs, and one dozen I have no clue. 

Now that I have eggs on the way, I have to figure out what I'm going to do with them.  So I ran out to the local feed store and bought an incubator and automatic turner.  Being the urban farmer that I am, I have to work during they day, so any automatic help I can get is appreciated. 

But before moving on, later that evening after winning my bids, I received an e-mail from the Jersey Giant seller.  The auction winner retracted their bid and she was willing to sell to me for my original bid.  I figured, what the hell, and got a fourth dozen eggs.  In my mind, I'm going to kill most of them off during the incubation period, or they will all end up roosters, so I need to hedge my bets and get as many eggs as I can.

I get the incubtor home, set it up and proceed to calibrate it.  Based on my research and anecdotes in the chicken forums, it takes a good day or two to get the incubator set correctly.  And it did.  I didn't get a consistent reading until Tuesday (11/30).  And I had eggs coming on Thursday.  I'm glad I got it set early, because I would have been a wreck trying to get it calibrated while eggs were in there doing their thing.

Now it is Thursday, 12/2.  I get home from work and I have eggs and worms.  My Australorps and RIRs showed up.  They were packaged well, but still a little chilly.  I thought it best to get them to room temperature before setting them in the incubator.  And I still had to wait for my other eggs to show up on Friday.

On Friday, 12/3, I have my mystery eggs and my worm box.  It's like Christmas.  But where are my Jersey Giants?  I get my tracking number, and look up the shipment on line.  They were delivered, but no one was home so they put them by the side door.  I don't have a side door.  Where are my eggs?  GAH!  It's cold.  They'll end up freezing.  So I search and search and search all around the house.  Nothing.  I call FedEx and talk to someone off shore who clearly isn't moved by my predicament.  They open a case and someone will get back to me in 24 hours (aside - I didn't hear from anyone until today - Monday 12/6 - not impressed with FedEx customer service).

I email the seller to let her know what's going on. 

In the meantime, I decide I can't wait any longer and set the eggs I have in the incubator.  I open the boxes/packaging, unwrap the eggs and place them in the incubator.  Based on all the stuff I've read, I think I'm doing this right.  The BAs are all fine and good to go.  The RIRs are all fine and good to go.  The mystery shipment had two broken eggs.  Hope they weren't fertile.  But I only paid for 10 - she ships 10 + 2 in case there is breakage.  So I have 34 set eggs at this point.  I'm still bummed about the Jersey Giants.

The 'bator.  (Not that kind...dirty.)

On Friday night, we hear from the tenants.  They want someone to come pick up the rent.  They pay in cash which is why they don't mail it.  Long story.  Maybe for another time.  We arrange to go pick up the mone Saturday morning.  I'm sure you can guess where this is going.   We get a call from them again on Saturday morning telling us there is some mail and a package was delivered the day before.  My eggs went to the old house.  Why FedEx didn't tell me that the day before, I don't know.  Why the seller didn't confirm where she shipped them, I don't know.  Why I didn't think of it, I don't know (well, I do know - I confirmed with the seller at auction close which address to ship to, so I assumed she would have gotten it right...assuming does bad things).  Why the tenants didn't call right away, I don't know.



Anyway, so the daughter was home when the eggs showed up, so they sat inside all night.  I'm thankful for that, because they could have left them outside. 



Now I have all my eggs.  I got them home and set in the incubator with their fellow eggs.  Now they are all in there, cooking away at 102 degrees and 45% humidity until 12/20.  I will be candling them on Thursday to find out fertility rates and how the incubation is going.  More to come.  Post won't be as long then.  I hope.



Under the heat



All my babies cooking away.

Worms

Over Thanksgiving weekend, I was entertaining myself on ebay and decided to finally get my worms and worm box.  The worms arrived the following Thursday (12/2).  It's winter, and it was snowing and cold.  But they all seemed okay once they got inside where it was warm.  I let them "thaw" in a shoe box with their peat, some compost and damp shredded newspaper.  They seemed fine.  Then on Friday (12/3), the worm box came.  When I got home from work, I set it up and moved the worms in.  They were still a little cold and moving slowly from the previous day, but were surviving. 

Where exactly does one keep a worm box during the winter in Minnesota?  Why the kitchen of course.  The purpose of the worms is to create compost.  So where does their food come from?  Kitchen scraps.  Makes sense to keep them in the kitchen, right?  I think so.  Others don't and are not exactly pleased with the situation. 

I had initially put them on the counter under a window.  But today, the counters were being sealed, so the worms had to move.  They are still in the kitchen, in the pantry, but now they are back in a corner on a TV tray.  They'll move back to the window tomorrow or Wednesday.

So here are the worms, five days into their new home.  They are only living in the bottom box for now.  Once they finish breaking down enough food/newspaper, I will add the second tier and they will begin to migrate upwards.  That should take a few months. 

Genesis of an Idea

So I've decided to try my hand at raising chickens.  Crazy.  I have lived in a city my entire life and don't even go to the state fair.  I have had little to no exposure to livestock, let alone know anything about trying to raise or keep them.  So how did I get here?

I moved to a a new house.  In September, I closed on a new house that has just over one acre of land - in the city - on a lake.  The previous owners had done a lot of work on creating large raised gardens.  One of the gardens alone is bigger than all my previous vegetable gardens.  The other three are bigger than all the flower beds I had previously.  Even with moving most of my perennials, I still have more room than I currently know what to do with.  Next spring I will plant a number of fruit tree in the yard, and possibly even dig out an even larger vegetable garden that is not in the raised beds.  I would use the raised beds exclusively for flowers.  But that may have to wait a year.

My mother passed away back in September, also.  All her kids were able to come see her before she passed.  While we were sitting vigil in the hospital, my sister (who I don't see often) and I were talking about gardening, among other things.  She mentioned how she had a worm box for her compost.  I had been composting already, but had never thought to do it using worms.  I thought that was a great idea.  She gave me some background on how the process works, and it sounded simple enough.  I did a little more research on what it takes to have a successful, home vermiculture operation.  Sure enough, it's a pretty straightforward thing to do. 

Along with gardening talk, somehow the conversation turned to raising goats and chickens in an urban environment.  I'm not sure if I'm ready for goats, but chickens sure did sound intriguing.  I'm not quite sure what it is about the notion of raising chickens spoke to me, but the idea took hold and got me moving forward.