Some people near me are worried that their chickens cannot handle the frigid cold we are experiencing at the moment. For starters, it only got down to 0.9F here last night and there was no wind. Chickens can handle this just fine as long as they have shelter from the wind, unfrozen water and dry bedding.
I have kept chickens since 1974 and we did not have electricity back then. The chickens insisted on sleeping on what amounted to a windowless window sill in our tiny goat barn. The only time they had issues was when it went down to minus 25 for three days. Some of them got frostbite on their combs. They healed quickly and got on with being chickens.
These days, my chickens have a fort Knox kind of coop to protect them from our marauding foxes, coons, possums, weasels and coyotes. There are three rooms. The inner roosting and laying room has windows to the south and a partial concrete floor, the adjoining wired and roofed coop has a skylight and is open on the east side and joins the horse stall on the south side. The third room is inside the horse barn and is where I raise chicks, when we have them. It is kind of dark unless the brood lamps are on and the hens don’t spend much time there.
When we got the (Polar Vortex!) wind advisory, I stapled plastic on the open east side of the chicken coop and the horse stall, which snugged things up. I have heated water buckets for the chickens and the horse, so they have water. I also scattered dry hay in the chicken pen and the horse stall. I use the deep litter method in my barn, meaning that as the manure piles up, more bedding goes on and it sits there, fairly dry and composting all winter. It is warmer than bare ground and the chickens love to scratch around in it. I turn them into the horse stall every couple of weeks to clean up and they help to break down the horse manure. The second horse stall, where I feed and keep the water, is kept as dry hard ground.
My 26 chickens and horse were all fine this morning. Animals get used to cold. Chickens have built in down jackets. Even if their combs freeze, they will be fine. Mara had ice in her whiskers, the same way I had my nose hairs freeze on the way out to the barn. We are all OK.
Maybe if we were to get an extended spell of minus zero temps, I would break down and plug in a couple of brooder lamps. I certainly would if we had young chicks, but the older hens are hardy and seem just fine without supplemental heat.
My 30 hens are laying 24-27 eggs every day. My little egg fridge out on the porch is full, there are eggs on the counter waiting to be cleaned up and put into cartons, and now the kitchen fridge is filling up with eggs. Obviously I need more customers or fewer chickens (knock on wood).
A guy I sold 8 hens to this spring brought me 4 half grown Rhode Island Red hens today because his big hens would not let the smaller ones be part of the flock. The last thing I need is more hens. I told him I would take them and pass them on to a neighbor and then I insisted he take three of my layers home, along with 5 dozen eggs- so there.
Got Eggs? Get Cooking!
What to make with all these eggs? There are strawberries and broccoli ready to pick out in the garden, so I start with Custard Sauce, and Angel Cake, with strawberries. My custard recipe takes 18 yolks and the cake takes 18 whites. I decide to make two half gallon batches, which means I can make an egg white frittata for dinner too. Three dozen eggs!
Strawberries with Biscuit Shortcake smothered in Custard Sauce is my all time favorite desert. I like the drop biscuits better than Angel cake but since I need to use lots of eggs, Angel it is. These recipes come from vintage Good Housekeeping Cookbook, handed down from my mother, who got it at her wedding shower in 1949.
1949 Good Housekeeping Cookbook
It no longer has a cover and is missing some of the first pages but I love that it includes things like how to shave ice from the block, and how to use your icebox properly (or your brand new, modern refrigerator!) and includes substitutions for things that were hard to get during the depression. Plus it has all the wonderful dishes my mother used to make for us.
Of course, sticking to a recipe is almost impossible for me. I tend to improvise according to what I have on hand. So, while making the custard, I threw in some extra whole eggs, along with the yolks, to make the custard a little thicker, and I used coconut milk instead of cows milk. In the second batch, I ran out of coconut milk and added 2 cups of half and half instead. When making the Angel Cake I added a Tablespoon of cornstarch to each cup of unbleached flour to make cake flour and did not do the requisite 4 siftings of the dry cake ingredients, but shook it through a wire mesh sieve twice instead. Cooking is all about being creative once you get the hang of it.
The cake and custard both turned out fine. The frittata is a little different each time I make it, depending on what veggies and sausage I have on hand. It is all good and a fine way to spend a (yet another) rainy day inside. Below are the recipes so you too can eat more eggs.
Custard Sauce
6 cups milk (any kind)
18 egg yolks (or 9 whole eggs)
1 Cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 tsp Vanilla (can be omitted)
Use Double Boiler I use a 3 liter enameled iron pot that happens to fit perfectly into my 4 quart Mirror Pressure Cooker pot.
Constantly Stirring Custard
Pour milk into upper pot and heat over not quite boiling water until tiny bubbles appear along edges of milk.
Break eggs and separate into two bowls, beating yolks slightly with a fork and stirring in sugar and salt.
Temper the egg yolk mixture by slowly adding and stirring the hot milk in, a ladle full at a time. Then pour back into double boiler and stir constantly with a wooden spoon. When it starts to thicken and coats a metal spoon, remove from heat and set into a sink full of cold water, stirring to help cool it quickly.
Cooling Custard in the Sink
Stir in the Vanilla and transfer into a half gallon canning jar, screw a lid on and cool in the fridge.
The main thing is to not overcook it, especially if you use whole eggs. It can curdle if it gets too hot, in which case, bring it back together by beating it with a mixer.
Pour over strawberries and biscuits (or Angel cake) and enjoy.
Angel Cake
1 1/4 Cups egg whites (10-12)
1 Cup sifted Cake Flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond extract
Let whites come to room temperature. Heat oven to 375 degrees F
sift flour and 1/2 C sugar ingredients together
Beat egg whites and salt at high speed until foamy
Sprinkle in Cream of tartar and continue beating until soft peaks form, but still moist and glossy
Add 1 cup sugar in four additions while beating. Add flavorings and beat a little more.
Sift in flour mixture 1/4 at a time, folding in with wooden spoon or spatula 15 folds each addition. fold another 10 strokes at the end.
Pour batter into ungreased 10 inch tube pan and bake 35 minutes.
10 Inch Tube Pan
Test for doneness by pressing finger on top lightly. If it springs back it is done.
Remove from oven and turn upside down to cool for one hour (or until cold) before loosening with a knife along edges and turning out onto plate.
To serve, cut gently with a serrated knife, top with berries and pour custard sauce over. Ice cream is also good.
Note: I doubled this recipe, and still used the same size pan without a problem. It took longer to cook by about 15 minutes. I kept doing the finger check but did not pay very good attention to the time.
Shortcake Biscuits
2 cups flour (unbleached with wheat germ added)
3 teaspoons Rumford Baking Powder (or homemade)
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup milk
Heat oven to 450 degrees F
Mix dry ingredients in bowl
Cut in shortening with pastry cutter to the texture of coarse cornmeal. Make a well in center and add half the milk and mix quick and light with a fork, then the other half.
Drop by large spoonfuls onto greased baking sheet and cook 12-15 minutes.
Serve still warm, broken into bowls, with strawberries and custard sauce poured over. Yum!
Egg White Frittata
3/4 – 1 pound sausage (ground or sliced)
1 lg onion, chopped
3-4 garlic cloves, minced
Saute meat, onions, and garlic till done
Butter a 9x 13 baking dish and add the meat and:
2 cups plus, chopped broccoli, spinach or kale
Lightly Beat 18-22 egg whites, adding dried basil, salt, pepper, Creole spice mix, etc and pour into the casserole
1 Cup grated cheddar cheese, sprinkled on top
Bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees F
That takes care of one days worth of eggs…Back to the cookbooks for more recipes. Anybody need some eggs?
-Wendy lee, writing at Edgewise Woods, Gardens and Critters
Grey winter days can be challenging. I hate grey. It doesn’t matter if it is the color of a comfy pair of corduroy pants, grey depresses me. Grey skies that go on for days at a time, coupled with extreme cold that keeps me in the house, will eventually drag me down.
For this whole first week of January, not only has it been grey, but the night time temperatures have been down in the single digits, as low as -1 degree Fahrenheit yesterday. During the day it has been hovering in the teens. One day there were winds gusting to 40 MPH from a storm the weather people were calling “the Bomb” which dumped snow all along the East coast. It brought snow to Florida and Georgia, with Charleston, South Carolina getting a foot. We only got about 2 inches of the (at least pretty) white stuff, mostly we just got grey.
Out in the Barn-Chickens
It is amazing to me that my chickens do not seem too bothered by this cold. They have heated water buckets, and I spread hay for dry bedding, but still. I feel my nose hairs freeze as soon as I walk outside to do chores and I have to breathe through my fleece collar. When I open the barn door, the younger chickens are all spread out like a down filled, 84 piece, patchwork quilt.
Live Feathered Quilt
They are all talking up a storm as I wade through them and refill their feeders. Barred Rocks, Araucanas, Buff Orpingtons and Golden Comets all scramble over each other as I toss some yummy 5 grain scratch on the floor. Then all grows quiet as they work on scarfing it all down. The pan of sprouted wheat and barley I give the laying hens disappears faster than water drops on a hot griddle.
The chickens prefer the long pulls of water they can get from open water, but the one-gallon plastic ice cream buckets quickly freeze solid. The heated waterers have little metal nipples the chickens have to press in with their beaks and they only get a drop or two at a time. Water is better than ice at washing down breakfast though, and the clicking sound of beaks hitting nipple waterers tells me they are drinking.
A Natural Type Horse
My horse, Mara, comes and goes in the barn as she pleases. Her meals of hay and grain are served there, and she has her own heated water bucket, but she mostly prefers to be outside. Her favorite spot is out back with her butt parked up against a big multiflora rose bush.
Mara Near Her Bush
The morning sun, if there is any, can reach her there and the bush blocks the west wind. She grows a thick coat of fur every winter which does a good job keeping her warm. The only time I lock her in the barn is during ice storms or when we are expecting rain and then a quick deep freeze. There have only been a few times when she stupidly stood outside in the rain, right before a cold wind storm, and I needed to dry her off with a towel so she would not get cold. Usually she regulates herself fairly well, moving naturally between the shade of trees and the sunny open pasture.
I have seen Facebook posts declaring it cruel to not put winter coats on horses. That is ridiculous and must be coming from people who have no actual experience tending livestock. A horse blanket, or coat, prevents a horse from growing a good natural coat of fur and can do more harm than good. Imagine what it would feel like to wear a soggy, wet coat outside in the winter. Supplying a run in shed where your horse can stay dry and out of the wind is what works.
I can see using a fresh, dry blanket to warm them if they occasionally manage to get wet just before a sudden temperature drop. In that case you need to rub them down, dry them off, and get them warmed up quickly. That is why you have to sometimes lock them in the barn until the wet stuff stops falling. I don’t think a blanket should be substituted for shelter.
My horse will occasionally stand outside and get covered in snow just to see if I care, I think. She knows I will go out and brush her off and give her extra hay in the nice, dry barn if I see her at risk of getting cold. She does not like to be locked up in the barn though, so unless it is really bad outside, I let her decide. Last year when we had 42 inches of snow all at once, I locked her up, and the snow sliding off the roof created walls on the open south side. I had already stapled plastic up on the east side, because the storm was blowing in from that direction, so the extra snow wall made it nice and snug in there. Usually our winter weather comes in from the northwest and the barn has solid wood walls on those sides.
White Snow v. Grey Skies
The bad thing about a deep, deep, snowfall is worrying about the weight of all that snow on the roof. A wet snow can be really heavy and could collapse the barn, or the house. I keep a ladder out by the barn so I can get up on the roof and shovel it off if I have to. In the last twenty five years, I have only had to do that twice, but I slept better knowing the barn would not crush the critters overnight. So far this winter we have not had a substantial snow, but we have a ways to go yet.
Light Snow
Today, it is not only a dreary grey, they are calling for freezing rain. The temperature has gone all the way up to 26 degrees F and would probably feel almost balmy, if the sun was out. So I am inside, by the woodstove, doing inside things like cooking, writing, and drinking hot tea. It is not windy and I am starting to see a few snow flurries, which would be way better than freezing rain. Maybe we will have a fresh layer of bright, white snow and the sun will come out tomorrow highlighting a clear blue sky. Here’s hoping.
I have finally decided to give up on ever becoming a decent beekeeper. I have taken numerous classes, tried various methods, spent all kinds of money on equipment, food and new queens, and I am now officially done.
Some people find caring for bees to be relaxing. I am not one of those people. Stress is not something I handle well and the bees have done nothing but stress me out. I am tired of feeling guilty for not being a better beekeeper. I was always wondering if I was doing the right thing at the proper time. When I asked other beekeepers, I got conflicting answers. I hate feeling incompetent.
I had wanted to keep bees so I could supply myself and maybe a few friends with good healthy honey and enjoy the benefits of their pollination as well. It turned out I could not do that organically because of the mites and beetles that attack them. I tried. This year I managed to get all six hives almost through the winter, and then lost three to Nosema disease, just before Spring arrived.
Heavy Lifting
I had to re-queen one of the hives in May and was still hopeful that they would be able to make me some honey. Then one of them swarmed and I had to re-queen another hive. It all seems kind of pointless when the queens can’t even seem to survive. I gave them each a deep body full of honey that the three dead hives had made, thinking that would enable them to draw new comb for a honey super. I think it worked, but three deep boxes are too high and heavy and hard work to move when I needed to check them.
My Hot Bee Suit
The idea of having to suit up and go out there in the summer heat again was beginning to weigh on my mind. Plus I got stung a few times and each time the swelling seemed worse. Then we set up our swimming pool and the bees decided to take it over as their private water source. They could have continued getting their water at the water garden, or in the bucket I provided right next to the hives, but no. It is hard to enjoy cooling off in the pool when you are being harassed by honeybees flying at your head.
Bees Anyone?
I thought about donating everything to the Wounded Warriors Project, which helps Veterans get set up with beekeeping, but the tax deduction would not be worth much. I messaged a fellow beekeeper family who has had good luck with their bees and they offered to take the whole shebang and give me a better deal. It is a super good deal for them because they were already able to split my three hives into five today, and amazingly enough, one super is full of honey. Tonight, they are coming back to pick up all the hives and take them to their new home.
The Bees New Family-It Takes Three
It is such a relief to find people who know what they are doing to want to take these bees. Plus they will give me some honey back, which makes me happy.
Room For New Projects
It is ridiculous how much space my beekeeping equipment had been taken up in the garage. Summer feeders, winter feeders, honey supers, extra hive bodies, screened bottom boards, and hive beetle traps were all stacked up in my pottery studio area. I would rather have the space to make pots and now I do.
Goodbye bees, goodbye stress. Hello to more time for fun and maybe even some relaxing projects.
Wendy lee, writing at Edgewisewoods, Gardens and Critters
