New Chicks, New Bees, and More!
You may have seen my television show last April when Traci Torres, of My Pet Chicken, came on to explain how to get started raising your own chickens in your backyard. With an aging hen population, it was time for me to acquire a new generation of chicks and Traci was happy to help. Last Friday, she arrived at the farm with 63 new little peepers, of breeds including:
Marans – a French breed that lays dark mahogany-brown eggs
Penedesencas – a Spanish breed that lays very dark brown eggs and are unique and rare
White Empordanesas – a rare white chicken that lays dark brown eggs
Araucanas – have feathers that stick out below their ears and lay blue eggs
Ameraucanas – have muffs and beards and lay eggs in shades of blue and turquoise
Appenzeller Spitzhaubens – white with black polka-dots and feathery heads and lay large white eggs
Dark Cornish – an English breed with short, close-fitting feathers and lay brown eggs
Barnevelder – a Dutch breed with brown feathers and lays deep brown eggs
Blue Orpingtons – an English breed with smoky, slate feathers and lays light brown eggs
We also have three new beehives, which were positioned adjacent to the cutting garden. D.J. Haverkamp, of Bedford Bee Honeybee Service, is helping out with the hives this season. D.J. teaches a class on raising honeybees and Carlos has started to attend. Honeybees are complicated little creatures and there is so much to know. Please enjoy this update from the farm.
1 What an adorable little handful!
2 This is Traci Torres - Chief Eggsecutive Officer of My Pet Chicken - and her sweet daughter, Ellie.
3 Traci brought a delivery of 63 mixed-breed chicks, which Chhiring brought into the chicken coop.
4 An attractive tote bag with Traci's logo
5 It was Friday, which means that the hen houses had just been cleaned and dressed with new wood shavings.
6 The third hen house had been prepared for the baby chicks. These interlocking cardboard panels, which form the chick 'house' are available at My Pet Chicken. http://www.mypetchicken.com/default.aspx
7 Infrared heat lamps provide cozy warmth, but the red color is a bonus - it helps prevent chicks from picking at one another and also makes it easier for them to sleep.
8 Slowly opening the box
9 Chhiring is careful not to startle these precious babies.
10 What beautiful and healthy baby chicks!
11 With a normal hatchling delivery, you dip each chick's beak into water to teach them how to drink.
12 Chhiring began the dipping process.
13 Traci told Chhiring that these chicks had been in her care for a couple of days and already knew how to drink and eat.
14 Indeed they did!
15 Here they are only minutes in their new home looking very comfortable.
16 Adorable little peeps!
17 Traci also brought a seed mix called Chicken Salad, which are greens that chickens love to eat.
18 Chicken Salad is a mix of dwarf Essex rape, purple top turnip, Bracco white mustard, forage kale, and Landino clover.
19 You can plant the Chicken Salad mix in a protected area and allow your chickens to graze upon it once the plants are established.
20 Or you can grow it in your vegetable garden, like Ryan is, and clip the greens for your flock.
21 Meanwhile, at the honeybees' new location....
22 The new installment of bees also appear to be strong and active.
23 D.J. Haverkamp of Bedford Bee Honeybee Service is teaching Carlos about beekeeping. They were going to open each hive to check on the new queens. The queens spend about one week in a little cage inside the hive, where she is protected.
24 Once her scent becomes familiar to the bees in the hive, she can safely enter as their queen. Without this precaution, she would be assumed an intruder and be killed.
25 The heavy stone and the lid are removed, revealing the the hive top feeder, which holds sugar syrup. When consumed, the syrup stimulates the bees' wax glands so they can make new comb.
26 Beneath the hive top feeder is the hive body, where the frames are located.
27 The queen cage had been hung between two of the frames. Carlos lifted out the cage, which was covered with bees.
28 When the bees were tapped off, it was discovered that the 'candy' plug had been eaten allowing the queen to enter her hive queendom.
29 D.J. lifted out a frame and was very happy with what he saw. The bees are actively making honeycomb, building upon the frame's foundation.
30 And the large dark-bodied bee is the queen, busy laying eggs for a future brood.
31 In the second hive, the queen was still in her cage and D.J. decided to poke through the 'candy' plug.
32 He felt her scent was familiar after being there for a week and safely placed her into the hive.
33 After removing the queen cage, it's important to reposition all of the frames so that they rest right up against one another.
34 If this is not done, the bees make something called burr comb in all that extra space. D.J. removed a piece of burr comb in the space where the queen cage had been.
35 A better look at the burr comb
36 When the frames are pushed altogether, a final frame is placed in the hive body and the hive is put back together.
37 Below the stable is the allee of linden. The little house-looking structure was placed in the blue garden by my TV crew.
38 Behind a plexi-glass window sits a video camera, set on a time lapse mode, to record the blue-flowering bulbs as they emerge and bloom.
39 I decided this was the place for those nine boxwood shrubs, after all.
40 Chhiring, Pete, and Chhewang have been busy topdressing and seeding the grassy area outside the farm along the road.
41 In the greenhouse, many vegetable seedlings are growing beautifully.
42 Including those flats of tomato seedlings that were planted just a week and a half ago.
43 In the head house, Ryan has been applying a special fertilizer mixture to all of the seedlings.
44 More plants hardening off outside in preparation for placement in the garden
Photos By Martha Stewart @marthastewart and Eliad Laskin @joemartha
Martha Pins
Martha Tweets
Martha, the baby chicks are so cute. By putting them all together, do they cross-breed?
The men are very brave to put their bare hands in with all those bees. I don't have that kind of courage.
But, I do have some bees that must be in the chimney of my very old house. I haven't found them in the walls, and as they go through some holes in the chimney, I can safely presume that that is where they are. I just wish I knew how to get the honey out.
Thanks for the informative Blog.
Gloria G!!
Posted by: Gloria | April 26th, 2011 at 12:35 am
Peepers are all wonderful. Thanks for these great pictures
Posted by: ann | April 26th, 2011 at 3:51 am
Martha with such beauty and bounty from your farm you should have a contest where the winner wins a farm box with eggs, honey, veggies and flowers from your farm. And I should win one too for the idea !
Posted by: Isabel Pearce | April 26th, 2011 at 8:51 am
I wonder how much it actually costs to keep chickens? With,food, heating their "hutch" in winter and vet bills? How long does a chicken live?
I can hardly wait to see the time lapsed video. If I had a home like that I would never leave. A vacation once a year and that is it.
I don't see a pool for swimming? Incredible farm. How blessed you are Martha.
Cheers,
Rachel
Mistress of Sea Petal Manor
Posted by: Rachel | April 26th, 2011 at 9:16 am
I am so excited to see these chicks as they continue to grow. Your description of their beautiful colors and feathers has me super curious!
Thanks for sharing!
amy @ glass confetti
Posted by: amy | April 26th, 2011 at 9:24 am
What gorgeous little bundles of fluff! Were they sexed, do you know they are all hens?
Posted by: SilverMagpies | April 26th, 2011 at 9:46 am
Martha, how do you keep snakes out of your henhouse?
Posted by: Wanda | April 26th, 2011 at 9:46 am
The baby chicks are sooo cute! Very informative post. Thank you
Posted by: Rowaida Flayhan | April 26th, 2011 at 9:54 am
Hi Martha,
Baby chicks are the cutest little things and you have quite the collection of new ones. I remember the baby chick episode you did on your Living show where you taught each one how to drink water. You had them contained also and there was a lamp overhead to keep them warm. That was quite awhile ago but I remember thinking you are a great mama to all your little critters. Your crew looks pretty happy too with the various jobs they perform but I doubt anything ever gets monotonous around you. You come up with so many ideas. I had to smile at the little house-looking structure – painted Bedford Gray of course! Thanks for everything. Trish
Posted by: Trish | April 26th, 2011 at 10:00 am
Cute chicks! I recently learned about the Italian Leghorn chickens from a local Italian family run business.
Cathy
Posted by: stitchfork | April 26th, 2011 at 10:06 am
Sweet little chicks! Thanks for all the great pictures that you post. Love it.
The bee pictures and info is very cool. Learned something new today! Thank you.
Marcie
Posted by: Marcie | April 26th, 2011 at 10:11 am
Hi Martha, I totally love every section of your beautiful farm and seeing your fantastic crew always doing a fabulous job taking perfect care of everything there makes these blog postings so fascinating and teaches us a lot about how to have a perfect farm! Those new baby chicks are absolutely darling and with such good care I'm sure they will mature very quickly. It's so fun to see them at such young ages and your beautiful chicken coops are perfect places for them to grow up. I remember years ago when you lived at Turkey Hill and got some new chicks and showed us how to teach them to drink water and eat their food. How nice that Traci did all of that for you this time and Chhiring also new how to take perfect care of them, too. The new bee hives are also terrific and how great that Carlos is learning how to take care of the bees and their hives. It's interesting how new queen bees are added to each hive. How great also that you will have your boxwoods where you first wanted to plant them. I know they will look wonderful there. What kind of fertilizer mixture is Ryan adding to the new plants he started? I'll bet it helps them grow better. Love all of these terrific photos! Have to check The Daily Wag to see what Sharkey is doing today-Planting Chicken Salad in the Garden! Sounds fascinating! Loved your TV Show yesterday and Martha Bakes, also. Looking forward to seeing your interview with Mrs. Obama on Sun. May 8th on the Hallmark Channel. Have another great day! Jan
Posted by: Jan Erickson | April 26th, 2011 at 10:33 am
What a perfect post for the coming growing season! I love the chicks and am planning my own coop. Also I'm starting to think about bees. Thanks again for posting! As always I love seeing your farm!
Posted by: Kristina | April 26th, 2011 at 12:09 pm
on a personal note, its seems you have been rather hoarse lately. i hope you are well and wish you continuing health and well-being.
Sincerely.
Nancy B. Elchanan
Posted by: nancy elchanan | April 26th, 2011 at 2:22 pm
Spring is great and you are really helping us enjoy it. I appreciate the thought and work that is put into such enlightening blogs. One slide discussing the need for chicks to learn to drink water, or the slow introduction of queens into hives, how life and death that becomes. What a fantastic job.
Posted by: Margie | April 26th, 2011 at 2:22 pm
Hi Martha,where is the GK (chow chow ).We love to see him having pictures web site,it makes my heart pounding everytime.Love your bake show too.Best regard,YUNG TRUONG.
Posted by: Yung Truong | April 26th, 2011 at 2:42 pm
Hello,martha I loged on to tell you i got my new baby chicks yesterday!from mcm,and low and behold i see you got news chicks also! cong!!!! thank you for the inspiration you gave on chickens from your video file. Iam really enjoying the new babies and like you i want mar pend and spit from tracey's my pet chicken. thanks again you make me feel like i can do anything i so look up to you .Have a Bless day and enjoy!
Posted by: alice henley | April 26th, 2011 at 3:22 pm
Lucy of "I Love Lucy" went on to star in another tv show where she and Ethel tried to raise chick; it was so funny.
Posted by: May Delory | April 26th, 2011 at 4:23 pm
Oh, the bees! Last summer my dearest professor found out she had a brain tumor. She was a beekeeper and loved teaching us second hand about the art of beekeeping. I miss her. She passed away shortly after her diagnosis. Thanks for sharing these pictures and experience.
Graciously,
Aimee
Posted by: Aimee | April 26th, 2011 at 9:13 pm
I am a huge fan of honeybees and help care for the demonstration hive at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences. So glad you are promoting beekeeping. Your readers should understand that the precautions with the Queen Bees were taken because they were not born into the hive, but instead were being introduced to an active hive. Fascinating little creatures...
Posted by: Ann Daniel | April 26th, 2011 at 10:12 pm
Your chicks are so adorable. However, I did notice that they are on flat newsprint. I was always told to put them on paper toweling or pine shavings because newspaper can give them spraddle leg. Sorry if someone else mentioned it before me.
Posted by: Veronica V. | April 26th, 2011 at 10:14 pm
I got my first batch of chicks from My Pet Chicken last year. Out of the 11 I ordered, only 1 turned out to be a male. Do you have Welsummers? They are consistently the largest eggs and they have the sweetest temperament. The eggs are dark brown with dark dots all over. When it comes time to add to my flock, I'll replace most of them with Welsummers. I also love my Marans. I have Coockoo Marans as the Black Copper Marans were sold out.
Posted by: Kim Knemeyer | April 26th, 2011 at 11:10 pm
I love that Traci brings her daughter with her while working.
Posted by: Jackie | April 26th, 2011 at 11:30 pm
I miss having chickens and bees. We kids shared the "Poultry-odian" duties assigned by my grandfather. Thinking of them one night I designed this group of t-shirts. I hope you enjoy them!
http://www.cafepress.com/messingerarts/6326406
Posted by: Phillip | April 27th, 2011 at 9:41 am
Beginners beekeeping would be a great teaching segment on the Martha Stewart Show. I can't be the only person who would like to start a hive. Also, raising chickens for beginners would be fun too.
Posted by: Julie | April 27th, 2011 at 12:28 pm
Great post!!!
Looks like lots of exciting things are happening at your farm!
Posted by: David K. | April 28th, 2011 at 3:34 am
Check out this free new app a friend of Cream City Hens made to help hen lovers keep track of their "egg-vestment"!! http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/egg-vestment/id432720358?mt=8
Posted by: Jodi | April 28th, 2011 at 12:09 pm
How sweet. The chicks are adorable and look so soft.
Posted by: Lisa | April 28th, 2011 at 11:10 pm
I've kept true rumpless tufted araucana for years and they are by far my favorite and the most beautiful and interesting chicken..enjoy.
Posted by: Robert | May 30th, 2011 at 4:28 pm