Happiness Microfarm - New Chicks and Kale Sprouts

The summer heat has arrived! I sooo loath the brutal summer heat. This week the temperatures are surpassing the 100 degree mark nearly every day.

Yesterday, our Rhode Island Red chicken died. I'm thinking it must be heat related. It was odd, I found her dead in one of the lay boxes, which is weird since she already laid her egg for the day. Why would she return to the box?? It was a sad sight, she was my favorite! The most friendly one and was very tolerant of the kids petting her. My other three chickens are fine, maybe the lay boxes overheat more than the run since there's no air circulation? Or maybe it's not heat related at all and there was a different cause, who knows!

So, my first order of business is to take steps to keep these chickens healthy through the summer, because it's going to get A LOT hotter in the next few months. I've done a little research and have decided on a few things to try:

1. Extra water sources, open so they can play in it if they desire.

2. Frozen water bottles to lower the temperature in a few areas of the coop/run

3. Clean out the run/coup more regularly since droppings/manure raise the temperature

I really think these things will help. Arizona is such a hot place! I will do anything I can to help my backyard chickens stay healthy. I really really love having them, they are great for so many reasons besides the fresh eggs every day!

New Chicks!

I love having chickens so much, that I decided to replace my Rhode Island Red by purchasing two new baby chicks! I really want to keep up the flock, and three chickens are not enough for me. Finding places that sell baby chicks is getting harder as the spring season is coming to a close. I called around and found that Mesa Feed Barn had some chicks still! So I took the kids over and we got ourselves one "Delaware" chick and one "Barred Rock" chick. These are both new breeds to be but I am really excited about them, they are both just beautiful as adults and should make great additions to my current flock.

Aside from chickens, the only other update I have regarding the microfarm is that my seeds that I saved from my kale plant are producing sprouts! Looks like with a good germination rate too, nearly all my seeds have sprouted so far. I'm really happy about it, now I want to figure out if I can grow kale in the summer, maybe in a pretty shady spot. Summer is not a good growing season for kale, but I'm going to try to find a way!

Kale sprouts from saved seeds!