Théo and the chickens des Sauches

[BDutch]

I was fine without light, but because I have a well I also didn't have water, and that was horrible.

Lucky me. I have a natural well/spring/source (what is the best word?) behind our house. Its the start of a little stream, so the water is definitely good enough for cleaning and flushing. Maybe not great to drink bc it’s near an old gas station and the soil could contain some led or chemicals.
To cook and for a little heating we could use the gas stove. But we have plans for a new kitchen with induction. And surely electricity is the first thing to fail with a flooding or other catastrophes.

Therefore I think its wise to look for information on house battery’s for electricity to be able to live off the grid with our solar panels. Things won’t get better in the future with all the ignorant people and horrible leaders all over the world.

I had the confirmation today that Lilly's issue is more serious than a lack of calcium.

Poor Lilly.
Hope she gets better soon. Being so active is a good sign.

 

[ManueB]

sorry to read about Lilly's condition - but if she can jump two walls, going uphill, she's evidently still got a lot of get up and go, so she gets over it, whatever it is, quickly.

She has a lot of spunk and at this time, she's definitely the most active hen of the flock with Lulu, so I guess she doesn't feel too bad ! Which is why we are going to wait and see before making any decisions.

Lucky me. I have a natural well/spring/source (what is the best word?) behind our house. Its the start of a little stream, so the water is definitely good enough for cleaning and flushing. Maybe not great to drink bc it’s near an old gas station and the soil could contain some led or chemicals.
To cook and for a little heating we could use the gas stove. But we have plans for a new kitchen with induction. And surely electricity is the first thing to fail with a flooding or other catastrophes.

Therefore I think its wise to look for information on house battery’s for electricity to be able to live off the grid with our solar panels. Things won’t get better in the future with all the ignorant people and horrible leaders all over the world.

We also have access to water, the excess of what comes down from the mountain is next to where we park our car, and it's the same as what we have in our tap, so I suppose it's fine.
And we are also questioning ourselves about getting a battery for the solar panels. Batteries have a heavy ecological and social cost which was one of the reason we didn't get one in the first place. But if you imagine that one day electricity becomes an issue, buying a battery then will likely also be one. But we'd have to be sure we can stay in the house as it's quite an investment.

It was colder today, -8/18 this morning, but with a beautiful blue sky and sun. The chickens waited until the sun was warm enough to come out even though every thing was frozen. Lilly seemed fine, and there was no soft shell eggs this morning.

I've got funny chicken food facts.
First, I discovered that my chickens, who have come to really enjoy split green peas soaked for 24 hrs, don't want to eat them cooked anymore. It used to be the opposite!

And then I got a small bag of french dry meal worms as a freebie on the site I get my cats food from. It was the first time I gave something like that to the chickens. Most love them, but not Gaston. Not only does he not like them, he's afraid of them. He actually runs away when I try to give him some .

Lots of pictures today !

It looks like Lulu won't molt. Or maybe she is waiting for 2025 ?

Léa is getting less weary, she may be soon done moulting.

And Merle is also less of a pain with the other hens and she slept with Théo tonight for the first time in a while. Likely she'll ask him to help her find a nest soon .

Kara suddenly was very interested by the phone !

Mélisse lost the last feather of her tail.

Kara has beautiful fluff.

 

[ManueB]

Yesterday was rather miserable ; much warmer (1c/34f) when I opened the coop) but grey and damp, with a very light drizzle.
Toward half past one, while I was finishing my lunch inside, the three chickens that were out in the garden got a big fright. Annette flew straight back in the chicken yard and hid under the laurel tree telling the other chickens to hide as well. Looking for the two chickens that were out with her, I first found Théo hiding at the very bottom of the woodshed, then Piou-piou flattened right to the ground in the dead golden rods. I actually looked twice there before seeing her. They all remained hidden for the rest of the day and went to roost very early.

Today was much better and they were not afraid anymore. The morning was grey, but it was nice and sunny this afternoon and they all enjoyed it. Théo is going crazy after Merle, who roosts with him, but doesn't want to join him during the day. She is a real trouble maker : she calls to him to come in the chicken yard but doesn't want to go with him outside ! It's going to be a lot of drama when she starts looking for a nest to lay again.

Lilly laid an egg today for the first time since her trouble, a bit fragile with almost no colouring bloom, but at least it was whole. She's very active and scratching around as usual.

There was a damp chill this morning, molting Mélisse and tiny Chipie weren't keen to go out.

Lilly's egg. Normally her egg is dark brown.

Mélisse looks pitiful. No tail, no feathers, and loosing all the neck feathers now ! Why so late !

Miss devil looking for trouble.

Lilly is not acting sick.

Hard to lie on the side when it's full of pin feathers. But she's over the worse and her poops are back to normal!

 

[MaryJanet]

her poops are back to normal!

I always feel happy when I see good poops

 

[Shadrach]

I had a ground larder in Catalonia and for much of the food stuffs I kept then and now it worked really well. Cheese for example tasted so much better from the ground larder than the fridge. What would be hard to replace without electricity is a freezer and if it wasn't for that I could have done without a fridge altogether.
The problem with electricity, no matter how it's generated and stored, is the supply systems are usually fairly complicated and at the voltages we have as standard, can be dangerous. The Hi Tech solutions don't really solve any of the fundamental power problems. The things we buy from electric bikes to lightbulbs all require much more power than is required to achieve the purpose.
12 Volt systems are a partial solution but the white good industies and others are not intrested in producing 12 Volt goods, mainly because of lack of demand.
I think there will come a time when we realise that the dream of environmentally friendly limitless power that's affordable isn't going to happen. Meanwhile we produce more and more products that require electricity to work.
One of the farms on the same mountain we were on installed and hand pump system to pump water from the well to a header tank which gravity fed to the house taps. Not much inovation in hand pumps which while limited to mainly rural applications would seem a more environmentally friendly option worthy of some research and developement.
The Romans had underfloor heating which is way more comfotable to live with than on wall radiators and this is yet another area where research hasn't had the funding to become more inovative and a practical modern method of house heating.
Hot water in hot climates if one has a roof should not be a major problem. I had just a couple of runs of pipework open to the sun on the roof of my house in Catalonia and the water got plenty hot enough for showers etc. But, I didn't get around to installing a hot water storage system so rather than doing things like sowering when I felt like it, I did it when the sun shone and the water was hot. Not a major sacrifice but for modern day expectaions a major inconvenience.
I think we as a society should be looking to low cost, low tech solutions rather than what I see now for solar power, which is still an environmental disaster that the "alternatives" have managed to convince themsleves that they are helping to save the planet. Trace the costs backwards (including the environmental and production costs) and one may as well keep using the national grids.

 

[Molpet]

One of the farms on the same mountain we were on installed and hand pump system to pump water from the well to a header tank which gravity fed to the house taps. Not much inovation in hand pumps which while limited to mainly rural applications would seem a more environmentally friendly option worthy of some research and developement.

Grandparents had a cistern with a hand pump and the creek had a spring. There was a spot in the spring set up to use as a refrigerator
The springs went dry back in the 70s and the creek is now seasonal. Uncles 60ft well dug in the 40s went dry then too. Well is now 250 ft. A bit far for a hand pump.
The City to the west, which is pumping the ground water, says they will be out of water by 2030. They are trying to get lake Michigan water from Chicago. About 50 miles away

 

[Shadrach]

Grandparents had a cistern with a hand pump and the creek had a spring. There was a spot in the spring set up to use as a refrigerator
The springs went dry back in the 70s and the creek is now seasonal. Uncles 60ft well dug in the 40s went dry then too. Well is now 250 ft. A bit far for a hand pump.
The City to the west, which is pumping the ground water, says they will be out of water by 2030. They are trying to get lake Michigan water from Chicago. About 50 miles away

Our well went dry a couple of times as did the rest of the wells on our side of the mountain. It's not a delivery problem though. The problem was too many people moving to the area who wanted to wash their cars, water their lawns, set up showers for their kids... In short people who had no idea of what a limited resource meant.

 

[Perris]

I think we as a society should be looking to low cost, low tech solutions

it's happening with regenerative farming (old methods still need to packaged as something new in order for people to consider them, it seems), so it's not impossible. History is full of good ideas, like the Roman plumbing and heating you mentioned. Archimedean screws can generate power from running water, as well as lift water when powered by electric (or foot), for example.

 

[Perris]

Meanwhile we produce more and more products that require electricity to work.

I wonder what is the proportion of necessities to discretionaries? We currently seem to use a lot of resources on ephemera.

This makes sobering reading, for example
https://www.forbes.com/sites/cindyg...nnovations-are-creating-sustainability-havoc/
and as well as the beneficial uses, there's an awful lot of digital junk being created at that cost.

 

[RoyalChick]

I wonder what is the proportion of necessities to discretionaries? We currently seem to use a lot of resources on ephemera.

This makes sobering reading, for example
https://www.forbes.com/sites/cindyg...nnovations-are-creating-sustainability-havoc/
and as well as the beneficial uses, there's an awful lot of digital junk being created at that cost.

Mind blowing and appalling.