Farm Fresh: Good-bye Chickens

We officially have NO chickens. For the first time in 8 years!

 I am not sure how much I have already written here about Marek's disease in our flock.  The important point is that I accepted a lot of chickens from various friends before they moved this summer and last summer too for that matter. Somewhere in there a chicken brought the very contagious viral disease called Marek's that slowly paralyzes and kills chickens. Or if they survive it, they are more likely to fall prey to something else. Marek's only infects chickens. Once I was 90% sure that we had it I called the Dept of Agriculture's helpline to get some more information on how to address the problem.  There are no cures for it. It is viral so you can't possibly clean well enough to get rid of it for good. A healthy bird can be exposed to it and develop an immunity, but 25% or more of those exposed to it will die.  The Ag doctor that I spoke with said that it is "stable in the environment".  They hope to be able to eradicate Avian Flu, but they have no hope of eradicating Mareks. The best line of defense is to only buy vaccinated chicks. They have to be vaccinated for marek's within 24 hours of hatching.  Our flocks were very susceptible since I had incubated so many of my own birds.   A few hatcheries, like Meyer, vaccinate all the chicks they sell, but places like Tractor Supply only vaccinate if you special order and request it.   The Ag doctor also said that I could learn to vaccinate my own newly hatched chicks!! A little intimidating.  Here-lies the last 4 chickens and 2 rabbits that I butchered on Friday:

The Dept of Ag doctor also recommended that even though I wouldn't be able to clean away the virus that I clean out the chickens' housing as well as possible.  Dig down into the dirt floor of their coop area and shovel it all out. I spent Saturday afternoon shoveling out the largest of our chicken huts. Hubby helped me get all the rabbit cages out. I repaired the tarp roof again! I can't wait to have a sturdy aviary.  I also ripped or more precisely cut out the chicken wire flooring.  That allowed me to shovel deep down and wheel out all the old dirt and bedding. Then I dusted the whole place with diatomaceous earth and put a thick layer on the ground.

 From now on this will just be a rabbit house. I plan to add about 6 more cages. One can never have too many bunnies. And since I know that people always like to hear our current animal tally... For the record, that brings us down to:
2 dogs, 5 cats, 9 khaki ducks (8 old ladies, but still laying 4 eggs a day), 5 muscovy ducks, 1 call duck, 2 guineas, and 30 rabbits (9 four week old kits); Only 54 animals. We will incubate some more ducklings in a couple weeks.  I don't plan to bring in any chickens for at least a year. Preferably, not until hubby builds a good size aviary or most likely a combo like Joel Salatin's "Raken".
Planting for Spring is well underway. So far we have 2 varieties of broccoli, artichokes, and rhubarb that have sprouted. Echinacea is stratifying and St John's wort is taking its time.  The ginger I planted did not sprout.  It was not very fresh. I will try again.

 In other news, I received a fabulous gift from a kind lady at church this week -- 17 dozen canning jars! This is only one shelf of them!  Lucky me.  I won't need them this summer with the new baby, but maybe next year I will be able to can 1000 jars. I have plenty now.