The Trio of Pekin Chicks

The Trio of Pekin Chicks

Here they are, now just over 6 weeks old and well feathered, looking for mischief.

Will they stay or will they go?

Photo blog of their progress is HERE

Crispy Critturs - the next big thing?

The basis of this article that's buzzing around is absolute truth and I am following the story with great interest, mainly for the following reasons: 

• I'm a fan of frugal living

• I recycle everything I can

• I am always interested in affordable protein sources

• I keep poultry

• I am an avid supporter of frugaleurs (frugal entrepreneurs)

Crispy Critturs - the next big thing?

… According to World Poultry, "For direct human consumption, insects are governed by novel food regulation in Europe, but the researchers say insects are unlikely to require pre-market safety assessment, as many non-EU countries have already demonstrated a history of safe use..." - See more here

Poultry Question - 'SILKIE CHIC' - Is she a Silkie or a Silbar?

Is this Silkie hen actually a Silbar?

This is an extra blog post I've thrown together after spotting a reference to Silbars on Twitter.

In 2009, I bought half a dozen hatching eggs from eBay, from a seller who was advertising said eggs as Silbars. Sadly, the box was delayed and badly damaged in transit.

I'm assuming that the delay in the eggs reaching us coupled with the treatment they had endured during transit pretty much ruled out any of them hatching. You can imagine my surprise when one actually did hatch!

This is a photo of the adult bird, as provided by the seller in their auction listing. The hen on the left, mother of my 'Silkie-Chic' (This is her name, not a misspelling of chick), was described as, "Silbar". However, despite researching at the time, I could find very little mention of this strain and certainly no signs of any local breeders.

To be honest, I forgot all about this until noticing the Silbar name crop up on Twitter. So here I am, back on the trail of discovery, trying to ascertain if my hen is just a plain Silkie or if she is, indeed, what's known as a Silbar.

Being a lone-hatched chick, she was reared as a family pet and probably spent the best part of her first year wandering in and out my kitchen! We eventually found her another lone chick, a white Silkie hen that we named Dumbledorf. But I digress.

On 03 March, 2009, the chick on the right hatched from the one surviving 'Silbar' egg.

I probably now have a complete day-to-day photo album of our miracle chick, as she progressed to adulthood.

Honestly, it was almost as bad as having a new baby in the house, except this baby grew very quickly.

She was soon able to go out into the garden to be introduced to the other hens, but took a very long time before she could become part of the 'gang'. (She now rules the roost!)

It took us several weeks to find her a companion (Dumbledorf), so she tended to hang about the kitchen door for most of the day, then come into the porch and sleep in her old brooding box at night!

Silkie-Chic did survive and she is still with us, here in Frugaldom, living happily alongside Dumbledorf and my other trio of blue cuckoo and lavender Silkies.

In 2010, Silkie-Chic went broody, while in the company of a white Silkie cockerel, so we incubated her eggs and gave her a couple of others to sit on instead. (The lavender chick is an Araucana.) Her eggs produced a mix of blue and partridge chicks, plus a couple identical to her, but I still didn't work out what colour my hen really is.

She's a great mum and I'd have loved to have bred from her again this year, but the recent housemove put paid to that.

All her last year's chicks were sold and I don't know how many turned out to be cockerels or how many were hens, although I do know the two black-headed partridge coloured chicks were both cockerels. Perhaps I should make a point of finding out if the ones that hatched looking identical to Silkie-Chic turned out to be hens?

To anyone with any knowledge of Silkies, Silbars or colour genetics in poultry, what there be any benefit to breeding this hen to my bearded, blue cuckoo Silkie cockerel?

Your comments would be very much appreciated, thank you.

Life as a Frugal Entrepreneur: Self Sufficient Working

The Frugaldom understanding of self-sufficiency is one of self-sustainability. It's about earning your own living and then spending accordingly, living within your means, regardless of how great or how meagre these may be. It's a lifestyle choice. Frugaldom is freedom from debt by way of living and working in frugal ways.

Over the past few years we have organised various challenges relevant to moneysaving, clearing any debts and building a lifestyle that fits in with the whole ethos of sustainability. With a little bit of planning, this lifestyle can enbrace greener living or a more environmentally-friendly way of conducting business within the household and workplace. Frugaldom is about taking on the responsibility of providing for yourself and, hopefully, being able to share skills, goods and services in a way that can both benefit others and cover all associated costs.

True, cash free self-sufficiency, in my opinion, isn't legally possible within the UK. In order to live and work, we need shelter and that shelter incurs a tax. In order to live we need food and water - we could attempt to rear and grow all of our own food and pump our water from a well, but in order to do so there are welfare issues and legislation to be considered - these things cost money. We still need to earn and, as long as we earn, we need to pay taxes where and when due. Some might trade and barter or move around but, at the end of the day, everyone needs an income and earing that income costs money.

True Frugaldom means the ability to provide all things for the household in order to sustain a chosen lifestyle and afford everything that it entails. There should be no need for State hand outs but neither should there be an aversion to seeking financial help where and when genuinely needed.  In this respect, it is time to start building our self-sustainable business in order to help secure our future.  We are our own employers, without working (for ourselves) we can neither pay ourselves nor keep a business running.

On the surface, it's always handy to grow whatever fruit and vegetables you can, as everything you can produce from home is one less thing you need to spend money on, allowing you to focus your hard-earned cash elsewhere. Over the past few years we have documented the costs involved in setting up a garden to produce as much as possible, including eggs from the assorted poultry. We can make each micro-project self sustaining or cash-neutral; hens lay eggs, selling the surplus can pay for their keep. Quail lay eggs and are quickly hatched and reared - the sales of surplus birds and eggs can cover the costs. Cash generated from any source can be used to neutralise each of these individual budgets, each of these projects can be built up to combine into one business. It's what microholding is about - all these small, self-financing pieces of the jigsaw fitting together to form a much bigger picture - that picture is your business of the future.

Christmas and all the festivities have now passed and we're halfway through the first month of the new year. For those who are still relying on other people's money, the credit card and bank statements will be arriving, reminding you of the dire state of your finances. But not for all of us. For the debt free, each statement is a reminder that there is an alternative route, one that can and should be followed carefully if Frugaldom is to be achieved.

I have estimated that for every £1,000 it costs you to exist each year, you NEED to save £2.75 each and every day that you're not earning. So, if life is costing you £12,000 a year, you need to save £33 for every day that you won't be earning, weekends included. The figures are simple - the less life costs you, the less pressure you are under to earn or save extra.

Building a business isn't so different. Everything has to pay for itself, some things need to pay more to cover the inanimate objects that house them, some need to cover the cost of storage and distribution. In the case of gardening, plants need to cover the cost of the patch of land they take up each and every day it takes them to grow - fertiliser, protection from pests, time in planting, tending and harvesting... consider all costs, don't ever assume that because you did it that your time is completely free.

Any legislation governing what you do needs to be accounted for, just like the costs involved in owning a car to enable you to go about your daily life. If that car costs you £500 to have it parked in the driveway for 365 days of the year then that's almost £1.37 that needs to be earned every single day without even driving the car. (The figures get much bigger when you factor in the percentage that's needed to cover tax and National Insurance etc.) Only by analysing the true costs of living and working can we begin to understand the basic principles of self-sustainability and self-sufficiency. After 10+ years of lifestyle planning, 2011 is my year of Frugaldom business planning.

Fel free to follow Frugaldom on Twitter or join me in the Frugaldom Forums

Frugaldom is based in a weird weather vortex

For almost two years, we have lived here wondering about the peculiar weather patterns we seem to get. We were made aware of the fact that the farm sits in a frost pocket - this part is obvious, when we're scraping ice from windscreens and nearby Newton Stewart is basking in sunshine. Most days, we are battered by swirling winds that are actually rather fun to watch, especially if the neighbours have their washig hanging out at the same time. The vortex is at its best during line drying washing. Mine will be horizontal in one direction and next door's will he horizontal in an entirely different direction. Likewise the curling smoke from newly kindled fires. But winter brings a different, eerie phenomenon. This morning saw the first occurance of this.

Above my head was slate grey, a few spots of rain reminded me not to expect any more Indian summer weather and, yet, looking around the horizon, we had a panoramic view of scarlet streaked skies. I'm not sure about you, but we were always taught that, "a red sky in the morning is a shepherd's warning," so I grabbed the camera before the heavens opened, checking the thermometer on the way back indoors again. It was a heady 4C, so not a precursor to snow, at least. Not yet, anyway. I've posted the photos to show what spectacular skies we get around here but bare in mind - IT WAS RAINING ON MY HEAD as I took these photos around 7.45am this morning.

 

I haven't quite sussed out how to edit the photos into the appropriate places, but you'll get the picture. To all intents and purposes, scanning the horizon around Frugaldom gives the illusion of a fine, Autumnal day with the promise of some sunshine. There was even a band of blue between the panoramic pink and the heavy grey above my head. Just another of the anomalies that inhabit this part of the country. Our tiny 'patch' has a 3C temperature difference between here and the road end.

There was NO DUCK EGG this morning! The extent of my search produced nothing more than a solitary blue Araucana egg and one single quail egg. Still, it's better than no eggs at all.

Now, approximately one hour after coming back inside from feeding hens, ducks & quail and taking the above photographs, we have a beautiful blue sky with sunshine escaping past the band of fluffy white clouds. I wouldn't be surprised if the temperature soared to 20C by this afternoon, but would be equally non-surprised if it plummetted to -1C and cloaked the entire hillside in snow. The joys of living in Scotland, don't you just love it?