I’m sure you’ve noticed that it’s kind of ironic that that a web site title “Chickens On Camera” doesn’t have any of their chickens on camera. The reason is that once the chickens were to old for the brooder box it wasn’t possible to get a web camera on them. So we need a larger system so we can put cameras all over the backyard and show as much of the chickens as possible.

• If you would like to help, please consider donating. If you have any suggestions about what camera system to get, we’d love to know. Let us know.
• If you are interested in sponsoring the entire system please let us know.

If you have any thoughts or questions please let us know.
]]> http://chickensoncamera.com/2010/08/help-put-the-chickens-back-on-camera/feed/ 1 http://chickensoncamera.com/2010/08/4-fall-garden-tasks-that-you-should-do/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=4-fall-garden-tasks-that-you-should-do http://chickensoncamera.com/2010/08/4-fall-garden-tasks-that-you-should-do/#comments Mon, 09 Aug 2010 17:40:43 +0000 David Nichols http://chickensoncamera.com/?p=348 Fall is a time when the garden is winding down, but the garden work isn’t! There are things that need to be done that you really shouldn’t put off until spring. If you want your garden to produce healthy plants next spring, there are some tasks you need to take care of in the fall.

1. Clean up. This pretty much sums up all the garden tasks that need to be done in the fall. You should do a thorough cleaning of the garden and your yard in general. Debris and decaying plants are the favorite places of pests and rodents. You don’t want to provide housing for these destructive creatures so make sure you eliminate all possible hibernating options. Many dead plants also harbor fungus and other plant diseases, so you want to get those out of your garden as soon as possible. Letting them sit for the winter may create a bigger fungus problem in the spring!
2. Cut back your plants – with caution! It is time to dead head the perennials and cut back any extra growth. But take care when you are cutting back plants, especially roses. When you trim or prune a woody plant like roses the process causes the plant to jump start the growing process. So instead of entering a dormant period, the plant will have a growth spurt. This tender growth cannot survive a hard frost so your plant will be damaged if you prune it in the fall. Make sure you are only cutting back perennials and not woody shrubs and bushes.
3. Fertilize. Now is the time to put a winter fertilizer on your lawn and around your trees and shrubs. There are several different brands of lawn fertilizer that are made specifically for winter fertilizing. Most of these fertilizers contain extra phosphorous that will help encourage root growth. Many lawns have just survived the searing summer temperatures and their roots are tired and weak. The winter fertilizer will help the roots grow strong before cold temperatures set in and then you will have a beautiful lawn come spring. It is also important to fertilize around shrubs and trees. If you have cleaned up good around your yard, as you should, then you have removed any materials that would decay naturally and provide nutrients to the trees and shrubs. This can be fixed by adding slow release nitrogen into the soil around the trees and shrubs and working it gently into the soil. You should also add phosphorous in the form of bone meal around any flowering shrubs and trees to encourage beautiful blossoms.
4. Plant bulbs. How many times do you drive around in the spring and admire all the beautiful tulips, daffodils and hyacinths? Fall is the time to plant spring blooming bulbs so you will have vibrant color just like everyone else. When you buy bulbs, make sure you get them from a nursery or mail order. Many of the bulbs you find at discount stores and big box stores are not high quality. You will still get a pretty blossom out of them, but not the large gorgeous blooms you will get from high quality bulbs. When you are selecting bulbs for planting, stay away from any that are soft or very small. The larger and firmer the bulb, the healthier your plant will be. When you plant the bulbs, add a small scoop of bone meal in the bottom of the hole to give the bulb a little shot of phosphorous which is essential for good blossoms.

Many people are excited about gardening in the spring, but want to be done with it long before winter arrives. But, if you spend some time in your garden in the fall you will be rewarded with a healthier yard in the spring.

By Piper Cox

Piper is a freelance writer who enjoys fitness, good nutrition, and the outdoors. She loves work in the yard and gets everything ready for winter including her lawn mower with a lawn mower cover to protect it from the elements. She enjoys nature, reading and most of all gardening! She loves to tell others about the advantages of a small garden tiller to make working in the garden a breeze!

Article Source: EzineArticles.com

“Flamingos receive their pink coloring from the food that they eat,” said Martin Vince, curator of birds at Riverbanks Zoo and Garden. “At Riverbanks, we feed a specialized pellet diet that contains the nutrients flamingos require to maintain their vibrant color.”

While Riverbanks successfully hatches flamingo chicks each year, Starbuck, born June 28, and Boomer, born July 9, have experienced a most interesting upbringing. In order to combat problems with nest predation and to help the young birds integrate into the flock, the flamingo chicks have been removed from the exhibit each evening, kept in a brooder in the Bird Conservation Center and then reunited with their parents each morning.

“The process of fostering chicks and then returning them to their parents mimics the behavior of wild flamingos, but has never been done in a Zoo before,” said Vince. “In the wild, flamingo chicks will stay together as a group while their parents wander. When the parents return, they rely on the distinctive vocalizations of their offspring to reconnect and resume caring for their young.”

The chicks are growing rapidly, and there is already a visible size difference between Starbuck and Boomer. To catch them while they’re still small, plan on visiting soon. The baby flamingos are on exhibit from 9am to 5pm each day.

It is the mission of Riverbanks Zoo and Garden to foster appreciation and concern for all living things. Riverbanks is located at 500 Wildlife Parkway, Columbia, SC 29210. The Botanical Garden entrance is located at 1300 Botanical Parkway, West Columbia, SC 29169. The park is open daily from 9am to 5pm, except for Thanksgiving and Christmas day. Admission is $11.75 for adults, $9.25 for children ages 3 – 12 and free for children 2 and under. Group rates and other discounts may apply. Rates, dates and times are subject to change. For the most current information, call Riverbanks at 803.779.8717 or visit www.riverbanks.org.

Auracana Chickens:

They are also known as “South American Rumpless”. This breed of chicken originated in Chile. The Araucana is often confused with other fowl, especially the Ameraucana and Easter Egger chickens, but has several unusual characteristics which distinguish it. They lay blue eggs, have feather tufts near their ears, and no tail. To comply with the north American standard they must have no tail and are rumpless.

Ameraucana Chickens.

Ameraucana Chickens were bred in America from the Auracana and they have the same gene that lets them lay blue or other colored eggs. The main difference is the presence of tail feathers, and black or slate colored legs.

Easter Eggers

The Ameraucana Breeders Club defines an Easter Egg chicken, or Easter Egger, as any chicken that possesses the blue egg gene, but doesn’t fully meet any breed description as defined in the APA standards. Further, even if a bird (that possesses the blue egg gene) meets an APA standard breed description, but doesn’t meet a variety description or breed true at least 50% of the time it is considered an Easter Egg chicken. Most Easter Egg chickens are “mutts” which happen to carry the blue egg gene.

Information Courtesy of:
wikipedia.org
backyardchickens.com

Sometimes a fence is necessary for your hives if you want to keep your equipment separated from cattle and other animals. With that in mind, Let’s look at some of the most important things required in a list of beekeeping equipment. A basic set of equipment is required to run a unit and some of these items are absolutely mandatory.

Basic Equipment

smoker

The most important equipment for any apiary is the smoker. By making correct use of the smoker, it is possible to manage the hives, since it keeps the bees docile when you keep the hive open. If you don’t use a smoker, there is a greater chance of stings for the beekeeper and others nearby. It could also stimulate your hive to become aggressive in the future.

Beekeeper Suit

A beekeeper suit also keeps you from being stung whenever you work with the hives. It keeps your honeybees from working their way under your clothes in addition to masking your body odor from your bees. It also helps you to keep cool when you work in direct sun. If your bee suit does not already include both a bee hat and a veil, purchase them as well. They are very useful for keeping bees out of your head and neck.

Hive Tools

Hive Tools and gloves are handy gadgets to have as your beekeeping equipment. The tools
come in various styles. Gloves prevent the bees from stinging your arms and keep them from crawling up inside your sleeves. A bee brush is also handy for brushing bees off things or off yourself.

Using wrist straps and ankle is completely optional, but they are helpful if your bee suit or clothing does not provide them already. With these straps you can cinch your pant legs and sleeve cuffs to keep bees from crawling in.

Probably a full body suit is most likely to provide excellent comfort, convenience and durability. If it is properly sized and worn, the full body suit provides complete sting protection when you are working your hives or must deal with other types of stinging insects like wasps and hornets.

Beekeeping supplies include hive essentials, beekeeping tools, processing equipment, honey containers and labels. Many commercial apiaries stock all the beekeeping supplies that you need for beekeeping available. There are several new products, both for pros and amateurs.

Necessary Hive Equipment

Hive Essentials are the first things that you need when you are starting off with beekeeping. The bees and the queens are the most important beekeeping supplies along with the Beginner’s and Hive Increase Kits. There are both large and small hive frames, as well as polystyrene hives.

Bee feed and feeders and honey comb supplies should be in your beekeeping supplies too. Bee medications are essential and you want to read many books to keep you informed about the bees. Hive wraps, gadgets and tools are some of the beekeeping tools as are galvanized hardware cloth and pollen traps. For the beekeeper, protective clothing is necessary, and so are smokers.

Processing the Wax and Honey

In order to process beeswax and honey you’ll need to include processing equipment with your beekeeping supplies. You can also have extracting tools and bee escapes and harvesting extractors as processing equipment. For the honey containers it is important to have bulk, glass and plastic containers for the liquid honey. Closures are vital and there should be labels for the various types of honey.

Honey Handling Equipment is also sold in a variety of sizes in the stores which supply beekeeping supplies. Honey tanks and strainers sized for various size buckets and honey warming cabinets are available as well. A honey creaming machine and a hive clamp with strap is used for transportation.

Equipment for beeswax and foundation wax is some of the latest products of beekeeping supplies. There are many wood products, medications and treatment for bees and lots of beekeeping books and educational aids can be bought on websites.

Bee-Keeping Kits

Several kits are available as beekeeping supplies like the Bee-Ginners Kit or the Hive Starter Kit. The Bee-Ginners Kit provides the beginner with the basic beekeeping supplies. It is only sold as a unit. The Hive Starter Kit is an assembled English Garden Hive which has eight frames. It features a copper top, and two medium blocks with frames.

Buying Equipment

Many hive components are available online, by making choices from extensive catalogs and comparing prices. You can order by phone. The products can be shipped to you. Orders processed can take anywhere from two to three days if you are local to the supplier, or seven to ten days outside the country.

Article Source: www.upublish.info

About the Author:
Kristyne McDaniel
Kristyne McDaniel is a consulting software developer with an interest in sustainable energy and green living. She first became interested in beekeeping as a child when she noticed the groups of hives that popped up near crops in the Minnesota where she grew up. When you visit her BeeKeepingIdeas.com web site you’ll see ideas about How to Deal with Wood Bees and many more popular beekeeping topics.

Feeding chickens is more than merely putting out some grains for your hens. If you wish to grow chickens that furnish you with excellent quality eggs on a regular basis you need to know a few basics about feeding chickens. When chickens first start laying eggs, through the early laying cycle, they are still growing and maturing. Throughout this phase they require a larger quantity of protein. As egg production starts to diminish their protein needs also diminish.

Big commercial chicken growers recognize that protein is high-priced so they keep an eye on protein quantities carefully when feeding chickens. They start by supplying 18% protein for the earliest 4 months of their egg laying period and then lessen it to 16% at 4 months. Protein is cut to 15% when the laying birds drop to roughly 60% egg laying production from their peak.

Most backyard chicken farmers aim to keep everything as uncomplicated as they can and thus offer their laying birds the same feed during the complete laying period. This is customarily accomplished with an all-mash diet
that offers about 16% to 17% protein levels.

Mash is made from finely crushed grains and can be offered in two principal ways. It can either be combined to provide 100% of the hen’s day by day nutrient requirements or given as a supplement to other grains. Giving poultry a considerable percentage of whole grains immediately ahead of roost time can help them stay warmer and more comfortable through the night.

Grit most commonly is provided in the manner of small stones or granite material and must be given to birds eating whole grains. Grit helps grind the grains and improving digestion. Hens will eat all types of stuff, including feathers, and grit must always be available to help birds assimilate these various items, even when being given an all-mash diet.

Whole grains will normally cause hens to gain added fat which will normally cause egg laying to diminish, so it is a good idea not to feed too many whole grains. Additionally, whole grains, also given the name scratch feeds, are typically lower in protein, containing about 10%, so the mash will contain as much as 20% to 40% protein, but this depends on the amount of whole grains that are provided. A diet of whole grains and mash should provide total protein of about 16%.

To slash the feed cost kitchen table leftovers and garden excess can be added to a hen’s diet. These types of food can be offered as a replacement for some of the whole grains, but must be provided in limited quantities as they will normally decrease the protein levels in the overall diet. Depending on the kind of kitchen table leftovers fed, they can also lead to bad tasting eggs. Giving them vegetable peelings or skins and green tops is good, but giving onions, fruit peelings or rind, and other strong-flavored foods are not.

Calcium is one of the most crucial requirements in a layer’s diet because it is necessary to form sturdy egg shells. Giving hens an all-mash diet is typically sufficient because all-mash diets usually include about 3% or more calcium. If egg shell strength ever appears to become reduced additional calcium needs to be added to the diet. Calcium is generally provided in the form of oyster shells.

Sanitary water is another necessary item that needs to be offered at all times. Egg production will fall if chickens are not given water for even short periods of time. Keeping the water sanitary by changing it daily is also vital because tainted water can deter hens from consuming the necessary amount. Soiled water can furthermore cause the spread of sickness and disease. To maintain high egg laying production chickens need to be offered an adequate diet and plenty of uncontaminated water.

Article Source: www.upublish.info

About the Author:
Joshua A Harding
Joshua has grown poultry for over 25 years and is an authority in getting maximum egg and meat production from his chickens. He maintains a web site where you can read more regarding chicken feeding, building a high quality chicken ark, and the importance of feeding chickens an ideal diet.

If you have any pictures of your “Babs” send them to us and we’ll share them with everyone.

There are some varieties of tomatoes that will do better than others. These are Tiny Tim tomatoes, Small Fry tomatoes, Pixie tomatoes and Patio tomatoes to name a few. Because these tomato plants are smaller and they will require less lighting, heat, space, water and fertilizer than the more popularly known tomatoes. By growing tomatoes yourself you can be sure that you are getting the highest quality and just not some average tomatoes that were harvested when green, and then sprayed with ethylene and injected with hormones so they can look pretty on your supermarket counter.

To begin with you will need to germinate the seeds in a little pot with some starter potting mix. To save on costs you do not need to purchase pots from the store, instead you can use juice cartons or bottles and cut off the top and use the bottom as your planter. Within 10 days at the most, you should see your little plants springing up.

Once this happens you must now move them to a larger container, as before you can use containers around the house that you would otherwise throw away. Since you are planting in winter you will need to give your plants a little extra of everything but not too much. So they will need additional heat depending on how cold it is and additional fertilizer to push them harder.

You will start giving them fertilizer around two weeks after transplanting them. You will need to do this regularly too but remember not too much at one time. You do not have to water them too often but just ensure that the soil is always moist, not wet, just slightly moist. If it is possible you can put the plants close to windows in the day where they can get some natural light so you can save a little on your electric bill.

You can in fact grow tomatoes in the winter no matter what side of the country you are on. Yes those that live in the south will not need as much warmth and light and may save some more money on their electricity bill than you would but this still does not make planting tomatoes in winter an impossible feat. You will only need to treat your plants with a little more care than you would at any other time of year; they will need more warmth and light and more fertilizer but remember to exercise control so as not to give them too much.

Peter Young is a tomato growing enthusiast. For more great information on growing winter tomatoes, visit www.tomatogrowingadvice.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/

Vanessa cardui - Painted lady butterfly and Bumble bee on an Echinacea flower

What we really need to fear about bees isn’t the sting. Gardeners know that most bees are gentle creatures, and if not bothered, don’t tend to sting. The real fear is the loss of our bees … our essential pollinators. A few years ago, this story was big news, but while the media has moved on to other trendy topics, bee colony collapse continues and is getting worse. A new EPA study shows that pesticides are a huge part of the problem, and this year, the extremely cold winter we had has made the situation dire.
What can we do to help the bees? In a recent issue of Plant Savvy, Monrovia offered these tips: First, eliminate or reduce use of pesticides. Then plant a garden with nectar-rich food that will bloom from spring through summer. As a bonus, you’ll be attracting butterflies – also important pollinators that are dwindling in numbers. Provide a shallow water source and a flat rock for butterflies to sun their wings. Leave a small patch of bare ground where bees can establish their underground nests. If you find a hive where you don’t want it, find someone who will relocate it at no charge. (Search online for “bee rescue” and your city.) Or attract mason bees, which don’t form hives. They live in holes, so you can purchase a cute mason bee house, or simply drill holes in a block of wood.

Bees don’t see the red end of the color spectrum, so good flower colors for bees and butterflies are white, yellow, blue, pink and purple. For spring blooming, plant Wild Lilac, Western and Eastern Redbud, Flowering Quince, Cranesbill, Lavender, Catmint ,Rhododendron, Rose and Salvia.

To feed our winged friends all summer, plant Yarrow, Hyssop, Anemone, New York Aster, Bluebeard, Tickseed, Foxglove, Coneflower, Potentilla, Bee Balm, Russian Sage, Black Eyed Susan, Pincushion Flower, Stonecrop, Spirea and Verbena. Butterflies especially will flock to the aptly named Butterfly Bush, and Monarchs are attracted to Milkweed.

The Audubon Society has some great tips to learn how to reduce use of chemical pesticides. Our bees, birds and butterflies will thank you.

Monrovia is one of the world’s largest producers of container-grown plants, with more than 2,300 different varieties. Since it was founded in 1926 by Harry E. Rosedale, the company has introduced hundreds of patented plants, more than 220 of which are Monrovia exclusives.
Monrovia plants are shipped to independent garden centers nationwide from its nurseries in Visalia and Venice Hills, Calif.; Dayton, Ore.; LaGrange, N.C.; and Cairo, Ga. Throughout its history, Monrovia has pioneered many new technologies and new plant introductions. It remains a family-owned entity. To find the nearest garden center that carries Monrovia plants, visit http://www.monrovia.com. And now, Monrovia Organics fertilizers and soil are available for the home gardener.