Friday, April 27, 2018

An Update From The Homestead

Let's first chat about our beloved Givi Kitty. We made it through a week of IV fluids twice a day. We just finished a round of antibiotics. She's on a phosphate blocker. She loses her appetite far too much for our liking now and again so we provide an appetite enhancer for her to make sure she's eating enough. She's definitely feeling much better since my last update! She was drifting from the dining room wood floor as she made the turn into the carpeted hallway the other day. (Imagine a car drifting through a turn when the back end cuts loose a bit as the driver accelerates out of the turn. That's what she was doing as she was high-tailing out of the dining room!) She even hopped up on my desk all on her own recently! She's also back to sleeping on my head at night! She doesn't really like to eat alone. I blame that on our syringe feeding time when she was really sick a few weeks ago. So now she wakes Homestead Phil to let him know that she's hungry despite her food being right next to her and him beside the bed!

We gave a try to our first time of raising meat chickens. Meat chickens are not used for our Rent The Chicken rentals and our rental hens are not used for meat. Meat chickens are an end of line bread which means they do not reproduce. They have been bred to get chubby quickly and are processed around 6-8 weeks old. If they are not processed at that age, they start to develop health issues due to their weight. Homestead Phil does not prefer to process anything with feathers so we opted to use a USDA certified butcher to handle the processing. The chickens did fine in our care but we would prefer to have a better system for the next time we venture into this process.

We officially started making our Rent The Chicken deliveries here in Western PA. I think Spring is FINALLY here! We still have availability for rentals in most of our regions but some are very limited. We have to decide how many chickens to raise / order in October for them to start laying for the Spring. All of our locations decided in the fall as to how many hens they could rent for this Spring. We've also been accepting deposits since the Fall for Spring deliveries so some areas are almost sold out due to the popular nature of our service. Not sure if we're in your area? Click on this link and then click on the location closest to you: Rent The Chicken Locations

Did I tell you about Homestead Phil has wanted to badly to host chicken races? He finally got his wish at Farm to Table Pittsburgh and I FINALLY figured out how to take the video from within a message and download it. Here's a snippet. No spoilers! Go to our Rent The Chicken Facebook Page to watch. It will take you right to the video when you click.

Our church is hosting its Annual Tea for Women and Girls tomorrow. I'm super stoked! Two years ago, I took 2/3rd of my sister's daughters with me. Last year, I won an award for most creative! I wore my beach hat, sandals, rolled my pant legs up, and pretended that I was going to the beach! Here's a throw back from the first one I attended:

Simple Pancake Recipe!

Hi all!

This Simple Pancake Recipe has been provided by Homestead RayLee who provides Rent The Chicken to Middle Tennessee!

1 Rent The Chicken Farm Fresh Egg (Ok.. you can likely use any egg but fresh eggs are the best!)
1 very ripe banana

In a bowl, smash the banana and add the egg. Mix until the two are combined. Cook like you would a regular pancake. We're big fans of cast iron skillets so we like to cook ours in the cast iron. Top with butter and syrup!

Enjoy the best pancake you've ever had!

Friday, April 20, 2018

Oldies but Goodies - Hens that is!


I was chatting with a former renter, Lindsay, and now great friend and it was suggested for me to talk about the "Oldies but Goodies" in regards to hens! This particular friend rented from us in our first full season in 2014 with her assigned "Steeler Chickens" of a Black Australorp and a Buff Orpington named Maty & Iris. Maty passed away last summer and Iris is plugging along as an only although she sometimes sneaks into the house to hang with the fam!

Lindsay is not the only one who converted to being a long-term chicken keeper of our first season of chicken rentals! After looking through our very first list of renters, at least half of them are long-term chicken keepers! These folks participated in Rent The Chicken and still have chickens to this day! Some took a break after the rental. Some let us winter their hens and adopted in the spring. Others took the plunge and adopted at the end of their first rental. They all earned an education through our service and made great educated decisions on their long-term chicken keeping goals because of it. Here are some throw backs of our Happy Renters of 2014!


A big thank you to all who have trusted us to guide you through the first steps of backyard chicken keeping!

Pizza Crust Recipe!

Hey y'all! (You can tell that I'm still recovering from my Nashville trip!)

This low carb and egg based pizza crust has been provided by Homestead Brandon & Alyssa who provide Rent The Chicken to the Laurel Highlands Area of Pennsylvania.

4 eggs
4 oz softened cream cheese
1/3 cup heavy whipping cream
4 tablespoons parmesan cheese
Garlic salt
Salt and pepper to taste

Mix everything until smooth with hand mixer. Pour onto a baking sheet and smooth out (it will be a bit lumpy, no matter). Bake at 350F until golden (about 35 min). Top how you would like and bake for another 10.

Enjoy!

Friday, April 13, 2018

Guest Blogger: Home Decor - A Journey from Kitsch to Cherish

Homestead Suzanne, a Rent The Chicken provider in Central Texas, offered to provide our first Guest Blog! Together with her husband and children, they enjoy all that the homesteading life has to offer. Although they haven't always! Continue reading to learn more from Homestead Suzanne!


When I was a new mother, I was blessed to choose to “retire” from my teaching profession in the public schools and stay home with our first born. I had lofty expectations for this new gig, “Motherhood,” and I was going to do it PERFECTLY. No pressure, right? The picture to the right is my full grown first baby!

In the first six months of the new profession of Motherhood, in addition to doing flashcards with the genius six month old (I was certifiably insane, please don’t judge. Or do. It’s ok, now. He only has a small twitch.) I learned to menu plan, dust baseboards and fan blades, mop and sweep almost daily, paint every room in our house (more than once, including the pink tile in the 1950’s bathroom), rearranged furniture obsessively, and unpacked all the relics I had stored from my grandparents’ house. This included more than two boxes of nesting hens. I did NOT like “kitschy displays” (Texan verbiage for "stuff you have to dust and lots of it!" The opposite of minimalism. One may also refer to them as "knick knacks") filled with colored glass nesting hens, marbled eggs, or red-checked patterns. Cow patterns made me gag, and anything “rustic” deserved to be only in a barn….and yet my kitchen was full of it, because I love my grandmother. And she loved chickens. So…. 16 years ago, my love affair with chickens began, unbeknownst to me. My chicken collection grew, much to my dismay. With each holiday or little event, I received chicken items from loved ones and acquaintances who had been to my home and assumed I must love these feathery breakfast poopers…. from lamp finials to dish towels, pot holders, and just teensy figurines of roosters and hens of all breeds, real and imagined. Thus, the chicken shelves became more full. More “kitschy.” Ugh.


Fast forward 6 years and four more kids or so; the family was looking into self-sustainability. This means producing your own groceries. I could already do veggies. But other than hunting, we had no resource for meat or eggs. SO! It was time to hit the books. I researched, went to people’s homes who had chickens, read, bought more books, checked out the entire poultry section at the library….and finally I purchased five baby chicks. One for each child. Then one died (I didn’t know that that happens a LOT) and I freaked out. Immediately, chicken math hit me, and I returned to the feed store and purchased 8 more babies. Of course. So I had an even dozen in my starter flock. That seemed fairly reasonable on two acres and a house full of toddlers and elementary aged kiddos.


Daily life then began with my coffee, and chicken therapy. Every morning, I spent time with the girls. My love and affection for chickens was deep and immediate! Turns out, my grandmother was a GENIUS. All those nesting hens and figurines, beautiful stone eggs of various types of marble in their adorable ceramic egg holders, and paper mache items, and towels, and metal signs now have SUCH meaning. I’m so grateful to be able to blame this lovely obsession on genetics - after all, I’m even named after her! Today, my flock hovers around 100 chickens.That seems fairly resonable. Chickens, for me, were the gateway animal to a full farm. We have moved from the two acres to real country living with a barn, log cabins, a pond, and 15 acres full of goats, chickens, ducks, and constant need for progress and improvement. It’s wonderful. (I mean, except when it isn’t. You know what I mean.)

My office is all things chickens, and I have a dedicated hatchery space, as becoming a hatch-aholic was also part of this process. When we discovered I could actually SPREAD chicken love with Rent The Chicken by giving chicken talks, building and delivering coops, teaching lessons to families and schools and providing the hatching experience for all of them, I knew we HAD to do it. My standard line is now: “I rent chickens to support my habit.” Everyone laughs, but it’s true. So, if you find chicken shoes (I have them), socks (I have more than one pair), hats (I have it), pictures (have them), or t-shirts (don’t have enough). Send them my way. The chicken collection always has room for more!

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

So much!

So much has happened since my last entry and I apologize for not being in touch sooner!

For my second year in a row, I traveled to the Southern Women's Show in Nashville to help Homestead RayLee of Middle Tennessee and Homestead David of West Tennessee with their booth. We had a contest on our Rent The Chicken Facebook page as to what we should name the "Show Hens". The results were: Dolly & Reba. Pictured to the right is Homestead RayLee with her sister Mandy and Reba (the chicken!). We had scheduled times at one of the speaker stages of "Selfie Chicken Station with Dolly & Reba provided by Rent The Chicken". It was a hit! By golly, we rented some chickens at the show! I think there were 40k people projected to attend. I'm pretty sure we talked to all of them! haha They host more events than just the one in Nashville. For the list, click here: Southern Women's Shows then click on the location closest to you!

We also had fun snapping photos with Patsy (the white stuffed chicken) at our booth. Please note the photo bomber in the middle of the photos! *innocentlook*


To make the Nashville trip even more egg-citing, my Mom and Aunt Bonnie tagged along! While I was talking about chickens for four days straight, they enjoyed the Show and toured around Nashville and went to Graceland! They made the trip extra special and I'm so happy they decided to join in on the fun!


And now for an update on Givi Kitty. Since my last entry, she had an additional steroid injection to help with her lips. Shortly after, she started being more picky about the wet food choices that we had for her. While I was in Nashville, Homestead Phil traveled all over our county trying to find food that she would eat. Ultimately, she just wasn't eating and it had nothing to do with the choices in front of her. :( Back to the vet we went this time for blood work. She's now on twice daily fluid injections, antibiotics, pain meds, and I'm feeding her by syringe with diluted wet food. The vet gave us pretty bad news in regards to her kidneys. :( A vet friend asked to see the results of the blood work and gave us a bit of hope. We are doing our best to make sure she is eating as much food as possible and that we are sticking to the treatment. We are far from ready to let this kitty go from this life!


Everyone I'm sure has reasons that their pet is so special to them. Since marrying in 2009, we've tried to grow our family the old fashioned way which resulted us being in a club that I don't wish upon anyone - The Recurrent Pregnancy Loss Club. In the last few years, we also transitioned into the Infertility Club. We adopted Givi when we needed something extra to love. As you may or may not know, we do not have any living biological children despite being pregnant many times. In 2011, we were pregnant for the 4th time. With our 4th pregnancy, the blood work and ultrasounds were looking to be on track. No matter the outcome, we knew we still wanted a something to hug and care for whether we carried to term or not. We are both highly allergic to cats but a cat suited our lifestyle at the time better than a dog. Givi has never caused us to sneeze, have itchy eyes, or any other allergy symptoms. It wasn't even something we had to get used to and she often sleeps on my head! She has been through pregnancy loss #4 and many more since then. She was such a comfort too when our Foster Son moved last fall. She has also traveled all over with us for motorcycle events, Rent The Chicken events, and she even traveled to Tennessee last summer for the Solar Eclipse! She's only 7 years old and as long as she is healthy, I want to continue to enjoy her in the crazy life that we live!