Hot and broody

We are hot. But we're not hot like a broody chicken. Due to some combination of temperature, season, and chicken hormones, Fluffernutter decided she was determined to sit in the nest box until she either hatched a baby chick or died, whichever came first.  In other words, she became broody.

Ah Fluffernutter, our perpetual problem chicken.  First to discover that the top of the electric outlet in the coop is the most desirable perch, perpetrator or two separate egg eating incidents.

It took us a few days to discover she'd ceased to leave the nest box, and then another few to realize we were supposed to do something about it (given that we don't have a rooster and the possibility of her hatching an egg being non-existent).

Various wisdom on breaking broody chickens includes:

- Simply pull the hen off the nest box as soon as you notice it (works best if caught in the first few days before the habit is set)
- Confine the broody hen to an area without good nesting spots (wire cage, chicken tractor)
- Dunk the hen's bottom in cold water

Option 1 resulted in Fluffernutter walking around a bit disoriented for awhile and then going back to the nest box.  Option 3 seemed kind of mean.  Since we had the chicken tractor handy we decided to stick her in there with some food and water and treats.  I don't know if chickens can actually cry, but she did her best imitation of sobbing.  I am a soft hearted farmer, I'm not going to lie, it was sad.

The other chickens gathered around the outside of the tractor in what I thought was concern, but then, twelve hours later when we opened the door it turned out they just wanted to get into the tractor and eat the untouched treats.  Poor Fluffernutter, who had been sitting in there all day, was immediately blocked from the exit by 11 other chickens squeezing in with her.

This went on for three days, with one of us having to physically move her off the nest box and onto a perch every night after all the chickens had settled in to roost (we even let her sit on the electric box).  Finally, after a few days in the sun, she doesn't seem disoriented anymore and is venturing out on her own.  Our total egg production however, has dropped by half.  Are the chickens stressed out by all the drama or just the heat? I guess time will tell.  Fluffernuter seems to be feeling better, but the forecast says the heat is here to stay.

Energy Efficient Refrigerator Hack

We mentioned in our last update that we are a bit obsessive about energy use.  How obsessive? Prior to all of the drama with our frozen pipes, we made a list of every appliance and phantom load in our house, its likely energy consumption in watts, and how many hours per day each appliance is in use in low, medium, and high energy consumption scenarios.  It looked like this:

We then compared our range of total daily energy consumption from the table to our actual daily energy consumption from our electric company.  The numbers matched up pretty well, although our actual allocation of energy use to specific appliances is just a ball park estimate.

Of course, we could have used an actual energy monitor that plugs into each individual outlet or our circuit breaker, but we don't have one and its probably for the best given our tendency to overanalyze...
 


High scenario: The 'computer' category assumes that we leave our desktop with an old monitor plus two laptops on for 24 hours (and the monitors don't go to sleep).  The heat lamps and light in our well house are only on when its cold, but when it is, they're on all night.  We're assuming that its cold AND wet, since the sump pump in this scenario is also working pretty hard.  "Plants" refers to the fluorescent grow lights we use for seedlings.  Our oven is gas powered, but has some auxiliary electric. We don't have cable or TV (see computers), which would be big energy consumers if we did.

What stands out in all of our energy use scenarios is that our ancient water heater and refrigerator account for over half of our electric bill. 

The water heater is going to have to wait for a little bit, as its a slightly larger purchase that will involve some professional plumbing and electric help and the payoff for switching it out isn't as immediate.

However, any excuse to get rid of the old, loud, big, in the way, difficult to close refrigerator! We did some research and what we found was disappointing.  The most efficient Energy Star non-dorm sized refrigerators (over 7cu ft) start at 249 kWh/yr, with most using over 300 kWh/yr.  That isn't so much, but in comparison, similarly sized chest freezers start at 189 kWh/yr to keep food substantially colder.

Most of the difference has to do with the basic layout.  When you open a chest freezer, most of the cold air stays down at the bottom, whereas when you open a standard refrigerator door, all of the cold air comes pouring out towards you.  The chest freezer is also better insulated and you never have to worry about the door popping open (unless you over pack it).

Chest freezers are also substantially cheaper, as they are basically just a box.  No shelves.  No drink dispenser.  No ice maker.  Just box.

So we did some thinking.  Our kitchen is small and limited in counter space.  Pretty much any upright refrigerator would partially block our lovely wall cabinet.  How attached were we to conventional shelves?  We pretty much only use the front 6" inches...the backs of the shelves being a graveyard for unlabeled jars and old mustard.  Did we want a drink dispenser? no.  Did we want an ice maker? no.  Did we even want a freezer compartment?

An investigation of our freezer revealed 10 ice packs, a single Tupperware of frozen berries, and 6 zip lock bags of malted barley from the last time we made beer.  But what if someday we want to buy ice cream?  What if someday we actually have leftovers that stick around for more than two days?

We ultimately decided on buying two chest freezers and a temperature controller (still cheaper than one refrigerator).  The larger chest freezer came with an energy rating of 248 kWh/yr.  Not particularly good for a freezer, but still better than the best refrigerator, and for our purposes it doesn't really matter.  We hooked it up to the temperature controller, and voila...a 7.2 cu ft, better than 248 kWh/yr, refrigerator.

We stripped our old refrigerator of its shelves and made a sort of sliding box system inside of the chest freezer...ahem...refrigerator. 

Somehow I never took a good picture of our old refrigerator before we moved it, so this is the most comparable before-after I can come up with:

            Before                                                    After

You can see the discoloration on the floor where the old refrigerator used to be.  The new chest refrigerator takes up about the same floor area as the old refrigerator, just in a slightly different orientation.

In the back corner we have the temperature sensor part of the temperature controller hanging inside of a plastic tube we happened to have (for protection) and not so neatly taped in place with painter's tape.  The actual temperature regulator sits in the corner behind the refrigerator.

On the top layer we have a basket that slides from side to side.  We're looking for a few more baskets with compartments to organize and store things we use often more securely.  The current basket is a bit of a mess.

On the second layer, we have a drawer from our old refrigerator (with glass shelf on top for a cover).  The glass cover slides over to give access to the contents of the drawer.  The entire drawer also slides out of the way to give access to a third layer (milk crate covered with freezer shelf).

For now we also have another crate on the bottom layer that can be lifted up to rest on the built in ledge

Kind of a clunky first pass at organization with materials we have lying around.   Once we have an idea of what works well for us we'll think about building something more permanent.  This is probably as full as our refrigerator will ever get, since we had an amazing, large CSA basket gifted to us today by the same incredible person that helped us track down a plumber.

As for the freezer, we ordered a smaller Energy Star chest freezer that we'll keep somewhere out of the way and only use as we need it (or get a second temperature controller so it can double as an overflow fridge).   We ate the berries we had frozen and are feeding the defrosted malted barley to the chickens (who LOVE it).

Some of the other old refrigerator shelves have temporarily been installed in our utility/laundry room to hold our garden seedlings.  No shelf in our house is safe from plants!

Keep reading:

Energy Efficient Refrigerator Update: four months on