YouTube is for Chickens Too

I'm going to keep this one short and sweet. I started a YouTube channel in hopes that I can put together a few videos about my chickies. When we got our new computer let summer, I made a movie out of some footage of our chickens. All of our girls make an appearance and so do Erikson's babies, the bantams, who have since gone on to new homes. As I make videos, I'll post links here.

To find my channel, you can search LovinChickinFarmin in YouTube. Enjoy!

Bags of Chicken Feed

We only have four hens, so we don't go through chicken feed at a terribly fast rate. My husband probably goes to the hardware store once a month. I started thinking there has to be something I can do with these feed bags once they're empty. I hate throwing things away - in a I-hate-to-create-trash kind of way and not in a hoarder kind of way.

It may come as a surprise to you that I'm a borderline hippie. I mean, the fact that I have chickens in my backyard even though I live in the downtown area of a capital city didn't give it away. My hippie-ness is not only reflected in my chicken ownership. I try to eat things that are defined as food (refer to any book by Michael Pollen if you're unclear) and keep away from as much food-like product as I can; I recycle everything I possibly can and get angry at the city when its recycling center doesn't have the facilities to recycle things I think should be recycled; I donate everything we don't use anymore to charities like Goodwill rather than throw things away; and, I like to reuse or repurpose things when I can. I'm currently working on a quilt made out of a million of my husband's old t-shirts. So I started looking at these chicken feed bags thinking what can I do with these things. I thought they could be good for collecting yard waste or to use as trash bags because at least they'd have some use before throwing them in the trash bin. Neither of those ideas sounded all that great though, so I started looking online and reading about what other people did with their empty bags. I found a few good ideas in my searching:

- collect waste when cleaning out chicken coop

- liner for gardens (to kill weeds)

- turn into planters (fill with dirt, plant seeds = instant planter)

- turn into reusable bags

The last one "had me at hello" as they say. I love reusable shopping bags! I looked up some instructions, got out my sewing machine, and went to work. If you hadn't thought about it, that "fabric" is hard to manipulate. It's a plastic meshy canvas type of stuff. It took some furrowing of my eyebrows and a lot of sticking my tongue out of the corner of my mouth, but after about an hour I got it. The logo didn't come out totally straight, but I figured for a prototype it came out pretty well. Here it is.

My second one came out pretty swell and turned out as part of a birthday gift for one of my friends. Yes, I said "pretty swell." Now I'm stockpiling them so I can sit down and make three or four at once. I've got two of the same chicken feed bags and one bird seed bag from the bird seed we buy for our bird feeder. My husband's going to buy the bigger bag of chicken feed next time so I can make one out of that pretty pink bag. I'll add pictures of the different ones as I make them so you can check them out. When I make my next batch, I'll take pictures of each step and post them with instructions in case anyone is interested. They aren't hard. You only need basic sewing machine skills. Nothing fancy here. Cut off the top and bottom, fashion some straps, attach a square bag-like bottom, Boom! Done.

Do you use your empty feed bags for anything fun? I'm going to need some more ideas because I only need so many shopping bags.

Frozen Drumsticks

I don't know about anyone else, but I love eating chicken. I'm on a major chicken thigh kick right now. I find them to be delicious and juicy, not to mention you can cook them a number of ways. Scrumptious. Some people may find my love of chicken meat to be, let's say, indelicate. You see, we don't raise our chickens for meat. They are solely egg layers. And my love for chicken thighs aside, I'd (possibly) be willing to swear off chicken meat before I culled one of my own girls for the dinner table. That's just me though.

My girls are not just egg producers. They're pets too. Just as I wouldn't be cool with eating one of the family dogs, I wouldn't want to deep fry one of my fat biddies. My husband and I often talk in the "one day when we" sort of way about the farm we wish we had. We joke that we'll need two sets of chickens. We'll have a set of layers that I'll name and fawn over and who become my pets and then we'll have The Meat House birds who I won't name, tend to, or become too greatly involved with because they will be slated for our dinner table. I told my husband that I'd start sneaking birds into my layer flock while he'd be worrying about his dwindling numbers, saying things like, "I don't know what's going on. We've lost four birds in two weeks. Do you think a hawk's getting them? Hey, didn't we have twenty-five layers? There are twenty-nine out here." I might have an overactive imagination, but that's exactly what would happen.

During the summer I read a memoir called Chicken and Egg by Janice Cole. I've mentioned it before. She's a food writer and tests tons of recipes. In the course of raising chicks, she realizes her guilt at preparing chicken and has a major freak out moment as she thinks about the chickens in her backyard who she loves and who she's raised from baby chicks while she's supposed to roast chicken. She ponders whether she can continue to cook chicken and be okay with it. I don't know if I'm not as good of a person as she is, but I do not have such problems when it comes to supermarket chicken. I can be in my kitchen and look out the window at my girls pecking around in their run and be rubbing down a delicious chicken thigh with whatever concoction of spices I've come up with that day. I don't feel word about it. I don't have to see those grocery store chickens in their feathered glory strutting around my backyard and going crazy over a head of cabbage. I'm fine with them. Am I making exceptions. Uh, yeah. Who doesn't? Do I care that I probably sound deranged to someone not in my head? No. I'm good with it.  I can't feel guilt for every animal that becomes food. I'd go crazy. I make that statement knowing I'm already crazy. I do get quite jazzed up about the treatment of factory farm animals, but I've always been concerned with the ethical treatment of animals. And I make no secret of the fact that I speak to my chickens like they know what I'm saying, but I do that with my dogs too. All dog owners do. Right?

Let me make one point clear. I do not in any way take issue with people raising chickens for meat. If I did, I would be beyond crazy. Chicken is delicious. I hope I have made my feelings on that point clear. I don't think that I have it in me to make myself detached enough from my chickens to kill them. Would they make the most delicious chicken thighs I've ever had? I don't doubt it. Their eggs are so delicious that they must be just as delicious themselves. I'm too much of a "girl."

Now I'm off to find a good recipe for drumsticks. I have a pack in the fridge (from Trader Joe's - love that place!) that's set for dinner tomorrow night. Maybe I'll name them before I cook them. At some point I've got to stop stealing hypothetical birds from The Meat House.

A Few of My Favorite Things

It should be pretty clear by now that I love my chickens. I'd love to have more chickens. Hell, I'd love to start a chicken farm. From hanging out watching them to caring for them and the coop, I've spent a fair amount of time with my girls since we got them a little over a year ago. I was thinking the other day about the things I use or the ways I take care of the girls and realized the things I do are a collection of ideas I've picked up from here and there from books I've read or websites I've perused. So, to start off 2012 I want to share the things that make my chicken-tending a little nicer.

Garden shoes. They are the best thing to happen to chicken mucking. That is, they are the best thing to happen to a person who gets the pleasure of scraping giant chicken droppings out of a chicken run and coop. I already had a pair of slip-on rubber garden shoes that I used, of course, for gardening. I started using them for convenience when I'd go out to shut the coop door at night. They were always by the coat rack, so I'd slip them on, get my coat, and head out to close in the girls. When I'd go out to open the coop in the morning, I initially wore the shoes I was going to wear to work that day. I changed over to the garden shoes after the day I got to work and realized I'd stepped in some poopy mud and it was stuck to my shoe and getting all over the break room floor. And that's all she wrote. Whenever I go out back and it has anything to do with the girls, I'm now wearing my green garden shoes. They're solid rubber without any fabric, so if they get too gross I can hose them down and leave them in the sun to dry. They're pretty sweet when it comes to chickening.

To make my shoe experience even more suited for a lazy person, I bought a medium-sized plastic dog food bin that has a hinged lid on top. I leave that sucker on our back step and drop my shoes in there before I head in the back door. No E. coli on my kitchen floor, thank you. See, we don't have a back porch. We only have a back step. I don't like to keep any of my shoes outside on the back step because I'm paranoid about a poisonous spider climbing into one of my shoes. I remember seeing a show on T.V. that reenacted the story of a woman who got bitten by a Black Widow that had crawled in one of her shoes she kept in the garage. I don't know why I watch these types of programs. They only make me more of a freak. Ever since then I've been scared that I'll be bitten by a Black Widow or some other horrible spider if I leave my shoes outside and I'll fall over and die. Though I just Googled it and read on the Mayo Clinic's website that apparently a Black Widow spider bite is rarely lethal. I'm not taking any chances. The practical use for the bin is that I can leave my shoes outside no matter the weather. Yes, the shoes can get wet, but I don't want to have to put my feet in soaking wet shoes to go out the coop. I also don't want to have to dry them off in the morning when I'm hauling it to get off to work. On the rare occasion we get snow, it's nice not to have to scoop snow out of my shoes either. So even if you're not a crazy freak like I am, the bin is not a bad idea.

Feeding the chickens takes up quite a deal of my chicken chores, so my last awesome chicken ideas have to do with food accessories. We keep our chicken food in a trash can in our shed. I keep the food in the bag, so I can put two or three different bags in the trash can. We usually have chicken food, scratch, and oyster shell bags all in the same trash can. It saves a lot of space. The trash can is necessetated by the fact that we get mice in the shed some times. To make filling our chicken feeder easier, my awesome idea was to cut the top off a milk jug at an angle, leaving the handle in tact. I fill the jug with food and only take that into the coop to fill the feeder. This way I'm not hauling the heavy food bag back and forth every time. I also cut off the bottom of a 2-liter soda bottle, drilled a few holes in it and attached it to the inside of the run with zip ties, so it's hanging off the hardware cloth where the girls can reach it. We put crushed oyster shell in it, so they'll have access to it whenever they feel like they need their calcium. The holes in the bottom are important! Without the holes, you'll have oyster paste the first time you get a good rain. I may or may not know this fact from experience. Next to the oyster shell feeder I hanged ("Hanged" is grammatically correct. Trust me. Hung is not a real word. It's slang.) a suet feeder that I use for treats, usually greens, so they can go to town on them. They tear at that thing like crazy little velociraptors. If you've ever doubted whether dinosaurs were related to birds, watch a flock attach a suet feeder full of cabbage.

I've got a few more good ideas, but I'll save those for later. There are twelve new months this year that I need to fill. Enjoy.

Long Time, No See

It's been awhile, hasn't it? My last post was written in the days after Thanksgiving and December with Christmas parties, Christmas shopping, my son's birthday, some new creative projects I've been working on with a friend and everything that goes with those things, there hasn't been much time left to write about my lovely chickens. Now I'm back and it's nice to be back. Where we left off, my lovely Silkie died after a few days of bringing her home and my beloved rooster, Boba, had literally flown the coop. It was a sad time in chickens. As expected, Boba did not find his way back home and I'd like to think he's living it up somewhere, but he was more likely eaten by the hawk that lives in our neighborhood and who has made two appearances in our backyard to size up my chickens. I've made my peace with it. Hopefully, he's learned to crow in chicken heaven.

In other aggravating chicken news that I had previously mentioned, our chickens had started molting in early November. Well, some of them were molting. Bossy was all about molting. And she was all business about it. She lost most of the feathers around her head at once and all of her bum feathers fell out in what seemed like two days. She looked like a sorry mess. Then, Erickson decided molting was a good idea and she started looking mangy. She's about two tons of feathers, so you can imagine what our chicken coop looked like. I was cleaning it out every weekend and taking out so many feathers, I could've built a fifth and probably sixth chicken! Pouncey soon followed suit, as she seems to do with everything in life; she waits until some of the others have tried something out first and when she has decided it's safe, she joins in. That made for three chickens out of egg commission. Not good. Ochocinco was still laying a little, but not daily. One egg every three days is not going to cut it. I am proud to say I did not buy any eggs at the store! (That was partially avoided due to the two dozen eggs supplied to us by The Chicken Man). Buying eggs was out of the question. Heck no was I buying eggs when we have four hens in our backyard.

Lucky for us, as I said before, Bossy was all business when it came to molting. She got straight down to losing feathers. She also started losing some scales on her legs, which made me fear she had mites and slather her legs with Vaseline. She did not have mites. Upon further observation and research, I found out that chickens often shed their leg scales during molting. Bossy, I'm sorry for chasing you down, holding you upside down, and smearing greasy Vaseline all over both of your legs. The peeling scales did look gross, but trust me when I say you do not want to unnecessarily smear petroleum jelly all over a chicken. Her legs and feet were even more disgusting-looking with the Vaseline coated in feathers, cedar chips, and dirt. Avoid this yucky scene if at all possible. However, it is supposed to be a great cure for leg mites. I would take the nasty legs and feet over mites. Despite the leg mishap, Bossy started laying again in early December.

Now back to the molting... Ochocinco waited until the coldest weather settled in to start molting. The only nice part to this timing was that we always had one hen in egg production. Bossy was back to nearly an egg a day. By mid-December and Erickson wasn't far behind. Pounced trailed just a week or two after the other two and we're back to three eggs a day now. Ochocinco looked the mangiest of all the girls. Her neck feathers all fell out so that she looked like a naked neck, which freaked me out. She lost her tail feathers at the same time, so she was quite a sad-looking little girl. The first week we had freezing cold weather was when she decided she'd molt. I called it too. That's how she rolls. She does what she wants, when she wants regardless of what everyone else is doing. She's the only one who is not back in production mode.

The post molting egg laying has been a surprise. Our girls were so young last year that they didn't go through the winter molt. They'd too recently gone through their molt from baby feathers to big girl feathers and they weren'tlaying yet, so we didn't have any experience with this part of chickens. Since they started laying again, their eggs shave been crazy! Bossy's eggs are still jumbo, but they're often so long that you can't close the egg carton. Erickson's eggs have always been oval-shaped, but they are now dimpled or crooked or strangely pointy. What is up with the mutant eggs now? Maybe they'll go back to normal when the weather warms up. Maybe they're just laying them more slowly in the cold weather and that's why they're coming out all wonky. We'll see.

At least we live in a pretty mild climate here in North Carolina. Last year when we got snow they were quite concerned. I can't imagine what they'd do if we got a nor'easter! We have had some interesting autumn weather, so we'll see what winter brings. I've got plenty of scratch and vegetable greens. As long as they're happy enough to continue laying, I'm good.

This Week in Chickens

Chickens are a pretty rewarding hobby. You care for these feathered little guys and they lay you a bounty of delicious eggs. They're not just farm animals; they're your pets. Having chickens is fun. But sometimes you have one of those weeks, like with anything else, that's hard to get through. They are the weeks that test you. This week has been one of those for me.

Last weekend we brought home my long coveted Silkie. She was the cutest little fluff ball chicken that I'd ever seen. My husband carried her in his lap on the drive home. We had a carrier, but she was so sweet and calm we didn't need it. My son decided on the name Princess Peach like in Mario Brothers. Princess fit perfectly. She was a delicate and sweet little thing. For two days she followed us around the yard while the chickens were all out grazing. Then, one afternoon she hunched down in the middle of the coop, closed her eyes, and never moved. I brought her inside and made her a little cozy home inside a pet carrier so I could keep an eye on her and try getting her back to normal. We were able to rouse her a little bit every now and then, but four days later after countless doses of pedialyte, internet research and constant watching, Princess had enough and my husband buried her in our backyard. I'm still sad and disappointed. I'm sad that she's gone and disappointed in myself for not being able to help her.

Yesterday, after I'd been out hunting down great Black Friday deals, I came home to learn that our last remaining chick, now the grown up Boba Fett, had literally flown the coop and was in our neighbor's back yard. Our chicken-sitter couldn't get him to come back and couldn't get into the neighbor's backyard. My husband drove the hour from my parent's house to ours to try rescuing Boba. Four hours later he headed back to my parent's house with bad news. Apparently, Boba had discovered his wings, which were yet to be clipped as we hadn't had any trouble with flying, and had flown down the street into a wooded area by the creek. There was no catching him. Another bird down.

Up to this point, we've had good luck raising chickens. Our first three chickens were healthy and have grown into wonderful and happy chickens. Well, one has grown into a wonderful rooster who now lives in the country with another flock. We were lucky that all five of our chicks that hatched in June thrived and are all (yes, all) grown roosters. It happens. I had expected and braced myself for the possibility that at least one of them wouldn't make it. The odds are against all those baby chicks making it to adulthood. I didn't expect five roosters, but what can you do. I never quite know what to expect when it comes to the chickens. And yet I'm still floored by the reduction of two chickens from our flock in one week. I loose one tiny chicken to some unknown disease and I have another living in "the wild" somewhere in the middle of the city. It's just not my week in chickens. I'm hoping Boba once again beats the odds and makes his way back to our yard. Is it likely? No. Can I hope that it works out? I sure can. Mostly, I'm hoping this coming week is much calmer in the world of chickens. I'm not made for all this emotional trauma. On the bright side, our chickens are coming out of their molts and eggs are starting to show up again in the egg boxes. I'm going to try to keep my eye on those rewards.

Occupy the Chicken Coop

The weather is getting chilly. The days are shorter. Now it's dark by dinner time. Chickens everywhere are molting. And all of these facts mean that eggs are becoming scarce commodities. Eggs have become so rare around our house that I don't check the egg boxes everyday anymore. I'm getting ready to make a picket sign and camp out in the backyard chanting, "Hell no I won't go." "Eggs, eggs, edible eggs. Lay me eggs. Don't make me beg!"

With our girls being procrastinators, we only have one chicken, Bossy, in full molt. She looks like a hot mess. Her bum is nearly bald. She looks like she has a receding hairline, and she has feathers falling off of her constantly. She may be completely bald by next week at the rate she's going now. Erickson, our Brahma, is shedding her leg feathers, so it looks like she's wearing spats (think Spats Colombo in Some Like It Hot), but she doesn't seem to feel like molting anywhere else. She still lays eggs intermittently - maybe twice a week, three at best. Pouncey is heading into full-blown mangy molt. Her feathers are beginning to drop like flies. I could build a bantam hen out of her feathers alone that I picked up out of the coop and run this weekend. She looks a bit pathetic, but nowhere near as sad as Bossy. Then we have Ocho. She may have only lost four feathers so far. I'm not kidding. I fear she has decided she's going to put off molting as long as she possibly can. She has willpower. What will happen is she'll be half naked when winter comes and she'll freeze her bum off. Then, I'll feel terrible that she's out in the cold. My mean husband says no house chickens though, so she'll be out there freezing. I'm sure she'll tell me all about it when I go out to open the coop in the morning and bring them treats. My problem right now is that she is also not producing eggs. I mean, the least she could do while she's putting off her molt is to keep me in eggs. And last but not least, the little bantam rooster is still not crowing, but he's not an egg producer either so right now he's just adding to my egglessness. Not cool, Boba.

I absolutely refuse to buy eggs in the store. I do not have four hens in my backyard so I can buy crappy, watery, factory-produced (I already went on my rant about that one, so I'll spare you the details) eggs for $3.29 a dozen. I mean, after eating fresh eggs for a year, I don't know that I'd be able to identify the yolk in one of those junky store-bought eggs. I've been spoiled. I have come to expect a certain level of quality in my eggs. I like to walk outside and come back in with enough eggs to make a three-egg omelet anytime I want. With the holidays fast approaching, I'm concerned that I'll have to break down and actually pay for eggs so I can bake and cook the things I love to eat this time of year. I want to make fresh egg nog for my hubby. You can't make good, quality homemade egg nog with weak store-bought eggs!

So I propose a mass protest against backyard chickens across America. These chickens can't run us! We run them! They're our chickens! Don't let them take advantage of us anymore. Put on your warm clothes. Make a few picket signs. And settle in for the long haul. It's time to start protesting. I'm already working on my chants, "Eggs. Eggs. Where's my eggs? Lay my eggs or I'll eat your chicken legs!" Who's with me?