Surviving Winter

It's been awhile. Longer than I realized. Plenty of things chicken and non-chicken related have happened between last fall and now. I won't bore you with all the details, but I'll hit a few of the chicken related highlights.

This winter we went an insane amount of time without eggs. I actually had to buy eggs. Twice. It was horrible. It was the first time I bought eggs since owning chickens. Ir resulted in frequent verbal threats on the flock for over a month. I kept telling them how delicious they looked and questioned why I was feeding them if they couldn't produce me any deliciousness. After awhile I gave up and left them to their own devices. Like everyone else in the country, we had a hard winter. We got more snow than we have in years and I'm sure the girls were using all their energy to stay warm. I'm happy to say we're back into fairly regular production mode now.

We're getting an egg or two a day, so I'm happy. I have all the makings for a delicious quiche this week, so I'm a happy Chicken Lady.

Our girls are not a fan of the winter. They hate the snow. During our first snow, some of the girls came out of the coop in the morning, walked around, looked at the snow, then turned right back around and headed back into the coop. They said screw this mess. We're done here. They kept pretty short outside hours. I can't blame them. It has been freezing out there. The second snow didn't seem to shock them as much. They spent a little more time outside, but it warmed up fairly quickly and the snow was gone a  few days later. I'm sure they were relieved. I sure was and I don't spend the majority of my time outside.

Everything is holding up well despite the weather. There are only a few little adjustments that need to be made to the coop and our chicken equipment. The locks we were using on the human-sized door to the run rusted out, so we've got carabiners taking their place. We stopped actually locking the locks quite awhile ago, years ago actually, so the carabiners may be a permanent replacement. They keep the door latched and that's what we need. I'd like to clean up the boards over the nest boxes, but only for appearance sake. They're a little frankenstein looking right now as my husband slapped a few boards up on a slant to put a stop to the girls sleeping on and pooping all over the flat board that was originally on top of the nesting boxes. The slanted board keeps them off, but it looks hideous. Maybe one day we'll get around to fixing that up. Otherwise, all we've got to replace is their big waterer. It's metal and after almost four years it's starting to rust. What can you expect? With any kind of animals you have to replace that kind of stuff every now and then.

The sad news about our flock is that we recently lost Pouncey, the beautiful Ameraucana that turned out to be more of a mutt with a beard. One day my husband when out to let the girls have some free range time in the yard and found her hunkered down in one of the corners where they take dust baths. When he noticed her feathers bowing in the wind, he knew something was up. He picked her up to see if she was okay only to find that she had passed away probably sometime that morning.

She was my favorite. Out of our three original girls, she was mine. I named her. I thought she was such a beautiful chicken. And I'll miss her.

On the bright side, this means I'm on the hunt for another chicken (or two) this spring. I've always wanted a blue or green egg-layer. Maybe I'll finally get one this year. I'm sure some people think I sound horrible jumping from my favorite chicken dying to my want for more chickens. The fact of the matter is chickens die. Pouncey lived a great life. She had plenty to eat. She had lots of time to free range and explore the yard. She was around other chickens. She lived a much better life than a lot of chickens who are slapped into tiny cages and do nothing but lay eggs for a year before they're culled to make room for the next younger, better egg layer. Our chickens are pets, but they're still chickens and they're still part of the life cycle. I can be happy knowing I gave her a good life. Now it's time for me to give some more chickens a good life.

Until then, good Chicken People.

Rain, Rain Go Away

We've gotten more than our share of rain this year. It's the first time in a long time that we're not in a drought. Usually we're under all kinds of water restrictions. Not this year. This year we've got more water than we know what to do with. As I mentioned recently, I started putting a tarp over the coop's run when the forecast calls for rain for more than one day in a row. It has helped immensely. The run is staying nice and fairly dry. The girls must be happier and they look a whole lot cleaner. I mean, it's hard to get a dust bath in a mud pit. 

It helps that we've finally had more dry days than rainy days in the past week and a half. It's a welcomed change for all of us. The girls like having more dry days because they get out more. I love our hens, but not enough to want to stand out in the rain so they can scratch around the yard. Sorry, girls. The other day after work, I let the girls roam around the yard for awhile. They'd been cooped up most of the week because I'd been out of town for work and my counterpart had a pretty crazy work schedule himself. They were quite overdue for a nice free ranging.

Pouncey, Bossy and Erickson's fluffy behind

Ocho, who had her mind on her money and her money on her mind

Belle, the usual loner, stayed a little ways away from everyone else.

Apparently, the fence was a prime scratching zone. The girls spent most of their time along this one stretch of fence between our yard and our neighbor's. After awhile I left them alone and went inside. They seemed too content to shove them back in the coop/run so quickly. The funny thing is that when I went out to close them up, three of the five were already back in the run. It figures. Of course they came running at me velociraptor style when I came out with the little container of scraps. A bribe is always the best answer to getting everyone back in the coop in a timely fashion. 

Chocolate Eggs

Our coop is starting the new year off right. Belle's comb had been increasingly reddened lately and I'd started stalking her in anticipation of her first egg. (If you haven't tuned in lately, Belle is the Marans hen that we hatched this summer). Yesterday she laid her first chocolate egg!

We started off yesterday's especially cold morning with Belle squawking the morning announcement. Our girls generally get loud for only two reasons: they've either laid an egg or they've been spooked and they're sounding an alarm. I was crossing my fingers for reason number one, so I rushed to the coop to look for an egg. No luck. I'm sure you're confused now because I just got done saying she laid her first egg. Stay with me here.

Later in the afternoon, my husband had to kick Belle out of the coop a number of times while he was cleaning. As soon as he was done, she jumped right in there and got to sitting. I'm not sure how long she was in the nest box, but it felt like forever. You can believe that as soon as she came out of the coop, I ran right to the egg door and found a tiny chocolate-colored starter egg.

For any newbies out there, a starter egg is what people call the first egg a chicken ever lays. It's usually pretty tiny; it's Mother Nature's way of easing hens into laying. Over the next few weeks or month as she lays more frequently, her eggs will start increasing in size until they even off to be the size she'll continue to lay for the rest of her egg laying years. As with any newly laying hen, she'll also lay pretty infrequently over the next few weeks; though I suspect she may lay infrequently for the next month or two until we emerge from winter.

Belle's egg is on the left. On the right is an egg from Pouncey, one of our other girls.

She's the only hen we've raised so far who's started laying in the middle of January. Our other hens held off until spring. Maybe she'll be a super layer. I've seen Marans described as medium layers, but I've also seen some of the other breeds we have listed as medium layers and they lay tons of eggs. Egg laying seems pretty relative to your situation and particular birds in my experience, so I'm hoping Belle will be like our other girls and lay eggs like crazy. We feed them enough deliciousness to keep them happy that they ought to lay plenty of eggs.

Her one tiny egg is pretty promising, but when you're in the days of only a few eggs a week, a new layer is monumental. Add in the awesome new egg color, and we're suddenly in egg heaven. My husband couldn't help himself and fried up that tiny egg this morning. Apparently it was delicious on toast. Too bad it wasn't wrapped in actual chocolate like those Cadbury eggs. I could go for one of those every now and again. I'd probably get sick of them after getting four or five a week for six months, so never mind on the chocolate. I'll stick with the chocolate-colored ones.

Ghosts, Goblins, and Naked Neck Chickens

It's November 1st and we're full on into what I'll call "winter production." By "winter production" I mean one egg a day. It looks like we only have one of four eligible hens laying (number five is still a pullet and too young to be laying yet). Erickson's pulling her weight by laying an egg a day, but that's only because she molted quite a bit after hatching eggs in July, so she isn't using all of her energy right now growing new feathers. Not to mention, we're a few days away from clocks falling back an hour and we're having such short days. Shorter daylight, fewer eggs. Oh, well. That's chicken keeping for you. 

They're in serious molt mode right now too. One of our chickens, Ocho, is looking like a Naked Neck. If you haven't seen these scary chickens, please do a quick Google search. They freak me out. She has almost no neck feathers right now. She looks like we've prepared her to be culled or something. It's pretty sad looking. Then there's Pouncey who likes like she has a mean case of the mange. She's a hot mess. This picture is from two weeks ago, so you can imagine what she looks like now. She's usually much more robust and fluffy.

Besides the diminishing eggs supply, now is also a bummer of a time to be a chicken keeper because it is freaking cold outside at night. When the temp drops we start closing the door to the actual coop at night to try help keep the chickens a little warmer. I know what you're thinking. Chickens have been living outside for a thousand years. They won't freeze to death when it's not even below freezing. You are a crazy woman. I'm well aware. But they're my chickies and I can't help myself. They're spoiled babies. If my two years of chicken keeping have taught me anything, it's that a happy chicken is normally a more productive chicken, so I try to keep them happy. Even when they aren't all laying me delicious eggs. I've been cursing them a little bit while walking out to the coop in the dark at 6:15 am, but I still love them. They'll make it up to me later.

They're currently all nestled together in a pack on top of the nesting boxes. All six of them. Not a single chicken is on the roost. I wouldn't be on the roost either if I was molting and my ass was naked. Can you imagine the draft? 

Happy Halloween, everyone! 

Love, my pumpkin-devouring mangy chickens. 

Happy Day in the Coop

The chicks are seven and a half weeks old, so today the Walls of Jericho have been taken down eliminating The Maternity Ward. They're one big, happy family now. 

The littles seem to like the new digs because they have more area to roam and new things to explore (i.e. the coop). The big girls are happy because they regain access to the prime dust bath spot. Bossy and Pouncey didn't waste any time digging right in. See above.

Space and the recent torrential downpours are why I took down the hardware cloth separator between the two areas. The babies are getting big. They're not too little to be around the big girls and because they're getting bigger, the little area provided by The Maternity Ward is sufficient, but doesn't seem like a fair amount for them to be stuck in for most of the day. Then, there's the rain. Over the last few weeks it has rained a lot. As soon as the ground dries it seems to rain again, making the main coop too wet and muddy for the bug girls to be able to get a good dust bath. The Maternity Ward side is completely covered by a wooden roof and due to positioning the ground on that side is barely ever wet. Remove the barrier between the two sections and the problem is solved. The littles get roam of three times the space they had before and the big girls get dirt that is always dry and good for dusting.

Last year we had a few little tiffs when the two mini flocks were joined, but today I haven't seen any major issues. I don't know if it's because these babies are bigger than last year's or because they're calmer and seem less nervous, which makes the big girls calmer, or if it's because the big girls have had plenty of time to put the littles in their place while everyone has been out free ranging in the yard. Whatever it is, we've had a happy day in the coop. They're like the Brady Bunch out there. Er, The Chicken Bunch.

Time Flies When You're Growing Chicks

Our babies are growing fast. They're not chicks anymore. They're little fluffy chickens. Well, presumably, one fluffy pullet and one fluffy cockerel. Here's a few August pictures of our babies.

They're doing well and are so grown up. Right now they're still in a separate coop with Mama, but we'll be merging them with the flock soon. It's strange having such big chicks at seven weeks. Last year's bantams have given us no frame of reference for development when it comes to average-sized chicks. To us, these two are huge. If you love your chickens, but have never raised chicks, I suggest you give it a go. It's an amazing experience. Watching Mama incubate them, seeing them hatch, and watching them grow into adults is remarkable. This is our second batch of chicks, but it is just as amazing as our first. You provide the broody Mama or the brooder to keep them safe and warm, and they'll pretty much take care of the rest.

I'm sure we'll have another batch of chicks next year too. Erickson seems to get broody almost on cue. I'll tell you though. Raising these chicks is not helping with my want of a chicken farm. All they make me think of is how fun it would be to have a yard full of the little fluff balls and then a coop full of free-range eggs, which would lead to a wallet full of money.