They Don't *Look* Mad

It's been raining for days and all the chickens are outside, pecking in the mud and sludge, having a lovely time. Every once in a while, one of them shakes the water off like a tiny little two-legged dog, but they don't look particularly put out.


They're all scratching and happy like it's a perfectly normal day. Except for one, who's keening like something's wrong, but I can't see anything wrong, so I suspect that what's wrong is "I'm cold and wet and uncomfortable and there's some wiseacre sitting in the doorway!" I'll leave them to sort it out for themselves.

And for those of you who might be curious, it has rained long and mightily, and not one of our chickens has looked up into the sky and drowned. Chickens are just not that dumb.

Gimme Shelter

The Pirate had made a shade for the chicken yard so that they don't have to stand outside in the rain. Unfortunately, chickens are not so stupid as people would like to make them out, and it didn't take them long to realize that they could fly the two feet to the top of the shade, then another two feet over the fence to relative freedom. It started out being on the low side of the yard, but the Pirate moved it to the high side with the thought of discouraging the chickens from flying up on it. Well, chickens are too stupid to know when they're being discouraged.

When I came out this morning to go to work, I did a last chickie-check and saw that two had escaped - a barred rock hen and a wyandotte cockerel. I grabbed the raisins and squatted down, calling "chick-chick-chick" as I spread the raisins right in front of my toes. The chickens were cautious about coming to peck the raisins in front of me, and when I reached out and grabbed the barred rock (who set up a properly chicken-like squawk as I carried her to the yard), the wyandotte took off and hid under the henhouse.

It took ten minutes of running this way and that way around the henhouse with the herding broom to get the other back into the yard, and then I took the shade out and set it down outside the yard. The Pirate and I are re-thinking the whole sunshade design. I'm not thrilled about letting the chickens out of the yard and into the jaws of the neighbor dog if I can help it.

Rain, rain

Since I emptied the rain gauge this morning, we've gotten another two inches and it's still raining. So, the weatherguys are pretty good when it comes to what's going to happen in the next few hours. Next time I visit Johnny's Super, I'll have to remember to check the rain board. They've got a whiteboard up on the ice freezer by the front door and they keep track of the precipitation: last year total, last year at this time, total so far this year. I love living in a little town where the weather is not just a topic of conversation, it's a feature of the local store.

The chickens have no use for the rain. They gave up on hanging out under the shelter by midafternoon and had put themselves away in the coop. When I went out there just now to lock them up, they were all very curious and active, unlike most days so far. Usually when they've retired to the coop, they're ready to be asleep and can't be bothered to cluck at me when I come inside to check on the feed and water.

The creek hasn't risen any more, at least not so you'd notice. A neighbor's tree did fall over this morning, right across the driveway. When Aoibheall and Peaches were taking off to go grocery shopping, whoops, there's a tree across the driveway. Soon enough, a neighbor showed up with a chainsaw and everybody stood around talking about the tree while he turned it into movable logs. We all heaved and, snap, the tree was out of the driveway.

technorati tags: weather, chickens

How high's the water?

Yesterday in the afternoon it begain to rain. We'd had a week or so of clear weather, so the rain was overdue. And it came down, boy.

This morning I went down to let the chickens out and to check the rain gauge. The gauge was overflowing. So, in the first 16 hours of the storm, we got over 6 inches of rain. It's still coming down fitfully, and NOAA says we should expect maybe 2 inches today and another inch to inch and a half tomorrow.

The chickens don't mind all that much. When I opened the chicken door, they all came flapping out, running around the little run. They were just happy to be outside. When the rain starts coming down really hard, they huddle under the little shelter I built them. They'd rather be outside standing under a little roof than inside that coop during the day. And I can't say I blame them. I, too, would rather be out on the porch.

The creek has risen maybe a foot. The center sections of the big fir downstream have been carried away by the torrent.

technorati tags: weather, chickens

Fiat fenestra!

Today, I finally got the southern wall of the coop completed. With Peaches' help, we installed a window in the middle of the wall and covered the inside of the window with hardware cloth. I put up plywood on the interior wall, covering the studs and packing straw into the gap to slow down the seepage of cold air. The chickens now have only one wall left to be completed. There's even a swell cable and handle so we can pull the window closed and latch it shut on the inside. Opening the window is accomplished by removing the handle from the interior hook and poking the window out with a big splinter.

The chickens now have about 9 square feet of light admitting space. And they're warm. Nice.

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Chickens in the Dark

In the morning, I go out to the coop and turn on the white light. The chickens are already awake and making noise by the time I get out there at around 6, even though it's not light outside until 7 or so.

This morning, I opened the chicken door as well, since we weren't going to be getting down there to let them out any time soon. This is a busy morning. Anyway, it was dark outside, but the chickens were all awake and wanting out. So they were all clustered around the chicken door, squawking and shoving, but not actually coming outside. The ones in the door weren't coming out, but the ones inside didn't know that outside wasn't all that attractive yet. I couldn't help but imagine them clucking at each other like the chickens in Chicken Run.

"Go on, you big goon, you're blocking traffic."

"Quit shoving, bird-brain! It's dark and cold outside; you're better off in here. Anyone would think you were a bloody chicken..."

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A Learning Experience

Okay, after the debacle with the neighbor's dog we've made a few changes. First, we've decided that the chickens can't be let out of the chicken run without a chicken herd. We've also decided that the chicken herd should be armed against predators. We need a whole bucket of BBs for target practice, and I also decided that we'd need some method of BB retrieval. A BB in the butt should be plenty of deterrent.

The dog incident happened Friday, and on Saturday when we came back from running errands there was another chicken wandering around outside the chicken run. He was happy to be reunited with his brethren, and when we let the chickens out of the yard to play, they stuck to the thickly-growing blackberry brambles close to the chicken run rather than spreading themselves out over the driveway the way they had.

Sunday morning, there was another lost one crying to get back into the yard. This means that the final count is twenty in the coop, five dead and one missing. It's been a couple of days now and we don't really expect to see that one again. I'm thrilled that we got two of them back - that all by itself feels like a gift.

This morning I was getting ready to phone into a meeting and I heard a croaking call from outside. I went to look at the chickens, and Cargill was fluffed up and flapping his wings. I suspect that what I heard was Cargill's very first attempt at a full-on rooster crow. It was sort of cute.

Things have settled back down to normal here, and for that, I'm grateful.

Snatching Victory From the Jaws of Defeat

I let the chickens out of their chicken yard today. You saw it. I took pictures. And then, I went back inside because it's Friday and I was actually working. I had a meeting to attend, so I went back inside and looked over my meeting briefs and dialed in and started interacting with my co-workers.

And then I heard the ruckus.

I know that the other people on the phone heard the gasp. I put them on hold and then ran outside. The chickens were cackling and squawking when I first heard them, but there was nothing now. Nothing except a dog with a chicken in its jaws. He dropped the little body when it heard me coming and ran back up the driveway. I stopped to look at the bird, but it was dead. Running up the driveway after the dog, I passed another dead chicken. I chased the dog to its house (next door), and asked Greg, its owner, to keep it inside until I'd found all my chickens. I told him that the dog had killed at least two, and he said that he was very sorry. He admonished the dog and put him in the house.

Coming back down, I found another dead chicken near the creek, and one in my neighbor's back yard. Further exploring turned up one more dead one near our propane tank. That's five. Five little dead bodies. I counted five live ones inside the coop, and another few underneath. I chased the ones underneath into the yard and closed the gate.

I made another sweep of the neighbor's yard, and went to the neighbor across the creek and found nothing, but coming across the bridge, I saw another one sitting on a wall. She was in shock. She was standing on a wall staring down at the dead ones and didn't move when I went right up to her and picked her up. She quorked a little as I carried her, and once I set her down in her own yard, she perked up and walked in. I turned around and here came another one down the driveway. Two more were hiding in the woodpile. We found Cargill under the deck and coaxed him out with raisins, his favorite treat. When Pirate Guillermo went to shut them up for the night, another one was hanging out under the henhouse. All told, we found five dead and eighteen alive. I don't expect to see the other three alive again, as the nights here are cold and full of predators.

Of the five dead ones, three had been too badly mauled to be worth dressing. Yes, you heard me. The remaining two were dressed. No, I've never actually plucked a chicken before, and I have to say, I didn't do a terribly good job. Part of the problem is that a lot of the feathers hadn't quite come in yet. A lot of them were still downy or so tiny that there wasn't much to get hold of. The hardest part was not, as I had anticipated, cutting off the head. We had plucked them first, and cutting off the head was actually quite simple. The harder part was taking out the guts without messing them up. That was quite tough and took some careful doing.

What we ended up with was two carcasses with some torn skin and a couple of punctures. They're badly plucked, but that's okay because I'm taking the skin off them and making them into sausage with onions and sage and parsley and cranberries.

I'm sad that it happened this way. They should have had a relatively stress-free, painless death, away from the other chickens who were traumatized afterward. They should have died as well as they lived. But I'm happy that I didn't fall apart and that the plan held true. I dressed them as well as I could, and my daughter helped. I'm actually pretty proud of myself.

And for those of you who doubted I would be able to do it, you can't have any sausage. So there.

Chickens Doing Yard Maintenance

One of the advantages of getting to work from home is being able to let the chickens out of their chicken yard. They've eaten every green living thing in it, and they like to be able to get out and nibble the little shoots of grass and weeds. If what I was looking for was a yard reminiscent of a moonscape, I'd say that a flock of chickens could do that for me in a month or two.



When they hear me coming, the chickens rush the gate. They know that either I'm bringing them treats, or I'm letting them out. That white flash on the lower right? That's Cargill.



After I opened the chickens' gate, I walked to the gate at the end of our driveway to close it, otherwise the chickens will wander off the property. Cargill felt the need to follow me all the way to the gate, just to make sure I was going my job.



Once I came back, he felt free to settle down to bug picking and grass pulling, two of his very favorite activities.



Although, as you can see, most of the time he was so close to my shoes and my legs that I couldn't even get a good picture of him. Shoo, Cargill.



No, really Cargill. Beat it. Go spend time with your many wives.



But first there's important weeds and bugs to check out. At least he's not pooping on my shoes anymore.



This is one of Cargill's many lady friends. She's also an araucana, and when she starts laying, she'll lay blue or green eggs. Theoretically. For now, she still looks sort of cool and bird of prey like.



And this is why you don't want too many roosters. Even when they have a whole yard to roam over and terrorize, they're in each other's faces. This pair chased each other all over the yard, bumping bellies, flapping wings and generally facing off with each other. Luckily, they don't have spurs yet and they're still sort of peeping so it's just kind of cute. But this is why the one on the left is going to be called "fricasee," and the one on the right is going to be called "baked with mushroom gravy."



And as a bonus, a nice shot of one of the mushrooms growing on the hay bales from last season. Note the pale gray stalk and cap, much like the waxy skin of the corpses in the swamp in the third Lord of the Rings movie. It's hard to see, but the stalk is gray with powdery white edges that say "I am caustic and bitter." I was afraid that the chickens, who were plucking the luscious fresh grass shoots next to it, would eat it and die. They, however, seem to feel about it the same way I do.

The Chicken in Winter

You can't really go outside at our house without a jacket. Even in the middle of the afternoon sunshine, you can see your breath. The deck hasn't been dry in weeks, because the water from the last rains froze, and it doesn't get hot enough during the day to melt the ice then evaporate the water before the sun goes down again.

In the mornings, I put on a 2-gallon pot of water when I wake up. When it's good and hot, Pirate Guillermo takes it outside, along with the chicken bucket. The hot water serves to break up the ice that's formed overnight in their waterer, making the water warm enough for them to drink. I went outside this morning and looked in on the chickens before I left for work. The ground is slick and crunchy from a layer of frost that's as thick as a dusting of snow most places. The contents of the chicken bucket were already pretty picked over and sad looking, but that won't stop the chickens from picking at them throughout the day.

I tossed a handful of raw cashews to the chickens. They were marginally interested, but Cargill ran every time I threw some to him. You heard me right. Cargill. Rhymes with "gargle." If you scroll back to the various pictures of the chickens, you'll see that he's the araucana that Peaches is holding up for the camera. He's an araucana rooster with a white cape. Quite dramatic and bird-of-prey looking. Cargill is now the Chosen Rooster for our flock. The other roosters will now end up with names like "marengo," "southern fried" and "arroz con migo." We chose Cargill because of all the roosters, he's the first to come when he hears our voices, and yet he's also protective of his flock. He chases the cat (but only Oswald, whom he seems to instinctively know he could take in a fight) and keeps an eye on the hens. And yet he's gentle with people. He perches on Pirate Guillermo's arm and takes treats gently from my hand. I gave him his own cashew and a pat on the head before I left.

So, hooray for Cargill.

A Chicken's Life

As promised, pictures of our little chicken house. The irony is this: a couple of years ago, Pirate Guillermo and I drove from San Jose to Chicago to visit family for Christmas. On the trip we noticed that all through the midwest, there were tons of farms and on every farm there was an attractive, neatly kept house - nicely painted, a garden, trees planted out front. And for every lovely, snug abode, there was a ramshackle, tumbledown, pathetic-looking barn. 



I felt like I could really understand that mentality. After all the time and effort it took to get this chicken coop together and fit for habitation, when it came time to paint, Pirate Guillermo and I just looked at each other and said - to heck with it - it's not like the chickens care!



Here's another thing. When we ordered the chickens, we ordered what were called "straight run," which means that they were not sorted by sex before being packed. In theory, this means that we should have had a pretty even number of hens and roosters, but I think we've been duped. See the buff orpington on the right? Look at his face. Unmistakeable red comb and wattles, and they're appearing on four out of five of our buff orpingtons. The other one has a much smaller comb, no real wattles, and is about 3/4 the size. This means that we have four roosters and one hen. Oops.



The rainy season was coming and we didn't want the chickens to be stuck inside all the time, so with the help of Pirate Guillermo's mom, we got a big hunk of corrugated fiberglass and built a little shelter. Their water is under there, so that the chickens can act just like we do during the day - hang out by the water cooler and gossip, and then stomp around outside spreading muck.



And here is the muck they're spreading. The chickens LOVE compost! This means that we take the seeds, parings, leftovers, etc. and put them in the "chicken bucket." In the morning, Pirate Guillermo takes them out to the chickens when he opens up their coop to let them out. It gets them out in the morning, knowing that they're going to get a treat. Today's treat - baby carrots that were getting soft, the tops from the beets, celery and bell pepper ends and squash rind. It's haute cuisine de poulet!



And here's the long view of the chickens in their yard. The yard itself slopes pretty sharply, so that it drains well at the top and doesn't stay too muddy. The straw at the bottom means that even at the bottom, the chickens don't wander around in the mud. The second-most popular gathering spot - under the ladder leading into the coop - is in use right now, with most of the chickens hanging out there.

And, for those of you with questions - no, they aren't laying eggs yet. They're about 6 weeks old and won't begin laying until they're 4-6 months old (depending on breed). We'll do the first butchering in January, so we have another 4-6 weeks to figure out which of the other birds are roosters, as I don't relish the thought of a yard full of roosters. I don't imagine the hens are that thrilled over the idea themselves. 

Weather it out

Yesterday, it rained. No, it didn't just rain, it poured: 4.5 inches came down yesterday. It's our first real storm of the season! The creek rose about a foot and the chickens ran around outside whenever the rain let up a little, but spent most of their time in the coop where it's dry.

I think I exaggerated when I said that rooster was 3 pounds. He perched on my hand last night, giving me the feathery eyeball the while, and I think he's really only one pound. He is a bird, after all.