Chicken Update

Ok...I don't want to be someone who only writes about chickens all the time, but I had to post some exciting news. Well, it's exciting to us.

Velma and Hilda

It turns out that all of our chickens are hens! Yay!

This is exciting for a couple of reasons. #1 We will be getting more eggs than if we had less than five layers. #2 if any of our chickens had been roosters, we wouldn't have been able to keep them. We are in the city and we value our relationships with the neighbors. Crowing roosters don't make for happy neighbors. I wasn't ready to give any chickens away or, more than likely, cooking one up for dinner.

This is Caroline. We've been thinking she's a rooster for several weeks now. She makes weird noises and is kind of assertive - things that roosters are supposed to do. We started calling her Carlos, but after learning that she is truly a hen, she can go back to being Caroline again.

Thank you to the experts at Backyard Chickens dot com for being patient and kind and for helping those of us who are clueless in the ways of the chicken. If it weren't for you, I'd still be waiting for "Caroline/Carlos" to crow.

Let's Talk Chickens

In late July 2010, we became back yard chicken owners. This is what the chickens looked like when we first got them. The mom (Velma) and her four babies. We optimistically named all the chicks girl names, except KC (the white one) because my son was being very practical about the possibility that one might not be a girl.

We've been getting quite a few eggs lately, so we suspect that we have at least 3 layers (including Velma) maybe even four. The problem is, being novices and all, we are having problems figuring out if 3 out of the 5 are male or female, boys or girls, roosters or hens. That isn't an easy thing for me to admit...I took biology in school and I feel like I should know these things. But chickens are different than the beings we studied in biology.

This is Caroline. For the longest time, we have been thinking she is a rooster - so we've also been calling her "Carlos". Now, we think she/he may be laying eggs.

This is KC. We thought KC was a rooster, then a hen, then a rooster, then...you get the picture.

This is Hilda. I think we're pretty sure she's a hen. I tried posting photos on the chicken forum I belong to, so that we could get some expert advice. However, the website has been experiencing a lot of spam lately and since I'm a new member, I've been banned from posting photos or links. They have to check me out first to make sure I'm not a spammer. So, if you happen to be a chicken expert and would like to offer an opinion, I'd love to hear from you.

We do know for sure, someone is laying eggs. Beautiful, wonderful, amazing, tasty eggs! Every day it's like a treasure hunt and every day it's exciting to see how many eggs we have. We are truly blessed! I look forward to the day when we are getting enough eggs to share with friends.

Un Bee-lievable!

Complements of Ace Clip Art

It has been a while since I've mentioned anything about Farm plans. If you are interested in some of my farm-related blogs, you can see a couple here here.

Since Dan and I are city kids, we have been taking courses to help us figure out what kind of farming to do. I'm sure it's going to be a lot like having kids: you read and read about raising kids, you know exactly how it's all supposed to work and exactly how you will handle each situation so that your child will turn out to be the most beautiful, most intelligent and most well behaved in all the land. Then the kid comes along, asserting it's own will, turning your life upside down and making sure you're eating humble pie for the rest of your life!

We can read every book, take every class, ask every expert and still won't know what farming is all about until we're actually out there shoveling poop and chasing cows out of the neighbor's garden.

[As an aside: a few weeks ago, I went out to the coop to check on the chickens. The puppy was with me. When I started heading in the house, I noticed the dog was chewing on something. At first, I thought it was a stick or something. It turned out to be a dead squirrel! I was so grossed out! Once I got him to drop it, I knew I had to dispose of it or he'd be gnawing on it every time he went outside. Besides, it was disgusting and I didn't want my kids to see it.  I got rid of it and I was quite proud that I did it without the assistance of my man (I did make sure he knew what an awesome wife he has though: "not every woman would do this, you know.") I consider the whole incident hands-on training for farm life].

Anyway, some of the courses we have taken are: food preservation, intensive grazing management, beginning farming entrepreneur program and growing berries. Last night I went to the first of five classes on beginning bee keeping.

There are certain things in nature that I think are perfect and by themselves can prove the existence of God.  For instance, the fact that you can take a tiny, itty bitty seed, put it in a bunch of dirt, water it for a few weeks, it grows into a plant, the plant produces blooms, the blooms turn into fruit or vegetables, you pick the fruit off the plant and eat it. And it's good and makes your body healthy. The more I learn about farming, the more amazed by and in awe I am of our Creator and how well he provides for us.

Bees and honey are definitely on the "Amazed and Awed" list. Did you know that a hive of bees will fly 55,000 miles to produce one pound of honey? That one honeybee produces about 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime? That honey never spoils? (when it crystalizes you just have to put it in hot water to liquify it again). Honey has antiseptic and other healing qualities? It's all so fascinating! Honey bees (and other pollinators) help increase crops, gardens, flowers and other plants.

Our next two bee classes will be spent building hives and the last two we will get to establish a hive. I can hardly wait! At this point, we are planning to start at least one hive this spring. I'll keep you posted as more fascinating facts come my way!  ;)

More farm news:

• We are in the process of designing a barn. We have a builder and have decided the size and location of the barn. It will be a combination living space and storage. We also want to eventually put in a commercial kitchen.
• Dan started working on some gardens in the Fall. The plan is to begin planing several gardens of vegetables this spring.
• Dan built a hoop house for the chickens to stay in this winter. So far, they are doing well. A couple of times they have ventured out into the snow, but I think it's too cold on their feet. They seem to get a little grumpy, then run right back into the coop. We now have two egg layers - the mama and one chick. I'm not sure which chick it is yet. She lays light brown eggs. It's still so exciting to find an egg in the nest!
• One of the chickens, Caroline, is a rooster. He's not crowing yet, but he does have an attitude and he's definitely working on developing his voice. Once he crows, he's history. We don't want to annoy the neighbors any more than we already do.

That's all the farm-related news. The last thing for this post is that I'm taking an online blog course. I'm hoping to tune this thing up a bit and make it more interesting. I appreciate you sticking with me!

Velma's Feathers

The other day, I mentioned in a post that I cried after I cut our hen's feathers. I did it so that she would stay out of our neighbor's yard. Until that time, I found myself obsessively checking on her to make sure she was where she was supposed to be. Which is in our yard, which is plenty big for her and her four babies. Apparently, she has already forgotten where she came from (a barn with many, many, many other chickens. In fact, when we got her, she was in a very small cage with her four babies).

I kept contemplating building her a chicken tractor (a movable coop), but I'm not that experienced at carpentry. I was also feeling overwhelmed with the idea of finding the materials (I wanted to try to do it with what we already have) and spending time building the pen in this stinkin' heat! So, I decided trimming her feathers was the answer. Even though I was overcome with emotion at the time, I'm fine now and so is she. And I no longer feel stressed out about her bothering the neighbors.

I scanned some of the feathers I took from Velma and they really do make a nice picture, so I wanted to share it with you:

Don't you think feathers are amazing? The way they look, the many colors they come in and the incredible things they can do. I mean, they help birds fly - that is pretty awesome!

Velma and the 4 Chicks

Two weeks ago, we drove out to a farm that had many, many chickens and we bought a momma and 4 chicks. I think this is a brave move for two city kids who don't really know what they are doing! We put the chickens in a Rubbermade container (lid off) and drove them home, then set them free in our back yard.  With the exception of the hen jumping the fence to the neighbors yard to see if the grass truly is greener on the other side (which, by the way, it is - our neighbors have a great lawn), they have been in our back yard ever since. 

Although I've been warned that it is a bad idea to do so, we did name our birds. I figure it's ok since we only plan on using these chickens for their eggs.  The momma is Velma, the chicks are KC, Foofoo, Hilda and Caroline. I'm hoping all of the chicks are female, but if not, we'll be finding a different home for any roosters. We want to do all we can to keep from annoying the neighbors.

Most everything I know about chickens has been from things I found on the internet or from a few books and magazines I've read. It's fun to observe Velma interact with her chicks - all barnyard/chicken cliches come to mind as she scratches around, looking for worms and other critters to feed her family. I now understand more about someone being a "Mother Hen", about "chicken scratch", being "all cooped up" and the need for moms to "nest".  

I've also noticed that Velma is a much better mom than I am and that her chicks are better behaved than mine. She doesn't mind that her chicks climb all over her, follow her everywhere, she doesn't ever seem to be in a hurry and she enjoys doing outdoor activities with them. (I did notice that one of the chicks tried to hop a ride on her back once and she gently pecked it a couple of times. But she didn't yell, like I would have). Whenever the chicks get too far from Velma (like when they sneak into the neighbor's yard through the holes in the fence), all she has to do is cluck a couple of times, and they immediately come back to her. Unlike my "babies" who only return to where they are supposed to be after they've been threatened with no tv or video games for a week. (perhaps analysis of my parenting practices will be the topic of another blog post later on. Then again...maybe not).

We've been letting the chickens roam through the back yard during the day, then they go into their coop at sunset. So far, things seem to be working out well with them and I think they like their new environment. They have quite a nice sized back yard and don't have many others they have to share it with (except for 7 year old and 5 year old humans). I think they are pretty happy.

One of the things I did not anticipate was feeling guilty when I eat chicken. The other night I was getting ready to throw some chicken thighs on the grill. My husband was playing with the kids in the backyard and I was up on the deck near the grill. I wanted to ask him how long I should cook the chicken, but felt like I needed to whisper because Velma was roaming around within earshot.  I sure hope this isn't how it's going to be from now on - being consumed by guilt every time I want to eat chicken. I don't think I can take that kind of pressure!