photo by Gary Sexton

photo by Gary Sexton

Our good friend, John DuBois, took these great pics of our chickens. Thanks John!

http://www.thejohndubois.com/

Indian Summer

crinkly mustard and cilantro plants

seeds for seasoning

The Red Stars started laying this week at a young 4 months old. We are so proud of them and grateful to be getting lots of eggs. Their eggs are the three on the right compared to (far left) an egg from the store. Their first ones are pretty small.

They are also known to have some irregularities. This one was a twin!

Today's Harvest

More lettuce, broccoli, cabbage, and eggs. We fed one of the broccoli plants to the chickens today; it's time to prepare for our winter crops. We are thinking bok choy, onion, garlic, peas, BEETS, and lettuce...

The Chicken Vanishes

One of the Red Stars disappeared two days ago. We went out to put them in for the night and suddenly there were 4 Red Stars instead of 5. This made us think, how long have there been four? Did I see the 5th one yesterday? And on and on. The thing is, there were no signs of foul play (wink, wink) or an attack. There are a lot of feathers around, but they are always losing feathers during dust baths and molting as they grow. Chicken-napping is a possibility, but why someone take just one and why not one of the bigger ones? About a month ago we clipped the Red Stars wings (actually just one wing as you can see above, so they just kinda fly around in circles). Hopefully the chicken was not eaten or attacked, but just got lost in the neighborhood defying logic by flying with one wing.

I did make a "Missing Chicken" sign to put up around our surrounding blocks, but then I realized we live next to a KFC . After scouring the surrounding areas, including getting a vantage point from the roof, we could not find the chicken or any clue of where it went.

Graphic and text courtesy of "A Guide to Raising Chickens" by Gail Damerow.

Wing clipping, the most common method of controlling the flight of backyard chickens, involves using sharp shears to cut off the first ten flight feathers of one wing.
Clipping causes a bird to lack the balance needed for flight but lasts only until new feathers grow during the next molt, which may be a few months in young birds or up to a year for older ones.
A potential problem is that clipped feathers may not readily fall out during the molt, requiring your assistance.

Wing clipping doesn't seem to hurt the bird at all, and isn't noticeable when they are walking around. The primary flying feathers are hidden underneath when the wings are folded. Also, the flying feathers are easy to pick out -- often a different color than the rest. Make sure to use a SHARP scissors.

Six pullets moved to Oakland with our good friends Lauren and Andy. They are a really inspirational couple who spent the last year in South America working on farms. Lauren has an amazing garden and Andy is a fine woodworker, as you can see by checking out the coop. I am so happy that these chickens have such a good home!

They got 2 Buff Orpington, 2 Barred Plymouth Rock, a Silver Laced Wyandotte, and an Australorp.

End of August

We have still been able to harvest, even though I have been neglectful about planting new seeds. The broccoli continues to supply new florets that are starting to look more like broccolini. The cabbage also creates new heads every time I harvest one. All of the brassicas are growing new plants alongside the old ones. Hopefully these will produce and we can have broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower through the winter.

I did plant some beets, so hopefully they will do well even though we have been having some hot weather recently. The seeds I planted are actually a group of six, so I used the thinnings as a nice addition to my salad.

Chicken Dust Bath

Chickens love to take dust baths! They dig a shallow hole, loosen up all the dirt, and proceed to get themselves absolutely as dirty as they possibly can. (Don't worry, the shake the dirt off later...) Dust baths are absolutely necessary: they prevent parasites such as mites and lice from finding a home in your chickens' feathers and legs.

If your chickens aren't free-range or their run area doesn't have a dry patch of ground where they can dig a hole, you'll need to provide them with an artificial dust bath. Place a box on the floor of their coop and fill it with 6" of a dusting powder. Ingredients: 1 part fireplace ashes, 1 part road dust, 1 part sand and 1 part diatomaceous earth.