photo by Gary Sexton

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

http://www.thejohndubois.com/

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!

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.

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.

It was so fun to have everyone over and to introduce Jake's niece Greta to the chickens!

poultry pandemonium

-My mood: nervous.
-My shoes: covered in chicken shit.
-6 week old pullets: ecstatic.
-Red Stars: rebellious.
-Oliver: hungry for chicken poo and eager to get pecked in the face.
-Little Jerry, Goldilocks, and White Girl remain unperturbed; they own this place.

Today I put the smallest pullets (about 6 weeks old) into the mid-way coop where the Red Stars were before. They were totally freaking out in the brooder since their field trip to the garden and are almost the same age as the others were when we first put them outside full-time. If it's too cold at night, since there are more of them, they should be able to cuddle for warmth. Didn't chickens evolve in the dinosaur ages? They should be able to handle a little fog and wind. The Red Stars have recently been sleeping outside their little area perched on ladders and fences. This alarmed me at first, because of predators, but there was little I could do to persuade them to get inside their safe enclosure. I guess we will just have to cross our fingers that either a) the original three ladies acquiesce and allow the Red Stars to share their shelter or b) that no mean animals snatch them in the middle of the night before this weekend, when we might actually have the time to finish securing the chicken area. As much as I think all these chickens attract predators, especially since we live right next to a KFC and they are just marinating in fried chicken smell, I am hoping that the crazy cacophony the 24 of them create will actually scare potential chicken eaters away.

The only other thing lingering above my head, much like a lightning-bolt infested rain cloud, is the fact that we are going to have to clip the wings of 20 birds, many of which I cannot even tell apart. Even though the whole yard is theirs for roaming, the Red Stars are acting territorial about their old space. I am just waiting for them to fly over and bully the little ones. They are flying all over the place, including over the fence into my garden. I admit I have been lax about harvesting, but that is no reason to throw it all to the birds. I guess I will be doing some research about clipping wings this week in preparation for my next day off, and the hardest undertaking yet.

[photos to come once jake gets home from portland with our digi camera]

Idiot Farm Parade

Although I wake up with the sun every day to take care of the chicks and garden, there is a lot that doesn't get done. Thursday was my day off so I decided it was time to clean out the brooder and plant lots of seeds in the empty beds in my garden. I even planted some flowers this time so I might be able to harvest bouquets, and in the hopes that they will attract some pollinators. I am enjoying planting from seed and sowing about every 2-3 weeks so I have a continuous harvest of lettuce, something that I used to have to buy every week. Right now I have a lot more than we can eat, dinner party anyone?

The one month old chicks also got a field trip to the garden. It took me about forty minutes to get six into the garden, then luckily my friend arrived and we got the other nine over there in no time. I don't know why, but those chicks were awfully reluctant to leave their brooder in the dingy bike shed for the sunny, green garden. And the dogs and other chickens were awfully anxious to help me escort the chicks from the shed to garden. Oliver was licking his lips and the chickens were flapping their wings and cackling it up. It was pretty ridiculous. I felt like the Grand Marshall of the Idiot Farm parade.

There is one Buff Orpington who always comes right up to let me pick her up and take her out. I want to mark which one it is, so I can be sure to keep her.

This brown one, above, looks like a hawk. It is an Araucana, from South America. They are known for their high energy and blue, green, or pink eggs. Each one lays a different color. I want to keep two to see the difference between them. The three we have already look dramatically different. (See the other brown ones in the following two photos)

From left to right (below) Australorp, Barred Plymouth Rock, Araucana, Silver Laced Wyandotte, Black Jersey Giant

The Red Stars are really interested in the 1 month old pullets. I leave the shed door open for the small ones during the day and I find the Red Stars hanging out on their brooder and checking them out. When I brought them to the garden they all got to interact a bit more.

This whole integrating flocks is going to be interesting with three different age groups. They seem to gang up based on age, not breed. I think the little ones will be able to hold their own when we let them out for good in two weeks (when they are fully feathered, usually 6-8 weeks). Plus, we will give them the separated area the Red Stars have now for the first couple weeks. Who knows when our buyers will be ready to take them away. They still need to build coops, which isn't easy, if our hen area staying at its midway construction point for about 3 weeks now is any indication.