Category: chickens

Chicken update

On By stefrobrtsIn 2011chicks, chickens, navi2 Comments
 The 14 chickies are doing fine.That thing they are standing on is the shell of a cucumber they ate this morning.
Under Navi’s watchful eye! She loves to go in the room and watch them, but I don’t let her watch them unattended!
They’re getting big, and getting feathers on their wings already. Any idea how hard it is to hold a flapping chickie in one hand and take a picture with the other – it’s hard!
Out in the coop, one of my young hens went broody on me. I don’t know why my old hens don’t do that, but last year the only hen to go broody was my youngest one too! So I gave her ten eggs to sit on and moved her into the brooder box. She seems happy, but now I need to make a new brooder box for my indoor chicks to move into!
One of her lovely sisters 🙂
Some of my older girls. I feel bad for them, they have muddy backs and their feathers are all roughed up from the roosters jumping on them all the time. 
So I decided to give the girls a break and find a new home for my biggest rooster. He really is huge! I put him on CL and ten minutes later I had someone from not far away wanting to come pick him up this weekend. Perfect!
I’m keeping this guy. He’s awfully pretty, and I love his colors!
I think I’ll call him ‘Handsome’ 🙂
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Workin’ hard around the yard

On By stefrobrtsIn 2011chicks, barclay, chickens, farm, garden, jack, naviLeave a comment

We had the most beautiful weather this weekend (our weekend is Tues-Wed). This is why we live in the NW. It was sunny, and in the 50s on Tuesday, 40s today. Perfect weather for getting a bunch of hard work done before the ground either freezes up solid again, or melts completely into a mud puddle.

So I started out with a project that has been nagging at me for a couple years. Several years ago I put in a raised bed garden in an unused part of the yard, and it didn’t really work out there, so it sort of got abandoned, it was hard to mow around, and because it was made of concrete blocks with the holes in them, it was a hazard for the dogs who have been playing around it (especially just recently), and it needed to be removed. But who wants to remove 30-some concrete blocks that are sunk into the dirt and seem pretty permanent? Nobody. But it has to be done.

So I got the mower and the lawn cart, and took a load of wood chips over to the garden area (no point driving over there without taking something along for the ride). I shoveled a bunch of fresh chips onto the path where it was getting bare and muddy. It’s going to take several more loads.

Fresh wood chips on the left, ground that needs some more on the right.

I took the cart over to the drainfield area and started loading up concrete blocks. Each one had to be wrestled out of the ground, wiggling them back and forth like a loose tooth. I loaded 12 into the cart at a time and took them over to the area outside my garden next to the compost piles and..

Used them to build a new compost pile area. I really needed a new compost area to put the alpaca poo I’ve been scooping up every morning.

So that was all yesterday. Dave helped a bit but by the end of the day I was beat. Those concrete blocks are terribly heavy! But I’m really happy with the compost area.

Today I headed right out this morning and got to work on the next thing on my list – the semi-annual cleaning of the chicken coop. (this is the after picture).

The deep bed method had backfired on me as it piled up faster than I was keeping up with it. For the last two weeks I’ve been trying to find time to get out there and clean it up. I cleared out THREE heaping wheelbarrow loads – and I think it’s an 8 cubic foot wheelbarrow! That’s a lot of crap!

I spread the chicken poo thinly over the beds in the garden and put the rest in the new compost pile. Then I took all the straw I removed from the alpaca shelter (which was old straw, sheep poo and pig poo from last year) and scattered that over the chicken poo. I’m hoping all this will break down by planting time (May around here) and make for happy plants this summer.

Back in the chicken coop I got the brooder all cleaned out, because the feed store is getting chicks this weekend, and I want to get some. This way they should be old enough to start laying by winter. In this picture I’ve put straw in the brooder, but I’m going to change that to chips, because I think the straw will be too hard for the chicks to walk on.

Some of my girls moved right back into their clean home. They were a bit put out after being banished from the coop all day while it was being cleaned. Next on the to-do list – put up a piece of plywood to hide the insulation from the chickens. I don’t know how they  get to it to tear it up, but they do.

In the coop the dogs help clean up any poo I missed – yuk!

A beautiful end to a very productive two days. I shoveled until I had nothing left in me! It’s great to finally get all those chores done. Now I need a weekend to recover from my weekend!

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Chickens in the garden

On By stefrobrtsIn chickens, garden2 Comments

Last year I planted winter crops, and they got killed by a hard frost we got early in the winter, and in the rain and cold and frost I just didn’t have the umph to go out and clean everything up like I should have. I did clean up a bit and fill the compost bins, but there were still some old squash and whatnot laying around, and of course all the frost killed winter veg. So today I took the cleanup crew out there.

Something has been digging up my carrots and eating them (bunnies?) and there’s nothing really left out there except the sage, and a little sprig of rosemary that refuses to grow into a bush. So I let the girls have at it. I’m going to clean up all the weeds and lay down some fresh chicken poo from the coop, then cover that up and let it sit so the garden will be ready to plant in May.

Beautiful, my fat and friendly old hen, enjoys the selection of greens and bugs available 🙂

While the roo watches for hawks, the girls are all ‘tails up’ looking for goodies. Keep scratchin’, girls!

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The Chicken Eater

On By stefrobrtsIn chickens, photography1 Comment

Well, there’s the neighborhood hawk, hanging out on one of the fenceposts just a short distance from the chicken coop. I think this is a juvenile, because his tail is banded, not red. I would have chased him away, but he looked pretty cold out there, sitting in the rain, watching for field mice. The chickens were safe because they’d already seen him and gone inside their coop. He’s probably about 50 ft from the bottom fence of the chicken yard. I saw him from the kitchen window and got this nice shot of him. After about half an hour he swooped out to the pasture but came back to the post a few minutes later empty handed. It’s got to be tough to be a hawk this time of year. I have a great fondness for all birds, they are just doing their thing, being birds, and hawks are so beautiful, I wish he wouldn’t eat the chickens, but I can’t hold it against him either.

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Heritage Chicken for dinner

On By stefrobrtsIn chickens4 Comments

Well, last night I roasted that roo – low and slow, so as to make it as tender and juicy as possible. You know what? We didn’t like it. Didn’t really like it at all. Although I was prepared for it to be tougher, because I had been warned that the grocery store chicken is considered soft and spongy to people who are used to eating heritage birds, it was really tough. And I had been warned the flavor is a lot stronger. Well, it is strong, and different. It smelled great while cooking, but we ended up putting the leftovers in the freezer for stock. I think it will make great stock.

I’m glad I did this now, before I put in my chick order for the year. I’m just going to get Buff Orpington pullets (girls) to raise for egg layers to keep and to sell. I might also get some of the grocery store type chickens – Cornish Cross, and try raising them up. I don’t approve of the concept of chickens that grow to full size in 8 weeks, but that is what we’ve been conditioned to enjoy for the last 40+ years, so I guess if I want to raise my own meat that is what we will have to get. The good part is that they are ready to butcher in only 8 weeks.

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Chicken dinner!

On By stefrobrtsIn chickens3 Comments

Well, I decided to do the deed and butcher the extra rooster. I dispatched him quickly and humanely, and that was over in seconds. Then it took about an hour to clean him! The part you might think was bad (gutting) was actually no problem at all – getting all the feathers off was the part that took forever. I planned to scald and pluck, but I guess I scalded too long, and the skin tore, so then I proceeded to skin him, and that took a long time. Once I got most of the skin off I brought him inside and worked on finishing it up in the sink. I learned a couple tricks for next time – put paper towels down in the sink so the body doesn’t slide around while I’m working on it, and next time just cut off the wings, then quickly pluck them and throw them in with the rest of the bits for stock.

The end result – 2 1/2 lbs of fresh, farm-raised chicken. Big meaty legs and thighs, not much meat on the breast at all. This is how all chickens used to look before they developed chickens with breasts so big they can’t walk once they’re a couple months old. We’ll let it rest a few days and then find out if it was worth all the trouble.

Current count – 5 buff hens, 5 blue/buff hens, 1 blue/buff roo, 1 big blue roo

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Another hawk attack

On By stefrobrtsIn chickens2 Comments

This time the hawk got a crow! I saw the dogs out in the drainfield sniffing and poking at some dark lump, at first I thought it was just a molehill, but they looked confused by it. I went out to investigate and found a freshly killed crow! Poor thing was beautiful, crows are such lovely, jet black birds. I think the dogs must have chased the hawk away. I took the body away and closed the chickens up in the coop (they were all inside anyway, they must have seen the hawk too). I’ll leave them locked up for a day or two and see if the hawk goes elsewhere. Otherwise I mighthave to see about making a run for the chickens. Seems like we only have hawk problems in the dead of winter when the hawks are getting more creative.

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Somebody ate a chicken

On By stefrobrtsIn chickens3 Comments

..and it wasn’t me!

This morning Barclay was barking at something inside the chicken area, which was unusual. There’s usually a reason for his barking. So I went out to investigate. In the middle of the orchard was one of the buff hens. Something had attacked and killed her, and started eating her but got chased away. From the damage I’m guessing it was one of the neighborhood hawks. I think that I was bothered less by losing a hen, and more by the fact that the hawk didn’t even hardly eat any of her, and by the time I found her she’d been laying out there who knows how long, and there was nothing to do except throw the body in the trash. What a waste 😦

Current count – 5 buff hens, 5 blue/buff hens, 2 blue/buff roos, 1 big blue roo

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Chicken update

On By stefrobrtsIn 2010chicks, chickens4 Comments

My youngest chickens (the group that a friend incubated for me) is 5 months old today. The two boys, unfortunately, are extra and will end up as dinner someday, but not yet, because they are still pretty scrawny.

I sold the two black/buff girls to a friend who has older chickens and hasn’t seen an egg in his coop for over a month. The girls aren’t laying yet, but they will be soon.

That leaves me with my 6 older buff orpington/cochin girls, 2 not-laying-yet 7 month old buff/blue girls, and 3 5 month old buff/blue girls. Oh, and my latest addition, a beautiful Blue Orpington rooster.

I added the blue orpington roo because he became available locally, and I want to breed him to buff orpington hens and get blue/buff orpingtons (my blue/buff girls right now are crossed with cochin, so they have feathered feet which get very muddy – orpingtons have clean feet). For $5 I couldn’t resist him – and he came from a show home – he’s HUGE and gorgeous!

So that’s 14 birds gobbling up the food, and we get an egg every other day from one of the youngest of the buff O girls. I don’t know if the older girls will start laying again someday. We’ll just have to wait and see what spring brings.

Planning for next year, I put in an order with a hatchery for buff orpingtons. I ordered 25 pullets (that’s baby girls) and 25 straight run (that’s a mix of boys and girls, however they come out of the egg). The boys will be raised for food. I felt better about doing it this way, because in big hatcheries they sex the chicks and the boys go right into the dog food bin (you don’t want anymore details than that). This way at least some of the boys will come here and get to run around and grow up. They’ll still end up as dinner, but they’ll get to enjoy their life for a bit first. One lucky boy will get to stay around and have his own flock of hens, because I’m hoping after this I’ll be able to keep a flock of buff O’s along with my separate blue/buff flock, and use the incubator to hatch and raise my own instead of buying from a hatchery.

I also plan to learn to butcher my extra birds for our dinners. Hopefully this doesn’t sound horribly cruel to anyone, but I have good reasons. First of all, because I let my birds hatch and raise chicks, every year I have extra roosters, and that’s a great use for them. Secondly, if I give them away or sell them at auction (like I did last year), they still get eaten, but I don’t know how they are treated until then – at least if I take care of them I know they’ve been treated humanely from start to finish. Third, I will know what they ate and how they were raised, and I think that is better than buying factory farmed chicken from the store. I probably should feel worse about this part of the plan, but I don’t, I actually feel like it’s quite natural. Under those feathers, they are, after all, chicken!

So that is where my flock stands as of today, and my plan for next year. We’ll see how it goes.

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Chicken chasing

On By stefrobrtsIn barclay, chickens, jack, navi2 Comments

I’ve been home sick all weekend with a nasty head cold/sinus thing – yuk!

This evening I woke up after a long afternoon nap and decided to go out and check on the chickens and count to make sure they were all still there (Dave has been feeding them while I was sick). Everyone was there, and I checked the nest box and they’d even left an egg! So I reached in to get the egg and Navi slipped by me and ran into the coop, and one of the young hens got scared and jumped off the perch and she started running around in circles, flapping and sqwaking, while Navi chased her around and around the coop trying to pounce on her. The hen finally made for the door into the shed and blasted past me, and on the way by I caught Navi and tucked her under my arm.

Unfortunately for the hen, Jack and Barclay were in the shed, and they immediately chased the poor little hen out into the darkness and rain. I hauled Navi up to the house and tossed her inside and grabbed the flashlight, and went back out. In the dark I could just make out Barclay down by the lilac bush, poking something with his foot. I went down, expecting to see a dead chicken, and there was the hen, huddled under the bush, wet and miserable. Barclay didn’t want to catch her, or he easily could have, he just wanted to make her run some more so he could chase her! I picked her up and took her back to the coop and checked her over in the light. She looked fine, just scared. So I put her back in the coop, counted everyone one last time, and went back inside. Too much excitement for one evening – I should have stayed in bed!

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