The Chicken Yard Door

Almost everything seems to love a good chicken dinner. 

I’m a Chicken Hawk and you’re a chicken!

Most of my ‘chicken time’ I’m working on protecting my hens. I mean, I wake up thinking about them. Are they OK? Did they make it through the night? What new situation or predator do I have to contend with today????

A lengthy conversation with my husband about moving the door to the chicken yard into a new place, blew up into a weeks worth of investigating door construction, wire purchases, and door locking systems… Good God. What Have I Done? Sigh…

Oh wait! Let me tell you how damn long it took me to make him understand how important it was to have a secure, non-saggy door for a chicken yard. He never did understand this, until we lost a hen or five to predators. The saggy door, which he thought was sufficient to keep in hens, was not a deterrent for dogs, coons, opossum, owls or hawks.

Here we are, finally 7 years down the road from Day One, of building the chicken yard and coop. He gets it. He finally gets it. I don’t care how much investigating we have to do. I’m just thankful he is finally understanding, that you MUST have a very secure doorway to a chicken yard. You must have good strong wire. Nothing flimsy is going to work. Mainly, because it seems most things like to eat chicken…  I won’t even get into the fact that most things can dig under any door, no matter how sturdy. I sunk blocks in a trench under the door. Not noticeable, but present!

This is my old door. A hazard to any chicken alive living inside. It’s not a good shot, but the end of the door is where they chain-link ends up top.  It needed to have had a frame fitted with no gaps. OK, so that did not happen. Rookie chicken raising mistake…

Every neighborhood Raccoon and Opossum found a way inside. Please don’t lecture me about how Opossum do not eat chicken. They do. I’ve saved three of my hens this last month alone. When they can’t scrounge up food, they eat whatever they can grab. That includes a hen that might not be on her A-Game. Maybe she’s older and does not run as fast. Hens do not see well at night. They really don’t know all of what’s going on around them. By the time they have been grabbed it’s too late.

Here is the lovely framework for the new door to slip into, once the cement holding in the posts is cured.  Psst… Yes, I said cement.  I think, he is tired of losing hens to animals also. He has to bury them. I cry.. Yeah, none of that sounds fun.

You will be getting updates on the saga of The Chicken Yard Door.

Here’s a picture of Maggie. Just because. She’s a lovely, noisy Black Australorp hen.

The Chicken Mom

I’m A Chicken

I shared most of this story on social media recently, but I did leave out a few points of interest. I say “interest” but really, most folks could care less. It’s we oddballs who love chickens whom just garner every scrap of shared knowledge about them and their world. Then the others loves who live vicariously through us. Bless em…

By The Way, I will remind you I express myself pretty bluntly. 

Sometimes Animals just baffle my brain.

I’d been cleaning the chicken yard and nesting area and coop all day. This was my end of the season pressure washing adventure. Usually, it unearths all sorts of disgusting bullshit. This time it found me screaming like a scared kid running out of a graveyard. “””shudder””” I really hate spiders.  Nope don’t like them one bit. Well, this one, which I unceremoniously blasted with high pressure water, hung on. When it finally let go, I swear I saw that monster come at me! Could she do that? I mean Fling Herself directly at me?  OH Hell, I’m not standing to find out! Off came my shirt! I’m standing in bra in the middle of my chicken coop beating the mess out of my shirt on the back of a plastic lawn chair. When I’m totally sure there is nothing on that shirt, not inside or out, I slip it back on.  Then you look sheepishly around hoping no one was around to Youtube your situation…

I flopped down and took a break in that same chair. Yes, I searched the chair to make sure that spider didn’t find a way to hide on it. While sitting, Victoria came over and wanted attention (by now you know of Victoria. If you don’t, she’s a ‘blue’ Ameraucana hen. She’s the queen of the coop), but she almost always wants attention. So I’d bend over and grab her up easy-like, and hug her and kiss her cheek and head. Yes, she loves it. 

We sat together watching the other birds. Some jumped up on my lap with us and she pecked them away (Yes, I giggled knowing she likes our time alone. I was a bad girl. I admit it…). After a few minutes, I know it’s time to get up and get moving again, before I decided to stop all together.

Victoria goes back to the ground, and she fusses at me, but back to work I go to finish what I was doing (minus the spiders.. YUCK!).

Victoria kept me in sight most of the day. Either near me or not very far off (I fuss at her if she’s under foot while I work. She knows this). Moving all the stuff in the coop and pressure washing the walls and ceiling now, and I’m about done. The stuff gets put back inside, including the large roost made of 2×4 lumber. Its collapsible so it can be removed or moved to a new spot.

I took a deep breath, told Victoria it was time for lunch (late lunch), and pick her up and kiss her. She’s making some kind of babble at me which I do not understand, and finally, I left to go eat lunch. I could hear her yelling for me as I walked off. Still, Ya gotta eat sometime…

Going back out, she’s still standing there waiting for me. I bend down and pick her up, and nuzzle her neck cooing to her. She’s such a pushover… (I’m such a pushover). Putting her down she won’t quit making that “PICK ME UP NOISE”. Then I get the image in my head of her wanting some bread. I pick her up and go back to the kitchen, she’s neatly tucked under my arm, with her legs swinging freely beneath her. We go to the bread cabinet and pick out some older slices. She’s totally relaxed and not saying a thing, waiting patiently. Setting her down, I give her the usual plate of bread pieces and a touch of water.

I realized I had left for lunch without taking her with me. I mean, she was yelling to high heaven as I walked off. I just didn’t understand what she was saying… Now, I know that’s what she was yelling about. Bread. It’s all about the BREAD!  LOL  Well, she does love the stuff…

After she had contentedly eaten the bread, she walked over and waited for me to finish my drink, then happily pooped on my floor (Disgusting; which of course, now I must clean and disinfect). Oh Happy Days.

Then I pick her up and we go back outside so I can finish my chores. I set her down and get busy picking up tools and packing up the pressure washer. It’s fairly late in the day, about 3:00 PM.

Finally, I’m done about an hour later and flop down in the lawn chair, exhausted.

Victoria walks over to me with the “noise” and I pick her up to nuzzle her and talk to her.  I sit down with her. She’s not happy at all with me. She forces her way off my lap, stands flat footed in front of me staring at me, yelling (again…).

OK, what’s going on here?

She’s still yelling and staring straight at me making squawking sounds.  Reminds me of when I scolded my kids for doing stupid crap. I folded my hands and just watched her. She finally shut-up, and relaxed her stand into a near squatting position, then wiggled down onto the ground. She nestled down further closer to my feet, resting lightly against my foot, leaned over, got comfy and took a nap… I dare not mess up her sleep time! Crap! It’s NAP TIME! I look around and the other ladies have found a nice nap-spot and had already conked out.

Good gosh! I’m a Chicken too now, and Victoria says, “It’s nap-time stupid”….

The Chicken Mom

 

Rats and Chickens and Leptospirosis

Most of the time, (and I mean “most”), we are rat free and have no problems with them. Almost unavoidably at times though, we do end up with some happy little critter who overrides  my attempts at keeping it that way.

With that tagline established, lets go ahead now with… My yesterday.

Honestly, I felt magical yesterday and with that energy in place, I felt like I could undo the whole worlds problems. I decided to go ahead and clean the chicken coop. This is not an easy task. It had about 8 months of smutz which needed to be cleaned.

Inside the coop, I also have a small enclosure for my quail. It’s four feet by nine and six feet tall. Its a pretty secure pen with a walk in door. I established this area to keep out vermin, of one or more types… One type was rats. They would happily eat quail. Those little tiny bundles of feathers (not the brightest birds I’ve ever had either), just do not have any real defenses other than running. So protecting them was up to me.

I do not care what you do to try to provide a safe environment, something along the way is going to show up and piss on your party. Trust me…  You will have to rethink almost everything you do, every single time you (erroneously) think you have a good workable plan. Usually this happens way after you have already built it or made it or purchased supplies, then realize you screwed up, yet again.

Inside the chicken coop area, a happy little animal was making a nest, right next to the quail pen. Now, come on, it’s only about 2 inches wide!! That tiny space? Well, crap! Id’ watched it being built a little at a time. I wasn’t really sure what was doing it, but I sorta figured it was a rat. I wanted to get it moved before they could establish a home. Rats are not good for the hens, and not good for any human who goes inside the chicken coop.

I need to give my husband real credit for not wanting to murder me. Mostly because, everything I ask him to help me build, is either moved, or changed within six months. Ah well…

I point to the ever increasing nest which is being slowly built and tell him, “Honey this wall of the quail pen has to come down”. He exclaims how much effort that will take (and I assure you, long before I asked his help, I had already calculated the effort it would take, and the backlash of words I’d have to hear about it, before it got done).

He finally sees no way around it either, so we begin the massive undertaking, that meant we had to remove a full third of the pen to get to that 1 wall. Sigh…

Finally, the wall is down and we can begin to pull out the sticks, leaves, feathers, and debris, the animal had collected. Then out came the rats! AH! I actually, laughed but my husband was freaking the fuck out. He screamed loudly something I didn’t understand, and I was giggling as I was saying, HEY! RAT! LOL He said, “don’t yell!”, “I’m not yelling honey… I’m laughing at you dancing around”!  This wasn’t my first time experiencing this problem, but it was his. I usually handle things like this myself. LOL  (Yes, I’m actually laughing-out-loud now, for real). You would have laughed at him too. Especially, when he realized he was the one yelling and not me. (ha ha ha)…

The rats ran. He danced. I giggled and lifted up my foot as a rat dashed under me. Hens chased rats and cackled loudly. Yep, it was pure pandemonium. Mass confusion in one second broke out. I was still smiling. I’m not sure why, except this scene reminded me of something ridiculous, Lucy would do to Ricky on the old TV show, “I Love Lucy”.

With the rats gone, we were free to keep cleaning out that mess. Finally; it was all gone. Ah, good; now to keep taking down those other walls. With the frames of wire carried outside, I began to wash them off and free them from urine and poop the rats left behind.

This took me a while, and when I was busy washing them off, I heard quite a commotion in the chicken coop. When I went to investigate, it seems the hens found a bunch of little rats. Well, crap. I didn’t see them! Come to find out, they had become subterranean. Well, there wasn’t anything I could do about it now. They were goners.

This is where I add a little note of warning for you.

Even as lighthearted I try to make posts, this one is very serious. Rats can be carriers of a bacteria, (Leptospirosis is caused by spirochaete bacteria belonging to the genus Leptospira.) which can kill you. It is transmitted to humans by coming in contact with infected animals, usually through urine or feces. Which is why I was washing off everything…

” Rats, mice, and moles are important primary hosts—but a wide range of other mammals including dogs, deer, rabbits, hedgehogs, cows, sheep, raccoons, opossums, skunks, and certain marine mammals carry and transmit the disease as secondary hosts.”

Just imagine touching everything in your chicken yard. Yep, a Rat has likely walked on it, or peed on it or pooped on it. Kind of disgusting, but it’s the facts. It is also why I wear gloves and cover my feet. No Flip-Flops!

Also, another reason I am typing this out, is so that you know, and protect yourself and your family, and pets. I wish we’d known sooner than we did. My Father died from complications from Leptospirosis. That’s another story, from long ago…

OK folks!  Get RID of those Rats Nests!

 

The Chicken Mom

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poop

Are Chickens For You?

With the daily life of dealing with 20-30 birds consistently, you really learn about them with hands-on expertise. What’s called OJT. Yep. No book is going to train you for all the stuff you will face with raising chickens. However, read them!

If you are squeamish, chickens aren’t for you, unless you excel in bravery, then you might get past all the poop-cleaning and sickness birds ‘sometimes’ have.

The first time I got poop on my hand I almost threw up. After five  years of chickens, I look at it and think, “Okay, I need to go wash that off” then get distracted and forget. Sort of like a Mom does with babies. After a while, you just aren’t moved much by it. You do what you  must do…

I do still make Stink Face though…. We all have one.

(I love this face)…

So, while I’m on the topic of POOP. . .

You are going to find yourself looking at a lot of it (POOP) willingly. Yes, you will! (Don’t make that face at me. 🙂  You’ll want to know what’s happening inside the bird, and frequently, that means looking at POOP. What does it look like? Runny? Solid? Wormy? … Who’s doing the squish bottom dance? They sort of walk funny when they have diarrhea. Just like anyone else who feels lousy, it shows in their walk and how they hold themselves. Yes, you are going to befriend the bottom of any chicken you have decided to keep.

The Happy Rump

Believe me, no one will come running to aid you in looking at the bottoms of your hens. It’s a YOU and THEM process, and you will become so adept at reading chicken asses, that you can tell almost instantly who’s not doing well,  who needs wormed, who needs medicine, who ate too much of the wrong thing.

All the magic happens on that end of the hen…  
Study up on the reproductive tract of chickens, and also the digestion issues they have, and basic illnesses.  This is so much easier now that we have the internet! I mean the whole world is at your fingertips. Study, Study, Study!   – I did not study enough before launching myself forward, but here I am 5 years later, still with hens and for the most part, I haven’t killed any yet. 🙂 I’m studying a lot more now.

So, this isn’t my most glorious post about hens but let me tell you, it’s quite honest…

Much love to you readers out there!!

Chicken Mom

Communication in Pecking

When I go see the girls which is many times in one day. They all have a different way of behaving. Some are the “in your face” sort of happy (and demanding) to see me. Others can be a bit more “meh, you again”… Usually most of them are within touching range, and are quite inquisitive. If I sit down, I’ll have a lap full of chickens in a moment. They love to sit and talk to me, or groom me… I’ve had little bits of stuff pecked off so gently, I hardly feel it. Then there’s those obnoxious pecks…

Cleopatra – Cuckoo Maran

One of the things I am just getting to understand is pecking. Not all pecking is bad. Imagine that! I figured pecking of any sort should be stopped immediately, but the more I am around them, I realized that they talk with not just the noise factor and body language, but with the pecking they do.

Cleo, will peck me just because she wants me to pick her up, or wants attention in general. She’s an odd bird who’s quite happy to have attention period. Even negative attention. She doesn’t seem to care, either way. Pecking is equivalent to a human tapping on your shoulder to get your attention.  It doesn’t hurt; normally.

There’s as many peck types as there are chickens. I can’t take photos of pecking very easily, so bear with my personal descriptions.

Types of pecks:(I get)

OMG! Is that Food??? (peck)

let me get that schmutz off!…(peck) 

Hey! Look at me! (peck)

Pay attention to me! (peck)

Do Not Pick Me Up! (peck!)

It’s MY LAP TIME! (peck other bird) 

I’m going to eat your hand off!! (pecking hard)

I’m Broody Leave Me Alone!!!! (PECK – CACKLE – PECK)

Hey! Are those long hairs edible??? (testing peck- Nope! Dayam)…

Um, Sasquatch Hair-legs? I can help you with that…. (PECK) Me: OUCH!

Scratch my Waddle… (peck)

I need a Hug… (peck)

MY CHIN ITCHES (PECK – RUB)

Ooooooooooooh Buttons! (PECK)

Ooooh Ring Shiny and Edible! (PECK PECK)

A BUG!!! (peck)

~~~~~~~I think you can see that this list goes on and on. ~~~~

However, with all that typed out above, few of those pecks are out right mean. Most of the pecking I initiated myself when I encroach into their safe zone or was just not behaving according to Chicken Decorum. They do have rules in the chicken yard and those are things I have learned or get pecked.

The pecks are seldom mean pecks. They are just small reminders. I’ve never been out right attacked by any of the chickens. They know better. I am the Dominant Hen, and master of their world. I do have a couple of hens who test me…  Georgia who’s always ready to step into my dominant hen shoes if I submit. She’s gotten backhanded a few times. (Below)  Another Australorp.

Then there Maggie, who reminds me daily that she’ll eat anything on my body which she deems edible… There is NO teaching Maggie. She’s an insistent and incorrigible Australorp; named after my Grandmother, who acts nothing like Maggie. I promise! 🙂

Maggie

The Chicken Mom~♥

Egg Surprises

You  just never know what will come out of the rump of a hen… I mean hardly a day goes by which I don’t find myself a bit surprised with the sort of eggs I find in the nest. I find, Bumpy ones, LONGGGG ones, Short ones, Pale, Dark, Blotchy, Thin shelled, Leathery, Small Walnut sized ones. The list is inexhaustible!

Usually when I find a “Wind Egg” they are tiny with only the white inside. This time though, when I picked up the nugget off of the ground (which was unceremoniously dumped), cracking it revealed a small centered yolk. I was surprised really. Then I found myself wondering if it had been fertilized would it have made a “Little Chicken”?

Wind Egg with a yolk 

Then you get the other end of the spectrum on the same day, with a massive egg appearing, looking more like three normal size eggs in one.  I pity the poor gal which laid this egg.  I even looked at the hens and said, “I’m sorry”!

 

(That other egg, is an Extra Large. What we call a Regular size.)

When I cracked this Ginormous Egg for breakfast in the morning, I didn’t need to crack a second or a third.  It was just under 8 fluid ounces of deliciousness.

Here is an example of “leather eggs”. They are by far the most weird things ever laid.  The egg is normal inside the membrane casing, but the shell of the egg, never forms. This can happen because of stress, age or condition of the bird. This chicken egg was laid by my lovely (old lady) Black Sex Link. She’s going on nine years old now and every so often she’ll let the whole world know she laid, “something”… I’m always in a rush to find out what exactly!

Weird Leather Like Shelled 

Wishing you all a Lovely New Year!!

~Chicken Mom~ ♥

Defending the Flock

Remember when I write, I tell it like it is. You  may not like it, or you may be disgusted by it. However, sometimes life is just sort of disgusting. You and I will both recover from the knowledge.

My sleep has been really off and on, since this lovely time change. Last night was no different. I nodded off on the couch, evidently I was so out of it, I was still there at 2:30 AM. Suddenly, I popped awake and realized I needed to tote my rump to bed. That’s when I heard a chicken…. My girls do not make any sounds at night, except the gentle cooing and mumbles which you can detect if you are standing nearby.

The chicken coop and yard, is about 20 feet from my living-room windows. I wanted them near me, in case they ever needed me, I might hear them. Well, I did hear them. Actually, I heard two hens quite loudly, and I was grabbing slippers (should have grabbed shoes), and then because the noise was getting louder, I was looking for anything I could beat off wild animals with (also, should have thought through this better). Of course, I find a broom! Oh, yeah, that’s going to work wonderfully… (NOT).

So, I’m running out the door, into the dark, swinging a blue broom handle, wearing slippers, PJ’s and gritting my teeth! I’m so full of adrenalin now, that I could kill whatever was messing with my ladies with my bare hands…

They are in panic mode now with full-blown yells and screams of pure fear. I bust in there with a broom and see a possum hanging on the wall just a few inches from my ladies. I whacked it soundly with the broom handle and kept hitting it, and hitting it. Then, it finally let loose and fell to the ground and started to come at me. My broom handle broke, so I looked for something else.  I find a hammer!(Yeah this ends badly. Can you tell?)

I took one solid swing at the possum and it fell. Once it was down I was not going to quit hitting it! (I mean we all know possums, “Play Possum”). They lay there pretending to be dead. Well, NO ONE attacks my hens and lives to tell about it. I smacked that possum with that hammer until I knew he was dead or dang near it.

I’m shaking so badly, when it’s dead, I don’t realize it’s about 45* outside and I’m standing there with a bloody hammer my fuzzy slippers and my short PJ’s. Not exactly the ‘picture of the year’, or a good Photo Op.

I just killed another living thing, while protecting my chicken kids… I’ve never really had to do that myself. I’m kind of in shock, beating it to death with a hammer. It’s then I realize that this thing has massive teeth and I was just 10 short inches from that gaping hole of a mouth, with  all those teeth. I never saw them… I didn’t care. It was going to hurt my girls! That could not happen on my watch. It didn’t. (Just so you know from my personal experiences; yes, possums will hurt chickens. Not nearly as quickly as a Raccoon, but yes they will do it).

The coop has a lamp to use in emergencies. I found the plug and turned it on. Slowly, I go around checking chickens and making sure no one is hurt or missing. Some are so terrified they are huddled in corners in the back of the chicken run 40 feet or so away from the coop. I go out there, pick them up and carry them into the roots, cooing over them and checking them out as we walk. My talking soothes them and my world begins to take shape again, into a form feeling more normal.

My Amazing human kids come out to see what the heck is happening. They heard the commotion as well. Most of the drama is over. Thankfully. It helped me relax hearing their voices. At least I had reinforcements, should this dead thing revive. They are offering help; I remember only vaguely.

Brian my Son in Law took the body of the dead possum and buried it, which I am thankful for. I had no stomach left for it. My Daughter Casey talked me down into a more normal state, helping me focus back to Mom, and not “She-Ra princess of power”, with a hammer. (I wish I’d had her sword)…

I really don’t know how to end this….

OK.  I’ve been asked if the girls were alright?  Yes, they were fine. Evidently, their sounds were what woke me up in the first place, so the possum had little time to cause damage.  They were traumatize and a couple eggs were prematurely dropped onto the coop floor, but nothing hurt them.

They are my friends, even if it sounds a bit dorky.

Chicken Mom Out…

Chickens On A Shoestring Budget

I have had so many worries about raising chickens through the last 4 years and wondered if I was “doing it right”. Somewhere about the last two years I realized that, as may ways to raise chickens exist, as there is sand on a beach.

I look at the pristine chicken farmers posts with their neatly built structures and think, “SEE! I’m doing it all wrong!”  No. Actually I’m doing this right for Me.

One of the things I did right, but swore I had wrong, was building temporary shelters instead of permanent ones. Everything I have in the chicken yard, is easily dismantled and put up in a different spot.  For my O.C.D. tendency’s and quirky nature, this proves very valuable. Tomorrow, I may wake up and think, “Oh gez this set up isn’t working like I wanted it to”. Then go about redesigning the whole shebang! My husband is usually patient with me and my constant changing.

Below you will see the most valuable piece of equipment in my arsenal of tricks.

 Did you see it?  That black plastic fencing?  Let me tell you, it’s amazing to have when you need to separate birds of different ages. In the front you will see some juvenile Ameraucana, and Cochin in the front and behind them is another group of birds who would not get along with the newbies. This fence gives the older wiser meaner birds time to adjust to the new-comers.

This is something else I use to keep the birds cooler in the blistering 90-100 temperatures here in Florida. Note the temporary used billboard covers. I use them as drapes sometimes to block any sunshine which may reach into the nesting area. Now that I know more of what they need, I have plans ready for a fixed structure.   Chickens do not do well in Heat. That is without exception.

“A chicken’s normal body temperature hovers near 104 to 107 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s not difficult for them to maintain a healthy body temperature when the air is at least 10 to 15 degrees below that.

During times of extreme temperatures, producers must dissipate the excess body heat of their flock quickly. When a chicken’s body temperature reaches 113 to 117 degrees Fahrenheit, it is in danger.

Without sweat glands to cool their skin, birds rely on their respiratory system. Chickens pant to cool themselves, as the panting evaporates water from the throat to lower body temperature.”

( I didn’t type that one part, so I’m putting the link to the information page here).  This is a very good article and a must read!

This photo below, looks really rag-tag, but I wanted to show you how to make use of things you may already have, without going to the local Hardware store and buying the place out. It’s alright to use what you have on hand. You can always upgrade to a better building later, which I am doing myself. We change things at least three times a year, as our needs out there change and evolve.

We are in the process of planning a more permanent structure in this spot (Which means my husband is going to want to slowly strangle me…. ).

It’s hard to see but we have a 9 foot fence dividing the back area from the foreground area where the door is.  That is my brooder for the babies. I actually have birds who can scale an 8 foot fence; so, I made it 9 feet and attached it to the roof. The babies are all grown now, so I have some old ladies now in the brooder area. The “new ladies” (babies) are up front where the nesting boxes and large coop are. The old girls get to enjoy being free to do whatever… Occasionally they even give me an egg!

A Local store had a sale on office type storage boxes, and I bought ten of them. They became the nesting boxes of choice. The girls don’t mind one bit that they cost me a dollar each! I have them Zip-Tied to the support boards. I can move them around quite easily!

 

Well, there you go…  At least a little bit of what I do on a Shoe-String budget.

What Breed Chicken?

What Breed Chicken Is Your Favorite?

Blogging to me is all about being humorous about things I face daily, and along the way share a bit of information I have learned. One of the big questions I get from people is, “What Breed Chicken is my favorite?”. I usually blog about the general group of “ladies” but today I will share about a few individuals who just make having chickens, worth the busted knuckles, sore muscles, and tired days.

For instance; can you look at this face

So? You want your fingers…

and tell me that you don’t want to laugh your ass off? If you don’t, then you are broken somehow. Your funny-bone has gone sour. 

That face “Elizabeth” is making is purely diabolical! I laughed so hard at her, I cried. 

She was so damn mad that day. It had rained almost non-stop for 3 long days. She’d been wet so many times her fluffy-pants were getting wet, as well as the other feathers on the outside. She was insisting that I MAKE IT STOP RAINING. I’m sure that’s what that face says…

Funny thing about it is, they do have a shelter. She wants to walk out in the rain, get soaked, and then look at me like I did it! Whew! Some of them just have such high ideals about my ability to control the environment they live in. Yes, I am a chicken Goddess, but I can’t always keep back the wet weather.

Elizabeth has always been a favorite of mine. She’s an Ameraucana and her eggs are a lovely aqua color. Her temperament is really weird. She’s a lovely huger (to me), and enjoys me picking her up and nuzzling her neck, but she’ll kick any other hens fanny if they intrude in her airspace. She’s a dominate hen. With her little body, (just under 4 pounds) it’s a bit surprising to know she has the heart of a lioness. 

      Here she is with a dry face! She looks way happier, now doesn’t she? She’s just as happy as a pig in a mud-puddle!

Anyone who feels chickens have no moods or personality, just needs to compare these two photos. It will change that idea in a moment.

I secretly knew she’d eat me, if I died, out in the chicken pen…

(Thank you Natalie Dee.com for the borrowed image)

The other hen whom makes a world of difference in my day, is Victoria.

Victoria, is Elizabeth’s sister.  Here is her sweet little face. She is one of the most docile of birds. I love her dearly. Once a Dog got in the yard and attacked her. She was pretty badly injured but I had to try to save her. She was my buddy!  We patched up her wounds and slowly she improved. Thankfully!

Victoria is also an Ameraucana. She’s darker in color but still the same breed.

One quirk about her, is that she is the worst broody hen I have.  It’s so bad that most of the time she sits the nest and I have to force her off of it! It’s useless… I finally decided she can just sit there. She’s not a violent broody hen, just quietly sits there hoping she’ll hatch out a baby or two. She won’t. I don’t have any roosters (That’s another blog).

 This is Victoria, after the dog tried to have her for dinner… Getting all fixed up. She was so calm for a wounded  bird. I’ve done many, and this is the most passive I ever remember one being. She’s just a darling…

 I really can’t even tell you how much I love this girl. Really this breed is sizing up to be my favorite breed of chicken. They have personality plus, and I’d have a whole flock of them. 

Are they great layers? Well no… They are not dependable layers. It seems to be a personal thing though, and not really an indication of the breed as a whole. Elizabeth laid her eggs regularly about, 4-5 a week. While Victoria is a fussy-pants diva and lays when she damn well feels like it (rarely). When she does lay though, she has the most stunning egg color! They are a darker Aqua and always bring a smile to my face.

The breed is fun and a novelty. However, if you want Eggs on a regular basis, I’d shop elsewhere. Speaking of Elsewhere. Soggy-Bottom is a breed chicken called Araucana. They are from South America and lay blue eggs. Not a dark blue but a pretty light blueish egg. All of the colored egg laying chickens, lay different hues of color; Some darker in color than others. Some of the greens are Greener than others.  While some eggs, bluer than the rest. Also, it depends on the day, the weather, and what they have eaten that week. It all effects the egg color of a hens egg. She is an Egg-Laying Machine. You can depend on 6 eggs a week and seldom have a bad week in laying.

Soggy-Bottom-Girl, is in her molt season right now, and she’s an old girl who isn’t really laying. I figure she’s over eight years old now. I’d easily buy more just like her. 

She has a story all on her own. I won’t take time today to fill you in. The brief of her history, is that she was (more or less) a rescue bird. A chicken man was “cutting down the size of his flock” and put them up for sale. I was the fish that bit that line. He told me, “They are 2-3 years old”, and lay nicely. Well, he didn’t lie about that. Those birds I bought from him, were laying fools. They were not in amazing shape however, and I was determined I’d take as many as I could get that day. I did, and ended up with 13 birds, of which she was one. 

 Soggy-Bottom-Girl, is called that mostly because she has a weak vent and it leaks. I’ll wait a few seconds, while you get that mental image…  

Her butt is always wet. It’s not her fault though. I think she must have had a horrible fight with other birds while he had her, because her right eye-lid is droopy and she doesn’t see as well with it. Then there’s that issue of her bottom. Even if I had the slightest idea of getting rid of her, that thought would have been dashed with her ability to lay massive aqua eggs. They were the prettiest eggs I’d ever seen… However, getting rid of her never even popped up.

Here in the chicken yard, we have 5 colored egg layers. They are, Victoria, Elizabeth, Soggy-Bottom-Girl,  Little-Owl, and Farrah. 

  Farrah

Little Owl

 Both Farrah and Little-Owl are a bantam weight “Easter-Egger” bird of little more than 2 pounds and they lay lovely greenish-blue eggs. I’m holding a small egg of Farrah’s.

Now, if you talk about different personality birds from the same group of eggs, it’s these two. Farrah is flighty, and unfriendly. She views people as EEEEEVIL and wants nothing to do with them, except the food we bring.

Little-Owl is Amazing!  She is my constant companion out in the chicken yard. She’s with me almost all the time, while I am working out there. If I ignore her, she’ll hop up and grab onto a finger she can reach, and then stare at me, wanting UP. If I stoop down, she happily awaits for me to lift her up and kiss her birdy face, and hug her. She hugs right back… 

Honestly, 4 years ago when I began this journey,  I didn’t know hens hugged… I do now. 

 

♥♥The Chicken Mom♥♥

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Amazed Disgusted and Shocked

July 19, 2014

Amazed Disgusted and Shocked I need to warn you in advance, this is not for the faint of heart, OK? If you get squeamish easily, ya best click off and leave now.

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Putting off the chicken coop cleaning was done for long enough! I’d fiddle-farted around most of the spring and the spiders and icky stuff was beginning to get to me (Insert disgusted face here (Really I wish I had one of those “insert face here” on this blog-post editor!).

Weekly, one needs to clean the shavings of poop, and then do general maintenance, of raking, picking up random bits of trash and god-knows-what, that the hens dig up in the yard. Then you have to clean up the storage area of the stuff you thought you wanted to keep and now find you can surely do without.

It’s all good, but it can wear you out. I’d let this go for several weeks now and was sort of tired with all the catching up I’d done for the last hour.

Along with the usual cleaning, I also decided to do that Spring Cleaning, I skipped doing! I’m going to hate myself in the morning, I can tell already.

When my husband brings me the pressure washer, I’m elated that I get to blast the shit out of stuff with water, but appalled at the thought of how much my arms are going to hurt in the morning. I begin by washing down the walls, back corner, then out to the front corner. After that, I blast the roof where the spider webs are! If you are as arachnophobia prone as I am, you know that you would also back out closer to the door, one step at a time, while you blast away. Just so you don’t end up with an unhappy spider landing down your shirt…

 As I finish up the coop area, I move over to the nesting area where they work their magic laying eggs. It’s pretty dusty in there and thankfully the girls are finished laying. With the exception of one hen laying claim to that area, it’s free and clear. I move the grumpy broody hen out-of-the-way, for now. She officially hates me, at the moment… =/

I take down the nesting boxes which are held in place with Zip-Ties. I can always put them back when I’m done washing the area down.

When I do that, and move a bit of plastic which had fallen down on the floor, a passel (a bunch) of baby rats scrambled out of the area. They shot everywhere! Left, Right, Between my feet, Over my feet… It was pandemonium in that place!! About that time, the hens saw the scrambling baby rats and …. well…. Nature took it’s course…

I’d never seen so many chickens running around with rats for dinner in my life! It was disgusting, disturbing and fascinating! I didn’t want to watch, but like a soap-box show on TV, you just can’t miss what’s going on. I knew that chickens ate other critters. I’d seen them devour snakes, and kill other animals who had the distinct misfortune of finding their way in the coop; like a squirrel and a few birds, and random mice. I had never seen them GULP down a whole baby rat before. Kill something yes, but Eat it? Ick… Dear God. I was now damaged goods. You just can’t unsee some things…

With that said, I was totally fascinated with how they beat the snot out of them, then swallow them head-first. The fights that broke out in the coop, I was powerless to change, except maybe push them apart; which I did. I even moved some of the small dead rats into a hole so I could bury them, but the hens took them out before I could get the others collected.  I finally gave up and said, FINE! Eat Rat!  They did….

And they ate and ate and ate….  What they didn’t eat they left half dead, and I had to finish off the little rat babies.

Can you imagine what that did to me? Dear God, I wanted chickens but not this! Just one more thing “they” don’t tell you when you decide to have backyard chickens. You can read up on this, till the cows come home but you aren’t prepared for the real life with chickens (another blog of mine).

By now I’m pretty shell-shocked and just keep clicking photos, so you can live though my experiences. It’s not always easy, lemme tell ya! Below are more (yes graphic) photos of the hens enjoying Rat, a la carte’. This tiny New Hampshire Red pullet, is only 12 weeks old and she’s a master of killing and consuming baby rats. It’s kind of unnerving to think that I could be dinner as well, if I ever passed out in the coop. =/

 This young Red SexLink was one of the most persistent and aggressive. No sooner than I removed a rat from her, she found another one, or grabbed the one I had, back in her beak. She was so determined to eat it, I finally just gave it back to her, and grabbed my camera.

OK One More… Don’t say I didn’t warn you…   You just can’t Un-See some things… ♥The Chicken Mom♥