Panic! Batten down the hatches!

This next blog was supposed to be the next installment of Eden's rooster adventure, but... I got busy, and something else come up that I just HAVE to blog about. of course...

Living on Hawai'i has its oddities. One of them is the weather. You think, 'always sunny,' right? No, always the threat of the Great Tsunami! I was reminded of that when my better half, Pat, made the mistake of watching the weather report before we went to bed the other night. We were scheduled to drive into Kona the next morning. The implications there are:

1. We have to drive 1.5 hours on a long, curvy road.
2. We have to leave our 4 dogs and 43 chickens untended. (The 1 cat can fend for himself; he's pretty smart by all evidence.)
3. Then, we have to drive 1.5 hours home in the semi-darkness on a long,curvy road.
4. A storm may take out parts of the road or power or both.

Well, the weather report said a really, really big storm was coming with really, really big winds (65+ mph). Should hit us at around 6 - 8 am. Now, this was 11 pm at night. And she was very concerned. 

Hmmm... Now, remember, we have lived in the Hawaiian Islands for about 10 years. We NEVER watch the weather reports. (This was really a fluke.) The following is a true story:

3 am... the phone rings. It's my sister in California. "Hello?" I say, sleepily. She asks, "What are you doing?" "Sleeping," I respond, not quite getting the point. "You weren't hit by the tsunami?" she asks. "What tsunami?" Then I gather my wits and say, "Hey, I'm fine, can I call you in the morning?"

Another true story:

A friend of mine, that actually LIVES on the Big Island, was traveling on the mainland, and sent me a text. I forget what I was doing, maybe cooking or gardening, or playing cards. The text read, "Did you suffer any damage from the earthquake?" My texted response, "What earthquake?"

I guess the bottom line is that the weather-related events make more news elsewhere than they do right here, where they are happening.

So, when my wife started fretting about the storm that was 7 to 9 hours away, I said, "You know, it may just pass us by, or die out before it gets here. Why don't we wait for morning, and see what happens. Unless, of course, you want to batten something down tonight." Which suggestion she was not into at all. Worrying was one thing. Actually going out into the dark (leaving warm bed) and putting away some buckets and things didn't sound like a good time at all. So we went to bed. And woke up to a sunny morning. The storm did hit, but much more north than expected. And not quite as heavy. But that didn't stop my daughter from calling to find out if I was safe.  Ahhhhh...... she loves me.

We pick up the roosters.

To continue the story from the last blog....

We drive the two and a half blocks to our friend's house to get the chickens. She had tried the method that had worked the other two times, i.e., fed the chickens in the coop at night, then shut them in. They sleep in the coop, and in the morning we go get whatever is locked up in there. BUT... this time, there were only some hens and little babies in the coop. The roosters had gotten wise to her tricks. We humans pride ourselves on being smarter than the chickens (or we'd never eat eggs or chicken), and innovation won out. The next day, our friend went out in the morning, and yep, only a few hens and some babies in the coop. She let them out and threw some scratch into the coop. (For non-chicken people, 'scratch' is a mix of grains, mostly corn, that chickens love to eat off the ground, and 'scratch' around for.) The roosters went running in for it and.... BAM! the door was shut and they could eat to their hearts' content until we get there to pick them up! (I wonder if it will work the second time?)

We arrived with our pickup and cage and there were 7 roosters, 2 hens, and 2 babies. The babies were probably a month old or so. The three of us, Pat, Eden, and myself, started trying to catch them. Someone should really video it. We are usually too concentrated on actually catching them and getting them in the cage to think about the video we all have on our phones to do it. I always think of Rocky having to catch the chicken before he is ready to fight. We are not ready to fight. We have to chase the chickens into a corner, and wear them down. But even once we catch them, that's not the hardest part. We have to hold on to them. While opening the coop door. And while opening the cage door. They will definitely try to get away. And once you have some in the cage, they think a good way to escape is to rush the door when you open it. They are actually correct. Several have escaped that way. And one has done not-serious-but-scarily-visible (for two days) harm to my face and neck trying to. But didn't! I won! Concentration and preparedness is the key. The chicken will act all tame and calm, then suddenly fly out of your arms, or at the door. This time, and partly because after three trips we have become experts, and partly because we were three people, we managed to arrive home with all eleven birds!

First stop, the portable cage to drop off the 'keepers.' That would be the 2 hens and the 2 babies. The natural instinct of the flock is to protect the mothers and children, so when we looked in the cage, all we saw were the roosters. They had the moms and babies hidden in the back!  While guarding the cage door, one of us, she with the longest arms, reached back and tried to grab the ones we wanted. Eventually we got them all, but it wasn't easy. Then we took the roos back to ..... the butchering station.

That adventure is for the next installment...

Eden learns about life on the farm!

I just got too busy to blog, and couldn't get back to it. Now I forget what day we did things, so the day-by-day event summary of Eden's visit is no longer in my memory bank. But I will relate events.

The first time Eden visited us, we had 6 chickens, 5 hens and one rooster. Now we have 42 chickens that are permanent residents, and 25 meat chicks on order, about 20 meat chickens in the freezer, and every few weeks we round up 6 or 7 roosters from a friend's farm for dog food.  She went with me to feed the chickens several times, and found out that it was a real production!
1. Prepare the chicken food: I prepare 3 buckets to take out to the chickens. One bucket full of brown rice, leftovers, crunched up egg shells, milk, leftover cat food, fat, etc. It makes a runny pudding-like mass that they love. Bucket two is their fruit. It's usually papaya that we get from the market garbage; they always have lots of overripe papaya. Sometimes during mango season they get mangoes. I cut it in thirds or fourths. Bucket three is filled with lettuce, bits of meat, bones, other vegetables, scraps, all cut up small. This preparation takes 30 min plus.
2. Take it down to the 5 pens and split it up between all the pens. The rice goes in the bowls, the papaya is laid out so they can eat it, and the other bucket gets thrown out by handfuls - lots of fun to watch them run for it!
3. Give layer pellets to all the pens, and spread scratch around in all the pens.
4. Collect eggs.
We do this twice each day. Yes, we love our chickens! Eden was a great help to have around for 5 days to help with this production.
She said one day, "I guess I'd like to see you guys butcher a chicken." We called up our friend, and asked her to lure some roosters into the coop, and we'd pick them up! It took two tries, but she called on Wednesday to report a bunch of roosters in the coop! We packed up the truck and headed on over. We had a large dog crate in the back of the pickup to put the chickens in, and we were ready to go!

I have to go to sleep now, so I will continue this (hopefully) tomorrow!

Sue

The last day...:(

The daughter goes home today... but not until after a fun-filled day of...mostly driving! yay! Well, this IS the Big Island! My friend, who lives on the BI, was telling me that she was vacationing in Maui, and had a rental car. When she turned it in after 3 days, she was shocked to find that they only drove 35 miles! At home, she averages 60+ per day. I get it! It's not uncommon for me to drive 100+ miles in a day. I was telling someone the other day that the pace here is very laid back, but everyone is very busy. It's true. Ya gotta live it to get it. For example, it's 1.5 hours to the nearest Starbuck's!

What the heck did we do for all these 6 days?? Let's see if I can reconstruct it.

Friday: Pat and I drove to Hilo to pick Eden up at the airport. On the way, we stopped in Pahala (30 min from home) to get prescriptions, then stopped in Hilo town to deliver chickens (organic, fully dressed, 5 lb. each), then to Ken's House of Pancakes to have Oxtail Soup and cheeseburgers. In our defense, we did go to 3 Sushi restaurants before deciding to go to the local, dependable Ken's. The first one had two tables and a 2-seat bar. We missed the seats at the bar by 30 sec. They said, "We're full, but you can wait." We thought we'd take a walk to check out the other places, only blocks away. One was huge, but full and the line was out the door. The only other one in town was closed. So we went back to the first one, and a table was empty, but they had quickly put a "reserved" sign on it! ouch! Thus, Ken's. Then, time to get the Girl-child!  And, a 1.5-hour drive home. Meet the dogs. The old dogs recognized her immediately, Geea wagged that tail more than she has since the last girl came home, Hunni smiled, and the two new ones immediately sniffed and said, "Family," and cuddled right up. And to bed.

oops, gotta go feed chickens, more later!

One of the daughter's is home to visit!

Eden, the 'middle' daughter, is home, at the Four Daughter's Farm, to pay us a short visit! Yay! And "Yay!" say the old dogs, who haven't wagged their tails so much in the year since she was here last! Big Geea's tail was going back-and-forth-and-back-and-forth, etc., in double time - and she SMILED! (Mostly, she lays around until we lead her to her bowl to eat; and twice a day, she goes out to the field to take care of business.)

It was a difficult night for city-bred Eden however, *drumroll* as she was threatened in her bedroom by a GIGANTIC, BIGGER THAN SHE'S EVER SEEN IN HER LIFE, SPIDER!! She called us in, and, as we turned our heads to look for a weapon (we have a stash of appropriate spider weapons - shoes, flyswatters, etc.), the thing scurried off; we know not where. And, she was correct, it was very large and menacing - 3 inches across! We are very carefully avoiding telling her that:

1. We have seen, and even killed, larger ones and
2. We killed one last week that had a big white ball on it, oh, I mean her, as I assume the ball was an egg sac, or baby sac, or whatever. Now, I also have read Charlotte's Web, and know how many babies a spider has. And it was her favorite childhood book. But, well, you know, it was probably the only mommie in the clan, right? Right?

On the comforting side, we have not yet been bitten by any of these ferocious creatures since we moved to the farm almost 2 years ago, so we don't feel threatened. Eden, on the other hand, did not sleep well. Maybe tonight. If she survived - maybe I'd better go check on her.....

It LOOKS like she's okay....

This is the site of the great spider siting!

hehe

The happy pen!

This will be the good news chicken post.
We have one pen that is a very happy pen. It has a big square open area, and 6 built-in nest boxes, and a roost in front of the nest boxes, and a covered upstairs area. The current residents are:

• Angel - an all-white brown egg layer that was in the big pen before. She has lost a lot of her feathers on her back and shoulders (the roosters rode her a lot) and she was very bitchy over there. She is much happier here, but she has only laid 2 eggs in a week.
• Wild Thing - this is the chicken that adopted us. Just came around and wanted in. She was very hungry and has laid an egg almost every day since she arrived. We thought maybe she'd be happier in the big pen when we got more chickens of her type - small and black with some brown around the head. So we put her in the big pen. She escaped (we don't know how) and went over to the cage she was in first in (that she is in now). So we put her back. Again, we know nothing. I guess she was boss chicken there, so she's happy.
• 5 Americanas - we call them all 'Mary' - they lay light blue-green eggs. They love it in this pen. They were a little picked on in the big pen. They are laying almost an egg a day.
• 3 Grand chickens - these are the spawn of Racer, our Rhode Island Red, and our other chickens. One is definitely a rooster; he is white with gray trim, and he crows and jumps the Marys. The other big one is gray and brown and is probably also a roo, but I wouldn't swear by it, as I haven't seen him crow, or jump any hens, nor have I seen him lay an egg. The third one looks like a hen, she is brown and smaller, BUT, again, I haven't seen an egg yet, so I wouldn't stake my life on it.

Anyway, these 10 chickens eat a lot, get along, run around, argue a little, and lay lots of eggs. A happy community!

This is the front view of the Marys' pen. You can see the ramp going up to the second floor, and part of the roost.

These are their nest boxes. And their roost. The Marys, Wild Thing and Angel sleep on the roost. The Grand chickens sleep in the tree next to the roost.

This is the side view. The entire upstairs is shielded from wind. Those are the nest boxes sticking out. I can access them from the top (a door opens up) to get the eggs.

Complicated chicken social structure!

Okay, so we've been raising chickens for less than 2 years. But, oh yeah, we think we know all about chickens now! My recent experience says, "I know nothing."  The chickens have me befuddled. I never know what they are up to.

Here's an example. We have a friend that has too many chickens. She lets them 'free-range' with the consequence that, she can't find all the eggs, and they ultimately turn into more chickens. She ended up with more than 100 on a few acres. We go over every few weeks and round up a bunch (which is another story), keeping the hens for egg-laying and turning the roos into yummy dog food. Now the tricky part - how to separate a young roo from a young hen. I thought I had it all figured out! I noticed that the young roosters had little buds on their legs where their spurs would ultimately be, and the hens did not. Aha! Sure fire tell! Because when they are young, it's hard to tell from the comb, or the tail, and they don't crow yet, etc. Anyway, to continue, we separated what we thought were roosters from hens. We put all the hens into a little pen that had three 'hens' from a previous excursion. We put 8 new ones in. Now, note that only one of the 3 old hens had ever laid eggs.  But I'd only had them for a week or two, and I was being patient. Well, as soon as I put the new hens in, the two brown old 'hens' started fighting with two of the new black ones! And not pecking at each other, the way hens do, but kung-fu fighting, with their feet, like roosters do! I, at any rate, with my extensive 1.75 year history, had never seen anything but a rooster fight like that. We concluded the following:

1. The two brown 'hens' that were originally in the pen are really roosters.
2. The two new black 'hens' are really roosters.

Okay, what should we do? we couldn't leave the four of them together; they were duking it out big time. We decided that, for breeding, if we were going to keep any roos, we wanted the brown speckled ones. Thus the fate of the black 'roosters' was sealed. Into the rooster pen they went. Subsequently butchered for dog food.

Now the bad news. We butchered the roos, and, when we got to these two, big surprise! Bona fide, full-of-eggs, laying hens. Made me sick. And, I felt stupid. Now, we are not even sure if the two brown chickens are roosters or hens..... they may just have been the boss hens challenged by the new hens. It is beyond me why they picked on these two and not any of the others, though. The rest are still getting along just fine. 

This blog is ready for some good news. 

Sigh

It's a sad day at the 4 daughter's farm....

There is a new rule at the 4 daughter's chicken farm. Once we get a chicken... they don't get to leave. No adventures, no loaning out, no walk-abouts. It is like a cult in that sense. We will treat you well, we are all one big happy family, BUT... it is a big, scary world out there, and, well, chicken, you just DON'T WANNA KNOW!

We made a huge mistake, letting Speckle go to the big-time. I thought, after all, how hard can it be to care for ONE 9-week old tame, friendly, nice, chicken? We have 65 big, cranky, messy, ones! Well, last night we got the call... it went something like this, "The people that were caring for her said that a mongoose came up from under the house and... well, is that possible?" IS THAT POSSIBLE??? YES, MONGOOSE LIKE CHICKEN! We are very sad. No more adventures. Period. Everyone stay home. *Sob*