And NOW we have baby chicks!!

We are very soon going to have to do more social engineering! Well, in 4 weeks, when the baby chicks are ready to go outside! We incubated 15 eggs. One died at birth (we 'helped' it too much). Another is looking poorly, having been trampled(we weren't here to help it 'a little.' He-she may not make it. And 3 have yet to hatch after 24 days. So we have at least 10 viable little additions. There's a fellow down the street that wants 5 or 6 of them. So that is 4 or 5 for us to integrate into our flock. We'll have to start thinking about it...

The chicks in the incubator:

Massive social Engineering to accommodate the new arrivals!

We just adopted 6 babies, 1 gorgeous rooster, and 6 hens. Our friend is leaving the state, and we made it by just before the humane society visit. We still only have 4 pens, and Sammie definitely needs his own domain! Being an established rooster and all... Spurs almost 2 inches long! So we brought all our new additions home, waited until dark, then began some complex chicken social engineering. After a few hours of measuring, discussion, research, further discussion, compromise, we went into action. 

The first move was to take the 'teenagers' (5 chickens that are about 4 months old) out of the portable and put them in the main pen (with the other 30 chickens) under the watchful rule of Racer and his son Black Cape. We were thinking they were old enough to hold their own with the other hens, especially if introduced as a group. So, in they went, up on the roost. The very last one we caught, squawked just like her mama - you'd think we were killing her! But she quieted down as soon as she got on the roost with her sisters.

Then, we had to move the dillies. We had decided they needed a change of scenery. Although they have been laying eggs, we haven't gotten any, or, very few. There was a little mouse family living in the downstairs level of their condo (I've even seen them upstairs) that was eating all the eggs. I was trying to tell the dillies that they should eat the mice, but they were either too timid or, well, they are picky eaters bot they may have been eating eggs also (but leaving the shells; they never deign to eat shells). We thus decided to move them to the portable. Shake them up a little.

Then we moved all the new crew to the transition pen.

Except for one. The smallest baby. We named him Buddy and took him into the brooder to keep Coco company.

Who is Coco? Coco is a month-old Cuckoo Moran of undetermined gender that arrived with the 25 meat chicks (our free rare exotic chick) that now had to be separated from them to avoid being trampled by their fat little growing-like-crazy, rushing-to-the-food-trough bodies. He-she was lonely in the brooder all by his-herself.

Next day:

We woke up, and eagerly ran put to see how everyone was doing. the teens were fine, running around the big pen, not picked too much (they're fast). we looked in the transition pen, and there were Sammie and his ladies, but wait! where are the babies?!? Nowhere to be seen! We looked in the entire pen, and....no babies! Could they have escaped? Could the other chickens have eaten them? No, there'd be evidence, feathers or something, since there were 7 of them. Wait! There they are! They had all slipped under the wall between the transition pen and the main pen (the previous residents had dug a little tunnel just big enough for babies). There they were, running around in a little group, darting to and fro, on their big adventure. They seemed happy enough, so we left them there.

Having done that, we noticed that the Angel that was in the Mary's pen was unhappy yet again. If you recall, we moved her there because she was getting tag-teamed by Spot and Black Cape, and was traumatized, shivering in the corner. Well, now there are 2 roosters in the Mary's pen, and, sure enough, they are tag-teaming that same poor Angel. And for the entire month or so that she has been there, she has only laid one egg. Well, Spot was the big troublemaker in the main pen, and he has since become dog food, so we thought maybe Angel will be happier if she goes home now. We hope Racer will protect her, or she can hide amongst the other hens. So, while we were moving things, we moved her back to the main pen. She jumped up into a nest and sat. Looks positive.

When we went out to feed them, all was well, the new girls actually laid an egg, and the babies came back to their original transition pen. Go figure. We checked on them after dark, and were glad to see that the new flock had worked out a really great sleeping arrangement. Sammie had 4 hens on the downstairs ledge with him, the babies were all packed into the upstairs nest box, with the other 2 hens on baby-duty. Makes sense to me. So we decided to add Coco and her-his buddy to the baby-cluster. Just plopped them right in the box. And said, "Go back to sleep." And they did.

Next morning, everybody's safe. Coco is a little ostracized, either because he-she is timid/afraid, or they won't be friendly, but he-she hangs out on the ledge or ramp and jumps down to get food until someone chases him-her back up. Appears to be holding his-her own and getting enough. The new hens have laid 2 eggs already, and the dillies have laid 3. Yay! No mice to eat them! But the BIG news is.... The new flock is cleaning up the transition pen. I saw those industrious hens running around with wriggling little mice in their beaks! No co- existing with a good protein source happening here! Yay! The mouse problem solved!  Yummy!

Why won't my dogs eat?

We have four dogs. (Of course we do...don't all lesbians have at least four?) Two older ones (12 yrs) and two pups (18 mos. and 9 mos.). Hunny and Geea (the older dogs) are  very dogly dogs. Especially with respect to their food. We prepare it; they eat it. Anytime, anywhere. They eat it all. Up. And lick the bowl. And would eat more whenever we give it to them. Dogs. As they should be. But, the two pups are just weird. At dinner time, rather than standing there, at our feet, drooling, waiting for the homemade dog food to get warmed up in their bowls, they run out to the big back yard and start playing!?! What!?! There we are, the dog-moms, holding two big, full dog bowls, yelling for our silly puppies to come and eat. They are big dogs. The 'little' one is over 50 lbs, and Kai probably tips the scale at 110 these days. They should be hungry. They finally come up to the deck and look at their food. Not 'gobble it up' or 'wolf it down' or 'scarf it down' - no, they look at it, sniff (maybe), walk away, look up at us questioningly, anything but eat. And it's not that they don't like their food; we've tried all kibble, no kibble, homemade with chicken, homemade with beef, with and without spices, with and without water, changing bowls, etc. We thought maybe the older dogs that really like to eat were terrorizing them somehow (dirty looks, or threats when we weren't looking), so we tried to feed them separate, for example, in the kitchen or bathroom. (The dogs usually eat on the back deck.) They just got so nervous and didn't eat then either. The only way they actually will eat is if we hand feed little bits of their food at a time. Not much fun for us, as our hands get all dog-foody! Yech! They couldn't just be spoiled rotten, could they?

Another Episode of Farm TV

This one is more exciting - we do it morning and evening - it's how they get their exercise!

Chicken TV at its finest!

'Farm TV'

You really haven't lived until you've watched "Chicken TV" or "Chick TV" or "Dog TV", well... you get the point. We here on the farm often get distracted just watching our animals. Some episodes of Farm TV are more exciting than others (we sometimes watch the dogs sleep) but some are pretty exciting (like chick football). Ah, you're interested, and asking, "what is chick football?" well, just try throwing a large cockroach (alive) into a box of chicks. They start the game on their own - one of them grabs the roach and the rest chase him around the pen.  Looks like football... But nobody's blocking. They all want the roach. The poor ball carrier is on his own.  hehe

So here is an episode of chick TV: (not the most interesting, but not totally dull. Note the little black one in the right hand pen!) It's not very long (saving grace). When you see it live, you find yourself in the brooder room for a really long time before you know it!

Yum! Buggy Chicken bread!

Doesn't this look great:

This is a huge loaf of 'Buggy Chicken Bread'!! yum! The recipe is soo simple. 5 lbs of flour with bugs in it (donation from a neighbor cleaning out her cupboards) and enough water to be 'battery'. I think I put 12 - 16 cups in, 4 cups at a time. Then I poured it into the pan that had been greased with organic coconut oil, and baked at 350 degrees for about 1 hour until a toothpick came out clean. I will break it into 4 -6 hunks and crumble each one into a feeding with their rice mash. They will love it!  Unleavened, protein-enriched bread.

Why are some yolks only yellow?

Look at this picture of my two fried eggs from breakfast this morning:

They both came from my chickens. They both had brown shells. They both came out of the same coop. I feed all the chickens the same stuff. Granted, I don't give them individual bowls, i.e., they have to gather their own food from around the pen, where we scatter it. And the pellets and mash are put into 4 bowls around the pen that they share. So the questions that come to mind...

1.     Does the chicken with the pale egg dislike kale, and thus avoid it, so the yolks don't get the deep orange color?

2.    Or was it from a timid chicken that doesn't get her fair share of the rich food?

3.    Or was that chicken just not feeling all that well that day?

4.  Or was it one of the newer chickens that haven't acclimated to our diet? (the 'newest' chickens are already 3 weeks here - they would also correspond to the most timid, so this may equal #2)

We just don't know, but it tasted okay!

The nuggets are here!

Post title: The nuggets are here!
Date: August 5, 2013

Our baby chicks arrived in the mail on Thursday! 25 little 'nuggets' and one 'rare exotic breed' chick thrown in for a bonus.

'Nuggets' are what we call the little fuzzy meat bird chicks. We order Jumbo Plymouth Cross Rock chickens, straight run. These birds are nothing short of amazing. They are a hybrid, bred from 5 or so chicken gene pools. Their most striking traits include the following:
Their primary interest is eating. They eat voraciously whenever there is food available. We usually pick up their food at night so they will sleep; otherwise they eat all night. I don't think the Colonel is so considerate...
They reach full-size (~ 5 lbs. fully dressed) in 8 weeks +- 1 week. Which is great, because in 8 weeks, we go through 40 lbs of grain, 150 lbs papaya, and 50 lbs of rice, so we are ready to stop feeding them!
After 7 or 8 weeks, they get a little heavy for their legs also, and risk dislocation of their joints or actually breaking their legs. They can also develop heart and lung problems if you let them go too long before 'harvesting' (a popular euphemism for butchering, which I guess sounds too real).
They have fewer feathers than your typical barnyard bird, easing the plucking operation.
They stay indoors in a brooder for the first 3-4 weeks, then we put them out in their pen. At that point, we call them 'lunches.' Later, when they start to resemble roasted chicken on legs, they are 'dinners.' But right now, the nuggets are cute little yellow chicks, just like Easter.

With every order from Murray McMurray Hatchery, we get a free rare exotic chick. The surprise bird. That's how we got Fop. That's how we got Speckle. This batch's free one is black with a yellow spot on its head and a yellow butt. We think it's a Cuckoo Moran. Which would be great, even if it's a roo, because we can cross it with an Americana and get some more olive-eggers! Yay!

"Help! I've fallen and I can't get up (but I've still got the )!"

The title of this blog is the chicken-farm-run-by-old-ladies version of the famous saying, "Help, I've fallen and I can't get up." (If you haven't heard that one, you've been living in a foreign country and I can't help you there....) A few examples will help clarify:

True story:

The day our 6-month old bulldog/Heeler puppy got spayed, she came home VERY drowsy. She staggered to her feet in the evening, like she needed to pee. So I let her walk down the ramp (how stupid - it's a long ramp) to the back, which is some grassy area, but mostly lava rock, as I watched from the comfort of my deck in my bathrobe. Somehow, in my tiny brain, I thought she would go to the bottom of the ramp, tinkle, and come right back up. Noooooo, she hit the yard, and kept on going. Until she was in the middle of the lava field. And then, the sleepyhead just sat down, fell over, and fell asleep! I panicked! Threw my garden slippers on, (these are open-toed crocs) and ran out to where my little 45-lb baby was stranded in the dark lava field. Without thinking, (not that I've been thinking at all during this story yet) I scooped her up in my arms.  Whoa.... Big mistake. I became top-heavy, couldn't maintain my footing, and crashed to the hard, sharp, lava ground. Ouch! But Panter was securely buffered from the fall by my body, and I wasn't letting her go. I hollered to Pat, "Help, I've fallen, and I can't get up, but I've got the dog!"

Another true story (repeated many times):

Chickens are clever in some ways, and stupid in others. Some chickens just want to escape. Even if there are big dogs outside the pen, and the food is inside the pen. Every now and then, one of the chickens will escape into the yard. Then we have to catch it before the dogs do, or it goes into the next batch of dog food. It's pretty entertaining, watching Pat and I run around the yard after a chicken. They are faster than you think. Anyway, there are a few spots where we trap them, corners by the pens, garden latticework area, etc. Problem is, they are also the places where we (and this is the 'we' that means Pat) have to get down and crawl into the corner and lurch after the chicken to grab her, preferably with both hands. Think about it...have you ever crawled backwards out of a tight space without using your hands? So, after lunging, Pat is laying there in the bushes, can't get up or move backwards, with a firm grasp on the chicken, and she says to me, "Help me, I've fallen and I can't get up, but I've got the chicken!"