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*

Speckle hits the big time!

Speckle has landed a part in off-off-off-Broadway! The scout came by two days ago and picked her right up. She is now rehearsing and you will see her soon at the Aloha Theatre starring in "Women Behind Bars", as Rosarita, the cellmates' chicken! Speckle is our young, black and white, mild mannered, chicken of yet undetermined sex. Heshe was the free exotic chick thrown in with the 24 meat birds we received from Murray McMurray hatchery 9 weeks ago. And now she will be a starlet! Well, I hope that:

1. They treat her well in Hollybird.
2. They bring her home afterward (it was only a loan, and she is lovable).
3. She doesn't expect too much worship when she gets home, being a star and all - she's gonna get the same food as the rest of the chickens!

We miss her....

I love my gel toes!

You may be wondering, "What does that have to do with chickens?" It's more about 'What's behind the feathers!" I believe, and I am not alone, that a woman need not sacrifice glamour to work on her farm. It does take some effort, however. One of my major problems regards my toenails. I get a pedicure every month. The nail polish takes approximately 24 hours to really dry firm. Within that 24-hour period, my dogs usually step on my toes, I cannot put my boots on or the nails become 'textured,' etc. Last week, I was scheduled for a pedicure, but we were also scheduled to butcher some roosters immediately afterwards. I am NOT going to butcher roos in my slippers (Hawaiian for flip-flops)! So I gave in, went the extra mile and got 'gel toes.' Gel toes are getting gel polish on your toenails. This is a UV-light cured treatment that is immediately hard as nails. Costs extra, and I always thought it was extravagant on toes, but... I could put my boots on right away!  And they are beautiful!  See for yourself:

Of course, while we were at it, we added some glittery bling! I am now addicted! Gel toes every month for me! I'll just work extra or sell more eggs, or whatever!  Whee! And, they are dog and chicken-proof. Doesn't get better than that.

More Dog Food in the Freezer!

One thing about chickens... if you let them lay eggs and breed indiscriminately, you get a lot of roosters. A modest chicken farm doesn't need a lot of roosters. Of the eggs we have incubated, 70% have been roosters. Our friend has chickens on her property, and most of them are.. you guessed it.. roosters! We prefer to eat our young Jumbo Cross Rock Chickens than roosters, but our dogs are not as particular! Dress a rooster and throw it in the pressure cooker, debone it, and it becomes the protein in a big batch of dog food for our 4 big hounds.  The hard part is catching and butchering the roos. Well, we went to our friend's this am, and she had closed up the coop after dinner last night and managed to catch 7 roosters and 3 hens in the coop. We rounded them up, and now have three new hens in with Speckle, and 7 roosters in our freezer.

Dog Food recipe:

3 lbs of ground grass-fed beef, boiled or 1 rooster, stewed or 2 lbs of organ meat, stewed and chopped
1 big bunch of greens, preferably kale or collards, but any will do, chopped and steamed
7 cups cooked brown rice
3 lbs pumpkin or sweet potato, cooked an chopped
1 tblsp cinnamon
1 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tbl basil or oregano or rosemary
Hot water from the cooking for consistency.

Our lab was 120 lbs and bad hips. On this diet, she got to eat a lot, and is now down to a good 80 lbs.  Been on it for 8 years now.  For young dogs, we sometimes mix it with high grade kibble.

The Marys got a bad rap!

I was so smart. I had it all figured out. The Marys, or one or two of them at least, were the brown egg breakers in the big pen! I had caught them red (or yellow-yolked) beaked one day - two of them, munching away on an egg in the nest. And there was, usually, a light blue or green egg in where the residue (proof of the crime) was. Thus my theory: the Marys didn't want to lay their eggs with the brown ones, so they just ate them, or broke them and threw them out, and laid their pretty blue ones in their place.Made sense to me. That's why, if you have been following this silly chicken soap opera, I moved all 5 Marys into the new pen (Junior's pen), away from the bulk of the brown egg layers, and where there are lots of nice new nests.

Problem solved.

And today..... in the big pen.... where there are no Marys... pecked open biggest brown egg in the nest! Right under blacktail - one of our little brown egg layers. That would be yolk on MY face. I had to go over and, yes, apologize to the Marys for blaming them and being so irritable at them. But now, I still have a mystery.......

Was it blacktail? She was sitting the wrong way in the box (is there a right way?). Or was it someone else? How do I find out, short of isolating the hens one-by-one?

18 eggs today
1 broken
1 from Dilly's pen
4 from Jr's pen (3 blue from the Mary's and WT's brown)
12 from the big pen

How many hens in the big pen?
2 angels
3 blues
5 reds
blacktail
whitetail
blacky
goldy
5 new ones (Vera's - 2 may be Roos)
Total: 19

I sure have a lot of non-producers! We are going to go get them some fruit tomorrow - papaya - that should cheer them up!

Wild Thing Escapes!

We arose early this AM, 6 or so, and ran down to see how the flocks were faring. The big pen was doing okay. All the new hens were milling around, the big ones (current residents) were chasing the new, smaller ones around, but not inflicting much harm, just being bossy.We did a head count, and.... Wild Thing was missing! That's impossible! Nothing gets in the pen; nothings gets out of the pen. We looked in the coop, high and low, in the tree, in the bush, in the compost box, in the corners, on top of the ladder, under the nest boxes...no Wild Thing.  We were flummoxed. Until Pat saw her wandering around outside, trying to get back into her old pen! We had misunderstood her standoffishness. Thinking she was lonely, we moved her to a more social environment. But she was really the top of the pecking order and wanted to stay that way! Even though we had moved 4 bigger chickens into that old pen of hers, we caught her, and just popped her back in her old pen. (Junior's Pen) The chief of the 5 Marys immediately challenged her and they bumped chests for a few minutes - totally hilarious - Wild Thing was smaller but wouldn't give up and puffed herself up as big as she could! The Mary backed down, and Wild Thing is now back in her rightful place. We chicken 'experts' (hear my sarcasm) got that one all wrong! She went right up to the next boxes and laid us an egg. Thank you, WT.

Another day, another drama... Chicken Soap Opera at its best.
Sue