Chick Shopping in Late Winter

Our last batch of chicks were Buckeyes (reddish-brown), Buff Orpingtons (golden) and Cuckoo Marans (black and white).

My favorite shopping event just may be Chick Days at the local feed store.

In February, the store takes chick orders, and in early April, an employee drives to the hatchery to pick up chicks.

When we first ordered Buckeye chicks from a preservation center nearly 20 years ago, the chicks arrived by mail. The postal worker called me at 6 in the morning and said my chicks had arrived, and no, I did not have to wait until 8 a.m. when the post office opened to pick them up. After the mail delays I've experienced in the past six months, I wouldn't want to risk mail-order chicks.

For years, we kept 25-30 Buckeye hens and several roosters and raised our own chicks. Sometimes hens sat on eggs. Usually, we incubated a batch of eggs as in insurance policy. This resulted in a beautifully uniform flock and hens and roosters everywhere.

And then I got sucked into Chick Days.

(Okay, keeping a breeding flock is a lot of work and resulted in more roosters, eggs and work than I wanted to deal with. And shopping for chicks is just so much fun.)

Here are the Three Truths about Chick Days

1. There are so many chicken breeds and so little time. When I walk into the feed store, I tell myself that we are only getting 12 chicks, and Randy said he wanted more Buckeyes. Then, the clerk hands me pages of chicken breeds. The number of Buckeye chicks I'd planned to order dwindles to four.

At home, we have five hens: one Buckeye, one Cuckoo Maran and three Buff Orpingtons. I like the Cuckoo Maran and her lovely chocolate colored eggs. The Buff Orpingtons have a 100 percent survival rate on the farm. Somehow these golden hens have evaded foxes and hawks. I'd get both breeds again, but there are so many other choices.

2. Egg envy is real. A few years ago, a friend opened up her carton of eggs collected from her chickens. There, in the carton were chocolate brown, tan, light green, bluish green, white and brown eggs. It was a sight to behold. At home, my carton contained uniformly brown eggs (still quite beautiful, but quite monochrome).

3. A long, gray winter makes me seek color. Our hens free range in the sheep and horse pastures. I wanted hens that stand out against the grasses.

And, in the end, I went with colorful feathers over colorful eggs. Here's what I selected:

Four Buckeyes (mahogany feathers and brown eggs)

Two French Blue Copper Marans (slate gray with copper heads and necks, and dark brown eggs)

Two Silver Laced Wyandottes (black and white feathers and brown eggs)

Two Rhode Island Blue (a cross between Rhode Island Reds and the black Astralop and brown eggs)

Two Oliver Egger (a cross between Black Maran and Americana and green eggs). 

What would you choose? If you want to see the choices, check out the Mount Healthy Hatchery catalog.

The Cycle of Life: Hen Edition

I stopped counting at seven.

Where was number eight?

I opened the hen house door, hoping to get a better view. Three Buff Orpingtons, three Buckeyes and one Silver Laced Wyandotte lifted their eyelids. The hens had settled onto the roost for the evening and were slumbering. The other Silver Laced Wyandotte was nowhere to be found.

Could she be sitting on a nest somewhere? If she was, she'd make an appearance at feeding time in the morning.

She didn't show up in the morning.

The fox must be back.

Last summer, a fox killed six of our hens. I wanted to post a sign telling the fox to eat bunnies, but leave the chickens alone. But foxes can't read. Instead, we built the chicken enclosure and surrounded it with electric netting.

After several months, hoping the fox had gone elsewhere, we let the hens out to free range again. For months, the hens have delighted in roaming the sheep and horses pastures, plucking dandelions, worms and bugs.

We had no losses until a few days ago. After a hen went missing, I confined the others to their fenced-in run and pondered how to outfox the fox.

A few days later, I found black and white chicken feathers in the horse paddock.

Maybe it wasn't a fox. Maybe it was a hawk.

Last summer, my friend told me how she saw a hawk swoop into the horse paddock and carry off a pigeon.

I wish the hawk would take all the pigeons, I thought at the time.

A few years ago, some pigeons escaped from a nearby farm, took up residence in our big barn and multiplied rapidly. Our pigeon eradication program--involving a gun and lots of arm flapping, yelling and running around the lofts was unsuccessful. This spring, we resorted to covering all of the hay and equipment with tarps to protect them from pigeon droppings.

While standing in the horse paddock, examining the chicken feathers, I realized that the pigeons were gone.

Had the hawk, upon running out of pigeons, swooped into the paddock, picked up the chicken, eaten it and said, "Hmmm, tastes like squab?"

Sometimes I think we paint our barns red, install four-board fences and plant flowers to distract from the messiness of farm life and nature. Birds and animals have to eat, and sometimes that means eating other birds and animals.

Try as I may, I cannot tell the wild animals to leave their claws off of the domestic ones. Nature doesn't work that way.

So,when I let the hens free range and roam free, I accept that one or more may die. When that happens, I confine them for a month or two, hoping the predator moves on and they can roam free again.

For now, the hens will remain confined to their small chicken run. In a month or two, I'll let them out, and in the evening, I'll count them. When I stop at six, then the confinement begins again.

There's Always That One

The pullet flock was happy to go outside this week.

The 8-week-old pullets are too big to confine in their pullet house, and too small to free range with the six adult hens.

So, my solution was, as it frequently is, to add more fencing.

Knowing they will be adult size in a few months, I went for the quick method, building a temporary fence around their pullet house. It allowed them to go outside, but kept the adult hens out.

Experience has taught me that not all my solutions are brilliant, and not all work. Erring on the side of caution, I kept the adult hens confined to the hen house on Wednesday and then let the pullets outside.

By day's end, three pullets were too chicken to go outside; five were enjoying their new digs; and five had proven that they were like mice, and able to squeeze through my fence.

I spent the evening catching pullets, and the following day planning for a grander temporary fence.

On Friday, I made a second attempt at pullet confinement. After completing the fence, I let the pullets outside. Within minutes all were outside, scratching for bugs and plucking weeds. At day's end, 12 pullets returned to their house and roosted.

And then there was this one, a Cuckoo Maran, who was in the sheep pasture, cooing, "Don't fence me in."

I wasn't going to argue with her.

Chicken Little

The Buckeyes are okay with snow. The
Wyandotte? Meet our newest barn
resident.

When the snow started falling Saturday morning, two Buckeye hens peered out of the chicken coop and opted to stay inside where it was dry, and food and water were plentiful.

Three other Buckeye hens and the Silver Laced Wyandotte did what they also do; they ventured out to roam the pastures and visit the sheep and horse barn where they were sure to find bits of grain and seeds among the hay chaff.

As the snow continued to fall, they lazed and scratched under the barn's lean-to. When the sun began setting, they noticed the wide swath of snow that separated them from their chicken coop.

Collectively they decided that could not walk through 5 inches of snow, and it was certainly too great a distance to fly. Allowing me to catch and carry them was also out of the question.

And so, as the afternoon faded into evening, I walked back and forth from the chicken coop to the barn, stomping the snow and creating a path for the chickens. They refused to leave the barn.

I, though, was cold and hungry and more than willing to leave the barn. I'd return in a few hours when they were roosting, grab them and carry them to the coop.

But, when I checked the hen house a few hours later, I found all five Buckeye hens on their roost and snoozing. The Silver Laced Wyandotte was by roosting by herself in the barn. Unlike the Buckeyes, she refused to put her dainty chicken claws in the snow.

Now, days later, the Buckeyes are okay with the snow and happily traverse the path from the coop to the barn. But that Wyandotte remains in the barn, waiting for the snow to melt.

Walk in the snow? No thank you,
I'm a chicken.

7 Years and 2 Nuts

Sometimes that moment of wonder is years in the making.

In the fall of 2011, I planted several buckeye nuts in the front yard. Maybe, just maybe, I'd have my own buckeyes in five years.

In the summer of 2012, I marveled at my baker's dozen of seedlings.

When the seedlings survived another year, I thinned them out and kept two: an heir and a spare.

This summer, I have my first harvest: two nuts.

They'll go in my pocket, I think, and be my lucky buckeyes.

The Year of the Rooster

Blame it on the sheep minerals. This past winter, I was standing in line at the hardware store to pay for the minerals and saw the flyer for Chick Days.

There were photos of Buckeyes, Buff Orphingtons, Silver Laced Wyandottes, Rhode Island Reds and more. Usually we incubate our Buckeye chicken eggs. But here was a chance to get Buckeye chicks and maybe even try another chicken breed.

I left the hardware store with a mineral tub and an order receipt for 18 Buckeye and 6 Silver Laced Wyandotte chicks, straight run.

When ordering chicks, you can order all females, all males or straight run. With the heavier or rarer chicken breeds, buyers are only offered straight run, or as hatched. That's what we were offered, so we’d have a mix of roosters and hens.

The Silver Wyandotte rooster distinguished himself first. At  nine weeks old, his red comb was larger than the hens and he challenged the other chickens. A few weeks later, he attempted to crow.

“The Wyandottes must mature faster than the Buckeyes,” I mused as I scanned the flock, trying to pick out the young Buckeye roosters, who had yet to grow long tail feathers and to crow.

A few weeks ago, the Wyandotte rooster went to a friend's farm, and the noises from the chicken house ceased.

The chickens are four months old now—and none crow. They all look alike.

“I don’t think we got a straight run,” I tell my husband. 

In the Year of the Rooster, we have no roosters.

An Impulsive Chicken Moment

"24 Buckeye chicks," I told the owner of the country hardware store on Saturday morning.

My husband and I have kept a flock of Buckeye chickens for 13 years now. Every year we incubate eggs, and often a hen raises a few chicks. Because we've seldom brought in an outside rooster, the flock has considerable inbreeding.

Buckeye hen with 2-week-old chicks.

Noticing the local hardware store was taking chick orders and that Buckeyes were on the list, I suggested ordering chicks this year and adding them to the flock.

While ordering the chicks, I glanced over other chicken breeds available.

"No wait," I said. "Make that 18 Buckeye chicks."

Photo by Mt. Healthy Hatchery.

"And six Silver-Laced Wyandottes," I said. "We'll add some more color to the farm."

No Longer the Only Ones

For years, roosters in the countryside around us were an oddity.

Few people kept farm flocks of chickens, and even fewer kept roosters.

One of our Buckeye roosters

The case for keeping hens is easy: fresh eggs with golden-orange yokes. The case for keeping roosters is harder: they don't lay eggs and often attack. But I like watching roosters strut around the pastures and listening to the roosters crow. And, if we want chicks, we need roosters to fertilize the eggs. So we always keep a few roosters.

Because we live in the flat lands, the roosters' crows roll across the countryside, carrying for up to a mile. Their crows join the cacophony of birdsong, hawk calls and cricket chirps in the early morning hours.

This summer, though, the sounds changed. When my roosters crowed, they got a response, first from a farm to the north of us, and later, from a farm to the east. The sounds caused me to stop walking.

I stood in the pasture, looked at the stars that had yet to fade, and listened to the call and response. 

We were no longer the only ones with roosters.

The Zucchini Solution

Mama Hen and her three chicks inspect a tomato, their first of the season.

Because it is summertime, and I have a garden and a flock of chickens, I am a picky produce eater.

When I find three zucchinis that grew a foot overnight, I don't make them into bread or mix them with cheese and bread crumbs. I simply break them in two and toss them over the fence to the chickens who cluck in delight.

Is that cucumber past its prime? Over the fence to the chicken yard it goes.

Tomato have a spot on it? The mama hen and chicks will love it.

In my Before Chicken years I felt compelled to use or give away everything I grew in the garden. The 2-ft. long zucchinis and bushels of tomatoes that I had no time to process took away the joy of gardening and eating fresh produce.

But now that I have chickens, I take joy in tossing the excess and damaged produce over the fence and watching them gobble it up. And, I can savor the six-inch tender zucchini, the perfectly ripe tomato, the crunchy, snack-sized cucumber.

...And There Goes the Weekend

I walked into the hen house tonight, and two fluffy yellow heads and one watchful hen greeted me.

When I returned with a camera, one chick had buried itself under its mama. The other one was cautious, but curious.She kept peeking out from under her mama's wing.

Mama Hen will stay on her nest for another day or so, until she's sure there are no more chicks to hatch. After hatching, chicks can survive 72 hours without food and water. This allows Mama Hen to stay on her nest and complete the hatch.

Inside the house, I have another distraction--11 hot chicks in the bathroom.

I had placed eggs in the incubator, and the chicks began hatching on Tuesday morning. In a few days, I'll repace the newspaper with cedar shavings and soon, they'll go to the chick house.

But for this weekend, I will be taking a break from planting the garden, from cleaning the horse barn, from weeding the flowerbed, from mowing the pastures, to watch the chicks.

Llama Love

When we were considering a llama as a sheep guardian a decade ago, people advised to get one llama, not two.

A single llama will bond with the sheep; two llamas will bond with each other.

For a decade now, Llambert the Llama has watched over the barnyard and pastures. He's learned who belongs and who doesn't. He raises neither a lip nor twitches an ear when he sees our dogs in the yard, but a visitor's dog sends him into alert mode.

And, he's learned to tolerate the Buckeye chickens who roam the farm and think nothing of hopping on his back.

Or maybe they've come to an agreement: a soft, warm roost in exchange for a back massage.

No Slumber Parties for Him

When I returned from the early morning dog walk, Trick the Cat was not perched on the picnic table and awaiting his morning meal.

Now 8 years old, the muscular tabby is a man of routine. He comes to the house for breakfast, takes a nap in the barn, then hunts the fields and barns for mice, birds and rabbits.

I didn't think much of his absence until a few hours later when I went outside to do the morning chores.

His cat food was untouched and he was not in the barn. I hoped he'd gotten locked in a building--and made a note to look for him.

But I didn't need to do that. As I approached the chicken house, I heard his insistent cry. He marched out when I opened the door.

Instead of "thank you," he said, "what took you so long?"

On his evening patrol, he must have gone hunting in the chicken house.

Because chicken food attracts sparrows and mice, Trick

routinely patrols the chicken yard and house.

 When closing the chicken door at dark, I didn't see him so he spent the night with the hens, a few roosters and probably a few unlucky mice.

Did he curl up in a nesting box, snug and secure? Did he stay up talking to the murmuring hens? Did he bat at the roosters' tail feathers?

He is not saying.

But when I took the dogs on their early walk this morning, he was perched at the picnic table, awaiting his morning meal.

That Sweet Spot

Walking into the barnyard in the morning light, I hear bleating--softer and higher pitched than the demanding ewes.

Lambs! Four of them, scattered around the barnyard.

But that can't be, I argued with myself.

October, September, August, July, June...

Counting the months backwards finally rouses me awake. But it took me a few more minutes to settle from the nightmare.

I love lambing season--but I also am reveling in these carefree November days.

We are in that sweet spot of the year when our livestock numbers are down--and I'm carrying very little hay and water.

The lambs went to market last month, and we sold the two rams earlier this month. No longer do we deliver water to the lamb pasture, the breeding ewe pasture, the ram pen, the dry ewe pasture.

The 15 remaining ewes and the llama all hang out together. With pasture still available and a warmer-than-usual fall, that means I deliver one five-gallon bucket of water to the sheep daily.

The winter flock. No, the one playing the wheelbarrow game is not a ram; she's a ewe. I checked--multiple times.

The horses, too, are able to graze the pasture at night. During the day, they receive only one flake of hay each.

Earlier this fall, we sent the young roosters to the butcher and merged the young chicken flock with the old chicken flock. We're only delivering food and water to one group.

That means chores take 15 minutes, morning and night. And most of that time is spent playing with the barn kitty.

These carefree days will end soon, when freezing temperatures arrive and I become the ice breaker. Eventually pastures will be grazed down and I'll become the hay hauler. And the 15 minutes will become 20, then 25 and 30.

For now, though, I'll enjoy it--and try to avoid those sheep dreams.

Chick Freedom Day

Mama Hen hatched her chicks in the lamb pen about 3 weeks ago.

Every day, I gave them food and water and watched as they scratched and pecked in the 6 x 6 stall.

But Mama Hen grew restless.She wanted to rejoin the flock and roam the pastures and barnyard, looking for bugs and worms.

Every day she flew to the top rail of the stall and beckoned her chicks to follow.

But their wings are small and four feet is too high for them to fly.

They cheeped and called their mother back to them.

Last night, when darkness settled, we gave Mama Hen more freedom.

We moved her to the Young Chick house where the 9-week-old chicks are living.

"They're big enough to venture into the Young Chicken Yard," I tell the spouse. "Mama Hen will keep cats at bay."

Today, Mama Hen is happy. She's taking her three chicks around the chicken yard, eating bugs and greens.

Meanwhile, the juvenile chicks remain huddled in the Young Chick House, terrified of Mama Hen and her chicks.

Respecting the Mama

The lambs are just a week old, but they've already learned to listen to mama--both the one with fur and the one with feathers.

The chickens roam the pastures and paddocks on the farm.The lambs learn at an early age to ignore them.

Sometimes a hen will hop on a ewe's back. Often in the afternoons, the hens and ewes snooze together under the overhang.

When the hen jumped into the lamb pen, mama ewe  paid her no attention. The lambs followed mama ewe's lead--and another generation of chicken-sheep coexistence begins.

The Chickens in the Sheep Shed

My Buckeye chickens are happiest when they're roaming the pastures searching for bugs, grass and seeds.

When it snows and temperatures drop, their range shrinks.

Lately they've spent their days with the sheep, who opt to hang out by the barn rather than browse snow-covered pastures.

The chickens search around the hay feeders for seeds and choice alfalfa leaves that might have fallen to the ground.

The sheep while away the afternoons, ruminating and napping in the sun.

The ewes don't seem to mind the resourceful hen who inspects their backs for stray alfalfa leaves.

Signs of Spring

I spent the last day of February cross country skiing and moving more hay into the livestock barn.

Though the ground is snow-covered and more snow is on its way, it felt like spring.

The birds are singing, and I saw a Great Blue Heron flying overhead. The house wrens are scouting out the Christmas wreath hanging on the front door.

And, in the hen house, the chickens are back to laying eggs, not lots yet, but more than an occasional one.

You'll have to trust me on the eggs. This determined hen did not want to get up and show off the eggs.

Loose hairs cover the shedding horses.

They need haircuts and a good grooming, but with below-normal temperatures forecast this week, I leave the hair be.

The sheep, too, are showing the tell-tale sign of spring on our farm -- fibers on the fence.

Not all that falls is snow...

The sub-freezing weather hit this week, and I'm breaking ice from buckets and feeding hay, lots of hay.

Most mornings and evenings, I'm pulling another bale from the stack.

While reaching for the far bale in the corner, I'm counting bales. Is there enough hay to get through the week or do I need to move some from the hay storage barn?

Eggs fall on my shoulders.

For more than a week now, while I've been in the warm indoors, a hen has flown over the stall gate and laid eggs on the hay bale.

Lucky for me, it is 3 degrees and the eggs froze long ago.

Is the hen really planning to hatch chicks in January? Or, is she like the cats, the dogs, the humans and horses -- bored and looking for a little excitement in the cold, dark month of January?

She is not around, so I cannot ask her.

Instead, I gather the frozen eggs.

I will defrost them one at a time, and the dogs shall have a January treat.

The Shortest Day

The sun came out to celebrate the shortest day.

I reveled in sunshine as I moved hay.

Dewey Kitty and Trick enjoyed watching from above.

Meanwhile, Nik the pup, played in the mulch pile.

And the hay.

When she found my glove, she snatched it and ran around the yard.

She finally surrendered it for a treat.

On the shortest day, the hen supervised from her perch on the stall door, while the horses looked on.

Raven, the Border Collie, herded sheep -- but had no photos taken because I can't direct and shoot at the same time.

Meanwhile, Caeli and Tag wrestled and played and rolled in the grass. Their paws reached for the sun.

And the chickens, they searched for bugs and grass, and settled for scratch grain.

A Conversation in the Hen House

At dusk, the hens retreat to the hen house and murmur as they settle in for the night.

I'm not sure what they're saying, but this fall, I suspect the conversation is going something like this.

Old Hen 1: Did you see what that young one did today? She went and laid an egg.

Old Hen 2: Drat! That means no eight-week holiday from egg laying for us.

Old Hen 1: Guess we'll have to produce a few eggs each day... It'll save us from the stew pot.

And a few weeks later...

Old Hen 1: Those young ones keep laying eggs.

Old Hen 2: Yeah, but they're itty-bitty eggs.

Old Hen 1: We could do better.

Old Hen 2: Yeah, we'll show them.

Yesterday, on the first day of December, this is what we collected from the hen house.