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 Fragility of a Single Egg

When you have five hens, and it is winter, and cloudy days stack up one on top of the other until they reach 10 in a row, eggs are a rarity.

On some days, I find no eggs. On others, I find one, never two or three or four.

Protecting that single egg seems so much harder than a clutch of eggs.

In the summertime, when eggs are plentiful, I place them in a coffee can that also serves as my vessel for carrying scratch grain, horse feed and sheep minerals.

But a single egg gets lost in a coffee can. It's easily overlooked and, if lucky, left on the counter in the barn or a fence post. If unlucky, it's knocked over or covered in grain.

A single egg fits neatly in a winter coat pocket, where it's forgotten until hit with firewood or a flake of hay.

When I find a single egg, I cup it in my palm and carry it to the barn where I look for a safe spot to place it while I finish evening chores.

I don't place it on the counter in the barn where a slightly bored and always hungry cat would bat it around, until it fell to the ground and became cat food.

Instead, I nestle it in a bird's nest that I found in the yard and kept because it was lined with pony hair, and I found it charming.

A chicken egg looks ridiculous in the tiny nest.

But I always notice it as I'm turning out the barn lights in the evening. I carry it into the house and place it in the egg carton.

I have six single eggs now--enough for an omelet.

A Golden Reminder

 Counting chickens is easy these days.

We're down to five: three Buff Orpingtons, one Cuckoo Maran and one Buckeye. (Yes, I'm eyeing the chick calendar for more in the spring, but that's a story for another day).

A month ago I took down the poultry netting around the chicken yard because the area had become a muddy mess and poultry netting sags under the weight of snow. I hoped that whatever was munching on my chickens had been discouraged by the electrified netting and changed her hunting patterns.

"Go free," I told the hens as I opened the gate to the chicken yard and allowed them access to the sheep pasture. If I lost another hen, I'd close them back up in the chicken yard.

The hens went about their merry way, pecking and scratching. In the afternoon, they hung out in the barn and clucked at me for scratch grain. 

When I went in the barn yesterday, only four clucked at me.

A Buff Orpington was missing.

So, I did my walkabout, looking for feathers and wondering what got her.

I found no feathers and found no hen.

Could she possibly be laying an egg?

At this time of year, with short days, the hens don't lay eggs often. I was averaging an egg a day earlier this month, but hadn't found any eggs for over a week. I lifted the lid to the nesting box, and found no hen nor no egg.

So, I went about my chores, bummed that I'd lost another hen and that I'd have to confine them to their chicken yard. While walking the dogs in the fading afternoon light, I looked toward the chicken house and saw three Buff Orpingtons. Where had she been hiding out?

After feeding the dogs, I went back to the chicken house where the hens were roosting for the night, and counted five chickens.

The chicken house has nesting boxes on both sides.

Then, I walked to the side of the chicken house that houses nesting boxes that the hens haven't used for over a year--and that I haven't checked for weeks. There I found 10 eggs, including one that was clean and still warm. Apparently the hens (wanting a change of scenery?) had walked across the chicken house and chosen a new nesting box, and for the past few weeks had been laying eggs there.

The Buckeye hen in the nesting box.

And, so I was reminded on this late December day, when the sun rarely shines bright and always sets too soon, and when a pandemic dampens the holidays, that there are glimmers of hope and joy--even if it comes as finding the "missing" golden hen and eggs.

Merry Christmas all!

 

 

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.

Set Free: The Broken Legged Hen Saga Continues

We had no release party.

But the sun was shining, the snow was melting, and temperatures were climbing into the 30's. Even our fair-weather Wyandottes chickens ventured outside the hen house.

Now in approximately week six of her confinement, the Broken Legged Hen was tired of her 8 by 8-foot stall, and I was tired of feeding her separately from the others.

"Be free," I said, opening her stall door.

Then I left the barn and took the Border collies on their morning dog walk. When I returned, the stall was empty.

From a distance, the Broken Legged Hen looks no different than the other Buckeye hens. Up close, her now-healed broken leg is thicker--and she walks with a limp.

She settled back into her routine of hanging out with the two Haflinger horses. Either she'd forgotten that a horse hoof broke her leg, or she didn't care.

At night, rather than joining the other hens in the hen house, she settled into the corner of the horse stall.

When the horses were fed, she was there to snatch up loose bits of grain.

I've given up arguing with her.

The horse stall is where she wants to be.

And I will let it be.

Preparing for Act 2

The snow gave way to mud today, and I prepared for Winter: Act 2.

The only certainty about Ohio winters is that just when you think you can't stand another day of mud, or snow, or freezing temperatures, it gives you something else.

So, after a few weeks of below freezing temperatures, it gave overcast skies, 53-degree temperatures, and mud.

I spent the day cleaning up from The Freeze and preparing for The Snowstorm.

That involved moving more hay from the storage barn to the sheep and horse barn.

And removing 2+ weeks of manure from the horse stalls and loafing shed.

And musing at the chickens. The Buckeyes ventured out and about during The Freeze. The Silver Laced Wyandottes opted to hang out in the hen house until the snow melted.

I moved more firewood indoors and cleaned out the wood-burning stove. And, of course, I worked the Border  collies, who think The Freeze or The Snowstorm is a silly excuse to spend time indoors.

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.

The Problem Child

With dogs, sheep, horses, chickens, a llama and cats, finding a house sitter can be a challenge.

When  leaving for vacation, I write detailed instructions for the house sitter, noting which dogs are snarky with each other and which horse is the master escape artist.

I worry about Raven, the Border collie, not coming when called; and about Lily, the Haflinger, being pushy.

The care list for the sheep, llama, horses, chickens, dogs and cats goes on for two pages.

But when we left on vacation, I never anticipated Dewey Kitty being the problem child.

On the second day of vacation, we received a text about Dewey Kitty opening the bedroom door and pouncing on the house sitter in the night. She reported she was putting a chair by the door so that he couldn't come in. Instead, he threw himself against the closed door at  night.

The next message reported Dewey Kitty darting outside in the middle of the night and not coming when called.

And then of him ringing the bell by the back door, asking to be let out. When the house sitter opened the door, he looked outside and then walked to the dining room.

In just days, Dewey Kitty had gone from being a sweet, smart cat to a royal pain. When we returned home, the house sitter was giving Dewey Kitty the evil eye. Dewey was plotting how he'd steal her lunch.

With us home, Dewey settled into his routine.

And the house sitter sought revenge. I received this cat video from her.

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."

The Chicken Wars

Getting chickens to accept a new home is easy.
Just move them to the coop at night.
When they awake, they'll know it's their new home,
and they'll return to roost in the evening.

Unless they don't.

For the past few weeks, I've battled the chicken wars.

We have two chicken coops on the farm. With winter approaching, I thought it best to move them to the larger, more weather-tight hen house. On a moonlit night, I carried each hen to her new home. A few murmured as I placed them on their roosts in the coop, but most dozed through the process.

In the morning, I let the chickens of their new coop, and they foraged, wandered and found the horse and sheep barn to their liking.

That night three returned to the hen house.
Two perched on the horse stall doors.
Seven took up residence in the ram pen.
Five huddled in the horse's stall.
Two nested in the sheep stall.

By moonlight, I moved them to their coop.The following morning, I fed them in the hen house and waited until mid-morning to let them out. That evening, I again found the chickens nesting in the sheep/horse barn.

Maybe I need to make the chicken house more inviting.
Maybe they need more time to acclimate to the coop.

After cleaning out the coop. I spread new wood shavings on the floor, and then gave them an extra bag of shavings for good measure. I left the chickens in the coop for three days. Before letting them out, I closed the doors to the ram stall and the sheep stall.

That night, 13 chickens returned to the chicken coop. Five found the open door to the horse stall. My husband and I gathered the five and returned them to the chicken house.

Last evening, before dusk, my husband closed all the doors to the barn, so the sheep, horses and chickens could not enter.

All hens are now sleeping in the hen house. The sheep and horses are sleeping outside, under the stars.

I am certain the chicken wars are not over.

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.

Venturing into the Garden

This is what my garden looks like after three weeks of high temperatures and humidity followed by one week of rain (4 inches), heat and even more humidity.

The weather broke this morning, and I ventured into the jungle.

There have been years when I've given up on the garden in mid-August. Instead of reaching for a hoe, I get out the mower.

But I was feeling optimistic this morning. A drop in temperature and humidity can do that.

I weeded the raised bed, and then sowed lettuce and pea seeds.

Then I moved onto harvesting. When picking cucumbers, I found Mr. Toad.

 He agreed to smile for the camera.

When picking tomatoes, I heard a demanding cluck. The hens know that when I'm in the garden, they get the split tomatoes, the overripe cantaloupe, the foot-long zucchini.

I tossed the hen a few split cherry tomatoes and watched her swallow it whole.

Soon, she had friends.The beggars were in luck. Heavy rainfall during tomato season usually causes the tomatoes to split. I had lots of split tomatoes.

I still have plenty of weeds in the garden, and the potatoes are ready for harvest. But that will come another day.

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.

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.

The Roosters

I'm spending a lot of time walking backwards in the paddock and pastures these days, keeping my eye out for attacking roosters.

It is springtime, and the two Buckeye roosters have become quite territorial. While they're fine with the llama, sheep, horses and cats around the barn, they've decided I'm a threat, even though I feed them morning and night.

And yet, I keep them around, because I love hearing their crows morning, noon and evening; and I'd like chicks this spring.

And I keep them because, when I'm not fending them off, I find myself stopping to admire their feathers shimmering in the sunlight.

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.

Stop and Watch the...

It's easy to get caught up in the farm's endless "to-do" list. We spent the weekend, mowing, trimming, tilling the garden, weeding, removing thistles from the pastures, planting, cleaning stalls, vaccinating lambs...

But, every once in a while, I was reminded to stop and enjoy the farm. Mama Hen and her chicks were a constant source of entertainment.

Hatched six days ago in a lamb stall, they spend their days scratching and pecking. Here's Mama Hen giving a lesson.

Sometime another hen ventures into the stall.Mama Hen is quick to puff up, but then they settle into scratching and pecking again. Here's Mama Hen and the Intruder.

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.