New Chickens!

Chicks have arrived. We bought 20 "La Roux" meat birds from some neighbor farmers to raise birds here. They are as to be expected, cute, yellow, fluffy, and chirping. But, they are also going to be food.  So, we are caring for them with great respect and concern, because our lives are intertwined now.  If they are cared for, soon, we will be cared for, with real food. This is really the stage where the expression " Putting love into it" counts, because once they fed chemically altered and treated food, kept in cramped places, and treated disrespectfully when killed, there is no amount of loving that can bring that dead food back to life. What nurtures you when you eat it- the healthy mineral and vitamin content, the absence of chemicals, lean dark, tasty meat-  can only happen before you kill it. That is something that is very important to recongize becasue that is the truth of food. Good food is as a spiritual, emotional and psychological food as well. The process of creating food is part of the food itself. That is what wholesome is supposed to mean.

Attack Rooster 2011

The chickens are a constant source of entertainment.  I would like to publicly state I always say "thank you" for the eggs, and "Good Morning Chickens" when I let them out. I count them, to make sure everyone is present. But, despite my best attempts to be a top notch chicken czar, I do fall short every now and then.

A few days ago, I decided  to go check on the hen house- the usual- get the eggs, check their feed, and water. Well, because all the chickens are broody ( meaning they are getting ready for hatching chicks),  the rooster is protecting his ladies. And the hen house apparently ain't big enough for the two of us- so I close the door when I go in there, so that the chickens and rooster doesn't come in and give me hell. But this time, I forgot to open the door back up and they couldn't get back into the hen house.

That night it started raining, and getting cold ( it was right before the last snow storm).  I went out to make sure that everyone was safe and sound in the hen house and to batten down the hatches for the snow storm.
Well- none of the chickens could get in because I hadn't opened the door back up!

"Oopsy daisy" I think. And open up the door. They'll all just jump right back in.

I wait, and wait.  The chickens are not coming inside...maybe they don't know the door is open.  I stick my hand through the door and make some silly noises and wave my hand around.
BANG! ATTACK ROOSTER!
That didn't go well.

I try the flash light.
BANG!ATTACK ROOSTER WILL KILL THE INTRUDER!

Hmmm- this might not go as easily as I planned. And I have to get them in because there is a snow storm coming.  I conference with  people knowledgeable in the mysteries of chickens.
Apparently,  the chickens will not go anywhere, or do anything when its dark. They just want to stay huddled in a chicken pile, and not make any changes, on account of not knowing what might be out there in the dark.
I will have to pick up the chickens and put them back into the hen house.

O.k- I put on some heavy duty gloves, and get my flash light, and enlist Zeus, master herds-dog, to assist with the process.  I open the door to the hen yard, and to general clucking and some wiggling around, but no scattering of chickens, which is encouraging. Zeus guards the door while I go into the battle zone.

I grab the first chicken.  There is much clucking and flapping, but I shove her right into hen house and she stays put.  I grab another and do the same. Then the third. Things are going better then I thought they would.
Then, attack rooster catches on. And he is mad. He starts clucking, and honking and yelling at me. Then, he jumps up!  He is launching a full on attack with the feet!  I have nothing to defend myself with accept a chicken! Then, instinct takes over- I can not condemn, nor condone the actions which follow, because they where purely instinctual.
In a moment of panic, I throw the chicken at the rooster. It stops him dead in his tracks. The chicken and rooster land in a confused heap on the ground. It give me time to get a few more chickens into the hen house- and the rooster is sufficiently dazed that he wonders around for long enough for me to prepare for the next attack. I see him getting all puffed up, ready to attack intruders again, and grab a buffer chicken. I just hold her out, between me and the rooster- it seems like enough to deter the rooster from a full on attack.
There is only a few left, plus the rooster. I decide to just go for it and grab him. I sneak up behind him while he is starting to get suspicious of Zeus. He doesn't even see me coming, because now, he's got Zeus pegged as another intruder. BANG! I grab him, and he squirms around, but I hold my ground and shove him right in the hen house. The last few chickens go in with out a problem.

I gather up my flashlight, and close them in for the night, and promise to Zeus that I will never, ever put him and myself  through this particular type of nonsense again- if I can help it.

HUGE EGG!!!!!

This is the biggest chicken egg I have ever seen. It is at least three times as big as all the other eggs.  Somehow, it has become special to me, and I have not been able to eat it.... not without some sort of fitting ceremony for its massive ability to nourish whom ever it gets fed to.

Zeus in a hat, ready for the cold weather. ( He's very practical.)

Small Treasures

 Getting eggs in the morning is something that I love to do. Sometimes there is one or 2 eggs already by mid-morning,  and the other three or four come in the afternoon.  When I open up the door to the hen yard, its like chicken rush hour- they all want to go out this tiny little door at the same time and there are 16 chickens ( three really big ones). Sometimes 2 or 3 try to go out at the same time and don't fit. Obviously, this is a very funny thing to see every morning and I really love it.
Chickens also love to go into places that seem to be safe. They think the safest place to be is behind the door, however it is not safe at all so I  need to get all the chickens out from behind there when I close the hen house back up. When this happens, they act as if I am a horrible attacker,  and make all kinds of squabbling noises. They are very dramatic about everything. In a chickens mind, there is no such thing as "not a big deal."  Most everything that happens in their day is given very serious attention, and some sort of action is taken. My understanding of the chickens has come a long way. Jim has pointed out that at first I expected to much from the chickens, which is a  valid  point. But as I have watched them, I see that they do their chicken activities with precision, attention, and enthusiasm, and I have really come to respect that about them.

Egg glowing from sunlight coming in through the whole in the wall.

Classic egg organizing device.

Adjusting to the Chickens

This is the first time I have lived with chickens.  And they are shocking. A number of things have happened with the chickens.
This is one of the more dramatic chicken experiences:
When we first got the chickens, we mixed two flocks, and there where two little ones that didn't fit in. They got attacked and hassled all the time, so, as their guardian, I decided to keep them outside of the hen yard. I fed and watered them, seperatly, and made a little home for them in buckets placed on the side, filled with hay.  But, it didn't take....after about two weeks, one of them wandered off. They next day the other one did too. After two nights of them missing,  I enlisted Jim to help me find these missing chickens and bring them home.
Zeus, who is a sheepdog and a very good one at that took off on his own way.

We checked the neighbors chickens, and they weren't there.  So we mosied back over to the house and something obviously had gone awry.
Zeus was all worked up, and in the neighbors yard running around their porch.  When we had gone off to look for the chickens, Zeus did the same, but he had found them.
I went and got some food figuring I could coax them with some food and some nice cooing sounds.
When I arrived, with my plan and materials, I saw the situation had gotten completely out of control.
Zeus took it very seriously to get the chickens. So seriously he had bitten both of the chickens in the butt trying to get them to come out from under the porch.  The severity of the damages was not yet assessed , however, I feared the worse.
Jim pulled out the first chicken.......its was all bitten up, muscles showing, and real quiet, not even fighting.  I held that one while Jim pulled the next one out. She put up a little more of a fight, but was also really torn up and hurt.
I never had chickens before, but I knew these two were not going to make it.  You can imagine the rest- we killed them respectfully and quickly.
The next day, we had company, and cooked them up with some root vegetables. The meal came out very well.

I realized that being respectful of chickens is important, however, they are not puppies with feathers. I love caring for them, building a relationship with them. Killing  them is hard, but, in order for anyone to
eat meat, something has to die.

Adjusting to the Chickens Part 2: Chicken Medic

A few days ago some very alarming screeching and general panic and commotion erupted from the hen yard.  We let Zeus out, and he tore after whatever was causing all the trouble. After inspection of the hen yard, a hen was found with her neck pulled through the fencing. There is a fox that lives near by, and he had grabbed her by the neck and torn it up pretty badly.
She certainly looked dead, but when we went back out to go gather  her up, she wasn't there. Taken by the fox? There was no way for him to get her through the netting. She was alive and back in the hen house, nestled down in the corner. She was certainly hurt, but seemed alright.  I decided to keep an eye on her, and see if she would heal up.
Day 2:  I went in to the hen house to check on her. She is up and about, looking all right.

Day 3:  The chickens are pecking at her! I am disgusted and outraged at they they could do that to her. I talk with Jim about it, and he assures me that they are just chickens. However, I assure him that they may be chickens but they are, without a doubt a bunch of bastards.  She may have been doing allright, but now that the other chickens have been pecking at her, I  change into full on chicken medic and start setting up. She has her own recovery box, a dog create on the porch. The floor has a thick layer of wood shavings. I have a blanket to cover up the crate at night.  The crate is pointed south, so she has ample sunlight for healing up.
For eating she has: chicken feed, a rotten apple, turnip greens.  One of the most amazing mushrooms that grows wild here is called Chaga. It seems to cure people of cancer and all sorts of aliments, so I decided that it can't hurt her. I poured some warm tea on her neck, and mixed some into her water.


Things were rocky for the first day or two. She wasn't eating much. After about four days, she started looking good. I took her out to check her neck and it was all healed up! She was active and would try to get out of the dog crate when I opened it to check on her. That night I put her back in the hen house and she is doing great. A little strange looking with her neck feathers missing, but, healthy otherwise.