New Games

I've been on the road a lot for work lately, which means I still haven't been able to get started on the chicken tractor (maybe this weekend?).

In the meantime, the birdies have been getting a little cabin fever in their mini-coop. Pardon the expression, but to "kill two birds with one stone" I've been encouraging exploration and teaching them to follow me around by playing some games.

First it was Meal Worm Jackpot. That one is pretty simple - put a handful (or two) of dried meal worms in their feeder every morning as I called to them. It didn't take them long to realize I had the "chicken crack." No wonder the packaging says "watch them dance and peck in a frenzy" when you feed it! I tried hand feeding it too but that usually resulted in my fingers getting bitten (or is it pecked?).

Next it was Meal Worm Buffet. That one involved opening the door to the mini-coop and explore the area just outside. Throwing an ample amount of meal worms on the ground certainly helped.

The next challenge was to get them outside the stall area and into the barn aisle. Curiosity took over, but any time I walked by (or the horse nickered, or the cat sauntered into the feed room, or a crow called outside) the chickens would dart right back into their coop area. Capitalizing on the meal worm training I've been slowly expanding the chickens' exploration range by spreading more meal worms.

Which brings us to Barn Aisle Meal Worm Hunt. This fun little game combines exploration, scratching, dust bathing encouragement, and a healthy dose of positive reinforcement. Even better, I've got them headed in the right direction down the barn aisle so when the chicken tractor is built hopefully I can lead them out to the pasture rather than catch-and-carry for relocation.

The game is still pretty simple. First I get them out of the stall area.

Then I slowly start leading them down the barn aisle by tossing handfuls of dried meal worms. I find it interesting that it is usually one Wyandotte and the Australorp that take the role of lead explorer, getting more confident to follow me around.

Then it's not long until the main crowd of the Wyandottes, the Australorp, one Delaware, and the darker Ameraucana start skipping down the barn aisle looking for the end of the trail before settling in to peck and scratch. Meanwhile the other three are usually still hanging back at the first stage of the game.

I only let them out for an hour or so, then it's back to the coop when they aren't showing much interest in the meal worms anymore. I'm trying to reinforce verbal cues, calling "chick, chick, chick" when the meal worms appear and "psht, psht, psht" as I herd them back. Fingers crossed it will all transfer when I move them out to the chicken tractor and later introduce them to limited free-ranging.

Operation MiniCoop

Not to be confused with Mini Cooper.

The pullets have outgrown their brooders. I phased out the heat lamp about a week ago. They are big enough to knock over their waterer on a daily basis, and their chick feeders are getting filled up daily with litter. The last straw was yesterday's escape when I didn't tighten down the top netting well enough.

The problem is that for various reasons they are not ready/able to be moved into their permanent adult housing at this time. Among the pullets are thirteen birds I'm starting for other people. One, like me, doesn't have her full coop set up yet. The other has a bunch of older birds so these would have to remain separated for a few more months.

I have a pretty big horse barn, which includes one stall I've already converted to a coop for the meat birds. The logical thing would be to convert another stall to a coop, but I don't need anything quite that large. The solution - convert part of a stall to a sturdier chicken coop. I was planning on having something more storm-ready than a chicken tractor for my laying hens anyway.

Hence the MiniCoop!

First step was critter-proofing the stall windows with chicken wire.

Then I needed to build the fourth wall.

Stand it up and attach more chicken wire. Put in a roof. Build a door.

Periodically stop to wash various cuts and wounds on my hands and apply antibiotic ointment. (I'll spare you that image).

Put down bedding, hang the feeder, place the waterer, and move in the birds!

The only thing missing is a roost system. For now I've moved over the cinder block perches from the brooders.

They're too busy exploring and scratching to notice. But I did have two fly from one end to the other. Finally enough room to spread their wings!

And this morning they were pecking the wall separating them from the meaties. I wonder if chickens know Morse Code.

Yum

Four weeks old. Another three weeks to harvest. Just under five pounds each.

Is it wrong that I'm sizing them up to see if they are big enough to stick a beer can up their bum and put them on the grill?

Management Training

Or training management? Not sure which.

Chickies are growing by leaps and bounds. The 'meaties' moved on to their new home last week. And I have already had to expand their space. And add a feeder. And put the waterer up on a higher block. And raise both of the feeders.

And then there are the pullets, or the "peep-a-ronis" as my coworker calls them. Also growing and almost out of space in their brooder. Keep in mind there are 18 of them.

And they are started to perch on everything, which means waterers and feeders covered in chicken sh#t. So after disinfecting the meaties' old brooder the amicable split was on. Well, almost amicable, seems one of my peeps was strongly attached to one of my friend's peeps and because I split them up based on ownership and destination I had a couple of peeping-criers unhappy about the new arrangements.

10 pullets, bigger tank

8 pullets, slightly smaller tanks

And now I know which ones are the perchers (the bigger tank) and the scratchers (the smaller tank).

You would think that given their propensity for sitting on the feeder and waterer and crapping all over both that they would take quickly to life on a perch. Nope.

This lasts for about two minutes, and then just when you think they have preened enough and are ready to call it a night they plop back down into the shavings and go stand on the feeder again.

Another half hour of hand-placing birdies on the bricks or perch followed by curious exploration and a return to the ground.

I'm beginning to sense the origin of the phrase "bird-brained idea."

Moving out

In my batch of chicks are 16 Jumbo Cornish x Rocks. These are a crossbred developed specifically for fast growth and meat production.

Arrival day, three days old

Nine days old (and more than doubled in size)

Eleven days

Thirteen days

Quickly outgrowing the brooder! I had to move them up to the next feeder to keep up with their appetites! Actually, I had an ulterior motive on that - moving day was right around the corner and I wanted them to have something familiar when they headed off to new digs.

Fourteen days old - new apartment!

Piece and quiet

Almost two weeks since the chickens left. It's so nice to be able to get a full-night's sleep, not worry about protecting the garden and landscaping, and (best of all) no fresh chicken poop on my truck!

If you are concerned about where they went, last I heard they were enjoying the wide open spaces of a farm about an hour east of here. That's one benefit of my job, most of the other people in my department also have property in the country with various types of farm life. So even though the new owner is a butcher by trade, I don't think they will be ending up in the stew pot any time soon. (Though I did assure him that I wouldn't mind if that was their final fate.)

So what's been happening since then? I've started the big mare on her road back to being a usable riding horse. It's been three months since treatment on her leg wound finished. Being on 24-hour turnout on pasture with rolling terrain has helped in her self-regulated rehab work. Now I'm just playing it smart with her conditioning program - lots of walking, bending, and flexing for now, work up to some trot work in a week or two, and go from there. The broccoli and kohlrabi has taken off in the garden, radishes and lettuce are close to picking, but the recent cold snap may have killed off the potatoes. Something has taken up residence in the new bluebird house but I have yet to see what kind of bird it is.

Will the name of the blog change now that the chickens are gone? I've given it some thought, and decided to keep it.

Is this the end of chicken raising? For the short term, yes. For the long term, who knows. I'm not taking down the coop just yet, but I did give away the remaining chicken feed. The friend who gave me the roosters suggested I might make a good home for one of her laying hens that is going blind. My goal has been to have birds that are relatively self sufficient so I don't know if I want to take on a special-needs case. She assures me that it won't mess with the garden, but then again the previous feathered critters proved that wrong. The only guarantee is that it won't crow.

Buh-Bye

I just spent the last two hours catching and crating the chickens.

No easy task. Those dang roosters must have known what was coming. I consulted with a coworker (the person who gave me the half-grown birds in the first place) on how to catch them since half of them have taken to roosting in the barn rafters. Her suggestion was to take a broad broom or garden rake and bump the birds in the chest to get them to step on the new "perch" and lift them down.

So I waited until dark and for the birds to roost. I had to flush one out of the "attic space" over the tack room at dusk so it would be in the barn with the others. Once everybird was inside I closed up the barn doors. I figured the more confined the better. I started with the center aisle lights on, then just the feed room lights on, but the birds still walked around on the rafters like it was daylight. Finally I just gave up and killed all the lights so the only illumination came from the yard light, shining in through a few small windows.

I went for the Ring Leader first. I should have known better. Even in the dark he would evade the rake and move just out of reach. I even crept up a ladder I placed before dark and tried to grab him, but he took off and flew across to the next rafter just as my fingertips touched his feathers. After a little shuffling and resettling, he perched near the ladder again. This time I brought a draw-string laundry bag, hoping I could basically bag-and-scoop but he took off even quicker. This time he and his buddies huddled themselves in a cluster (flustercluck?) just out of reach of my tools. Flipped on the barn lights and figured the least I could do would be to herd them into the coop/stall so at least a few would be easier to catch when reinforcements could arrive the next evening.

OK, new approach. Three birds had roosted in the stall, so I went in there and closed the door behind me. My initial plan was to grab them off their roosts and stuff them into the dog crate I had in the stall with me. Didn't take long chasing a bunch of dark colored roosters in the dark on the floor of the stall. Is it a bird? Is it a shadow? No! It's Super Wiley Rooster!

Plan F. Open dog crate, place in corner, herd chicken into open door, slam door shut and haul out the crate so I can transfer my quarry to the transport crate. Worked pretty good for on the first bird. The second bird (Ring Leader) put up a fight when I was doing the transfer, and I wound up with a big handful of feathers and another chase around the barn until I could get him back into the stall.

Ah ha! The more I can keep the barnlights off, the less of a fight the now blind and vulnerable birds put up. Two birds caught, three birds. Flip the barn lights back on, use my 10 foot longe whip (I new it would come in handy for something!) to flush the quarry from its hiding spot, and play a complicated game of cat and mouse, trying to first get the birds on the ground and then herd them into the stall. Two more go in; I never even bothered to let them roost before turning out the lights and played more chicken coop Marco Polo with Four. Five put up a good fight, but it's panting gave away its location. I left him in the coop in the dog crate while I finally flushed out Six and corralled him in the stall.

Lights out one more time. Transfer Five into the carrier. Odd how the chickens remain calm in the dark even as the carrier continues to get fuller. Back in the stall, and I quietly "shush, shush" to tell the bird where I am as I had his now-caught com-padres. Back and forth, back and forth. A few futile attempts at a vertical escape (("Go toward the (yard) light!")) before he wedged himself between the crate and the wall. One more flush and a little more back and forth, and Six took a few hesitant steps into the dog crate.

Close the door, deep breath, no sigh of relief until this one has joined his buddies in the travel carrier. As with the others, turn the dog crate on its end. Reach in and grab by the base of the wings. With the other hand release the bungee cord holding the lid shut on the carrier. In one swift move lift the lid and shove the bird in. Strange how the bird that was at the bottom of the pecking order was the last one to be caught; you think he should have been better at avoiding the avian bullies given his skill at evading me.

Flip on the barn lights, grab some baling twine and tie the lid shut. Release the dog from her exile in the tack room, and watch her and the cat sniff and explore this odd box and its feathered convicts. Call it a night, turn off the barn lights, leave the barn doors shut just in case... Go find a beer.

I wonder how the chicken soup will turn out.

I've had it!

Yesterday was the proverbial straw breaking the camel's back. The chickens are officially in need of a new home and/or purpose to mankind.

What brought me to this point?

First it was the destruction of the salad garden. The salad garden is a planter box of sorts around the base of one of the porches. I call it the salad garden because its the right size for growing various lettuces and herbs. I learned a long time ago that it was a nice dust bath area for the chickens (and a litter box for the cats when the ground was bare). Then last fall the chickens decided my almost-ready-to harvest crop of romaine was fair game, and what were nine beautiful, leafy plants were reduced to pathetic, ragged stems within a day. (Have I mentioned their previous destruction of a beautiful crop of ripe roma tomatoes, the mercilous slaughter of the bell peppers, and the defoliation of carrots the preceding summer?) At the same time one bird thought the perfect napping spot was under the branches of the rosemary, to the detriment of the thyme beside it. So I took the proactive approach this spring by putting lattice over the top of the bed until the seeds sprouted, then upgraded to the mesh fencing around the whole L-shaped box. This worked for about two weeks, when the birds' sparing on the porch railing would cause a few to land inside the mesh, causing a dust-up as the bird attempted to escape and the death of a few romaine and red leaf transplants from the local garden center. I replaced the perimeter mesh with 7-foot wide mesh so that it would form a tent over the whole thing beginning from the ground and wrapping up and over the porch railing and tied to the spindles with some baling twine. The mesh also has deterred the roosters from hanging out on the porch railing. This was last weekend's project.

Shortly after that problem was solved, the chickens decided they did not have enough space roosting on the wide-spaced boards that form a barrier between the horse pasture and the covered parking area attached to the barn (who wants a horse to reach over the fence and take a taste of their vehicles?). So they started perching ON my truck when I came home from work. I tried shushing them away but to no avail. This act quickly devolved into hanging out on the sides of the truck bed, and then became one of their preferred sparing areas as their aggression on the smallest and weakest of the group took a turn for the worst. Now I have a truck covered in chicken sh#t and plucked feathers in less than a week, and I haven't had the nerve to get out the ladder to check the paint damage to the roof.

Then yesterday was the last of it. Last fall the chickens made it a mission to defoliate the hostas and other shade plants off the back porch (oh, and made themselves another dusting area in the mulch, destroying the landscape fabric underneath the walking paths). This spring as I started to plant the raised beds, I extended the mesh fencing to surround both of the raised beds as well as the mulched hosta area. I put up with having to move/step over the fence to access the rain barrels and weed/water/plant in this large area of the back yard. Worked great until yesterday, when the chickens figured out how to get onto the porch and go around the fencing. After spending the day working from home, I walked out the door to find rooster-sized craters among the broccoli plants, the (struggling) carrot sprouts uprooted and/or covered in a thick layer of dirt, and the tops of several emerging potato and pea plants looking rather plucked.

I have reached the point where the roosters' problems far outweigh any benefit they may be providing. I am currently seeking rehoming/harvesting solutions for the birds. Unfortunately at a year of age they are no longer desirable for roasting, frying, and other common cooking methods, and I don't have the resources for mass production of chicken stock. However, I hear a neighbor may be able to put them to good use in her own freezer . . .

One thing I do know is that their days at Cheesehead Hills are numbered.

Ironic, isn't it

Today I walked out of the local big-box home improvement store with over 80 lbs of bird seed and a 700 square foot roll of bird netting. Both actually were for the chickens, sort of. The chickens have learned to become opportunistic moochers when the song birds get messy with their feeders. On the other hand, the other purchase is intended to prevent them from mooching off the appetizing veggies in the garden.

Birds of a different feather

I've had birdfeeders out since I had my rental house in town. Usually it's one of mixed seed and one of black oilseed, and then a hummingbird feeder in the summer. The hummingbird feeder is a cheap source of evening entertainment, with me sitting on the back porch watching those little suckers fight over feeder space. One time I counted as many as seven ruby-throats dive-bombing each other. Adding the trellis and cages for the pole beans and tomatoes last summer changed the airborne tactics, in that the wires were just the right diameter for a hummer to pause and plan it's next path of attack.

The latest change was switching out one of my winter mixed-seed feeders for thistle (niger) seed. Growing up in the Great Lakes region, goldfinches were a ubiquitous part of the summer flora and fauna. Down here in the Deep South I'm in their winter range, and when a co-worker mentioned how many were spotted around her feeders I took the plunge to try attracting them too. They don't have quite the markings I remember because they are in their winter plumage; they are more of an olivey yellow-green to faded yellow but the personality is all there.

I never thought much about feeder placement other than keeping them out of reach of the cats and horses, and away from the garden should spilled seed go uneaten. I'm just now realizing the retrofitted thistle seed feeder is in a prime viewing location from my living room sofa thanks in great part to the new flurry of activity. I've seen as many as a dozen goldfinches around the feeder as they battle for one of four feeding ports. They aren't as territorial as the hummers, as the finches will somewhat patiently wait their turn in the branches surrounding the feeder compared to the ruby-throats that don't want to see another bright green "friend" while they enjoy their nectar. However the finches are chow-hounds - I've watched the seed level drop an inch in the past hour of their morning feeding frenzy.

The mixed seed is still out there, but I moved it to the other side of the house. Now I can watch that one from my bedroom window as I get ready for work. And so far the horses have not payed much attention to the pinata-of-seed that is the new mixed seed feeder.

As for the chickens? I think one of the side benefits of all these bird feeders is that they are opportunistically waiting under the songbird feeders for any sloppy eaters. And I'm hoping this means they'll leave my daffodils and pansies alone. (knock on wood)

Roosting and other crap

You would think that chickens would be consistent in their roosting behavior, but guess again.

When the juvenile roosters first arrived, I had them contained in a modified horse stall. Netting covered any open spaces to keep predators out and the chickens in. The "chicken stall" includes two 10 foot-plus pipes at window height to serve as perches. For the first couple months, everyone would cozy up on the perches.

One by one flock dynamics would force birds out, at which point the outcasts started roosting in the rafters and on the stall dividers. Not too bad if it's one or two birds, but now that over half of the flock have gone for the penthouse sleeping arrangements their nightly bathroom habits have spilled over into the adjoining stalls, stained the tops of the stall dividers, and fallen into the aisle way. One poor bird has been ostracized to the point where it roosts separately from the others - over the doorway to my tack room. Which means there is now a growing deposit of crap right where I walk to retrieve my morning Pepsi from the refrigerator next to my saddles. Try dodging that in dress heels some time.

There is some entertainment and wonderment value in all of this. Lately the 3-4 birds that roost on the stall dividers have been having their own tiffs, so one poor sucker who wants to maintain proximity to the others finds himself balancing on a section of 2x8 framing on the barn wall. Of course, it's a wall, so he doesn't have the room to properly balance. Instead he spends the night with one leg outstretched and the other flexed, like a sleeping flamingo with a foot rest. How he maintains that balance all night long I have no idea. Another poor fool will occasionally find himself wedged in the eave opening in an effort to find a sleeping spot - "hunkered down", but 12 feet in the air, balancing on the sheet metal skin of the building.

However, I must say the most curious of avian sleeping arrangements happened this past week, where one bird was in the stall, three were on the stall divider, one was on the wall, and the last bird was sitting on the netting covering the top of the stall. This last fellow looked like he was levitating the way the netting blended into the shadows cast by the barn lights.

These chickens are an endless source of comic relief if not anything else. 

Feeding the herd

I've know for a while that the dog has a preference for the commercial feed I give the horses. Any time I spill on the feed room floor, she's there to vacuum up the pellets. And when the horses drop feed while they eat, a common occurrence with my pair of special needs eaters, she's there to hoover-up the orts, sometimes getting herself covered in wet, slobbery crumbs in the process.

But now I find the black cat has developed a preference for the chicken feed. The last few days I've found her poking around the outdoor feeding pan. At first I thought it was exploratory sniffing. Now I've caught her actually eating the chicken feed.

I'm not depriving the dog and cat by any means. Yes, the dog is on restricted diet to help prevent weight-related issues for which her breed is known, and I really need to curb what she eats in the barn since I've discovered her random indoor flatulence is due to the soaked beet pulp she pilfers off the old horse. The cats are all on ad libitum cat chow supplemented by a healthy diet of chipmunks, squirrels, and rabbits usually caught by the black kitty herself. "Q" is even the first one at the feed bowls when I dole out the twice-daily refill.

Not good that the resident familial carnivores have a preference for what the herbivores (horses) and omnivores (chickens), but they get enough of their own respective feeds to prevent any dietary deficits. But it would be nice if I could get away with feeding them what the others are getting, it would safe a lot on the feed bill.

Which reminds me, the horses are running low. I better add the feed store to today's list of errands.

Small victories

I hate it when work gets in the way of life. But the seasonal craziness is over, as marked by the office Christmas party last night.

Now, back to life on the "farm". Good news, the chickens are proving to be smarter than originally thought.

Yup, they have discovered they can drink out of the livestock water tanks. And are also smart enough to avoid the strip of electrified fence tape over the tank. I'm getting some ideas for chicken proofing the garden . . .

RAAA-CHELLL, RAAA-CHELLL

The other night I was woken up around 2 a.m. by what I thought was someone screaming the name "Rachel". You know, that high-pitched, drawn-out scream like you are looking for someone lost in the woods. It didn't help that I was not sleeping well since I heard hunting rifle shots earlier in the evening. (I'm hoping someone was hog hunting, but more likely they were shining deer. Welcome to life in the rural south.)

So I'm lying in bed, in a sleepy-foggy-stupor, trying to locate the general direction of the screams. I'm also wondering why the dog is not doing her usual low pitched growl whenever she picks up the scent of imaginary threats. And after a few more screams, coming from the general direction of the barn and back side of the property, I realize its not a person but rather a rooster producing this ruckus in the middle of the night. Forget cock-a-doodle-do, this rooster usually sounds more like "ER-ur-RUUUR!", and in this situation it was using the first syllable to warm-up the vocal cords and throwing all the effort into the second and third.

Which then begs the question, why the heck would a rooster be crowing at 2 a.m.? Unfortunately this is far from a solitary episode. There are nights when I hear them crowing about the time I'm going to bed, a few other times I've heard them around 2 a.m. if I'm having trouble sleeping. This was starting to remind me of those old Dr. Pepper commercials about 10-2-4, except during night time hours. And with winter solstice less than a month away, first light is somewhere around 5:45 and sunrise around 6:30 a.m. Tonight the alpha-male even threw in a few crows for good measure when I turned on the barn lights at 6 p.m. to evening chores, about an hour and a half after sunset.

Back to the original question, why the heck would a rooster be crowing at 2 a.m.? Yes, I do have one of those rural yard/security lights on the end of the barn, but very little of that light reaches the chicken coop. And it happens regardless of the phase of the moon so I can't blame that. It seems to only be one or two birds that are the culprits of this cacophony. When the alpha-male crowed tonight, it was the same pitch and tone as what I usually hear during other night-crowing sessions.

Being the educated person I'm supposed to be, I run a Google Scholar search. And I try extension.org. And still not having found the answer I do a regular Yahoo! search and find myself on the forum page of backyardchickens.com. Good news, I'm not the only one with weird roosters. Bad news, any disturbance can seem to cause this.

So when my friend butt-dialed me from a concert around 10:30 one night last week and I blamed her for waking the birds and causing them to start crowing? Maybe that wasn't so far from the truth after all.

Hellooo out there!

My friend "Portland" has been on me for a while to start a blog. It came about because of all the short anecdotes that would appear on my FB feed regarding my yard-poultry-raising experiences. Actually it goes back farther than that. After several years of renting a house in town I had enough of civilized living and finally bought my dream property in the country. Don't get me wrong, this is not a Green Acres scenario by any means since I was raised on a farm in the Midwest, but if you don't find the humor in your daily life you can go nuts pretty quick.

Where do the chickens come in? Actually I wanted guineas. They are supposed to be good at keeping down the bugs in the horse pasture and spreading around the poop piles. But before I could get my guineas a coworker gave me a young rooster that had been mixed in with her last order of laying hen chicks. One thing lead to another, the guineas appeared, then disappeared one by one, then I got more, then THEY became dinner for the local wildlife too, and to shorten up the story I now have six roosters from the same coworker and have managed to keep them alive for four months (though it took some training). In the end they do an OK job of managing the horse manure, they have destroyed my garden, and they provide comedic relief more than anything else.

So the whole point of this is to share my experiences, poke fun at a few things, and get some random tangents out of my head. Enjoy!