Charlie enjoys the snow

While the dogs thoroughly enjoyed running, jumping, and playing in the snow…

Tilly runs in the snow

And, most importantly, eating the snow…

Tasty snow

The chickens had another opinion entirely.

"we'll just stop right here in the door, thank you."

They wanted no part of it.  Their run stayed relatively snow-free because of the roof and wire mesh top.  So, when I called them, they all come running out like normal… except they all came to a screeching halt in the doorway.  As Pol Pot so nicely demonstrated in the above picture, they looked at the snow, perplexed.

Eventually, JB took the first brave leap, good man that he is.

JB tries the snow

The girls looked at him with shock and awe.  But after a while, Lorelei and Sofia (please note that a while back, I changed the spelling of “Sophia” to “Sofia,” since the Golden girl was supposed to be from Sicily and therefore would probably have used an “f”, I think) bravely followed him out there.  The others hung back in the doorway.

The first girls follow

The others weren’t sure what to make of this bold behavior of their coopmates.

"Golly gee, those guys are brave!"

Then, suddenly, Pol Pot was struck with astonishing inspiration – “I know!!  I’ll FLY OVER IT!!”

I wish I had pictures for you, but it happened so fast and I wasn’t ready for it.  She leapt from her 4-inch-high perch on the doorway and pathetically *ahem* gracefully “flew” over to the edge of a garden box, where she promptly and breathlessly crash-landed.

The distance of Pol Pot's pioneering flight

"Crap. Now what?"

I think at one point she got a full 24 inches of air during her flight.  Anyway, then she was stuck and proceeded to walk along the edges of all the boxes, hopping from one side to the other, doing her best never to touch the snow.  Eventually, both Rory and Pippin followed suit with similar flying and crash-landing bits.  Rory hit the edge of a box and fell backwards into the snow, and then picked her way dejectedly back to the run.  Pippin, on the other hand worked out a better plan and actually reached down from the edges of the boxes to graze on the taller blades of grass that were sticking out of the snow.

Pippin ponders the potential of top-down grazing

Pippin grabs a blade of grass from her snow-free perch

Anyway, it wasn’t long before everyone had made their ways back to the safely snow-free environment of the coop and run.  Everyone, that is, except Pol Pot.  She just couldn’t bring herself to set foot in the snow, and since I think she didn’t want to risk “flying” again, she was stuck.

I actually had to carry her back to the run… which is pretty monumental since she is one of the chickens who HATES to even be touched.  But, when faced with the excruciating decision of either stepping in the snow or allowing me to pick her up, she held still for me.

A Note on Rory’s Comb

Rory's new and improved comb

I honestly thought the chickens were pretty much done growing and changing quite some time ago.  However, during the time we were gone in Virginia, Rory officially finished molting and returned to laying.  I know because we got two dark brown eggs the day we got back and also because Rory’s comb went back from pale pink to bright red.  However, it also grew a huge amount, which surprised me.  It is probably three times the size it was when we left.  Click here to see a pic of her on December 6th and note the difference.  It is also back to being slightly floppy, which I think is normal for her in egg-laying mode because it was floppy until she started molting, when it straightened out.  Now it’s huge, red, and floppy.  It’s definitely an amazing indicator of her hormonal state.

Random Pics

JB

He may not be the best-looking rooster in the world, but he sure does take nice pictures.

JB

Hey, look!  It’s Camo-Pippin!

Camo-Pippin... where did she go?

I know it’s blurry, but I couldn’t resist.  First we had Camo-Blanche and now we have Camo-Pippin!!  Just go with it.

And, lastly, we have Sofia during her first steps in the snow.  When I first opened the door to the run, she didn’t pay attention and just hopped out like normal.  She just squatted there, looking for all the world like she wished she could lift both feet out of the snow at the same time.  Then she suddenly spun around and leapt back onto the doorway.

"I'd rather be anywhere but here."

I think the moral of this story is, “look before you leap.”

Hello folks, it’s me, Lisa… remember me?  Once again I was gone from home and thus gone from the blog and I left you all in the lurch.  I do apologize for that.  First we were back East for a family wedding, then we got waylaid by the Eastern snowstorm and got home 24 hours later than expected and I had to do a quick one-eighty and headed back down the coast to California for the holidays.  During that time and the upcoming New Year, I hope you all have been and will be enjoying the celebrations with great gusto!

So, in total, I was away from daily life as I know it for about two weeks.  And here at the homestead some interesting things happened during that time.  First of all, the night we got home, I immediately went to check on the chickpeas.  I found them all safe and happy on their perches for the night and I found eight eggs in the nesting boxes!  Eight!  My first thought was that the neighbors hadn’t been by to collect eggs in a few days.  But, the water and food were filled to brimming, so that didn’ t seem possible.  In all honesty, my neighbors take better care of the chickens than I do… I fill the feeder and waterer every few days when they get really low.  They keep them topped off every single day.  I occasionally skip a day or part of a day on collecting eggs if weather and/or life gets in the way.  They go out to collect eggs often twice a day when I’m gone.  The only thing they don’t do is let them out to free-range (which I do religiously unless weather prohibits it).

Anyway, it seemed odd to me that they had skipped a few days. So, I ran inside and immediately sent off an email to my neighbor (who was still at work) and asked about the eight eggs.  Had it been a few days?  I always tell them they can skip a day or two no problem, but they never listen.  A little while later there was a knock at my door.  It was my neighbor.  She told me that they had been finding, two, three, or four eggs each day and that they had collected eggs at 11am the day before.  It must be a timing thing.  Some of the chickens laid that afternoon and then again the next day so it added up to eight eggs.  That seemed reasonable.

But then I left for CA the next day and that afternoon I talked to Brian and guess what?  He found SEVEN eggs!  Seven in one day!  And then eight the next day!  And so on and so forth.  The smallest egg day since December 20th has been 5 eggs.  I personally collected 8 yesterday and 7 today.  That means we have 8 out of 9 girls back in laying mode!  When we left only four were laying and I thought they might stop soon too, but no!  On the 8-egg days we get four blue/green, two dark brown, and two light brown.  That means only one EE isn’t laying (my guess is Shelley because she’s still molting).

today's eggs

But Blanche and Rory have all their feathers back and are looking lovely and are clearly laying.  Apparently the dark and the cold doesn’t bother them at all!  I was expecting several months of few to no eggs, so this is a nice surprise.

In the Words of Kelly Clarkson: Someone’s Gotta Go

Chicken Soup, foreground, Luke, background

On a less-pleasant note, the time has officially come to rid ourselves of a surplus rooster.  It can’t be avoided any longer.  When I got back here from Virginia, Luke and Soup put on a spectacular show of fighting for second-place rooster.  The one time I was with them to free-range before I left again, they fought basically the entire time.  Then I returned from CA late Sunday night and let them out Monday morning only to find Soup’s head and neck completely drenched in blood.  Luke had apparently ripped off a piece of the last point on the back of Soup’s comb and it bled like crazy.  He was fine, but it wasn’t pretty.  They fought while they were out then, and again today.  Today both of them were bruised and bloodied and they continued to duke it out pretty much constantly.

It must stop.  The girls and JB don’t seem to mind much but it can’t be fun when they’re fighting in the confines of the coop and run.  It’s loud and annoying at least… plus they run into everything because they don’t look where they’re going – they smash into the walls of the coop, fall off the garden boxes, run into my legs, land on top of other chickens.  They are oblivious.  Soup is still number 2 because he still gets to mate with some of the girls and Luke never does.  This is probably why it’s so important to Luke that he moves up in the ranks.

OK, so.  My opinion is that we should eat Luke.  He was always my least favorite anyway.  What do you guys think?  I want to learn to kill a chicken anyway because I want to someday raise meat chickens.  This would entail catching him and putting him in a separate cage for something like 12 or 24 hours (I would have to brush up on my reading) without food (and maybe water?  I can’t remember.) to clean his intestinal tract.  And then, basically, we hang him upside down or use a killing cone and slice the jugular.  This is quick, painless, instant death when done properly and is as humane as it comes.  We would let it bleed out, then pluck, gut, and then chill for a few days.  Then Coq Au Vin here we come. I think I can do this.

It would help with a number of problems… no more fighting (or at least less fighting) and possibly less over-breeding of the girls (though I’m not sure since he may never get to mate) so they can grow their back feathers back.  One less rooster to crow day and night.  One less mouth to feed… not to mention that he is the least-useful mouth that is being fed since we don’t need him for breeding or protecting and he doesn’t lay eggs.  I think  I can do it.  I want to be able to do it.  Any and all feedback on this topic is welcome.

But the Cat Rat Came Back, The Very Next Day…

I didn’t have my camera with me when I noticed it today, but the rat tunnel is back with a vengeance.  It is bigger and better than ever.  They were just kidding when they stopped using it for a few days.  Ha ha very funny.  Dumb rats.

On a Happier Note – Snow!

The forecast for today was heavy rain all day with a high of about 40.  The morning was clear as a bell, heavy frost on the ground.  By noon, it was 46 degrees and a little cloudy.  This afternoon (still no rain), I was free-ranging with the chickadees when I noticed that it suddenly felt way colder.  I looked at the outdoor thermometer on the coop: 36.  A little while later, as I was ushering them back into the run/coop, I thought a little white feather floated by me.  This happens all the time when one of the chickens shakes or flaps and a feather comes out and blows away.  A few seconds later, I saw another white feather.  By the time the third feather went floating by, I looked around… they were snow flakes!  Just a few of them, here and there.  I was happy to see them but I didn’t think much of it.  It would probably be rain within a few minutes, or maybe nothing at all.  The clouds looked light. But, by the time I got the chickens inside and I had gathered eggs, there were a few more flakes… small, but in a constant stream.  By the time I walked back to the house, it was a little more.  Then a little more and a little more.

It wasn’t long before it was sticking – first to plants, and then even to the pavement.  I wrote an email to Brian at his work to tell him it was snowing.  A few minutes later he called to say he was coming home early so that he wouldn’t get stuck in the snow (the City of Portland apparently only owns one snowplow).  The sky soon darkened and I had to turn the lights on in the house.

By the time Brian got home, things were looking pretty white.

And just now at 9:30 pm, I took a picture out our front door and I believe we have the better part of an inch on the ground.

This may not seem exciting to you, but this is pretty big snow for around here and it wasn’t expected… plus it’s the first snow of the year and I didn’t miss it!  The year we lived in Denver, I was out of town during the first snow and Brian called to tell me about it.  Same goes for our first year here in Vancouver.  So, this is very exciting to me to be here for the first (and possibly only) snow of the year!  Go with it.  Be excited!

Ok, not really.

It occurred to me this morning that some of you may be wondering about our lovely rat situation.  I mean, after my grandiose proclamations that, “rats will die” and “all I have to to do is sit and wait for victory,” you were probably on the edges of your seats just waiting for pictures of trapped rats and my glorious claim to victory.

Alas, it was not to be.

My fortress of cinder-block tunnels and peanut-butter-laden death traps lured nary a mouse.  After a couple of weeks of regularly shifting cinder-blocks and checking the trap only to find it untouched, I was ready to throw in the towel.  Admit defeat.  I guess the rats can live with my chickens.  Other than the tunnels into the run and the one rat I saw the one time in the coop, nothing seemed worse for the wear.  Does that make me a bad chicken mama?  I couldn’t figure out what else to do.

And then yesterday I realized that I hadn’t checked the ever-growing tunnel into the run in several days.  To be honest, I couldn’t remember when I’d last checked it.  I guess I stopped looking at it because all it did was upset me to see how much larger the opening got each day and how the tunnel itself was becoming clearer as the rats removed debris from it.  They seemed to be planning a permanent entrance structure to the good life that is the chicken coop.  But, just to punish myself, yesterday, I looked again.  And I couldn’t see it.

There was no hole and not tunnel at all!  It was filled in with rocks, sand, chicken poop, feathers, and other various debris from the run.  Totally filled!  And then it occurred to me that a few days earlier I had gone around to the other side of the coop and found no entrance hole where it once was.  At the time I had assumed that the entrance hole had fallen out of use because the rats no longer had any reason to leave.  They just sealed themselves into the lovely world of tunnels under and into my chicken coop.  I had provided them with a perfect permanent home.

But it seems my cynicism was unfounded.  Dear readers, it seems that they have left!  Moved out!  Don’t ask me why, because I haven’t a clue.  I just know that all signs seem to indicate that they have abandoned the homestead and moved on to greener pastures in this frigid season.  Here’s hoping that they’re really gone, despite the temptations of chicken feed, fresh water, and heat lamps.

I tend to get bored with things and thus I like to change my header picture now and then.  However, my chicken-butts header has proven itself so popular that it overrides my personal need for change.  In light of several comments, both recent and past, I have resurrected the one and only Chicken Butts Header.

Enjoy :)

Last night at 9:30 pm, it was 13.  THIRTEEN DEGREES for Pete’s sake!  I went out to check the chickens because I was having visions of frozen chicky-pops.  They were all merrily perched on the roosts, fluffy and sleeping and were quite annoyed that I had bothered them.  13 degrees and they didn’t even bat an eyelash.

This morning it is 10 degrees at 8:30 am.  Since the sun has been up almost an hour, I have to assume that 10 is not the coldest it got overnight.  I went out to the coop, at least expecting them to be hanging out under the heat lamp that is hanging over their poop-filled (I have no clue how people can stand fount waterers) waterer.  They were up and about like nothing was out of the ordinary.  Some were outside, playing in the run, some were hanging out or eating inside, and Pol Pot, Daisy Mae, and Sofia were all in nesting boxes working on laying eggs.  My chickens laugh in the face of 10 degrees!

The water was frozen solid except for the part right under the heat, but that was good enough.  They have something to drink.  In the next day or two, we’re going to install the new set of cup waterers, this time with continuous heat on them along every inch so that they never get the chance to freeze and break.  That will be a joyous day.

I took my camera (aren’t you impressed??) to take pictures of the thermometer and chickies and water, but it refused to even turn on.  I don’t know if it’s protesting the cold or what.  I could swear I had plenty of charge on the battery.  Anyway, it’s charging now so hopefully that will work and we’ll be back in picture-taking business in no time.

Foggy, frosty morning out our front door

Doesn’t that make you cold just looking at it? That is a photo of one of the two types of mornings we’ve been having around here lately.

It all started Wednesday morning. I awoke at dawn, went into our bathroom, and looked out the window onto a sparkling winter wonderland. It was the first clear morning we’d had in weeks. Until then, mornings had been socked in with cloud or fog or both, though the sun had been coming out later in the day since just before Thanksgiving. But this Wednesday morning was clear as a bell. And without the insulating layer of clouds to hold in what little heat this time of year provides, it was COLD.

The moisture in the ground and air that had built up from the rains turned to a brilliant white frost that left no surface untouched. It was thick and heavy and it honestly looked like it had snowed. I wondered how cold it really was. We have had mild frosts so far where, by dawn, the temperature hovers around freezing and soon warms. On those mornings, the water in the thin rubber tube between the 5-gallon bucket and the chickens’ cup waterers was sometimes slightly frozen. A few minutes of holding the tube in my hands and the water flowed again. But this frosty morning was different.

I bundled up and headed out to the coop. Everything was frozen solid. Every blade of grass was white. The spots on the ground that had been scratched bare of grass by the dogs or the chickens or the constant tread of human feet were hard and slick like a skating rink. I almost fell twice.

frosty black berry leaves

I crunched my way across the yard to the gate that separates the dog yard from the garden and chickens; it was frozen shut. After breaking it loose, I finally made it to the coop. The air was still and my breath came in huge white billows. I looked up at the thermometer on the outside of the coop. 24 degrees.

Well, I thought, here comes the first true test of the chickens’ cold-hardiness. I have read at length on this topic and it seems that chickens are mostly very tolerant of cold. They do less well with heat, which is strange considering that they were originally tropical birds. But, aggressive breeding by humans over thousands of years has made many very tough and fluffy (read: warm) birds. The breeds I have are supposed to be particularly cold-hardy and also well-known for laying in the cold months. Still, it seems hard to believe. 24 is C-O-L-D, am I right? No matter how many blog and internet postings I read about chickens who make it through Minnesota and Montana winters in unheated coops, or how many times Dr. Prince T. Woods reiterates in his book, Fresh-Air Poultry Houses: The Classic Guide to Open-Front Chicken Coops for Healthier Poultry, that not only are chickens just fine in unheated coops in his native New England, but they actually THRIVE in open-front coops that are never closed… I have been skeptical. I worry about my chicky-pies. They are my babies, after all.

But wouldn’t you know it, they were just fine. All twelve birds were up and perky, enjoying the sunshine out in the run or sitting in the greenhouse window. They didn’t even notice the cold, it seemed. What they did notice, however, was that their water was frozen SOLID. Little rock-hard ice-cubes filled the drinking cups, and the rubber tube was stiff when I tried to move it. My poor chickies pecked in vain at the ice and then stared at me with sad eyes, “Where’s our water, mama?”

There was nothing I could easily do to defrost their water, so I went inside and got them a bowl of water that I placed in the run. Then I went inside to work. Soon, the sun had warmed the air into the 40s and I figured that their waterer must have defrosted by now. No problem, right? Well, at 11:30am, I went to let them out in the grass and the poor babies all ran directly to the big plastic tub that sits outside their run and collects rainwater. They acted like they hadn’t had any water in days. They drank and drank. And I felt like crap. You know what you get when you assume.

Upon witnessing the mass-hysteria for the water, I went inside the coop to investigate. Though it was well above freezing inside, apparently it takes a long, long time for rock-hard ice to melt at 41 degrees. Damn. I’m a bad mama. So, when I put them away, I gave them more water in the container in the run and I waited for the waterer in the coop to defrost. It never did. That afternoon, I rigged up my outdoor extension cords and hung one of the brooder heat lamps I had for when they were babies over the rubber tube and water cups. By the evening, the apparatus was warmed and back in working order. Solved, I thought. Ta da!

red heat lamp (brooder) hung over cup-watering system

Like it would be that easy.

The next morning, it was just as cold and I found that my heat lamp was no match for 25 degrees. The water in the tube was liquid, but the dreaded ice cubes filled the cups on the wall. Fail. The chickpeas were not pleased. So, I resigned myself to using more electricity than I would like and I got the second brooder lamp. I hung it just inside the coop, over the cups.

two heat lamps to defrost waterer

I went back into the house to wait and when I came back out the water in the cups was indeed melted. But something was wrong. One of the cups was filled to brimming. It would be impossible for a chicken to make that happen. And then I looked at the bucket. Empty. And then I looked at the floor. The shavings were sitting on top of 5 gallons of water that had run out of the cup and onto the coop floor. Awesome.

The expansion of the ice in the pipe/cup joint broke the stopper on one of the cups. The water had flowed freely out and onto the floor. The chickens were not pleased.

So, I admitted defeat. I brought out their old, five-gallon fount waterer that I had gleefully put into storage when I installed the cup waterers. The five-gallon fount, in case you don’t remember, gets spilled on the floor, filled up with dirt and shavings, and pooped on… multiple times daily. Ah, the memories. Also, it is harder to fill, clean, move, and generally deal with. But, because the large volume of water never travels through a small space like a tube or a pipe or tiny cups, it’s less likely to freeze.

back to the old fount. Lady B checks it out.

Please note the dirt in it already. Sigh. Anyway, this plan has worked for three mornings now, I have gone out in weather in the 20s… some sunny, some ice-foggy, some windy, but all cold… and found that the old waterer combined with a single brooder lamp has done the trick. Liquid water and no more thirsty chickies.

The good news in all of this is that back when I bought the cup waterers, I actually bought two setups. I thought maybe I’d install two. It turned out one was enough so now I have a backup. This broken setup is done for – bound for the recycling bin. But, with my same bucket and tube setup, I can attach a new pipe and cups to the existing wall brackets and we’ll be back in business. I think that if I keep the two brooder lamps on them at all time, then they’ll never actually freeze and so they won’t break again. I am using red heat lamps and they are pointed at the floor, so it is still dark on the perches and they chickens can still get good sleep.

And thus ends my battle with the frozen water.

Eggs and Molting News

Daisy Mae in a nest

Lately we have been getting 1-3 eggs per day. We are down to four layers right now, as everyone else is in molt. Daisy Mae seems to be our champion, as I find her in a nest nearly every day still. She is joined in her efforts by Pol Pot, Sofia, and Lorelei, all of whom are still gorgeous and super fluffy.

As for girls in molt, our early girls seem to now be on the tail-end of it. Both Rory and Blanche are looking much better. Their neck and tail feathers are growing back in nicely and they don’t look nearly as pathetic. I also caught Blanche in the act of checking out the nesting boxes the other day, so maybe she’s on her way back to laying as well.

Lady B, ever the star, never really looked very scruffy and I think she’s close to being done with molting as well. She was missing the feathers on the very top of her head for a while but that’s about it. She, too, was checking out a nest the other day.

Lady B contemplates the art of egg-laying

Poor Shelley currently holds first place in the Scraggliest-Looking chicken contest.

Shelley, in molt

Today, I was excited to have the opportunity to photograph something for you that I had learned from my reading, but was so much easier to understand when I saw it for myself. You see, chickens’ combs and wattles are indicators of hormone levels. When they are young, the combs are yellow and then pink. When they come into laying/breeding age and their hormone levels are up, the combs and wattles turn a vibrant red. From then on, a rooster’s comb and wattles should always stay red, but a pullet’s/hen’s will continue to change in sync with her laying status. IF a hen goes broody, she stops laying because she wants to sit on and hatch eggs. Her comb turns pink during this period. Also, when she goes into molt, she stops laying as her energy is directed toward growing new feathers. The rest of the time, it should be bright red to indicate that she is healthy and laying.

So, it’s nice to read all that but seriously – red? pink? It all sounds pretty similar to me. For all these months, I kept watching the combs to see if they seemed pinker or redder and what that might indicate, but I could never really tell. They all looked pinkish-red to me. However, now that some are molting, I can finally see a distinct difference. And now, for your learning pleasure, so can you!

Sofia with a red comb, Blanche with a pink comb

The fates aligned and let me get a few pictures – the sun came out, the girls weren’t in shadow, and the same breeds stood together so it’s easy to see. Sofia is on the left. She still has all of her rich gold feathers and fluff and since she is still laying, her comb and wattles are red. Blanche is on the right and her feathering is less fluffy and lighter in color because is is molting, and her comb is light pink for the same reason.

Blanche, pink comb, Sofia, red comb

In the second pic, Blanche is on the left. Hopefully you can see that her comb is much lighter than Sofia’s.

Rory, top, pink comb, Lorelei, bottom, red comb

The pic of the Marans girls isn’t great, but hopefully it still illustrates my point. I wish I had had pictures like this in the past so I could understand the difference between pink and red combs.

Anyway, back to the topic of beauty… like I said, Blanche is looking much better as her new feathers fill in.

Blanche sports some new feathers

Thought she isn’t quite back to full, golden, fluffy, Orpington glory, which is illustrated beautifully by Sofia, who has not started molting yet.

Fulffy, golden Sofia

And Rory has much improved from her dull-feathered, small-head-huge-body days of yore.

Rory, with a more balanced look

Garden News

Straw mulch on garden beds

Over the last few weeks, I have planted garlic and onions and put the garden slowly to bed. The chickens have been wonderful helpers, as they have enthusiastically cleared the beds of all weeds and excess bugs and left me a clean slate. In honor of this situation, I have decided to be pro-active and apply a winter mulch of straw to the garden beds. This will add low-fertility organic matter to the soil as it breaks down, but its main function is to keep weeds from sprouting until I replant the beds in the Spring. I am perfectly terrible about weeding and more than once it’s come back to bite me in the ass. I am hoping this approach will help avoid that this time.

heavy morning frost on the straw mulch

Also, I am conducting a bit of an experiment. In some of the beds, I have added a thin layer of chicken manure and shavings scooped straight from the coop. Until now, I had been putting it in its own compost pile as my reading had instructed. But I thought… hey… a lot of those nutrients are just going to get leached down into the soil below the compost pile instead of into my garden soil! So, why not put it directly into the garden to let it break down? Now, I know that fresh manure can burn plants, but these beds are dormant right now (I didn’t add any manure where I planted garlic) and the manure will have all winter and much of Spring to decompose into useful nutrition for the soil, and the shavings will help improve soil texture and drainage. This way, my beds will be ready when I want to plant in the Spring. My neighbors till their fresh sheep manure into their garden every Fall/Winter and then mulch it until Spring and they have a bounteous garden. So I say, why not? I’ve only done it in some parts of the garden so far. It will be interesting to compare the results of the beds this coming season, no?

Camo-Blanche. Where did she go?

Sneaky Blanche blends into the straw mulch.

Pol Pot

Fluffy Pol Pot is still laying eggs like a champ… but she’s not as good at camouflage as Blanche is!

buds on a cherry tree

And lastly, I am proud to report that most of my fruit trees have begun to bud out which mean they are not dead! The buds will sit there until spring as little indicators of life :)

Weird Roosters

So this afternoon, I was out with the chickens, as usual, when something very bizarre happened.  Suddenly, JB and Luke both walked away from the group and went back into the coop.  Folks, I have been hanging out with these chickens in the grass every single day for nearly nine months (minus a few trips out of town and bouts of inclement weather, of course) – I have NEVER seen the roosters go back inside on their own.  Not once.  Sure, a pullet will mosey back into the coop while the others are free-ranging, but she almost always goes in to lay an egg.  Every once in a while, a rooster will follow her in there, realize that she’s laying, and pop right back out with the group.

Today, while Soup watched the ladies (he was pleased as punch to be alone with them), JB and Luke went in and stayed in.  After a few minutes, they both started making excited clucking noises, “buck BUUUUCK buckbuckbuckb buGAWK buck BUUUUUUUUUCK buGAWK!!!”  Hmmmm, I thought.  Maybe they had cornered a rat?  Hey.  A girl can dream.

What in the world could they be doing in there?  It quieted back down and I heard shuffling and thumping and bumping on the coop walls.  It sounded just like when one of the girls is bumping around in a nest, trying to make it perfect for the egg she is planning to lay.  I couldn’t stand it anymore.  I had to look.  So, I sneaked quietly around to the people doors into the coop, opened them, and peered in.  What I saw was the reverse of what is in the above picture.  Luke was hunkered down in the corner on the floor under the nests, with his tail in the air, looking for all the world like a hen that is getting ready to lay.  JB stood nearby, as if on guard.  They were both completely still and quiet.  I shook my head in confusion.  ”Weirdos,” I said, and went back out with the group.

A little while later, the boys were still inside, and I gathered up the flock and ushered them back into the run.  I closed the door behind them and they all hopped up on their outdoor perches.  They seemed to want to stay away from the weirdos that were inside the coop.  I don’t blame them.

I ran inside the house, grabbed my camera (I never learn, do I?), and hustled back out to the coop, assuming that the boys will have resumed normal behavior and my photo op will have passed.  Ah, but no.  Instead, I found they had switched places.  As you can see in the picture at the top of the post, JB was now hunkered down in their man-nest, and Luke was on guard, eying me suspiciously.  At this point, they were also making very strange growling noises.  It was quite loud and I’m not sure if it was directed at me or not.  They growled non-stop until I left the coop.  The only other time I’ve heard similar noises from chickens is when the girls are sitting on nests, trying to lay and another chicken (or human) bothers them.

So, this was a long story about nothing.  I left them that way, and as far as I know, they’re still at it.  Maybe this is like cross-dressing for chickens?  Maybe, like a man who secretly wants to wear a dress or carry a purse, my roosters just want to know what it’s like to make a nest, lay an egg, and hatch a chick?  I have no clue.

What I do know is that for the past couple of weeks, I have been finding that the straw in most of the nesting boxes has been shoved all the way to the back, and on the floor, there are spots where the shavings have been pushed away, leaving bare floor, surrounded by a ring of shavings.  I’m starting to think it’s all part of this strange male nesting behavior.  Weird.

Egg Counts

I have been asked a few times lately and this has been a topic amongst my fellow chicken-owners and bloggers.  The question is – how many eggs are we getting?  The weather is colder, the days are shorter and darker, and some of the ladies are in molt.  All of these things have put a dent in our egg production.

To refresh your memory (or to get you caught up if you are a new reader), our current chicken population is as follows:

9 Pullets (females under 1 year) total:

Marans (my Gilmore Girls):

• Lorelei – still laying
• Rory – molting, probably not laying

Buff Orpingtons (my Golden Girls):

• Blanche – molting, pobably not laying
• Sophia – still laying

Easter Eggers:

• Lady Banks – molting, probably not laying
• Shelley – molting, probably not laying
• Daisy Mae – still laying
• Pol Pot – still laying
• Pippin – not molting, not sure if she’s laying

Roosters (all Marans):

• Johnny Bravo (JB)
• Chicken Soup
• Luke (Danes… Gilmore Girls, anyone?)

Up until we left for our wedding (first week of October), we were getting 6-9 eggs per day.  Since we got back, we’d been getting 3-5.  Lately, it’s been more like 2-3 on most days, but still up to 5 now and again.  Today I got 2 large blue eggs (Daisy Mae and Pol Pot) and a dark brown one (Lorelei).  Yesterday I got a light brown (Sophia) and a dark brown (Lorelei).  The day before I got one dark brown, one light brown, and one large blue.  These are typical days.  If it slows down any more than this, I will consider putting in a light on a timer in the coop.  With the heavy cloud cover we’ve been having, it’s pretty dark inside the coop all the time now, and the chickens prefer to be out in the run in the light whenever it’s not raining, poor things.

Our wonderful and amazing neighbors who watch the chickens for us when we’re out of town asked me this weekend if they can have one dozen per week (they want to pay for them, but I won’t take their money because they watch the chickens plus they give us lamb meat from their sheep, fruit from their trees, veggies from their garden, and baked goods from their kitchen, regularly.  I could never pay them back.).  If don’t get enough production to keep them and us in eggs, then the light will go in.

Gee, look at that nice, sunny day!  You’re having lovely weather, Lisa!

I say unto you – HA!  The weather was just kidding.  I promise.

Yesterday afternoon, the sun mocked my optimism about Pacific Northwest weather by coming out – for about five minutes.  The day started as any other has, of late – cold, gray, and cloudy.  Oh, heck, it probably even rained some.  I honestly don’t remember.  But right after lunchtime, there it was!  Bright and happy, the sun shone through what seemed to be a great break in the clouds.  So, I bundled up (I wasn’t so naive as to think it would be warm too) and headed out to give the chickpeas some time in the sunshine and grass.  As pictured above, they came flooding out and set straight to work on the grass.  They do this same thing, regardless of the weather, but I sensed an extra hint of enthusiasm this day and I attributed it to the sun.

Thinking ahead, for once in my life, I also had brought along my camera so I could take some good pics in the glowing light.  I managed to snap a handful before the heavy, black clouds came rushing back over the sun with great, gloomy gusto.  It was a pipe dream.  A few minutes into our photo session and the sky looked like this (again):

The sudden disappearance of the sun seemed to confuse Blanche, who looked quizzically up at the blackening sky.

Blanche

Perhaps she was confused as to precisely why her body would choose to drop all its feathers at a time of year when the weather behaves so badly.  I know I am.

Confusion aside, I did manage to get a couple of decent shots of the needly-looking new feathers on her head (I guess it’s what they look like before they grow feathery stuff).

And this picture is blurry and crappy, but it’s still a good comparison of Blanche (in molt) and Sophia (not in molt) so you can see the differences.

Sophia, left, Blanche, right

Soup

Chicken Soup with dried blood on his comb and wattles

This was Soup yesterday and today he looks even better.  Day before yesterday (I have no pics) he had fresh, wet, bright red blood on his face, beak, neck, comb, and wattles.  I assumed he was in a fight and lost, and that’s still my guess.  By yesterday, his blood had dried and his wounds were healing and he was back to hunting and pecking like normal.  He still stayed away from the girls, though.  Today he tried to mount one or two and JB promptly kicked him off each time.  But, all in all, he seems to be fine.  I think he’s low-man on the totem pole now, but hopefully it won’t last.  I don’t think Luke can hold his ground for long anyway.

STUPID RATS

trap in bait station

OK, so today I found that our friends, the rats, had tunneled a SECOND entrance into the chicken run.  That did it.  I saw red.  For about a week now, I have had this plastic (read: rain-proof) bait/trap station set right outside the run by the rats’ exit hole.  The idea is that they run in the hole of the box to eat the bait and get snapped in the trap.  This is nice because the rain won’t wash away my peanut butter.  However, I was reluctant to put it IN the coop with the chickens because I’m pretty sure a determined chicken could gets its head in the hole and get snapped in the trap.  The last thing I need is a dead chicken with its  head in a box.  Soooooo… it’s been outside the run.  And the rats have laughed at me for it.

Well today, sirs and madams, I have stepped up my offensive a notch or six.  Today I, in the cold and rain and near-dark, I gathered up several cinder blocks from around our property, carted them to the coop in the wheelbarrow, and built a chicken-proof, rat-attracting death trap.  I put the trap against a wall on the way to the waterer.  I then put cinder blocks on either side so that the rat would have to walk through the cinder block holes to get to the peanut butter (and trap) and so that chicken necks wouldn’t reach.  Then I put another cinder block on top of the whole thing for good measure and to keep it from shifting.  I now have a tower of concrete in my chicken coop, but it’s gonna be worth it.  I’ll tell you one thing – rats LOVE tunnels.  And walls.  Rats LOVE walls.  They run along them.  That’s why you’re supposed to place traps under things and along walls.  Well, my friends, I have created a haven of tunnels and walls for those rats and now I sit and wait for victory.  Oh yes, the time has come.  Rats will die.  I can feel it in my bones.

Chicken Soup

It’s funny how things change.  For the longest time, JB was not only Head Rooster, but he was also the best-looking and the best caretaker for the ladies.  Granted, he whacked me in the leg with his wings a couple of times, but he was mostly just doing his job.  He was my clear favorite, for what it was worth, over the mean Chicken Soup (he used to bite me and be rough with the ladies) and the forgettable and shy Luke.

However, that’s all really not the case now.  Chicken Soup has moved his way steadily up to the position of my number one favorite.  He long ago got over the biting issue and has quietly evolved into our best-looking and manliest rooster.  The above pic is from nearly a month ago and is the best I’ve got.  Lately it has been gray, dark, and rainy almost non-stop and taking decent pictures is nearly impossible.  Today it was like night outside basically all day from the cloud cover.  Anyway, Soup is now by far the largest chicken we have; he’s taller, broader, stronger than the others by a lot.  He’s huge.  He also is the only one with a “correct” comb (each breed standard has its own definition – for Marans it’s five triangular points on a large, single comb).  I’ll have to do a photo session soon to show you.

Beyond all that, he’s really become nice and mellow and a true charmer with the ladies.  He sings to them and calls ecstatically when he finds a bug or a nice seed.  He never takes the good stuff for himself.  He is also on the lookout for predators the most often and calls, “HAWK!!” emphatically every few minutes whether there is a hawk or not (better safe than sorry, no?).  All this and he is also the only rooster, now, that has not tried to “attack” me.  A week or two ago, Luke tried to give it a go.  He’s really been feeling his oats lately and I’m not amused.  Soup will also hang out with me at my feet and he even lets me pet his back a little now and then.  I’m a sucker for anything I could possibly view as “friendliness” or “affection,” so it wins him big points.

The reason I’m writing about Soup today is that I’m a little worried about him.  This afternoon, when I let the chickens out for some time in the grass, he was one of the last ones out, and he was moving a little slowly.  I immediately noticed that he had blood all over his comb, face, wattles, neck, and beak.  I had several thoughts comes at me, rapid-fire.  Had he been in a fight?  They’d never fought in the coop before… Had he been picking on one of the girls?  He’s always been so  nice to them…  Had he caught a rat in the coop and given it what-for?  Was he sick and coughing blood?

A fight seemed the most likely option, even though the other boys had no blood on them.  I checked the coop and run but found no dead rats.  I looked at all the ladies and they were unscathed.  As the other chickens went about their normal business of scratching, pecking, running, flapping, etc, Soup stayed near the coop and hid under the white plastic folding table.  He just stood there with his head tucked down into his fluffed-up neck feathers, looking forlorn.  He didn’t scratch or peck… he didn’t even come running when JB mounted a lady (the other two ALWAYS run over to the event and cheer JB on and then often try to get a piece of the action themselves afterward).  Something was clearly wrong.  At one point, he came out from under the table and JB came running from where he was and tried to chase him down.  Soup shied away immediately and kept his distance.  Twice while we were out, Luke came over to Soup, under the table, and did his mocking courting dance (wing drop, dance in a circle on tippy toes while singing)… after the second dance, Luke stretched his neck way up high over Soup’s lowered head, and then pecked him hard in the face.  Soup just cowered and took the beating.

Because of the cocky behavior from the other two boys, I have to believe that Soup badly lost a fight.  Perhaps the loss even demoted him to lowest-rooster (usually he’s #2).  I am hoping he was just sore from the fight… maybe even a little dazed…. and mostly just sad – not sick.  At one point, he even let me pick him up with very little resistance.  I checked him for other injuries but found none.  I think he had a small cut on his comb, which could have been the source for all of the blood, as I’ve learned combs and wattles bleed like crazy.  I hadn’t held him since he was full-grown.  He’s HUGE.  I wish I had a picture of him in my arms so you could see.  Anyway, he seemed heavy and fluffy and in good healthy.  He kicked at me with his legs half-heartedly, but mostly just stared at me, open-mouthed while I held him.  It was like he was in shock.

When I got my herding stick and started to round everyone up to head back to the coop, he put himself away… first and alone.  He waited from inside the run while I collected everyone else from the far reaches of the ag-area (short for “agricultural area” – the fenced-off portion of our yard that holds the vegetable garden, mini-orchard, berry patch, and chicken coop) and ushered them back into the run.  The boys are always among the last to go in.  So, I am worried.  I really hope it was just a fight with external cuts and wounded pride and nothing more.

Hi everyone… are you having trouble opening/reading my latest posts and/or viewing the pictures?  I believe it is due to the gigantic size of the pictures from the professional wedding photographer.  I thought the blog was compressing them into smaller files to fit on the screen, but Brian (computer guy) tells me that it is loading each huge picture as full-size and then scaling it down to fit in the blog.  This means that it’s hard to download all the gigantic pics and also the data stream can get interrupted and you might not be able to see all of the pictures.  We are trying to view it on our various computers with mixed results.

Can you all please let me know how it’s working for you?  If it gives everyone too much trouble, I may delete the post and do it again after re-saving and uploading smaller versions of the pictures myself… but that would be too much work for tonight.  Please let me know how it goes for you.

Thanks for reading!