little chickens, big chickens

These new chickens of ours have felt a little bit like middle children compared to their older counterparts...there are very few pictures of them, they don't get as many exciting kitchen scraps, they don't get held quite as much.  Sometimes I find myself feeling a bit guilty about these things...then I remind myself that they are chickens...just chickens...

They are very cute and adventurous chickens, though.  The red one, Beer Can, is always trying new things, like figuring out how to climb up on to the big ladies' perch or how to fly around the yard.  And the yellow one, Bernadette, follows her everywhere.  No matter where they are or what they are doing, you can always find them side by side.  They are quite the pair!  

image.jpg

Over the past couple weeks we have been working to introduce them and familiarize them to the older hens.  We started the introductions by putting them in adjacent fences in the yard so that they could see each other and get used to one another, but still be separate and free from pecking.  We also put them in the chickens' new fenced area while the big hens were in their run, which once again forced them to be close together, but still separate.  

image.jpg

Then this past week we started putting the chicks in the run and chicken yard with the hens during the day.  This has been a bit of a rocky transition.  The chicks have received quite a few pecks from the hens and the they are quite afraid of the big ladies.  Each day gets a little better, though, and we're hoping to fully transition the chicks outside over the next few days.    

image.jpg
image.jpg
image.jpg

This has all been complicated a bit by Henrietta, our big Buff Orpington, whose motherly instincts have kicked in quite strongly over the past couple weeks.  She has fully entered the broody stage, which includes sitting in the nesting box all day and night, pulling out her chest feathers in order to keep her baby eggs warm, and a sabbatical from egg laying as she focuses completely on hatching those eggs.  Unfortunately, she doesn't realize that the eggs will never hatch into babies and we also take away all of the eggs each day.  She's one dedicated mama, though.  So much so, that we're considering getting some fertilized eggs for her to hatch next spring...she would make a good mama hen.  

The downside of broodiness is the full-fledged chicken PMS that accompanies it!  My, oh my, she is one crabby lady!! Any time we open the nesting boxes, she puffs out all of her feathers and grunts at us.  And on the rare occasion that she comes out from the nesting box for food and water, she runs around the chicken yard squawking and grunting, with feathers puffed out.  The other ladies do not seem to like this broodiness and as a result, they peck at her and chase her around every time she's out and about.  This causes her to run right back into the coop to safety.  Poor girl, the female population sympathizes with you...

image.jpg

The chicks are very afraid of Henrietta and the crazy sounds that come out of her as she runs wildly around the chicken yard.  So, we're trying to time their transition into the coop with Henrietta's transition back to normal life.  From what I've read, broodiness lasts for just a few weeks.  So, she should be coming out of it soon and we can hopefully all transition into a new way of life, one in which chickens live outside, and not in our dining room and both hens and chicks co-exist in peaceful harmony...soon...very soon.

pretty eggs

Having our very own chicken eggs during Easter, obviously meant that we needed to make our very own naturally dyed Easter eggs.  And so that is exactly what we did!  We ended up with golden yellow, using ground turmeric, and copper, using onion skins.  The blue eggs are from our hen Birdie--she makes 'em real purdy.  

image.jpg

If you haven't yet dyed eggs and are wanting to, you can find Ashley English's Naturally Dyed Eggs instructions here.  They are so easy and make such pretty colors!  

Happy Easter to all of you!  We'll be enjoying the weekend at home and with family.  I hope that wherever this weekend finds you, it finds you well.   

what i've learned from a year with chickens

A year ago today I picked up five baby chicks from Egg|Plant Urban Farm Supply and excitedly brought them home.  Being the reader and researcher that I am, I knew a lot going into this adventure, but there is nothing that compares to real life experience.  After a year of being a chicken mama, I feel that I can confidently say that I understand chickens!  Obviously, there is still more to learn.  But as for the basics, I've got them!  So, here's a little of the good and the bad that I've learned about raising chickens in the city...

image.jpg

Let's start with "The Bad":

  1. Chickens make a HUGE mess of your landscaping and gardens!!!  My aunt warned me about her chickens' habits of kicking mulch out of her flower beds...but I underestimated their destructive natures...by the end of last fall, they had turned most of my Hostas into shredded greens, kicked most of our mulch into the grass, dug holes in the yard, eaten my carrot tops which completely prevented any carrots from forming, helped themselves to the kale every time it finally got big enough for us to use, scratched in my ground covers, and pooped everywhere...literally everywhere.  What we learned was that free-range chickens and beautiful urban gardens cannot peacefully coexist without proper fencing and limitations...this year proper fencing and limitations will be added to our small little city lot and my dreams of a Better Homes and Gardens urban paradise will be renewed.
  2. Organic chicken feed is not cheap.  My friend Bre tried to warn me that keeping chickens and feeding them organic feed was not economical (when compared to just buying eggs).  I doubted her because at times my confidence levels in myself are a bit too high and I assumed I could find a cheaper way...well...I haven't.  There may still be a cheaper way, but I have yet to find one that easily fits into our current lifestyle (ie. dumpster diving may be cheap, but who's got time for that?!?!).  The truth is, feeding an organic diet to a small flock with little foraging space is not cheap, but for us, it's still worth it.  The eggs that we get don't compare in color or flavor to the most expensive local eggs that we can find at our co-op.  We could easily feed them for a lot less on conventional feed, and that would be cheaper than most grocery store eggs, but to us the cost is worth the benefits of the eggs we receive.
  3. They poop sooooooo much!!!  I was a bit unprepared for the amount of waste that comes out of their behinds...I thought it was a lot when they were chicks, but oh my, it has multiplied as they've grown!  As it has mostly been cold in Minnesota since they have become full grown, we have yet to fully experience their poop in the heat of the summer...so...I'll get back to you on how bad it really is.  Because, not only is there a lot of it...but it can get kind of stinky....so...stay tuned....
  4. They are louder than we expected.  We picked out breeds that were supposedly quiet and great for city life...but they still get a bit squawky at times, especially when they want out of their coop or want the food that someone else has.  However, when they are content, they quiet right down.  Our neighbors don't seem to mind, and compared to the neighborhood dogs, the chickens are hardly noticeable! 

Now, "The Bad" is kind of a bummer...but the good news is that "The Good" makes "The Bad" so worth it!!  So...here's "The Good":

  1. The eggs are amazing!!!  We constantly play the game of "guess which eggs are from our chickens" as we crack store-bought and home-grown eggs into the frying pan.  The color of our ladies' yolks is bright orange and they are so big and firm.  The amount of yolk compared to the white is fantastic.  You know how the white in store-bought eggs sometimes gets so stringy where you can't seem to get it to release from the shell??  That doesn't really happen with our eggs.  And when you drop them into the frying pan, the whites stay in tack and don't spread across the pan, making the most perfect fried egg.  Then there's the taste...yum...they are SOOOO flavorful!!!  The color also tells of their nutrients.  Because our chickens eat so many of our table scraps and good organic feed, their eggs are packed full of great things, which in turn nourish our bodies.  There is also nothing quite as lovely as the pretty collection of eggs varying in shades of brown and blue which sit on our kitchen counter.  Love, love.  
  2. They are very easy to take care of!  Besides strategizing ways to keep them from destroying the gardens, not much work goes into their care.  There are days when we do absolutely nothing with them, especially in the heart of the winter when the days are short. Most days, we check on them, gather eggs, give them a few scraps from the kitchen, and let them out into the yard.  Then about once a week we fill up their food and water and clean up their coop and run a little bit.  (Honestly...the cleaning doesn't always happen...and we all survive just fine....)
  3. They can survive a normal Minnesota winter without a heater.  We worried our way through through December and January as the temps and windchill dropped, but we decided not to heat our coop and are so glad that we didn't.  Our chickens did just fine in their insulated coop and with their 6-12 inches of straw bedding.  They are cold-hardy birds and they adapted to the cold temps that Minnesota threw their way.  Their egg production dropped and for January and February they pretty much stopped, but that's natural and normal for cold weather birds.  We did encounter a bit of frost bite on their red combs, but I'm hoping that I'll be able to better prevent that next year, now that I know when to expect it.
  4. They are SO MUCH FUN!!!  I can't even describe how much we enjoy these chickens.  They are hilarious.  They do funny and stupid things.  We could sit on our deck and watch them for hours.  We stand at our kitchen window and watch them perch in their run.  We laugh as they run for cover when geese fly overhead.  We hold them and pet their silky feathers.  We nervously laugh as they sing their obnoxious egg songs each day that they proudly lay their eggs.  We wake up and think of chickens.  We shut down the house for the evening and think about chickens.  We love having chickens.  THEY ARE SO MUCH FUN.   
  5. We are somehow working to make our broken food system better.  We still buy eggs in the heart of winter and still drive to the grocery store just as much as we did before...but we understand so much more about how food is grown and raised because of our chickens, which makes us so much more mindful about how we eat, use, and waste the food that finds its way into our kitchen.  With our compost pile and our chickens we don't really throw away any food.  In fact, we often bring our trash outside because it smells bad (from meat wrappings) long before it's full.  Wasting food is something that rarely happens in our house now, and I love that.  I makes spending money on quality food much easier to do--because the food all serves a purpose.  It no longer sits in our fridge for two weeks and then gets thrown into the garbage.  It's being used to its full potential--each and every bit of it.  

So, with all of that, we've both agreed that we'd do it all again.  We may do a few things differently, but we don't at all regret raising chickens.  It's been well worth the cost and time.  We even have two new chicks arriving in less than two weeks to add to our flock!  Urban chicken keeping is definitely for us.  And for that I'm so very thankful for the episode of The Splendid Table that I heard over 4 years ago that first introduced me to the idea of backyard hens.  Our ladies are a wonderful addition to our exciting and fun-filled lives. 

image.jpg

a taste of spring

What lovely weather we've been having!  Everyone around here is eagerly soaking in the warm temps and luscious sunlight.  Our snow is completely gone and the chickens and cat are constantly wanting to run around the yard.  I've even been able to start cleaning up the mess of mulch that the chickens kicked into our grass in the fall--and it's only March!!  I keep telling all of the creatures and plants not to get too excited (especially the bulbs that are starting to poke their heads out of the dirt)...it is only March, after all, and we do live in Minnesota...more snow is likely to make an appearance over the next few weeks.

But for now, we're happily enjoying this lovely spring weather!  Hooray!!! 

image.jpg
image.jpg
image.jpg
image.jpg

winter molters

Most books on chickens will tell you that chickens generally molt in the fall.  Then other books will tell you that occasionally this is not the case.  However, most chicken books do not tell you much more than that.  

We've recently discovered that some chickens molt in the dead of winter.  We know this to be a fact because four of our five are steadily dropping their feathers and baring their naked necks.  We've tried to explain to them that now is not the time...but they don't seem to care!  

image.jpg
image.jpg

We first realized that Trudy, our Silver Laced Wyandotte, was molting when we saw her fluff her feathers and realized that there were no feathers on the back of her neck.  Over the next week, we started finding piles of feathers in the coop and after closer inspection, realized that most of them weren't Trudy's, but were in fact our Barred Rocks' Chicken & Pollo (or The Twins as they are more frequently called).  

image.jpg
image.jpg

One thing that books do tell you is that chickens will often stop laying while they are molting as it takes a lot of protein to produce feathers and to produce eggs, so they just focus on one at a time.  For the past two months, we've been only getting about 3-4 eggs per week, which we had blamed on the cold and dark days.  However, realizing that several of our girls are molting, made the egg decrease make much more sense.  

image.jpg

We've sense learned that molting can happen slowly, which is called a "soft molt", or quickly, a "hard molt."  In a soft molt, you may not even realize that the hen is slowly losing and replacing her feathers.  In a hard molt, you may have a nearly naked chicken running around your yard!  We think our girls are experiencing a soft molt. It's really only noticeable in patches around their necks and hopefully that continues to be the case as it makes it way down to their tails.  We think Birdie, our Americauna, has been molting since November when she stopped laying.  We had assumed she was protesting winter, and she may still be, but we also think she's just taking a break while she works on those new feathers and perfects her beard.  

image.jpg

In order to speed the process up a bit, we've been giving them lots of protein-filled snacks.  They have been enjoying all the legumes, seeds, and meats that have been dumped into their dish over the past week and I've been enjoying cleaning out a few questionable leftovers in my fridge!  

image.jpg
image.jpg

Overall, our girls don't seem to mind that their necks are a bit bare even as the temps stay steadily below freezing.  We did learn that they don't like to be touched when molting because as their new feathers come in, the quills are rather sharp and so it can be painful if something touches their new feathers.  So, we're letting them be and making sure their coop is a bit more protected from the wind.  I'm looking forward to a few weeks from now when their molting is complete, though, and our daily egg-gathering trips are much more profitable!  

chickens in the snow

First shortened days and now falling snow.  It looks as though winter has arrived and is quite possibly here to stay!  While we cozy up inside, the ladies are having to quickly acclimate to the changing temps and changing precipitation.  They were very uncertain about the cold white stuff they found outside (and inside) their run on Monday morn.  Since then, most of them have ventured out into.  Henrietta (the yellow one) and the twins, Chicken and Pollo, now seem unfazed by the snow.  Trudy, the lacy white and black one, is getting a bit more used to it.  While Birdie has been choosing to stay as close to the coup as possible.  

image.jpg

Many people have asked us what we'll do with the chickens in the winter.  The answer is, we'll do pretty much the same as we do in the warmer weather.  All five of our birds are cold weather breeds, meaning that they are animals that can handle being outside in a Minnesota winter.  Their coop is well insulated and when they are all in there, their body heat heats it up as well and the insulation keeps that warmth in the coop until morning.  Dan is planning to put plastic around the outer side of their run, which will protect them from the wind and help keep the snow out.  We also bought a heater for their waterer, to help keep it thawed through the winter.  Other than that, we aren't really doing anything differently for them.

Their egg production has started decreasing a bit this week, probably due to both the cold and the short days.  They still seem to be happy birds, though, except Birdie.  She's does not seem to be enjoying the cold.  We're hoping she's ok.  I think I'm gonna need to give her a little extra love and attention over the next few days to make sure she's ok and not sick or egg bound.  

image.jpg
image.jpg
image.jpg
image.jpg

Overall, all is well at the Rodriguez urban homestead--snow and all!  Now, if only Dan Rodriguez would bring us home some fresh venison, we'd be set for winter! 

chickens in the dark

Now that Day Light Savings has ended and the days are progressively getting shorter, I'm finding that there is very little time to see my chickens in the daylight.  Last week, it was light until about 6:30, so there was an hour or two after work for them to play in the yard and for me to watch them from the kitchen windows.  Now, however, it's dark by 5:30 and while I'm still able to watch them wander around the yard and run for a bit, it's mostly done by lamplight and floodlight, rather than daylight.  

The mornings are also filled with darkness, which I'm beginning to love: the chilly morning air, the dark sky, and sounds of chickens jumping down from their perch and cooing as they wake up to me turning on their light.  

Only seeing my chickens in the dark is I guess what having chickens and working daytime hours looks like during a Minnesota winter.  They seem to be doing just fine with the lack of sunlight (we're still averaging 4 eggs per day!) and I'm ok with the shorter days as well.  

Old Man Winter is a-knocking...and these sleepy, short days are making me want to curl up inside and say goodnight to the chickens when they find their way into the coop as we're sitting down to dinner.  (Unless your chicken name is Birdie...she likes her sleep and can be found on the perch in the coop as soon as the sun starts tucking behind the houses.  She's a funny one--unfazed by artificial light.)

image.jpg
image.jpg
image.jpg
image.jpg
image.jpg
image.jpg

fridays in the fall

I had every intention of posting something about healthy living today--fitting, in light of the Ebola happenings--but after a long day yesterday of giving tests, writing tests, and grading papers, I decided that chicken pictures would suffice.

Happy Friday, everyone! I hope your day is filled with lots of fallish things on this mid-October day.