Country Life – Page 7 – Angel Wheeler

The Great Outdoors

This chickie mama act is turning out to be a harder gig than you might imagine.

The chicks are growing faster than hairs out of an old man’s ear.

They have outgrown their square box, and I found it necessary to cut two boxes and tape them together at the ends to make a larger container.

They seem a bit bored being stuck in a box all the time, so I found a brave bone in my body and decided to briefly expose them to the grass in my front yard.

Er, weeds in my front yard.

Allow them some fresh air, exercise, and curiosity.

I was home alone. I grabbed Freedom and headed out the door.

It turns out, she’s mentally challenged.

I set her down in the grass, and she stood there, still as a statue. I gave her a small nudge to get her moving, but she did not seem interested in the outdoors at all.

“She must be retarded,” I thought. I couldn’t imagine why she wasn’t pecking the ground, rummaging for bugs. So I went in and found a different chick.

This one is Bookworm, named after my school librarian Marie. Since she loves to eat worms, Marie suggested I name her Bookworm.

I hate to break it to you Marie, but she’s dumb. I even set her near an antbed and she never even glanced their way.

She just sat down, frozen in the yard.

I took Bookworm in and grabbed a yellow chick.

Same song, different verse. She didn’t walk around, peck the ground, or anything either.

I decided they couldn’t all be retarded, that just goes against the odds. I considered sticking my nose in the dirt and showing them how to peck the ground, but it didn’t take long to learn that wasn’t a good idea after all . My thoughts continued, maybe they needed a friend with them. They’re probably nervous all alone. They are flock birds after all.

So the next day, when my niece was there to help me, I tried two at a time.

They did much better and started exploring. See Freedom’s little tail? I’m in love with it.

J-Dub came home and I told him about our outdoor adventure.

The next day, he helped me take them all outside while I changed the litter in their box.

They are so funny. We got a kick out of watching them attempt to fly, peck around, and fuss with each other.

Even Deuce came over to check out the chicks. Typical male.

Then it was time to catch them to put them back in their box.

For the most part, they all stayed together huddled up. But when the human hands began reaching down to grab them, tail feathers went up, and scurrying and peeping began.

We were able to grab them all, with lots of laughs, until the last one. It was not keen on getting caught. There were three of us humans running around a small fenced-in yard, pursuing a chicken. We couldn’t hardly catch it for laughing so hard. You’ve probably seen a cartoon exactly like it. J-Dub reached down with both hands ready, and caught a fist full of air as the little chick ran between his legs.

After several attempts, she was nabbed and back in the box.

Great family fun was had by all.

I can’t wait for the weather to warm up, for their feathers to all grow in, and more laughs to come as we watch them grow.

It’s A Boy!!

It’s calving season out here on the Golden Spread.

Spring is in the air.

Trees are budding, tulips are blossoming, and heifers are birthing.

Heifers are young cows, first-time mamas. I might even be as bold as to call them teenage mothers. Unwed, teenage mothers. My husband says you have to watch heifers closely because some of them have a little bit of mothering instinct, but they also don’t know what they’re doing. For example, an old cow won’t leave their baby right after it is born, but a heifer might come a running at the feed truck, and then wig out when they realize they just left their baby. They’re inexperienced.

Because of their inexperience, a good cowboy will put them in a smaller pasture, close to some pens, and check on them sometimes twice a day, just in case one of them runs into trouble with calving.

Tonight J-Dub needed to check the heifers. So I tagged along. Only one time have I witnessed a calf birth, but it was under poor circumstances, and I would really like to see another one. No such luck tonight. We arrived right after the baby was born. Probably 15 minutes.

The mother and baby were off by themselves.

You can see the afterbirth has not completely been expelled. The mama cow was licking him and cleaning him up, which is a good sign and shows that she is going to accept him as her calf.

When she saw us driving through the gate, she got a little agitated and began bellowing at him and nudging him a bit aggressively. He hadn’t even stood yet and she was eager to get him up and out of there.

We didn’t stay long. It’s best to let nature have her way, and cows don’t send out birthing announcements. They like their privacy. So we headed home. As we were pulling off, I asked J-Dub if he could tell if it was a boy or a girl. He said it was a boy.

I came home to blog about this beautiful birth, and of course my pet chicken Freedom wanted out of the box. She was perched right on my hand and I was just typing away. I thought to myself, what a cute picture. I grabbed my phone to take a shot, trying to get Freedom, my hand, and the keyboard in view, and just as I was about to click the picture, Freedom squatted down and took a grunt right on my desk.

Look closely and you can see the squirt shooting out of her chicken butt.

Okay, laugh at me all you want.

It’s what I get for having house chickens.

Crazy Chicken Lady

While others are being entertained by Monday night TV programming, I am entertained by a chicken.

My husband has nicknamed me The Crazy Chicken Lady.

I don’t care. Sticks and stones and all that jazz.

Although videography is not my forte, and I am using my phone, and there is a red light in the box making the video hard to view, this is just a snippet of how almost every free waking minute of mine is spent.

I’m easily entertained.

And a little bit crazy.

Freedom

We have a pet chicken.

We call her Freedom. She wants out of the box in the worst way imaginable.

She’s the only one who discovered how to fly to the edge of the box. Since then we taped up the sides. She appears to be a Barred Plymouth Rock with a long stripe down her head. She is only one of 3 that we can differentiate between. They all look the same.

Freedom dreams of wide open spaces. When she lays her little chicken head down and closes her little chicken eyes she dreams of eating grubs in the garden not hanging out in a cardboard box. The brown cardboard walls are closing in and driving her chicken crazy.

She is not content in this box with these other peeps. There’s a whole world out there waiting to be discovered and she knows it deep down in her little chicken heart. She’s destined for greater things.

When you lay your hand palm up in the box, all the other chicks scatter, but not Freedom. She hops in ready for a ride out of that place.

She’s curious, friendly and bold.

But manners? She has none. How does she expect to get far in life with antics like this?

She has so much to learn.

My Peeps

The sweet little chicks aren’t very little anymore.

They are growing faster than anything I’ve ever seen. I don’t know if you can tell the difference in their size between the first and second picture, but it’s quite substantial in “real life”.

The first picture was their first day with me, the second was taken this week.

Here’s another picture for comparison. Here are two of them lying on a thermometer in the very corner of the box. The first one was taken when they were a couple of days ago. The second one was taken a couple of days ago. You can barely see the thermometer. Two of them almost cover it completely now.

It’s silly I know, but I am plumb smitten with their new tail feathers. At first they just had little rounded butts, but now these cute tails are emerging.

Not only are they growing, they are gaining some serious confidence and boldness in their flight ability.

I created a small perch for them in the box, which was probably a big mistake. But, thinking like a chicken, I thought they would like to roost on something. The perch serves the purpose well and also adds some extra height so they can fly to the top of the feeder and waterer. Once there, they strain their chicken necks as far as they can to look out. They want freedom!

The other day, I temporarily stored them in a smaller box while I carried their larger box outside to replace the straw. When I returned, here was this booger checking out the view from the cord of the heat lamp.

Jason called me the other day to report that one of them flew to the top of the feeder and then managed to fly to the edge of the box and perch there. I wish he would have gotten a picture but he didn’t.

We had to pull the box flaps up and tape them so they have more of an obstacle. I only hope they don’t conspire to use their perch as a pole vault and high tail it out of there. I’m currently on the lookout for a window screen to put over the box to keep them in.

These breeds of birds I purchased, (Buff Orpington, Barred Plymouth Rock, and Australorp), are dual purpose birds. Meaning they are good for both eggs and meat. I might wring their necks and fry them up if the notion strikes me. But it won’t. Not to worry.

They are heavy bodied birds and will weigh about 7 or 8 pounds full grown. They shouldn’t be able to fly too high because of their heavy bodies, so I don’t think I’ll need to clip their wings. Thank goodness.

We are enjoying these gals and spend much of our time sitting on a stool peering into their box watching their antics.

Here J-Dub holds a sweet baby chick in his rough, calloused hands. This picture is so precious to me. I could probably write a whole blog on it.

Maybe I will someday.

Just In: Chicken Fatality Report

They, whoever they are, say death comes in three’s. Since I last wrote about my chickens, one more has died, which brings the number of fatalities to 3. It was the little chick I was worried about before. The antisocial black one with a little yellow spot on its head who stood in the corner and stared. She didn’t even get a proper burial in the chicken cemetery. I watched J-Dub carry her by her legs and toss her over the barbed wire fence into the pasture. Apparently, we’ve become desensitized to chicken death. It’s just the way it goes. My husband says, “If you’re gonna deal with livestock, you’re gonna deal with death.” He’s right. Nothing lives forever. And what is it that old Augustus McCrae says in Lonesome Dove when young Sean gets bitten all over with water moccasins, “Life’s short. Shorter for some than others.”

But I must admit it’s a bit embarrassing to confess how many I have lost. I feel like it’s my fault. The first thing people say when they see me is not Hi, How are You, but rather,”So how many chicks have died now?” And then they look at me like I have Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy or something. I am hoping the death spree is over. One died on Wednesday, one on Thursday, and one on Friday. I now have 14 surviving chickies, and I’m feeling pretty dern good about the health of these 14. I haven’t seen Ol’ Spaz, the seizure thrower, convulse in a couple of days, and Molasses, the one who got trapped under the water trough seems to be doing just fine. I even think she may not be as bow-legged as she once was. Truthfully, I can’t even recognize her anymore. I’m confident these 14 will survive. At least until I put them outside and a chicken hawk or bull snake gets a hold of them. But for now, they are safe and sound in my spare bedroom. For now.

I get a kick out of them. They are quite enjoyable and provide many laughs for us. When I put fresh straw in their box, if by chance there is a little piece of seed head that even faintly resembles a bug, one of them snags it up and starts running, thinking they’ve really found a treasure that they’re not sharing. As soon as the other chicks catch on that their sister has a jewel, they begin chasing her around trying to nab it. They start grabbing at that little seed head, pecking it from each other’s mouth, even playing a little game of tug o’ war, all the while, peeping loudly.

After watching this sport, I got a little nerve and decided to give them something “real”. Something they would forage for in the yard. A tasty morsel to fight over. I scraped some mud off the bottom of a big flower-pot and found 4 earthworms. Scrumptious, juicy, wiggling earthworms. I took the smallest I could find and tossed it in their box. At first, 2 or 3 chicks circled the worm taking turns pecking at it. They displayed a little curiosity, but not any real gumption. Not until this bold little chick walked right up, pushed her way through the circle, grabbed the worm in her beak with one peck and away she scrambled with the others right on her tail feathers. After a couple of circles around the box, a zig, a zag and a fake-out, she quickly found a spot in the corner, tipped her head back, and swallowed the worm right down her gullet. Thinking she was Hot Stuff, she strutted around, sharpening her beak on the box. In a few minutes, the others laid down for a nap, but not Hot Stuff, she was loaded up with protein and feeling fine and frisky.

I have since put in a couple more worms, and every time a few of them circle and peck until Hot Stuff struts in, nabs the worm and eats it whole. The funny thing is she’s the smallest of the bunch, but definitely the most fearless. It will be interesting to see if she turns out to be the most dominant chick in the coop.

Well folks, that’s it for today.

Tune in next time for more Tales From the Chicken Ranch for the latest fatality report and our special segment, “What’s on the Menu?”

Until Next Time,

Chicky Mama

Signs of Morning

Morning Time is quickly becoming my favorite time of day.

I can easily say this today, on a Sunday.

More specifically the Sunday after I’ve had 8 days off of work.

Maybe tomorrow morning I won’t feel the same. Tomorrow. The dreaded Monday. More specifically, the first day back to work. The first day back to work after Spring Break. The first day back to work after Spring Break and Daylights Savings Time. The first day back to work where instead of driving 10 seconds to get to work, I must drive 10 miles.

But this Sunday morning was glorious, and I can easily say it was my favorite time of day.

Where I now live, in the mornings, the cows in the neighbor’s pasture lumber their way, softly mooing as they go, to a barbed wire fence to stare down this county road. J-Dub says they’re waiting for the neighbor’s feed truck, but I have yet to see it arrive.

Hoping for breakfast.

But their curiosity of me and my camera gets the better of them.

In the mornings, the birds sing softly. I gaze towards the telephone poles and the fence lines looking for them, but never find them.

As you can see, there aren’t many trees to perch in. They must be hiding in the grasses, raising their song of hope towards the heavens.

In the mornings, the grass is a little wet from the dew and the fresh breezes gently blow, refreshing me.

In the mornings, I set my coffee cup in the pasture so I can operate my camera. And the horse poses for his portrait.

In the mornings, the sun warms the blossoms of the fruit trees, giving hope of new life. And sweet apricots.

Mornings are filled with hope.

Hope of new beginnings.

Hope of fresh starts.

Hope of happy days to come.

Happy Spring!

Slow as Molasses

I have officially declared myself unfit as a chicken mama.

Someone call CPS. No, not Child Protective Services, ring up Chicken Protective Services.

I lost another chicky. I don’t know the cause of death, I contribute it to Mother Nature. Beneath my electrical pole, it is beginning to look something like a chicken cemetery.

Two down, Fifteen to go. And there may be more. I have one who seems to be having seizures. Every so often it begins peeping very loudly, flops over, and twitches its head and feet for about 20 seconds. I don’t know what to do when this happens. I don’t think I can fit a spoon in its beak.

I have another I’m very concerned about. It’s not eating or drinking much. Nor does it socialize, it just stands in the corner and stares at the box.

Frankly, if any of them make it long enough to lay an egg, it’ll be a miracle.

I don’t understand why my chicken flock isn’t stronger. I’ve been taking very excellent care of them. I make sure their temperature is just right, I give them plenty of food, fresh straw, and water.

However, I can pretty much bet that I won’t be winning the “chicken caretaker of the year” award. Let me tell you why. Yesterday I awoke and the chicks were happy, healthy, and rambunctious. They only had tissue paper lining their box for the first day (as per the instructions). Day two suggested giving them some sort of litter; straw, hay, big pine shavings, but not anything too small like sand or wood shavings, as they might eat it and mess up their digestive systems.

I got some hay from a big round hay bale out in the field. I picked each of the little chicks up, counting as I went, and set them in a temporary box to get them out of the way. I laid some fresh hay in their permanent box, then picked them up, once again counting each of them, and placed them back one by one on their new, cozy, straw bedding. Then I gave them a feeder filled with chicken starter feed.

I went into the kitchen, heated their water to a pleasant 98 degrees on the stove (as per instructions), and filled their waterer (pictured below).

I checked on them a few more times throughout the day, then I left to come into town (spoken like a true country girl) to take care of some business. I returned home around four or five in the afternoon and discovered the dead little black chick. I was distraught. My husband pulled in the drive and I met him with the bad news. He buried my little chicky for me.

After the funeral we were just sitting around the box watching the little chicks. I have a couple of little stools that set next to the box and my butt has almost become permanently affixed.

I received 17 chickens and two have died so I am down to 15. Sitting around the box, I did a quick headcount. I counted 14. I counted again, and again got 14. The little boogers are running all around the box, so they are difficult to count. I announced to J-Dub there were only 14, he counted and said, “No there’s 15.” I mentally counted again. Still 14.

“Jason, I’m only getting 14.” He counted again and this time, he too got 14.

“There’s a chicken missing!” I exclaimed.

“Well it can’t be far,” he answered.

Just like a mama whose lost a kid at The Walmarts, thoughts began racing through my mind.

Maybe it flew somewhere? I looked around the room. No chick, chick here. Maybe I left it in the other box and forgot about it? I checked the box. No chick, chick there.

J-Dub says, “Maybe you miscounted when you first got them.” I knew I hadn’t. And then the dreaded thought occurred to me. What if I squashed her underneath the waterer when I set it in the box? I carefully lifted the waterer and peeked beneath, expecting to find another dead chicken, but instead out wobbled a little black chick, hungrier and thirstier than ever. She had been underneath the waterer all day long. Fortunately, it didn’t set flush to the floor, and there was a tiny little space where she was crouched. But the poor little thing just isn’t the same. It’s easily recognizable by its spraddled legs. I think the poor thing must have been in the “splits” position all day and now her legs are very wide-spread. She also doesn’t have very good balance and wobbles around like a little drunk man. Even when she’s standing still, she’s weaving.

We decided if she wasn’t slow in the head before that incident, she is slow now, possibly even retarded.

So Ashy named her Molasses. Slow as Molasses.

She’s a tough one, that’s for sure.

Me? I feel awful. I’m relieved she survived.

So far.

Junior Chicky Little

The chicks are quite rambunctious today. Soon they will need a much bigger box.

Yesterday, I didn’t tell you my story of death, but today I must tell you that one of them did not make it. Nature has its way of elimintaing the sick and weak and I did have a sick one.

When I first opened the box, there was a little yellow chick who had obviously endured hard trip. She was very weak and lethargic. Once I put her in the box, she seemed to perk around. I later became worried about a little black one who began struggling, then that one perked itself up.

A little while later, about 2 hours, the little yellow chick laid down, closed her eyes, and never opened them.

We buried her next to the new electrical pole where they dirt was real loose and didn’t take much manpower behind the shovel.

Ashlynn did what she does when little critters die, and made a tombstone for JR Chicken Little.

I had only ordered 15 chicks, and the hatchery sent me 17. I think that must be their “insurance” against death.

So if you are the “see the glass as half full” kind of person, even though we’ve had a fatality, I still have one extra chick than I paid for.

The remaining 16 seem very healthy and rowdy, so I hope we avoid future burials.

Oh Happy Day

I received a phone call this morning at 6:40 from the United States Postal Service informing me that I had a package to pick up as soon as possible.

I jumped in the shower, threw on my clothes, and rushed off without a bit of make-up.

Yes, my friends, the day has finally arrived. The day I have longed for, anxiously crossing off calendar dates, to arrive.

Let’s open the box together!

I wish you could’ve heard the dozens of sweet little peeps that were escaping during the transport to my house.

There they are. Sweet little baby chicks. And one with chicken dookie on his back.

Unlike human babies, these little darlings came with instructions!

They shouldn’t be handled for the first 24 hours.

They need a box with water and a heat lamp. The temperature needs to be about 98 degrees.

You must take each bird and dip its beak in the water so they can begin drinking. Also, make sure the water is 98 degrees.

It does them some good to have a little sugar in their water, and to chop up a couple of boiled eggs to give them a strong start. Boy, did they like those boiled eggs!

You just need to sprinkle their feed in the box, so they can practice pecking for the first day, later they’ll learn to eat from the trough.

They’ve already grown so much today, I know they’ve gained at least 2 ounces each!

Also included in the instructions, way down at the bottom, was the stuff everyone forgets to mention about chicks, like: how to wipe pasty poop that gets stuck on their butt, and what to do when they pull their feathers out and start bleeding, how to prevent the chicks from pecking one another, and as a last resort for pecking how to cut part of their beaks off!! I will not be doing that. These chicks will surely behave.

So dear reader, this is my first chicken post. I say that because I’m sure it will not be my last.

Happy pecking!