raising chickens – Page 4

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

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!

Got No Power Windows

Let me tell you about my yesterday.

We had to do some work on the chicken coop, so I needed my new, old truck to help haul some old wood for me. We tore down one side of the chicken coop that was just crappy old particle board hammered together.

We’re replacing it with some rustic looking wide planks that are in a pile of rubble from a torn down structure.

So me and my niece Ash loaded up in the truck to gather the planks and drive them to the coop. This was her first time to see this old heap of metal and as soon as she climbed in, one of the first things she exclaimed was how she loved those kind of windows. You know the kind. The crank handle kind.

It took some work to get the truck running. But once it did, it only died 3 times. But then it got warmed up, and it was ready to go. If only I could get it to go, that is.

Now I’ve driven a stick shift in my time, and once I re-introduce myself to the gears I can normally do just fine. So I put this truck in first, it jerked forward a couple times, and then died. My second attempt in first gear was a repeat of the previous failure. I then attempted to start off in second gear, and it jerked and died. I eased off the clutch more carefully, it still died. I tried and tried and could not for the life of me figure out why I couldn’t get this truck to go without dying. I studied the gear shift again.

I wasn’t really sure what L stood for, I don’t recall ever seeing it on a gear shift before. Ash assured me that it probably stood for Launch, so I slammed it into L, and sure enough that must be what it stands for ’cause away we went.

We gathered the boards up.

Then pulled all the nails out.

Then we took a drive in the truck. We rolled, and I do mean literally rolled, our windows down. We even pushed open that little triangle window that is next to the big window and let the wind blow through out hair as we chugged down the dusty country lane.

My old truck reminds me of a song that my daddy likes. It’s called Power Windows.

Louis drives a beat up ’69 Dart.
Swears it’s the statue of Mary that keeps the car from falling apart.
With Gracie right beside him sittin’ closer than a smile.
She’s got her head on his shoulder.
He loves to drive and hold her.

He got no power windows. Got no power brakes.
He ain’t got no power nothin’ but he got what it takes.
He’s got Gracie’s arm around him and a smile on his face.
He’s got the power of love.

That night, as I was saying good night to Ash, she remarked that it was the most awesome day ever. The most awesome day ever? How strange. We didn’t do anything but work. So I asked her what made it so awesome.

Her response made me smile. She said just being out at the place, tearing down the chicken coop, driving the truck, and having family fun.

It made me realize that we didn’t spend any money.

We didn’t see anything fancy.

We didn’t have the newest, high-tech $300 gadget to entertain us.

We got no power windows even.

Just the two of us, hanging out, enjoying the sunshine, laying on an old wagon gazing at the clouds, telling stories, singing songs, and enjoying each other.

Which reminds me of another song. This one my mama used to sing me when I was just a wee one.

Oh, we ain’t got a barrel of money,
Maybe we’re ragged and funny
But we’ll travel along
Singing a song
Side by side.

Don’t know what’s comin’ tomorrow
Maybe it’s trouble and sorrow
But we’ll travel the road
Sharing our load
Side by side.

Travel the road in our old blue truck with no power windows,

Side by side.

A Chicken Story

I live in my own little world, and it’s safe here. But occasionally something will happen that rocks my little world, and I’m reminded of the ugliness on this third rock from the sun.

We have some friends who recently bought some chickens. They didn’t order baby chicks through the mail, but instead went to a nearby town to a fellow’s house where he had too many chickens and needed to get rid of some. These folks didn’t have a coop, but they had a barn. The chickens were all over the place. Every day, the chickens climbed up on haystacks in the barn to lay their eggs, so every day was like an easter egg hunt just to gather the eggs. There were so many chickens clucking around, that some of the chickens lived in the trees outside the barn, because the barn chickens had established a pecking order and wouldn’t let the tree chickens in. Barn chickens vs. Tree chickens. Following me?

That reminds me of my old middle school bus stop. We moved to the wrong side of the tracks when I was in middle school and had to start riding the bus. My sister and I used to catch the bus at a church in our neighborhood. There were some big boys, high school age thugs, that also rode the bus. Many mornings it was cold when we got to our bus stop, and on these cold mornings, the wind would cut you to the bone. Rather than wait by the curb for the bus, there was a little covered porch attached to the church that we huddled in out of the cold. These big boys (the barn chickens) decided to establish a pecking order and wouldn’t let us younger kids (the tree chickens) on the covered porch (the barn) unless we gave them candy first. So every day, we had to take candy to the bus stop in order to wait in the barn out of the cold. This went on until somehow our big brothers got wind of it. We got off the bus one afternoon and our brothers were waiting there to have a “talking” with those barn chickens. After that, we didn’t have to give them candy anymore.

But I digress. Back to the friends who got some chickens from a nearby town. Chickens in the barns, chickens in the trees. Here a chick, there a chick, everywhere a chick, chick. The owner had a dog, a Border Collie who understood Spanish. The owner would speak a little Spanish to him, and that dog would crouch down and wait for a chicken to fly out of the tree, then he would pounce on the chicken, hold this neck in his mouth, pin him down with his paws, and just lie there until the owner got the chicken and put it in a gunny sack. Then the owner spoke a little more Spanish to the dog, and the dog would catch another chicken to go in the sack.

Our friend ended up with 9 chickens and a rooster with a crippled leg. He was a fighting rooster but he had lost his last fight. The rule is, the owner of the winning rooster gets to snap the leg of the losing rooster and hand him back. His fighting days are over.

I can’t believe this sort of sport still goes on. I mean, I knew there were cock fights. I just didn’t know they were happening right down the road from my safe little world. And I never imagined that they would break the losing chicken’s leg. That just seems barbaric. I thought we were a civilized people.

And that’s all I have to say about that.