Chicken Update

The white Leghorn is Teagen's rooster. The small brown one is T.S.'s hen, Bob. She's been sneaking into the garage to lay her eggs. The black Polish rooster in the background seems to take great delight in terrorizing T.S.

What a Day!

Several interesting things happened around here today.

• First, when I went out to collect eggs, I found this one:

It's hard to see in the picture, but it doesn't have a shell. After looking it up on the Internet, it is not uncommon for this to happen periodically. This is only the second one we've had. The little bump on the top of the egg is actually part of the shell. For whatever reason, it just didn't make. Some people say you can go ahead and use it--I think I'll pass. FYI--we do offer free-choice oyster shells, so it shouldn't be a calcium deficiency that caused the shell-less egg.

• Next, the kids decided they wanted to earn their slip and slide today, so Sadie cleaned the office and both kids picked up the living room. Maybe the bean jar will work after all.

• Finally, the kids and I have been observing a small, green orb (for lack of a better word) on the back-side of a leaf. We were pretty sure it was an insect egg, so we put it into a bug jar to watch. Tonight Sadie noticed that the egg was clear. Upon further inspection with a magnifying glass, you could tell that something had broken out of it. Unfortunately it must have been smaller than the holes in the jar, because there was no insect to be found.

Overall, it has been an exciting, educational (but don't tell the kids that) day.

I wonder what will happen tomorrow.

Stay-at-Home Mom, P.I.

Today I had a mission: to find where the chickens were laying their eggs. We'd been having a low egg count lately so I knew they were hiding them somewhere. I waited until later than usual to let the chickens out of the pen for their daily outing. Two of the Rhode Island Reds immediately took off towards the pens. I followed them, but couldn't find a nest.

The dew was so heavy that the chickens and I left footprints in the wet weeds.

I finally found the nest in a pile of tumble weeds. The hen was sitting on 6 eggs. Since I didn't know how old they were--either 3 or 6 days, depending on if both chickens had been laying, I had to get rid of them.

I went back out later to check the nest in the pens. To my surprise, the Reds had come back to their house to lay. I did get the chance to stalk Wild Momma Cat this time. She is the mother to the three cats we bottle fed. I knew she had babies, but hadn't been able to track her. When I went outside, she was eating the cat food. (One drawback to bottle-feeding cats, if you don't teach them to hunt, they are dependent on you.) I was able to follow her to the old chicken house--now a storage room for lots of junk--that is on the back end of the shop. I looked in the window and saw three kittens. At the time, I thought I only saw two, but much to my surprise, the first picture I took caught a second kitten in the lower right corner.

I'm not brave enough to go in and investigate further--there is a good story about my sister and looking for cats in there that I'll have to share sometime.

T.S. can't get over how much they look like our cats. I've tried to explain that they all have the same mother, but he doesn't seem to get it.

Who knew that a morning of chicken stalking could turn into so much fun discovery?

Picture(s) of our Day--Yesterday

Run, Bob run! there is a giant trying to get in!



These need captions (I tried on the first one, but it is too early for my brain to work). Feel free to leave one in the comments.

Bad Hair

These guys give a whole new meaning to the term, "bad hair day":

The chicks are growing--but they are still in that in-between-place where they are losing the fuzz and the feathers aren't in good yet.

More Snow Pictures

We had a little more snow overnight. By noon, there were already bare spots and now all that is left are the drifts. We had some really cool drifts in our pens and in the corner of our fence line. The kids had fun in the snow. You can see more pictures of them here. You can also click on these images to make them larger.

It is kind of strange to think we were experiencing a blizzard yesterday and the temps are in the high 40s today. The wind is still blowing, so I am sure there is a wind chill. We learned we are going to have to do some upgrading to the chicken house so we'll be ready if we ever have a "real" winter.

I'm sure this may be overkill on the pictures, but I really thought the drifts and their shapes were cool. I also liked Robby and T.S.'s shadows. Poor T.S. had serious mitten problems this morning.

The Day in Pictures

A blizzard has been blowing through our area today. We've been fortunate to be on the edge of most of it. The following pictures chronicle the day from sun-up to about 5:00pm. I tried to take the windmill from our front porch throughout the day for a reference.

It was interesting around 5:00, we had drifts and bare spots. The ground temperature is warm enough that it was slushy. The wind blew it off of unprotected places. We had bands of snow blow through throughout the day and are expecting a little more this evening. North of us it is much worse.

UPDATE: The story and caption contest are open until Sunday--be brave and enter!

Chicken Basics

We love our chickens and are by no means experts at raising them, but we're having fun anyway.
So here are the answers to some frequently asked questions:
Where we got our pullets:

• You can order online (I suggest McMurray Hatchery), but if you do this, you have to have a minimum order of 20 or more.
• We went to our local feed store--Town and Country Feed in Canyon, TX--and inquired. Rusty is so nice there that he lets you specify what breed and how many you want. When he gets enough to place an order he does. He calls when they come in and takes excellent care of them when they arrive. Take a large box or bushel basket when you go to pick them up.
• You do not need to order roosters unless you are planning to hatch your own eggs. Research the breed you are purchasing. Leghorns will usually not sit to hatch eggs. If you are just into egg production, I suggest ordering a straight run of pullets. It is a little more expensive, but worth it in my opinion.

What to do when you get the "day-old" chicks home:

• We start out with them in a large box with a heat lamp in the kitchen. As they grow, you can tell when it is time to move them outside.
• You have to dip each chick's beak in the water so they'll know what it is and take a drink. We start out with a jar lid for the water so it is not too deep. Some people put marbles in a bowl of water so they won't drown in it. (I found that this led to standing on the marbles and poop in the water.)

Once they are outside:

• We locked them in their house each night so they'd learn they are supposed to go in at night. Probably not necessary, but we had one chick that didn't understand this concept and got caught out in the rain.
• We kept the heat lamp on for several more weeks so they'd have the option in the house of heat or no heat.
• Our pens aren't very big, so we let them out daily to roam. We don't start this until they are pretty big.

Feed and Water:

• We went to Tractor Supply and bought feeders and waterers. You can just use shallow pans for this, but I think they waste a lot.
• We feed pig feed from our local elevator--Attebury Grain. We do this because it is cheaper, but any starter feed or layer feed will work.
• Since the feed is pig feed, we do add grit to the feed. When the hens start laying we add oyster shells to it to make the egg shells harder. You can also crunch up egg shells as you use them and feed back to the hens. (We get our grit and oysters at Tractor Supply)
• Our hens love lettuce and stale bread. In the summer they are a big fan of squash and corn on the cob. They especially love the worms on the corn.

Bedding:

• One of our hen houses has boxes (nests). We line those with shredded paper or with wood shavings.
• The other hen house doesn't have boxes yet. We put shavings or shredded paper in it.

Please let me know if you have more chicken questions. I'm not an expert, but love learning more about them and will be happy to help you find an answer. The McMurray Hatchery site is a good place to start looking for information.

Picture(s) of the Day

This morning I gathered eight eggs. There may be more later, a few of the hens seem to hold out until evening.

This is a sign I have in my kitchen. I wonder how long it has been since eggs were only ten cents a dozen.

Signs of Spring

The weather here has been unseasonably warm. Although we have enjoyed it, it also means that the trees, elm in particular, are budding. This explains my allergies lately. This is the time of year when you start itching to plant in the garden. A week of warm weather like this makes you want to go ahead and do it. Unfortunately, we've still got lots of opportunities for cold weather. I'm not trying to be pessimistic, just realistic. In the next few months we'll have to trek down in the pasture to check the mesquite tree. We won't be clear of frost until it buds.

Here's Talley under the trampoline while the kids were jumping. The cats and chickens have enjoyed roaming in this weather. The cats don't realize they aren't really supposed to hang out with the chickens. I'm working on getting a picture of that.

Why Do We Have Chickens?

It occurred to me that this might be a good time to explain how we got into the chicken/egg "business." In first grade, Sadie's class hatched eggs in an incubator. Sadie kept coming home from school telling me that if I sent a note she could bring home some chicks. This was before they even hatched so I kept putting her off. Come to find out, she was right, so we allowed her to bring three Leghorn chicks home. We figured they wouldn't make it through the winter (for some reason they hatched them in October-November which is not an ideal time around here.)

The three--Pecky, Eatie, and Roostey--soon outgrew their box in the house. We "borrowed" a huge rabbit hutch from our friends and Robby built a smaller house with a heat lamp to put inside the hutch and we moved them outside. We never dreamed they'd all survive the winter; we actually had snow that year. They did survive, so we built a house and pen in our backyard in town.

We moved all three chickens and the house and pen to the country with us. Our neighbor in town had "fancy" chickens. He decided that we needed some Cochin Bantams. We were excited to expand our flock, so we agreed. He called one day to tell me to come pick them up. He already had them in a cage. He gave us an older hen and 3 of her chicks. After I got home with them he said, "By the way, I'm pretty sure two of those are roosters." I didn't want roosters. Roostey, the original Leghorn was getting mean and cantankerous, I wasn't interested in more.

To make a long story short, Roostey got so mean he wouldn't let us in or out of the pen. I had to carry a "chicken stick" with me to get eggs and the kids wouldn't go near the pen (except Tryce, which is another story.) Petunia, the dog, killed the old bantam hen when she got in the yard and her chick, that was now a hen, died from loneliness. Roostey went on to greener pastures when we adopted our cousin's second-grade chicken Adventure Cheepy. (He, by the way, was not smart enough to come in out of the rain and unfortunately didn't last too long here.) So, we were down to the two original Leghorns and the two unwanted Bantam roosters.

In August we bought 5 Rhode Island Red and 5 Leghorn chicks. Fast forward to now. We still have the two hens from first grade. The chicks we bought last fall are all laying and we have eggs coming out our ears. (For sale, by the way, if you are interested.) The roosters, after 2 years of living in peace, have begun to fight. Our hens will probably never sit on eggs to hatch them (broodiness has been bred out of them). Because of that, it kind of makes the roosters unnecessary. So, renovations to the pens and relocation of the "fighting" roosters are on the to-do list for this spring.

If you'd like a slightly beat up Bantam rooster, let me know. I guess you could say they are "free to a good home."

When Roosters Fight

The roosters have been fighting a lot lately. I'm sure it has something to do with trying to impress the hens and the pullets. (All of which are laying now--seems the fighting started when the pullets, who are in the adjacent pen, started laying.) Needless to say, the girls are not impressed.

T.S. and I, on the other hand, are impressed. Notice how they make the feathers around their head go out and how they puff up their whole body. I'm assuming this is to appear larger. I googled "why roosters fight" and mainly came up with real rooster fights. I also found some male enhancement products, but we won't go there.

Here are some pictures to show how the fight goes. Usually they bow down to each other, fluff feathers, then jump at/on each other. Then the whole process starts again. The hens continue to go about their business scratching and pecking like nothing is going on.

Facts you should know if you are ever on Jeopardy!: Farm Edition

One of our Rhode Island Red pullets laid her first egg today. (It is the one on the right. The white one on the left is from one of our old Leghorn hens that Sadie has had since first grade.) That is very exciting around here. So how do I know it was a Red and not a Leghorn? I'm happy you asked. Rhode Island Reds lay brown eggs, Leghorns lay white. Also, the Leghorns are not known to lay this early. The pullets are only 6 months old. (Go here to see pictures of them as babies.)

Interesting facts about Rhode Island Reds:

• known for their hardiness
• can produce 200-300 eggs per bird in a 12-month laying period (If you live in our area, we'll be happy to be your egg supplier in a few months.)
• Originally developed in Massachusetts and Rhode Island in the 1880s and 1890s

I've also heard that you can tell what color eggs a chicken will lay if you look at the area on their head where ears would be. (I'm sure that place has an official name or something.) Notice in the pictures that the Reds have a brown or tan area. If I'd posted a picture of the Leghorns, you could see that it is white. I think the egg color will darken as the pullets mature.

Picture(s) of the Day

For some more great pictures, check out the ones Sadie took today. She posted them on our family blog.
Our gate--Robby had to chip ice off of the handle to open it this morning.

I finally bit the bullet and went out to water the chickens and cats. Here are some pictures I took while outside. I'm experiencing camera-envy right now. I've seen some great photos on other blogs. If I had a camera with an interchangeable lens I could have gotten some neat close-ups of ice and ice crystals and some pictures of the seven (Yes, seven!) coyotes I saw running through the pasture. I tried to take some pictures of them, but my zoom is just not that powerful. I thought about coming in and getting the gun but wasn't sure which gun to use and figured I'd probably hit a cow or something instead of a coyote. I am keeping an eye on them to be sure they don't mess with the cows and calves in the pasture across the road.

The chicken pen--I thought the ice on the chicken wire was cool. The chickens really gave me a talking to this morning.