Oh, How the Tables Have Turned

 

The young barred rock rooster you see above has a story.  He was one of the two roosters that we hatched out that we didn't butcher.  Our plan was to save him and another Golden Comet rooster to introduce to the flock to ensure all of our eggs were fertilized so that we can once again hatch some out this year.  

This fellow and his rival (the Golden Comet) lived in the chicken tractor along with 23 hens.  It was not a place of peaceful abode.  The two roosters fought constantly.  I take that back.  There was not a lot of fighting going on.  Primarily, it was the mean Barred Rock Rooster chasing, taunting, bullying, and terrorizing the Golden Comet.

They made such a racket in the tractor.  The poor Golden Comet could hardly eat without being chased around in the confined area.  One day, a day that couldn't have come soon enough for the Golden Comet, we set the 2 roosters and the hens free in the pasture.  FREEDOM!  It was a weird day.  The two younger roosters were met face to face with the dominant rooster out in the existing flock.  He was a Rhode Island Red.  An older bird, hardened by the cruel vagaries of life in the barnyard.

A new pecking order had to be established.  Only one way to do that.  The birds fight it out.  The results of the fights lead to a (new perhaps) dominant rooster and then the #2 and #3 cocks on the walk.  It was eventful.  Lots of squawking.  Lots of blood.  The combs of the roosters were all scarred.  Battle wounds were plenty.  In a couple days, the new pecking order was established.

Believe it or not, the Barred Rock Rooster (the one in the photo above) won the heavy-weight title, beating out his previous rival AND the elder statesman of the barnyard, the old, wise Rhode Island Red.  The Barred Rock was feeling his oats, strutting around the barnyard and crowing to announce his lordship over all of the fowl.  The other roosters cowered in his presence, while he romanced any hen of his choosing.

That went on for about a month.  And then...  Then a change took place that we did not witness, but we saw the results of.  Yesterday we noticed the Barred Rock full of dried blood on his black and white plumage.  But more than that, we saw fear in his posture - a lack of confidence.  The king had been brought low.  He hid in the corner at the sight of either of the two other roosters.  When it came to roosting time, he waited until the other two roosters chose their positions to roost.  Then he humbly came to roost and was promptly chased off.

Here's the surprising part.  The new king of the barnyard is...  you guessed it.  The Golden Comet.  The bird that the Barred Rock bullied for so long.  Now, the tables have turned.  The Golden Comet stored all that abuse up over time.  At last, it was time for retribution.  He stood up and fought like Tommy fighting for Becky against the Gatlin boys in Kenny Rogers' song "Coward of the County."  And the coward is now the cock of the walk.  And the former king now cowers cowardly in the corner.  

Oh, how the mighty have fallen!  It's a great lesson in humility for all of us.

A Couple of Startling Events in the Pullet Tractor

In late August in what my wife would tell you was the WORST possible time, we added to the number of our egg-layers by ordering 30 day-old chicks from Ideal Poultry.  They came in the mail and we put them in the chicken tractor outside.  A week later we were pummeled by the first of two hurricanes.  We pushed the chicken tractor in the garage, and they weathered the storm beautifully.  If it had been cold outside at that time, we would have lost all of them as we lost power for weeks.  With no heat lamp, they would have died.

The birds thrived despite our hardship.  They stunk up the garage in spectacular fashion.  We moved them outside and over the resulting weeks they have grown and grown.  They are pushed to fresh grass almost daily.  We have three types of pullets - Rhode Island Reds - they are the most prolific brown-egg layers.  Next, we have Barred Rocks - another productive brown-egg layer.  Finally, we have Easter-Eggers.  These are a breed that lay blue, green, and pink eggs.  According to publications, these pullets begin laying eggs between weeks 18 - 24.  Well, Saturday we found a green egg and again today.  The first eggs that pullets lay are small.  They are 'working the kinks out.'  But it won't take long until the rest are laying and the sizes will get normal.  The photo below shows the two Easter Egger green eggs.  I placed an adult laying hen's brown egg beside them for comparative purposes to show the size.

The photo below shows the different breeds a little better.  The dark gray and white (salt and pepper) bird you see in the foreground is the Barred Rock.  The reddish brown bird is the Rhode Island Red.  The other oddly colored (but beautiful) birds are the Easter Eggers.  Do you notice something strange about one of the "pullets" in the photo below?

In the event you didn't pick it out, they aren't all pullets - one is a cockrel!  Can you see him below?  He is the one in the far right corner with the big, beautiful comb.  His size was the first giveaway, but then he began crowing!  Hens don't crow.

Someone at the chicken hatchery made an honest mistake.  You can order a 'straight run' which means as-hatched.  They'll generally be 50-50 hens and roosters.  You can pay a little more and get pullets, which is what we did.  The chick sexers separate the day old hens from roosters.  There is a science to it.  I am not 100% sure how they do it, but they are usually perfect - Except for this time!  One rooster slipped through.  That's okay.  We actually need another rooster on the flock.

Checking in on the Pullets

 A pullet is a young (hen) female chicken.  I recently ordered 30 pullets of three different varieties to replenish our flock that was declining due to old-age and predation.  In the past, each year I would add 25 pullets to the flock, but our flock grew to over 100 birds.  We want to keep the number somewhere around 50 birds, so over the past 3 or 4 years we've not added to the number.

This year we decided to bring some "new blood" in.  From Ideal Poultry in Cameron, Texas, I ordered 10 Barred Rocks and 10 Rhode Island Reds.  Those are both brown egg layers.  I also ordered 10 Easter Eggers.  Those lay green, blue and pink eggs.  I paid $2.15 per chick.  They are shipped at one day old and we receive them via USPS.  Tricia will get a call from the Post Office telling her that she has a package and that "It's alive!"

Here are the birds 3 weeks later.  They have certainly grown.  They are currently in chicken tractor, but eventually, they'll be set free to roam on 3 acres of grass where they'll be able to eat insects, clover, and worms.  They'll be happy.  In return, they'll lay healthy eggs that we'll enjoy.  I can still remember the excitement our kids had many years ago when we first got in the chicken business when our chickens laid the first egg!

The pullets are healthy and wild!  I chased this one around the pen until I caught it.  This was really my first interaction with the little birds.  Tricia has nurtured these babies with not much help from me due to the hurricane work schedule.  (Believe me, I've caught an earful from my dear wife because of this!)

There was a little trouble with the 30 pullets.  Upon opening the box, 9 of the 30 baby chicks were dead.  We attribute it to the heat during shipping.  It happens, and it is expected.  The hatchery guarantees live shipment.  Normally, they'll throw a few extra chicks in the box to make up for any fatalities, but not this time.  I contacted the hatchery and let them know about the dead chicks.  

They asked if I wanted money back or 9 new chicks mailed.   I opted for the latter.  The chicks were supposed to ship out a day or two after the hurricane and we had no power.  I emailed the hatchery and asked if they could delay re-shipment for a couple of weeks, and they obliged.  We received the next shipment of 9 replacement pullets a couple of days after the power came back on.

So now we have babies at two different stages of growth.  We have the tiny babies in a brooder within the larger brooder, as we had a concern about the older chicks bullying the younger.  The older chicks can fly up to the top of the brooder and plop down with the babies.  They don't really bother them.

As they continue to grow, we'll watch the calendar.  They'll begin laying somewhere between 16-24 weeks and will lay around 280 eggs per year.  That'll be enough to keep our egg collecting basket full again.

Adding to the Flock

Our flock is getting OLD.  Chickens, on average, will live about 8 years.  We've had chickens for many years now.  In the past, each year I would purchase 25 pullets (baby females) to replace any that had died the previous year to old age, predator, or accident.  At one point we counted them all and had around 110 chickens.  That's really too many for us.  In order to reduce the size of our flock, we just didn't replace them.  It has been maybe four years ago since we've ordered pullets and raised them.

Our flock is down to 55-60 laying hens now, primarily due to predators (possums, hawks, owls, and minks), but old age, too.  I decided it was time to add to the flock.  My bride was not pleased with my decision!  Since we've dried off the cows, she has enjoyed the carefree days that allow for weekends away, trips, etc.  Chickens aren't as demanding and labor-intensive as milk cows.  I assured her that these babies would (pretty much) take care of themselves. 

Our day old chicks arrived in the mail on Thursday.  They come via USPS and Tricia got a call from the Post Office to go pick them up.  I ordered 30 pullets.  When Tricia opened the lid, she found that 9 of them had died in transit.  It was not a nice sight to behold.  The remaining 21 pullets were feasting on their dead sisters.  We attribute the deaths to the heat in shipping.  The poultry company will make them good, so I am working with them to re-ship 9 live chicks to make up for the deceased ones.

Tricia has them all set up in the brooder with a heat lamp, feeders and waterers.  The other birds, except for one, seem to be perfect.  One of them acts strangely, almost as if it has a neurological problem.

The baby birds are very happy, running around, eating, drinking, pooping and doing what chicks do.  We watched them tonight running around the brooder and jumping up with their little plump bodies to eat mosquitoes that they catch mid-flight as they come into contact with the sides of the brooder.

The chicks were $2.15 a piece.  I purchased all pullets, because we want all females to lay eggs.  We currently have three distinct breeds, so I ordered 10 of each.  The first one, shown below, is the Barred Rock.  This hen, in adulthood, is a beautiful fat hen that lays brown eggs and is a good producer for us.  

Barred Rock

The next is the Rhode Island Red.  She'll be our most productive egg-layer and is also a brown egg layer.

Rhode Island Red

And finally, the Easter Eggers.  This is a new type of chicken for us.  We currently have Aracaunas.  I could not find Aracaunas in the breed list that the poultry company had, but they did have Easter Eggers and they fit the bill.  Easter Eggers lay blue, green and pink eggs.  Here is one of the Easter Eggers:

We'll take care of these girls and in about 18-20 weeks, they'll begin to lay eggs.  In the meantime, I will work hard to reduce the predator population.  I'll show some of my tactics in future posts to accomplish this mission.  I can remember how exciting it was when we first got chicks.  The kids were small and each day we would all go check to see if the hens had begun to lay.  It was truly an exciting day when the kids came running into the house with a big brown egg!

She Never Saw it Coming

Saturday morning Tricia, Russ, and I were up at the working on a project with some other members of the church family.  We were enjoying ourselves, and it was nice, once again, to get out and be social.  Russ received a telephone call from Benjamin, who was at home.  I only heard one half of the conversation, but it didn't sound good.  Russ said, as he closed the call, "Okay, I'll tell 'em."

He hung up and told us that Benjamin went outside to check on the cows as they were mowing the grass in the front yard and saw an act of violence taking place in the pasture and that we needed to get home quick.  When we arrived, we found that the perpetrator was under house arrest.  The suspect was Belle.  She is being held in the garage on a cable tie-out until her arraignment.  She crawled under the car in embarrassment for her crime and is looking mighty guilty, if you ask me. 

After taking a statement from Benjamin, who witnessed the entire episode, he stated that he walked out to see Belle catching a Barred Rock hen in the pasture and tossing it into the air.  When Benjamin ran out to the pasture, the hen was in Belle's mouth and was barely alive.  We put her temporarily in a wagon full of hay, hoping she will be able to heal from this ordeal, but the prognosis wasn't good.

In looking over the hen closely, she was certainly traumatized.  She was bleeding from the leg and was shaking and unsteady on her feet.  I really don't know if she'll make it.  After looking closer, I noticed that she was our hen with only one eye.  We found, and reported on, "Old Cyclops" many years ago in THIS POST FROM MAY 2016..  Old Cyclops never saw it coming.  Belle probably came up on her on her blind spot.

Belle, while she is a livestock guardian dog, is just a puppy.  She likes to play with the chickens and goats and cows.  She didn't intend to kill the hen - she just played too rough.  We'll have to be more careful and not leave her unattended with the chickens until she grows up.

Old Cyclops

I regret to inform you that Old Cyclops passed away.  She'll now be composted and have the opportunity to grow some nice vegetables for us in the garden.  As far as Belle, she is on parole now and will have to visit with her probation officer frequently.  We think we can rehabilitate her.  She needs to learn that she must guard the chickens and protect them from danger - not kill them!

Chickens Can't Tread Water

We have three water troughs for the animals on Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.  Animals require a lot of clean, fresh water - especially in the summer and especially if the cows are in milk.  Watching cows drink water at the trough is interesting.  They dip their mouth in the water and you can see their nostrils flare out.  Then they drink in large amounts and you can see their throats move as you see the level in the water trough going down.  To the best of my estimation, each cow drinks about 20 gallons a day, depending on the season and if they are lactating.

This water trough has a float valve.  When the water level goes down slightly, the float drops and the valve is opened, allowing fresh water to fill the trough until the float rises, shutting off the water.  The cows and goats primarily drink here.  We have a smaller trough for chickens, but some chickens do fly up, sit on the rim and drink water.

I have two similar water troughs that sit right under the drip lines on the north and south sides of the barn.  They are not attached to any water line, but are filled by rainwater running off the barn.  A two inch rain can easily fill them both up.  Since installing these troughs, they have become the favorite watering hole of choice to the cows.  As they leave the barn, they conveniently walk up to the troughs and slowly drink their fill.

There is one downside to these troughs.  They can be a death-trap for chickens.  We have to be on our toes and check the water troughs each time we go out to the barn.  Sometimes, however, we find a scene like you see below.

That's a barred rock hen floating in the trough - very dead.  It's easy to re-create events leading to her demise.  She was thirsty and didn't want to walk to the trough in front that has water filled to the top.  She flew up to the rim of the water trough and sat on the edge.  She noticed that the water level was low, but figured, "I'll just crane my neck down a bit and drink."

While reaching down to drink, she lost her balance and fell into the water, soaking her wings.  She struggled to try to fly out of the water, to no avail.  Chickens can't tread water, but she didn't die of drowning.  She died of hypothermia.  After sitting in the water, her body temperature began to fall.  She became confused and disoriented and began to shiver.  When no help arrived, she died.  We've been able to save them from time to time by taking them out of the water and putting them in a bucket with a heat lamp.  The lamp dries out their feathers and warms them up.  After just a few minutes the chicken is good to go.

Sadly, in this case, we weren't able to save her.  I brought her to the garden and buried her.  I re-doubled my efforts in checking the two water troughs for wayward hens.  I don't like losing animals.  So far, so good. 

And Then There Was One

About a month ago, we introduced you to new life on the farm IN THIS POST.  Four little Barred Rock chicks hatched out and were following the momma.  She clucked and protected them.  She ruffled her feathers and scolded when animals (or people) got too close.  The momma hen was very crafty and set on the nest in secret.  She surprised us all with her little brood of four little biddies following closely after her, learning from her.

A month later, give or take a few days, and there is only one baby chick left.  There's the baby below all feathered out.

We really don't know what happened to the other three.  There are so many things that could have happened.  First, cows.  The chickens dart to and fro in between the legs of the cows.  I don't know why they do this, but they do.  Sometimes, a cow will step on a chicken and she will be lame for a week or so.  Sometimes they never recover.  One of our cows could have stepped on three of them and squished them down into the mud where we'd never find the little carcass, who knows?

Then, there could have been predators that snacked on 3 of the chicks.  We have red-tailed hawks flying around constantly that would not be shy about swooping down and getting a three piece chicken dinner to go.  We also have a number of chicken snakes on the prowl around the barn.  Mainly they eat rats and eggs, but a baby chick (or three) would have been a nice treat.  Finally, we have critters back by the woods such as possums that would enjoy a chick to eat.  I personally saw the chicks darting between the 4x4 holes in the hog wire despite the momma hens' protests. 

That would be my best guess - the chicks ventured outside of the safety provided by the momma and met a gruesome end.  Fact of the matter is, such is life.  Sometimes, animals just die.  You can try to do everything you can to protect them, but it is a cruel, hard world out there.  Best be careful and not make mistakes.  They could be very costly.  I've always heard it said that you should learn from your mistakes.  I think it is even better to learn from the mistakes of OTHERS!  Hopefully, the one chick remaining did exactly that.

New Life on the Farm

Yesterday we talked about losing a baby goat.  It was odd, because Domino seemed to be the strongest of Annie's triplets.  When he got sick, though, it knocked him down quickly.  We're on the final day of treatment for the other affected buckling, and he seems to be progressing nicely toward a full recovery.  It's always sad to lose an animal you weren't expecting on losing.  That's just the way it goes, however.  Animals are remarkably resilient and time marches on.

As if to get our minds off of the loss of Domino, we looked over during evening chores to see a momma hen come strutting up with her feathers all fluffed out with four baby chicks following closely behind her!  We went from being sad about the loss to being happy about new life in an instant.

We have hens that get broody all the time, but we don't let them set.  This hen got wise and decided she'd go find a hiding place, lay some eggs there, hatch them, and raise her babies without us having a say in the matter.  I looked and looked and finally found her hiding place.  In the bull pasture (that we call the bull pen), there is an old dog kennel under a chicken tractor.  I opened up the end of the tractor so that Buckwheat, the billy goat, can get inside when it is raining.  The momma hen figured she could get inside too!  I found the eggshells left over from the hatched out chicks.  I also found two un-hatched eggs.  Perhaps they weren't fertilized?  We try to have 1 rooster for every 10 hens to ensure fertilization, but sometimes that ratio doesn't work out.

We also found one baby chick that hatched out, but for whatever reason, didn't survive.  This happens from time to time.

At first the momma hen keep her little family far away from us and the rest of the chickens.  Slowly, she began to bring them closer, especially when I threw some hen scratch and laying pellets her way.

She began to teach her little ones how to scratch hay out of the way to expose the feed.  She was a good teacher.  The chicks imitated her actions and soon were scratching, pecking, and eating - just like momma!

I put out a pan of clean water for the chicks and we'll keep a close eye on them.  It'll be fun to watch them grow up!

Then and Now - Barred Rock Chick Edition

Back on August 7 in the "A Surprise in the Loft" Post we talked about how a sneaky hen who didn't have a wing clipped flew up into the loft in the barn, laid eggs, sat on them and then hatched out three little chicks.  On August 30, in the "Chicks are Growing Up" post we reported that actually four chicks hatched out.  It wasn't much longer before we learned that two of the four chicks met an inauspicious end described HERE!

Fast forward about five months and we let's take a look at how the survivors are doing.  The chicks are no longer chicks, they are almost full grown pullets.

Heartbreak Hotel

There is one problem.  I hate to see animals in a cage, but there is a reason... or two. They live in the barn and they get in all sorts of trouble during the day.  First, while they are growing and are quite large, they can squeeze through the 4 x 4 holes in the garden fence and have fun scratching up newly planted seeds and eat vegetables. As a result, and until they grow larger, we keep them in jail all day with feed and water. At night we let them out and they roam around eating bugs and spiders in the barn.

We've learned to wait until after we milk the cows to let them out of the cage, though.  As soon as we let them out, they ran and jumped into the trough that Daisy and Rosie eat in.  The large head of a cow can prove to be a dangerous weapon to a hungry pullet.  Even when they escaped a 'head-on' collision, they would then hop out of the trough and run all around the cows' feet, pecking around to find bits of feed that cows dropped.  A two pound bird is not going to win the battle if they find themselves underfoot of an 850 pound cow.

As a result, we now keep them in the cage until after the cows have eaten and exited the barn!

By my estimation, the two pullets should start laying eggs toward the middle of February.  At that point, we'll no longer cage them during the day to keep them out of the garden and they'll be moved out of the barn.  It is hard to imagine, but those girls you see above will lay 400 eggs a year (200 each) if healthy.  Pretty soon, they will be out on their own - living wild and free like any self respecting chicken should be.

The Chicks are Growing Up!

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. Matthew 23:37

A Chicken Combo

In THIS POST FROM EARLIER IN THE MONTH we talked about the excitement of some baby chicks - four to be exact, that a smart momma hen hatched out in the loft of our barn.  I figured that we'd give you a little update on them.  The hen actually hatched out four little chicks.  They all seem to be barred rock variety - the same breed as the mother.  Since we have roosters from various breeds and since hens will sit on other hens' eggs, we never know what variety we'll end up with.  

We moved them down from the hay loft and into the goat milking stall.  Although they are little fluff balls, a 10 foot drop down to the barnyard floor might not be good for them.  Momma hen pretty much stays in the center nesting box with a chick tucked under each wing.  When we come into the barn, the babies pop out from beneath the mother as you see in the photo above.  The mother hen is really protective of her babies.  She clucks loudly and ruffles her feathers when we get near.  We throw her and the babies some crushed up rice to eat each day.  It is neat to watch the momma hen scratch and peck at the rice on the ground and then see the chicks imitate her. 

They have lost most of their 'fuzz' and have little feathers on their wings.  They are active little creatures for sure.  The momma has not brought them out of the barn and instead keeps a close eye on them within the confines of the barn.  This is probably a smart move since we've had so much rain. I'm sure she'll venture out with them pretty soon.  

"I got your back, Momma!"

Although this wasn't planned, we needed a few replacement hens as I've buried a few hens in the garden this year.  It is normal to lose a few to old age, injury or predators.  Our chickens live out their lives in happiness, enjoying their golden years on green pastures and die doing what they were born to do - eat bugs, worms, and scratch through cow patties looking for a tasty morsel to devour.  Some get injured when they come underfoot of our 900 pound cows.  There's just too much of a weight differential there and if the chicken isn't attentive, she becomes a "chicken patty" pretty darn quick. We hope momma hen is teaching her chicks to stay well away from the relatively monstrous hooves of Daisy, Rosie, Clarabelle, and Luna. Just one misstep and all that would be left of the chicks is a grease spot.

Then there's predators.  Perhaps some of you picked up on the fact that momma hen hatched out four chicks and the photos only show two.  One morning we came out to the barn and two of the little boogers were missing.  We put out a barnyard amber alert, but no missing chicks were found. Sad! So what happened to them?  I know how they met their tragic end.  They punched their ticket in a particularly brutal and macabre fashion and I'll tell you about it tomorrow if the Good Lord's willing and the creek don't rise. 

A Surprise in the Loft

Most of our hens lay their eggs in their appropriate place in the egg boxes. However, every once in a while we find a nest of eggs in an odd location.  It's always a shame to find them, because you don't know how old they are, so you certainly can't eat them.  One of the favorite 'secret places' for them to lay eggs is up in the hay loft in the top of the barn.  Although it is ten feet up in the air and even though chickens aren't exactly the most graceful flying bird, they figure out how to get up there and lay eggs.

It is for this reason (and also to keep them from flying over the perimeter fence), I take a pair of shears, grab a hen, stretch out one of her wings.

And clip the feathers off of that wing almost all the way down to the skin.  It isn't pretty, but it doesn't hurt them and clipping the feathers on one of the wings like this keeps them off balance so that they cannot fly up into the loft and lay their eggs or fly over the fence.

With a sizable flock of birds, though, it is hard to make sure that you've clipped every single bird's wing.  Unfortunately, sneaky birds with unclipped wings still find a way to evade our attempts to stop them and get up into the loft an lay eggs. Those broody birds sit on the eggs because they want to hatch out some babies.

About three weeks ago when our niece and nephew were visiting us from Texas, they discovered a Barred Rock Hen sitting on a nest of 12 eggs up in the loft.  The nest was hard to see as it was nestled in behind all the bales of hay.  She fluffed out her feathers and made menacing noises to discourage us from coming closer.  We had no idea when the eggs were laid, so we didn't know when they would be hatching.  Every few days we have been checking on her.  No chicks yet.  I began to wonder if maybe the eggs weren't fertile.

This afternoon Russ came and told me that he climbed up in the loft and the hen had 3 little chicks hatched out so far.  I climbed up and threw a handful of rice for the hen to eat and I noticed one of the little chicks came out from underneath her.

Soon three little chicks popped out.  The two on the right are fluffy and the one on the left has fuzz that is still a little wet.  It must have just hatched out not long ago.

As the momma hen moved aside to eat rice, I took a picture of her nest with the three chicks that have hatched and the 9 eggs left.  The hen got back on top of her chicks and eggs and we'll see if any other chicks hatch out in the next couple of days.  There is a good chance that those 9 eggs were laid later and will hatch out later.  However, there's also a chance that those eggs were not fertilized and won't hatch.  We will keep checking on the momma hen and her little brood.

The other thing Russ asked me about was "How are the chicks going to get down from the loft?"  That's a good question as it is a 10 foot drop from the loft to ground level.  Somehow they do it.  We had another hen last year that hatched out 3 chicks from up in the loft.  We didn't move them down, they came down on their own.  I can only assume that the little fluff balls just jump down onto the soft hay and it doesn't hurt them.

Another surprise from up in the loft.  New baby chicks - always a welcome addition to our little barnyard.

A Stiff Penalty for Trespassing

Last week IN THIS POST we explained our frustrations with one disobedient barred rock hen that has been escaping the pasture fence every single day.  She has 3 acres of grass to free range on.  But noooo…  The fugitive hen somehow escapes and has scratched around the base of one of our blueberry bushes and killed it.  Each day when I’d get home, I would get the net, chase her down in the yard and toss her back over the fence.  Sometimes, she’d see me coming and run quickly and squeeze back through the fence.  Another afternoon last week, I spent $65 and 30 minutes affixing a smaller mesh fence to the area where we thought she was squeezing through the holes in the hog wire.  We spent far too much money and time trying to keep her within the spacious confines of the pasture.  Desperate times call for desperate actions.

Thursday I caught her outside the fence for the umpteenth time and looked her in the eye and warned her, “If I catch you out of the fence again, you’ll be called before a jury of your peers and if found guilty, justice will be executed swiftly and you’ll pay dearly for your crime of trespassing.”  Friday I returned home to find the hen in the backyard.  She didn’t seem the least bit remorseful.  Somewhere in the distance a dog howled.  I put her in “jail” until I would have time for jury selection, trial, and the sentencing phase of the Our Maker’s Acres Family Farm judicial system.  Once behind bars, she added insult to injury by attempting to bribe me, laying an egg to prove her worth and value.  I was having none of it and expressed to her that I can’t be bought.

Heartbreak Hotel

Saturday morning the courtroom was called to order and with the flock looking on, she was found guilty by a somewhat unsympathetic and biased judge.  She was sentenced to death and the gallows were constructed in the limbs of the pear tree, a nice pastoral place in front of the garden picket fence. 

… And a partridge chicken in a pear tree!

I started a pot of water scalding and with a sharp knife, the long arm of the law administered the rueful remedy to the barred rock’s roaming.  Justice was meted out.

By the time she had bled out, the water had reached 145 degrees and I dunked her several times and pulled out all of her remaining feathers.  If you recall, I had trimmed both wings a few days prior in an unsuccessful attempt to keep her in the pasture in the event she was flying over the fence.

Once she was plucked clean, I quickly pulled her head off, cut her feet off and gutted her, burying her feathers and entrails in the garden where she’ll grow some mighty fine vegetables this fall.  Then I left her carcass to age in a pot of ice water for the afternoon.

Aging the hen all day in ice water

This little parable was a teachable moment (hopefully) to any of the other hens that watched this spectacle in the event that any of them should adopt the fugitive hen’s repeated parole violations.  The grass in NOT always greener on the other side.  While I would have much rather have her still on the pasture laying eggs for us, I must admit that it was nice Sunday morning and Monday afternoon to NOT have to waste time catching her.  She’ll make a nice meal for us one day soon, too!  By the way, I have an interesting (albeit gory) think to show you about this hen that I found very, very interesting.  I’ll likely show you in tomorrow’s post.

Cyclops Chicken

In a very popular (around here) song entitled “Louisiana Saturday Night” by country singer Mel McDaniel, a portion of the lyrics go like this:

Waiting in the front yard sitting on a log,
A single shot rifle and a one eyed dog.
Yonder come my kinfolk, in the moonlight
Louisiana Saturday night!

Well, you get down the fiddle and you get down the bow
Kick off your shoes and you throw 'em on the floor
Dance in the kitchen 'til the morning light,
Louisiana Saturday night!

Well, each of our dogs are blessed with two eyes, but Benjamin was very observant the other day and brought something to my attention that I had never seen before – one of our hens only has one eye!  I have no idea how he spotted that among all the other birds, but I picked up the hen and took a closer look.  If you observe the right side of her head, all appears normal.  She is alert and everything appears to be just like a chicken’s head is supposed to look.

But when you look at the other side of her head, that’s where things get interesting.  She doesn’t have a left eye!  Let me correct that.  She may have an eye, but the red “comb” material has completely grown over it.  I took my fingers and tried to pry her left eye open, but it was useless.  It was sealed shut.

One-eyed hen

If you look at the left side of her head, there appears to be a dent in her head and comb where there should just be feathers.  This made me wonder whether or not she was injured when younger and maybe the comb is like scar tissue?  Or maybe this is just some sort of a birth defect?  I’m not sure.  I’m not a veterinarian. 

On a positive note, it doesn’t seem to bother her any.  She’s getting around the pasture just fine and has apparently learned how to adapt to having only one eye.  I sat her back down and she took off running across the pasture, oblivious to her handicap.

I considered for a split second whether I should go get a sharp knife and try to carefully open up the closed eye in an attempt to restore her vision on the left side, but quickly determined that Ol’ Cyclops, is fine just the way she is.  Maybe she just needs an eye patch so she can get in touch with her inner pirate.

And that reminds me of a joke I heard:

One time there was a pirate that had a parrot.  The parrot had a really foul mouth, swearing all the time.  The pirate was a gentle and kind buccaneer who didn’t curse at all and his parrot was offending his sensibilities.  One day the parrot cursed so much that the pirate reached his breaking point.  He grabbed the parrot, shook him and said, “Enough!”  The parrot got so mad after the pirate’s uncharacteristic outburst that he just swore more.  This made the pirate really angry and he threw the parrot in the deep freeze and sat on the lid while he cooled down.  The pirate heard a lot of thrashing around within the freezer, but after a few minutes, it got real quiet.  He began to feel bad for the parrot and opened the freezer door.  The contrite parrot humbly climbed up on the pirate’s shoulder, stretched out his frozen wings and said, “I’m really sorry for my language.  I promise I won’t swear anymore.”  The pirate was impressed by the parrot’s repentance and wondered what caused this conversion.  Then the parrot remarked, “By the way, what did the chicken do?”

Where did the Roosters go?

This weekend we moved the 3 week old meat birds from the garage to the small chicken tractor on the pasture.  In order to free up that chicken tractor, we had to move the Barred Rock pullets into the tractor where the 9 roosters were.  So where did the roosters go?  Well,  they went two different places.

First, I climbed into the tractor and caught the two, biggest, prettiest roosters of the nine and handed them to Benjamin and he released them to roam free on the pasture.  Why two?  Polygamy has been frowned upon in the United States and rightfully so!  In the chicken world, however, roosters have multiple "wives."  In fact, the proportion that you want to have is 1 rooster for every 10 hens. That will just about assure you that your eggs will be fertilized.  We hatch out a batch of chicks from our fertilized eggs each year to replenish our flock, so fertilization is important so we try to keep the 1:10 ratio out in the pasture of roosters to hens.

Roosters in the big tractor

The remaining seven roosters were loaded into a pet kennel on the back of a garden wagon and hauled out of the pasture.  These roosters will be moved into our freezer once we butcher them and be eaten.  It is not a particularly fun event, but these were never pets - they are farm animals.  We never name anything that we're going to eat.

Farewell roosters

I didn't get out the cones that I usually use to hold the roosters when they bleed out. Butchering only seven birds doesn't really warrant it.  We simply hung them by a rope from the pear tree and placed a bucket underneath them to catch the blood.

Using a sharp knife, we cut the jugular vein and let the rooster's heart pump out all the blood.  It doesn't take long at all.  The dead bird is untied and another is put in his place.

I got the crawfish boiling pot out, lit the propane burner and brought the water to scalding temperature of 145 Fahrenheit.  Once the birds were dead, we grabbed them by the feet and dunked them in the scalding water over and over.  When the big wing feathers can be pulled out easily, they are ready to be plucked.

Since we only had seven to butcher, I didn't use the Whiz Bang Chicken Plucker that we normally use to pluck the feathers off the birds.  We just pulled the feathers out by hand.  Benjamin provided quality control, picking the feathers out so that none remained, leaving a clean bird.  Tricia started eviscerating and I joined her once the birds were all scalded and plucked.

We first pull the heads off and cut off the feet. Sometimes we'll boil the feet and make a broth, but this time we saved all the feet to give to a friend.  

Of course all the guts and feathers get buried in the garden to add nutrients to the garden soil.  It's sort of a twist on the old story about the Indians teaching the pilgrims to bury a fish next to the corn for fertility.  We do the same with chickens.

We cleaned the gizzards, and saved the hearts and livers in the container on the right in the photo below, and in no time at all we had 7 roosters gutted and ready to go into the freezer.

We first cut them up and bagged them in gallon sized freezer bags and put them in an ice chest to let them age overnight.

The next morning we put them in the freezer.  Since they are roosters that are almost seven months old, the won't be as tender as other birds, but we'll use them to make soups, gumbos, fricassee, and other dishes that require long cooking times to make them tender.  There isn't near as much meat on these guys as the Cornish Cross meat birds, but that's okay.  These roosters will still provide some good meals that the family will enjoy.

That's where the roosters went.

Baby Barred Rock Chicks Arrive!

Yesterday morning at 5:30 am it was time to get up and we were awakened by loud ringing, but not from our alarm clocks.  It was the telephone.  Our land line rarely rings anymore and when it does, it is either phone calls from politicians urging you to vote or calls from companies asking you to take a survey.  We usually screen all of those calls, but a call at 5:30 in the morning is not one that you screen.

Tricia picked up the phone and it was the Post Office calling to let us know that we had a package waiting and the contents of the package was ALIVE!  Our baby chicks were in!  We hatched out a number of chicks in our incubator a couple of months ago, but half of those are going to be roosters. Two momma hens hatched out some babies a little while later, but again, half of those are going to be roosters.

Each year we try to 'freshen' our brown egg-laying flock to replace hens that died or those whose age has reduced the amount of eggs they lay.  We want to keep the amount of eggs we gather steady and constant.  So last week I got online and purchased 24 one-day-old pullets (young hens) from Ideal Poultry in Cameron, Texas.  Baby chicks have really gone up in price since we last ordered them. You get a reduced price the more you buy, but I only needed 24, so I paid $2.61 per chick, not including tax and shipping.  It takes about 24 weeks until they lay their first egg, so at the point in time when they lay their first egg, you have a significant investment in each bird.

When Tricia got to the post office in town, the postal worker told her that some of the chicks may be dead.  Apparently when they opened the door to the truck, our box of baby chicks was laying on its side.  Tricia and Benjamin got the package home and opened it and every chick was fine!  Not only fine, but really, really healthy and looking great after their journey.  It always amazes me that you can ship little living creatures across long distances.  You can also order a colony of bees through the mail - that's even crazier!

I'd like a box of chicken, please.

The chicks were sent when they were a day old.  It is important that when you get them in, you unpack them and dip their little heads into water mixed with a little honey so that they can drink and get some strength.  With each chick Tricia and Benjamin repeated the process of giving them some electrolytes.

Have a drink, little chick

The previous day I had received an email that our chicks had shipped, so when I got home from work, I pulled the wagon to the barn and pulled down our brooder and got the heat lamp ready.  I wanted to be all prepared for the day the babies arrived. Benjamin's job was to go to the hay bale and get some hay to line the bottom of the brooder with, making a nice, soft layer of hay to make the chick's new home warm and cozy.  We put a tray of Chick Starter in the bottom of the brooder and as the chicks drank water, they were nestled into their new home.  It didn't take them long to find the feed.

Eat a little and then take a nap

They jumped in the tray of feed and began eating and then meandered over to the water to drink a little more.  It is funny to watch them drink.  They will put their heads down and drink and then point their beaks to the sky to swallow.  The heat lamp that is positioned over the brooder keeps things toasty and the little chicks are happy.

In the brooder

The baby chicks are so fluffy and fat and cute.  You just want to pick them up and hold them.  This is a neat stage to enjoy them.

Cute babies!

They don't stay in the cute stage for long.  Soon they will begin putting on little feathers and won't look as cute.  Then as they start eating more and growing, they'll start to stink.  That's when we move them out of the brooder in the garage and out to the chicken tractor in the pasture.