Chickens Coming Home To Roost

I like the cool of the evening.  Things seem quieter.  People are heading home.  Supper is in the oven and life is good.  In the late afternoon when the sun starts sinking below the horizon, the hens are on a mission.  They all go back to the very same spot to roost every single night.  Like people in church pews, they have 'their spot' and no one's gonna take it from them.  Come to think of it, people have 'their spot' in bed, too.  I don't know if I've ever slept on the right-hand side of our bed.

Many of the chickens roost on the roosting bars in the henhouse.  It is a safe spot away from predators.  It is, however, cramped and the air smells strongly of chicken poop.  It is this chicken poop, however, that falls to the ground while they sleep, that is used to fertilized the garden once it has composted for a year.

We have an Aracauna or two that enjoy roosting in the rafters of the barn.  We don't like chickens inside the barn and have tried with limited success to keep them out of the barn.  Others roost on the woodpile.   My favorite two are these Barred Rocks that hop up on the woodpile and then awkwardly flap their wings until they've positioned themselves on a low-lying limb of a pecan tree.

From where they perch, they have the pecan limb worn as smooth as a river stone.  And it is here that they will sit, and sleep, and poop until the roosters begin crowing in the morning.  Then they'll hop down, eat some breakfast, lay some eggs, and spend a day of adventure doing chicken things until it is time to roost again.

At The End of the Day

Ecclesiastes 1 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

1 The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

² “Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher,
“Vanity of vanities! All is vanity.”

³ What advantage does man have in all his work
Which he does under the sun?
⁴ A generation goes and a generation comes,
But the earth remains forever.
⁵ Also, the sun rises and the sun sets;
And hastening to its place it rises there again.

The repetitive cycles of the seasons and the days always intrigue me.  Each morning the sun rises in the eastern sky and each evening it takes its place in the west slowly dipping beneath the horizon until all that is left is a brilliant tableau of God’s handiwork.  I like to walk out across the land during that time and just observe and listen as everything around me – both man and beast – prepare to rest after a full day.

It is not only the sun that moves in a predictable pattern.  Animals have set routines as well.  Each of our (oh, I don’t know 70, maybe?) chickens has their own personal roosting place where they sleep at night.  Some roost in the hen house.  Some roost out in the chicken tractors.  Some roost atop the woodpile.  And there is a new group that has taken a liking to roosting on top of the hay ring.

Settling in for a long summer's nap

These four birds – three barred rocks and an Aracauna, are settling in for the evening and I really like the silhouette of them against the painted sunset.  These old girls probably gossip a bit about scandalous barnyard happenings before closing their eyes and dreaming about whatever chickens dream about – worms or bugs, maybe?

A balancing act

How in the world do they sleep balancing on the top pipe of the hay ring?  Anyway, they sleep there until around 5:30 the next morning when they hear the creak of the gate latch as we sleepwalk into the pasture with our milking buckets.  Then they hop down and follow us to the barn, eagerly anticipating the hearty breakfast that we’ve prepared for them – a bucket of fermented grain and laying pellets.

As I walk back to the house this evening, I hear the sound of cars and trucks passing by on the road home, neighbors heading back to their own “roosting spots” after a full day and I take another look at the sunset.

Before I walk inside to see what Tricia has cooking in the pot for supper, I take a last look out in the pasture and take in the stillness of the evening and capture a full moon rising up over the barn, illuminating the landscape.  The cows are appreciative of the moonlight as they’ll take advantage of the lighting to eat grass out in the pasture past their normal bedtime.

A Full Moon on the Rise...

As for me?  Well, I’ll go inside and eat a nice meal and enjoy my own routine until bedtime, and then we’ll get up and do it all over again tomorrow.  The sun also rises tomorrow...

Mud

“There is an eagle in me that wants to soar, and there is a hippopotamus in me that wants to wallow in the mud”

Carl Sandburg (American Historian, Poet and Novelist, 1878-1967)

Not me.  I'm tired of wallowing in the mud!

During the month of January, we got 14.85 inches of rain.  February, thankfully, has yielded a little less of the liquid sunshine, but as of February 23rd, we have still received 6 inches month to date.  So far in 2013, we have gotten over 20 inches of rain.  The ground is saturated.  It is a soggy, nasty mess everywhere you walk.  Walking out to the barn requires rubber boots.

The chickens and cows seem to say, "Enough, already!"

I've had on my To Do list to have a bonfire to burn the burn pile, but as you can see below, the burn pile is surrounded by a sea of mud.   You can also see the winter grass in the garden where the carrots were prior to us harvesting them. 

The second batch of meat chickens are growing well despite the rain.  We've lost a few of these birds to the weather, though, and although I haven't counted lately, I think we have around 94 birds left out of 100.



Cornish Cross Chickens drinking water

To effectively feed all these birds, I needed to think of something new.  The homemade wooden feeders simply were not big enough to allow all the birds access to the feed.  I could make more or I could buy some feeders, but I had an idea that I thought would save time and money.  I purchased two 10 foot PVC gutters from the local hardware store for $5 each and it works like a charm.  You can see all the wet birds lined up on either side of the gutters like me at an all you can eat buffet line.  I think once we butcher these birds, I'll install the gutters on the barn to sequester rainwater for the cows' drinking water.



Rain gutters used as feed troughs

After all the rain and mud, similar to the dove bringing to Noah the olive branch, I saw a beautiful azalea blooming this morning with bright green new-growth leaves, signifying that today was going to be a better day with NO RAIN! 

Azalea Bloom

First thing on my agenda today was a little maintenance on the chicken tractors.  The bars that the chickens roost on had broken and as a result, more and more hens have been coming into the barn to roost.  Here is a "bird's eye" view through chicken wire of what it looks like looking out on the pasture from inside the chicken tractor. 

Framed in chicken wire

I went into the woods and cut some new roosting bars from some straight Chinese Tallow Trees to use.  Of course when I was drilling and screwing the new roosting bars, Maggie Mae had to come check things out.


The field foreman supervising the work

Not to be left out, Stryker the bull came to inspect the work as well.   

Stryker the Bull

Here is the finished work.  New roosting bars.  Unfortunately, the birds, being creatures of habit, have gotten used to roosting in the barn.  I'll have to move them to the tractor and lock them in for a few days until they develop a new habit of roosting in the chicken tractor again.



New roosting bars in the tractor.