Clipping Wings

Although we have three acres for our chickens to roam around on, the old saying that "the grass is always greener on the other side" rings true for chickens as well as cows and goats.  Even though I have the wings clipped on my chickens, I have a couple of chickens that squeeze themselves out between the hog wire perimeter fence.  Pro-tip: When you clip their wings, you only need to clip one of them.  They can't fly with feathers on only one wing.

Our new neighbors put in a chicken yard.  More and more people are getting 'backyard chickens.'  There's nothing quite like picking fresh eggs every day.  The neighbor's birds are young and not quite laying eggs yet.  They quickly ate all the grass in the new chicken yard and would fly up on top of their hen house and then jump down over the fence.  About 15 birds would come into our yard and were scratching in the landscape and got into the garden.  They also devoured our persimmons that had fallen from the tree, before we had a chance to pick them up.  We had to do something quickly!

Tricia and I got our old net that we use when we go crabbing, and I also picked up my tin snips.  We had some chickens' wings to clip.  With both of us working together over two days, we cornered the chickens one by one and gave them a haircut.  You just take one wing and using the sharp tin snips, cut the wing feathers way back.  Then we gently tossed them back over the fence to their home.

The chickens squawked to express their displeasure, but at the end of the ordeal, no one was worse for wear.  Except, I broke a cardinal rule of neighborliness.  I didn't let my neighbor know what we had done.  I remedied that situation this afternoon.  I talked to him about it and he was thankful, saying that we saved him a lot of time, energy, and work.  So everything is smoothed out.  Everyone is happy... except for the chickens that have lost their freedom!  I'll have to do something to remedy the problem of two of our forty something hens that get out as I don't want them getting into their yard.  It's been more peaceful over the past few days without a flock of chickens in the yard.  There are two guinea fowl, though, that we couldn't catch, but I haven't given up.  We'll get 'em yet.

Crab Boil on a Saturday Afternoon

On Saturday morning, Benjamin and Russ and my Dad headed down south on a crabbing trip.  It promised to be good Grandpa-grandson time, and I was very excited for them to go.  We haven't been on a family crabbing trip in a while and need to do it again.  I think THIS POST shows crabbing in action the last time we went.  Benjamin and his roommate in college have been going a lot.  They crab and take them back to their apartment, invite friends over and boil them.  

Bright and early they headed to the coast with string, chicken necks for bait, a net and an ice chest.  Crabbing is easy and fun.  You tie a neck to the string and toss it out.  The crabs grab the neck with their pinchers and the string tightens up.  The person holding the string gently pulls it in.  When the string gets close enough, the person with the net puts the net under the crab and pulls the crab in.  Russ is always good pulling the crabs in and Benjamin is an expert with the net.  In fact, we nicknamed him Benjamin "Net-an-yahoo" due to his prowess!

I called and checked on the crabbers mid-morning.  The wind was blowing hard and the crabs weren't biting like they had been in the past, but they still got about 20.  The crabs were big and pretty.

You don't want to get pinched by those pinchers!  We filled our boiling pot with water and added Crab Boil Seasoning and brought the water to a boil.  We added the crabs, potatoes, garlic, onions, lemons and eggs.

We let the crabs boil for 15 minutes and then cut the fire off and let them soak for 25 minutes.  Then it was time to eat!

The four of us wiped out all the crabs, potatoes and all the other fixings.  It was delicious!  

We will have to plan another crabbing trip again soon before it gets too hot!