Sparky's Adventures in Agriculture - Here a Chick, There a Chick

The baby chicks have arrived!!! We really didn't think they would because (as previously mentioned) a couple weeks after getting them PE had found Blueberry sitting on the fresh eggs while the hatching eggs (the ones with an "X" on them) sat cold.

We were pleasantly surprised one day when PE was feeding the animals (as he does every evening when he gets home from work) and he found the chicks walking around with Blueberry in the coop. All the egg shells had been pushed off to the side and stacked (who knew chickens were so tidy). There are seven total; three black, two gray, one light yellow, and one yellow with brown markings on the back. We don't know what kind they are but as they get older we will be able to tell. Most, if not all, of them are mixes but we can make pretty good guesses. All the chicks are so cute when they are young. They are fluffy and since we have kept Blueberry and them together it is funny to see them hop on her back and ride around occasionally.

It is also sort of funny that they go through an awkward "teenage" phase where the baby fluff goes away and is replaced by feathers and they look so gangling and awkward. Then they are like young adults and are skinny and don't have all the bulk of an adult. It has been interesting to see. The one exception so far has been Spike. Those curly feathers never looked awkward but I think GooGoo may always look a little awkward with the fro he/she will be rocking.



I had been waiting to post until Bob named the chicks which he finally did the other night. The gray ones are Gandalf and Shadow. The black ones are Frodo, Sam, and Merry. The light yellow one is Pippen and the yellow one with brown markings is Bilboa. After naming three of them with names from The Lord of the Rings we sort of encouraged him to keep with that theme. (Bilboa and Pippen were originally Cheese and Noodle. Yes, they had homemade macaroni and cheese for lunch that day.)



Blueberry is such a good mama. She fluffs all up and clucks at them to get under her wings when we get too close. In the past when she was sitting on eggs she has pecked us as we were getting the eggs. It didn't hurt--I don't think she was giving it her all. Now, on the other, hand she bites as she pecks and does not want you lifting her off of those babies. (I have just heard about it from PE.)



It has been fun to watch the chicks and Blueberry. The funniest/cutest have been when we have seen them riding on her back or when one is under her wing and all of the sudden you see a little head peak out from in between her feathers.

The biggest problem created by the addition of these babies is that the Frizzle (Spike) and Silkie (GooGoo) have been picked on quite a bit. They are smaller breeds in the first place but add to it that they aren't full size yet so the other four chickens we purchased this year are having a heyday picking on them since they were picked on when we put them with last years chickens. Spike and GooGoo are still alive so we are thinking it should all be okay.



Yesterday, PE moved Blueberry and the babies into the large coop and is planning on moving the pheasants to the small coop outside so we can finally clean the garage and have it look like a place you park your cars instead of a barn. The two biggest differences between chicken chicks and pheasant chicks is that pheasant chicks are FAST and they can fly at two to three weeks. They are so fast and skittish that there was no getting a picture of them. In leu of that I have pictures of the other chickens.

Sparky's Adventures in Agriculture - Here a Bird, There a Bird

About two weeks ago we purchased twelve hatching eggs just to see if little miss broody Blueberry might be able to hatch some eggs. (Broody - inclined to sit on eggs.) We brought them home, marked them with an 'X', and PE put them under Blueberry. We are now down to 10. Not quite sure what happened; they probably just fell out when she was getting out of the nest. In addition to losing a couple we have also found her sitting on the eggs she and the other chickens laid instead of the hatching eggs. We really aren't expecting much but for $2.00 it was worth trying.

In addition to that excitement we transitioned Maizie, Daisy, TreeTree, and Sara into the big chicken pen/coop last week. We also moved Spike and GooGoo into the smaller pen/coop. Aside from the initial establishment of pecking order which involved the little ones losing a few feathers the chickens seem to be getting along now. The two little ones have caught on to getting in and out of the pen too.

Saturday morning I noticed some barn swallows flying around. I pointed them out to PE as they were sitting on our railing outside. He mentioned they were probably building a nest somewhere and that their nests are made of mud and usually attached to brick. I had not sprayed our front porch off yet this spring so I figured they were making good use of the twigs and such that were on our porch. I then carried on with my day.

Later in the day Jabba called and said they had found a chick in her mom's backyard and was wondering if we wanted it. I said sure, bring it over. When she got here I went out the door to meet her and there on my doormat was a bunch of mud chunks and twigs. Those damn barn swallows were trying to build a nest on the brick in the arch above my door! It really didn't look like much; just some mud crusted to a few bricks.

Back to Jabba and the chick. She gets out of her car and brings the chick over and it is the tiniest thing I have seen. It was not a chicken. PE looks at it and tells us that it is a pheasant. (He is so smart.) After Jabba hands it over she mentions that there were a couple others but they were better at avoiding the butterfly net. We told her if they caught them they could bring them over.

After her departure I got out the hose and sprayed the mud off the bricks. Yes, the barn swallows are good to have around because they eat bugs but I don't need them living above my front door pooping on my "Leave" welcome mat. As I was spraying down the porch Jabba pulls in the driveway. When she gets out of the car I see she has two more chicks. So we now have three pheasant chicks. Not quite sure what we are going to do with them. PE has them set up in the chicken chicks pen thing and they are hiding in the straw. He isn't sure if they will survive but at least we gave it a try. The outlook was a bit brighter after we witnessed them eating and drinking.

The kids have already named them. From previous naming experiences, can you guess who came up with which names? We have LegoHead, NoodleHead, and Honey. (I am sure you never would guess that Bob was playing with Legos when he thought of LegoHead.) Even though they named them we did not allow for any disillusions. We let them know they may die and they were okay with that.

Back to the barn swallows. . . they returned the next day so I sprayed the mud off the brick and the porch. Then I did some research and it looks as though (depending on the source) there is not much to do to get rid of them. I did not let that discourage me. No sir. I had the brilliant (in my opinion) idea of hanging something out there so they didn't have any space to build their nest. It just so happened to be that I have a twig wreath that has lived in my entryway for years. I love it there. But in order to not have mud and bird ick on my porch from the swallows I decided to try it out on the porch. PE and Jabba have told me the swallows are just going to think I gave them a head start. We will see who wins that one.



It may look a little silly from the street (I haven't looked from there yet--I keep forgetting) but so long as it serves the purpose I am happy.

**UPDATED - The barn swallows have not come back since we hung the wreath. . . I think I win!

Sparky's Adventures in Agriculture - Cute Chickens

People laugh when I mention my "cute" chicks. But you cannot deny that these two chickens are "cuter" than most others.



Our Frizzle, Spike, looks similar to the chick in the top picture. I think the curled feathers make it (don't know the sex yet) super cute right now. The black Cochin, Blueberry, is more pretty than cute now especially when the sun shines on her and the green comes out in her feathers. The feathers on their legs and feet just add a little extra something to them.

These are not as "cute". No feathers on their feet, no curly feathers, definitely not as cute.

Sparky's Adventures in Agriculture - Chickens

Last year we started raising chickens. I thought it would be great to have fresh eggs and we go though enough of them it seemed like a good investment. We ordered six pullet (female) chickens from the local country store. While we were at it we also ordered two turkeys (a little can be read about them here. The eight birds arrived in three sets spread out over about 6 weeks. First arrived the turkeys; a Giant White (Box) and a Black Spanish (House). The first set of chicks included a Black Cochin (Blueberry), Speckled Sussex (Strawberry), White Brahma (Nut I), and Silver Lace Wyandotte (Meg). The final set included an Ameraucana/Americana (Rainbow) and a Red Sexlink (Cloud). The original post about the chickens can be found here. I wanted to write a little more detail about the chickens for two reasons. 1)I have people ask what types of chickens I have and I can't always remember. 2) If I write it here, I can find it again.

So, we have Blueberry, Meg, Cloud, and Strawberry that are all excellent egg layers. We get an average of three eggs per day. Rainbow on the other hand has laid two eggs total. One last fall and then one deformed one this spring. Rainbow has a retarded foot and PE thinks that might be a contributing factor and that she may just be unhealthy overall. From what I have heard you want to cycle your chickens because most only live five years and the older they get the slower the egg production. For this reason, we have purchased more chickens. That and we could use more eggs. Yes, we get about 21 eggs per week and you would think we would have them coming out our ears but amazingly enough at this very moment there are only three sitting in my refrigerator.

We got the chickens in two sets this year. The first set included, all pullets, a Buff Orphington (Maizie), Golden Sexlink (Daisy), Barred Rock (TreeTree), and California White (Sara). The second set included, straightrun, a Silkie Bantam (GooGoo) and a Frizzle Bantam (Spike). While we were there we picked up another pullet Ameraucana/Americana (Luce). I guess we shouldn't have done that because Luce died. Now PE has it out for Ameraucana/Americanas and will not be purchasing any more. Oh well. The Frizzle is super cute right now. It is all fluffy, like chicks are, and the ends of his feathers curl up. So. Cute. I tried to take a picture for you; however, the little buggers wanted to hide in the corner and there is chicken wire over the cage so it was pretty much a close up of chicken wire with some chicks in the distance. I really didn't expect much else considering I was using my cell phone. I just wanted you to know I was thinking of you.

Okay, I am sure you are wondering about the names. You can attribute most of those to Bob. He has a tendency to name things after items in his vacinity. You see we were in the House and the turkeys were in a Box so there you have the turkey names. It was raining and there were Clouds and a Rainbow on the way to get chicks so there you have those names. GooGoo is slightly my fault as I was listing phrases out of a Dr. Suess book. I am not so sure about TreeTree but Sara did come from a movie character. I will say that Moo named Strawberry, Blueberry, Maizie, Daisy, and Luce.

PE also made a new chicken coop for the bigger chickens. They are moving on up to bigger and better things. He was quite creative with the coop. He made a sort of feeding trough along the walls of the coop so we don't have to keep a feeder in with the chickens. He gave them a couple perches and a window (fancy schmancy). The coop is attached to an old dog run so they have room to go out and be in the sun, eat bugs, and take dust baths. The entrance and the window can be covered if we ever need to keep them in there or keep the elements out. This weekend we purchased some outdoor oops paint from Home Depot. It is a red barn type color and for $5 there really isn't any room for complaining.

While the egg production is the best thing about the chickens a close second is they help me not feel bad when food gets past the prime in the refrigerator. There are some things they like more than others but overall those chickens will eat anything. I have to admit it makes me giggle just a little that they have eaten chicken, pork, and beef (especially the chicken--we made cannibals out our chickens).

On that note I think I will wrap up this post. Have a great day!

And Then There Were Five

In April we purchased six female chickens. We paid extra to make sure we received females because we want to raise them for eggs. Prior to the purchase I did a little reading online and found some chickens that are better layers and then also found the "cutest" chickens. Any man out there does not understand why anyone would want a "cute" chicken but from input from my female friends I did good by picking the chickens with feathery feet because they are in fact cuter and my friends understand why I wanted some. Anyway, we purchased two "cute" chickens and four good layers. The kids named them (Nut, Meg, Blueberry, Strawberry, Cloud and Rainbow). Nut and Blueberry were the "cute" chickens. Well, when we first brought them home, Nut was pecked at and picked on. That passed and everything was fine, we had transitioned them from the garage to a cage outside then one day we went out and Nut was dead. One of my cute birds was dead. I wasn't sad because I really had no attachment to the chickens but I was a little ticked. I still wanted six chickens so one day we stopped by another store that was selling straight run (not sexed) chickens and purchased a replacement Nut knowing that it may be a rooster. Well time passed and the signs of rooster showed up. So, it was planned that as soon as he started to crow he would very soon meet his end and end up on our table for dinner. Nut started to crow about two to three weeks ago but not very loud. His crow has slowly increased in volume and frequency so PE decided today that he had crowed his last crow.

WARNING - Detailed Killing Info Ahead
When the kids heard he was going to kill Nut they both jumped at the chance to watch (Moo more readily than Bob). PE grabbed Nut, tucked him under his arm, and wrung his neck to kill him. He twisted and twisted and Nut made some semi-crowing noises and just sort of laid there. Then the process was repeated until no noises were uttered. There were various antics involved. Bob nudging him with his foot and PE yelling to startle him (it only worked two or so times). Then Bob sat by the bird and sort of pounded on his chest saying, "breath" and PE told him he had to breath in the birds beak and Bob said, "No, I don't want him to come back alive."

PE then dipped the bird (once dead, the bird no longer has a name) in a pot of boiling water to help with the feather removal and then plucked the bird. After the plucking (Bob held a bag for the feathers), PE used his pocket knife to cut off the head. I only know that this is what he did because I saw the blood and I asked if that is what he used. I really didn't watch anything after part way through the last neck wringing. So, while I know he cleaned out the inside of the bird, I have no idea what that entails and I really have no idea why he had Moo bring in the heart. Wait, I will ask. . . oh, he is going to eat it. Why didn't I think of that? Moving on. . .the bird is now cleaned and in the refrigerator waiting to be cooked in the Crock-Pot later this week.

Did you know chickens are cannibals? They are. PE fed them the skin and some fat from the dead bird and they gobbled it right up. We have fed them left over chicken bits before and the same thing. If they only knew.

I am sure if you would like more information on killing your own chicken, PE would be happy to share the information with me to pass along (no way would he ever venture to comment or answer anything on the blog--he doesn't even read it). Just let me know if you have questions and I will get the answers.