Do you hear what I hear?

I don't hear a thing till I roll out sometime late in the morning. It's Christmas break so I'm messing up my schedule by staying up till all hours and sleeping till I'm good and ready to get up--which is hours after my girls are ready to leave the condo for a day of poking around in the yard. If you were standing outside the addition you'd hear "er ER-errrrrr" and "errrr--errrr--errrr ERRRRRRR" as Buffy and Sam crank up for the day. It would be a distant sweet sound of morning in the country--unless you were sleeping in the loft and then it'd be an assault starting around sunup--earlier if I didn't lay the rugs on top to keep the light out. Poor little Millie. She's the only hen in the box but she's tiny--and gets cold--otherwise she'd be out with the girls in the condo sleeping late. They don't get up till maybe 8:30/9:00. I dare not put the boys out--neighbors doncha know.  They'll go out in the way-back sometime late morning when it gets warmer. Don't seem to do much crowing out there--well--at least Sam doesn't. Buffy sounds like somebody strangling something so his crowing isn't really recognizable as chicken.

The girls can be loud when they're snuggled into the covered kitty pan converted to nesting box. They have every right to make some commentary as far as I'm concerned. Eggs don't come out greased.  Then there's Chicky-baby who chases everybody around the yard when she explodes from her empty nest with a string of poultry expletives. She's broody--and really cranky--chicken PMS. She'll take it out on poor little Gimpy if she's not shut out of the condo--strut right over to her Gestapo style and peck the hell out of  her. I'd let Sam jump her just to get her settled on a couple of fertile eggs but she hates Sam. Took an instant dislike to the little guy, so putting those two together would most likely leave Sam looking not just bizarre, but severely disfigured. 

eggs, eggs, eggs

Perfect little jewels--little brown jewels. 

My girls started laying this week. I knew something was up. Ladybug was poking around--in bins, under the shed, in corners. She was ready--and this week she jumped into a bin, rearranged the straw in the bottom of it and after a chorus of squaaaaaks and clucks, there it was--a perfect little brown egg. My girls aren't babies anymore. Gimpy hasn't laid yet--but then she may never lay. She's still small--and broken. 

Everybody else is busy tho--Abby is a morning layer--Gabby too--Ladybug late morning and even little Chicky-baby is laying. She takes a good long time getting her nest ready--arranging every straw until it's perfect. Bet she'd be a good little broody hen.

A new hen

Chickens aren't stupid. Not one of my girls wanted to be out in the cold drenching rain--the first of fall--that fell all day and night earlier this week. They stayed warm and dry inside their condo, occasionally taking a walk in the covered enclosure outside the back door. 

It was the first day the big girls accepted Chicky-baby as a full fledged member of the flock. I guess it was just too nasty out to chase anybody. Chicky-baby was a newcomer--inherited from the farm--a house chicken that needed to be a proper chicken. The Italian ices and Necco Wafers she'd learned to love were bad for her. Her feathers were kind of scruffy from lack of sun and her little feet were starting to turn in because she couldn't go out by herself to scratch around and her nails were too long. My friends who had hand raised her straight from the incubator knew she wouldn't survive the pecking order of the farm chickens so she came to stay with me and over the last month had slowly been accepted. Now she's one of the girls and they were all curious about the critter that had taken up residence on the straw bale in the poultry palace. Not that they didn't know who it was. They'd seen it around the yard since they were tiny.

Tyson the cat likes the back yard as much as the girls. When they were little peeps she was always skulking around trying to get a little closer than they were comfortable with. Since they got big tho, they stalk Tyson and have been known to sneak up behind her while she was napping and give her a peck on the butt.  Tyson is a barn cat, found as a newborn kitten, and given to us to raise when she was two and a half days old. It would appear she has found her barn. On a warm sunny day she and the girls would keep a respectable distance. I guess a cold rainy day changes the rules tho, and everybody is welcome to share a dry place in peace.

SWAP!!!!!!

I went to a swap out at Gillmanor Farms this weekend. 

My friends Connie and Dave went too--Connie in the role of "sponsor"--as in AA--only this was CA (Chickens Anonymous). Bea went too--another chickaholic. Bea got up extra early so she could go (she's a farmer and gets up at the crap of dawn anyhow but for a swap she got up waaaay before dawn even thought of crapping). I wanted one baby Silkie. I came home with a Silkie, a Mille Fleur and a buff Cochin. Bea got an Indian Game hen--very old breed--a Langshan, three Spangled Hamburgs, and two Muscovy ducks and had ten dollars left over for breakfast. Dave said he was buying breakfast so Bea went back and got two Rhoad Island Red pullets. She WINS!

Connie failed in her role as sponsor. She not only took the alcoholics to the liquor store but helped pick out the liquor, pay for it and carry the bottles to the car. 

If you look at the picture, Sam is in front (she's the Silkie), Millie is the little speckled girl--she's a Millie Fleur d'Uccle, and Buffy is a buff Cochin. This morning they got their little feathered feet washed and any poopy feathers trimmed off. They'll be in the brooder box till they get used to me and I'm sure they're healthy then they get to meet the other gurls and find their place in the pecking order.

Sam is Sam cause I told the guy I got her from I had to have a hen--NO roosters ABSOLUTELY! So I got the teeniest of the hatch and we scrutinized the rest of the bunch, declared her female, said a prayer to the god of chickens and tucked her in my jacket for the trip back to the car, Passed a grarley old lady who said "need a rooster?" I told her I couldn't have roosters and I hoped my baby wasn't one and she said " well, you just hold em up by the scruff here and if they flap their feet all around, you got a rooster and if them feet just hang, you got yurself a hen." So she grabs my baby by the scruff of the neck and those feet go crazy and I'm really disgusted cause I just KNEW she was a she. Then I asked her how she held her up so I could go back and make sure I got a hen and she picked my baby up and those feet hung like a couple of wet noodles. We said we'd settle for a hermaphrodite and named her Sam.

If you're wondering what the heck a swap is, it's sorta like a big yard sale only with animals

Addendum: Sam is a rooster. I can get him neutered for $1,500. NOT! Wonder if Estrogen therapy would keep him from crowing. Sure is a cute little bugger.

Um--Buffy is a rooster too. Both of the boys crow. Rats!

Out on the farm

My face is sunburned and my farmer's burn will be a farmer's tan in a week. I put the boys in bins for a trip to the farm about 11:30. Got home after 9. My sweet roosters live on the farm now. They can crow all they want but their days in the luxury of the poultry palace are gone. This winter there will be no heat lamps for the boys, and while I put up some screens to block the worst of the sun, no fans. Still they will live a decent chicken life and I can visit them whenever I want to. 

I have very good friends but Bea is an exceptional friend. A very good friend will take you to pick up your car or help paint your house. An exceptional friend will take your roosters. Phyllis is now Dr Phil and has three little hens and a bunch of wild turkeys sharing the same enclosure. They were hatched from eggs that were almost crushed by a hay bailer. They seem to calm right down when Dr. Phil walks around with them. Goldie has his own three hens in the turkeys old enclosure. He's still a sweet guy who sits on my shoulder and pecks around at my feet when I go to visit. 

 So we were going to do afternoon feed and go to the ol Hickory Notch for dinner but on the road back to the highway we met some folks wondering if Bea was missing a bull. She was. You know bulls are BIG--and Black Angus bulls are VERY BIG. Seems Romeo went to see what was on the other side of the fence. Took a bunch of folks and the rest of the afternoon to get Romeo contained so he wouldn't wander onto the highway or somewhere he wasn't welcomed.

An animal who doesn't know most of the people running after it isn't likely to cooperate. After Bea chased him through the woods for a mile or so, Romeo was corralled with a bunch of cows on a lady's property up a narrow dirt road. One neighbor went to get the truck to haul the trailer. One neighbor stayed with Romeo to make sure he stayed put. We went back to get the trailer and some fencing that Bea keeps around her truck to keep the goat off.  With all of us folks Romeo didn't know waving sticks on the perimeter, Bea herded Romeo through a makeshift chute made from that fencing into the trailer. How the neighbor got that huge trailer up that road bordered on miraculous. He did tho and got it turned around so that one VERY big, VERY hot, VERY thirsty bull loaded up safe and sound. He was happy enough to drink gallons of water and munch on the hay we tossed in for him while I kept Bea company checking out the fence line just at dusk--didn't want the other 26 cows to go walkabout. All cows safe and accounted for and the gate to the back pasture shut. Romeo spent the night in the trailer and first thing next morning with the help of a neighbor--the neighbor who drove the trailer, he got where he belonged.

Romeo's happy to be back home. Bea was covered with seed ticks--she was the one chasing through the woods and in the tall grass. A week later her ankles are pretty much healed up. The gate is still shut since she hasn't had time to walk the fence line in the back pasture. She also said one of the neighbors--the neighbor who followed the bull and stayed with him while everybody else went to get the trailer-- had a heart attack on Labor Day. She took a card up to his house--you know--a "thinking of you" card-- but the lady that answered the door said he'd died.  

Gimpy-one-leg

Nature's pretty amazing. Gimpy was one of six peeps I ordered online from a place called My Pet Chicken. She was broken--her leg mangled--don't know how, but My Pet Chicken managed to screw up half my order and poor Gimpy was one of the screw-ups.

Gimpy shouldn't have lived. She was hurt, she was tiny, she was on the bottom rung of the pecking order. Everybody in my little flock stepped on Gimpy--or pecked at her bad leg--that stuck out at a not at all natural angle. When she wasn't being picked on she was left behind. In the chicken world that's worse. Birds that get left behind die. Rough start for a little puff of feathers that didn't register on a postage meter. 

Then Ma Nature stepped in and durned if Gimpy didn't beat the odds. The bad leg fell off--or was pulled off by one of the other chickens--and as soon as that dead weight wasn't there any more, Gimpy began to thrive. Three months later the Gimp flutters after the other girls, wings flapping, gimp leg skimming the ground--a ball of determined chickenhood. She can't scratch, but she can poke for goodies with her hawk beak. She has to work three times as hard to get half as far. She's tiny and still peeps. Who knows if she'll ever cluck like a proper chicken--or lay an egg. I'm guessing yes. I trust Gimpy to beat the odds again.

Tyson's song

Tyson was a rescue chicken from a Tyson Foods chicken raising farm. She was the only one of 90,000 peeps delivered 7 weeks earlier that wasn't scooped up and shipped off to be slaughtered and packaged for the frozen food department at Ukrop's. She was with me three weeks till something got into the shed and killed her. For three weeks she sat in the sun, drank clean water, pecked at green grass and slept on fresh straw. For three weeks of her 10-week lifetime she lived a decent life. She was a gentle girl and liked more than anything to sit next to me out back, spread her ratty feathers, stretch out her neck and go to sleep. This is her song.

Tyson ain't pretty

Tyson ain't smart

Her feathers are scruffy

Her feet are too large

There were so many chickens

now there's only one.

All the rest went to market

left Tyson alone.

Now the big chicken scooper

come and scooped em all up

and sent em away

to be gutted and plucked

They're all under plastic

in a store on a shelf.

Maybe Tyson is lucky

but she's all by herself

Now, I'm mighty glad

it was not Tyson's fate

to end up the main course

on some dinner plate

I'm learning some valuable lessons my friends

out in my back yard from a little white hen

So Tyson's no beauty

she's awkward and shy

but she's teachin me

how to live a good life

Be grateful

Be humble

Be kind

Be a friend

And treasure each day

from beginning to end

Somebody tell me how to post audio and I'll sing it for you

Phyllis?

Can hens crow? Well--not exactly crow--more like a gobble actually--or a seal barking--only Phyllis isn't supposed to do ANY sort of noisemaking because she is supposed to be a SHE! 

I am up to HERE with My Pet Chicken. STRIKE ONE: They shipped my day old babies and didn't put my phone number on the package even tho they said my phone number would be on the top of the box. They made a big deal about letting the post office know I was expecting peeps-- and I DID. I called and pestered and wasn't happy till I had every postman who wasn't on vacation or at the races on the lookout for a box that peeped--a box that would have my phone number on it.  Damned if I didn't get my peeps a day late cause there was no phone number. Grrrrrrrr!

Strike TWO: One of my babies was broken. Her leg was so badly broken it finally fell off. I happen to be hugely fond of my gimpy chicken. I love her just the way she is BUT maybe if I'd got her ON TIME I could have saved that leg. And if the frikkin PHONE NUMBER had been on the box, the Post Office would have CALLED me. How do I know? Because my postman made a special trip to the house. The main post office called asking if they knew of anyone who had mentioned they were expecting chickens! I have Friends who have ordered hundreds of baby chicks over the years and have never had one arrive damaged like that. Dead maybe--but not broken. 

STRIKE THREE:  I'm not even supposed to have chickens and while a bunch of nice little hens can peck around relatively unnoticed, roosters are a BIIIIG nono. I ordered hens--paid extra too. So I get a call that there's been a substitution--they substituted a "Barred Plymouth Rock"  cause the kind I ordered didn't hatch. OK so I looked up "Barred Plymouth Rock" and I didn't have any problem with another black and white gurl. They're pretty chickens and have nice personalities. Good! Except that Phyllis isn't a Barred Plymouth Rock--she's a Dominique--and it would appear that Phyllis is actually "Phil."

And that is STRIKE FOUR. I love Phyllis. She's huge--a big black and white chicken with a beautiful bright red rose comb (look it up if you care) and wattles. So when "she" started gobbling, I checked online and durned if SHE doesn't look like a HE. I think when I finish this I'm sending a nasty letter to My Pet Chicken.

I Like Chickens

My Gramma had chickens. The whole egg laying process was magic to a little kid--and the thing about a chicken running around after you cut it's head off--coooool! 

So fifty years later I have chickens--seven little hens live in an enclosed poultry palace a friend built so none of my chickens will be varmint food like my last gurl--a rescue chicken from Tyson's foods. I've had the gurls since they were three day-old peeps--ordered from a hatchery and shipped in the mail. I won't say the mail order process is the kindest thing to do to a tiny baby bird--but I had to make sure my chickens were gurls cause not everybody is as fond of chickens as I am.

The very swell girl that's staying with us while she goes to school is scared of my gurls. She says she's afraid of the sharp things on their faces. The guy next door was traumatized by a chicken when he was 8--something about being chased around a car by a headless chicken. He doesn't much like chickens either.  Then there's the neighbor out back that lets his yappy dogs out at all hours to bark but didn't like it cause my rooster usta crow at 5 AM. Rooster only crowed for a minute or two. Frikkin dogs bark for HOURS! I don't have my rooster anymore. Wish I could say the same for his dogs. I think every backyard should have a couple of chickens. Keeps the mosquito population down and they make beautiful yard ornaments.

So what makes a, for the most part, unremarkable gramma a chicken lover? Dunno. I grew up in North Carolina and I'll confess--I still get a yen for fried chicken every now and again (tho I'd NEVER eat my gurls.) The egg laying process is still magic and I LOVE the brown, pink and blue eggs they create. Don't eat eggs--well--except in brownies.  Don't like the texture. My children at nursery school adore the gurls--even tho they don't believe they are the same baby chicks they saw a few months ago.  They love the soft feathers, are wary of the pokey feet and beaks, and relate to the diapers the gurls wear to school (yeah--chicken diapers. Check it out on YouTube.) 

I love going out in the morning to watch last nights stale leftovers become a chicken's gourmet breakfast. Week old lasagna--Gurls decimate it. Church social greenbean casserole--Yummed down (and if they had chops to lick, they would.) Half a loaf of dried up bread that SOMEBODY forgot to close up--GONE! They're also fond of grass clippings, old cottage cheese, anything a meal worm can infest (especially the meal worms infesting it), large and small bugs, cat food, pet food in general, and pretty much anything I'd eat. I did watch them turn up beaks at a mouse our little cat caught and left in the yard. I don't believe for a second they don't like the taste of mouse--just full. I know chickens will eat each other if one of them dies and the rest are hungry. A chicken is the ultimate green machine,

I like chickens cause they're honest. I didn't say NICE--but scrupulously honest. They're like two year-olds--totally in it for themselves--no excuses--no agenda. It's all "ME! ME! ME!  If you like two year old kids--and I DO-- you should love chickens. Chickens don't cheat, they take--but you expect that from a chicken. Chickens don't have ups and downs, mood swings, changes of heart, ulterior motives, divisive thinking (no thinking at all), psychotic breaks, depression, mid life crises, religious awakenings, political viewpoints, or idealism of any kind. They are humble and totally in the moment.

While chickens are not politicians or lawyers, they are very good at being chickens. How many politicians or lawyers do you know who are good people? The pecking order can be cruel but you ain't seen cruel till you've seen our legal system. 

My chickens have personalities at least as interesting as some of the current crop of talentless divas (and I'm sure Brittany or Paris will never produce anything as useful as an egg.) They are beautiful to look at and certainly no more vapid than the talk shows infesting daytime TV. 

So I like chickens. There's a lot of satisfaction in walking across the yard and having a flock of multicolored wings come tearing along behind me; sitting on the steps and having one of the gurls hop up onto my knees, tuck her head under my arm and chirp; being allowed to stroke a feathered head--or having a chicken jump onto my shoulder and ruffle my hair. 

I play evening prayers from the Ramakrishna mission in Calcutta for them at dusk and clicker train them to dance. They take turns coming inside in the evening to sit on my lap (on a towel of course) and eat meal worm treats. They have a fan in their condo and on hot days sit right in front with their feathers blowing in the wind.  Come winter they will bask under their heat lamps.  They never want for food or clean water. My chickens live better than some of the people on our planet.  And that my friends is something we should all feel really sad about.

 

Can Grammas blog?

I was way excited when I got an iPod for Christmas--an 80 gigabyte silver iPod. I called my grankids all puffed up cause I got an iPod. So my grandaughter says "Gramma--iPods are for young people." Oh great! Way to kill that ol geriatric spirit, Paige! And now I have singlehandedly managed to wade through the setup of my own personal blog. OK--so it's not a website--and I haven't created software that will render the internet virus free, but dammit--I am blogging! Humph!