Calgon, Take Me Away!

The Coastal Carolina Fair is fast approaching. One of the things Annalise has to do to get her chickens ready to show is give them a bath so they can be beautiful. She enlisted the help of friends Grace Anne and Ford, and together the three of them pampered two very frightened hens. I'll let the photos speak...

Yumm, Mealworms!

Is this how they make chicken soup? 

OK, Now What?!!!

a trip to Annalise's Styling Salon !

and a treat for being a brave hen!

Helen gets a final rinse...

Chicken Saturday - beginnings of a Charleston 4-H Club?

Today was Chicken Saturday! Abbey, Dakota, and Nikolai came over with Annalise to learn about keeping hens. They had a great time feeding the girls and - believe it or not - cleaning the tractor. They were even helping the hens find roaches hiding in the straw to eat - now that's SOMETHING!

Annalise will be showing two hens in the Coastal Carolina Fair in a few weeks.  To do that, she joined the Second Chance 4-H Club hosted by Bob and Dee Richey in Jedburg. They are wonderfully generous folks that I can't say enough good things about!  But the need exists for a 4-H Club in the Charleston area, so we're going to explore that possibility! I'll let the photos of the day speak for themselves. It was a great day for kids and chickens!

Koko - so much to choose from!

Paul contemplates coffee

Robin and Barkley

Hunting tasty insects for the chooks

Come here Percella!

Koko, Annalise, and Abbey - job well done!

Egg Counts

For information - and because the memory is never as accurate as the pen - I'm going to do my best to record and post the daily egg count. Most recent first...

Egg Count for week of 10/25 - 10/31:

Mon, 10/25: 5         Thu, 10/28: 

Tue, 10/26: 6         Fri, 10/29: 

Wed, 10/27:           Sat, 10/30: 

                      Sun, 10/31: 

Week total: 11

Egg Count for week of 10/18 - 10/24:

Mon, 10/18: 5         Thu, 10/21: 5

Tue, 10/19: 5         Fri, 10/22: 5

Wed, 10/20: 3         Sat, 10/23: 3

                      Sun, 10/24: 2

Week total: 28

Egg Count for week of 10/11 - 10/17:

Mon, 10/11: 5         Thu, 10/14: 4

Tue, 10/12: 6         Fri, 10/15: 5

Wed, 10/13: 4         Sat, 10/16: 5

                      Sun, 10/17:
Week total: 29

Egg Count for week of 10/4 - 10/10:

Mon, 10/4: 5          Thu, 10/7: 4

Tue, 10/5: 4          Fri, 10/8: 6

Wed, 10/6: 5          Sat, 10/9: 4

                      Sun, 10/10:5
Week total: 33

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Egg Count for week of 9/27-10/3:

Mon, 9/27: 5          Thu, 9/30:5

Tue, 9/28: 6          Fri, 10/1:3

Wed, 9/29: 4          Sat, 10/2:6

                      Sun, 10/3:3
Week total: 32

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Egg Count for week of 9/20-9/26:

Mon, 9/20: 4          Thu, 9/23: 4

Tue, 9/21: 4          Fri, 9/24: 6
Wed, 9/22: 6          Sat, 9/25: 4
                      Sun, 9/26: 3
Week total: 31

October Yogurt Surprise!

The first day of October. Cool, crisp, just right for a morning yogurt!

Happy Fall!

The girls are doing GREAT! Monday (or was it Tuesday?) I noticed Janie (speckled hen, 2nd from left) acting really strange when I let them out for their morning run. She just wasn't herself. That night I came home and there were only 3 eggs... so on a hunch I pulled the side and checked the other nest box. There were 3 in there - including one twice the size of any egg I've seen so far. It is GINORMOUS! That might explain why Janie wasn't moving so fast that morning!

As it turned out, it was a double-yolker! And, quite yummy, I might add!

         

Big News!

Maybe it was putting fresh pine shavings in the nest box before work, or the additional 30 sq ft of space they have during the day... It could be that Geneva & Helen heard me talking about chicken soup, or I  guess that the girls wanted to give me an early birthday present (tomorrow is my birthday).Well, today, Sept 3rd,  was the first SIX EGG DAY!! Finally, they met their production quota! Woot! Woot!! Thank you Geneva, Helen, Gladys, Janie, Percy, and Dixie Chick.

Today on the Organic Chickens Yahoo Group listserv I  saw that there is a person who has Ameracaunas for sale near Asheville. Hmmm. that would be cool. Ameracaunas lay blue-green eggs. Maybe I should give her a call. What's another hen or two?

The Daily Coyote

The other night in Barnes & Noble, Janice came across a book titled "The Daily Coyote"  by Shreve Stockton. The subtitle calls it "a story of love, survival, and trust in the wilds of Wyoming". It's a non-fictional recount of how Stockton came to mother a coyote pup named Charlie, who still lives with her and the "farmily" three years later.  It's a great book, an easy read that you won't want to put down. Maybe I'm partial because I too love the wilds of Wyoming.

Her website is http://www.dailycoyote.net/ . For $5/month, you can subscribe to her site and get a daily email from her with a photo of Charlie. I signed up -the photos in the book are wonderful. For free you can get on her blog: http://honeyrockdawn.com/ and you can of course follow her on Twitter...

Enjoy!

The new addition

The girls seem happy with the new addition. It's a simple affair, not well decorated, but they like it just the same.  Lack of a mesh floor means they can dig and dust which they love to do!  More to come later; here are two quick photos.

Neighborly

As I was getting ready for work this morning I got a frantic knock at my kitchen door. It was my neighbor Caroline with daughter Gloria in tow. I knew immediately - the girls had flown the coop.

I like the idea that my hens can free-range in the back yard. Unfortunately, being avians of a sort, they don't understand that the fence marks the beginning of their NO FLY zone. This morning three of them - Helen, Geneva, and Gladys, were nonchalantly scratching their way toward Arnold's house... For an August morning the air was cool and surprisingly non-humid; the grass was wet with dew.  It took a few minutes, but we corralled them and one by one I threw them back into their yard.  Caroline and I stood looking at our wet, dirty pants cuffs, both annoyed that we were now late for work/school. Since Gloria goes to Montessori, I gave her a carton of eggs - one of which had downy feathers still stuck to it - to take for show at school... And on the way to work I began thinking I might just have to clip some flight feathers to prevent another jailbreak.

Which brings me to what will be the next blog update. The new RUN (aka the addition to the side of the coop)... it's almost complete - stay tuned for the new housewarming photos.

No eggs tonight :-(

It's been a while since I posted - ok, a month to the day. Suffice it to say that all is well except that it's hot. The only thing worse than July in Charleston is August.  The tomatoes are history, Tomatillos are running rampant.  The girls are great - thanks for asking - and I've been typically finding 3 - 5 eggs per day in the nest boxes. Not today....

Wednesday nights are typically yoga nights. Class is at Serenity Now in Mt. Pleasant,  after which my friend Bob and I usually spend an hour or so catching up. Tonight was no different, except that I had to cut it short because I had to be at work in Moncks Corner at 5am for a network outage... I had some shopping to do, so it was about 10pm when I got home. Fed the cats, fed Barkley, and as usual went out to the coop to grab the day's eggs. As always, I checked the near nest box first. No eggs there, but nothing unusual about that. So I mosied over to the other end, and popped open the door. Nothing. Perplexed, I looked in at the girls, and that's when I saw him (it). A Texas Rat Snake, full of eggs, dozing in the coop with the girls. Holy S$%@!. First thing I did was to grab the phone and take the photo. Then I grabbed the crowbar to pull him/it out. Being in a sorta digestive state the snake was pretty lethargic, so it was easy to grab and pull out. Popped him in a Rubbermaid container, took him to the carport, and laid it out next to the tape measure. Just a few inches over 5' long! And he had three eggs in his belly.

My first inclination was to introduce Mr. Snake to the sharp end of a hoe, but that would be bad Karma. Not a poisonous snake, and after all I always tell folks that snakes are good for the environment (except when they eat your chickens' eggs). After a brief consult with Janice, it was off to the golf course (5 blocks away) for relocation. But why stop there? It might come back. So off across the Stono Bridge to John's Island with it.

I let the Mr. Snake go just off River Road on Rushland. He slithered and snaked off into the brush. Hopefully he'll find good hunting in the woods and marshes there. I think the Stono River should keep him from coming back for a long while.

The girls are fine. I guess with no lights in the coop they were oblivious to his presence. Hopefully they weren't too freaked out and we'll be back to eggs as usual this afternoon...

Whistlin' Dixie!

Well, it's Sunday afternoon, third day in a row I've found an egg, and now the mystery momma hen has been identified. Drum roll, please.....

it's Dixie Chick!

About 5:30 this afternoon I went out to the yard to give them some mealworms and didn't see Dixie. I poked my nose in the near nest box, and while I didn't see an egg  I spotted Dixie in the far nest box. And sure enough, when I opened that one, there she was with her egg. Here's a video of her announcing her accomplishment to the rest of the girls when she came downstairs.

The First Egg!

Friday, July 16, 2010.

Funny, I had a feeling when I left for work - the way the girls were squawking - that today might be the day we saw the first egg. I even mentioned it to Robert Richey (his family got the chicks for me). I came home this evening and there - in the far nest box - it lay. Small - smaller than a medium egg - but perfect in every other respect.  The question now is which of the girls produced this? Hmmm. They aren't talking. My bet is on Dixie. She is the largest and her wattles and comb turned bright red before the others...

Sunday Morning Brunch Video

Here are the girls! Think of them next time you make your omelet...

Eighteen weeks

Tuesday, July 6th. The girls are 18 weeks old today.... They will start to lay soon, so I'll start weaning them off their starter/grower feed and onto organic layer feed over the next few weeks.

Here are a few photos from the morning!

 

Dixie Chick

(Buff Orpington)

 

Gladys

(Barred Plymouth Rock)

 

Geneva

Silver Laced Wyandotte

 

Percella

Buff Orpington

 

Janie

Dominique

 

Helen

Gold Laced Wyandotte

Late June on "the farm"

Here are a couple of quick photos. Blueberries are beginning to ripen....

The grand pecan tree that was struck by lightning last Friday (June 18th). The arborist has sprayed it, and the funny little plastic things are nutrient injectors.

Whistling Dixie

Ok, don't get yer tail feathers ruffled. It's starting to look like Dixie is indeed a Dixie Chick.

The chicks  hatched March 2, so they are 16 weeks old , which means they're pretty near sexual maturity (18-20 weeks). I'll be switching them over to organic layer feed in 2-3 weeks, as soon as the starter/grower feed runs out.

Dixie has bright red wattles and a bit of a red comb, but she has that classic hen build. Not tall and slender like a rooster. Percy, the other Buff, has paler features, but is about the same size and build. This was confirmed last week when Beth, a down-the-street neighbor with chickens, stopped by to say hi and check on them. She and David have been been through Roosterville more than once, and she declared Dixie safe. So, it looks like I have 6 hens-a-laying (hopefully in another 4 weeks or so)

That said, I'm also sensing that they have established the pecking order, and it looks like Dixie is the Alpha female. It was quite interesting to watch them yesterday evening when I let them out of the pen. Dixie was very much "in your face" with Geneva, showing her who was in charge. Not just once, but several times She chased Geneva down and squared off with her. Better than watching Roller Derby or WWF! Dixie is also one of the first to check out anything new that enters their range, so until something happens, I think Dix is at the top of the order.

It was oh-so-easy to take pictures of them when they were babies. It's darned near impossible now that they can run and fly. So as soon as I get them to stay still for a little while, I'll post photos. I will likely take the side off the coop one evening after they have gone to roost. Once upstairs they are slow and  a bit more docile..

Small Measure by Ashley English

I recently ran across another blog written byy a woman named Ashley English, who lives just outside Asheville. She is a published author, and her Small Measure blog is wonderfully entertaining and very practical. If you have any interest in getting a little more connected with the Earth, I would suggest you check it out - http://small-measure.blogspot.com/.

A thought about Sustainability and modern life...

Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia, was quoted in the film 180 Degrees South as saying, "The hardest thing in the world is to simplify your life; it's so easy to make it complex. The solution that may be for a lot of the world's problems is to turn around and take a forward step." 

He also said in an interview with Blue Ridge Outdoors that "nothing humans do is sustainable".

Wow - how often do you hear a fantastically successful businessman speak the hard truth? Thank you, Yvon! And thank you to Beezer Molten, owner of Half Moon Outfitters, whose business model emulates the Patagonia/Chouinard model. You've got my respect and my business.  Thanks!

The Fiorella's Farm

I've been searching for a source of organic chicken feed in SC, and so far have turned up ZILCH. NATTA. NOTHING. But I have found sources outside of SC, and one of them was near where I would be spending a few days vacationing. So I called up Pat and John Fiorella of Fiorella's Organics, and arranged to stop by their little farm and pick up a sack of organic chicken feed.  A long way to go for a sack of feed, but I really wanted to see what they were up to...  We drove out to meet Pat and John this morning, and what was supposed to be a short visit turned into a three hour tour extraordinaire! 

Pat and John live inside the city, and have a small farm - less than 4 acres. They went in with several other folks to communally purchase 22 acres total, which they subdivided between the owners and then placed the land under conservation easement to limit subdivision and development.  

Thirteen or so years ago they purchased the house and barn that were on the property. The barn dates to the mid 1800s. It came with an inventory that included an old fashioned wagon, a horse drawn sleigh, a mechanical corn shucker, and other antique farm implements.

They are incredibly down to earth folks, involved in their community in various ways. John works with a nearby environmental education center. Pat spends some of her time catering, and putting on a summer camp for kids on the farm. In addition to John, she cares for the kids, a couple of cats, Ruby (their dog, fearless to the end), and a few dozen chickens.