City Chickens - PDF from LLF Class

Mepkin Abbey Oyster Mushroom Quiche

This is a wonderful recipe - I've made it several times, it gets rave reviews!

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a ROCKET!

The summer was brutal on the flock. Sweet Janie, my Dominique, died from heat stroke in August. The other girls have pretty much stopped laying. Several are molting....

When Omelet (baby Americauna) died, I got a replacement pullet to keep Dora company. I named her Rocket. She was just too wild and fast! A Pearl White Leghorn that could put a roadrunner to shame (in fact, you could have made a cartoon out of me trying to catch her).

Rocket turning baby snake into chicken.

Last weekend I bent down over her, and instead of running she huddled to the ground! That's a sign that she's a hen, about to lay... and sure enough, I found a small white egg Thursday evening. Followed by another yesterday. No doubt Rocket is laying. Dora, well she's either Sweet Dora or Dumb Dora, depending on how you look at it. She still wants to roost in trees (Rocket - now a lady - follows the other girls in at night), but she follows Rocket around all day long. Quite a pair!

Summer Time - the heat is on!

Here in Chucktown it's been in the 90s every day for weeks with little to no rain. The Big Girls have cut egg production down to 2 eggs/day. It's just too hot. 

Dora and Rocket - the "babies" have been moved out to the coop, to an apartment adjacent to the big girls. Dora  - my surviving Ameracauna / Aracauna - is a sweetie, but very timid. She looks more like a small hawk than a hen. Rocket is, well, fast. She's wild. Doesn't like to be held, and is like white lightning. Fortunately she finds her way back to the coop. There have been a couple of times when the two groups have bumped into each other, and fortunately the big girls haven't decided to enforce the brutality of the pecking order that did in poor Omelet...

Last weekend Janice & I went to the mountains to relax and put Barkley's ashes into the Davidson River at his favorite spot... We paid a visit to Rich of EarthPerks in Rutherfordton to get organic feed for the girls. Rich has a neat place, with a big sunflower patch out front, and a unique moveable henhouse: a converted Winnebago camper he calls the "Hen-a-bago"! If you need organic supplies and are in the Columbus/Tryon/Rutherfordton area, please give Rich a visit.

The Hen-A-Bago at EarthPerks!

Sunflowers always brighten the day!

At the Upper Falls of the East Fork of the Little Tenn, Graveyard Fields

Easter Babies!

It was Easter Sunday afternoon. Janice & I were trying to nap away the effects of a Mimosa induced catatonic state (courtesy of the Fat Hen Restaurant) when the phone rang. It was Bob Richey. The chicks were in - all 90 of them. The Post Office works on Easter...

We received a phone call a few hours later. Bob needed help - please come get my share (54 babies). Because of the way they were packed and sorted, he couldn't feed and water them.

So... Janice & I made phone calls to prospective parents, and made the trip to Jedburg where we were greeted by the Richey family and 90 peeping day old baby chicks!

The chicks were sorted into 3 different bins. We arranged to meet one of our 4-H leaders, May Jones, on the way back. May has a farm in Manning and had ordered 25 little Rainbow Layers; one of the bins was her order. That was a huge load off.  With a plastic tote and large cardboard box, we were able to get the others situated, fed, watered, and heat lamps on...

The next day, all the kids came to get their babies. I forgot what that kind of excitement can be like! They were so cute. By the end of the day, I was down to 2 babies - mine. Two cute little Americauna chicks. Soon to be named.... Omelet and Dora.

The Girls First Birthday!

Yes, it's true. The girls are a year old! We celebrated with mealworms and organic yogurt, and blew bubbles, which they certainly didn't understand.

So.... for those of you who may have missed the blog, I've been busy organizing a new 4-H Club for my area. We have 9 kids so far and growing, and we've been invited to have a presence at Plantasia in late April. Speaking of which, our chick order will arrive about the same time, so we may have some babies as well as the girls.

And yes, we are adding to the flock! I ordered a few Ameracauna pullets, so starting in the fall we should have blue-green eggs to go with our nutritious, free range brown eggs!

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

---------------------------------
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

---------------------------------

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