Happy Harvest Blog
Perfect Day
I forget how wonderful the first day of having the coops outside is. It’s a threshold day, the anchor of the seasons, when the chickens come out and the purpose of the greenhouse is transformed from winter housing (Poultry Palace) to growing food. The coop roofs, dusty and pooped on, will be washed in the next rain. It’s the real beginning of the growing season.
Coops Out!
So tired... but I had to bring the coops out of greenhouse in order to plant in there (only three weeks late). It has to be done.
The coops in and coops out days are benchmarks of the season. The beginning of summer, and the beginning of winter. Important, marker days. Like spring cleaning, the GH gets everything pulled out of it and then transformed, in purpose and appearance.
Vector & Little Mama
Vector and Little Mama made it all the way out to the house! I was surprised to see them out the front window, toodling around together.
Shantytown
OMG, broody hens!
They went broody on the same day, and after a couple of days occupying the nest boxes in the coop, I figured they were sufficiently committed to broodiness and I could move them.
I carefully prepared their accommodations in the evening. Two chickeries close together, both entirely wrapped with canvas and paper feed sacks (hey, we’re not going for cute here, obviously), but with the wall between them not visually blocked. This backfires later in the story.
Two moms
We have our first Silkie chick. Cute little thing, brown spider markings, so it will turn out brown. The neat thing is that two hens are parenting it. I've never had this happen before. The hens sat on eggs next to each other in one of the apartments in the coop, always eager to swipe eggs from the other, but also always jammed in side by side.
Another Silkie Chick
We’re getting a rash of only, early chicks. Here we have an unexpected Silkie chick. As much as they are the most vulnerable chicks and have a lowered chance of survival, they do surprisingly well with the roulette wheel of reaching hatching at all. I don’t “help” my Silkie hens keep eggs, ie., I don’t isolate them with a set of eggs and food unless I mean for them …
It's a sitting in a tree kind of day
The girls have been hanging out in the pine tree like they did when they were chicks. They remember.The weather is beautiful. Sunny, and it’s warming up – any day the bugs will come out of nowhere and the fun will be all over.
Another Only chick!
So glad. They have different mamas but will grow up together. This little chick got off to a tough start. I found her in the middle of the Silkie greenhouse after breakfast, peeping at the top of her lungs (which is quite loud). I popped open the coop and nudged all the sitting hens, to see who would accept this chick. Apples did, and the chick burrowed right in. Phew, crisis averted. Then I moved them out together to a box and chickery to start chickergarten together.
Greenhouse living and the drama of the popcorn string
This has been a good winter to be a chicken around here. The winter was mild, and I don't think there was ever a time that the birds were truly locked in for more than a week due to snow. Any time there was bare ground, they got released for at least some hours of foraging entertainment. And of course, they had their side yard always accessible, although all the birds tend to stay in when there's snow. So morale was good this winter, not much cabin fever.
An Only chick
Only one baby hatched:( I think it's just too early for chicks; too tough for them to survive and egg cooling happens too rapidly this early in the spring. I thought only chicks were super sad, growing up alone, but they do get intense one-on-one attention. Little Mama gave the other eggs a couple of days, then strutted out all Alright kiddo, time to learn to scratch! I moved her abandoned eggs down the line, to the six Silkies currently broody in the Silkie coop.
A chick!
The first chick of 2020 has hatched! These eggs had a rough go. I had a barred rock hen broody, which was exciting - those two are the sweetest birds. But she got off of them! She's done it before; it's like she's got a calendar in her head and when she's sat too long, it's over, instead of being connected to the life in the egg. So I put the abandoned eggs under this little lady, who I'm between calling Little Mama
Nosey wishes everyone a Merry Christmas today
And wonders if perhaps it would be cozier with a fire... Actually she sees her reflection. Nosey took to letting herself into the house this fall whenever the door was left open. She wouldn't stay very long, just do a lap, walking casually all around, checking for crumbs, and then pop back out the door and leave. I just had to know what was going on.
Chicken sitting, and an accidental week off.
I had no intention of taking a week off blogging, but I had a real week from hell. A book deadline, two books released, other time-sensitive obligations, and a side serving of serious stress which led to far too many nights working past midnight, so I'm just coming up for air now and seeing what else really needs to be done. The bees got reduced on time, they're happy. The chickens, though, are under siege.
They grow up so fast
I've lost track of all the sets of chicks. There are around five that are almost indistinguishable from grownup chickens, the "big chicks".Overnight, they are all legs and big bodies. If I don't look twice, they look full grown. These have all graduated to living in the "big coop", although I'm still plucking at least one out of the tree every night. No, not the coop! They aren't nice to me there! Hello, I'm a Cheeks junior!
The Brahmas are joining Team Mooch
The Brahmas are joining the chicken clique that hangs out around the house, which is really nice. It’s the safest place for the chickens, and the most social. Naturally, the most vulnerable chickens, moms, chicks, and adolescents, range the farthest, giving me palpitations, while the old girls homesick. They’re always together. The Brahmas are so sweet, they’re the big feather pillows of the chicken world. One of them is in a half-molt state.
Turns out the bag of dirt on the deck seats two.
Turns out the bag of dirt on the deck seats two. But not three.
Profile: Athena
Athena is back at home. She was loaned out this summer to raise some babies. Athena and her sister were hatched last year and raised by a Silkie hen (they were the White Chocolates). They turned out to be not quite leghorns- white, quite differently shaped from leghorns, but a little jumpy and high-strung like leghorns are. Early this summer, both of them went broody, but not at the same time. Athena’s sister (Aphrodite?) raised a mixed set of five.
The latest chicks
I had a whole passel of Silkies go broody this summer. Some of them give up, two more go broody. The usual, in other words. I’m not letting them reproduce this year- I have so many Silkies. I did give them five of Cheeks’ eggs between them though. Drama central! If any of them stood up to adjust themselves, another one would rob an egg. Every morning most of them would go out for breakfast, and then there would be lamentations when they came back and their eggs had been swiped by another hen.
Nosey is auditioning for role of house chicken.
Nosey the Nosy thinks that I have a chicken-shaped void in my life, and she’s the chicken to fill it. I see that you don’t have a house chicken at the moment. I’d like to leave my resumé. It’s true, it’s been a long time since Cheeks moved out. Nosey has an unusual degree of interest in the house. With the door always open and the screen on, she spends a lot of time standing on the threshold looking in. And riffling the screen with her beak.
Instagram.
I may not make a blog post every day, but at least I Insta.
Bite size.
