Birds Archives

March 20, 2014

Five Blossoms

CherriesAboutToBloom

Five open blossoms is what it takes for the meteorologists in Japan to proclaim that the cherry blossoms have bloomed in a city. In each city, there is one tree which is declared the reference tree, and when five blossoms on that tree have opened, a declaration is made that the cherry trees have blossomed in that city. There are even reference trees in waiting, just in case the reference tree dies.

We had more than five open blossoms on our reference tree here at a man and his hoe®. So I declared yesterday that our cherry trees were in bloom. There are still many buds about to burst open. A few more sunny days, and our reference tree will be in full bloom.

HenSunningHerself

Speaking of sunshine, chickens love sunshine. They can spend hours sunning themselves in the warm sunshine. You’ll see them turning on their sides and lifting their wings to really air out.

KumaHime

Dinosaur? Look closely into a chicken’s eyes, and it’s not difficult to see that birds are what dinosaurs evolved into. A chicken’s beak is a formidable weapon. It’s a good thing they are much smaller than us.

MossOnRock

How long has that rock been there? The moss knows.

SvenOnNest

And what is this? A rooster sitting on a nest? I’ve read that roosters will sometimes sit on a nest to let hens know that they’ve found a good place to lay an egg. Sven spent more than an hour on this nest this morning. At times he even got up and clucked like a hen. He did entice one hen to sit on the nest, but she didn’t stay long enough to lay an egg. Maybe he’ll have better luck tomorrow.

March 4, 2014

First Brood?

CommercialHatching
Most chickens are hatched in large commercial incubators. Here at a man and his hoe® we do things very differently.

Even though it is still cool, spring is in the air. The robins are active, calling for mates. The thimble berries and raspberries are budding out. And one of my hens went broody a few days ago. Tonight I placed a full set of eggs underneath her for her to hatch. In three weeks, around March 26, if all goes well, they should hatch.

So what is this bowl of marked eggs for? They are for the broody hen to incubate and hatch. Before placing eggs under a broody hen, I mark the eggs so I can tell later if another hen has added any eggs to the clutch. A broody hen will leave her nest once a day to eat, get some exercise, and do her business. While she is away, another hen may add an egg to the clutch. But such additional eggs need to be removed as they won’t hatch at the same time as the original clutch. By marking the eggs at the start, it’s easy to spot any unwanted new eggs

EggsforMidge

And here is the brooding hen.

MidgeBrooding

So why go to all the bother of hatching chicks under a broody hen? What chicken farmer in this day and age does this? Wouldn’t it be much cheaper and easier just to use an incubator or purchase chicks from a hatchery?

I do it for the chicks and their mothers. In an incubator, the chicks don’t get to listen to their mother’s heartbeat as they develop. They don’t get to hear her soft calls as their hatching day approached. And after they hatch, they get to cuddle and dry out under their mother’s warm breasts, and get to make their first steps out into the world under her watchful. At night they get to sleep under the warmth of her body and in total darkness, not under heat lamps like most chicks.

And the hens, when they go broody, not getting to hatch a clutch of eggs can be upsetting. They will sit and sit and sit until they finally give up after four or five weeks. Some are visibly upset when they spend all that time and end up without a clutch of chicks to raise. Many hens have a strong desire to hatch and rear chicks. Talking about a sense of fulfillment with chickens is perhaps a stretch, but when you watch a mother hen worrying about and carrying for her chicks, it is so endearing. Instinct no doubt drives this, but when the instinct is this strong, isn’t it wrong to deny its expression?

Modern agriculture has stopped considering the animals it raises as living creatures with feelings and desires. The attitude is to do whatever will produce the most eggs and meat at the lowest cost possible. But do you really want to purchase eggs and chicken from producers who have such little regard for the animals under their care?

February 27, 2014

Maple or Ina?

Ina

It’s easy to tell chickens apart when they are as different as Ina and Maple. But how does one tell chickens apart when they look very similar?

Maple

Chickens of the same breed have slight variations in their color, shape, size, and personality. One thing that is unique to each chicken is the size and shape of their comb. When you look directly at their face, which is how chickens recognize each other, each chicken looks very different. There are flat combs, straight combs, wavy combs, spiky combs, wide combs, narrow combs, and on and on.

MapleMidgeMolly

February 23, 2014

Snow Day

We woke up to five inches of fluffy snow. Not the chickens favorite weather. Fortunately, the forecast is for much warmer weather tomorrow and the rest of the week, so the snow will be gone soon.

BlackBresseInSnow

When it’s cold and snowy outside, the best place for a young chicken is to huddle next to its mother. And the Black Bresse hen in the red barn, isn’t sure whether to venture outside.

MotherWithChicksOnASnowyDay

But the snow doesn’t deter Spikey. She likes to lay her eggs in one of the doghouses. She’ll even chase the dogs out of the doghouse if she has to. She is one of three hens who lay their eggs in the doghouses. Some days we get all three eggs before the dogs do. Other days the dogs get all the eggs. Life is hard.

If ten years ago, someone would have told me that I would be rushing to get just-laid, warm eggs out of a doghouse before the dogs got to them, I would have told them they were nuts. It makes you wonder what I or you will be doing ten years from now. Life is like rafting down a river. You never know what is around the corner. You might as well enjoy the ride.

SpikeInTheSnow

February 22, 2014

Growing Up Is Hard

Mother on the roost with two chicks
Life is full of challenges. Things are always changing. Nothing stays the same. And it’s as true for chicks as it is for us. The Milky Way galaxy we live in is moving at some 1,350,000 miles an hour through the universe. Every day we travel some 32 million miles. From the moment we are born until we die, we are never in the same space, traveling through space at incredible, unimaginable speed. All of us, even the chickens. At times it may seem like nothing changes, but every hour of every day hour we travel more than a million miles. At that speed we could buzz around the earth more than 50 times in an hour. So the next time you are in a difficult situation, close your eyes and remember that in an hour you’ll be more than a million miles away from where you are now.
Yesterday evening was a traumatic time for these chicks. Their mother decided it’s time to start roosting again after sleeping with her chicks in a small barn for the last two months. Two of her chicks followed her up to the roost. But the other two couldn’t understand why she wasn’t in their bed. So they spent the night huddled together, wondering where their mother had gone.
Today, they are all together, following her around through the pasture and woods. Maybe tonight, they will all figure out that their mother is roosting with the other grownup chickens and join her and the other chicks on the roost.
It won’t be long before they have an even more traumatic experience, when their mother decides that her mothering time is over and shoos them away when they want to follow her around.
Broiler raised chickens never have to face this ordeal of growing up. Broiler and most farmed chicken never have a mother to contend with. So they never have to confront separation anxiety. Then again, most farmed chicken, broiler-free range-pastured never live this long.
Chicks on their own
Note: The egg you see under the chicks is a wooden egg. I keep wooden eggs in the nests I want the hens to use, to encourage them to lay there. Hens prefer to lay eggs in nests where there are other eggs.

February 19, 2014

Surprises Every Day

When you let your chickens run free, you never know what they will do or where they will go. A few days ago I heard a rattling in the shed we use to store hay and straw, and where our wonderful UPS driver picks up and leaves packages. When we have an outgoing package, we put the package in the shed and leave the doors open for the UPS driver. Our regular UPS driver then closes the door when he picks up the package.

What he didn’t realize is that one of our hens had jumped up into the shed earlier and was quietly sitting on a bale of hay in the corner. He closed the door, trapping her inside, and I was hearing her trying to get out later a few hours later.

Now we leave the shed door open so she can lay an egg where she wants to. These are pictures of the shed, Yuki-hime on the bale of hay, and the egg she laid today.

And below is a photo of a two and a half month old daughter with her mother. The mother is laying eggs again and is checking out the elevated dog house used by other hens for laying eggs. An older chick, she still spends much of the day with her mother, and roosts with her at night. Even with their tiny brains, chicks display a need to be with their mothers, even when they are well able to be on their own.

Which brings to mind this article by Nicholas Kristof, Is That Sausage Worth This, where he describes the dreadful conditions under which most pigs are raised. One has to question the sanity of modern farm industrialists who treat animals as if they are just machines. Spend time with any farm animal, be it a cow, a pig, or a chicken, and you realize that they are full of emotions. As youngsters they love to play. Even little chicks play with each other and with their mothers.

The drive to raise these animals as cheaply and as quickly as possible is making farmers to act as monsters. And all of us who go along consuming these products without thinking are their unwitting accomplices. The next time you go shopping for chicken, ask your grocer, “Was this chicken raised by its mother?” Does it matter? Did it matter to you that you were raised by your mother?

February 18, 2014

Never Enough Nests?

It’s not that there aren’t enough nests, it’s that hens want to use the same nest. Some days I’ll go to the coop to check out what all the cackling is about, only to see one hen on a nest, five empty nests nearby, and another hen expressing her frustration that the nest she wants to use is occupied.

By mid afternoon, the more favorite nests can have many eggs. It’s not always possible to tell which hen laid which egg, but by observing throughout the day which hens are using a particular nest, it’s possible to figure out the hen which laid a specific egg by the color and shape of the egg.

February 16, 2014

A Chick Grows Up

Words lack the capability to describe the love and care a mother hen showers on her chicks. You have to see it to understand how important mother hens are to chicks. Born at the end of November, the chick at 2 and a half months of age is nearly halfway to becoming an adult. At times, she ventures out on her own, but she still spends much of the day with her mother, and roosts with her at night. This is what humanely raised chicken looks like. The chick is 13 weeks old now. You can scarcely find a chicken that has enjoyed life so long in your supermarket. You certainly won’t find any that have had the joy of being raised by a mother. At a man and a hoe, that is the only kind of chicken I raise.

February 12, 2014

Edible Recycled Chicken Manure

So what happens to chicken manure when it is reincarnated? It turns into edible wonders, like these over wintering onions I pulled this morning. Most chicken farmers get rid of their egg laying hens by the time they have gone through two egg laying seasons. However, on the micro scale that I operate, the manure these older hens is as valuable as the eggs they lay. I’ve had hens live more than seven years. Billy, the oldest rooster, is five years old this year.

Eight week old chicks with mother — Eight Week Old Chicks

The chicks born on December 19 are 8 weeks old now. They are still spending their days and nights with their mother. Most commercial broiler chickens are in the supermarket by 8 weeks of age. These chicks are still having the time of their lives foraging for food with their mother. Here, they are digging for earthworms next to a compost pile.

February 9, 2014

Staying Warm

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These chicks are seven weeks and still have a ways to go before they are independent. Many broiler chicks have already been butchered by the time they are this old, and most only have another week or two before they are off to market. These heritage breed mix chicks are many months away from the dinner table.