Fridge Chick and Dirt Baths

"Fridge Chick" who keeps a nightly watch
over the beer. "Braaaawwwwk"

The time has come to assess the housing situation. We did the research, we read the books and we knew that when all 7 chicks lived it would create a housing revision. We also hoped that maybe they would be fine all snuggled up in their little coop, loving one another like a big, feathery love next. And that might have been true, but when you add a dude to the mix, chicks get crazy. Our chickens have outgrown their coop and we need to add on. All six go in at night like good little chickens. They go up the ladder, very slowly, like people boarding an airplane. They sit in their assigned chicken sleeping seats on the cedar-flake floor and close their little eyes. All six. Where is the 7th? Well, number seven pays close attention when the other chickens go to bed and breaks off from the pack to go sit on top of our outdoor fridge. I think there is some chick drama going on in there, because she is not feeling welcome anymore (I blame the rooster, of course.) We first noticed this when I went outside to lock up the birds and she did her creepy “brrrraaaaawk” when I stepped into the darkness. It freaked me out so bad! So I picked her up, snuggled her while we walked and threw her in the coop. This happened again the next night too, but this time I failed to tell Keith about it so when he went outside to grab a nice cold beverage from the fridge, he got a “welcome home” greeting from the chicken. I had to laugh as some four-letter-“fowl” words escaped his mouth and he jumped back. And now it’s a ritual. Put the kid to bed and then walk outside, grab the chicken and lock them all up. I even give her nightly lectures: telling her about how I have spotted raccoon poop, smelled skunk spray and do I need to remind her of Baby Chick?! She needs to be locked UP at night, but the bird is stubborn. She’ll be back there tonight. Oh, well.

Our chickens hanging with the neighbor's cows.

In other chicken news, we have named our rooster. He is not leaving anytime soon as has been smart enough to fly into the tree at night to stay safe and watch over his girls, so now he has a name. We mostly call him “dirty rooster,” or some other horrible names when he starts crowing before the sun is up, but his official name is Romeo. He’s pretty sneaky, that rooster. Taylor and I went to leave the other morning and he had them down the front driveway! Um, no. We don’t go down there, chickens. I told Keith about his dirty plan and he informed me that maybe Romeo was hosting a party in our neighbor’s barn and he was bringing those roosters some new chicks. It’s like some weird chicken fraternity/sorority exchange dance. I start to think about the music they would play (country? Or some old-school rap?), the drinks (fresh well water, I’m assuming, spiked maybe with corn juice), snacks and God forbid they spend the whole night doing the chicken dance. Either way, that rooster has a plan up his wing and I’ll be damned if he lures them into someone else’s pasture!

The chickens are still producing eggs, but we do have one broody hen. Each morning Taylor bounds out of bed and wants to “go check for eggs.” We went out there one morning and when we opened the lid there was a hen still sitting in there. She’s a broody little broad, so we usually just push her off, but that day she wanted nothing to do with us. She let out a awful chicken scream that made Taylor cry. She even tries to peck us when we reach for her eggs (one of those eggs are hers, the others are not). I’ve gotten brave and just push her back so we can steal her eggs (she does NOT need to be incubating those). I feel kinda bad for doing that, but she just yells at us and struts off to find the rest of the girls and that rooster. But this is an everyday occurrence now. I hope she learns that she will not be allowed to hatch any eggs. Just lay your egg and get OUT. Thanks, chicken.

And ol’ table layer is still doing her thing every single morning. It’s fun to give her some good morning pets and let her lay her egg on the table. Taylor checks up there for it and we put it in the fridge. Another sign that the coop is too small…or another sign these chickens are odd.


Good Morning, Chicken!

 

Few minutes later, an EGG! Taylor thought it was pretty funny
the egg was still warm. Kinda icky, kinda awesome.

The smoke here is terrible and we spend less time outdoors with our girls. If we are not outside, they are next door on the neighbor’s property with the rooster. They have a great big pasture full of green grass and I assume some of the best bugs in the donut hole of Pasco. But when we do go outside, their ears perk up (yes, they have ears!) and they run to the fence to greet us. We watch them slink under the gap in the fence and then just wander around to be with us. They love Taylor! They run with him, let him chase them and yell at them. Taylor isn’t too keen on them roosting on his play toy ladder, but I do laugh when he yells at them. The chickens have also taken to giving themselves dust baths in Taylor’s dirt box. So among the trucks and tractors are these hens hunkered down in the fine dirt, throwing it to dust themselves off. It is a sight to see if you have never seen a chicken give themselves a dust bath. Then when they get up and run off, they leave big billows of dust as they go. Romeo must not have allergies…

Below are some pictures that tell more of our story. It's a pretty good life out here.

Dirt Bath!

 



A little help from Taylor...

This doesn't need a caption, does it? Funny.

Feeding the girls some "scratch." They run when they see that cup full of good snacks!

One morning I awoke with the awful realization that I didn't lock up the chickens. I quickly got dressed and ran outside, hoping I would not find a pile of feathers. When I opened the door, there they were, just sitting on the table in the cold morning air looking at me, as if to say, "You stupid girl. Yes, we are alive, but we had one hell of a night." Whoops, sorry about that.
 

LOVE

We found a nice rooster feather one day and I thought it would be fun to tie it to a stick and fly it like a kite. Now that I look at this, my son is running with a sharp stick in his hand, with the potential of poking out his eye...Seemed like a good idea at the time. I was just glad he was feeling well enough to run! :)





 

 

Chicken Challenges

It seems I have to start this blog entry with some very sad news. No one likes to be woken up by their husband at 6am while he is holding a Lysol wipe in his hand, hanging his head, but that is what happened a few weeks ago. Poor Baby Chick was murdered in our yard. She was pulled from her little rabbit cage and taken to chicken heaven with all the other farm animals. I am so thankful that Keith was observant enough in the morning while making coffee to notice something was wrong and took care of it before Taylor bound outside to “check for eggs.” I actually really cried, a lot, more than I thought I would, over Baby Chick. We didn't have room for her and she wasn’t mingling with the big girls very well, so it was a hassle to keep her locked up separate, feed her separate food and get scratched every single morning and night while getting in and out of her cage. Keith and I felt so guilty that we didn't take better care of her, getting her into a permanent home, but we did the best we could at the time. Thankfully Taylor had not noticed she was gone for a while. She was fun and beautiful and I wish I could have seen her grow into a big chicken, but as my grandma always said, “that is how it goes on a farm.”  Sadly, today Taylor was running around the coop chasing chickens when he stopped, looked up at me and asked, “Where’s the little one?” My mommy brain said a bad word and I asked, “The little one what?” even though I knew the answer; I just wanted to be sure I didn't give up any unnecsaary information. So he answers while holding a long tree branch in his hands, “The little baby chick.” Oh for God’s sake. My eyes got watery and I started to spin a story the best I could to shelter him from the worst kind of explanation. “Well, she went with some other baby chicks. Someone came and got her and she went to a new home.” He stood there, processed that, and then got distracted by a hen and ran after her. Phew. White lie for a little white chick and a sad mommy and daddy. Ugh.

Rest In Peace, Baby Chick, "The Little One."

Next topic: Dirty Roosters. I didn’t get or want a rooster on purpose. They are loud, sometimes very mean and I didn’t want any fertilized eggs. Sick. But who decided to come over and socialize (read: deflower) our girls? Our neighbor’s free-wheeling rooster. He is one lucky rooster, all 7 hens to himself while he lures them into his pasture under the fence. I’m waiting to see my hens asleep in the dirt trying to cool down while he is smoking a cigarette in the pasture, blowing smoke rings, giving himself high fives and Tweeting about how “busy” he has been. I will say this: he isn’t mean, he is quick to get “the job done” and while he gets the girls out to his pasture, it keeps them from taking gigantic chicken turds on our deck. I guess he can stay. But once in a while I will be taking in the view of our little ranchette, like a lovely sunset, and in the foreground there he is, just going at it with a hen. Thanks for that, rooster friend.

Tater and The Rooster. She doesn't try bite it, she just runs it almost to death. She just wants to PLAY!

When you decide to get an animal you don’t really take in to account all the issues that may come up. When we got Tater I didn’t realize I would be constantly searching for my other shoe or cleaning up dirty clothes she packs into the front room when we leave her alone. As with chickens, I was not aware of the amount of poop I’d be dealing with and I was also not aware of what a disgusting issue soft-shelled eggs would be. I remember my grandma feeding her chicken oyster shells to firm up their shells, but I never saw why. I have seen why. And it’s nasty. While this one chicken (she will remain anonymous since this has got to be embarrassing for any chicken) has since figured out how to solve her own problem, we were dealing with a “yolky water balloon” as Keith calls it, for a while. You’d be walking through the yard and run across what looked like a water balloon with a yolk and when you lean down to inspect it, you have to hold back barf. To give you more detail (as if you wanted it), the first time I noticed this problem was when I was outside with Taylor feeding the chickens. I walked along the fence line and noticed what looked like to me as a condom with a mandarin orange inside. I was furious! What neighborhood kids thought it would be funny to throw a condom with a mandarin orange in my YARD! I was ready to unleash some kind of unneighborly assault when I realized one, we don’t have any neighbors close enough to launch a mandarin-filled condom and two, cows (our closest neighbors/culprits) don’t have access condoms or eat mandarin oranges, so that’s when I picked it up. And then that’s when I freaked out and almost puked. A change in feed and just dealing with the issue has finally got us to a beautiful stage of “7 chickens, 7 hardshelled eggs a day.” Phew. That was icky.

While this is a harder soft-shelled egg, this is what it's like. Ick.

So, with 7 eggs a day, you’re looking at about 49 eggs a week, give or take some breakfast emergencies or dropping/breaking of eggs (note: we have a hen who always, ALWAYS, lays an egg on a glass-top table on the deck. I tried to put stuff up on the table so she would not get up there, but she would push it off and lay an egg on the table top. The egg would either break or get a pretty large crack so I decided to just put a towel up there for her. Problem solved. I get a nice egg, she gets a place to sit and sometimes if you’re lucky, you get to witness the laying of an egg. They stand UP and lay the egg! Whoa. That’s using gravity. It’s weird, but pretty awesome.) we have a lot of eggs!  After trying and tiring of eating eggs in all different forms for breakfast, I asked my friends if they wanted some. Wow-what a response! Now I’ve got a little side job of delivering ranchette-fresh eggs around town. I’m just thankful we can spread the love (literally love: those eggs are fertilized and good), and I don’t have to throw any out.

That is what life has been like lately with the chickens. They are so much fun and I adore them. Taylor has the best time with them, running out each morning about 10 times to check for eggs. We let them out of their coop around 8am, but they don’t lay an egg until around 9am after they get their morning “exercise” and meet and greet with the rooster. They are so funny as they run out, taking the same route around the garden beds and running to the slide that has some water in it to take a drink as if it was the best chicken liquor in the world. Then they eat some grass and slowly make their way into the pasture.  I do have two girls, the one that lays on the table and The Stalker, who like to stay on the deck and yell at me while I drink my coffee. The other 5 are out with their rooster. After they all do whatever they do, we can collect the 7 eggs until around 10am. Taylor even sticks his hand under the hen’s butt and steals the eggs so they don’t think they need to sit and hatch them. The hen is pretty pissed off, but she’s gentle enough just to make a weird chicken noise and let Taylor root under her feathery fanny for an egg.  It’s odd, I will admit, but it’s pretty sweet and funny. Then the squeal from Taylor, “TWO EGGS!” and we are off running into the house to put them in the fridge. And that’s my morning. Awesome, right?

Until next time…

Friendly Chickens

The egg the chicken laid under the Coug sign on our first Cougar Football Thursday of the season. It wasn't good luck, but it was still fun.

Momma Chicken Rancher and Mini-Chicken Rancher

After we got back from The Cabin in Idaho, Taylor  picked up this chicken and brought her inside. He missed his girls so much! But Dad did take very good care of them while we were gone.

First Time for Everything

If you are a regular reader of this literary masterpiece, you are familiar with my hatred and deep down anxiety over rock chucks. I hate them. I had dreams about them in my bed, chasing me around, biting my toes. My son even says, “Oooh, those dirty rock chucks,” with conviction while eating lunch and watching their heads poke from under the shed.  So what was about to go down was inevitable. Keith and our brother-in-law found themselves discussing the disgusting nature of the rock chuck at a wine birthday party a few months ago.  Thank you to technology and ease of ordering fire arms over the internet using your cellular phone, we had one ordered in less than 3 minutes and delivered to our doorstep a few days later. I didn’t really want to kill the furry beasts, but I did want them gone, so I told Keith that he could assassinate them, but I didn’t really want to hear about it.  Then I came home from a baby shower, dressed in my finest jeans and shirt that did not have a WSU logo on it (aka: fancy), and caught Keith target practicing.  Something started to tingle in my right index finger.  I instinctively started to close my left eye and focus with my right.  After I watched him take a few shots I yanked that air rifle from his hands and started taking my shots.  The feeling was amazing and I made it well known that the rock chucks better pack their bags! Momma’s gotta new gun!

During the time when Taylor takes a nap, my time is filled working on articles for GalTime or doing household chores.  As I was folding laundry watching an episode of House Crashers on HGTV, I saw that furry yellow head poke up from the bushes by my chicken coop.  I watched as the little varmint wandered into my coop and started eating feed like I had set it out for him.  I said a few 4-letter words and slowly set down the dish towel I was wringing in my hands.  I walked out to the garage and loaded the air rifle with a pellet and took aim out our back garage door.  An old, well-taught technique came back to me in my moment of glory, a skill my Grandpa Bud had taught me summer after summer: aim high, follow it down and when the target is in the crosshairs, pull the trigger.  (Back Story: I had taken a few awful shots and hit some chucks a few days before, but it just pounced off their fatty pelts and they hobbled back into their holes, shaking their fists as me.  I thought that was what was going to happen at this point. Just a shot, like a “Hey, get your furry butt back where it belongs-DOWN BY THE ROCKS BY THE RIVER!)  So I aimed high, followed down and when the chuck had a fist full of feed in its mouth I pulled the trigger.  What I saw in my scope haunted me for hours after.  It fell back like a cartoon, let out an awful scream and lay (almost) dead in my coop!  I screamed, covered my mouth, and ran back into the house crying my stupid sissy eyes out!  I called Keith sobbing, “I KILLED IT!!! I killed it!”  Now, no one likes a phone call like that coming from your wife at 2pm, especially when she’s in charge of raising your son.  “What?! What?!” Keith says back to me and I tell him what awful crime I had committed.  And what does he say, “NICE SHOT!”  (I also frantically text my dad, who also congratulated me on an awesome shot, saying my Grandma and Grandpa would have been proud.) This made me laugh, which helped me calm down, but since the varmint was taking a while to go to rock chuck heaven (even if it’s nasty, I still believe they have a place in heaven), I packed up my kid and left for the pool.  Later that night Keith was working late and my birds had to go in their coop, which was obstructed by a dead chuck.  I put my big girl panties on and while chanting “It’s just a rodent, it’s just a rodent” dealt with the dirty rock chuck armed with a shovel and wheelbarrow.  The next day I nailed another one.  I caught the fever, but new rules: it has to be compromising my coop to get shot.  Rock Chucks have been warned.

CHICKEN UPDATE

If I knew how much shat these birds produced, I would have thought this through a bit more.  Having said that, they do give us so much joy every single day. Yes, joy.  Feel free to mock me, oh friends of mine, but they really are wonderful.  I have been asked if I’ve named them yet, but since they all look the same, it has been a challenge.  I have named one: Floppy Sitter.  This chicken is hilarious.  Taylor loves to play with “the girls.” He chases them, they chase him, they follow him up on the playtoy and all over the yard.  One night that was still hovering around the 90s, Taylor was playing with the chickens when he approached one.  Instead of hopping to the side or running away, this chicken opened it’s wings and sat down for him to pick up!  I couldn’t believe my eyes. She just sat down!  Taylor saw an opportunity and picked her up, brought her to Keith and me (as we are laughing so hard) and proudly says, “Dada, I brought a chicken for you.” Now every day, Taylor can catch Floppy Sitter and hold her for a while.  We have another girl who I’ll call “The Stalker” because she is always sitting up on the bench under the kitchen window watching me do dishes, make meals or just clean.  It’s kinda creepy, but funny.  And another girl we have yet to name, runs her little beak all day.  She makes that weird brrrrrrrrraaaawk sound all day, yelling at you about something.  Like a Diva!  Her name is Diva, now.

Floppy Sitter

Hanging with Floppy

But the best update of all is that our chickens have started to lay eggs!  Now, I’m not sure if it’s one chicken (Floppy Sitter, maybe?), or more than one, but the other day I decided to peak in the coop just to check it out and there was a brown egg!  I snagged it and took it inside and yes, because I am my grandmother’s granddaughter, I blew the yolk out and have displayed it proudly on my kitchen window.  Last night Taylor and I were playing outside and decided to look again and there was another!  Taylor had it for breakfast this morning (I’m still trying to get over the phobia of eating their eggs) and it was really exciting.  I can’t wait to go back out after he wakes up from nap and see if there is another! 

AN EGG!!!

An Egg!

2nd Egg, First Egg Breakfast

And that is what is like on our ranchette.  The weather is hot, hot, hot and the birds just move from one tree to the next trying to stay cool under its branches.  They love being on the deck in the shade, taking gigantic poops, but it’s a daily battle with the poop. Oh, well. 

Stay tuned for more adventures. I’m sure there will be more!

Nightmares

The other night I woke up in a cold sweat from a deep sleep.  Keith had to shake me awake because Taylor was screaming in his bed. He must have had the same nightmare as I was having.   What was it, you wonder? Did I dream that something happened to my  baby boy, causing me to cry out in sheer panic? Maybe something happened to Keith, or my dog, Tater?  Nope.  I was dreaming that a rock chuck was in my bed, chasing me around, biting my hand.  I had to shake it off, and it jumped back in, under the covers! I screamed, telling Keith to get the trap from outside so we could trap it. Then I was awaken by a screaming child, sweat pooling on my chest and my heart racing. It’s official: these rock chucks are consuming my thoughts and something has got to give. 

Unfortunately, we are in a bit of a pickle because while we live in the county, we are also within one mile from the city limits and some houses, people and livestock, so the idea of loading my .22 and picking off some chucks is out of the question.  We have tried to poison them, but it seems the tablets shoved under the ground into their dens served as an aphrodisiac because the bastards mated and now we have a herd of rock chucks! (Herd? Gaggle?)  Keith even ordered an air rifle, but it seems the sight is off a bit and when they do get hit, they just run away with a limp.  Great. Injured rock chucks.  And now they are climbing into the chicken coop and eating the feed like I made them a freakin’ buffet for their breakfast.  And poor Keith, I send him pictures and text messages all day with a updates on how many I see and what they are doing.  This obsession has led me to load the live trap with fresh cantaloupe, hoping to trap them and then relocate them to the river, where they belong.  So I cut up some fresh fruit and placed some outside the trap and then inside the trap, hoping they would get a taste of the sweet, juicy melon and then run into the metal cage and get trapped!  Well, I trapped something this morning and it wasn’t a rock chuck, but a stupid chicken.  Someone else likes cantaloupe it seems.   So “Mission: Rock Chuck” continues… Until then, you will be able to hear the faint yelling as far down as Road 68 and Court of me and Taylor yelling “PACK YOUR BAGS, ROCK CHUCKS!”

As for the chickens, they are flourishing.  And by flourishing I mean they are shatting all over my patio, deck and patio furniture.  Each morning I wake up, start my coffee and walk out to the coop to let their eager chicken butt’s out.  They run, RUN, out, flapping their wings as if they had been tied down all night.  Then after a few laps, they go up to the patio furniture, take a few poops, and settle in for a nice morning nap. Um, hello. You just woke up! Get out there and eat some earwigs, ants, spiders, heck, I don’t care, go peck a rock chuck in the eye! Nope, just gonna take a nap.  So after a few hours, they wonder around the property eating, fighting each other trying to establish a pecking order and then nap again in some random place like the play toy or wheelbarrow.   I do love them, but man, they poop a lot.

Little Chicken, AKA: Chickie, Runt, Baby Chick, Feathered Feet, Mary Jane, is doing well. She is growing very fast and is not happy being cooped up in the Tupperware in our garage.  We have been taking her outside to the coop for the day, but some days she doesn’t make it out until later in the day.  I feel bad and want her to run with the other girls, but I’m not sure she is strong enough to withstand a pecking from the big girls quite yet. I know they will have to do some kind of chicken initiation with some pecking and maybe some examining of feathers or whatever, but I’m going to keep her separated for a while longer.  I also want to be sure she is not a rooster. I looked at her for a long time last night, trying to see if I could see a rooster comb or whatever forming.  Ugh. If she is a he, he is out of here.  I don’t think she is a he, but we’ll have to wait and see.

Taylor is loving the birds, especially Baby Chick.  He loves to hold her in his lap, but gets kinda bored and wants to make her chirp really loudly. So to make that happens, he’ll squeeze her.  Then he might throw her to watch her fly.  He also love to feel her beak and look at her eyes.  Poor chick.  But at least she’s not someone’s dinner, so I don’t feel too bad.

Speaking of predators, we have some foxes living around our house. My neighbor has lost a few chickens (and I found a rooster’s head in my driveway-sick!) and our other neighbor has seen a coyote. This makes me so nervous.  I hate rock chucks, but fox and coyotes are a different type of (scary) nuisance.  We will continue to watch our birds and keep them locked up when the sun goes down.  I will not deal with a murder of chickens very well.  Ick.

Until next time…

And One More, Makes EIGHT!

The girls love being outside.  And we love them being outside, too! Our garage smells way better and one of my favorite things to do in the morning is make a coffee and then walk out to the coop to let the eager hens out of their coop.  They pile up by the door, waiting to eat bugs, worms and run through the yard. 

We have not seen our Rock Chucks for a few days, so I’m wondering if Keith’s “Operation Rock Chuck” was successful and they either are “taking a long nap” or moved away.  Either way, no rock chucks under the shed or in the hen house.  I do not miss them.

While the chickens are outside, there are a few things they enjoy doing. They LOVE to eat from the bird feeder, stretching their necks really far like giraffes to eat the bird seed. They also love to hide under bushes and under the play toy.  And because we do not have a roost in their coop yet, they love to roost on anything they can get their talons on: the ladder of the play toy, the patio furniture, their food container, or the top of their coop door!  I am surprised at how well they can run and fly. 

Pretty tricky little birds, they are. 

A few nights ago we were all outside playing a little late and needed to put the birds in before the sun set all the way down and it got too dark.  I searched their usual places: under the bush, by the shed, under the wagon and couldn’t find any of them! Usually I can see the group of 2 or the group of 5 that hang together, but nothing. I couldn’t even hear them chirping! That’s when I started to panic, searching the grounds for feathers or anything leftover from a predator’s chicken dinner. Nope, all clear. I walked back to the coop and just for fun I lifted the back door to the coop nesting boxes and there they were! 14 eyes looking back at me, glaring at me, urging me to close the door and turn on the heat lamp!  They were all crammed into ONE nesting box!  Phew. Good birds.

And now our latest adventure. Just when I thought I had a handle on this whole chicken raising deal, we got a new addition.  My friend text me this morning asking me if I could take in a chick.  I guess her friend’s son was asked to prom by a girl with a chick.  Yes, you read that right. A sweet high school girl wanted to surprise her date by doing a cute little play on words by asking her crush with a REAL CHICKEN! Something along the lines of “going to prom with this chick…”?  Um, what? While I appreciate her creativity and still feel good that kids ask their dates to prom in creative ways instead of a Facebook post (and a girl asking the boy, yes!), it’s a real live animal. A live animal you need to take care of every single day.  I’m also surprised the feed store even sold one baby chick to a high school girl without questioning it.  Either way, I’m happy to help. So we have a new baby chick that needs to stay separated from the rest of the flock for a while.  While I prepped her little container and got my own chick fed and in bed for a much needed nap, Tater stayed outside and guarded her.  She did not leave her side, sitting outside the big coop. Good Tater. The new chick is too small to go in the coop with the big girls, so she’s in the shed.  I need to get a heat lamp for her today, but she did come with food, so that’s nice.  I hope the flock accepts her when she gets older, especially since she’s a different breed entirely. And note I am using the pronoun “she” in hopes that “she” is NOT a rooster.  Say a chicken prayer for me right now. 

So now we have 8 chickens in a coop made for 5.  Keith and I joke that we need to build an addition on the coop.  I’m thinking this is no longer a joking matter, as these chickens are bound to double in size in the next few weeks. Guess we’ll figure it out later.  They only sleep in there…it will be fine.  Oh, and I’m taking order for eggs now, because I’m guessing with 8 chickens, we’ll have a surplus. 

And Grandma Bunny, stop giggling up there. I know you are.  But it’s your fault I have this soft spot for chickens…

Hens Moved OUT!

Well, the girls have moved out!  I knew it was time when one of the hens kept trying to get out, and she even succeeded few times.  One night I went to the kitchen to get a drink of water around 10pm and heard a poor chick cry of distress (like the mother of a newborn, you begin to understand the different chicken noises. Weird, but true.)  So I poked my head out and one of the hens is OUTSIDE the pool chirping either to get back in with her friends or bragging that she had “flown the coop.”  I scooped her back up and set forth on getting the coop ready for their arrival. 

"Get me OUT OF HERE! I'm crowded, it stinks,
and I know what outside is like. Last warning
or I destroy your garage tonight with chicken
poop while you sleep. You've been warned."

Their first night in the coop was very nerve-racking for me.  First, they didn’t go into their coop by themselves, I had to run around and put them in there.  Then once they all got in there, they didn’t understand that if they went up the handy ramp ladder that they’d be in a nice little nesting box with pine shavings, water, food and a heat lamp.  They just curled up by the door and stayed there. I went out around 10pm to check on them and I swear it was like a scene from the final hours of the Titanic, where they were whispering their cold goodbyes and singing songs to stay awake and from dying.  So I kneeled in the 3 foot doorway, scooped them all up and blocked them in their warm nesting area.  Much better. Much warmer. Much more alive.

The next day I went to work researching how to get “the girls,” as I call them, acquainted with their coop.  The internet said to lock them in their coop for 3-4 days and then when you let them out during the day, they will always return at night.  I did this.  And let me tell you something. Keeping chicks locked up from a dog and an eager 2-year-old is something of a challenge. I had to lie to Taylor and tell them the chicks were in timeout.  They were kinda, but he took my word as gospel, maybe laughed at little at them, knowing that they received the timeout lecture too, and went on his way to chase rock chucks.  Which leads me to the next part of my “chicken ranchin’” journey…

God Damned Rock Chucks! You may know them as whistle pigs or marmots.  We call them f**k chucks, dirty rock chucks, mock chucks, rodents.  Taylor and I yell at them all day long after they chirp at us, “I SEE YOU, DIRTY ROCK CHUCK!”  He’s pretty good at yelling it too.  Unfortunately he also thinks anything small and brown that runs is a rock chuck, which is why he yelled at some old lady’s dog at the park, “I SEE YOU DIRTY ROCK CHUCK.”  Oh, kids…who teaches them that weird and rude stuff?  Hmmm…come along, son.  Rock Chucks are herbivores, which mean they only eat grass and burrow huge annoying tunnels. They have also claimed under our shed as their home.  Taylor and I spend our meal times now watching rock chucks stick their heads out, gather grass, and sun themselves and chirp.  And as soon as Taylor has his mouth full of food, out comes our mantra: “I SEE YOU DIRTY ROCK CHUCK!”  And to make it worse, they had babies. So the thought of killing momma rock chuck and leaving their fuzzy rodent babies motherless kinda breaks my heart. I blame Disney for this.  The good thing is they don’t care for chicken as a meal, but they do love a good mouthful of chick feed.  So now after I let the chicks out every morning, a ritual I love now, I have to take their food out and hang it on a nail under the shed.  (One is chirping right now at me.  He knows I’m talking about him.)

Rock Chuck coming out to see what the day brings.

Our "rock chuck hunting dog" a bit slow.  She's on constant
search for a 'chuck.

Now the chickens are out all day, running through the yard chasing each other, a bug or running from rock chucks and Tater. Taylor has been doing a better job of not picking them up by their wing, after a full day of timeouts.  He LOVES to hear them chirp and he figured out that if he holds them up by one wing, not only do they chirp really loud and crazy, they also flap their wings and wiggle their legs.  Oh, man.  I try not to think about what type of warning sign this might be and just chalk it up to my sweet son has figured out how to make the chicken chirp.  Now with much praise for being gentle to the chickens, and two minute   timeouts INSIDE (torture!) he is doing much, much better.  Phew. 

Our Girls

I’m not sure what the next step in my chicken ranchin’ journey will be.  We are enjoying them outside so much.  We watched one grab a worm this morning and run through the yard like a kid who just hit his first homerun.  I love to watch them scratch, peck and nestle into the rocks to get some sun.  It is a lot of work to clean out their poopy coop, change their water and food, make sure they are all in at night and worry about their wellbeing while I’m gone, but in some way I feel connected to my grandmother in all those things I do.  I understand a little more about why she never wanted to leave her animals or farm.  I understand that these birds, while dumb as nails sometimes, gave her a sense of purpose because they depend on their caretaker for survival.  I think she would be proud of me and I want to call her sometimes to tell her what I’m doing with my birds, but I know she’s there watching it all happen.  I cannot wait for them to lay their first eggs, which won’t happen for a few more months.  I’ll be sure to hold it up to heaven and shout “SEE!!! I AM A CHICKEN RANCHER, GRANDMA!” 

Stay tuned for more adventures on our chicken ranch!

Rock Chuck sunnig his belly.  The chicke feed up
on a nail, out of their reach. So far...

Chicken Ranchin'

Tater getting up close and personal

Here we are, just chicken ranchin’ on our mini-ranch.  These chickens are pretty funny and high maintenance. The, what you might call, “honeymoon period,” is wearing off.  I want them out of my garage.  Yesterday.

The 7 little birds are no longer little and I keep calling them “baby chicks” when they really are adolescent chickens.  They outgrew their little tub and had to be moved into Taylor’s little blue swimming pool with chicken wire around it.  I made this executive decision when one night I was sitting in the living room and could hear a distressed chirp of a chicken.  I poke my head out into the garage to find one had “flown the coop” and was sitting outside the small tub, calling to its friends, “save me.” (I’m not sure if those were its exact words, but it sure sounded like it.)  I scooped it up, calmed it down and decided they were moving to a type of chicken half-way out the next day.  Hence the kiddie pool, which they actually love. I put a rock in there and every once in a while you’ll catch one up there looking around, then looking down giving its chicken roommates the look of “yeah, look at me!”

Chicken Halfway House-Halfway between the storage tub and the chicken coop!

Some things I have observed about the chickens are that they are not very bright.  I saw one actually back its chicken bootie up to its food trough and take a shite.  IN its food.  Then they fly around scattering sawdust all over the place, including their water dish, which is a nasty mess to clean up.  They also love to sneak up on Tater and peck her tail. I’m pretty sure this is not the best idea they have had, but Tater has done a very good job of keeping her mouth shut, except for a few licks.  I’m really proud of her, but wouldn’t leave them alone for a minute.  I think in reality she feels the need to protect Taylor from them, but what really needs to be happening is she needs to protect the chicks from Taylor. He is their only predator at this moment.  We’re working on it.

"Instincts tell me this is a very large worm..."

On sunny days we have been taking them outside to stretch their wings and just give them some room to explore.  Taylor likes to show them how to use the slide.  He also finds is so frustrating that they move so dang fast now.  A few weeks ago he could scoop them up and hold them while they peeped in his little hands. Now they are running/flying away from him.  If he does get his hands on one, they are shrieking chicken S.O.S. while he holds them by the wings and then tries to pull their toes off. Honestly, chicken feet are the sickest feet of all feet in the animal kingdom.  I love my chickens, but ick.  Even worse when they are flailing in your face as your son tries to kiss them on the head and/or throw them down the slide. Ick.

"You WILL go down the slide!"

They still have some more feathers to grow and then they are outside in their lovely coop.  I know I will be like a new mother bringing home her baby, peaking outside and listening to cries.  I’m so worried something is going to hurt them, but I have to trust Keith’s chicken coop design and recite the wise words of my Grandma Bunny: “it’s just the way it is on a farm, Babe.  Animals die.”  Great. 

Adolescent Chicken

Top 5 Phrases of Chicken Ranching (so far) include:

*Taylor, do not squeeze the chicks

*Taylor, do not kick the chicks.  Go sit on the steps in timeout.

*Taylor, they are fast. You have to be quicker. Stop crying because you cannot catch them anymore.

*TATER, NO!

*!@#$ As I try and catch them!

Finding protection in the mini-castle

Taylor's favorite job: scooping chicken feed