a fluff piece

Captain Hastings lost his only companion a few weeks ago. For a couple of years there were two elderly, retired hens for him to look after: The Dark Golden Hen and The Little Brown Hen. But early last Winter, The Little Brown Hen, who had never been "right" from Day One but always seemed happy enough, began to go downhill quickly and I had to put her down. I am a big "quality of life" person. I'll go a long way to try to keep everyone happy and comfortable, but I also think there are worse things than dying and sometimes the unpleasant decision is the right decision. The error that I have sometimes made has been waiting longer than I should have, and I'll try not to make that mistake again.

The Dark Golden Hen was on an Assisted Living program all through the Winter, which involved a cooked breakfast served each morning, and a Staffperson (that would be me) going out to the paddocks at dusk every evening to call her - she would answer - so I could pick her up and carry her up the stairs into the stilt barn, where she had a cozy box of hay and a heat lamp on every night. (That's right. I kept a heat lamp on every night all Winter for the comfort of one hen. Is this a good time to point out that I never refer to myself as "a farmer"?)

Spring rolled around at last, and The Dark Golden Hen was active and happy and tottering around followed everywhere by Captain Hastings...until she wasn't. She gradually became so incapacitated that her quality of life was seriously affected.

Suddenly, Captain Hastings was the sole chicken on the place.

I kept a close eye on him, worried that he would become lethargic. And I took steps. I did two things: I asked people if they needed a rooster to take over a flock, and I asked people if they knew where I might find a couple of healthy young hens. It was a question of which would happen first.

Captain Hastings has been toughing it out the past several weeks: still crowing at 4:20 every morning, still making routine visits to barns and paddocks, still coming to the porch door in late afternoon to ask for sunflower seeds. But he also began to get within ten feet of me when I went out to do chores - something he has never, ever been willing to do. I took this as a sign of desperation for companionship, not a sudden appreciation of my finer qualities.

Well, good news!

Yesterday, these two 4-month-old Lavender Orpingtons

joined our merry barnyard band.

Aren't they pretty?!

I didn't have to drive far to get them, and the woman who raised them was very nice and even insisted that I choose the two I wanted from her flock instead of just "the first two you can catch," which was my suggestion.

I chose two that have noticeably different shading right now, so I will be able to tell them apart by appearance until I get to know them. At the moment, they are living in a huge dog crate (it was my Irish Wolfhound puppy crate of years gone by) in the big barn, where Captain Hastings can visit them and the goats can look over the stall door at them but NOT visit unless I am there. Not that the goats would hurt the hens - they are a bit fascinated by them, really. But they might jump on the crate to try to get to the little dish of chicken feed, and that could be catastrophic for all concerned.

Mallow says, "I'm just LOOKING!"

And how is Captain Hastings reacting to all this?
Well, yesterday he spent most of the afternoon visiting the girls - walking back and forth outside the crate, settling down to chat, snacking, being quietly sociable - before heading off to his bedtime perch in the stilt barn.

This morning, he waited outside the big barn - at a safe distance, of course - for me to open the stall door so he could go in and visit again. The girls are staying in the crate, but there is plenty of room in the stall for visitors, and Captain Hastings can fly over the half-door if he wants to get in or out.

Unlike Bud. 

Bud knows this door is the only thing standing between him

and a bowl of chicken feed.

Which could make him very sick indeed.

Give it up, Bud.

 And here is the first portrait of one of the new girls:

So...what's new in your barnyard?

~~~~~

saturday already

This has been a busy week. Wildly variable weather means any day which is above freezing and not raining is a day to Get Things Done Outside.

Also, a day to take Piper for a little walk.

One cold but sunny day we walked in this hay meadow.

Makes a change from our usual woodsy walks.

There's a tiny wetland (a big shallow puddle) at the lower end.

The meadow is public property but is surrounded by homes with horses and dogs, so Piper was on lead the whole time and therefore I have no pictures of her.

Well, I tried, but they all look like this:

~~~

At home, The Flock has made the most of every non-precipitating hour. Already there are patches of suddenly-clear earth where they have scratched and pecked away the covering of semi-frozen, decaying leaves.

This may not be a great thing for wintering plants, since any perennial crown is left exposed to the rest of Winter, beginning with the snow and sleet we have had since this picture was taken.

I need to make a pen for the chickens, but I always hate to do it as they generally have run of the place within the perimeter fence.

Still, they must be contained when gardening begins, else they will cheerily scratch up and eat every planted seed. So "build chicken pen" goes on the list.

~~~

Moxie alerted me to the latest activity of the squirrel recently defeated by a block at the porch gable. Now, the squirrel has undertaken entry via the vent window in the west gable of the house. There is a screen on the attic side, which fortunately had not yet been breeched though it was only a matter of time.

I almost never use the door on the west side of the house. It could have been weeks before I realized what was happening, and I would have realized it because I would have been hearing squirrels in the attic.

On his last day of work before the month off, my Occasional Helper kindly saved me the awkward effort of dragging out the extension ladder and climbing up to install a new piece of hardware cloth on the outside of the vent window.

Nice work, Occasional Helper!

There is nothing to nail to across the bottom edge, and no way to slide the screen into the window frame as was done on the top and sides. So...fingers crossed the squirrel doesn't manage to work that bottom edge loose. I know she hasn't done it yet, because I heard her swearing at me from the porch roof yesterday. Then she slid down the wall and hung onto the porch windowframe, staring in at me. Della marched right over, put her nose a millimeter from the glass, and gave that squirrel a Meaningful Look. I took the opportunity to mention - again - the abundant trees of suitable nesting size available in every direction.

~~~

And on we go.

Good night from the land of cold but not-currently-snowing-or-raining!

I hope all your skies are clear (unless you need rain)

and all your squirrels are nesting in trees like Proper Squirrels.

~~~~~

the chicken and the egg

Soon it will be time to decide whether to add a new group of chicks to the flock.

At the moment, there are only five hens here. The two Buff Orpingtons (one seen above) and the Black Jersey Giant are a few years old now. The Rhode Island Red and the little brown hen are almost a year old. I bought them last autumn to bolster the winter egg supply. I've never added half-grown birds to my flock before, so I cautiously kept the newbies in the barn with the goats for a couple of weeks to watch for any health problems.

The Rhodie in quarantine.

The brown hen began to lay as soon as I brought her home. Her eggs are a very pale green. I've always had brown eggs, so the first light ones were a bit of a novelty. They were also sporadic and very variable in size, but since this was a pullet just beginning to lay, it seemed likely she'd soon settle down into producing a daily egg of consistent size. But she didn't. Instead, she went into a deep, long moult in November, and didn't lay another egg all winter.

The brown hen in moult.

Then all three older hens also decided to take the entire winter off. So for the past four months, the Rhode Island Red has been the only working hen on the place, cheerfully presenting me with a lovely organic egg almost every day.

Thank you, Little Red Hen!!

To recap:

I've been feeding five hens organically all Winter,

in order to have one egg daily.

I am not going to figure out how much those eggs have been costing me,

but it's been a worthwhile expense.

Apart from the value of having fresh, organic eggs in the larder,  

they have also provided a reliably joyful moment

in each dark morning of this bitter Winter.

There's a special pleasure in picking up a warm, newly-laid egg

and holding it in your cold hand for a moment

before continuing on to a series of very cold chores.

Thawing the frozen gate latches. 

Breaking the ice in water buckets.

~~~

Plus, they're pretty. See? 

In the past couple of weeks, the brown hen has just begun to lay. But again, not every day - unless she is laying some of her eggs outside the Poultry Palace. I've had hens try all sorts of places: under a lawn chair on the screen porch, behind a shovel in the goat barn, on top of a tall stack of hay bales...I'll let you imagine how I discovered that last location.

So this morning I kept all the hens in the Courtyard for a while, to encourage laying inside the Palace. Shortly before noon, there was a lot of the sudden, exuberant hollering that some hens do to announce the recent achievement of an egg. Since I didn't recognize the voice, I was not surprised to find a pale green egg in the nest in the Palace, right next to the daily brown egg from the Rhodie.

Here it is:

Do you think this is what was meant by the recipe

that called for "one and a half eggs"?

And in case you may think I just have freakishly tiny hands,

here are the two eggs side by side:

Oh, little brown hen.

 I do wish you would try to pace yourself.

~~~~~~

winter greens

(see what I did there?)

It was chilly when I went outside for morning chores today; 0°F (-18°C), but the wind had dropped, so it was really very pleasant.  Last night it was bitter and blowing, but when I did a final check on water buckets, I found the goats had chosen to remain in the paddock with open-ended shelters rather than move into the snug barn.

There is much to be said for cashmere underwear!

~~~

So, the goats are fine with the cold.  And the hens? They have feathers, yes, but they spend their waking hours awfully close to frozen ground.  And they are barefoot!  Still, nothing stops them in their busy puttering and muttering.  If the snow is deep, they follow my tracks to the goat barn or the paddock.  In fact, they seem to take Winter right in stride. 

Some chicken-owners say their hens will not step foot out of the coop if there is snow on the ground.  My hens must be made of sterner stuff, or else they have places to go and are willing to face some snow to get to those places, I don't know.

Certainly they have their own little universe going on out there.  During the day I will suddenly discover them scratching through the bedding in the goat barn.  Or I look out the window to see them trundling along single-file toward the paddock, where they have a secret clubhouse under my workshop.

Really, I have no idea what goes on under there.  

There is about 14 inches between the ground and the floorboards of the workshop.  I am no longer limber enough to get bellydown on the ground without a very good reason.  Crashing the Secret Chicken Clubhouse to find out what they are doing down there is not a very good reason.

~~~

One thing I know for sure they are not doing: scratching and pecking for bugs and fresh bits of greenery.  Because there just aren't any.

For about 7 months of the year, these hens supplement their diet (fresh water, organic layer pellets, organic barley, organic kitchen scraps) with no help from me.  All day long they are free to wander within a vast (on a chicken scale) fenced area, and except for the time they spend snoozing in the sun, they are endlessly scratching and pecking, scratching and pecking.

Now the earth is frozen solid.  The only hen-level "greenery" looks like this:

Not a lot of "green" to glean.  Hmmmm....I have an idea!

Hey chooks!  Who wants sprouts?

"I do!  But only me, none of the other hens care for any sprouts.

So stop shouting about sprouts!
Meet me behind the Poultry Palace in 5 minutes.  Bring the sprouts!"

~~~

I've been sprouting green lentils for the hens this winter, and find it's a simple way to provide a little fresh greenery at minimal expense or effort.

Maybe you'd like to try it too?  Here's what I've been doing.

Start with ~1/8 cup dried green lentils in a quart Mason jar.  Cover the lentils with water to soak overnight.  Add a lid that will keep the lentils in but let water flow through.

In the past I've used cheesecloth and a canning ring, but now I use a rubberband and a scrap of the rubbery stuff that keeps scatter rugs from sliding or glasses from getting broken in the cupboard.  The bigger holes make rinsing and draining the mason jars a snap!

After soaking overnight, drain.  Rinse and drain daily, and keep the jar in a darkish place til the roots appear.

Once the roots are growing, rinse and drain several times daily, gently shaking the sprouts apart if they are clumping together.   Keep the jar in a place that gets some sunlight.

Here's what they look like when the roots and the stems are growing and first leafy growth is beginning; perhaps 3 days.  The whole jar takes on a greenish hue.

At this point, my hens will eat them but I like to wait til they are a couple of days older, with more lovely green.  I've been starting a fresh jar every other day, for an overlapping and steady supply.  If I overdo it and have a surplus, I'll store the extra sprouts in the fridge - so far, that hasn't happened.

This isn't a big component of my hens' diet.  I want them to eat it all right up, and I want everyone to have a share.  One big handful, well scattered, has been working out nicely every day.

~~~

I've experimented with a couple of other types of seed, but have not been impressed with the results.

I wanted to try a monocot, because the hens eat a lot of grasses in the summertime.  This is organic barley, same volume of seed, started at the same time as the lentils above.  The barley was sprouting, but slowly, and I felt concerned about the possibility of mold or bacteria that might be harmful to the hens.

I also tried some flax seeds, with a similar result.

I don't know if there is a real risk of mold/bacteria, but don't care to take a chance, especially when the lentils are so easy.

I'll continue to try other kinds of seeds, though, when I have other organics available.

~~~

Do you raise sprouts for your hens?  Or for other critters, such as yourself?  Please add your input in the comments, or send me an email!  This is the first season I've experimented with sprouting for the chooks, and I'd love to learn from others' experiences!

~~~

A loud THUNK just made me jump!  Happily, it was not a(nother) big branch falling on the house.  It was a 12"-wide column of solid ice sliding out of a waterbucket that has been upended in the shower since this morning.  Tonight is predicted to be about 10 degrees colder than last night.  Good thing I have lots of water buckets in rotation!

~~~~~