Chicken Love

Surprises
A few things I did not know or expect about chickens:

* They are garbage disposals. I have a perpetual "Chicken Scrap" bowl on my kitchen counter and into it goes everything: apple cores, carrot shavings, banana peels, meat scraps, pasta, etc. (Britton has requested that I do not include pieces of chicken so as not to make cannibals of them. I may or may not sneak some in occasionally.)  While my compost bin is now suffering (it's pretty much all egg shells, coffee grounds, citrus peels and napkins now), turning our garbage into future eggs somehow feels more satisfying than turning it into future dirt. Plus, it lessens our chicken feed bill.
* Chickens put themselves to bed each night. When we go out to close them up as the sun is setting, we invariably find them all tucked in on their roost. (Roosting = one of the many chicken idioms in the English language). If we go out too early in the evening, they are not yet ready for bed and are still out in the pasture. Their internal clocks instruct them on what to do. Wonderfully designed creatures!
* I love watching the chickens. They cluck and peck and chase each other around and just do their chicken-thing like God designed them to. They delight me. If chaos reigns in the house or if a rare moment when all my children are peaceably occupied occurs, I might slip out and find my own moment of peace at the chicken pasture fence. They are mesmerizing. Caleb describes it as similar to watching a campfire - you can stare endlessly. 

The Cast of Characters
Have you ever tried to photograph chickens? Its not as easy as it might sound. I was trying to get a picture of each pair of the same breed, but they are in constant motion and kept photo-bombing each other. I spent way too much time crouched down in the chicken pasture, being swarmed by chickens hoping for kitchen scraps (which I usually have), having my toes pecked at. These were the best I could do. Since our family loves books, each girl is named for a literary character (and I use the term "literary" loosely, as we are talking about everything from true literature to books my three year-old enjoys and everything in between).

Our most beautiful breed (in my opinion), the Gold-Laced Wyandotte. We have two, "The Janes" - Jane Austen and Jane Eyre. 

Our two Gold Sex-Link, Anne Shirley (the red-head, obviously) and Golden Miranda (so named for the perfectly sweet character in the Humphrey the Hamster series). Gold Sex-Link are a cross between Rhode Island Red and Rhode Island White. They are called Sex-Link because a chick's gender is distinguishable at birth based on its color. Very handy when you want to ensure you are getting an egg-layer!

We have two of these Black Sex-Link, Diana Barry (Anne Shirley's raven-haired bosom friend) and Cuddles. Cuddles was more aptly named when she was two-days old and was a little ball of fluff. I wouldn't recommend cuddling her now. Black Sex-Link are a cross between Rhode Island Red and Barred Rock. Again, the males and females are distinguishable at birth by their markings. Their back feathers shine a deep green in the sun and they are gorgeous!

Silver-Laced Wyandottes, Annabeth (from Percy Jackson series) and Bethany (from the Erec Rex series)

We have two Barred (or Plymouth) Rock, Violet (from the Boxcar Children) and Little Lavender (from both Anne of Green Gables and Harry Potter books). As a chick, I thought for sure Little Lavender wouldn't make it. She was half the size of the others and just layed under the heat lamp all by herself when the others were off exploring. She appeared sickly and small, but she rallied and is now as large and ornery as the rest of them. 

Daisy and Hermione

These girls are our mavericks. Daisy (from the Biscuit books) is a California White Leghorn. This breed represents 90% of commercial chickens. They lay between 300-350 eggs a year - more than any other breed. Do you buy white eggs from the store? They are almost certainly from a California Leghorn. I have found Daisy covered in blood no less than seven times. We have been at a loss to figure out how she is cutting herself. At 4 pounds, she is much lighter than the others and can squeeze places she shouldn't. She can also take flight and will perch on top of the fence. I finally realized that the back half of the fence is topped by barbed wire and that is most likely where she is getting her pokes and cuts. Since she apparently is not learning from her mis-adventures, I suppose we will need to take the barbed wire down. 

Britton with Anne Shirley, who does not
mind being held

Hermione (from Harry Potter) is an Ameracauna. She has the look of a hawk or falcon with tufts of feathers around her face and a thick neck. She was my novelty pick because she is not a heavy layer, but she lays green eggs. I couldn't resist. She is skittish and Britton laments that she is the only chicken he has not been able to pick up and hold. The other day I challenged him to a little competition to see who could catch her first. We ran around the chicken pasture for a good while (which did not assuage her fear of us, I'm sure). Alas, Hermione was the winner on that one. She remains unheld. 

I can't have a section called "Cast of Characters" and not put in a picture of these four:

Never a dull moment around here!

The Hen House

Our plan has always been to get chickens, but knowing nothing, we spent the winter months carefully researching and planning. There seemed so much to know that it often felt overwhelming, but I kept telling myself that people all over the world keep chickens (and have for thousands of years), so we should be able to figure this out. I highly recommend, Keeping Chickens by Ashley English. It is a simply laid out book with beautiful photography. (A high picture-to-print ratio makes any subject seem less daunting.) And like most things, once you begin actually doing, and you have a framework of understanding to hang your knowledge from, things begin making sense.

Wilco farm store in Stayton receives chicks every Thursday and put out a calendar of which breeds they would be receiving when. We researched the breeds and made our decision based on the amount of eggs they lay (we want heavy layers) as well as if they are good meat birds (called dual-purpose). People seem surprised (i.e. masking horror) when I say this. A hen's laying decreases significantly after 2-3 years, and there comes a time when the cost of feed will be greater than her production. Currently, there is an urban-area epidemic of people who jumped on the chicken bandwagon and then, when the eggs run out, abandon their chickens to animal shelters or "release" them to roam free. This is not humane. Culling a hen who has served her purpose (after a very wonderful chicken life, as our girls undoubtably will have) and using her to feed our family, fully utilizes the blessing of what God has provided for us. (Of course, I am saying this very theoretically and have not yet spent three years gathering eggs from a chicken that I am fond of. We will see if I can follow through.)

We have already had a family chicken-butchering experience so we are not completely foreign to the process. One Saturday morning last May, several families came together to butcher 75 meat chickens.  We came home with seven for our freezer, although we ate one that very night - Best. Chicken. Ever. (I was on break from blogging at the time so here are a few pictures to commemorate the event.)

My dear husband who was tasked (along
with our friend Steve, also in the picture)
of slitting the throats of 75 chickens.

Britton and his best friend Elise carrying
a chicken to the gallows.

Caleb helping Elisabeth dip a chicken in hot
water before sending it to the de-featherer.

I valued this experience because all of us (most-assuredly myself) became more comfortable with the natural process of raising animals for the specific purpose of consumption. My kids learned that the meat we eat does not originate in the refrigerated aisle of the supermarket. And above all, we came home with delicious, humanely-raised, nutritious meat. Now that's Home Education, folks! But I digress and jump ahead all at the same time! Let's get back to baby chicks.

Getting Started

Our first batch of chicks
(Sadly, one of the yellow ones didn't make it.)

We purchased eight, day-old chicks and after one died, went back the next week for five more, (I thought we should have a few spares) for a total of twelve. We have seven different breeds because we wanted to experiment with traits and temperaments. On the way home from Wilco, Elisabeth said with enthusiasm, "We're real farmers now!" And it does feel a bit more like that.

The only supplies we needed were a heat lamp, bedding material, a waterer and feed container, plus the feed. One of the nice things about this property is we have lots of rooms, buildings, and spaces. One could take up any number of hobbies or activities and dedicate a room to it. The "chick room" as we now call it, is a room in our shop that was used for grooming goats, back when this property was a Pygora Goat farm. It happened to have a large enclosed pen which we built a small box within. As they grew, we simply took down the small pen and let them roam the whole larger one.

Six-week old chicks (Notice their little "beginner" roost.)

We knew that at about 10-12 weeks they would be ready for "The Big House", so Caleb spent the next two months designing and building the coop.






The Coop

The storage shed

Our property had a rather large storage shed  that backs up to a small section of pasture. Caleb had the (brilliant) vision to retrofit it as a chicken coop with an enclosed run off the back and then free-range access from there into the pasture. It is luxuriously large for twelve chickens, but it was what we already had, so we used it, and now have room to expand our flock, if we ever desire to. 
What a coop must include:

 * a roost because like most birds, chickens feel most secure when they are sleeping up off the ground. 
* nesting boxes for laying eggs; one box per four chickens, so we built three, but have room to expand, if needed.
*food and water system
*ventilation: Caleb bought two old wood windows and a charming screen door from the Habitat for Humanity thrift store. He added the windows to each end of the coop for airflow, with chicken wire behind them to keep predators out.
* An easily cleanable floor: we installed linoleum with a very thick layer of bedding material over it. When we change the bedding we can give the floor a hose-down with water and bleach. 

Caleb and his brother Mark building the
new doorway and nesting boxes

     ELAPSED TIME: 2 MONTHS

Getting the coop ready for move-in day

Our juvenile girls in their new digs

  

Here is a view looking into the coop after entering through the door: We can retrieve eggs from the nesting boxes without having to fully go in. We also store the chicken feed and other tools on this side of the coop. You can see the pipe feeding system Caleb designed and the door for them to go outside. We close them up each night.

I wanted to wait and publish this post after we had painted the coop and made it really cute, but I know my six readers have been anxious for a chicken update (haha), and truthfully, who knows when that coop will be beautified, so here it is in all its "doctor-scrub-green" glory. These girls have the best chicken-life imaginable. They really do. I am so impressed with my husband who designed and built the entire thing himself. And any day now we should be cracking open our first home-grown egg...