Double entendres

Jeff was buying some carrots at Whole Foods yesterday. When the (female) cashier asked him if he would like her to cut the carrot tops off, he replied, "No! My ladies love them."

She just looked at him for an awkward moment.

"My chicken ladies," he said, clearing up the confusion (which could have been construed as sexist or even illegal, depending on how far your mind goes).

(And indeed they do love them. Carrot tops are one of their most favorite treats. I always cut them up into tiny pieces so they don't try to swallow a whole, long, top. Chickens are not very bright and often place their self-preservation efforts in the wrong basket, so to speak.)

"You have chickens!" she exclaimed! "I love chickens! I want chickens!" 

She started to press for details about the coop, but she is a cashier and it was lunchtime and their was a line. "I'll have to ask you about it another time."

"You know where to find me. I'm in here every day." And, no he's not kidding. Sometimes he's in Whole Foods three times a day.

And now, a gratuitous photo of Lady Marmalade's tail feathers:

Cuckoo for Coco

Coco's still broody. Only now she's started shifting nest boxes to sit on the other hen's eggs. I don't know if this is progress over sitting on an empty nest, or not. I've started forcing her to leave the henhouse occasionally, which makes her bitch me out, as you'll see here. It's worse if I also took one of her "babies" from her (aka took an egg from under her).

Marmalade was having NONE of Coco's attitude. She was all, like, "What is your issue?"

She went back into the henhouse a few times while I was sitting with the ladies, but I kept the outer door to the nest boxes open so it was light and bright and not very inviting for nesting, so she turned around and went back out into the coop. 

View from outside the nestbox. Skinny legs, round body. Cracks me up.

In happier times

Here's a Hipstamatic photo of Bob and Marmalade from my recent personal archives. I need to take some new chicken AND garden photos this weekend. Last weekend, I was so busy beating back the inroads the jungle (read: native roses, grapevines and tomato plants) made while we were on vacation (a job made more difficult by having a new-to-us-large dog who was in deep adjustment mode) that I didn't actually take any photos.

Here's a quick Coco update: She's still broody. It's been more than two weeks since we gave up with the dunking and the shutting out of the hen house and just let her sit on that darn, eggless nest. Which means little Bob's been having a nice, terror-free, vacation.

I saw Coco out one afternoon, and my chicken sitter saw her out once while we were gone, so (just as the books say), she has been emerging to eat and drink and poop at least once a day. When she wasn't dead when we got home from vacation, I figured as much.

A few nights ago, we made them all sleep out in the coop (it's really secure, and plenty warm enough this time of year). But when I opened the henhouse door in the morning so the ladies could enter when they needed to lay, Coco pretty much broke all land speed records getting back inside and back on her nest. Jeff keeps threatening the stewpot, but I'm going to let her ride it out. Eventually, she'll figure out that no babies are forthcoming.

Since she's sort of captive (by her own choosing), I've started petting her a lot while I try to gently talk some sense into her. She ruffles her feather a bit, but not much. And it might be my imagination, but I swear her feathers are extra silky and luxurious. Weird.

Coco was a good layer when she was laying, so we've only gotten two eggs each day since we've been back (except one day with no eggs). We may have to start supplementing with some storebought eggs. C'est la vie.

Easter eggs

Lady Marmalade was QUITE put out that I invaded her privacy while she was attending to her egg-laying business on the nest yesterday. I rarely open the nest box door when I know a hen is inside (usually when it happens I simply wasn't paying attention that all the chickens were not accounted for in the coop run), but it is pretty cute.

Meanwhile, the rest of the ladies enjoyed their Easter treat of a head of lettuce and cut up carrot tops. Tasty, and good fun!

We got a lot done outside on Saturday, seeing that it was such a glorious sunny day. Jeff made huge progress on the path from the patio to the chicken coop, and even put down pavers in front of the coop. (The ladies went NUTS as he was loosening up the soil, because of all the worms it stirred up. Worms that they couldn't get to. Oh, the chickenmanity!)

Some of our garden beds are still to cold and wet to plant in, but I was able to plant three kinds of peas (shelling, snap and snow) and small patches of lettuce and spinach. I covered up a few beds with clear plastic to help them dry out and warm up. The Zoo Doo we got was really wet and clumpy this year (side effect of our cold, wet weather), so the beds are a little tricky to work with right now.

It is quite fun working in the garden with chickens nearby. It's entertaining, and even a little soothing, to here them going about their business, making their little chicken noises. I especially like how they turn their attention on you with laser-like focus every time you pull up something green. Chickens love weeds! They had a really nice dust bath too, after we were inside (we were peeping at them out a back window). Little Bob was really in chicken ecstasy, with Marmalade next to her until Coco flopped down right between them (how they don't accidentally kick each other in the eye, I do not know). Miss Buttons remained upright the whole time, eating. That's her usual MO. If you've never seen a chicken dust bath, check out YouTube. There are quite a few there, some of them pretty cute.

Front: Miss Buttons. Back (from left to right): Little Bob (aka Babette), Coco and Lady Marmalade.

Chickens are warm!

So says Jeff, who is holding Lady Marmalade here...

...and Coco here. He said they put off so much heat that he could feel it through his work gloves and his polar fleece.

Not surprising, really, when you consider that the ladies are bopping around wearing down comforters (essentially). Good thing, too, because it was COLD the last few days!

I didn't worry about the ladies freezing, but their waterer was another reason. I kept on in the house at all times so I could fill it with slightly warm water and switch it out as needed when the one in their coop froze solid. It was pretty funny to watch them as they went about their chicken business, fluffing up their feathers to keep body-warmed air around them. They would look about twice their normal size, temporarily, until the feathers deflated a bit.

Chicken nipples

That is the best blog post title ever, don't you agree?

On Sunday, Jeff installed what may be the best little gizmo every to grace an urban chicken coop: A chicken nipple waterer. (Are you still giggling? I thought so.)

We bought a set of three chicken nipples from our local urban farm coop a few weeks ago, desperate to escape the unrelenting task of keeping the ladies supplied with fresh, clean, water. No matter what we tried with their regular waterer, they kept kicking hay (from the run) or coffee chaff (from the hen house) into it, pooping in it, knocking it over, destabilizing the bricks it sat on by digging their tunnel to China under it, etcetera, etcetera.

With the nipples, we were able to turn a re-purposed two-liter bottle into a waterer. Totally enclosed, so it can't get dirty or spill. Hanging, so it can't get knocked over. Brilliant. (It's also possible to use multiple nipples to turn a bucket into a waterer.)

One benefit of using the bottle is that it's clear. Apparently, when chickens can see the water, they adapt more quickly to using a new watering device. Before we closed up the coop, I pushed the little metal part to the side so that some water dripped out while Miss Buttons was watching me. A few hours later, when Jeff went out there, she marched right up to the waterer and drank, as if to show him how smart she was.

That was a relief, because when one chicken does something, the others aren't far behind. Chickens are not known as independent thinkers.

Of course I kept spying on the ladies Monday, hoping to catch them drinking. I saw Lady Marmalade and Little Bob (Babette) drinking, and I'm sure Coco must have been, just not when I was looking. Today, Little Bob seemed quite proud to show off her new skills. She is the sweetest chicken!

In other chicken news, the ladies have been having more two-egg days the last week (total, not per lady!!), including two in a row Sunday and Monday. Given their production over the winter, that's pretty good. I wonder if the slowly increasing daylight is already causing them to ramp up their output.

Cluckin' along

It's been a soggy week for the ladies. We've had some torrential rains accompanied by mighty winds, which made their coop a damp, dreary place. (Lady Marmalade looks particularly pathetic with damp feathers.) I spruced things up with some fresh straw, and installed a new, huge feeder that will let us go away for the weekend without needing to have someone chicken sit (we'll still have to do that when we go on vacation for a week or longer).

Jeff also rigged up a wire contraption to turn their waterer into a hanging waterer. We'd previously had the waterer propped up on a stack of paver bricks, under the "landing" to their henhouse. It was the only place we could put the waterer where they couldn't fly up and perch on it. Trouble is, the little gremlins are constantly working on digging a tunnel to China, and their excavation work was often right next to the stack of pavers, making them gradually less level and stable. Hanging the waterer will stop them from knocking it over, and hopefully keep it cleaner, too.

The girls have been averaging 1-2 eggs a day (total), which isn't great, but is fine with us. We'll have more eggs than we can use come spring, so the quasi-hiatus is probably a good balance.

Happy Labor Day!

We did a lot of laboring yesterday, so we're taking today off. Can't say the same for the ladies, though.

This is the first time we had three eggs by 11 a.m. I take this as a sign that our (slightly) youngest chicken, Babette (or Little Bob), has started laying. We'll know for sure if we get a fourth egg today.

I'm not sure there's anything better than eating eggs within a few hours of being laid (I heard major chicken honking around 8 a.m., so the first egg was probably laid then). We gave the ladies a peach and let them free range for a bit as a reward for their hard work. They enjoy free-ranging, as you can see:

The only thing more fun than digging to China  inside the coop,
is trying to dig to China outside the coop.

Free range

While I was busy packing a lunch to take on a garage-sale jaunt yesterday, Jeff went out to feed the chickens and check for eggs. I thought he was out there an awfully long time, and that things were awfully quiet (the ladies always have quite a bit to say when we pay them a visit). Now I know why:

Little gremlins. They were so engrossed with the fact that they got to be free range chickens that they didn't make hardly a peep. Until Jeff herded them back into their coop.

There was only one egg, so when we returned home, Jeff went out to see if there was more to be had...and interrupted Coco on the nest (at least I wasn't the privacy invader, this time). Poor chicken...she's totally going to develop a complex.

Whoops!

I heard a goodly amount of squawking, honking and general noisemaking from the ladies twice this morning, so around 11:30 I figured it was safe to go out and collect eggs.

I opened the egg door, expecting to find one or two eggs. Instead I found Coco sitting on the nest. I shut the door quickly and quietly, feeling like I'd interrupted something very private. She apparently doesn't hold grudges, because she laid a perfect egg, as usual. She is my first and best layer!

In other chicken news, Jeff has let them out of the coop twice to briefly roam in the mostly fenced area adjoining it. Now those little rascals are as pushy as linebackers about getting out of the coop everytime I open the door. And they're getting to be about as big as linebackers, too. Sheesh!

Who is smarter, humans or chickens?

I'm thrilled to report that the ladies have put themselves to bed TWO nights in a row! Such a relief that they are behaving like proper chickens!

I don't know who deserves the credit though...

• Me, for ditching the ramp in favor of a perch and platform along the front of the henhouse (and the husband for building it), thereby successfully suckering the chickens into toeing the line, or 
• The chickens for refusing the to use the ramp, thereby successfully suckering us into providing them with something more fun (since they do love to perch).

Sunday night, I could hardly believe my eyes when I peeked out the window around 9:30 and saw the telltale shadows that meant four feathery ladies were up on the high perch in the henhouse (the shadows are from the heat lamp, which we've been turning on at night since the temps dropped back down into the upper 40s...barely OK for tomatoes, possibly not OK for smallish, adolescent chickens).

In other bedtime news, I've noticed that the ladies are at their noisiest for about 10-15 minutes before they finally settle down for the night. I mean REALLY noisy. Just a flurry of peeping, pseudo-clucking and trilling. They only time they are noisier is when you are foolish enough to walk past the coop with a LARGE, SCARY OBJECT!!! [Sigh.] I need to find out if this is a common phenomena...

The Chicken Report

The ladies have been adjusting nicely to being in their coop 24-7. Their primary activity, besides eating, is digging their way through the Earth's crust. At the rate they are going, we are hopeful that they will reach the Earth's molten core by mid-June. From there, they continue on to China.

All that digging, along with constant rearranging of the straw in their coop, has necessitated an increased regimen of daily naps. The ladies have come a long way from their early daytime coop visits, when they were four feathery bundles of nonstop activity that came to a crashing end as soon as we brought them back into their basement brooder for the night.

If the mornings are cool, they'll snuggle together under the henhouse after they eat breakfast, and I've caught them resting thusly off and on throughout the day, when I'm home to peek at them frequently.

Our primary obstacle right now is to get the ladies to put themselves to bed like chickens are allegedly supposed to do. They will peacefully let me put them into the henhouse one-by-one, if the conditions are right,* but otherwise they would spend all night crammed together on one end of their outside roost, I'm certain.

*Two things I've learned in the past few days. First, do NOT try to put the ladies to bed early before it is suitably dark and they are suitably sleepy on their perch. This results in much frantic squawking on their part, and much frustration on my part as Babette (or Little Bob as we usually refer to her) decides to run under the henhouse, only to start freaking out when she realizes she is the only chicken left alone in the coop!! 

Second, do NOT try to put the chickens to bed when the heat lamp in the henhouse is not on, even if they were quite content to have it turned off right after retiring the night before. This only leads to each chicken trying to escape the henhouse as you are trying to put another one in. This is not fun. Especially when pine shavings are preventing you from closing the door, and you are being beaten on by small beaks.

I've decided that they don't like their ramp, because they slide around on it too much. This weekend, the husband has kindly consented to build them a sloped ladder that they can perch on and use as an intermediate landing point before henhouse entry. I want them to use the henhouse during the day, and so far they have not. I think if they get used to going in their as they go about their daily business, they may be inclined to put themselves in there at bedtime. Fingers crossed!

P.S. We've seen at least one raccoon almost every day, even in the afternoons. No hint of trouble yet, knock wood.

Jailbirds

"There's gotta be a way through this wall. Think! Think!"

The chicken learning curve

When I went to go let the ladies out of the henhouse yesterday morning, I of course peeked at them through a crack, first (I really wish we had a Chicken Cam). They were on their roosts! I was so excited! The three big ladies were on the low roost, and little Babette was queen of the world up on the higher roost. I wish I had a picture, but instead I have this one from later in the day:

Aren't these the cutest chickens in the world?

I'm attempting to train them to put themselves to bed. Around 8 p.m., I turned on the heat lamp in the henhouse. Shortly before 9, I peeked out the window and saw Lady M and Coco on the ramp, looking toward the light, but they flew back down. Drat!

I finally intervened around 9:30 when they were all lined up on the coop roost, much like in the photo above. Oh, well...it's early days. They'll learn. Except Miss Buttons...she's not too bright.

Garden plans and silly chickens

I came upon a link to this "All-American Vegetable Garden Plan" on the Better Homes and Garden site and thought it looked interesting. It takes up only 6x6 feet, so it's great for someone who has minimal space. Since tomatoes and beans are included, it will require a sunny spot.

The plan includes snap peas, lettuce, radishes, cucumbers, Swiss chard, and sweet peppers. The plan calls for Brandywine tomatoes, which are a very large heirloom variety. I have grown it with success, but it can be tricky in mild Pacific Northwest summers. A novice gardener would probably have a better time growing tasty cherry tomatoes or a smaller-fruited standard tomato like Stupice or Siletz. The link to the BHG page is here. To get the detailed plans (a nice 2-page PDF), you have to sign up for free online membership (via another link on that page), and they will entice you to subscribe, but you don't have to.

In chicken news, we didn't get home until after dark last night, past the ladies' bedtime. We found them clustered at the bottom of the henhouse ramp. Clearly they are not ready to put themselves to bed yet. But they were all nice and mellow. I picked each of them up in turn--one, two, three, four--and placed them in the henhouse. (Not like Sunday evening, when they went to the furthest unreachable reaches of the under-henhouse part of the coop and I had to fish them out, which they responded to with much squawking.)

I pet them for a few minutes, as they gently peeped and pecked around their pine shaving bedding. Even Miss Buttons didn't object to petting, and her response is almost always the chicken version of "Ahhhh, no! What are you doing to me? Oh my god! Stop! Stop!"

I shut the henhouse door and listened as they settled down with gentle peeping. Tired ladies.

Good Morning!

The ladies had a lovely night in their new sleeping quarters. As soon as the sun was well up and the chill was off the air, we opened their sliding door to let them out. They were quite excited to get up in the morning and explore without first being carted somewhere in an orange box!

I finished off the weekend's seed planting with two types of cabbage (Derby Day and Ruby Ball) and two kinds of broccoli (Umpqua and Small Miracle) in the front yard veggie patch. With as much sun as our front yard gets in the summer (some morning sun, plus hours of afternoon-to-evening sun, I thought tomatoes would do well there last year, but they did not do as well as they do in the back garden. So I'm trying the cruciferous veggies this year.

Here comes the sun...

...and I say, "It's alright!" (Take it away, George Harrison, may you rest in peace.)

Yesterday was sunny, gloriously sunny, which made it a busy day around Ye Olde Urban Farm. The biggest news is that the henhouse is finally done! There was much rejoicing, by humans and hens alike.

We feel confident that the coop is secure, but our fingers are crossed tightly nonetheless after two raccoon sightings yesterday. Around 4 p.m., a raccoon that looked like it might be injured came into one corner of the yard, but quickly left. Then around 8:30, right after we escorted the ladies up the ramp into the henhouse (they had been gathered at the bottom of the ramp, as if they were thinking, "Hey, it's getting dark, why are we still out here?"), we saw a healthier young raccoon traveling along the long back fence (aka the raccoon and squirrel superhighway).

I also got a lot of seed planting done (not that the first planting has done a lot, with the cool spring soil being what it is). I planted lettuce, spinach, arugula, beets, carrots, radishes, pac choi and cilantro.

I also did an amazing thing. I picked radishes before they grew to the size of my fist! I always plant radishes because I like them in theory, and they are one of the first seeds that can go in the ground, but I am notoriously bad about picking them when they are still edible. Not this year! Yay, me!

Sunny day and a new chicken game

Today was a much better day for the ladies. All day in the coop. They even stopped their incessant activity long enough to take a nap outside at one point: Lady M, Babette and Coco in one shady corner, Miss Buttons alone in a sunny corner. Something for every hen.

I distinctly heard some sounds that were something of a peep-cluck hybrid, so my little girls really are growing up, and have the changing voices to prove it (not something one normally associates with girls). Coco and Lady M both briefly flew up to the entrance of the hen house, which doesn't have its ramp yet. So they know it's about time. Chickens may not be the smartest creatures (especially Miss Buttons, who will be the last to catch on, I'm sure), but they know things.

We brought them in when we noticed they'd all been squashed together on one end of the roost for a while. (The roost is about 6 feet long, so it's not like they didn't have space to spread out.) Ladies were clearly ready for bed. But not before they had a fun bedtime treat!

If you have never fed pieces of spaghetti to a small flock of chickens, you do not know what fun is. Not only would you think these chickens had not been fed in days--days!--but they were just so excited to get a hold of one of the wiggly bits that they were practically climbing all over each other to claim theirs, then keep it to themselves. Good times!

Bah...baaaaah...wha?

It's been a bad week for the ladies. The one-two-punch of colder than expected temps and a unplanned kitchen repair that stole the time allocated to finish the coop has kept the girls indoors.

They keep knocking over their feeder (I blame Babette, who is small enough to roost on it and still fit underneath the brooder lid), so they are unhappy, and I am unhappy. Well, they actually seem happy enough, just happier when they get to flap around. I, however have to keep cleaning up when they do a number on their brooder that would rival that of a rock-star-trashed four-star hotel room.

The husband was the last one to leave the house today, and he texted me with the news that one of the girls made a non-peep sound like a "bah-bah-BAH!"

"So, she's turning into a sheep?" I replied.

Tomorrow, the ladies get to spend the day outside. And there will be much rejoicing.

P.S. I think they are starting to go through their second gawky adolescent phase. Lady M is starting to get a weird mix of feathers on her neck, like the next generation is starting to come in. In the photo, you can kind of tell that her neck is a bit tufty. And just when Babette had stopped looking like she had a bad case of mange.

Life is handing out lemons today

"What are you looking at?"

A coming week of chilly nights and a Saturday morning breakage of our kitchen faucet (which turned into the total time sink of running around to multiple hardware stores trying to find the right part) conspired against moving the ladies permanently outside into what was supposed to become their totally-finished henhouse.

So, it's another week of days outside (mostly) and nights inside. Drat!

Plus, I don't have working kitchen sink. Double drat!