Tag: raising chickens

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Never Ending Repair List

From time to time I find a copy of some homesteading magazine. You know, the ones with the beautiful pictures of neat, clean homesteads and well dressed people. Reality hits when I look at my never ending repair list.

never ending repair list for chickens
My chicken nests are old. I built them over thirty years ago from scrap lumber. This one finally wore out possibly due to the last time I tossed it out the door containing a black snake. The chickens insist it needs to move to the top of the to do list as it is one of their favorite nests.

Do It Right the First Time

How many times have I heard this? There is some fantasy out there trying to make me believe that, if I build something right the first time, I won’t have to do it again.

never ending repair list for the garden
I replaced a narrow gate with a wider one so the former brace no longer reached across. The PVC pipes are over T-posts so I could hang additional wire to thwart a deer. However, the outer post leans and causes the fence to lean.

The Ozarks makes a mockery of this saying. Rain, heat, cold, humidity attack as soon or even sooner than a project is done.

My PVC gates are a good case. The pipes are holding up well. The wire is rusting. It leaves rust tracings on the pipes.

The hinges sag. I’m not sure why they sag, but they do. That leaves the gates scraping on the frozen dirt or catching on walnuts the chickens kick into their path.

Shoring up the garden fences is on the never ending repair list. Perhaps I can get to some of it this summer.

Chicken nest repaired
The plywood may be old, but most of it is still usable. I replaced the bottom and nailed the sides back together. This hen approves my work.

Barn Cleaning

There was a time when I scraped down to the cement when I cleaned the barn. Not now. After all, I will be tossing new bedding down and the goats will be making new deposits almost before the old bedding is out the door.

Chickens make a big mess. They toss feed out of the feeder. Their new roost pole decided to sag and refuses to stiffen up. A nest box needs rebuilding.

garden gate repaired
One thing a homesteader needs to learn is to have a pile of usable stuff. I used the old brace, bent, and a piece of PVC pipe left when the septic tank was replaced and had a brace to straighten the gate post. The metal brace was from an old lawn mower that stopped working.

New Homesteaders

Now and then I meet some people, cheery people, people who are so happy to own a place in the country. They have such big plans and dreams.

I always wonder if I will see them again in a year. Will they still be so cheerful? Or will they have met the never ending repair list, you know, the one that laughs at those fancy homesteading magazines.

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Rooster Regime Change

Mr. Smarty has ruled my chicken flock for several years. He is a big Columbian Wyandotte. Three Easter Egger upstarts moved into the hen house and one dreamed of a rooster regime change.

An Accidental Rooster

I normally order pullet chicks every spring. About four years ago the order was for some Columbian Wyandotte pullets.

The chicks arrived and grew up. Only one chick was not the expected pullet. He was a self assured rooster that loved showing off giving him his name.

My big rooster was getting old, so Mr. Smarty escaped the freezer. The next year my old rooster died and he took over. None of the hens were impressed.

Defiant even after rooster regime change
Columbian Wyandotte roosters are big, 8 to 10 pounds, with a rose comb. Mr. Smarty now runs from the other four roosters and holds court below the garden.

This Year’s Mistakes

Sexing baby chicks is not easy. Mistakes are made and Cackle Hatchery does warn that one out of ten pullets may be a rooster.

However, out of the ten ordered and one extra Easter Egger pullets for this year, three were roosters. They are pretty things and I decided to keep one. Both big roosters were four years old which is getting old for a chicken.

One was going to be dinner. Another was going with some pullets to a neighbor’s hen house. Except Easter Eggers are small for meat and the neighbors never picked up their chickens.

Easter Egger rooster Rusty enjoys the rooster regime change
Easter Egger roosters are slim, maybe 5 pounds, with a rose comb and cheek puffs. Rusty had help defeating Mr. Smarty. Another Easter Egger rooster, Herald, joined in.

Rooster Regime Change

The rooster scheduled for dinner had dreams. He was head of the pullets and longed to extend his reign to the hen house. Mr. Smarty was challenged.

It took several days to wear the big rooster down, but he finally abdicated. The new rooster called Rusty has taken over.

Mr. Smarty is taking the rooster regime change hard. He was in charge for so long and now he is bottom rooster. It will take time, but he will adjust as other roosters have in the past.

Chickens are a 4-H project for Hazel in “Mistaken Promises“.

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Changing Colors

Nothing stays the same one day to the next. They may be similar, but never exactly the same. It shows a lot with changing colors.

Winter

Hills are gray all winter. Bare branches are gray. The sky is often gray.

On clear days the sky is a deep blue. The pastures are a rusty tan. Occasional pines are dark green with the red cedars a gray green. Mosses and lichens glow green on the trees and ground.

One day the air seems lighter, warmer. The sun rises higher and stays a little longer each day. Then the changing colors start.

Spring

At first the green is only on the forest floor and in the pastures. Then the spring ephemerals start emerging. Blues, pinks, whites erupt under the still bare gray trees.

From my barn door I watch the hillside beyond the pastures. One day it is still gray. The next there is a delicate hint of green.

As the spring ephemerals finish blooming and set seed, the hillsides turn spring green with new leaves. Other plants grow up hiding the fading ephemerals and add color to the forest floor.

Summer

Changing colors in the sky reflect the change in the seasons. The sky is now a lighter shade of blue. The clouds have white tops and puffy shapes.

On the hillsides the green has deepened to a mature green. Even there the greens vary from one kind of tree to another ranging from Kelly green to dark green.

Flowers are changing colors too. They now tend more to the white and yellow flowers on taller plants.

Sugar Maple changing colors
Although sugar maples are native trees, this one was planted in the front yard before we moved here. Bald Faced Hornets built a nest in it one year as I found out the hard way. Orchard orioles nested in it another year. This year it was late changing into fall colors.

Fall

It is fall now in the Ozarks. The hillside I watch is turning orange slowly as frost is late this year. Flowers are again mostly the blues, but darker than in the spring.

Many people love the changing colors of fall. They are pretty, but I know they are fleeting. Soon the hillside will again be gray under gray skies leaving me counting the days to spring.

See how colors change through the Ozark year in “Exploring the Ozark Hills“

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Molting Time

Feathers litter my hen house floor, the chicken yard, the free range area, everywhere I look. Several of the chickens look like refugees from a feather factory.

There’s nothing wrong with my chickens or the rest of the wild birds. Fall is molting time, the time when old, ragged feathers are replaced with new ones.

Easter Egger hen molting
My Easter Egger Pippi is usually a sleek grey with a proud tail. Right now she is covered with feathers dropping off and new feathers starting to grow in. She likes to spend the day in the milk room picking up the grain the goats drop.

Examining Feathers

One of the first things I notice about all of these feathers is how different many look. Of course, there are the usual ones with their long, central shaft. These are the ones in pictures as they were used to make quill pens.

Molting time is quill time
Chicken wing feathers aren’t very big, but they are big enough to make a model quill pen. The white wing feather is from a smaller pullet. The brown quill is from an adult chicken. The first is from the front of a wing as the uneven sides show. The other is from lower down on the wing or, possibly, the tail.

Chicken quills can make small pens, but goose quills and, especially swan quills were the preferred choice. Quills are wing feathers.

When I use fingers to smooth these ragged feathers, they try to lock together again to form the wing feather they are supposed to be. Tiny hooks or barbs lock together to zip the pieces into place.

Other Feathers

Chicken down feathers
It’s hard to find nice down feathers. All that fluff sticks to bits of dirt, leaves and other things. Being fluffy, it’s hard to get this debris out of the down. These are very soft feathers.

Other feathers are soft with the side pieces branched and puffy. These are down. Chicken down could be used in pillows, I suppose. Duck and goose down is preferred. Just as in jackets and comforters, down is used to keep a bird warm.

Down only works if it is kept dry. Body feathers do this job. These resemble down at the base, but have a top more like wing feathers at the top, only softer. Lots of these overlap over the bird’s body.

Lots of chicken body feathers blow across the yard during molting time
The amount of down on a chicken’s body feather can vary. The top sections should hook together, but these old ones don’t do it well.

Tail Feathers

Tail feathers can be very elaborate and showy. My roosters have long tail feathers. I did find one, but it was very ragged. Peacock ones are prized for decorations. Every once in a while I will find a turkey tail feather off on the hills. Molting time is a good time to go looking.

Molting Time Problem

Making feathers takes lots of protein and energy. My chickens are using their food to make up their new feathers which will make them look gorgeous.

There is little food left over to make eggs. Shorter days add to this and older chickens will often take a winter holiday lasting to the end of January.

My pullets are taking up the slack. Their eggs may be small, but I still have eggs in the kitchen.

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Pullet Eggs

Hens do occasionally lay small eggs. These might be only white or have a bit of yolk in them. Pullet eggs are different.

Raising Chickens

In April, I rode to Cackle Hatchery and brought home a box of fluffy chicks. They were a variety of colors as there were several varieties of chickens.

Fluffy chicks don’t stay fluffy very long. Feathers sprout pushing the fluff off which is a good reason to not raise chicks in the house. The dust and fluff go all over.

Once the chicks feather out, they start looking like little pullets or cockerels. The big tip off are the combs as pullets tend to stay small and cockerels tend to get big. A little later cockerels get long feathers beside their tails and longer feather in their tails.

Then There Are Hens and Roosters

My Easter Egger cockerels began crowing in only two months. This was disappointing as I had ordered all pullets and ended up with three roosters and eight pullets.

By three months these noisy ones considered themselves big, bad roosters. The pullets were not impressed and fled squawking setting off chicken races.

Finally, my first pullet eggs are arriving. The pullets at almost five months are now becoming hens. Roosters are still not very appreciated, but are tolerated.

Dominique pullet
This is the Dominique pullet now laying pullet eggs for me.

Pullet Eggs

These are small. It takes nearly three to equal a large egg. The pullets are still small too.

As the new hens finish growing up, their eggs will increase in size. Then I will gather up medium to large eggs.

Right now I am more concerned with moving my new hens to the big hen house. This is one way to get lots of exercise as I can only carry three at a time making nine trips. In a week or so they will move into the hen house on their own.

The next goal is convincing them to lay in the hen house nests. Perhaps the older hens will start using these nests again too. After all, the black snakes are going to bed for the winter. But that’s another story.

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My Pullet Group

Not so long ago my little chick house had lots of room for the 35 chicks living there. Now my pullet group fills the roost plus window sill plus feeder bucket plus waterer.

Why 35 Chicks?

I really plan on adding about 10 new pullets to the hen house every year. However, it makes no sense to order fewer than 20 chicks due to an extra handling fee. So I ordered 10 Dominique and 10 Easter Egger pullets. An extra Easter Egger was with the order.

Then a friend set some eggs for me. I wanted roosters called dinner. That added 9, but only 5 roosters. She gave me another pullet.

Another friend gave me 4 more chicks. Three of them are roosters.

my pullet group
Although I grew up with single breed flocks, I found there are so many lovely chickens breeds, my flock is now mixed. Easter Eggers have those cute cheek puffs and lots of color combinations. Dominiques are a great coloring. The white with black tail is a Light Brahman with leg feathers. My pullet group is interesting to look at and to watch.

My Pullet Group

In the morning I toss out some scratch grains and open the door. A flood of color pours out the door and scatters into half grown chickens starting to cluck instead of cheep. They stretch their wings, race across the little yard and peck madly.

When the yard gate opens, the flood spreads out across the compound grass. Some fly up on the bench under a tree. Others explore the pile of top soil still waiting to move into the garden. Half end up by the big chicken yard eating the special grain tossed out there for those hens who insist on flying out over the fence.

In the evening my pullet group greets me at the barn. They swirl around my feet as I walk to their yard trying to not step on any toes to toss more scratch grain out. Their feeder needs refilling.

I take a scoop of chick feed and sit down in the house doorway. My pullet group gathers around to eat out of the scoop, sit on my knees, slip by to eat in their house or pick at my shoes as those laces just must be big worms.

Dilemma

Even though the roosters will become dinner, there are still 25 pullets. My big chicken house isn’t big enough for the old flock and my pullet group to fit in.

My neighbor needs some pullets. My dilemma is: which ones do I part with? This is about the friendliest group I’ve had. My knee sitters will definitely stay.

Chickens figure largely in “Mistaken Promises – Hazel Whitmore #3.

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Frustrating Chickens

Although these livestock animals are among the easiest and most useful, these can be frustrating chickens too. Mine certainly are right now.

Why Chickens?

I like chickens. My parents raised chickens in our backyard. We had fresh eggs.

There were problems like the rooster that attacked my father one to many times. They escaped from their yard only to be herded back by our collie/German shepard dog shadow.

Now I have chickens because they provide eggs, meat and manure. The manure is difficult to use as it has so much nitrogen it burns most plants. Asparagus likes it.

Gray Easter Egger chicken no longer a frustrating chicken
Easter Egger chickens seem to live very long lives. Gray One is at least five. She occasionally lays a blue egg in spring. She is retired the rest of the year. I like these hens for the colored eggs. Good homesteading breeds I’ve worked with are Buff Orpingtons, Speckled Sussex, Barred Rocks, New Hampshires and standard Cochins.

Dangers

People aren’t the only ones who like eating chicken and eggs. Foxes, raccoons, opossums and hawks love chicken. Crows attack young ones. Black snakes love eggs.

Every morning and night I count my hens to be sure none are missing. I lock their door at night to keep out unwanted visitors. Black snakes, weasels and minks can get in, if they want to.

So far my chickens have not had many predator problems. Even the grey foxes sometimes living around the house have mostly left the chickens alone. Of course, I bribe the foxes.

Pippi, one of my frustrating chickens
My chicken Pippi is a cross of, I think, Easter Egger or Araucana and Columbian Wyandotte. The hen hatched only this chick and abandoned her. She was forced to survive on her own. the garden is so alluring and a major place she tries to get into.

Frustrating Chickens

After thirty years of use, the chicken yard was barren. During the summer it is really hot and has little shade. So I let the chickens out during the day.

The chickens love this. They chase down and devour anything that looks edible. I wish they didn’t like the little snakes and spiders.

Here and there the flock establishes dusting areas and dig holes. Lawn mowing gets very bumpy.

Any gate left open is an invitation for invasion. Gardens, especially with mulch, are favorite places to attack. Any tomato with color and within reach is fair game.

What really makes for frustrating chickens is trying to find hidden nests. It’s amazing how easy it is to look at one and not see it.

Will I give up raising chickens? No. I’m already trying to decide which chicks I want to order next spring.

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Frustrating Chickens

There is a fair sized flock of chickens in my hen house. They are there to eat pests and lay eggs. This year they are frustrating chickens.

Eggs almost ceased to appear last summer. From what I’ve read and heard, this was a common problem for many. There are probably lots of reasons.

Too Many Roosters

Someone dumped off some roosters down the road last summer. They moved into my flock and proceeded to beat up both my two resident roosters and my hens.

Frustrating chickens, all talk and no eggs
Purrsey rooster was dumped off and joined the flock. He is a proud bird and thinks he should rule the roost. Unfortunately the hens don’t appreciate all the uproar between the roosters. I’m hoping this will settle down more next year as the roosters get older. His name is because he sounds like a cat’s purr when he calls hens over.

All but one left. The damage was already done. My hens were traumatized which is not good for egg production.

Black Snakes

There are several big, and I do mean big, black snakes that live under my barn floor all summer. Eggs are a favorite delicacy.

However, the snakes also eat some of the thousands of mice, any rats that attempt to move in and discourage the copperheads. So I put up with losing a few eggs.

The problem last summer was a younger black snake, a mere five footer (The big ones are seven feet and six feet.). This one was determined to get to those eggs, even sliding under the hens in the nests to wait for the egg to arrive.

The hens were not happy. They moved out to the hay trough, the tall grass, anyplace but the nests.

Heat

Like much of the country, the Ozarks had a heat wave go by. The chickens hid in the barn, under the trees, next to the barn, anyplace there was shade. They still panted as chickens can’t sweat. One older hen went hoarse.

Egg production ceased.

Older Hens

My flock is mixed ages. I tend to add six to eight pullets each year. The others stay until they die of old age.

Older hens lay larger eggs, but fewer of them. They tend to stop laying after molting in the fall and not start again until the end of January.

Mr. Smarty, another rooster for my frustrating chickens
Mr. Smarty is a very proud rooster. He thinks he should be in charge and is most upset that I am. He is a Columbian Wyandotte.

Light Problems

For years I’ve used lights to lengthen the days for my hens to encourage them to lay longer in the fall. The new LED lights don’t seem to have the right colors of light, so this doesn’t seem to work very well any more.

All of this adds up to frustrating chickens and a shortage of eggs in my kitchen.

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Averted Tragedy

Last night one of my new hens, one of my winter layers didn’t come in. All night I thought she was picked off by a fox or a hawk. This morning she was the lucky one that averted tragedy.

Accidents Happen

Rural living is an invitation to accidents. Machines don’t work as expected. Wire snaps. Wood or metal beams fall.

Livestock has its share of accidents too. Some end tragically. Some are averted tragedy.

Trapped Goats

As told in “For Love of Goats”, we had a young doe slip down into the crotch of a tree. My companion found her and lifted her out. Otherwise she was trapped, unable to get her hooves on anything to let her push out of the tree.

cover of "For Love of Goats" by Karen GoatKeeper
Part of “For Love of Goats” is a series of memoirs taken from my many years raising dairy goats. Kids are often in trouble. They can get trapped, lost, hurt. The best account is averting tragedy for the kid in trouble.

There was another such incident. This time a doe was stepping over a fallen tree. It had two trunks. The ground was a hillside covered with gravel.

The doe slid down the tree trunk into the crotch and got stuck. When she didn’t come in that evening, I went looking. It took two of us to slide her up out of that trap.

The next morning that upper trunk became firewood.

Trapped Chicken

I have extra water buckets placed upside down along the fence into the goat barn lot. The buckets I’m using sit on top of these, easy to grab to fill at the hand pump.

This morning the bucket had fallen onto the ground. When I picked it up, my lost hen was under it. She was eager to get back in the chicken yard where she promptly grabbed the vole the flock was arguing over.

Avoiding Tragedy

No matter how careful I try to be, accidents happen. Some do end in tragedy. Most do not. There is reason for this.

When my flock goes back in their yard at night, I count them. Three of this kind, three of those, seven of the other, until all are accounted for.

The same is true for the goats. I make sure everyone goes out and everyone comes in.

The chickens are locked up at night. The goats are in their barn.

I much prefer taking precautions to having another averted tragedy tale to tell.

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Lost Chickens

My chickens are a motley crew that spends much of its day out foraging for grass and bugs. So, when I received a report of lost chickens, I took it seriously.

These chickens were over the hill by the creek, a place none of my chickens had ever gone. This was suspicious.

Trying to Count Chickens

My present flock has 31 hens and two roosters. I went out and started counting. I found 29 hens and the roosters, so I had no lost chickens.

That meant there were strange chickens down the road from me. Where did they come from? Did they belong to anyone?

My nearest neighbors in that direction are a mile and a half away. They have no chickens.

Chicken Investigation

I put a scoop of scratch feed in a bucket and started off down the road. It’s a nice walk, even if I didn’t find any chickens.

And, there by the creek, I found these lost chickens. Four roosters. Why would someone dump out four roosters? Potential chicken dinners? Potential money at the small animal sale?

Herding Chickens

There was a time when I pounce on a chicken. I even ran down a fox one day to rescue a hen. I don’t do things like that any more.

Instead, I called these roosters and tossed out a little feed. They were hungry and came right over, not close enough to grab, but I was their new best friend.

We made it over the hill before I ran out of feed. I tried herding them, but they bolted up the hill. I went to get more feed and they went back to the creek.

Lost chickens found
These dumped, lost now found roosters are about a year old judging from their legs. Their spurs are not big. Their legs are neat and clean. They are nice looking roosters. The hens object to having six roosters arguing over them and have taken to hiding during the day or staying near the resident rooster who protects them from the newcomers.

Second Encounter

The next morning, I was headed into town. On a whim, I put a sack of scratch feed in the truck. And met the roosters on their way over the hill in search of their new friend, the one with food.

I parked the truck and started moving the roosters down the hill from handful of feed to handful of feed. We arrived at the barn gate and these roosters were glad to see all those hens.

Unhappy Chickens

My flock was settled. The two roosters had an uneasy truce helped by the fact one was very old, for a chicken.

Now four new young roosters have moved in. The six compete for the hens. They serenade the place all day.

My original rooster feels threatened and gives chase whenever he can. Even the four new ones fight and chase each other. They are no longer lost chickens.