Things I have said ABOUT poultry

 A freight train could go by five feet from the coop and the ducks wouldn't care as long as it happened at the same time every day. But if I wear a new hat they loose their little minds.

Drakes are gross. Just don't think about it too hard and do not google it.

I once used a different color bedding in the duck hut and they were pretty sure it was going to eat them.

Chickens lack empathy. It's just how God made them.

It's not their fault they're stupid, their wild ancestors got by on fear and rage instead.

There are too many perfectly nice roosters in the world to put up with a human aggressive one. CROCKPOT.

Garden lessons

 I have been gardening harder than usual this year, due to (gestures at entire world) stressing me out and finding gardening soothing. While I am not exactly a skilled gardener, I've been at it since I was a teenager, so I have finally killed enough plants that I can (usually) keep them alive. Still, this year has had some unexpected lessons:

I am now she who walks behind the rows.

1. Squash bugs have a very distinct smell when you squish them. This is probably why so few birds eat them. They are also full of powder blue goop which I would not want to eat either so, fair enough birds.
2. If you find frass (caterpillar poop) but no caterpillars, this does not always mean that something ate the little bastards. It often does though.
3. Black swallowtail caterpillars like carrots.
4. DUCKS WILL DESTROY EVERYTHING. They also eat slugs.
5. It is INCREDIBLY satisfying to squish a clutch of bean beetle eggs. Dear squash bugs: please take notes. Your eggs suck.
6. If you do three sisters beds, put the squash on the OUTSIDE. Whoever came up with putting the squash on the inside has someone else reaching through a jungle of corn and beans to get to the squash for them.
7. Ducks will not eat squash bugs.
8. Bean vines are grippy - like velcro. This makes it very uncomfortable to take one across the face.
9. Pole beans are more than capable of pulling down corn stalks. And bamboo poles. And step in fence posts.
10. Chickens will not eat squash bugs.
11. The squash is all dead, but the pumpkins, which are also technically squash, are doing great. ???

The cabbage did pretty good though. Ignore the caterpillar holes.

In conclusion, I want to know what the hell squash bugs eat when they can't get squash, and how they magically appear any time a squash plant is present. They are clear evidence for the spontaneous generation of life from inanimate objects.

A list of things I have said to poultry

 "Stop that! It's not his fault he exists and has testicles!"

"There has been too much duck crime today! No more crime until tomorrow!"

"I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE"

"TAKE IT TO THE HOUSE" (almost every day, when I want them to go back in the damn coop)

"STOP EATING MY TREES THEY ARE BABIES"

"Capes are not in fashion! Get out of the feed sacks!"

"WHERE DID YOU GET THAT"

"YOU DISGUST ME"

"That's not where eggs go!"

"STOP POOPING ON ME I'M TRYING TO HELP YOU OW YOU HAVE SHARP TALONS"

"Stop shouting and eat your food!"

"Who's blood is this?!"

"Puddle water is not delicious! I just filled the waterer!"

Chickens are possibly insane.

So today was the day we had scheduled for breaking up the breeding pens and letting all the poultry (except for the grow outs, which live in the tractor) range together.  This will dramatically simplify management and chick sales blow chunks this year anyway (thanks, Rural King!), so it was time.  The birds have never been out of sight of each other - they could see and interact with all the birds through the fences.  So I thought that this would be fairly trauma free.

I forgot about roosters.

First Hendrix had to fight Norris.  Then he had to fight Jones.  Then Jones and Norris had to fight.  Doesn't matter that Jones and Norris had been in the same pen this entire time, during which Norris had been the Boss Rooster from day 1.  No, they had to resort everything.

Did you know that comb and wattle injuries bleed?  A lot?  Like, more blood than you think a chicken could reasonably loose without passing out or something?  So if any of you are around here in the next week or so, please remember that there are no secret cock fighting rings at 4Farthings.  Just a bunch of asshole roosters who occasionally loose their ever loving minds and become psychotic comb biting jerks.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go put Blu Coat on everything.

Things that cause Cedar to forget how to use a milk stand:

• Moving.  It took nearly two weeks after we brought Cedar home to convince her that yes, this really is a milk stand, and yes, you really do use it just like the ones back home.  There is grain involved if you cooperate, girl!

"Like this, right?"

• Turning the milk stand to face the other way.  She cannot find the grain.  It is gone.  Clearly this is some kind of witch craft.
• Cleaning the milk room.  All the trash and dirt was clearly vital to her process.  Now that it is gone she can only get two feet onto the milk stand at a time.  Life is very tragic.

Hey, what did you do with my trash?

• Presence of chickens in the milk room.  Chickens are sneaky and it's very naughty for them to sneak into the milk room, so apparently Cedar gets to be sneaky and naughty too.  Sprinkles' grain looks tasty.  Surely no one will notice.

• Presence of human kids in the milk room.  They need a good sniffing and lots of kisses.  Again, it is impossible to get more than two feet on the milk stand at a time.  Cedar whines because her tongue is not long enough to reach the grain this way.

Ponchos might also secretly be snacks.  Forget the snacks ON THE MILK STAND...

• Removing a doe from the milk line.  Clearly it is not actually the milk room if Sundae doesn't threaten her on the way in/out.  (Sundae is in the barn recovering from an epic case of found something bad for her and ate a whole lot of it.  She is fine but needs to convalesce.)  Attempts to crawl under the milk stand to find out if the trash can is full of used wipes yet.

Nope not yet.

• Mom put the teat wipes at the wrong end of the milk stand.  Clearly it is a trap.
• Mom put something new on/under/next to the milk stand.  Also clearly a trap.  Unless it's treats.  Cedar attempts to eat the new thing.

I am beginning to see why Sundae hates Cedar so much - she is a bit daft.  I can only imagine it's worse if you actually speak goat.  I'm rather fond of my little Cinnamon Bun goat, but enough is enough, girl!

Sometimes I give up.  You win this round, goat...

Roosters

So I've figured out why Punky Rooster (silkie) was Head Bird around here for so long, in spite of being a bantam amongst full size chickens.

One third the size.  All thirds the attitude.

It all came about because I brought home a new rooster - now don't think I'm super crazy, because he came with a hen, and they are French Black Copper Marans.  Extremely fancy birds and I would have been crazy to pass them up.  I put a small pen in the corner of the coop for new arrivals, so that the old chickens can get used to them without being able to beat them up.  My main concern was Chick Jagger, the Wyandotte rooster, who has supplanted Punky as Lord of the Barnyard by dint of being huge and a jerk.  And I wasn't concerned, because while the bantam hens can get into the introduction pen no matter what I do, Jagger cannot.  Everything would be fine and nobody would get destroyed.

Then I went into the coop to check for afternoon eggs and found Punky jumping on the new rooster's head.  Apparently I can't keep him out of the introduction pen either, and not only does he fight dirty, but this larger rooster was clearly confused why this tiny bird was shoving him into a corner and jumping on his face.

So in conclusion, silkie roosters (or at least my silkie rooster) are devious little bastards, and Marans roosters have excellent calm temperaments.  With luck, Punky is done trying to destroy the poor new guy and there will be peace in the coop again, but I would not count on it.

And the lesson is...

So this morning two of the roosters were fence fighting. I have the silkies shut in the new coop with the khaki campbell ducks for population balance (if any of you speak duck, tell the khakis THE CONFINEMENT WILL END WHEN THE BABY MAKING IMPROVES). Today I opened the old coop yard so the chickens could get in there and clean up the weeds, so of course Chick Jagger (Wyandotte) decided that this was the best possible time to try to fight Punky for the title of Lord of the Poultry Yard. Now roosters fighting isn't usually funny, what with all the violence. But with a fence in the middle it looked more like a chest bumping contest, and was kind of hilarious... especially since Punky wouldn't back down from a bird literally twice his size! That is also worrisome of course because if they could really fight, Jagger would destroy Punky. I happened to be standing there filling the waterer in the yard. Slowly, slowly I moved around to the side. And sprayed Jagger with the hose. He of course ran away because DEAR LORD THIS ROOSTER ATTACKS WITH WATER! And Punky just stood there strutting and crowing, because Jagger ran away = I WIN. Which is good for me because having a small rooster that respects me well as top dog is better for me than Jagger, who is doing that crazy adolescent rooster thing. But the lesson here is that I am a jerk, at least to roosters. But for once me breaking up fighting poultry actually worked out for the best. I hope.

Things I never expected about chickens

1. Different breeds of chickens don't just have different personalities... they have different voices.  Wyandottes chatter.  Faverolles grumble.  Silkies almost coo.  Easter Eggers glare at me and hiss.  I don't think they like me.
2. Ever hear the phrase, "madder than a wet hen"?  It's true, they do get pretty cranky when they are wet.  Unless they happened to grow up in a brooder full of ducklings.  Then they lie in the mud with their "sisters" when it gets hot.
3. Two roosters do not crow twice as much as one rooster does.  It is more of an exponential equation.  We have three roosters and the crowing basically never stops.
4. You quickly learn to recognize roosters by their crow.  Punky Rooster (silkie) greets the day in a clear, piercing tenor.  Chick Jagger (Wyandotte) is our bass - he almost sounds like he's howling.  Chikki Hendrix still has a derpy cut off crow that we had hoped he would grow out of.  Inexplicably the hens seem to like him best.
5. You also quickly learn to ignore all the dang crowing.  They start about an hour before the coop lights turn on at five, but as long as the windows on the coop-ward side of the house are closed, I don't think anybody even notices.
6. Pecking order makes no sense.  Punky manages to be head rooster despite being literally half the size of the other two (and most of the hens).  Perhaps they remember him feeding them when they were babies.  Perhaps they are in awe of his singing voice.  Perhaps he triples in size when no one is watching.  We will never know.
7. Supposedly, a hen's comb and wattles suddenly grow and turn red (as opposed to pink) right before she starts laying.  Chickens are also jerks, and we have been waiting nearly a month for those "any day now" hens to quit being freeloading slackers.
8. It is somehow always surprising when the layer pellets run out.  Not the scratch corn, because I have yet to come up with a method of keeping my millions of ducklings from breaking open the bags and throwing crazy scratch corn parties.  But there always seem to be tons of layer pellets until suddenly there are none at all.

In summary, chickens are endlessly entertaining, and I think every household should have at least six hens.  The eggs will be the best thing you ever tasted, and you will get bonus free chicken TV, all for the low low price of every bug they can reach and those magically disappearing layer pellets.

The three pound king of the barnyard.

The 4Farthings chick raising method

So I've got some more chicks.  For some reason.

No but seriously, these are to live in the duck houses and keep the bedding turned, so it doesn't become a packed block glued together with poop.  The white/tan ones are Salmon Faverolles (they're French!), the black/white chipmunk looking ones are Silver Laced Wyandottes (they're American!), and the black/brown/gray ones with the poofy cheeks are Easter Eggers (my husband talked me into them!).  They are very cute and, for the next couple of weeks, very fragile.  Here is my method, honed over many batches of chicks and ducklings, for keeping them alive until they are feathered out and ready for the coop.  This method works equally well for every species and breed I've tried it on.

This is the last batch for this brooder.  They are not easy on it!

1. If you are getting your peeps from the feed store, they don't require any special treatment when you first get them - that was taken care of by the feed store.  However if you got them in the mail, you will want to introduce them to water SLOWLY.  Let them have the water for five minutes, then take it away for fifteen minutes.  Do this three times, then let them have it full time.  This is particularly important for ducks.  The reason for this is because birds that have been shipped often arrive a little dehydrated.  Being thirsty, they can drink too much water, too quickly, and shock their little systems.  I have never heard of chicks dieing this way, but ducklings, particularly Muscovies, can and will kill themselves this way if you give them water full time right off the bat.  Better safe than sorry!
2. They need to live inside at first.  I keep my peeps in our insulated shed, which we affectionately call the Man Shed.  It is mostly my husband's workshop, but the deal is he can do anything he wants in there as long as I can also use it for brooding poultry.  Any draft free space will do though - tiny baby birds CANNOT regulate their body temperature, and without a mama to keep them cozy, they chill and die easily.  So inside it is!
3. Within the Man Shed, they are contained by a brooder.  Mine is made out of cardboard boxes.  I opened up one side of a bunch of medium moving boxes, taped them end to end, and made a ring.  Then I laid a piece of plastic sheeting in the bottom, and put a layer of pine shavings in the bottom as bedding.  A word to bedding: I have tried old hay, all kinds of straw, dry grass clippings, old leaves, and pine shavings.  USE PINE SHAVINGS, particularly for ducklings.  They are just better because they are just more adsorbent.  Dry baby birds are healthy baby birds!
4. They have a heat lamp.  I use the red kind around the clock, no switching between a white one in the day and a red one at night because I am lazy.  I do NOT use a thermometer.  The first day, I adjust the lamp height until the baby birds are a) not huddled under the lamp and b) not getting as far from the lamp as possible.  After a batch or two in your brooder in your location you will know exactly what height this is.  After that I raise the lamp about four to six inches every four to five days.  This is significantly faster heat decrease than the books tell you to do!  But I find that the birds feather out faster and are just as healthy this way, compared to starting them at 95*F and lowering the temperature five degrees per week until you hit room temperature.  If I did it that way the dang chicks would be in the brooder for six weeks!  I don't have time or energy for that, and by then they can escape from the brooder.  No thank you!  Just keep an eye on them.  They will let you know if they are too cold by huddling under the lamp.
5. When they are about three weeks old I can usually turn off the heat lamp.  Because my brooding space is insulated, over the next week the temperature will slowly drop.  Once the temperature in the Man Shed is about the same as the temperature in my house (judged by the very scientific "feels about right to me" method), I move them to the coop WITH a heat lamp.  This is purely for insurance, because my coop is drafty.  If they do well, I turn off the lamp after about a week - sooner if the weather is good.
6. A note for integrating new birds into an existing flock - if you are not careful, the older birds will harass the new birds.  Do not just dump them in together and hope for the best!  I have a piece of fence that I can put inside my coop, making an area for the new ones with their own food and water.  This way the older birds can get to know the new additions while the younger birds can get away from the pecking.  For ducks, a day or two is plenty, but for chickens, you're better off giving them a full week.

Of course there are as many specific methods for raising baby birds as there are people raising baby birds, and if your peeps are active and growing, you are doing just fine.

However, I do have a warning for you all: HEAT LAMPS START FIRES.  You need to make absolutely certain that your heat lamp is SECURE, because if it falls into the bedding, and you do not correct it post haste, it can and will burn the building it's in to the ground.  Of course there is no reason to be afraid of heat lamps, either - but you must be CAREFUL.

Happy spring!