The gleaners

For some reason I find this incredibly cute:

The s.o. is tilling one of the chicken runs for replanting. At first, all the chickens ran for cover--the tiller is a loud beast. But gradually they re-emerged, and now there is a little flock of brave chickens following the tiller and scratching out all the bugs and grubs that it exposes.

Hee.

The hens can tell spring is in the air

Our chickens laid 32 eggs today, which is a LOT. We have somewhere between 35 and 40 hens; I lost count a long time ago.

I think I can do the math on this. There are two chocolate-brown Welsummer eggs, but there are three Welsummer hens. And we have two white bantam eggs, which means only two of our five Japanese banty girls laid today, and our Mille Fleur girl (who lays tiny tan eggs) did not.

So, er, that either means we have at least 37 hens, or someone laid more than one egg, which is possible.

This reminds me of those word problems we used to do in math class.

One goose a-laying

Today I'll be taking three of our roosters on an adventure. One is the Langshan we originally gave to L2's dad. He, er, didn't work out in that situation. He got along with everyone peacefully enough for two months, then got his confidence up and gave their other rooster a bloody thrashing. So he was returned to sender.*

He and two of our four Mille Fleur d'Uccle bantam roosters will be given to a Freecycle guy who has 66 acres. Supposedly they'll be pets, and he and his son will dote on them. I hope that's true, although you never know! These three rooster fellows are too handsome to eat...not to mention awfully old and tough for the American palate.

The Langshan rooster is already in his transport cage. I was sequestering him in the duck house--the better to catch him later--but one of our geese started obsessively trying to get in because she has a nest in there. I was afraid she'd sand her beak all the way off, so I freed up the space. Now she's nesting happily. She looks absolutely adorable sitting in her carefully constructed whorl of straw. I could swear there's a beatific expression on her face.

The goose nest has been in the duck house for about a week. And yes, we have had a goose egg:



Isn't it impressive? And beautiful?

We ate the enormous egg scrambled with spinach and red peppers and mushrooms. It is my sad duty to report that goose eggs are not as delicious as chicken, turkey, duck, and quail eggs. They are a bit watery and insipid...or at least this one was. But it wasn't bad by any means. Just nothing special.

In other news, the chickens are adjusting well to their new situation. All the disagreements seem to have been worked out, and everyone plays nicely together.





They enjoy the long chicken run, too! The only thing that's lacking is fresh vegetation. But the s.o. seeded the second run a few weeks ago, and it is greening up nicely. We should be able to release them into it later this month.

Here's a shot of the February garden:



It doesn't look like much yet, but so far we've planted some peas, fava beans, carrots, and radishes. We plan to do some very extensive tilling in the near future, because we have to get our greens and turnips in as soon as possible.

----------

* On the other hand, the turkey we gave to L2's dad is living the life of Riley. They actually purchased two turkey hens for him, and now he is in "full puff mode" at all times. Most excellent.

Big doings

Under cover of darkness, we have just combined our two chicken houses. The birds will have all night to get used to each other's presence before they are actually able to see each other. And when the sun rises, I'll be there to make sure no one gets injured in the pecking-order-sorting-out process.

All of the roosters tried to "spur" me, but the only injury I sustained was when I whacked my head on a shelf in one of the houses. (For the record: Ow.) Some of the birds screamed their little lungs out while we were moving them. It sounded as though we were torturing someone. I halfway expected a police cruiser to pull up in the driveway!

So why all the animal-shuffling? Well, Chicken House #2 is plenty large enough to accommodate all our chickens, and it has two big outdoor yards that they can run in. We don't want to grow our chicken operation any more; I like knowing all the chix individually. So we are converting Chicken House #1 to a garden shed, and we're plowing the outdoor yards of Chicken House #1 and making them part of the garden.

Speaking of the garden, the s.o. and I spent a while today preparing some beds. Peas and fava beans will go in this week!

Jenny was here

Our beloved Stew visited us over the holiday weekend. What a blast--it's just a ton of fun to have our friend come to see us. Not to mention that our dogs are over the moon when their "Aunt Jenny" comes to see them.

We kept a low profile overall--no visits to Athens, and in fact no excursions whatsoever except to the grocery store. We had a grand dinner with L2 and her houseguests (two delicious vegetable dishes made by one of the aforementioned houseguests, plus leg of lamb, pitas and tzatsiki, sangria, and crabapple pie) and laughed and talked.

Jenny taught me some crocheting and I taught her some knitting. And astonishingly, she crocheted this gorgeous, cozy scarf for me in a mere hour and a half...



...which makes me wonder if there might not be something to this hookifying business after all. ;-) Seriously, crochet seems a lot more versatile than I had previously understood. It's not as intuitive for me as knitting is, but I can definitely see myself working up the occasional crocheted piece.

Jenny birdwatched a bit, although the weather was less than cooperative, so most of it was done through the kitchen window. This is truly a paradise of chipping sparrows.

After Jenny had to leave (snif!), the s.o. and I watched American Idol (hooray! new season!) and I finished knitting a blaze orange hat I've been making for him.



Even when it's not hunting season around here, it's never 100 percent safe to walk in the woods without a touch o' the orange, so I've taken it upon myself to provide day-glo garments for all of us, human and canine. The s.o.'s hat is a huge success; it fits him perfectly and is already much loved. Next comes a dog sweater.

Rehomed

As many of you know, after our recent bear attack we were left with four turkeys: two toms and two hens. Three or more toms can live together in perfect harmony. Unfortunately, two toms will often fight to the death.

So we were left with a very unsatisfactory situation. Our new pet, Lucky, roamed free among the ducks and geese. His somewhat chewed-upon counterpart, UnLucky, was stuck in the infirmary with the two hens. Lucky could tell they were all in there, and developed a poignant habit of standing at the top of the stairs with his head cocked against the door. The turkeys were healing up nicely, but they were not happy.

But the situation has been resolved! My friend L2's father, who lives about an hour away on a lovely woodsy piece of land, keeps chickens and absolutely dotes on them. He volunteered to take UnLucky in--and as an added bonus, he decided to adopt a first-year Langshan rooster that had been destined for the stockpot.

Today L2 and I drove the two boys to their new abode. They're being kept together in a fenced-off part of the chicken pen until they learn where home is. Then, once they get their bearings, they'll be free to mix with the other birds and to range freely during the day.

We were a little nervous about keeping the two birds together, because until now they've only known each other through a fence. But when we put them in the pen, absolutely nothing happened. They pecked at some scratch grain together, and L2's dad fed them some grapes.

These are two lucky, lucky birds. They'll be treated better than most people's kids, I bet. In fact, they're so lucky that UnLucky has been renamed Tom, and the previously unnamed rooster now goes by the name Leroy.

Meanwhile, back at home, the hen turkeys have been relocated to an outdoor pen where they can socialize through the fences, but they're kept safe from Lucky's amorous advances and the geese's pinching bills. This is their first night back out in the world, and they seem to be pleased.

I love it when things turn out so well for everyone involved!

This is getting ridiculous

I used to wonder if our bird-of-prey netting was really necessary. Then there was the Cooper's Hawk incident in the quail pen, which was pretty convincing.

But surely the chickens didn't really need netting overhead? Wrong again. This morning I spent several minutes staring in the eyes of this creature, which had perched on the edge of Chicken Run #2b. It was not alarmed by me. It observed me.

I might not have even noticed the owl if it hadn't been for two crows, which were heckling it loudly, occasionally swooping down from a nearby pine tree. I wonder if it had caught its feet in the netting? Well, it must have resolved the problem, because after staring into my eyes for several minutes, it unfurled its wings and flapped slowly into the woods.

Off you go, buddy. You are magnificent, but you are not welcome here.

I swear I need to start carrying a camera at all times.

Predator parade

Listen, world. Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom was one of my favorite shows when I was young, but I never suspected I would actually have to live it. I want out.

As I was putting the large poultries up for the night, I heard repeated "flushing" in the quail pen. I marched over to find out what was the matter and discovered that a small hawk had found its way into the pen, but couldn't find its way back out again. Somewhat ironically, it kept bouncing off the inside of the anti-bird-of-prey netting.

I tried stretching the netting up to let the hawk out, but of course it wanted nothing to do with me. So instead I had to go inside, leave the door open, and try to chase the hawk out. This was much more difficult than it sounds. Fortunately the quail were trying their hardest to be invisible, so they didn't all rush out the door. But instead of flying away, the hawk kept crouching down, wings spread, and trying to attack my feet. It watched me, well, like a hawk (to steal a joke from the late Douglas Adams). It did not want to go anywhere that I wanted it to go.

Eventually I got my way, locked the pen door, and disposed of the one quail that the hawk had been in the middle of eating. Gah. Poor little quail.

And now I must address the question that has been plaguing Stew since she began reading this entry: What kind of hawk was it? Surely I can answer the question, having looked at it at extremely close range for more than five minutes?

No. Not at all. Why? Because it was an immature hawk, and ALL IMMATURE HAWKS LOOK ABSOLUTELY FREAKING IDENTICAL. They have brown backs and buff chests with brown speckles and stripes. They are the size of an especially muscular raven. So I'm frustrated and sorry, dear Stew. All we have to go on is the fact that it was eating a small bird, which maybe/probably/possibly puts it in the accipiter family.

I am hoping that the hawk had a negative enough experience that it will avoid our quail pen in the future. But we'll have to take a good look at that netting in the morning.

Interesting

Either the geese have been playing with door latches again, or Lucky decided he needed to find himself a new flock.

I know turkeys and chickens are not supposed to share the same ground because of certain diseases, but there's no harm in a turkey ranging with ducks and geese, is there? They seem to be getting along fine.

Remember back in the spring, when the turkey poults thought they were goslings and the goslings thought the turkey poults were tiny geese? I wonder if they remember each other.

Oh dear

Does anyone want a (now perfectly healthy) tom turkey with a partly-bitten-off tail? As a pet, I mean?

We're having the same problem we had last year--that when you get down to only two tom turkeys, they want to fight each other nonstop. We can't bear to kill the one we rescued from the woods, so we are looking for a good home for him.

Turkey update

It's too early to tell for sure, but it looks as if Blue (the s.o.'s favorite hen) may have rounded the corner. She is up and walking, as opposed to down and sleeping.

Unfortunately, the Bourbon Red hen that the neighbor found walking in the road took a turn for the worse. We had to put her down this afternoon because she had developed gangrene in several areas...which was, I'm sure you can imagine, one of the worst things I've ever seen.

Devastation

We didn't hear a thing during the night. The dogs didn't bark. The geese didn't honk. But this was what I saw when I stepped outside Sunday morning:




Total and complete catastrophe. The PVC turkey pen was smashed--the pipes weren't disconnected, they were splintered. Something even pushed its body straight through the chicken wire. And somehow, something popped the door latch on the wooden pen and got into it, too.

At first it didn't sink in, because it was too terrible to contemplate. Four turkeys missing, presumed dragged away and eaten. A tom dead in the pen. Four birds mauled so badly--wings broken, lungs full of fluid, tails torn off, chest muscles exposed--that they had to be put down. Two hens traumatized but mobile, one staggering like a drunkard and one with flaps of skin open on her back.

And, miraculously, one tom with a bloodied face, standing in the middle of the yard. He warbled quietly and took cautious steps toward me. I went to get some scratch grain and led him into the fallow section of the garden.

We don't know if it was stray dogs or coyotes. There are both in the neighborhood. We're furious, made even more furious by the fact that we have no one specific to be angry at. We called animal control, as if that'll do any good. (They've ignored us before, and they'll probably ignore us again.)

I went to L2's to borrow some extra electric fence wire, and I ended up sobbing on her shoulder. She cried too. She was our poultry watcher when we were on vacation, and she had taken a special shine to our turkeys.

Turkeys are so sweet and guileless and friendly, and we are supposed to be protecting them from things like this. But we had tractored turkeys for two years with no incidents--not even any threats. This came out of nowhere, and we can hardly believe how complete the devastation is.



Now everyone is behind a double perimeter of electric fencing. We still can't sleep, but at least it will help deter a second visit.

The tom has been named Lucky and will be a pet. We feel that somehow it would be wrong to eat him for Thanksgiving dinner after all he's been through. He seems to understand that we are the good guys, and he comes to the fence and calls for us when we are near the garden.

Everyone please cross your fingers for the two hens--terramycin may help, but then again, it may not.

Bie zoukai

That's Chinese for "don't leave," and it represents one of the most important, yet least talked about, aspects of raising livestock.

When you hear zany anecdotes about the difficulties of animal husbandry, they usually center around one thing: catching animals that have somehow worked their way out of the enclosure you keep them in.* There are sayings that go along with this: "Any fence that won't hold water won't hold a pig," farmers warn. Doing too little too late is described as "shutting the barn door after the horse is out."

Longtime readers will remember that we once acquired a pair of skittish Barbados ewes that got spooked by a vet's visit, leapt over our fence, and disappeared into the woods, never to be seen again. If we had had them longer, they might have developed a homing instinct...or maybe not. All we can tell you for sure is that they were extremely shy and fleet of foot.

What animal-care books rarely tell you is that there are some animals that are much easier to contain than others. There are two aspects of animal temperament that are of import: (1) being easily caught, and (2) not wanting to leave in the first place.

Chickens and turkeys possess the latter quality. If a chicken gets out, it will spend most of its time trying to get back in with the rest of the flock. (Unfortunately, they rarely can figure out how.) Once I found an escaped turkey roosting on top of the turkey tractor it had wiggled out of. It really, really wanted to hang out with its friends again.

Unfortunately, when chickens and turkeys see you coming, their instinct is to play keep-away. Your only hope is to act casual, corner them, and then make a flying tackle. (In the case of a chicken, a net helps immeasurably.) You have one chance before it gets really difficult--both types of animals can fly, and they get much flightier after you've missed your first grab. Additional difficulty: You need to grasp both legs at once or risk injuring the animal.

When a duck or goose gets loose, it's a completely different story. Ducks and geese possess both of the attractive qualities I listed above. They don't want to leave, and they're incredibly easy to corral. It is possible to catch three ducks with one arm.** They have a tendency to clump up in corners and quack frantically. Not very adaptive, but really useful from a human standpoint.

Geese, although harder to lay hands on, are easy to lead. This morning we found one of our geese on the outside of our portable electric fence.*** I turned off the fence, laid a section of it down, and herded the goose back in. Then I stuck the fencepost back into the ground and turned the fence back on. Thirty seconds, and it was done.

Coturnix quail are an interesting case. They seem to have a profound desire to find their way out of their bird netting, either by exploiting a gap or by tunneling out underneath. But then, having done so, they always remain in the general vicinity. We are always finding random quail in the garden area--sitting in the lawn, flushing out of the cabbages, pecking at our garden clogs. We simply pick the friendly little creatures up and place them back inside the pen.

Nobody tells you these things...but I think everyone who is interested in raising farm animals should know them.

----------

* Indeed, when we came back from Las Vegas, our friend L2 shared a madcap story about an escaped Mille Fleur bantam. To her infinite credit, she managed to head him off before he flew away to roost in the woods.

** This information doesn't apply to Mallard and Muscovy ducks, both of which are excellent fliers. Why anyone would want to keep them is a mystery to me.

*** Believe it or not, a 4-foot-high electrified mesh is all you need to protect a flock of ducks and geese from the outside world. Your main interest is keeping dogs and other predators out. Keeping the birds in is the least of your worries.

Important news bulletin

Not to distract us from the task at hand, but I am pleased to announce that we've just had our first Ameraucana egg from the young ladies in Chicken House #2. It's a pale bluish-green one. So beautiful! Now, I don't know if the girls are taking requests, but I'd like to see someone lay olive green, if at all possible...

Another first

Two quail eggs this morning--our first. I'm amazed that such tiny birds can lay such...well, the eggs are tiny, too, but if you compare them to the birds, they're sort of the equivalent of a chicken laying a goose egg.

I tried to take a picture, but our camera can't handle the smallness. They look just about like the eggs on this page.

I have to take issue with the usual assertion that Coturnix quail thrive in cages. They stay alive in cages, sure. But we noticed a marked difference in the happiness of our birds when the s.o. created Quail World, their outdoor daytime enclosure. They dustbathe and hide in the tall grass and do helicopter imitations. They obviously enjoy it. And it's worth noting that, given the opportunity, they picked a protected area under some branches to nest.

Make it stop

Well.

We did manage to have a wonderful visit this week with my mother and stepdad, but only despite rather sobering obstacles.

On Monday, their arrival day, I was just starting to work up my One Local Summer post when I noticed Cairo licking his under-tail area. Remembering that the s.o. had complained of not being able to sleep because of "Cairo licking himself," I took a look. It turned out he was oozing and bleeding from a vicious wound that looked like someone had stabbed him with an ice pick. As soon as we stopped him from licking it, it started to get everywhere. We tried stopping the flow, but it worsened. We called the vet and they told us to get his butt (so to speak) into the office pronto.

Four or five hours later, the s.o. brought an unhappy e-collar-wearing Cairo home with a bag full of antibiotics and painkillers. Cairo had an abscessed gland. He was still bleeding and oozing like crazy and, for the first 24 hours until it dried up a bit, had to be locked in the bathroom. This caused him to cry all night, and Gracie to whimper constantly because (obviously) something was wrong among the pack.

Mom and John slept. We didn't. Two out of four ain't bad.

Pretty much at the same time as they arrived, the temperature rose to 105 degrees (yes, that's a record, even for Georgia) and has stayed there every day since. This was almost tolerable while we were in the house or in their car; however, once John left for Atlanta and took his car, we had to run errands in mine, which has a broken A/C unit. I don't know when I've sweated so much.

We lost a young hen to the heat. She was a favorite of mine, unfortunately. Also, blister beetles came and ate an entire row of chard in one day. Apparently they like 100-plus weather just fine.

We canceled the Wednesday farmers' market because nobody wanted to sit outdoors from 4 to 7 p.m. It would have been dangerous, frankly.

On Thursday afternoon the upstairs air conditioner in our house broke. The upstairs is the guest room, so Mom was the one to discover it. ("It's 96 degrees up there!") We shuffled accommodations for the night. I took the floor. The repair guy came on Friday afternoon and informed us that ants had gotten into our heat pump and shorted it out by scorching themselves to death on the wire contacts. A cheap fix, thank goodness.

Friday I drove Mom to Atlanta to reunite her with John at my stepsister's house. The s.o. had the bright idea that I should make the drive in my bikini top. It was absolute genius--I was able to wear a dry, unsticky shirt to dinner because of his quick thinking. Only a couple of truckers honked at me along the way.

We had a great Indian meal here, which made up for a lot of the ickiness.

After the horror of this heat wave, I think our family will still get up the courage to come to visit us. But maybe not in summer!

Identity crisis

Can someone help me figure out what the heck this mystery cockerel is? Yes, this is our friend the mystery chick, all grown up and as enigmatic as ever.



It has naked blue legs, a beard, no crest, and what so far appears to be a pea or rose comb...



...and its feathers are white spattered with black. It is unusually tall and fairly slender in build.



It came from Murray McMurray, so one would assume it's something they sell. In other words, it's probably not an Appenzeller Barthuhner or anything really weird like that.

Anyone? Anyone?

This is how we get overcommitted

Whew! Long time no post, I know. I've just been very busy. First we had a delightful visit from Ms. Jenny, AKA Stew (about which, more later). But right after she left, a friend dropped by to give us a gift: a box of tiny, peeping, chipmunky Coturnix quail chicks. We have so far been unable to count them, but there seem to be at least 20.

I've put off posting about them until I was fairly certain (from web searches, etc.) that we don't need a breeder license to have them. And it appears we don't--that's just native Bobwhite quail, and it's just if you're going to sell live birds. So all is revealed.














Do you know how difficult it is to photograph a constantly-moving animal the size of a shrew? Blursville. Oh, well.

We hadn't planned on getting quail--I mean, we have enough to deal with!--but that's sort of how things work in the country. People have animals, the animals change owners, people take up unexpected hobbies. These do seem relatively low-maintenance, at least: They are kept in rabbit-hutch-type accommodations, and they start laying one egg per hen per day at age 6 weeks. The males are ready to eat at about the same time.

I picture myself from now on cooking like Bobby Flay on Iron Chef: Tiny fried quail eggs on top of nearly everything I put on the table.

In other bird-related news, we took down the partition between the ducks and geese, and they have not bothered each other in the least. Victory! One pen is much more convenient than two when it comes to feeding, watering, etc. Maybe that sort of makes up for the unexpected foray into quail.

So, Jenny. She came on Sunday and we had a really fun pool party over at L2's house. For a while it looked as though we wouldn't be doing any outdoor activities; lightning struck on our property when we were getting in the car. Despite seeing the bolt spark off our power lines, the s.o. heroically managed not to drop the fruit salad he was carrying. Then the skies opened and it rained buckets for about 20 minutes. Then the sun came out again. After a nervous peek at weather.com, we commenced swimming and hot-tubbing.

On Monday we lazed around a lot and then went to our favorite fishing spot. I caught the world's smallest largemouth bass (catching minuscule fish is a special talent of mine) and Jenny got in some quality birdwatching. We saw an indigo bunting, a belted kingfisher, a common yellowthroat, and a prothonotary warbler. The birds there really are spectacular! (Jenny, don't be jealous, but the next night we went back again and I accidentally flushed out a pair of great blue herons at very close range!

And lest I forget to mention it, on Monday afternoon we had an all-local Greek-themed meal, which I respectfully submit for this week's One Local Summer entry:


















GREEK CORNMEAL AND GREENS PIE:
Milk - Starr, S.C. (73 miles)
Cornmeal - Athens, Ga. (35 miles)
Feta cheese - Athens, Ga. (35 miles)
Lamb's quarters - Royston, Ga. (55 miles)
Mint, dill, sorrel, chard - our own
Olive oil - exempt

LAMB RIB ROAST:
Lamb - I am having an awful time remembering what town our lamb source is in, and I can't find their business card; let's just say it's no more than 150 miles away and is somewhere in middle Georgia.
Oregano - our own
Olive oil and lemon - exempt

And now, speaking of food, I have to go feed the dogs...

Open letters

Dear Snake,

Please stop hanging out in the henhouse. You are making the hens uncomfortable, and a couple of times you have nearly given me a coronary. I am forever shooing you out of the coop with a shovel. One of these days, I'm going to decide you've had enough warnings.

Sincerely,
Jumpy

----------

Dear Tommy Irvin and Zippy Duvall,

Surely, as Ag Commissioner and Farm Bureau President (respectively), you have better things to do than to hold a formal government-sanctioned religious service at which you pray for rain. I know we're all a little desperate, but let's leave that to the ministers, shall we?

Sincerely,
Embarrassed

----------

Dear Visitors,

Our house is spotless. Gorgeously spotless. The reason we won't let you in has nothing to do with a housekeeping disaster of monstrous proportions. There's a perfectly good explanation, really, which is... um... let us get back to you on that.

Sincerely,
Not Hiding Anything

----------

Dear Noncompliant Goose,

Lately I have been having a terrible time convincing you to go indoors for the night. All the other geese line up contentedly and wait their turn to go in the door. You, however, always decide to make a run for it at the last moment. Last night you sprinted away from me and got caught in the electric fence. I actually saw sparks fly off you. I am pretty sure our neighbors think I am torturing an opera singer over here.

It is no wonder that tonight you lined up with the other geese. I hope and trust that this improved behavior will continue.

Sincerely,
The Management

Flying the, er, friendly skies

From Thursday to Sunday of this week, I'm traveling to St. Louis to attend a music festival that, over the course of a decade or so, has become quite dear to my heart. I'll see a lot of my best friends from far-flung locales. And in a gorgeous harmonic convergence, some of my other best friends from Athens are attending this year for the first time. Can you feel the love?

Instead of driving, which would be excruciatingly expensive at current gas prices, I'm flying. That means putting a lid on my usual Stevie Nicks-like luggage tendencies (i.e., lots of costume changes) and, even worse, coping with draconian air travel regulations. So I've been scouring the drugstores, looking for travel-sized containers for my toiletries.

I find it interesting that, while the regs specify that your shampoo, etc., must not be in a container larger than 3 ounces, the vast majority of travel bottles on the market are... wait for it... 4 ounces.

Who did this?! They deserve to be bitchslapped.

Well, never mind. I still feel the love.

----------

Briefly noted:

My mother took me at my word when I said that everyone ought to have geese. In my honor, she purchased a Flock of Hope from Heifer International. Someone out there will have birds of their very own--and a leg up in this uncertain world--because of her generosity.

Heifer is one of my very favorite charities. I'd love it if this post inspired a few of my readers to give the gift of sustainability. Give a goat! Choose a chicken! Transfer a tree!