Chicks and Ducklings: Mission Accomplished

Back in August, we had a couple of fun surprises. First, a mother duck hatched out eleven ducklings. Shortly thereafter, a mother hen hatched out nine chicks. Given the propensity with which baby birds get picked off --- even when being raised by the most-attentive mothers --- we decided to move both broods into a portable 4x8 garden pen. They weren't happy about sharing the space, but it was our only option. They did manage to co-exist, and both broods thrived.

The pen turned out to be a great choice, for several reasons:

• We were able to get lots of high-protein feed into these little birds. Had they been running around the barnyard, they would've been limited to forage and would not have grown nearly so large nearly so quickly. With autumn approaching fast, we're glad they're in good shape.
• They cleared out TONS of overgrown weeds from a fallow swath of the garden, that we would otherwise have had to deal with. They got all that green stuff in their diet.
• They eliminated lots of crickets, beetles, and other bugs from the garden area.
• They converted all those weeds and bugs into a wonderful layer of rich fertilizer. This portion of the garden will be exploding with growth after next Spring's planting.

Here's a good picture of what they managed to accomplish (in tandem with a second pen, home to nine layer pullets we've been raising since April):

And here's a good shot of what things looked like inside the pen:

With cooler weather and shorter days, we decided it was time to transition the birds and their mothers into the broader flocks. Plus, ducks go through an unbelievable amount of water. I was having to fill their five-gallon waterer at least once per day. (For the nine pullets in the other pen, the interval is more like once per week.) Time for them to go splash around in the swamp with their brethren.

The toughest part was getting the mother hen, and all nine chicks, into the barn last night. We'd turned them loose in the area behind the barn, hoping they'd follow the other birds inside as darkness fell. Unfortunately, they kept trying to get back into the garden; after all, that was the only "home" they remembered, and even Mother Hen had trouble convincing them there was any better place. The two oldest Yeoman Farm Children helped me catch the nine chicks and physically deposit them deep inside the barn. Once Mother Hen joined them, they settled in for the night. They were still piled up in the same nest when I came out this morning.

So far, so good. Next task is to move the Barred Rock pullets. Problem is, they're now so big they're indistinguishable from our two-plus-year-old Barred Rocks which need to be culled. I don't have the time or freezer space to cull them right now, so it's looking like I'll need to put an orange zip tie around a leg on each of the old ones.

Never a dull moment on the farm.

Summer Surprises Continue (Updated)

In the upstairs portion of our barn, not far from where a mother duck recently made a nest and hatched eleven ducklings, one of our Buff Orpington hens also hid a huge stash of eggs and went broody on them. How well hidden? She'd been there for weeks, and we didn't even know it.

That changed yesterday afternoon, when Homeschooled Farm Girl happened to hear a chick peeping. She was outside the barn, on the ground level, so it's pure luck that the sound carried that far. She did some investigating, and eventually tracked down the source. Way up here, behind the hay, in the northwest corner of the barn, hatching was in progress:

It's a bit hard to get the full perspective, but I'll walk you through it quickly. See the horizontal support beams, running along the barn wall? You can see two, and there's a third that's hidden, behind the hay. The nest is on that support beam, about three feet off the floor, behind the stack of hay to the left. Until this morning, hay bales were stacked all along that wall. We had to pull the bales out, just to access the nest. Here it is, with the eggs that didn't hatch (note the stack of hay to the left, and the barn wall to the right):

It was an incredibly secure nest. The hen had squeezed in there, and did have a pathway out through the hay bales. Even when they're broody and trying to hatch eggs, they take periodic breaks to get food and water. The problem is, the nest was too secure. There was absolutely no way the chicks could get out. They couldn't follow Mother Hen through the hay - the climbs and jumps needed were far too large. Worse, they were in danger of falling off the support beam, and landing back behind the hay bales.

This morning, once we were reasonably sure the hatching process was complete, one of our kids captured the loudly-squawking-and-clearly-upset Mother Hen. I somehow fished out the eight chicks she'd hatched, and carried them down to the barn floor. We then carefully set Mother Hen with the chicks, and put some layer feed down for them. Happy, excited clucks followed, as she demonstrated for her brood what needed to be done with this wonderful stuff we'd put out.

I'm guessing the nest contained eggs from multiple hens. Either that, or Mother Hen had been bred by multiple roosters. There are a couple of chicks that look like purebred Buff Orpingtons. Two others are black. The others are white, or a mix of white and black. Doesn't matter. Their eggs will all taste the same when they're old enough to start laying.

We let the Hen and her brood wander around the barn, and the grass outside, for a couple of hours. It was clear, however, that eight is at least a few too many for her to keep track of. Plus, it's a pretty cool day. For safety, we packed her and the chicks up, and moved them to the same garden pen that the mother duck and her eleven ducklings have been occupying.

So far, the two broods seem to be getting along. The pen appears to be plenty big for both groups.

Who knows what surprises we'll find in the barn tomorrow...

UPDATE: 
Well, that didn't take long.  At about 6pm this evening, Homeschooled Farm Girl came and found me again. She could hear another chick peeping, up in the barn, near where the nest had been. "I think there were nine," she announced. "The other chick must've fallen down behind the hay."

The two of us went back to the barn, flashlight in hand. I could hear the chick, too, but it was WAY down behind the hay. We began excavating bales, which toppled over into a haphazard pile in the middle of the barn. No matter. Those could always be re-stacked.

Eventually, we moved enough bales so we could shine the flashlight into the tight little space between the remaining hay bales and the floor. And there, way in the corner, under some cobwebs and lots of loose hay, was a tiny white chick. I reached down and scooped it up.

The first thing I noticed was how chilled the little thing was. We immediately took it out to the pasture pen in the garden, to rejoin the rest of the brood. It tottered toward Mother Hen, who did not peck at it or show any other signs of rejection. That's a good start.

Here's hoping that Number Nine is no worse for the long isolation, and hits the garden ground running with the rest of the brood. So far so good.

Surprises

As much as you try to plan what happens with the garden or livestock, farm life is full of surprises. Our laying hens are completely free range, and we keep a few roosters in with them. The roosters are around as much for entertainment as anything else, and in their spare time they keep busy making sure the hens stay fertile.

After a rooster mates with a hen, all the eggs she lays for some period of time are fertile. Of course, because we gather them every day, those fertilized eggs don't develop. It takes several days of near-constant warmth, from a hen or artificial source, for enough development to take place to even be visible when the egg is cracked open.

Then, sometimes, a hen gets a mind of her own about those eggs. She begins laying them in an obscure, out-of-the-way place that we humans never check. After accumulating several eggs, she goes broody and sits on that nest. She emerges from time to time, just long enough to get something to eat and drink, and then she's back on those eggs. With enough other hens in the flock still running around in a big crowd, the farmer will never even miss her. She might even be joined on the nest by another broody hen. Nobody misses her, either.

And then, one morning, the two of them emerge with the results of their broodiness.

One of the Yeoman Farm Children discovered the new arrivals in the upstairs portion of our barn, where we keep the hay (and were animals seldom go, but which the birds can get into if they really try). The hens had picked such a good spot for their nest, wedged between the hay bales and a barn wall, they'd gone completely undetected. They were clearly very good mothers; any time a person or barn cat came close, they'd fly into a tizzy, puff their feathers, and make all kinds of loud noises. We left them alone, and after a few days of exploring the barn they took their tiny brood outside. Again, any time one of us came close, they raised loud objections. Watching the four birds roam the property around the barn and behind my office was more entertaining than anything on television. Especially fun is the way the hens will cluck and point something out (like a bug or piece of grain) to a chick, who then scrambles over and pecks it up.

I snapped the photograph above on June 25th, when the chicks were about a week old. Shortly thereafter, something happened to the black chick. It could've wandered into the high grass, or fallen victim to any number of other perils; we don't know, because we simply never saw it again.

The yellow chick, on the other hand, is still going strong. He/she is beginning to feather out, and is keeping up with the two hens as they forage all over the place. Note how alert both of them become, as soon as a human comes near:

They continue to retreat to their nest behind the hay bales each night, and are scratching through fallen hay scraps early each morning by the time I come out to the barn. I've begun putting a small amount of chicken feed in a bowl for them. As soon as they see it coming, their clucks change to an excited rapid-tempo.

It's also interesting the way the two of them have both remained so dedicated to the chick. There doesn't seem to be a rivalry; it's a cooperative venture. In the past, when multiple hens have hatched broods around the same time, we've seen an alpha hen take command of all the chicks --- and then the other hen(s) have lost interest and gone back to the general laying population.

Who knows what surprises might emerge on the farm next week. In the meantime, we'll continue enjoying this one!

Chickens: Ten Weeks Later

Been awhile since I've posted, but spring is a crazy busy time on the farm. Butchering the meat chickens has been my biggest job lately, and we're finally down to the last handful. I find it's best to butcher no fewer than four and no more than six meat chickens per day. Fewer than that, and it's hardly worth the time it takes to set everything up, clean / sterilize the eviscerating table, etc. More than that, the scalding water begins to get too cold, my shoulders begin aching, and the flies really start to swarm.

I butcher the biggest chickens first, starting at about eight weeks of age. Most of them are males. After clearing them out, the pens become more spacious for the remaining birds --- and the females in particular have the chance to reach more of their growth potential. I don't weigh the fully-butchered birds, but each one gives us plenty of meat. Enough for our family and two guests, or enough for our family plus leftovers.

In case you're wondering why virtually everyone raises some version of Cornish Cross chickens for meat, and uses other breeds pretty much exclusively for eggs, here's a good picture of the size difference after ten weeks between a meat chicken and an egg chicken. I don't need to tell you which is which:

Here's another look inside the pen:

In the past, I would simply leave each butchered bird whole and freeze it that way. That's fine if you intend to roast each bird whole, which we used to do. But as time went on, we found we much preferred cooking the chickens in pieces (whether on the grill, or in some other way). Also, a cut-up chicken takes up a lot less room in the freezer than a whole chicken. Bottom line is, I'm now cutting each bird up into pieces as I butcher it. All the pieces go in a big pile as I work, and then I sort them at the end. In each gallon-sized freezer bag, I put: two drumsticks, two thighs, two wings, and two breasts. I tend to skin the breasts, but leave the skin on the other pieces. All the remaining carcases (and necks, and feet) go into a really large turkey-sized freezer bag, to be used later for soup (one big bag of carcass scraps makes one pot of soup). Then I take all the hearts and livers and put them in their own small package. It's taken years to settle on this approach, and for all I know I may refine it further next year, but for now it's perfect.

And freshly-butchered-and-grilled chicken sure tastes perfect. This was our Memorial Day dinner:

So, I should finish up butchering the last of the chickens in the next couple of days. Then we'll turn the egg pullets loose in the barn (they should begin laying this fall). And it'll be "mission accomplished" for the chicken tractors in the garden. (Fortunately, we didn't lose a single bird to predators.) Mrs. Yeoman Farmer will be able to plant her squashes very soon.

Note in the pictures above just how thick the grass is inside the pen. That's what it looks like when the pen is first moved to a new patch of ground. Now see what the ground looks like that they've already gone over (this view is looking north; our hay field is the long grass just beyond the garden fence):

No wonder it's called a "tractor" system. Here's another shot, looking the other direction, showing the other pen:

Just imagine how great those squashes will grow in this nice rich soil. Squash soup and roast chicken...now there's a combo for this fall.

Fortified

Every spring, the most frustrating battle we fight is with raccoons. They're coming out after a long winter, many have litters of young to feed, and they're all hungry. And our young birds make the perfect prey: small, utterly helpless, and delicious.

For the last two weeks, we've had 56 baby birds in a secure brooder in the barn. It's a 4x4 foot plywood box, two feet tall, with half the roof also of solid plywood. The other half is chicken wire, to allow fresh air, but even that wire is securely tied down most of the time to keep it cat-proof. (Think Sylvester and Tweety Bird; the barn cats love to hover on top of the brooder and gaze longingly at the young chicks inside.) Inside the brooder is a heat lamp, high protein (21%) poultry starter feed, and a two gallon watering fount.

Most of the birds themselves (40) are cornish cross chickens, the most common commercial meat breed. They'll be ready to butcher at 8 weeks. The other 16 are a light-colored egg laying breed; with the light-colored feathers, they'll be easy to distinguish from the black-and-white Barred Rocks we raised last year. If we didn't alternate colors, and always raised the same egg-laying breed, we'd never be able to tell how old the mature hens are. After two years, their productivity drops dramatically and they need to go in the soup pot. By staggering the breeds, we always know which batch of hens is due for butchering.

Anyway, we tend to move the chicks out to pasture pens at 10-14 days of age, when they're feathered well enough to do without the the supplemental heat. We make the call as to the exact day based on the weather. If it's sunny and warm, and no rain is forecast, they can go out as early as 9 or 10 days. (Birds we raise in the summer go out very early.) But if it's in the mid 40s or 50s and dreary, as it is this week, we give them a few extra days to feather up.

Yesterday was moving day. Our pasture pens are 4-foot by 8-foot, two feet high, with solid plywood running the length of each long side. The frames are 2x2s or 2x4s, but we tend to use the former a lot more than the latter; 2x4s are overkill, and make the pens too heavy. I used to cover the short ends of the pens with chicken wire, but the raccoons (remember the raccoons?) would simply rip the wire open. I've since covered all those short ends with an additional layer of small-mesh wire material. The smaller holes do unfortunately keep more insects out, but that's a tradeoff we're willing to make for raccoon protection. The tops of the pens consist of a full sheet of plywood, ripped in half. One half is screwed down to the frame; the other half just lays in place, weighed down by a couple of large rocks and/or by a bucket of chicken feed, until I need to open the pen to tend to the birds.

Note also the raccoon trap, baited with ground corn, set just in front of the pens. (We used to bait the traps with chicken or other meat, but we ended up catching barn cats every time. Corn is ideal because raccoons like it, but cats don't.)

The Yeoman Farm Children helped me haul two pens from one garden area, where the birds had been last year, to the area where Mrs. Yeoman Farmer wants them this year. She identified a substantial swath of ground, currently covered in weeds, that won't be needed for planting until late in spring. That will give the chicks several weeks to clear the weeds, all the while getting fresh greens in their diet as a supplement to their high-protein grain --- and dropping lots of nice fertilizer onto the garden beds. It's the perfect "tractor" system. We let the chicks mow down everything growing under the pen, then move the pen one length onto a new patch. And so forth. When they're really little, it takes the birds several days to clear everything; later, they'll easily clear the 4x8 area to bare ground in a single day. We would ideally let the chicken manure break down for a longer time, but MYF intends to use this area for squashes this year; squash goes in late, and isn't as sensitive to "hot" manure as --- say --- tomatoes are.

Last year, with MYF pregnant and largely out of commission, we reduced our garden planting substantially. We had a large, 24 foot-by-50 foot patch where pens could be moved all spring and summer. The pens with various batches of birds went around and around that area, wiping out every new little clump of weeds almost as soon as it appeared.

When MYF was finally able to inspect the area last fall, she was blown away by how completely the birds had devastated it. And by how much manure the birds had provided. After a winter of sitting and breaking down, it's going to be an excellent garden bed this year --- once we clear out the weeds that are already coming up thickly in that nice, fertile soil.

Back to this year's birds. Each pen is twice the size of the brooder, so all 56 chicks could have easily fit in a single pen with plenty of room left over. However, they grow so fast, that pen would've become crowded quite quickly. Instead of catching half the birds and moving them in a couple of weeks, it was much easier to simply divide the birds while I already had them caught now. We put 20 Cornish cross and 8 layer pullets into each pen, and they should have plenty of space for the next eight weeks. (Once we butcher the meat chickens, we'll turn the pullets loose in the barn with the other layers, and then move these pens to some other vacant garden plot and use them for turkeys.)

But then, learning from experience, I added some additional fortifications against raccoons. Last year, we lost more than two full pens worth of baby birds to multiple raccoon strikes; the most frustrating was the night when a raccoon wiped out a pen of very expensive baby turkeys --- and only THEN turned to the grain in the trap and got caught. After the first couple of strikes, I'd added the steel mesh. So, the next raccoon simply dug his way UNDER the side of the pen, came in, and massacred everything he could find. What to do about soft garden soil? Feeling like I was back in a Cold War arms race, I hit upon the ultimate defense: a foot-wide strip of plywood, laid flat along every edge of every pen, and weighed down with large rocks. (One sheet of plywood, ripped into four equal strips, sufficed for each pen.) At last, success! Moving each pen was now a bigger production, but we didn't lose a single bird to predators the whole rest of the year.

I was tired yesterday, and thought about saving some of the plywood strips for today. Especially since all the big rocks also needed to be moved. But as evening approached, I thought better of it. I'd simply seen way too many dead birds, and had invested way too much time and effort into the current batch. So, I put in the extra 15 minutes of toil and made sure every pen was fully fortified against the enemy. (Yes, this really does feel like war sometimes.)

Over the course of the evening, all the way up to midnight, I made a number of trips out to the garden to check on the birds. All were fine. No sign of any predators. But still, this morning, I held my breath as I went out to make my first inspection. To my great relief, everything was exactly as I'd left it the night before. Every bird was alive and active. And while it would've been nice to have caught a raccoon, even the trap was undisturbed.

And so it goes. I'm just happy that another season of poultry production is off and running, and that we're just six weeks away from our first backyard barbeque feast.

Best Roost Ever?

With both Michigan and Michigan State playing this evening in the Sweet Sixteen, even our chickens seem to be getting into the spirit of March Madness. Check out the place one of our Buff Orpington hens decided to roost for the night:

Yes, it helps that we have hay bales stacked up to within a couple of feet of the rim. But this is still the first time I've seen a chicken actually roost on the hoop.

The basketball hoop is in the cavernous upstairs part of the barn, and in the summer (when there's less hay blocking it), our kids enjoy shooting baskets. It's like having a huge gymnasium to run around in.

Most of our poultry lives in the downstairs part of the barn, which has a much lower ceiling and tends to stay significantly warmer. For whatever reason, though, we always seem to have a few rogue birds which insist on finding a way upstairs. Once there, those birds are extremely difficult to extract. At night, they find crazy-high places like this (and the rafters) to roost. During the day, they usually see us coming and scramble way up out of reach on top of the hay.

We'll catch her someday. She's way overdue for the soup pot, and I think she knows it. Chickens may be dumb, but they're not stupid.

Q: Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?

A: To stir up a whole lot of trouble.

Last summer, we had a wonderful surprise: one of our hens made a nest in one of the darkest corners of the barn, and three weeks later emerged with a nice brood of chicks. They were loads of fun to watch. Mother hen would take the chicks out every morning, and aggressively forage all across the property with them. At night, they would huddle up under her feathers to sleep. This went on for several weeks, and then suddenly...she was done. Just like that, she vanished back into the general population and left the juvenile chicks on their own.

After a few days of disorientation, the brood began thriving on its own. They continued to stick together as a distinct unit, and were easy to identify because many were of mixed breeds. (That crazy variety of colors was itself quite fun.) While the other chickens were content to stick around the barn and eat their layer ration, the half-dozen or so "hen brooded" juveniles continued foraging far and wide. They were impossible to contain, and sometimes we even had trouble getting them to roost inside the barn at night (we lost a couple of them to predators as a result).

As winter took hold full force, the "wild brood" began foraging still wider and discovered the corn field across the street from our farm. Commercial harvesting equipment tends to drop a fair amount of loose corn and even full cobs on the ground. Only the half-wild chickens ever foraged widely enough to discover this treasure trove...and, once they did, they started going over a number of times per day.

As the road that separates our farm from the corn field is a major feeder, with a speed limit of 45 MPH, it was only a matter of time before chickens started falling victim to traffic. We began finding dead chickens along the road, and as weeks went by the number of intrepid foragers dwindled to just three.

Then, yesterday morning, the issue suddenly became much larger than cleaning up dead chickens. Apparently (I was not home, and no member of our family witnessed the incident), one member of the foraging pack attempted to cross the road in front of a contractor's work truck. Whether the guy tried to slow down, or whether he may have even been trying to hit the chicken, we don't know. But, apparently, one way or another, the chicken ended up dead.

Contractor Dude then stopped his truck, stormed down our driveway, and banged on the back door of the house. Mrs. Yeoman Farmer was upstairs trying to keep a sleeping Yeoman Farm Baby asleep, so Homeschooled Farm Boy answered the door. Contractor Dude demanded to see one of the parents. When HFB explained that the parents were indisposed, Contractor Dude snarled that our chicken had smashed the front of his truck and caused all kinds of damage, and that unless one of the parents called him right away and paid for it he was "going to get the police out here." CD left a business card, and stormed off.

HFB was obviously flustered by this confrontation, and immediately called my cell phone. I assured him that I or his mother would take care of things when I got home, and that he shouldn't worry.

Although I questioned how a four pound chicken could do any significant damage to a pickup truck (I hit a flying pheasant once at 55 MPH, and it simply dented my hood), I figured anything might be possible. And with the rates that some auto body shops charge, we might get hit with a significant bill. So, as I drove home, I called our insurance agent to discuss our coverage and potential liability.

The agent assured me that in the event one of our animals inflicted damages on a person (i.e. dog bite) or property (stampeding goats?), our homeowners policy would cover it. But, he went on, under Michigan law we would almost certainly not have to pay anything in this particular case. Our state has an oddball set of "no fault" insurance rules, which means that every driver is responsible for collecting from his own insurance company --- regardless of who was at fault in an accident. Even if the other driver is 100% responsible for an accident, you can't collect a thing from him (other than a portion of the damages not covered by insurance). In the case of a collision with an animal, there's not even a provision to collect damages not covered by insurance. It doesn't matter if the animal in question is a deer, or if it belongs to someone who let it get out on the road. The only damages the driver can collect are from his own insurance company. If he isn't carrying comprehensive coverage, he's out of luck.

When Mrs. Yeoman Farmer called Contractor Dude to (1) express her regret that the truck had been damaged and (2) to explain that we were not legally responsible for those damages, CD cut her off. He launched into an accusatory tirade, claiming that our chicken did $1800 worth of damage to his truck. It'd apparently busted both the grille and the radiator (?!?), and he'd had to miss a meeting because of it. He said he wanted us to cover his insurance deductible, "or I'll have to get the police involved."

Mrs. Yeoman Farmer tried to explain that this was a civil matter and not a criminal case, and that therefore the police would not touch it, but he again angrily cut her off and and said he'd hired a lawyer to sue us for the $250 insurance deductible.

Whether that's true or not we don't know; Michigan law is pretty clear cut in saying he's not even entitled to that $250 (unless, as a representative from our insurance company joked, our chicken had been driving a car when causing the accident). I can't imagine a lawyer taking such a case. Just to be sure, I spoke with an attorney friend from our parish today; he confirmed that the guy would never prevail against us in court.

Contractor Dude made a few more threats, and then hung up on Mrs. Yeoman Farmer. She and I discussed the situation, and quickly came to the same conclusion: this guy is a bully, plain and simple. He's trying to brow-beat or scare us into coughing up some money, and thinks he can intimidate us enough to pay out quickly and wash our hands of him. (Why else would he mention bringing the police into a civil matter?)

Assuming we've read his motivations correctly, he's picked the wrong family. MYF and I genuinely feel bad that one of our animals seems to have been involved in this. (Though, since we have yet to see the damaged truck or the dead chicken --- which he says he hauled off to the police station as "evidence" --- we can only say "seems." And we're certainly not admitting any kind of blame or guilt.) If the guy had simply knocked on our door and explained the situation matter-of-factly to HFB rather than trying to threaten and intimidate, and had had a civil conversation when MYF called him, we might have agreed to pay out the $250 regardless of what Michigan law says. Assuming that one of our animals really had been the cause of someone else's loss (and we're not admitting it was), then compensating the other party would be the right thing to do.

But instead, we're feeling bullied --- and will fight any additional attempt that Contractor Dude makes to extort compensation from us. It's now about the Principle of The Thing, which is not letting our family get intimidated by this guy. If he again sets foot on our property, we will gently but firmly ask him to leave. If he refuses, and again attempts to intimidate us, we will be the ones calling the police. Unlike damages to a truck, trespassing on private property is a criminal matter.

Should a court, for some reason, order us to cover CD's deductible, we will honor and obey it. But nothing short of a formal legal judgment will cause us to pay out in this case.

It's a real shame that it's come to this. Almost everyone else we've met around here has been very nice and neighborly, and we've felt genuinely welcome in this community. I have no idea what's gotten into this guy, but I take solace in reminding myself that there are so few locals who are like him.

And, yes, we will be putting up a nice tight fence along the road as soon as spring gets here.

Happy Endings

Living on a farm has its share disappointments ... but the unexpected joys often greatly outweigh them. As we prepare for Fall, I wanted to share two happy follow-ups to stories detailed earlier this year.

First, remember the chicks that our Barred Rock mother hen hatched out in a dark corner of the barn? Of the eight original hatchlings, only one died along the way. We gave one to a friend, leaving six. When mother hen first let the chicks spread their wings and go their own way, I was admittedly a bit nervous. The chicks didn't seem to have a clue as to what they should do without her leadership. I found myself going out to check on them several times a day, just to make sure they hadn't done something stupid.

Happily, twelve weeks after hatching, all six have survived and are now large juveniles. They've continued to be a distinct community within our larger flock, roosting together on the fence that separates the kidding pen from the rest of the goats. Interestingly, it was the same pen in which their mother hatched them. It'll be interesting to see how much longer they stick together; even during the day, they never tend to be far from each other as they forage across the property. Perhaps thanks to the upbringing their mother gave them, they seem to range much more widely and proactively than the other chickens. Here they were this morning (the sixth one is just out of the picture):

But, by far, the biggest and happiest success story is Puddles the Goat Kid. Rejected by her mother and nearly dead when we found her in the barn during a storm in March, longtime blog readers will recall how we revived her, bottle-fed her back to life, and then transitioned her to House Goat and finally Barn Goat. Well, Puddles is now a strong and healthy six-and-a-half month old member of the herd:

But she hasn't forgotten her beginnings. Whenever I call her name, she immediately responds by standing up, nickering in a particular way, and running to greet me. She's not the kind of annoying pet goat that follows humans everywhere. She's definitely bonded with the other goats, and knows she's a goat. But she also knows she's the one and only ... Puddles!

What Have We Been Doing?

I apologize for the infrequent posting of late. Things have been busy here, but I owe you all an update. There's never a dull moment on a farm.

First off, can you believe this is Post Number Six Hundred? Many thanks to all of you who've been following us and our farming adventures all these years. Sometimes I get the sense that I've said everything that can be said, and that I don't have anything really new to talk about. Do my readers really want yet another post about pastured poultry pens? Or fences the goats have (again) broken through? But as long as you all are game for continuing to hear about our farm, I'll keep writing.

We've had a pretty bad year with turkeys. We started with about 20, and it's looking like we'll harvest no more than seven. Especially given how expensive the baby turkeys are, it's a pretty poor return on investment. We got 15 "surplus" heritage turkeys and 5 giant whites from a mail order hatchery this spring. The "surplus" deal is pretty good, as long as you're not picky; the hatchery sends a variety of heritage breed turkey hatchlings, basically leftovers not needed to fill orders from people who want a specific breed. It's actually a pretty good way to experience several different breeds, and it definitely makes things more fun. We got the giant whites, boring as they are, because it's always nice to have a few really big birds in the freezer.

Anyway, the poults did fairly well in the brooder, but turkeys are notorious for spending the first several weeks of their lives thinking up ways to die.  We moved them out to a pastured poultry pen for several more weeks, and lost a few more. By the time I turned them loose in the fenced goat area by the barn, we were down to five heritage turkeys (all Black Spanish) and four giant whites. I secured them each night in the barn, but a predator still managed to pick off one of the heritage birds. Another of them flew into the kennel and became a chew toy (and meal) for one of our dogs. Then, last week, one of the giant whites developed a serious leg problem; I butchered her on Monday, to make sure we got those 11# of meat before she got any worse.

Here are some of the ones we have left (note the significant size difference between the breeds):

So...are turkeys worth it? We never seem to get a good return on our money, no matter which hatchery we use. But I'll continue raising them, for a couple of reasons. First, there is absolutely nothing like roasting up your own turkey and serving it on Thanksgiving. We've been supplying the turkey for many years now, no matter where we've spent the big day, and it makes the feast special in a way that nothing else can. Even the year we were a thousand miles from home, in the process of adopting Yeoman Farm Baby, we took a turkey with us and the family we shared Thanksgiving with cooked it. Second, a turkey is a great size for serving when we have several visitors (or a large family) over for dinner. With both heritage turkeys and giant whites in the freezer, we can pick just the right size bird for the number of visitors. It's easy to roast, and there's never any shortage of meat.

For day-to-day meals, though, we've found that Cornish Cross broiler chickens are a far more practical size. One of them provides plenty of meat for our family, with some left over for lunches or soup. In the winter, we tend to roast them whole all afternoon in the Crock Pot --- but whenever the weather allows, we prefer to grill them outdoors.

We raised 25 broilers earlier this year, but lost over half of them along the way to predators or other "stupid stuff" like them piling up and suffocating each other during a thunderstorm. We also lost almost all of the replacement egg laying pullets we started at the same time. Faced with an aging and dwindling laying flock, and very few broilers in the freezer, I decided in early August that we should raise another batch before the weather turned cold.

I'm really glad we did. We got 25 more Buff Orpington pullet chicks, and we haven't lost more than one or two. By early next year, our egg production should kick into high gear. Likewise, almost all of the 50 cornish cross broilers have survived, and they're rapidly approaching optimal butchering size. Get a load of the size difference between the two breeds (all the birds in this pen are exactly the same age); this is why it makes so much sense to use Cornish Crosses, and not the males of an egg laying breed, as a primary meat bird:

We've spread the 70-75 surviving birds between three of our movable pastured poultry pens. Each pen is 4'x8', and I'm running all three of them along the edge of our hay field where harvesting hay is difficult. We try to move the pens every day; this supplies fresh greens for the birds' diet (a healthy supplement to the high protein feed which is their main source of calories), gets the birds off their manure, and ensures an even distribution of fertilizer along the field. It's a beautiful system. But here's what it looks like when we don't get around to moving the pen for an extra day:

Toward the right is what the weeds/grass look like after just one day. Toward the left is what happens if something keeps me from getting the pen moved. Note also how we've staggered these two pens as they're moving down the field.

Sometimes, I deliberately keep a pen in one place for extra time, to ensure the birds totally wipe out whatever is growing there. This pen, for example, is down in the impossible-to-cut corner of the hay field, where the grass is so long I can't even get a mower in there. The organic chicken tractor is taking those high weeds down and making sure they doesn't grow back for a long time:

The only problem with having 50 broiler chickens survive is that ... you have to butcher 50 broiler chickens. I try not to do more than five per day, or I tend to go crazy. And since I can't butcher every day, by the time I get to the last broilers they tend to be extremely large. To make sure I don't get too far behind the curve this time, I started butchering a couple of birds this week (along with that turkey with the leg problem), even though they're not optimal size yet.

But you know what? They were still a pretty good size for our family. We got a complete (and absolutely delicious) dinner of grilled chicken out of one of them last night, with a thigh left over for my lunch today. Which I will go in and enjoy momentarily.

But first, lest I leave you with the impression that our whole farm is livestock, I must tip my hat to Mrs. Yeoman Farmer (and the Yeoman Farm Children) for a smashingly successful year of gardening. I tried to capture as much of it as I could with one photo: the 400 row feet of potatoes at the top (which I am going to be enlisted to start digging soon), tomatoes and kale on the right (we cooked up some kale with our chicken last night...amazing), and squashes going a LONG way out of the picture to the far right. On the left is our bee hive, from which I will try to harvest honey this weekend. At the very bottom is a grape vine, clinging to the fence which separates the garden from the hay field (and the deer which run up and down it all year...except during hunting season.) In the background is my office; yes, I get this wonderful view every day as I do my work.

Here's a better shot of the squashes. We're going to be putting up a ton of these "winter keepers" in the pantry:

That's all for now! Thanks again to all who've been following us. I'm looking forward to sharing the next six hundred posts with you!

Garden Helper

We have a fairly simple division of labor on our farm: I manage the animals, and Mrs Yeoman Farmer manages the plants. MYF is usually very insistent that members of my "team" not intrude on and mess with her garden, and with good reason. Ever seen what happens when a dog discovers how nice it is to dig in freshly-tilled soil? Or when a flock of birds discovers bushes full of beautiful ripe tomatoes? We therefore built a tight fence around the garden, and patrol it diligently.

Then, this morning, MYF observed that our new mother hen was managing to squeeze through a tiny gap near the gate --- and her chicks were easily following her. MYF was about to shoo the hen out, but then she thought more about it. There are no more seeds that could be scratched out or uncovered. There is no fruit yet. The green tomatoes are probably unappealing. The potatoes are safely buried underground. Why not let Henny Penny take her brood on a bug-hunting safari?

So we did. She seems especially interested in the potato portion of the garden, which has lots of little insects hopping all over it.

I'm not sure we want to release the rest of the flock into the garden; some plants would be sure to get trampled. But for now, it's an awful lot of fun watching Henny Penny and her brood do "organic pest control" for us.

New Arrivals

My apologies for the slow posting of late; our family just returned a few days ago from a big vacation in my home town of Seattle. It's remarkable we were all able to get away from the farm for so many days in the middle of summer, but the trip was a big one and we'd been planning it for nearly a year. What made it possible was finding a friend we could trust to come take care of our animals (including milking three goats) twice a day.

It never ceases to amaze me how much can change on a farm in just nine days. The growth in the garden was dramatic, especially the potatoes. (And the weeds!) But what really struck me was how much larger the ducklings, goslings, and turkey poults are, and how much more feathered they had become. The goslings are still smaller than the mature geese, of course, but are nearly as well feathered:

I'm going to be turning the female ducklings loose in the next couple of days. We'll keep the drakes in these moveable pens until they reach butchering size in a few weeks.

The biggest surprise, however, was in the deepest and darkest corner of the barn. Back in the kidding pen, a Barred Rock hen had made a nest...and hatched out eight little chicks!

She's been taking them for walks, and I managed to get a little video. Her deep, reassuring clucks --- and the chicks' eager little peeps --- are priceless:

I could watch them for hours. And it's so blisteringly hot here, I'm not sure I want to do anything more strenuous than watch the poultry grow.

Thanks for Your Service

Now that my professional work has gotten caught up, I've been turning my attention to getting long-postponed farm projects caught up as well.

My number one priority: the old laying hens.

We color-code our breeds, so it's easier to tell how old the birds are. Once hens are mature, it's nearly impossible to distinguish a yearling from a three year old. Hens have a productive laying life of about two years, and drop off dramatically in the third year. Our approach is to raise a batch of one breed in the spring of Year 1, which will start laying in the fall of that year. When then start a different colored breed in the spring of Year 2. In Year 3, we either try another new breed or go back to what we had in Year 1. Either way, in the fall of Year 3, we butcher the hens from Year 1.

If we repeat the Year 1 breed in Year 3, as we did this time with Barred Rocks, we must race against the clock to butcher the old hens before they become indistinguishable from the new pullets. The key features are the size of the comb and wattle on their heads. Also, younger birds tend to have yellow feet but older birds' feet tend to get white with age. And once you pick up an older hen, it's often obvious from the weight and fattiness of the belly that this bird has been around for awhile.

My work was so busy in recent months, I put the butchering off way too long. The pullets' combs are starting to grow out, and I'm worrying that I may kill some of them by mistake. With the nice weather yesterday, I knew I had to get caught up. Homeschooled Farm Girl helped me chase down and catch six older hens, and then assisted me as we butchered them. Five are destined for the freezer, and we started a stock pot immediately with the sixth. Overnight, it turned into some of the richest and most delicious chicken soup imaginable. I had some for lunch today, and it'll be the centerpiece of tomorrow's dinner.

This morning, I managed to pluck an additional four hens off their roosts. Guess how I'm going to be spending my sunny Wednesday afternoon?

 

There may be a few more older hens to butcher after today, but I'll need to wait until tonight (when they again come home to roost) to get a good look. In the meatime, we appreciate all the wonderful eggs our Barred Rocks gave us. And we'll appreciate the chicken soup just as much.

380 Million Reasons to Own Your Own Hens

380,000,000 is the estimated number of eggs now being recalled in response to a salmonella outbreak.

Grocery stores across the state yanked eggs off their shelves after one of the largest U.S. producers recalled 228 million eggs connected to a salmonella outbreak that sickened hundreds of people across the nation, including as many as 266 in California.

On Wednesday the Associated Press reported that the recall had expanded to 380 million eggs.

The eggs, produced by Wright County Egg of Galt, Iowa, also were linked to a number of illnesses reported in June and July in Colorado and Minnesota, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The outbreak led to a surge in reports of infection with the bacteria salmonella enteritidis this summer — at least four times the expected number, the agency said in a statement Monday.

Salmonella can cause fever, diarrhea and abdominal pain, and can be fatal to young children and older people. No deaths so far have been reported in connection with the egg recall.

I've posted about egg factories before, and have often extolled the virtues of free-range or cage-free eggs. There isn't much I can add in this regard, other than to say: this is one of those times when we really, really appreciate having our own healthy livestock and knowing exactly where our food is coming from.

A few quick thoughts, however:

First, if you want an eye-opening experience, do a Google search on the phrase "DeCoster Farms," which is the agribusiness conglomerate of which Wright County Egg is part. Pretty remarkable how many different controversies this one company has been involved in. But I guess that's not surprising, when a "farm" (sic) gets so large and disconnected from its customers.

If you can't keep your own laying hens, I'd strongly encourage you to buy your eggs directly from a small farmer who does. Yes, those eggs can be a little more expensive, especially if the farmer is trucking them in to an urban farmers market. But they don't have to be, if you're able to go directly to the source. Around here, there are several farmers selling eggs for $1.50/dozen. The biggest hassle is making an extra stop, not coming up with extra money. But make that extra stop. Have that extra conversation with that extra person. See how their chickens are being kept. And I bet you'll never worry about your eggs making you sick.

And if you think you can't have your own chickens...think again. You'd be amazed at how creative some folks have become at keeping them stealthily in urban or suburban environments. And to my readers back home in Seattle: kudos to your city council for just unanimously voting to allow the keeping of up to eight hens on properties within the city limits! It really is becoming possible to be a yeoman farmer nearly anywhere.

Breed a Better Chicken?

Many of us rely on the Cornish x Rock "monster birds" as a primary meat chickens. As dull and stupid of a breed as they are, they get amazingly large in a remarkably short period of time. Nearly every hatchery carries a similar version.

We've never tried breeding our own meat birds, or experimented with "heritage" chicken breeds for meat. We have on occasion ordered a straight run (mixed male-female) chicks from an egg layer breed like Buff Orpington or Barred Rock, and butchered the cockerels for meat. But they were disappointingly small, and took a long time to get even that big. And, in the meantime, we had lots of juvenile crowing and cockfights to deal with.

Several years back, a friend recommended a new hatchery; the breeder was experimenting with a "sustainable" meat chicken that got almost as big as the "monster" birds almost as fast, but that was a better forager and could actually breed (and breed true). [The Cornish x Rock birds are hybrids, and at maturity are so enormous...well, let's just say that natural breeding would be an interesting challenge. Just like with broad breasted turkeys.] We ordered a batch of chicks from that hatchery, and were pleased with everything about them. Much more interesting than the typical "monster" birds. In fact, we were going to order all our future meat chicks from that guy. But then...he sent word to all his customers that he was shutting down his hatchery and moving to China. Someone over there had offered an opportunity to set up a breeding program --- and he also wanted to do Christian missionary work there. We never heard from him again, and never heard of anyone else attempting to carry on what he'd started. (If this story rings a bell with anyone, or if any of my readers know what became of that breeder, particularly if he's gone back into business, please post a comment with the info.)

Anyway, I post this because a reader dropped me a note. He and his family have begun small-scale farming in our area, and our families have enjoyed getting together. He's raised some Cornish Cross birds, but is interested in finding or developing a meat chicken that's more interesting than the typical hatchery offering:

I was wondering if you've every tried any of the heritage breeds for meat. Based on my reading, I think the Delawares are good, but may take a few extra weeks to get to full size. I've also seen discussions of the "Freedom Rangers", but their breeding program seems a bit involved. Any ideas or suggestions?

Readers: does anyone know of a hatchery that is attempting to develop such a bird? Or have any of you experimented with breeding your own hybrid meat birds, based on large heritage chicken breeds such as Delaware, Cornish, etc? Or are you aware of blogs/research postings from people who have done such experiments? He and I would both be very interested in hearing about it.

Co-Brooding Continues

If I could take a quick break from the depressing events of Saturday and Sunday...I'm happy to report that our two mother hens continue to co-brood their eleven chicks as a team. It's really remarkable to watch, and we've never seen anything like it. I'd be interested in hearing if anyone else has had multiple hens brood their chicks together like this.

Unlike the intrepid and fiercely independent hen who insisted on staying outside with her brood even in the pouring rain (naturally, so far from the barn door that she couldn't be moved indoors even if she'd wanted to go, especially not with six little chicks who'd be going every which way once we picked her up), and who paid for it with her life, the co-brooders have been good about coming in at night. The first couple of days they needed a little nudging, but now they bring the brood in on their own around dusk.

Lots of fun being able to look outside my office window at the garden and see this:

Without a Trace

Farming is an ever-continuing reminder that "the Lord gives, and the Lord takes." Life is a miracle, and a mystery. And we are not the master of it.

We've had several entertaining weeks of watching our intrepid hen raising her chicks. She only lost one of the seven (when Scooter got a little enthusiastic about herding the chicks for her), and the remaining six were fully feathered. She insisted on sleeping outside with them, every night, regardless of weather. At least two different times, she allowed herself to be soaked by thunderstorms...but the chicks remained cozy under her wings. Really inspiring, actually.

I got to where I looked for her every morning when I came out to do the chores; she had a couple of favorite places she'd take the chicks to begin foraging at first light. Then, during the day, I'd sometimes watch the whole brood go past my office window.

Anyway, I came out this morning...and there's now no sign of her or the chicks whatsoever. None. No dead bodies. No pile of feathers. But no hen, and no chicks. (The two co-brooding hens are also sleeping outside, in a different place from where the original hen hung out, but they still have all eleven of their little chicks.)

I hope she's just lost in the hay field or something, and soon finds her way out. But I've got a bad feeling about this. I doubt we'll see her again.

And yet, as upset as I am about her disappearence and losing those chicks, I can't stop thinking about this...

And the Lord said: Thou art grieved for the ivy, for which thou hast not laboured, nor made it to grow, which in one night came up, and in one night perished.

... and being grateful that all the human members of our family are safe, healthy, and accounted for. Because, at the end of the day, that's what matters. Each of us is worth more than every hen and every chick ever hatched. And being watched over accordingly.

Worth reflecting on today, I think.

Double Brood!

In the last few days, we've had two more Buff Orpington hens hatch out their broods. (For those curious, the other hen with chicks continues doing very well; all her chicks are fully feathered and thriving.) These two new hens went broody at the same time and made their nests right next to each other. Not surprisingly, their eggs all hatched together as well.

What's fascinating is that the two hens are now co-brooding the eleven chicks between them. We've never seen this kind of behavior before. We've had one aggressive hen steal chicks from a passive hen, but never seen two hens cooperate and stick together to raise a brood. Hens are usually very territorial, and chase interlopers away. So, it'll be interesting to see if they continue co-brooding, or if one gives up altogether, or if they split the brood and go their separate ways.

They emerged from the barn this morning with the eleven chicks, and went right to work foraging at the woodpile. Lots of bugs and worms there. (Note the chick to the far left has a worm in its beak.)

If you look closely at the photo below, you can see a worm in front of the white chick. One of the hens is trying to point it out and tear it up.

Here is a close-up of the fuzzy little chick working on that big worm, once he figured out what Mom was getting for him:

Finally, I'll leave you with a short video of the two hens scratching up the dirt and the chicks going crazy for it. Interestingly, they are totally ignoring a bowl of high protein crumble that I put out nearby. These guys know where the really good stuff is.

I could sit out and watch them do this for hours.

Cold Snapped

We had a nice streak of beautiful weather...and then things turned nasty on Friday. Cold, rainy, high winds...no fun at all. This morning we actually awakened to a Mothers Day frost; Mrs Yeoman Farmer said she was glad we hadn't gotten the potatoes planted yet.

We may not have lost any plants last night, but the cold snap did claim an unfortunate casualty: ten chicks. We had about 30 meat bird chicks and 30 Barred Rock pullet chicks in a pasture pen, and they'd been thriving. At a month old, they're fully feathered and were perfectly capable of surviving temps in the thirties. But this morning, when I opened the pen to feed them, I discovered that the whole mass of chicks had piled up in a corner of the pen last night seeking warmpth. Nine little Barred Rock pullets, and one big cornish cross meat chick, got crushed to death.

Still plenty left, but picking up all those little bodies made for a very unpleasant start to the morning.

On a happier note, Intrepid Hen continues doing a masterful job. She's been sleeping outside with her little brood every night, even in pouring/driving rain. Some mornings I come out and she's soaked --- but the little chicks are peeping around happily. Last night, she camped out next to our pasture pen containing ducklings and goslings. I suspect the ground was fairly warm where we'd moved the pen off of the previous day's duck/gosling droppings; she and her brood probably got some nice heat coming off that manure. Anyway, the chicks were peeking out at me from between her feathers this morning, and then ran around looking for grain the ducklings/goslings had dropped.

Our Intrepid Hen

The intrepid Buff Orpington hen continues to do an excellent job. She's been taking her brood of seven chicks all over the barn, and has been letting little stand in her way. The chicks, for their part, are sticking close and not getting lost. (We've not had such good luck in the past with ducklings).

This morning, she had the brood all the way up a slope, in front of the barn. It was windy and chilly this morning, but the large red wall and southern exposure made for a nice little heat island. How she knew to take her chicks there, I'll never figure out. And she's had them there all morning, scratching around looking for food (yes, I put some feed down for them as well).

There's nothing quite like walking back and forth from my office building to the house, and looking over at the barn and seeing this:



Next up, we're going to give some goslings to a broody goose and see what happens. We've been getting the goslings off to a good start under heat lamps and with high protein feed, but I'd like to get them out in the next week or so. That should make for some interesting video, so stay tuned.

Another Brood

We've had a few Buff Orpington hens go broody lately (in addition to the one that insisted on hatching a clutch of eggs last fall). Given that we've got eggs coming out our ears, I figured there was no harm in allowing them to set.

Note to readers who are learning about/taking up farming in preparation for civilizational collapse, or who simply want to hatch their own chicks: Buff Orpingtons are a wonderfully self-sufficient breed. We've found them to be excellent setters and mother hens.

Broody #1 started hatching her chicks a few days ago, and yesterday took her chicks for their first stroll off the nest. I checked on her last night, and she had all seven of her chicks safely under her wings; there is really nothing quite like listening to the deep, reassuring clucks that a hen makes to her brood in a darkened barn.

Today, she took all of them for an outdoor adventure:

She quickly found a spot where Little Brother spilled some grain, and had the chicks getting their first good meal. I'm just glad the spilled feed didn't go to waste. Then she took them into a weedy/overgrown area between the barn and the garage.

I managed to shoot a brief, low-tech video. (It's the very first one I've uploaded to YouTube.) My sense was that a still photo wouldn't give the full sense of how fascinating a mother hen's behavior is. She clucks constantly, and is constantly pointing out new food, and scratching to uncover new food. And watch the way the chicks respond to her!



About five minutes after I shot this, she seemed to have decided the chicks had been exposed to the 55 degree temps for long enough. Like a football quarterback, she called a huddle --- and all of them found their way back under her feathers. No telling how long she's going to sit out there before scratching around again. But she's picked a safe spot for the huddle; it's in a corner, and she has a full view of everything approaching.

Hard to think of any place better for homeschooling than a farm is. We never run out of real life education here.