The Secret to Chicken Happiness only costs a buck

Now that I'm back to blogging and gardening I thought I would do a little PSA on the Secret to Chicken Happiness. I'd like to think my girls are happy with their little chicken lives. They have clean bedding, fresh water, plenty of food and I don't think they spend much time worrying about predators, but none of that is the key to a really and truly happy chicken.

But if you really want a to send your chicken into a frenzied state of happiness, you've gotta give them a treat that will put them on the quick train to chicken nirvana.

For my girls it's the white curdled dairy product of the gods - cottage cheese. They particularly like the Breakstones 100 calorie single serve cups of cottage cheese mixed with fruit that you can buy for a buck at the grocery store. If I was the type that routinely bought cottage cheese for myself, I'd just give the chickens the leftovers, but since I don't, I buy one of these every couple of weeks as a special treat. Clementine likes that they're only 100 calories, because being a full-figured gal already, she has to watch her waistline so she can still fit in the door to the coop.


I once had a young cashier ask me if they were any good. I responded "I don't know, they're for my chickens, but I can ask them and report back to you." She was about 16 and gave me that look that teens give that lets you know you're a big loser in their world. I think she may have slightly snorted and there was definitely an eyeroll involved.


Clearly this young cashier has never had a truly happy chicken.


They key is to mix the fruit and the cottage cheese together for them because they're lazy and will ignore the spoon if you set it down next to the cottage cheese with instructions on how to mix it together.

When they're finished pecking each tiny fruit-splattered curd from the inside of the cup, they'll be covered from comb to wattle in goo and spend the rest of the day ba-gawking happily in the sun.

Ahhh... a zen chicken moment - for a buck.

Always the chicken race bridesmaid…

Today was a sad day for me - for the second year in a row. What are the chances that all the cards would fall into place in just the perfect way AGAIN so that I would miss out on what is obviously one of the most important and exciting days in my small town?? Clearly the answer to that question is 100%.

Today was the Charity Chicken Race in my neck o' the woods. And it fell on the exact day and time as my oldest son's soccer game…just like it did last year - my first year owning chickens and being aware of the race. I mean I'm a chicken lover and I live in a town that is so dedicated to chickens that they hold a chicken race and I CAN'T GO! But as any mom will tell you, kids come first, so there I was on the sidelines cheering my 6-year-old's soccer team while hoards of locals darted around a racetrack holding decorated chickens experiencing full-on chicken nirvana.


And to top it all off, my son's team lost their game today, although my son did score one of the two goals for his team. But his best friend was on the winning team, so he wasn't sad that he lost since his friend was happy, and the kids are still young enough that they're just happy to be out there playing. How could I miss that?


Clearly I could not.

But I'll admit as I was sitting there, I was thinking how badly I wanted to decorate a chicken. And race a chicken. And buy chicken memorabilia. And listen to the chicken calling competition. And chuck a chicken. And fully immerse myself in local chicken culture.


Maybe next year the planets will align correctly and the game and the race will be on different days - or different times at least.

Until then I'll just chase my girls around the yard for kicks and fantasize about what would have been...

The Great White Beast Strikes Again

Last night was one of those nights - you know the nights where you just shake your head and wonder if other people experience such weirdness in their own lives…

I had just put the boys in the bath and let the dogs out for a run in the backyard. Our obedient Shepherd barked to let me know it was time to let them back inside and I obliged. However, Saffie was not with him. This isn't highly unusual since she is prone to loping around the yard in search of mischief, but I hadn't fed them yet and since food is her priority, it was weird not to be bowled over as she dashed past me into the kitchen.

Hmmm….

I decided to do a quick jog around the yard while calling her name and whistling madly, which always gets her attention.

Nothing.

I started to get a bit concerned that somehow she'd wiggled her tubby body under the fence and escaped from the back yard. Our fence line is very secure, but that seemed like the only viable option since she's not the type of dog who could ever scale a 6-foot privacy fence.

Finally I walked around to the corner of the yard and called her and she appeared out of nowhere looking very guilty with something orange on her nose and her mouth. My first thought "GAH! She's eaten an orange kitty!" As she ran over I saw that this orange stuff stuck on her nose wasn't fur, but was feathers.

Oh dear.

She bolted from me back to the corner of the yard and I saw a mess of orange feathers there on the grass.


Next to the feathers I saw an orange lump wedged flat against the grass pinned toward the bottom of the fence. Oh man. It was a chicken, and not one of my girls, but obviously one of my Korean neighbor's chickens. And it was missing a lot of tail and back feathers. I could see from her underdeveloped comb and wattles that she was a young pullet - not of egg-laying age yet.


Saffie continued to nip at the poor thing so I grabbed her by her scruff and ran back into the house with her and tossed her into her crate. Then I grabbed the camera and headed back outside to rescue the terrified chicken.

The poor thing was panting and shivering and had a bloody bald spot on her back where her feathers were torn out. I was torn between being glad that Saffie's first instinct wasn't immediately killing and eating the chicken - and being slightly disappointed that she chose hurt it at all.


I picked her up and petted her and then realized I had no idea what to do with this thing. I ran around in circles a few times hoping to get inspired, but nothing jumped out at me. I set her down on the grass to see if she could walk, and she could stand, but was too shocked to move at all. Then I thought I should toss her over the fence back into the neighbor's yard, but she was in shock and I imagined her falling 6 feet to the ground and thudding into an injured, bloody lump on the grass and that didn't seem like the best idea.


So I ran onto our screened-in patio and put her there while I got the boys into their pajamas and tried to figure out what to do with the chicken. I told them what happened and that we'd have to wrap the chicken in a towel and drive her to the neighbor's house (since trotting around in the dark with a wrapped-up chicken and two little boys in PJs didn't appeal to me).

We went on the patio to get her and she was gone. Of course she was. A totally screened in patio and no chicken. The three of us searched for a good 10 minutes and found her inside a roll of art paper in the boys' easel.

We wrapped her in a towel and got in the car - me with the chicken on my lap - both boys giddy about the whole experience.

(Awesome photo taken by two small boys fighting over one cell phone camera - and yes, I'm appropriately wearing a chicken tshirt).

I pulled into the neighbor's driveway and told them the story. They were very thankful to have her back, but didn't seem as concerned as I would have been, which is fine because my chickens are family pets and their chickens are simply egg producers. I don't think they name their chickens, but I can tell they still like and respect them. The neighbor didn't seem very concerned over the missing feathers and bloody back either since she said that the chickens peck each other from time to time too, but again, different chicken-owner relationship at their house. She thanked me profusely and we left.

Saga over.

Damn puppy.

Focus on the Other Two Beauties

I've noticed that my blonde beauty, Clementine, gets all the chicken-related attention around here. When people visit us, Clementine is the one that gets awkwardly held and fussed over. Clementine is the one who gets the most photo op's. And even on the blog, Clementine is the focus most often that not. It's easy to see why - she's a big blonde beauty who likes to be around people and actually enjoys the attention. Maggie and Clementine are the two more "chickeny" chickens who are harder to catch when I need to round them up and definitely don't fight over who gets to sit on my lap first.

I thought it was only fair to focus on the other two this time around because they are beautiful silly chickens who deserve center spotlight for once.

Sookie, my generic Easter Egger, looked like a chipmunk when she was a chick. She's the smallest hen, but oddly enough she reigns supreme at the top of the pecking order. She's faster than the other two and impossible to catch if she doesn't want to be caught. Luckily for me, all three of our chickens trust me enough to let me round them up when I need to. I chose her because I was told there was a huge chance she'd lay greenish-blue eggs and I was beyond excited about that. You've seen our eggs - all brown, so that hope came and went pretty quickly.


She has a beautiful set of feathers on her with a lion's mane sort of vibe around her neck. She has a small comb and wattle - I believe it's called a peacomb and her legs are a greenish-grey.


Poor Sookie desperately needed to lay and egg while I was taking photos and humored me just long enough and then bolted for the nest. Of course her two curious sisters stand there staring at her in her most delicate of moments. Can't a chicken have an ounce of privacy these days?

Maggie, my Barred Plymouth Rock, is the most inquisitive of all the chickens. If there is something unusual going on, she's the first one to investigate. She's definitely second-in-command to Sookie and spends a lot of time following her around.

She thinks anything I have in my hand might be a treat, so even a blade of grass in my fingers is enough to send her hurtling across the yard for a quick peck. She really is a curious little thing with gorgeous coloring and a bright red floppy comb. I know none of my chickens are show quality, but I'm not in this for the ribbons or the breeding, so it's irrelevant.


As soon as Clementine realized that she wasn't going to be the focus of my photo shoot she shot back into the chicken coop to sulk.


She can be so dramatic sometimes.

A discrepancy in the paint department

You've heard of Christmas in July. How about Easter in September? There has been a mix-up in the Internal Paint Department of our chickens lately and we've had some interesting surprises in the nest boxes. This diagram of the inside of a chicken explains what's been happening to cause these issues. You can see the Hen Paint Department a bit above the man's hands in the photo. Clearly, we have a disturbance within ours.


Take the striped egg from a week ago. It looks like this one got stuck in the paint department a bit too long. The stripe forms an almost perfect line across the top of the egg with a much darker botom to the egg.


Then today we found a white egg in the nest. Clearly this one bypassed the paint department altogether. You can see it in the picture below next to a regular brown egg and one of our recent speckled eggs, which was obviously caused by some bad airbrushing.


I've had a word with all the hens but none will fess up as to who's the culprit. They're a very tight knit trio and their beaks are sealed during my interrogations. Although, Clementine did admit to laying a bizarre oblong egg a few weeks ago, she's mum on the rest.

The Curious Case of the Siamese Chickens

When I went out to the chicken coop this morning with a big bowl of strawberry Greek yogurt, I expected my usual greeting from my three adoring hens. But instead, Clementine was the only one who shot out of the coop to greet me and go beak-first into the yogurt. Maggie and Sookie were AWOL.

As you may have read here before, although we have two nest boxes, only one is deemed worthy. So logic dictated that one chicken might be laying an egg, but that didn't explain two absences. And especially not after I sang my awesome "chiiiiiiiiick chick chick chick chick" song that always causes them to bust out of their coop with feathers flying.

Strange, for sure.

I decided to open up the nest box to see who was laying an egg.

I found this.


Two chicken butts in one nest.

And from the looks of it, both trying to lay an egg at the exact same time.

I decided to go around front to get a bird's eye view of this oddity.


Yup. That right there is two chickens in one nest both laying eggs at the same time. I guess when you've gotta go, you've gotta go.

Sookie looked irritated with the whole experience. She kept checking behind Maggie to see if she was finished.


The best part is that there is a vacant nest right next to them.


But chickens are fickle things. They rarely make sense, but that's why I like them.

I'm back from vacation - and a chicken update

I'm baaaaack! My family and I spent the past week in North Carolina on our summer family vacation. It was a 9-hour drive each way and my boys did great in the car, which I was quite apprehensive about with a trip this far. We had a wonderful time enjoying the change of scenery and seeing the boys experience hills and mountains for the first time.


Here's a snapshot of the mile-high swinging bridge at Grandfather Mountain that we crossed to climb on the rocks on the other side. It was a new experience for my Florida-born boys to feel the winds on top of a mountain and to see clouds below them. My 6-year-old wondered where all the palm trees were and wondered why he could smell Christmas trees on our hike. I guess he never realized that they don't grow in parking lots under a tent.


We also took the boys panning for gold at the Reed Gold Mine - the first place gold was discovered in the United States. They say if you're lucky you'll come home with a gold flake in a little vile of water after panning through a large pile of rock and sand. And oddly enough, BOTH of my boys found a piece of gold, which was an awesome experience. They also got quite a kick out of an outhouse at the gold mine with some interesting toilet paper.

*****


When we got home I ran straight out to the chicken coop to see how my recuperating girls were doing. Oddly enough, they seem to be handling this case of avian pox really well. All three chickens have some pox on them, but it's by no means severe. They seem better than when we left and it's definitely a very mild case. Thanks to everyone for the kind words of support and concern and all the emails asking for an update on my girls!!

I've got 9,000 loads of laundry to do and a ridiculous number of bags to unpack, but it's all worth it since our vacation was superb and we came home to healthy, happy pets!

I think we have Avian Pox.

Ugh. I'm so stressed. I went out to let the girls into their run this morning and I noticed that Maggie's comb and wattles looked dirty. I picked her up and noticed that it wasn't mud - it was little black scabs. I immediately wondered if it was Avian Pox.



So far Clementine and Sookie aren't showing visible symptoms, but they may have the disease since it's very highly contagious. I am not sure if I should quarantine Maggie or just let the disease run its course. I read that it can take weeks to months to run its course and that seems like a long time to keep Maggie in solitary.

I'm new to Avian Pox, but learned a bit about them when Dani (from Gardening Under the Florida Sun) recently dealt with it with her backyard chickens.

I've since read up a bit more on it and have learned a few things about Avian Pox:

1) It's usually transmitted by wild bird or mosquitos. We're very buggy and swampy here so I'm voting for skeeters as the culprit.
2) It's a virus, so you can't do much about it. Antibiotics won't help unless the birds get secondary sores.
3) It's usually not fatal, but can be very uncomfortable for the birds.
4) There are 2 types of this pox. Wet pox and Dry pox. The dry pox is usually survivable for mature birds. The wet pox gets into the mouths and makes it hard for the birds to eat and drink, so you definitely don't want the wet pox. Both are often deadly for chicks.
5) Once the birds recover from Avian (or Fowl) Pox, they're immune.
6) Birds may still lay while sick, but many lay much less or stop completely until recovering.
7) You can put iodine on the scabs to make them dry up quicker.
8) Humans and other furry pets can't catch it.
9) There are some sort of vitamins you can add to their water to help them fight the pox, but I've yet to figure out the details of this one.
10) It just plain sucks.

So here I am converting my chicken coop into an Avian MASH unit and trying to learn what I can about this to try and get my girls through it. If any of you are Pox Pro's, please feel free to leave me any advice or tips in the comments section. Thanks!

Important egg safety lesson

I know some of you out there have chickens and some of you plan to get chickens one day, so I feel like it's up to me to bring you this important public service message about egg safety. I figure it's the least I can do to save you from going through what I went through tonight.

I always end my day by going out to the chicken coop and putting my girls to bed. I check that they have food and water and collect any eggs that were laid during the day. Then I lock the door to the coop to keep them safe from nocturnal evil-doers while they're sleeping.

Tonight I collected two perfect freshly-laid brown eggs and noticed their waterer was just about empty. The problem is I had my cell phone in one hand, the two eggs in the other hand, and I didn't have a free hand to carry the empty waterer. I decided to put the eggs in my pocket, which I often do, so that I could have a free hand.

I then bent down to unhook the waterer from the clip that suspends it in the middle of the chicken coop.


CRACK!


DAMMIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Important egg safety lesson: If you're going to put eggs in your pants pocket, don't bend over.

The best part was that I had a broken egg and an unbroken egg in my pocket.


Fishing out the slippery yolk-covered unbroken egg was loads of fun.


I ended up with egg on my shirt, all over my jeans and my right hand, and running down my leg and dripping on my shoe.

Like sharks in freshly-chummed waters, the dogs honed in on the scent immediately. They then proceeded to madly lick my gooey slimy pocket as the yolk dripped on their heads.


It really was a delightful way to end the evening.


I can't promise I'll never do that again.

Of course, I'm not proud to admit that.

Spontaneous Combustion

Here we are in the thick of July, and in my garden July means death. Now I realize that the calendar says June, but it must be July because it's hotter than hot, so clearly there has been some sort of atmospheric time and space mix-up. It can't only be June and be this hot. Because if it's June and it's this hot, what on earth will July and August be like?

Here's our thermometer at about 6:30 yesterday evening in the shade on our patio.


I'm afraid that this month's Garden Blogger's Death Day will be chock full of burned and badly scorched corpses. Because, honestly, it's too hot for me to even go outside and take care of the garden. It's so hot that we have heat warnings, which we never get here in Florida, because Floridians can handle the heat. But apparently even we can't handle this.

Take June 14th. Here was the temperature. Focus on the heat index - that's what it feels like outside once they factor in the humidity.


Then June 15th just before dinnertime. Again - the heat index. It's our version of wind chill.


We went out that night around 7:30 pm and came in before 8 pm because we were all so hot we were seeing stars and feeling sick. The heat index hadn't dropped below 100 degrees yet. The air is thick, soupy and stagnant from morning until night. There is no relief when the sun goes down.

The dogs don't want to go outside.

The boys really don't want to go outside, which is making for long summer days off school.

The chickens are panting non-stop. And I'm a little worried about them, but I'm sure if I keep their water topped up and bring them one cold treat a day, they'll get through this.

But their panting is quite pathetic to watch. Did you know they pant like dogs when they get hot?


You can hear their breathing, hot and heavy and loud.


You can see their little chicken tongues beating up and down.


It's really just too much for them. When they sit on their nest in their cozy little nest box, it's like an Native American sweat box and suddenly less appealing to them. Clementine is clearly not impressed.


Yes, that is Clementine laying an egg! She's back in the game!
So the last thing I'm able to do in this heat is keep up with the garden. I'm honestly afraid to have any metal garden tools that close to the tinder. One spark with a wreckless swipe of a hoe and it'd be curtains for the raised beds. And let's not forget we're under water restrictions, so we're really not *supposed* to water anything more than twice a week. I need to find something that can grow in hotter than hot, dry, baking sun, crispy soil, weather. And don't say okra - I tried it. It worked, but I don't like it. And don't say jalapenos, because I don't do spicey. Right now I'm leaning toward starting a cactus garden until Fall when I can try growing green things again.

The Mysterious Case of the Fairy Egg

The girls have been a little off their laying schedule since Clementine danced with the broody devil and lost her groove. We always got about an egg a day from them, but since Clementine's momentary insanity, we've had a really funky laying schedule. We'd go three consecutive days without an egg - then maybe one egg - then an eggless day - then an egg - then no eggs for a couple of days. Things are just out of whack in Cluckingham Palace.


I find it odd that the other two chickens have been so affected by Clementine's behavior. Maybe her sitting on their nest non-stop threw them off. Maybe she was giving off strange chicken vibes. Who knows? I just know that they aren't quite back in the swing of things yet and until I get three eggs a day again I won't consider this episode over.


But as you've all probably noticed, chickens are much more complicated than most people anticipate. They're full of personality and quirks and are always throwing something new your way. Take the recent incident of the fairy egg.


I was working in the garden the other day when I heard one of the girls singing an egg song. I knew someone had laid an egg so I walked out to the coop to get the egg and bring it into the house. When I opened the door to the nest box I found this cute little egg you see in the right side of my hand:


Here it is placed next to a regular egg so you can see the size difference.
That is a fairy egg, a witch egg, or even a 'wind' egg if you prefer. According to the My Pet Chicken website, in a mature hen, a fairy egg is unlikely, but can occur if a bit of reproductive tissue breaks away, stimulating the egg producing glands to treat it like a yolk and wrap it in albumen, membranes and a shell as it travels through the egg tube.  You can tell this has occurred if, instead of a yolk, the egg contains a small particle of grayish tissue. In the old days, no yolkers were called "cock" eggs. Since they contained no yolk and therefore can't hatch, our forebears believed they were laid by roosters.

I can only assume that Clementine laid the egg because she's the one who's out of whack, but she normally doesn't sing an egg song when she lays an egg - that's more Maggie and Sookie's thing. I haven't cracked it open yet to see if it contains a yolk because it's just so cute. It's in the fridge in the egg boxes with the other eggs. I thought about poking holes in it, draining it and making a little ornament out of it for the Christmas tree. But for right now I just enjoy seeing the cute little thing every time I open the fridge.

The Broody Hen is Busted. . . right?

If you read my post on May 27 you know that my Buff Orpington, Clementine, received the call from the mother ship and entered the mysterious realm of the broody hen. And you may recall that I was concerned because broody hens can actually die on the nest if they don't eat or drink for long enough while sitting on unfertile eggs that will obviously never hatch. And we live in really hot and humid Florida weather, which means they can get dehydrated really quickly.

Clementine's comb and wattles had turned a very light pink and had shrunk dramatically. She rarely left the nest and I hardly saw her eat or drink. We tried putting her in our moveable hoop run, but she just settled down on the grass in one spot and stayed put. I knew it was time to make her a Broody Buster Box.


This required purchasing a cage, so I scoured Craigslist and spent entirely too much on a used blue wire cage. I read that the cage should have a wire bottom and be slightly elevated so air blows under the hen's undercarriage and she loses the urge to sit and get all warm and cozy on a nest. I cut some hardwire cloth to fit the bottom and wrapped it around the side bars so there were no sharp edges. Then I put the cage on two old 2x4s that I found in the yard and shoved her in.


In case you're not aware, chucking a broody chicken in a cage means she will throw her half of your best friends necklace out the window. She was less than thrilled with me when I put her in there and locked the door. She may have growled a bit.


To make sure she had food and water available I grabbed a couple of empty Stonyfield Kids yogurt containers and attached them to the cage with some safety pins. Nothing but high tech and high class here, but it worked!


I put her in the cage in the morning when I let the others out into the run. They stared at her with an "Ohhhhhhhhhhhh what did you do?" look. When it was time to lock the girls up at night, I took her out of the cage and put her straight on the roost. I'd find her the next morning back in her place on the nest.


Wash, rinse, repeat for three days.

This morning instead of finding her on the nest I found her at the door waiting to come out into the run. When I opened the door, she bolted out with the other two and hovered around me waiting for a treat. She didn't even fluff up and hiss at Saffie!


YES! She was no longer broody! She was a regular ole' loveable chicken again!!

Three days in solitary and she was ready to join general population. The jailbird was free! Hallelujah!

She knocked Maggie out of the way for a bite of cottage cheese today. She didn't try to attack the dogs when they sniffed her through the fence. I knew I had broken this broody and made a few phone calls to friends and family to boast about my success.

Then tonight I went out to lock up the girls and dammit if Clementine wasn't back on that nest again. She's a persistent little bugger. I suppose her parole is being revoked tomorrow and she'll be back in the hole for another couple of days. I guess I'll see where she is in the morning.


That's what I get for feeling cocky.