An End to Shemar and His Criminal Mind

(ADVISORY:  There is a slightly graphic photo on this post, although there is no blood or guts.)

Back in October, Shemar became the Top Rooster.  For a short while he fulfilled his duties conscientiously.

Unfortunately, by December, Shemar turned from "serving and protecting" to a criminal lifestyle when he attacked Kara and drew blood through her jeans.

It got to the point that Kara and I couldn't go into the barnyard without back-up.  I detest living in fear of a 7-lb. bird, so Shemar's days were numbered.  I've said it here and I'll say it again, any mean, aggressive animal on this farm gets eaten!

We've been procrastinating since we hate to butcher in the rain, but yesterday Shemar jumped Herb while his back was turned. He didn't draw blood this time, but it didn't matter.  Like all criminals, he was stupid!  He returned to the scene of the crime one too many times!  Last night Herb plucked Shemar off his roost in the chicken coop and shut him up in a dog carrier, to Shemar's audible fury!  Right after lunch, Herb did the dastardly deed . . .

... and I finished up.  Shemar (and his criminal mind) have come to a bad end.  Or--from Kara's and my perspective--a good end!  I've promised him to Kara for a nice coq au vin.  Now that's a really good end to a bad rooster!

Riding Shotgun at Feeding Time

Some afternoons Herb has class late so he likes me to feed the animals.  I was just going to throw hay over the fence and leave the chickens and cats unfed because of Shemar of the Criminal Mind--but then Kara came along and agreed to ride shotgun for me.  (Since she grew up in France without Westerns, I had to explain what I meant!)

Beginning at about 3 pm, everyone is standing at the gate waiting for dinner.

While Kara stood guard with a rooster stick, I waded through everyone with the loaded hay net.  It's surprising how heavy hay can be!

Siobhan's manners aren't quite as good as Angel's and Brandy's, so she was grabbing dinner while it was still on the move.

I gave her lots of petting and rubbing, leaning on her and working my hand back to her udder, getting her used to me handling it in preparation for milking her.  She didn't bat an eyelash, but Kara was mortified that I wanted her to take a photo of me (in her words) "feeling Siobhan up!"

 Embarrassed at her photographic assignment, Kara gave me the chicken stick and said she'd go put the rest of the hay in the manger.  Sara moved in for her appetizer, knowing she wouldn't get dinner until everyone else was done.

Kara rolled up her jeans in preparation for wading through the mud to the manger.

Just then Julie came running up, having been run off by Angel & Brandy.

She wanted an appetizer, too.

You can tell who's Top Cow and Top Horse by who gets the hay net.  Low Horse (Angel) and Low Pony get the manger . . .

while poor Sara gets to wait!  Shemar may have a Criminal Mind, but he's also smart, and he knows when he's beaten (without actually needing to be hit) so he just crowed his frustration to the world . . .

while Kara raided the coop.  It seems like Shemar's girls outdid themselves for us.

That stick in the lower right corner is a hand-made, striped-bark walking stick--otherwise known as a Shotgun!

And that, Kara, is what riding shotgun is all about--having someone's back, or in terms Shemar would understand, being someone's wing man.

Wetter Than a Mad Hen (or Rooster)

We're WET here!  No, we're soaked . . . sodden . . . wringing wet . . . wetter than a mad hen!  By Saturday morning, Jan. 12, we'd had a total of 1.21" of rain for the month.  The barnyard still hadn't dried out from its soggy state on Jan. 1, and the Saturday rain continued steadily all weekend.

I told Herb that I was worried about the horses and cows standing around pastern-deep in the mud, concerned they would get thrush in their hooves.  By Sunday night, Herb said that although he hates to have the animals on the pasture when it's so wet, it had become a case of having to sacrifice the pasture--or the animals.  This is one of those times when farming isn't about a Plan at all, but a Contingency Plan, dealing with the curve balls as they come.

We discussed putting the animals in the Back Pasture since it's bigger, but I figured they would go crazy when we turned them loose and their wild galloping, slipping and sliding on the hill, would do serious damage to the pasture.  Also, there's nowhere dry to put a hay bale in the Back Pasture, and we had no idea how long we might have to leave the animals out there, eating the grass that should be resting.



So on Monday morning, still in the rain, Herb took a round bale down to the run-in shed in the Lower Pasture.

It was really cold, and it took quite a while to get the hay down there and set up in a hay feeder, a one-man job.  At least I could help move the animals, I said.

As we got to the barnyard, I was so glad we'd made this decision.

No animal deserved to be in these conditions!

The cattle always follow the horses, so Herb took Angel and Julie.  Once the cattle followed them into the Home Pasture, I shut the gate behind them and opted to lead Brandy down by the road and avoid the steep, slippery hill.

It was an easy move from the Home Pasture across a driveway into the Lower Pasture; the animals know the routine.

The horses were dancing with impatience, but we made them wait until the cattle had followed and I had shut the electric gate to keep them in the far end of the pasture.  It was interesting taking these photos in the driving rain with Brandy itching to be free!

And they were OFF!  We cringed a bit thinking of those hooves pounding into the soggy earth!

But everyone was having so much fun, how could we begrudge them?

Julie was definitely the ringleader as they circled around again.

Fortunately after one circuit of the field, Sara and Siobhan remembered their dignity . . .

as sedate pregnant ladies, ignoring Julie's bucking show in the background.

"Where's the food?" they wanted to know.  It didn't take them long to find some green grass and the hay in the shed.

The rain continued all day Monday, the 14th, and by Tuesday morning, we'd had a total of 3.97" (2.76" over the past three days).  The usually dry creek had overflowed its banks and created a new second channel cutting across the Lower Pasture.

At least we knew that even with the run-off from the woods, there was plenty of high ground to keep the animals safe--and no need to check on their water tank!

Back in the barnyard, Shemar was complaining loud and long. If roosters are supposed to crow at sunrise, he was doing his best to make the sun appear!

But the rain kept on.  By this morning, Thursday Jan. 17, we've had an accumulation of 7.12" for the month so far.

That's 5.91" in 5 days!

There was a brief break in the rain this morning and a cold, wild wind set the horses running like crazy.  It's a good thing they got it out of their systems, though, because the rain came pouring back.

Yep, we're wetter than a mad hen!

Up with the Sun

Our Christmas holidays were happy and busy with three of our grown kids, two spouses and two grandchildren staying in the house.  Having little kids around guarantees things will be lively, but how do you guarantee rest for sleepy parents when little ones are up with the sun?

The obvious answer is that Dada and Mama take turns sleeping in and getting up to play with the kids.  But when Didi says it's time to feed the animals, sleepy Dada better say good-bye to sitting on the floor in pj's quietly playing with trains.

It's time to break out coats and hats and mittens and boots so everyone can head to the barnyard!

Jim ran interference when Brandy curiously sniffed at these strangely bundled-up little beings.

Julie is more their size, but she wasn't interested in being petted once Didi appeared with the hay net.  Charis asked why Julie can't eat with Angel and Brandy, so Mimi got to explain pecking order and why Brandy chases Julie away but puts up with Siobhan.

Speaking of pecking order, everyone knew to keep the kids close and watch out for Shemar the Mean Rooster, but with so many large humans around, he contented himself with crowing, flapping and strutting around.  I must admit, that beautiful green tail is something to strut about!  Too bad Shemar has a criminal mind!

On the way back from the barnyard, everyone stopped to admire the jet streams in the sky.  Kol heard someone say "plane," so he requested "Plane?  Plane?"  And just like that, two tiny shiny dots of planes appeared, trailing new jet streams behind them.

By that time, tummies were wide awake and it was time to go feed the humans!

Postscript to A Sad Chicken Tale

This is a P.S. to A Sad Chicken Tale posted earlier this month recounting our bad experience with a local "breeder" in Tennessee.

The photo above is of our Dexter heifer Siobhan checking out our free-ranging Freedom Ranger chickens.

When we butchered those birds (I didn't record their exact age, but it was around 18-20 weeks), I kept a record of their butcher weights (minus head, feet, entrails, etc.)  Here are the stats:

• Roosters were between 3lbs. 10 oz. up to 5 lbs. 4 oz.
• Average rooster weight was 4.44 lbs.
• Average weight for all birds was 4.22 lbs.

On Oct. 17, we butchered six of the roosters we got from "Eva," the breeder in Tennessee.  We could tell that Mr. Kellogg's Cornflakes (left) and his buddies were pretty small as roosters go--even at over 30 weeks of age.  When I weighed them and stuck them in the freezer today, it was clear that the P.S. to the sad chicken story was sad, too!

Breed	Butcher Weight
Black Australorp	2 lbs. 11 oz.
Ameraucana	3 lbs. 4 oz.
Ameraucana	3 lbs. 7 oz.
Welsumer	2 lbs. 8 oz.
Welsumer	3 lbs. 1 oz.
Welsumer	3 lbs. 3 oz.
Average weight	3 lbs.

Not even one of these roosters was as big as our smallest Freedom Ranger!

The Field Guide to Chickens by Pam Percy gives the following standard weights in its breed profiles:

• Black Australorp - cockerel 7.5 lbs., rooster 8.5 lbs.
• Ameraucana - cockerel 5.5 lbs., rooster 6.5 lbs.
• Welsumer - cockerel 6 lbs., rooster 7 lbs.

Some people call a bird a rooster once he begins crowing; showing standards call a bird over a year old a rooster.  Whether you call ours cockerels or roosters, they are WAY below breed standards!  They didn't even get up to pullet weight!  I think this is pretty damning evidence that my Farm Dreams colleague was right when he said this "breeder" is proliferating sub-standard birds.

Oh, by the way, my "Ameraucana" pullet is laying teeny pinkish-white eggs.

So much for shopping local!

Just for Fun

Just for fun (and in memory of the departed) . . .

I played with the noise reducer on iPhoto and had fun with the colors.

Something to Crow About

Meet some of the "new" chickens:

Sterling is behind the Light Brahma rooster whom I've decided to call Gandhi because Light Brahmas are supposed to be peaceable.  His fellow rooster is a Black Australorp, with Black Australorp hen Whoopie Goldbird at right.

Temple Gray-hen, the Light Brahma, tries some acrobatics.

Temple Gray-hen and Whoopie Goldbird join the ducks for some food.

Amelia Egghart is the smallest and most timid hen.  I don't know what happened to her; I named her after Amelia Earhart because she was the most adventurous.  Maybe she crashed and lost her nerve.

Oprah Wing-free was busy laying in the "secret" nest in the hay bale.

When she came out, she proclaimed loud and clear how proud she was of what she'd done!  I've never heard a hen "broadcast" quite as loud and clear.  (I can tell she's Oprah because she has bigger "hair"--her comb.)

I've decided to call this guy Shemar Moore because he's hot stuff and he knows it.  He really has something to crow about:  Most of his rivals are in the freezer, and he's the Boss Rooster!

A Sad Chicken Tale

Back in March, we got a new batch of chicks from a breeder in Tennessee.  This seemed like a good idea for several reasons:

• The chicks would only have to travel for an hour or so instead of 2 days.
• We could buy fewer than the 25 required by most hatcheries.
• We could avoid dealing with hatcheries that kill most of the male hatchlings.
• We would be supporting a local business.

As Eva (let's call the breeder that) and I discussed which breeds of chicks to purchase, I was clear that my main goal was to try some new breeds of laying hens and that I wanted 6-8 of them.  I wanted dual purpose chickens as we would butcher the roosters for meat.  On Eva's advice, I ordered 4 each of Welsumers, Black Australorps, Light Brahmas and Ameraucanas.

One of each (from left to right):  Light Brahma, Black Australorp, Ameraucana, Welsumer

Unfortunately, there were a few problems from the moment I arrived to pick up the chicks.

• I found that the breeders live in a crowded residential neighborhood with no room for parking and no way to turn around.
• They put the box of chicks in my hands without letting me in the door (despite the clorox-soaked mat at the door) and without a chance to ask questions.
• They informed me that there were only 3 Welsumers, so they had given me an extra Ameraucana.  
• They said I should use only newspaper sheets the entire time the chicks were in the brooder house as they would eat shavings and die.  I found that strange since I had successfully raised a total of 63 chicks on shavings, but I followed their advice.  One of the Light Brahmas died anyway within the first week.

On May 1 we moved the 15 chicks into the chicken tractor in the Home Pasture.  

They settled in happily, cheeping and foraging.

At the end of June, Herb had to be out of town for a week, so I took over feeding the young chickens and moving the tractor daily.  I took the above photo on June 29.  Notice the three Light Brahmas (one hiding behind the waterer).  A few days later, to my shock, there were only two Light Brahmas!  One of the two cockerels was missing.  How on earth could a chicken completely disappear?  It was a mystery.

A short time later, Herb solved the mystery.  One morning when he went out to move the chicken tractor, he found my favorite Ameraucana pullet, Margaret Hatcher, lying on the ground.  The other chickens were pecking at the tiny bit of her that remained.  It appeared that Margaret had been cannibalized.  After an Ameraucana cockerel got pecked and bloodied (although it survived), we could only assume that cannibalism explained the mystery of the disappearing Light Brahma.

We knew the chickens weren't over-crowded.  We had raised 26 Freedom Ranger chickens in the very same chicken tractor.  They spent their entire lives in there without ever harming one of themselves.

As I observed the chickens closely, several more things became clear:

• All three of the Welsumers were cockerels.   I had learned through my research that Welsumers can be easily sexed at birth because the males are marked differently; that means Eva knew she was giving me three males.  So much for those wonderful dark brown eggs she had told me about!
• Eva had pooh-poohed what I told her about hatchery Ameraucanas being "mutts" or "Easter eggers" rather than true Ameraucanas.  She assured me that hers are true Ameraucanas.  Well, they're not!  Hers are mutts, too.  The two Ameraucana cockerels in the photo above don't look like any of the colors specified in the Ameraucana breeders' standard.  Most importantly, they don not have "muffs" like standard Ameraucanas.  This lady is just breeding "Easter egger" hatchery chickens and calling herself a breeder.

One other concern about these chickens was that they did not seem to be growing well.  They had plenty of fresh grass daily along with a daily ration of chicken scratch.  Our previous batches of chickens had thrived on this regime, with our Freedom Rangers being ready to butcher before 18 weeks of age.  The roosters had already reached sexual maturity and were beginning to get "roosterish" with each other.  These chicks were hatched on March 17,  and by 25 weeks old were still not full grown and had not reached sexual maturity.  Herb hefted several and said they hardly weighed anything.

At that point, I consulted fellow chicken-raisers on the Farm Dreams website.  The consensus seemed to be that they must have come from inferior breeding stock, the only thing that could explain the cannibalism and lack of growth since we knew from previous experience that it was not over-crowding or hunger.

During the night of Sept. 14, we moved the chicken tractor into the barnyard.  The next day we opened it up and set the chickens at liberty in the barnyard.  We figured they would gradually integrate into the existing flock, and Misty could guard both coop and tractor at night.  That first day, one of the silly Ameraucana roosters flew over the fence back into the Home Pasture.  Before the day was over, he disappeared--but this time only a hawk could be blamed.  So now with the dead chick, two cannibalized chickens and the silly rooster gone, we were down to 12 chickens.

Here the Light Brahma rooster tries out his wings.  It's a good thing he did it then, because we clipped all their wings that night!  No more escapees!  Sadly, only four of the 12 are pullets.  We have two Black Australorps named Whoopi Goldbird and Oprah Wingfry, one Ameraucana named Amelia Egghart (though her early adventuresome spirit has turned to timidity), and one Light Brahma named Temple Grayhen.

Also sadly, for my sake, we have one very aggressive Welsumer rooster, running after me in this photo.  I had to use that piece of rebar I'm holding to discourage his aggression!  Welsumers are beautiful, the quintessential Kellogg's rooster, but I intend to dredge these in Corn Flakes and oven fry them!

Crow about THAT, Mr. Kellogg!

I'm a sucker for punishment, I guess, but after reading peoples' rave reviews of Black Australorp roosters, I've decided to spare one of them from the guillotine--probably this hefty guy.  He needs a name, but I'll wait till I see how he behaves.  The Light Brahma rooster is also going to get a reprieve, because they are supposed to be very gentle, too.  If he ends up being (as I have read may happen) so big that he hurts the chickens, he can always make a nice Chicken Biryani.

Fortunately, this mostly sad story has a somewhat happy ending.  One of the young hens just laid her first egg yesterday.  I know because it's smaller than the older girls', is a darker color, and has a couple spots of blood on it as is common with a young hen's first eggs.  I have no idea whose this is, but I'll be watching to see.  THAT's the kind of mystery I like!

I can't say "They all lived happily ever after," because as far as six of the roosters are concerned, that would be a lie.  But some of the chickens will live happily for a long time, and we will sure be happy when we start getting some more eggs!