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!

Introducing a Flock of Distinguished Ladies

As I was thinking about names for our new pullets/future laying hens, I seemed to come up with names of distinguished women. So here they are:

This Ameraucana is Amelia Egghart.

Amelia earned her name by being the most adventurous of the group, often flying up on top of the waterer and performing (almost aerial) acrobatics.

Meet Temple Grayhen, named for Temple Grandin, an amazing woman who has made a tremendous impact on the humane treatment of animals intended for the food supply, as well as being probably the first spokesperson for autistic people.  As Kara says, she's probably the only one of all my ladies who would actually feel honored to have a chicken named after her!  Temple is a Light Brahma.

This is Meryl Cheep.  If another Welsumer turns out to be a pullet, she will be Golda Layer.

The lovely Black Australorp above and the one below look very much alike unless I can see the white wing feathers of Oprah Wingfry.  Then I know that her sister is Whoopi Goldbird.

And last, but not least, my favorite chicken, an Ameraucana who received my favorite name, Margaret Hatcher. She's certainly very distinguished, and I guess she is kind of an Iron (Gray) Lady!

I expect some very exceptional egg-laying from such a list of celebrities.  And let me extend an invitation to any of the original celebrities here celebrated:

If you would like to drop by, we'll be glad to fix you a home-cured bacon breakfast with eggs laid by your namesake!  :)  Just give me a couple hours' warning!

New Chicks!

First, the beautiful sunrise that greeted me and set the criss-crossed jet streams aglow  . . .

What a way to start the day!  Now for the chicks . . .

Here they are under their red heat lamp, temporarily in the laundry room.

We tried an experiment this time:  We bought chicks from a breeder in Soddy-Daisy (about 35 miles from here) who breeds several different varieties.  The advantage for us is that we don't have to purchase a minimum of 25 chicks.

We also don't have to worry about how they will survive two days of shipping by the U.S. Post Office.  It only took me three hours to drive up there and bring them back, and they only had an hour or so of travel time.



We ordered four chicks each of four different dual purpose varieties.

The idea is that (roughly) half of them should turn out to be pullets and become good egg-layers.  The half that turn out to be cockerels will be butchered for meat before they get to the Nasty Rooster stage.  That's the reason for choosing dual purpose breeds, because they're good for both eggs and meat.

NOTE:  This chick is just sleeping!  I should know--I woke it up to check!  They always scare me when they do this.


The reason for choosing different breeds is to see what else is out there.  While I love my green eggs, when I order "Ameraucanas" from a hatchery, they are really mutt chickens or "Easter eggers," and only half of them end up laying blue or green eggs.

We get lots of brown eggs, especially since the fox seemed to like our green-eggers best. (sniff!)  If we're going to be getting brown eggs, anyway, we might as well try some other highly-recommended breeds.

The reason for ordering only 16 chicks is that we really only need 8 laying hens to pick up the slack as our "old girls" age, and we have plenty of the Freedom Rangers left in the freezer.

Meet our new chicks:

This is a Light Brahma.  They are an Asian Indian breed which gets very heavy (8 lbs. for hens up to 10 lbs. for roosters).  They are good layers of cream colored eggs, about 3 a week.  They are quiet, gentle, winter hardy, and good mothers (in case we should get a nice rooster!)  Apparently, they're the quintessential pet chicken!  Note the feathers on the baby's legs; it will keep its "hairy" legs! 

This is a Welsummer.  They're a Dutch breed, and the rooster is THE Kellogg's rooster!  (We'll see if we let one get that big . . .)  They are medium weight (6-8 lbs).  They are very good layers of large dark brown eggs, about 4 per week.  They are winter hardy, good foragers, thrifty eaters, and friendly.

We only got three Welsummers, so I'm hoping for two hens and only one roo.

This is a Black Australorp.  They're an Australian version of the British Orpington, so we're getting quite international!  They are medium weight (6-8 lbs.)  They are excellent layers of large brown eggs, about 5 per week.  They are winter hardy, shy, sweet and dignified.

This is an Ameraucana--a real one, or so says the breeder.  She says her Ameraucanas are purebred and all lay blue eggs.  They are medium weight (5.5-7 lbs.)  They are not really dual purpose, being bred as good layers of medium blue eggs, about 3 per week.  However, I am told their meat is good, and we thought our former "Ameraucana" rooster Wren made a great coq au vin!  They are winter hardy.

We ended up with five Ameraucanas, but I'll take the extra chance of blue eggs.

BFFs

Ameraucana and Welsummer.  Can you tell the difference?  (See Comments for answer.)

One of each:  Light Brahma, Black Australorp, Ameraucana, and Welsummer.  Weren't they clever to group themselves like that?

It's great having the chicks in the laundry room.  They're all eating and drinking just fine, but I like to keep my eye on new babies to make sure they adapt, and this way I can check on them frequently without having to run all the way out to the brooder house.

And on top of that, I have the perfect excuse not to do laundry--the chicks are on top of the washing machine!

Segregation and Integration

The ducklings were getting so big and making such a wet mess of their little cardboard pen, that when they were about 2 1/2 weeks old, we took away the cardboard and gave them the run of the 8 x 12 brooder house, except for the small cardboard pen that belonged to the chicks.

On April 3, when the ducklings were almost 3 weeks old, and the chicks were 2 1/2 weeks, they finished the last of their medicated feed--and there was no longer any reason to segregate them from the ducklings.  So we removed the cardboard pen from around the chicks and sat back to see what would happen. 

For a while, the ducklings huddled in their corner . . .

. . . and the chicks stayed in their corner, although they fluttered around like crazy in their new-found freedom.

They squabbled a bit, too, ready to fly off the handle (literally) for no reason that we could see!

Eventually a brave duckling waddled over into "Chick Territory."  He pecked at a chick, who didn't seem fazed by it, and the duckling finally joined his siblings back in "Duckland."

Then a bold chick ventured into "Duckland."  They pecked at him a bit, but he ignored them.

After awhile, the two groups began to merge as the curious ducklings moved en masse to investigate the chicks.  We had hopes that this integration would work.

Then suddenly a duckling grabbed a chick by the neck and began chewing on it.  The chick chirped loudly in distress, but I waited to see if they could sort things out on their own.  The duckling kept chewing and the chick kept cheeping, and I had to intervene.  I snatched the chick to safety, picked up the duckling, looked him in the eye, and said, "Bad duck!"

And then, having been fowl-ly disappointed in the possiblity of poultry integration, Herb and I set up a divider across the middle of the brooder house.  Until they are old enough to leave for the chicken tractor or the barnyard, henceforth ducklings and chicks will live in peaceful segregation!

More Adorable Little Ones (Monday, Mar. 21)

Here are some recent pictures of our Zephyr Hill babies.

 Muscovy ducklings, 6 days old.

 Freedom Ranger chicks, 5 days old. Notice their wings are already feathering out, some more than others. The one at the right in front is already getting a little bit of tail feather.

Siobhan is four and a half months old.




 

This is a full-grown sunset--I just threw it in as a freebie!

Our Adorable Little Ones (Saturday, March 19)

Here's a belated (due in part to upheaval from remodeling) photo journal of a lovely afternoon spent with Jim and Monique, Charis and Kol.  It was Kol's first official visit to Zephyr Hill Farm, since the first time he was here it was just so his Mama could drop Charis off for the day.  You'll notice that he was absolutely wow-ed by everything he saw!  :)

Sometimes when I read other farming blogs that I follow, I realize that mine has a strange mix of informational "farm-y" posts, general country life, and pictures of our grandchildren.  But I like it that way because that's what our lives are like!  Although we started doing this because it captivated us, as we build our little farm, we are always thinking about our children and grandchildren.  When we went to Farm School at Nature's Harmony Farm last summer, they told us to figure out who our clients are.  We knew immediately--our children and grandchildren!  We're doing this to build something good and healthy and full of precious memories for our loved ones!  From remodeling the house (so we have room for all the books we've collected and place for everyone to sleep when they come to visit) to making improvements on the farm, we're doing it for them.