I have a covering to deter hawk attacks, and I visit them every ten minutes or so while they are outside (which is not long, because they will become chilled) to make sure snakes aren’t after them, but they understood dirt and its functions immediately,without the example of a mother hen, and began scratching and dust-bathing as soon as they could. Here’s a video of them having fun.
Tag: free-range chickens
Waiting for baby chicks
This is a video of my chicken sitting on her eggs.My Buff Orpington chicken has persisted in her delusion that if she sits on eggs long enough, surely they will hatch. Even though there is no rooster, and even though I removed the eggs every day, she still sat on the nest. Earlier in the spring I removed a Buff Orpington (I don’t know if this is the same Buff Orpington chicken but I suspect that it is) and her co-delusional chicken to another chicken house without access to a nest for a couple of weeks to break the broodiness. This process worked for a couple of months, but she has been broody for a month or more, I suppose. I traveled a lot during July and was not certain which chicken was on the nest.
After I realized she was determined to raise some chicks, I remembered a friend’s offer of fertile eggs. We have had two roosters. As my girls say, one of them was nice and stupid, and the other one was mean and smart. The nice one met his end defending the ladies against a bobcat, and the mean one died last summer at the end of a hatchet blade. I had scars on my ankles from his spurs, my girls were scared to go into the chicken pen, and with a baby about to become a toddler I didn’t want to risk permanent damage to anyone. We would like a nice and smart rooster to add to our flock.
My friend gave us a dozen fertile eggs. In this video you can see and her co-broody. Originally I planned to split the dozen eggs between the two hens because I believed the Barred Rock was also serious about broodiness. After I put the eggs under her (watching her carefully and knowing that the ambient air temperature in SC in August is nearly hot enough to brood eggs without a chicken–just kidding, sort of) I realized within a day or less that she was not serious. She got off the nest, forgot which nest she was supposed to sit on and got onto another nest, sat in the nest backwards, and is generally a mess.
After I saw my Buff Orpington in action, with her constant attention to the eggs and her faithful sitting except for a brief stretch and dust bath in the afternoon, I took the eggs from the Barred Rock and gave them all to the Buff. One egg broke within the first couple of days.
Another egg broke earlier this week. Inside the egg was an almost fully-formed chick, complete with feathers. Although I was sad about the loss of the chick, I was glad to see that things were going okay with some of the eggs.
Earlier in the incubation period I held the eggs up to a flashlight beam and saw the eye spot and some blood vessels developing. Now I see a dark blob in the eggs. Eggs without a developing embryo are translucent. Seeing the eye spots and blood vessels develop within the egg was nearly as exciting as seeing my own babies on ultrasound. Okay maybe not quite that exciting, but seeing new life is miraculous! Plus, I don’t have to be pregnant to see this life happen
Check out the video of the hen here on YouTube, and, as long as there is no disaster, I hope to share a video of chicks hatching within the next couple of days. I put them under her on July 29; it takes 21 days for the chicks to hatch, so we expect babies within the next couple of days. Maybe they will be here for the eclipse; we are in an area of totality and I also hope to share a video of my chickens going to roost in the middle of the day.
I Don’t Think I Will Eat My Chickens
My husband, Scott, and I have had many discussions about the
fate of my chickens once they stop laying eggs.
We bought nine chickens, assuming that a couple of them would die in the
hands of an inexperienced chicken-keeper, but they all lived. When I bought them at the feed store, they
were a couple of weeks old, so the weakest chicks in the batch had probably
already died.
fate of my chickens once they stop laying eggs.
We bought nine chickens, assuming that a couple of them would die in the
hands of an inexperienced chicken-keeper, but they all lived. When I bought them at the feed store, they
were a couple of weeks old, so the weakest chicks in the batch had probably
already died.
My fortified chicken coop has kept predators away, although
I am aware that one could gain entrance any night, especially if the power goes
out to the portable electronet fencing. We
deliberately did not name the chickens, although I didn’t know how I’d feel
about eating the chickens after they quit laying, because I don’t need more
pets to live in my house and require veterinary care. I have two very spoiled dachshunds.
 |
| A Barred Plymouth Rock and a Buff Orpington chicken finishing off the pea crop |
I told Scott that some of them would probably die of natural
causes anyway, and he said, not, I don’t think, intending it to be a
compliment, “The way you take care of those chickens they’ll live
forever.” I make sure they have fresh food and water,
and clean ground to explore as often as possible. I love seeing any creature doing what they
were meant to do, which in the case of chickens is scratching for bugs and
tidbits of food on the ground. They
scratch first with one foot, then the other.
Their eyes are on the sides of their heads so they must turn their heads
to the side to see the ground, and they search the ground for something to eat,
peck at it, and move on.
They love loose, dry soil, and they dig out a hole, scratch
dirt into their feathers, wiggle and adjust their feathers to move the dirt
about, and bask in the sun while taking a dust bath. They are unhappy when, after a rain, there is
no dry dirt in which to bathe. Watching
contented chickens is like seeing children playing, deeply involved in some
imaginative game of their own invention that does not rely on electronics or
cartoon characters, or a dog snuggled in his bed asleep before a fire. And just because the chickens are not pets,
it doesn’t mean I shouldn’t make them happy and give them opportunities to do
what they’d do if they weren’t in captivity.
They love fresh green grass this time of year, and they rush towards the
new grass made available when I move their pen.
dirt into their feathers, wiggle and adjust their feathers to move the dirt
about, and bask in the sun while taking a dust bath. They are unhappy when, after a rain, there is
no dry dirt in which to bathe. Watching
contented chickens is like seeing children playing, deeply involved in some
imaginative game of their own invention that does not rely on electronics or
cartoon characters, or a dog snuggled in his bed asleep before a fire. And just because the chickens are not pets,
it doesn’t mean I shouldn’t make them happy and give them opportunities to do
what they’d do if they weren’t in captivity.
They love fresh green grass this time of year, and they rush towards the
new grass made available when I move their pen.
Chickens, when allowed to experience natural cycles of light
and dark, lay fewer eggs as the days shorten.
Their bodies are very sensitive to daylight and to darkness; as the days
shorten when the Winter Solstice approaches later this month, they lay fewer
eggs, and as the days lengthen as the Summer Solstice approaches in June, they
lay more eggs. During the summer, they
laid seven eggs almost every day; recently, I have been getting up to four eggs
daily.
The eggs we get are plenty for us even during the winter,
but some chicken-keepers keep a light on in the coop for part of the night to
make the chickens continue to lay eggs.
In commercial chicken houses, where farmers keep chickens in cages so
small they cannot spread their wings, the lights are on all the time to trick
the chickens into laying constantly. If you buy your eggs at the farmers market,
expect the farmer to have fewer eggs in the winter; get there early to purchase
yours. Chickens also molt, during which
time they lose their feathers, regrow new ones, and cease laying entirely
before resuming laying a couple of months later.
Scott says he wants to put them in the stew pot when they
stop laying eggs in a few years. I doubt
I will be able to eat a creature I have taken care of daily for so long, and I do
not know if he would be able to either.
I know that my grandparents would laugh at that notion, but I didn’t
grow up eating chickens from the yard as they did, either, and my family will
not go hungry if we don’t eat the chickens.
stop laying eggs in a few years. I doubt
I will be able to eat a creature I have taken care of daily for so long, and I do
not know if he would be able to either.
I know that my grandparents would laugh at that notion, but I didn’t
grow up eating chickens from the yard as they did, either, and my family will
not go hungry if we don’t eat the chickens.
I won’t take them to the veterinarian if they become sick, although
I won’t allow them to suffer, but until they die of natural causes, I’ll give
them the best care possible. Maybe we’ll
get some more chickens that we will designate as birds for meat from the
beginning, and we’ll harvest them when they are a few months old, before
they’ve been around very long.
My Chickens Flew the Coop!
Last night, I moved the chickens back into the chicken tractor while they were drowsy. They didn’t fuss, and no one scratched me. This morning, I let them out of the chicken tractor into their movable yard enclosed by electrified netting. They walked around a little, and then two, first an Americana and then a Barred Rock, took off from the ground and flew over the netting.
At first, they tried, in a panic, to get back in with their sisters. But the sisters decided that freedom looked like fun, and quickly, five more flew over the fence. While I stood there with, I am sure, my mouth hanging open in shock, the first seven explored the woods. The other two remaining chickens wanted freedom too, and, as I admitted defeat, I let down part of the fence so they could get out and the others could get back in.
There is nothing I can do to catch them in the daylight, and as this happened at 7:30 AM, they have a long day of free-ranging ahead. They will probably return to the pen because it is, after all, where their food and water is located. In the meantime, I imagine my plants will have chicken-pecked holes in them again, and my patio will be covered with chicken poo. I believe a wing-trimming is in the works.