Audrey Gets Dressed Up For the New Year

Here is Audrey on November 1

She is a Turken or Naked Neck chicken, but when she is molting she is naked all over in patches. 

What a mess!

 

By November 18, you can see that Audrey has begun the (painful-looking) process of growing out new feathers. 

Here is a graphic illustration of what is happening. The whole technical explanation that goes with it can be found on the Cornell University Bird Academy's page "Everything You Need to Know About Feathers." It's really worth your time to look at this beautifully illustrated article.

And here is Audrey today, January 14, in all her iridescent splendor. 

Happy New Year!

Airborne

This is the sort of rustic scene I see on my morning walk. A chicken getting ready to fly the coop. A rusty old truck in the background--so New Mexico. A dead tree. And...wait, a goat? A goat in the tree?

This is the goat who entertained us by teetering on the top of the fence the other day (Morning Glories). I've been waiting for a chance to catch him/her resting in the tree. Forgive the blur--Beany was trying to help me focus by pulling on his leash. 

Retiring to the Garden

I don't think I ever worried about filling up my retirement days. First, I just wanted to read and read, and read some more. However, the view from my reading chair kept beckoning me outside, and I began to spend more and more time in the yard.

The landscaping that came with our little adobe cottage was plain. Big trees and rocks out front; green lawn out back. Some of the trees fell down and some had to be taken out. A few remain and we are thankful for their shade. 

The plain landscaping was little trouble, but I like flowers. So I added some.

And some more...

... and "some" hollyhocks.

Out back, we added a flock of chickens and a plain little shed to house them. That plain little shed was no trouble until the roof started sagging. And we didn't like looking at it from our shady patio.

It only took us a couple of weeks of sweaty summertime work to make a big change to that chicken house. Bill ripped off the saggy roof (to the consternation of the hens who were sitting the chicken house attic nests at the time), and put down new plywood, roofing paper, flashing, and shingles. 

I painted and embellished. 

Windchime/door knocker/flower arrangement

A faux window box, propped up by a broken chair 

that was brought back to life with a little spray paint.

Window box detail, after a week or so: 

The flowers are starting to recover from being transplanted.

Early Mornings in the Garden

Winters were hard back in New Hampshire. We would emerge from the long cold snowy months with a feeling that we really survived something.

Here in New Mexico, June is the month to survive. It's a hard one, the hottest of all the months, with wicked temperatures in the late afternoons.

I never tire of sunrise reflections in the flooded pecan orchard that surrounds us

But the mornings are glorious! I treasure any morning when we don't have errands or obligations of one sort or another--any morning when I can get out into the garden really early to poke around, dig a bit, get everything watered, visit with the chickens, and just appreciate our yard and its mountain views.

This morning, while Bill biked around the city, trying to beat the rising temps, I did all my favorite things out in the garden. Now it's afternoon, 104 degrees outside, and we are doing our best to stay still and stay cool. It's a perfect time to share some early morning photos. 

A late hollyhock bud

Beverly Sills, my first iris success and the inspiration for our trip to the iris farm
and the irises that we brought home from there

Iris Cinque Terre

Iris Nigerian Raspberry

Iris Fiery Temper

One of the girls, concentrating on laying her morning egg

Don't know if this fellow is an albino or if he just molted and is waiting for his color to come back.
There were two like this hopping around the front yard today.

Chicken Story

The last photo of our happy flock, taken just hours before they died

Back in October, a terrible thing happened at our house. While we were away for just a couple of hours, a stray dog got into our yard, tore down the chicken yard fence, and killed all but one of our beautiful flock of chickens. The lone survivor, Gina, never really recovered from the massacre and died yesterday. 

Although I was overwhelmed, Bill just went to work to rebuild and reinforce the chicken yard fence. He permanently locked up the big perimeter gates for a second line of defense and set about gathering a new flock. He found some young hens, just coming into their first season of laying; then he found ten Rhode Island Red chicks from a farmer down the road; and someone at the feed store handed him a free box of straight-run (unsexed) mixed-breed farm-hatched baby chicks. The feed store guy said that we could bring back any that turned out to be roosters and he would find them a home.

Within days, we had an even larger flock of chickens than we had started with. The big hens were able to go straight into the coop and chicken yard where they happily settled in, but the two batches of young chicks were housed inside in the newly-refurbished guest room (sigh) under heat lamps until they were old enough to live outdoors in the cooling fall weather. 

In addition to those mystery breed chicks from the free box, we have a Sex Link, the Rhode Island Reds, and some Turkens--also known as Transylvanian Naked Necks. I've never been interested in having such peculiar-looking birds until I met ours. They are friendly, chatty, calm, and sweet. We just love them and they are happy living here. One even laid an egg in the car on her way home to us!
 

The turkens (l to r: Barbidoux, Gloria, and Ruby) with the Sex-Link, Sadie,
 in the middle and an unidentified Rhode Island Red on the left

Meet Gloria, who always greets us with happy conversation.
After you get used to the naked neck, it seems quite elegant--almost as though she is
wearing a fancy off-the-shoulder ball gown

The teenaged Rhode Island Red chicks roosting in the Big House

Happy Chickens

We finally got our expanded chicken yard made and covered over with netting. At last the girls can run and flap their wings and explore a little more of the world while staying safe from predators and our playful dogs. I know the new area looks a little bleak - this is the desert after all. However, once the pecan trees start leafing out and our old lawn grass starts to grow, things will look better.

I know that any grass growing within the pen will get eaten before it can grow much but luckily I discovered grazing frames for chickens: You plant grass to come up through screens, allowing the chickens access to the greenery while protecting the roots, which the hens would otherwise tear out. See photos and instructions on how to make grazing frames here: http://www.thegardencoop.com/blog/2012/02/07/grazing-frames-backyard-chickens/. We may not be the greatest carpenters, but we'll try to convert some wooden pallets into frames so that we can plant some grass, marigolds, and nasturtiums for the girls.

In the meantime, I've been looking around for thoughts on what sorts of things make chickens happy. I've collected lots of articles and information on my Pinterest board, called "Chickens!" You can find it here: http://pinterest.com/clairz77/chickens/. If you haven't done so already you might have to sign up for Pinterest to see it. Don't worry, you'll enjoy yourself.

Not shown in the picture above are some of the things I've just added today for the chickens' delight: Some semi-rotted leaves which probably contain lots of interesting bugs, nice green weeds I've pulled, an old log to climb on, and a somewhat dead potted plant for the girls to deconstruct.

They've rewarded me a thousand times over. I love to sit out there, little Dweezil the Pup in my lap, and just enjoy the chicken world. The girls hum, and cluck, and chuckle and sing; they announce both upcoming and just-laid eggs, and they call out congratulations to the latest egg layer. They run after flies and take dust baths in the sunshine. They wander from the yard to their waterer inside the coop, and from the sun to the shade. They look like happy chickens to me!

Springtime in New Mexico

In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love

                                                                                                            ~Tennyson

Chickie Update

My son is visiting from New York. He was kind enough to help pose chickens when asked. We're all about providing non-Manhattan-style experiences here.

These were the girls at the beginning of June. They were young teens at the time, and eager to do some scary things to the guest room carpet on the day they escaped from their dog crate/baby chick pen.

Front, left to right: Albertina, Lizzie, and Meg.
Hocky is at the rear in this photo. She didn't like having pictures taken of her beak.

Now they all live outside in a chicken coop, where sensible hens like to live. This is Albertina the Pecker, a Barred Rock. 

This is Lizzie, the Rhode Island Red.

 And this is the lovely and shy Meg, an Americauna. Meg has green legs that will probably match the green eggs she will eventually lay.

Some sad news: Meg's sister, Hocky, died a couple of weeks ago and was buried with full honors. She was a brave girl and lived her life to the best of her abilities. When she was around a month old, her beak began to show a deformity. It only got more severe as she got older--the beak was crossed and eating was a trial to her. She would peck with the top part of the beak and only occasionally would food get into the bottom part of her beak and down her throat. Hocky grew very tame, as we held her and tried to help get food into her eager mouth. As the others grew, Hocky stayed pretty small, although she never gave up trying to eat. She was lively and cheerful and friendly right to the end. One morning she simply didn't get up to greet us, because she had passed away during the night.

Field Trip, and a New Rooster

In the few days since this was taken, the girls seem to have doubled in size

I am writing this on Sunday, while we are waiting for the chicken coop man to deliver the new home for our girls. You didn't think we were building it ourselves, did you? Our talents simply do not run in that direction.

As impatient as we are about this delivery, the four chicken girls in the guest room are even more anxious. They have quickly outgrown the large dog crate that is housing them and are longing for another dust bath like the one they all took yesterday while on a field trip to the back yard. 

Pardon the untidiness; Albertina insisted on bringing along the bits of newspaper she was still reading

And they long to be back in the company of the newest member of the flock, Big Peck.

Isn't he a charmer? He's tall, too, nearly up to my hip

Chicken Coup

Remember those cute little chicks we brought home a few weeks ago?

Here they are now, grown quite a bit. They must be teenagers, I believe, if that expression on Albertina's face is anything to go by. If you have raised kids you will know "the look" and will recognize it here right away.

We get nothing but these blank stares from the girls now. They are in a rebellious state and actually staged a coup yesterday. I didn't get the crate quite latched, apparently, and they took full advantage of the situation. When I popped into the guest room (barefoot) for an afternoon visit, I immediately understood that things were not at all right. The cage door was open, the girls had flown the coop, and I was standing in something distinctly unpleasant.

I'm still trying to get the scene in our guest room out of my mind. Perhaps time (and a rug shampooer) will do the trick. How could four little chickens do so much in so short a time, and why, oh why, did they poop so constantly while doing it?

As the girls would say, and you know the tone of voice: Okay, FINE! After a bit of negotiation, we agreed to all their demands (once we coaxed them out of the closet), and construction has begun on a lovely outdoor coop. Oh, there will be nests, accessible to both them and us; and there will be a human-sized door, and some chicken-sized doors. There will be nice, big girl hen-sized roosts, and they will be nothing like my half-hearted attempt at a roost in the dog/baby chick crate made from half a curtain rod.

We sincerely hope that the thing will be snake-, coati-, coyote-, owl-, and javelina-proof (do javelinas like chicken?). It will have to be Emma-proof as well, as our cockapoo loves to eat things with feathers.

It seems so much wilder here in New Mexico than it was back in New Hampshire, even though we had bears on our deck there. There are so many wild things sniffing/flying/slithering around, looking for chicken dinners.

Those chicken girls might wish they'd never left the guest room.

Chickie TV

We've been considering getting some backyard chickens because chickens are just so much fun, and because they will help us by consuming kitchen and garden scraps which they will kindly turn into nice, fresh eggs. They will eat up bugs around the place, and generally do what chickens do. When the feed store down the road put out a sign the other day saying "Chicks are in!" we really couldn't resist, and came home with four little pullets.

I could sit and watch them for hours--we call it Chickie TV. There's something about little chicks--they are just so admirably suited to be chickens. They seem to be born knowing how to scratch around for food, and how to snuggle together for warmth. They are absolutely perfect in their chickenness, and I hope to be able to explain that statement in the weeks and months to come.

Here are the new girls, from the top: Margaret/Meg, Elizabeth/Lizzie, Albertina/Bertie-Mamma, and Hocky. The first three are so named (and I am assuming you are dying to know) because we just watched The King's Speech; and Hocky is named for the children's book by Lane Smith, The Happy Hocky Family, an old read-aloud favorite from my librarian days. (That's Hocky, not hockey).

Albertina's "Bertie" nickname is also a reference to our late and much beloved Bertie-Pierre.

Of course, Beez calls them by a completely different set of names, starting with Bellatrix LeStrange, but that's just the way he is. We take no notice of it.

Lizzie is a Rhode Island Red and Albertina is a Barred Rock. Meg and Hocky are Americaunas, a breed developed from Araucanas, also known as Easter Egg Chickens because of the green, blue, and pink eggs they lay.

Raising chickens in urban and suburban backyards has been catching on around the country. More about all that later. Right now, I have to go watch some more Chickie TV.

Chickens on My Mind

All my chickens are wooden ones, at the moment

I was reading a blog post the other day at Owl's Farm (Putting the Recess Back in Recession) about the opportunities for simplicity in these tricky economic times, when I came across a mention of "city chickens." That led me to a wonderful website called TheCityChicken.com.

There is a great gallery of little backyard chicken houses combined with small chicken runs. Believe me, you have to check it out. These houses are so cleverly designed--you might find that you covet the house first and add the chickens later as an afterthought!

There is also a page that pictorially explains the concept of a chicken tractor, a phrase that had not been included in my past agricultural education. I recently saw an ad--which I hadn't understood--somewhere on Craigslist for a chicken tractor that was going for $800. I had no idea what that might be, but thanks to TheCityChicken.com I now understand it to be a bottomless cage or pen that is moved from one spot to another. It's a familiar idea from my old Tiny Farm days, although it wasn't called a chicken tractor back then.

If you've ever visited the Laughing Orca Ranch blog, you'll see some wonderful chicken photos of a flock that anyone would be glad to know. The post, Encouraging Chickens, is as good a place to start as any. I love the fact that there is a chicken chair for human observers of poultry behavior.

I've had chickens on my mind a lot, because the Pecos property that we covet has a fixable chicken house out back that has made me think that chicken ownership just might possibly be in my future. In the meantime, I'll just have to make do with chicken dreams.