July 2, 2007
It began as a simple quest to acquire four hens to offset the cost of eggs, which in our neck of the woods range from about $2.50 a dozen. I hear squawking, and it’s not from the hen yard. Yes, eggs are outrageous up here in the country, so we took advantage of our agricultural land and got chickens. And what an adventure that was. My husband, Gary, had been working on building a chicken coop for a few weeks with the intent to raise chickens. About a month ago the coop, a fully self-contained (I’m talking solid wood construction and not on the ground) coop with shelves and nesting boxes, and a screened window, was finished. It was our goal to have the birds wander the yard by day, sleep in the hen house at night.
Next step was to purchase/get the birds. We went to the feed store in town and after a lengthy discussion with the locals on the best way to raise chickens was directed to a man who worked in the store whose wife was giving chicks away. Free chickens? It beat paying $2 and $3 per chick. We jumped on the opportunity. The chickens, we were told, were ‘straight run’. For us city folks that means they didn’t turn them upside down, lift up their feathers, and check to see if a little boy woo-woo popped out. We didn’t want little boys, but we figured we could weed them out later.
We arrived at the ranch that had the free chickens only to see the critters everywhere. Somebody had exploded a great egg bomb of chickens and they were all over the yard with little ones running right behind the Moms and chickens could be heard clucking loudly in a hen houses, under houses, in the bushes, around the bushes, amid the crowing of several roosters. It sounded like a factory and it was producing chickens. Bantams were mixed with Orpingtons, which were mixed with little black and yellow ones, and oh my gosh, chicken disaster! No wonder the lady was giving them away!
Gary went to the door of the house and out walked this woman who was in her early forties, I’m guessing, wearing a little chauffer type cap, short shorts, a tank top, bright blonde hair (dare I say encouraged by a bottle?) and muck boots that gave her the appearance of being a biker babe. Gary explained who he was and she gleefully told us that a mother hen had been walking by right after her husband called and she ran outside and rounded up all the chicks she could get her hands on. We clarified that we just wanted four hens for egg laying purposes and she shook her head and said she had thirteen chicks that took her all morning to capture and by gosh we were going to take them. If we wanted their moms she would happily round them up and give them to us too. Nervously we rejected the offer of the mothers and went to inspect the chicks. Sure enough, in a large dog carrier were thirteen squawking, chirping, little birds and she quickly got down and started handing them to us to put into our small cat carrier to bring home. In the melee that ensued, with her handing and my husband grabbing and stuffing, two birds got loose and rather than go after them, (we were assured they would find their way back to their mom) we took the other eleven home with us after graciously turning down her offer to get the mothers. We thanked her and quickly left the chicken ranch heaving a sigh of relief as we escaped.
I know what you’re thinking. But, Mary, I thought you only wanted four!
The way I look at it, I expected to lose some chickens to our stupidity because we’re city folks who have never raised chickens. If we got four, we’d probably accidentally kill one, or one would get sick, or the dogs would eat one, or a raccoon would get to them or coyotes would tear apart the coop, you get the picture. I have seven contingency chickens. In the event we lose a few we have some to spare. But are they all hens? Darn good question. Gary tried turning them upside down and couldn’t get a woo-hoo to show, so we think they’re all hens. Eleven hens. If they survive we’re looking at a dozen eggs a day because chickens will lay an egg a day…I’m going to need more cholesterol medicine.
On the other hand, if some of them are cocklings (baby roosters) then we’re going to be having chicken soup soon. Okay, okay, Gary will be giving chickens away soon…probably to people who will in turn make chicken soup. I’d rather have the chicken soup, but I just know we’re going to get attached to the stupid things.
July 4, 2007
Well we decided to let the chickens out of the coop to get to know their new habitat and explore their run. I didn’t know about it because I was sleeping in, but who could sleep with little birds chirping madly. I had dogs whining outside the bedroom door, chickens chirping outside and I threw in the towel and got up and dressed. When I put my German Shepherd outside, not knowing where my husband and son were (she’s the loudest whiner), she must have been quickly shoved back in the door because as I went into the bathroom to get dressed she appeared in the bathroom doorway. She had sought me out and whined again. Perplexed we looked at each other and I went to the front door to see my son walking down the driveway with a fishing net in one hand. It kind of looked like he was butterfly hunting but I knew the netting was too large.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Keep the dogs inside, the chickens got out.”
This is where I, being the mom, got to do that eye roll thing you always hear about moms doing.
“Dad got six back in the coop but five are still on the loose.” He informed me, his father coming up the drive with a similar fishing net in hand.
“How’d they get out?” I asked.
“They went under the fence.”
They later explained that our efforts to fence in an area for the birds that was screened over the top and big enough for eleven birds to wander around in left one thing out. We didn’t know they could dig! Oh sure, the country folk call it scratching. Those little twits ran around the run, found a gap between the ground and the bottom of the fence and like parochial school children lined up in an orderly fashion and played follow the leader right out of the run.
My shepherd is good at going under our fences. She could actually jump them because they’re short enough, but she prefers to dig. I eyed her indignantly. She looked guiltily back as I thought she and the birds must’ve been talking.
And so the great 4th of July chicken roundup on our Chicken Ranch ensued.
We had volunteered to drive our 1953 Chevy show truck in the 4th of July parade in the local town and had to be at the meeting point by 9:30 am. We locked the dogs up in the house and left to make our rendezvous. Meanwhile our son, had plans to go down to his work at the airport where a BBQ was to be prepared with his hangar buddies. After fulfilling our obligations in the parade and returning the truck back to the garage, Gary made one more effort to round up the birds before joining Steve at the airport. I reminded Gary as he debated leaving that these were the "contingency fowl" and shooed him to the airport (it was expected to be over 100 degrees and the guys were going to hang out on a black topped tarmac and the hangars are not air conditioned, why are you even asking why I didn’t go?)
During the baking afternoon I didn’t worry about the chicks because they had water piped into the coop and the windows and rafters were open to air. If anything, the chicks might sweat, but they’d be okay. The ones wandering around could always access the dog pool for water (Ewww!) And besides they had to learn that food was in the coop, not outside of the coop. I didn’t worry about them.
Anticipating an evening at the neighbor’s house lighting fireworks, (do not ask me why the tinderbox of the Sierra allows fireworks when the Bay Area poo-poos the idea because of fire concerns) the boys arrived home hot and exhausted. (There was no air conditioning and they’d spent the day on the hot tarmac, why do I repeat myself?). Gary tried once more to round up the birds and called out our bird dog, Kelly, a Labrador. Kelly sniffed around and located three of the birds under the deck (near the dog pool) and the hunt was on again. Out came 3 fishing nets, and little chickens went scurrying and flying about the yard. Three more birds were wrestled back into the coop leaving two little ones on the loose. We focused on one bird at a time. By 9:00pm we gave up on the remaining two birds that had roosted for the night in the thick cover of oaks and scrub on the property. I don’t think they knew that the local buzzard population and a hoot owl were also known to roost in those same trees. Dumb birds. I reminded Gary again that they were contingency fowl and we went next door to watch fireworks.
It wasn’t until the next morning that we caught the second to the last bird and that evening that the final chicken was rounded up. Meanwhile a great rock foundation was built around the base of the chicken run. Mishka, our shepherd, likes to move rocks, I was hoping the chickens weren’t learning any more tricks from her.
July 6, 2007
We noticed the pecking order truly at work. A little yellow chicken had been ostracized from the group. It didn’t socialize with the rest of them and seemed to do everything it could to stay out of their way. That night as the chickens were settling to roost Gary took a head count and noticed a chick missing. He had shooed a buzzard away from the chicken run (the buzzard could look but would have to do some serious pecking to get at the chickens in the run the way it’s screened up). Out in the pen in a rocky clump Gary saw the missing chicken with its head buried in the rocks and its feet sticking up. Kind of like the way the kids would dump a small kid in a trash can. The chickens had chased and pecked this little bird to motivate him to get out or be killed. Gary rescued the distressed bird and moved it to the cat carrier where it could be away from the flock (which I later found out is called a “clutch”). Poor little chicken. We still have no idea if he is a he or a she. But our information says we now have to pay more attention to it because it is flockless…That is how we got a pet chicken.
Tresa the flockless, our neighbor called her. Isabella, was another name given. Izzy (Is-He) is what I call it until we know if it’s a he? Or a she? The name will probably not stick, especially if she starts crowing. Then his name is Dinner. Okay, you whiners. We’ll give him away. And someone else can call him dinner.
