Chicken Watch

Give Me a Break

The chickens had their new run for less than 48 hours when I noticed they are creating a hole near the fence. They’re digging a dust bath basin right next to the base of the chicken run. I can stick two fingers under the wood.

So now I’m worried they’re going to keep scratching at the spot, making it big enough for them to scramble out.

Sigh.

So I put two bricks there to prevent them from escaping their brand new, big, gorgeous chicken run.

I’m going to plant perennials around the run, it’ll look so good. I’ll have to put chicken wire along the base of the fence so they can’t eat the new plants or else position the plants far enough away from the fence so they can’t reach them.

A New Chicken Run

We built the new chicken pen yesterday and it is awesome!

We had hoped to build it on the ground and tip it over the chicken house but my nephew’s friend, a real carpenter, put the nix on that.  Said we had to build it around the chicken house.

So I had to evacuate the chickens from their original pen and corral them on the patio.

Three were in a kennel. One was in a cat box and two were in a Tupperware bin with a childproof gate on top.

They did pretty well, but got antsy after five hours of being cooped up without food. Then they started sniping at each other. But that only spurred the workers to get the lead out.

Once the frame went up they strung wire fencing over it. The last thing to go in was the gate, which is a screen door (very quaint) and I absolutely love it.

It only took them seven hours (including lunch) to build.

No more peeling back a tall fence, climbing over a low fence, stooping underneath the drooping snow fence ceiling  and stumbling into the collapsing poles to gather eggs, water the hens and clean the coop.

It’s as easy as pie to do chores, now.

I simply open the screen door, step over a thresh hold and tend the hens.

It’s amazing.

To set the record straight, I’m using “we” as if I actually did something, which I didn’t. All I did was zip  tie some corners, make a few runs to Menard’s and make food.

Relatively nothing compared to the help I got.

The pen is 12 feet tall by 24 feet long - a modified A frame with wire stretched around it. My nephew came up with the design. The coop is situated at an angle to the gate. I’m able to walk in the pen and scoop out the coop without problems.

The plans turned out wonderfully, thanks guys!! Best of all I have a gate!

When I put the chickens in their new space they were dazed, they stumbled and darted here and there. One chicken was so discombobulated she laid an egg in the grass! That was only one of two eggs I got yesterday, usually I get three, minimum. Just proves how rattled they were.

This morning they were still a little tentative and ignored their cat kibble, one of their favorite foods.

They’ll get used to their new digs quick enough and reduce the sod to dirt. It will only take a week or so.

After the pen was built we sat on the patio staring at the structure and the family started teasing me, “now the chickens will go on strike for a bigger house. Their run is so luxurious they’ll insist on having a bigger coop.”

Hah. Me first.

Chicken Star

Dottie had her third public appearance Tuesday.

She was the star at Mrs. Howe’s first grade class at Horace Mann. It’s amazing to see the reaction she generates from little kids to adults. Everyone stops to look at her, talk to her, find out her name and listen to her talk.

The school secretary gets choked up every time she sees her - she’s reminded of the chickens she raised in her native India. “I love chickens,” she says.

The younger kids had fewer questions but were anxious to tell me about all their chicken related experiences.

We didn’t attempt to feed Dottie this time. There were too many kids and she already had breakfast.

But they all got to pet her. All except one little girl who was terrified and a little boy who didn’t care at all.

They were mesmerized by her silky feathers and I was a proud chicken mom to see she was mellow as can be among the crush of kids.

I’m going to have to develop a set of parameters when I bring a chicken to school. That way I can protect Dottie and the kids.

I started wondering if my home owner’s insurance would cover a kid pecked by my chicken. I guess I’ll have to find out.

Tomorrow Dottie goes to pre-school. The 4 and 5-year-olds will be the youngest kids yet.

Since the kids won’t care much about facts or details.My daughter gave me a book to read about chickens “Chickens to the Rescue!” About a farmer who is rescued by his wildly clad, ever helpful hens.

It will be very fun!

Dottie has proven her pet mettle, she is a calm and inquisitive hen who seems to view these outings as her job.

Maybe she could be a therapy chicken.

But there is that poop thing to worry about.

Chicken Therapy

Whoever heard of wearing wool sweaters and winter scarves in April?

This spring might be a cruel joke to us but the chickens don’t seem to mind. They’re loving the longer days, and when it’s sunny, booyah!

They lay eggs no matter what, seems like.

I’m getting 3-5 eggs a day but none from Ruthie who is molting.

Dottie, one of the speckled Sussex hens, is earning a reputation as a chicken ambassador and easily has more social commitments than me.

She’s been invited to two more classrooms and will be fawned over at every one, I’m sure.

And why wouldn’t everyone love her? Dottie is calm, friendly, curious and talkative - a nearly perfect chicken representative judging by the reaction of the kids.

My daughter has suggested Dottie would be a good candidate as a therapy pet.

Imagine taking her into the hospital or care center so ailing humans could pet her and chuck her under the chin.

Something to think about - chicken treatment at its best.

It could work, but I’d constantly worry about her loose bowels.There’s not a lot of control there.

No worries, my daughter said. “They have chicken diapers!”

Well, there you go.

This isn’t fun anymore.

I lost power at 10:30 Tuesday night and slept at home, it wasn’t bad, the temp dropped to 67 in the house.

By Wed. night the temp in the house was down to 57. I stayed at my daughter’s and drove back and forth to my house to feed and water the cats and chickens and get fresh clothes.

The tree was nearly down, I did some shoveling and other maintenance chores then slept away from the house again.

My car is becoming my house, it’s where I’m stashing my cell phone charger, flash light, a change of clothes and extra boots.

Thursday night the temperature inside was down to 53 and the lights and heat were still off.

This morning I finished shoveling the driveway and the sidewalk that isn’t covered by the tree. The temp is 50 in the house. The cats are well and the chickens are perplexed as to why their run keeps shrinking - it’s because the support poles are cracked in half and the fence keeps inching closer to the ground.

Now they can’t reach their water bowl, poor things. So I set out a second bowl and they flocked to it.

Those guys are troopers, they’re still giving me 4 and 5 eggs a day even though they have a run of about 2 feet by 2 feet, if that.

When will this adventure end? I want to flip a switch and have a light come on and feel heat pumping out of the register.

I want to sleep in my own bed. Eat breakfast in my kitchen and take a shower at home.

Sadly, power restoration doesn’t look promising for my neighborhood today yet I see houses with trees laying on their roofs and lights on inside. How does that work? Are they on a different service?

I’m not 30 miles from an outpost here, I’m in the middle of Sioux Falls and still without service going on the fourth night.

It’s like living in my car in the middle of a permanently cloudy day.

I want this camping trip over.

Ann’s Tree

Sad, too frequent sight around Sioux Falls. This tree is in my front yard. Every major limb has broken off.

Chickens are Freaked

The hen house is in the center, the fencing has collapsed around it. The ice and snow collected on the snow fence “ceiling” draped over the run and bowed the whole thing down.

It is April, right?

NY City Revisited

Driving around town seeing the devastation of the trees is heart wrenching. While the wreckage isn’t as thorough as what was left in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, it brought many of those same feelings to the surface.

The ice and snow covered trees have a macabre sort of beauty, but the decimated landscape elicits the same bafflement I felt when I was in New York.

While the immense power of wind and water are evident in the damage, there is less structural damage to homes and cars. Yet, here, too, people congregate outside cleaning up, and commiserating with neighbors.

Trees are special in the Midwest. Our environment is not naturally conducive to growing them, there’s too much wind and not enough reliable rain.

We grow attached to those that persevere.

The tree in my front yard is”Ann’s Tree.”

It succumbed to the weather in two installments. First one branch then all the limbs cracked off and lay splayed across the lawn and sidewalk. Two birdhouses were crushed and a trellis was knocked over when it crashed down.

My oldest daughter and I planted it as a two foot twig when she got it for Arbor Day in the second grade.

She’s 31 now.

It grew to shade the north bedroom in the summer and cast a grid of shadows across the blue sky in the winter.

How sad to see that old friend twisted and broken.

In the back yard the chickens have survived, their run has not. It caved in from the ice and snow. I shoved a crate under the fence which helped prevent total collapse.

This spring I was going to build a nice new run, that project has been moved up a couple of weeks.

I want to start next weekend.

My house is still without power. No lights and heat since Tues. night at 10:30.

It’s 53 in the house now. My family is good, I’m fine, the cats are well and the chickens are too. What more could I ask for.

Hope my houseplants make it.

A Chicken Adventure

I had planned to clean out the coop Saturday but didn’t get around to it. I didn’t want to wait any longer so it was on my agenda after work yesterday.

First off, my car was frozen shut. I kicked and jimmied the door until it rattled loose. Then I had to let it run for 15 minutes to melt the ice so I could see through the windshield.

When I got home I ran to see if the snow fence ceiling had collapsed over the chicken coop. While it was frozen solid and hanging low to the ground it was still in place though I had to crawl on my knees to get to the coop door.

The chickens were oblivious. They don’t mind the rain and ice. It’s the snow they hate.

It was apocalyptic outside.

While scooping out the hen house I could hear creaks and snaps as the trees groaned with the weight of the ice. I’d stop work periodically to make sure a tree limb wasn’t cracking off in my vicinity.

Imagine getting nailed by a falling tree or a snapped power line? What a way to go: Cleaning out a chicken coop.

When it was mostly cleaned out and had new bedding I hightailed it inside the house.

An hour later a power line snapped in the backyard as it flipped over a second line and came down in the lilac bushes near the chickens.

I called 911 to report it but they couldn’t come right away because of all the other power outages. They told me to stay put and don’t go outside.

But what about the chickens? I had to close up the coop and bring the chicken food inside.

Instead of waiting until dusk I went back out at 7 p.m. and shoved all the chickens inside the coop, grabbed their feeder and ran back to the house.

I lost power at 10:30 last night. It was 63 in the house this morning.

Hope I don’t lose my houseplants. But the cats should be fine.

And when I opened the coop this morning? The chickens wouldn’t come out.

There was snow on the ground. I told you, they hate the snow.

Thank You Dottie!

The second graders Dottie and I visited wrote thank you notes.

Many of them also drew little pictures of chickens, eggs and me.

I found the answer to their questions: What is the red thing on the top of their heads for?

Its comb is an indicator of health. The comb and wattle - the red piece under their chin is used to cool the chicken down in hot weather.

As for the other question - do chickens fart? They do.

Chickens pass gas through their mouths - it’s called tayloritis.

Good to know for my next classroom visit.

Here’s a sample thank you note. I’ll type it as it was written, see if you can figure out what it says.

Dear Miss W

Thak you for coming in with yore cikin it was rilly fun and I thot the cikin was cote. I hope you come in agan with a bihrit oen gins you have six mor. I will tell my mom buy a cikin.

if you figure it out let me know!