chickens – Page 11 – The Hermits' Rest

The Great Peeper Escape

Well, shoot, those baby chicks are three days old already, so naturally it’s time for them to start having adventures or getting in trouble. They were fine this morning when I went in and gave Star some scratch to enjoy. Oh, and since my sister asked, I decided I better name them, so meet (left to right) Granite, Bronzer, and Steel. I figure those names are unisex and color-coded, so I can remember them.

Lee and I went on an ill-fated trip to find him a zero-gravity folding chair to sleep in when we travel, and when we got back, I headed over to the chickens to give them some mealworms I’d bought for them (as if they don’t have enough insects).

I heard a great deal of peeping long before I got to the chicken run. Obviously something was wrong! Was something in there going after my babies? Was one of them hurt?

Steel had just pecked Star’s beak. I’m sure that’s her loving look. Chickens don’t have many expressions, sort of like cats.

I peeked inside the roosting area, and there was Star and two chicks. Bronzer was not there. And the loud peeping was from outside the roost. The biggest peeper had managed to jump up on the fine Hook ‘Em sign I’d used to block their exit and gone down the ramp. Uh oh.

Right as I figured that out, Star jumped through the opening and went to comfort Bronzer. There he/she/they was, bopping around and poking at grass and such. The chick was fine, just wanted MAMA! Great, I thought, I have to move her before I can get to the baby.

Yay, eating from the feeder. Note that Steel is already getting some new wing feathers.

I gamely went into the coop, and crawled through the chicken opening, which is not a semi-large human opening. I was wearing clean jeans. Note that I say WAS wearing clean jeans, since Star had been depositing large mama hen poops all over the place. I waved at her, and she ran back up to the other two chicks.

As I waited for little Bronzer to bop close enough to me to be caught I noticed something I’d forgotten about: there was a DOOR to that roosting area, for if you wanted to shut the chickens in there at night. Aha! It’s a really cheap and non-sturdy door, as only a Tractor Supply’s least expensive chicken coop would be likely to have. But, it shuts.

Bronzer is really big. Hope that doesn’t mean future rooster.

I chatted to Bronzer for a while, as my back got all frozen up, and did I mention it was extra windy and below 60 degrees? Yep. I was worried the little one would get too cold, after reading about keeping them at 95 degrees for the first week (that is Star’s job).

But, yay, my patience paid off and I easily picked up the chick. Figuring out how to back up in a very tight space holding a peeping and wiggling bird was the next challenge. Something was catching my shirt, but I managed. Whew. I plopped Bronzer back where they were supposed to be and managed to shut that door. Safety at last!

Thanks for the bugs, says Bertie Lee. They are nummy. I’ll lay you an egg later.

Now that Star can’t get out, either, I went and got her some adult chicken food and will put more in there tomorrow. I was very glad to see Bronzer eating away and looking no worse for wear. At the rate they are growing, I should be able to let them back out in a couple of days, anyway. I’m learning that chickens are pretty tough.

Star must have mites or something. She’ll get to have a dust bath soon!

Hope your adventures have good endings today like mine have!

Hungry and Cute Chicks with Pix

As soon as I got a break from work meetings, I headed out to feed the flock and check on the new babies. I was happy to see that Star had at least moved them in the night. I was wondering if she’d ever move!

The fraternal triplets. Look how they differ in size and foot color!

It looked to me like no one had touched the food or water I’d put out, so I moved them closer to the chicks, and then sprinkled a little of the food on the surface. Once the gray chick took a peck at it, the other two joined in!

Hey! This is FOOD! Note the wary Mom head in most of my photos.

Pretty soon, Star ALSO realized there was food in there, and she started eating out of the food dish. I’m hoping that modeling will encourage the little ones to peck in the nice clean container, and maybe also figure out the water is over there.

I feel like I helped the little dudes out a bit, and I sure got a lot of joy out of watching them eat. I assume they didn’t need to eat much the first day, but will need LOTS of food from now on!

I may be the smallest, but I ate first, chirps the gray one. I don’t have names yet.

I promise, no daily update posts, though I’ll probably sneak in some photos as they grow. I’m glad Star is a good mom so far!

I’m already hiding the gray one from you! And how dare you spend only $1.35 on our feeder!

Look Who’s Back! It’s Gracie!

Oh my gosh. Today got even better! There I was, talking to my boss, all serious-like, when Lee came in carrying something that looked like a small Carlton. Only it was GRACIE LOU! We hadn’t seen her in over a week!

Of course, there was one place we hadn’t looked for her, and that’s where she was. She’d been in our garage storage room. One of us must have gone in there for some reason and she followed us in.

I have a sinking feeling it was me, because I vaguely remember going in there at some point. That guilt will stay with me forever, every time I look at that sweet face.

Thanks for freeing me. I need more variety in my diet.

I guess the “good” part is that we locked the right dog in there. Gracie, as I mentioned before, is a tough farm dog, despite her delicate good looks. It was obvious she had mice to eat in the storeroom and knew how to catch them. Wow.

We had to ration water when she first came back to the house, because we know too much water when you’re dehydrated isn’t great. She seems okay now, friendly and sweet as ever.

One thing we can’t figure out is why we never heard her barking. I spend a lot of time in the garage looking for eggs, after all. But, now that I think of it, I was in Austin last week! Ah! That explains it. Still, I didn’t hear her from Friday to today. It’s a mystery, I guess.

After all this drama, I went out to sit on the porch and stare blankly at the trees. I got to enjoy a fine show of Harvey, Penney, and Carlton chasing each other and playing. It’s like having my own circus act.

I’m so glad we found Kathleen’s sweet and tough dog. We’ve had enough losses and bad news lately!

Chicken Update

I made a mistake in my piece on waiting for the chicks to hatch! I said it took 15 days, and that’s totally wrong; it’s 21! I appreciate our supporter, Dorothy, for pointing that out and telling me how to candle eggs with a flashlight!

Mom let me peek out! Look at my cute feet!

Dorothy also tells me she’d rather have dishcloths than an afghan, which means my next supporter who gives more than a dollar a month can have an afghan! Who will it be?

I’m a Chicken Grandma!

Well, that didn’t take long! An hour after I wrote my previous entry, I went over to check on star, and reinforce her door with some heavy stones. I heard PEEPS. I couldn’t see a dang thing, though.

So, I moved her aside, and there were two little black chicks, one who obviously had just hatched. I then looked on the other side, and there was a very perky brown chick who looks a lot like Buttercup. Yay! They all hatched!

Star let me rearrange the food and water a bit, so the little ones can get to it, and then I left her so the third baby, who I’m guessing is hers, could dry out.

I see some white bits on this one! It’s Henley’s.

I’m so happy that they all made it, but a little sad that I barely missed the hatching. I do have to work, so I couldn’t sit there all day and annoy Star. I’m also proud that I got that chick food in there just in time, too!

I can’t tell, but I bet the new one is gray.

I was curious as to what the little fresh one would look like when dried off, so I went back, and sure enough, that’s a gray one, just like Star.

I let Bruce know he was a dad, but, as a rooster, he had no idea what I was talking about. He did strut a bit, nonetheless. He’ll figure out why soon enough, once his kids come downstairs. I’m also sharing photos of the mothers, just so you’ll see what they might look like later (depending of how much of Bruce’s good looks come through).

For now, everyone is nestled under Star, recovering from the arduous hatching they had to do. When they come out, there’s food and drink waiting for them, so hooray!

They can just hop over and get food, whenever their mom lets them.

Baby Watch (Chick)

First, I want to thank everyone, especially blog reader Julia, for your helpful comments on yesterday’s essay on not being responsible for the happiness of another person. I hope it’s clear that I will always be available to support and help people I care about; I just don’t have a functioning magic wand to turn that frown upside down.

I’m still brooding over here. Get out of my face, says the fluffy Star.

I read that eggs take 21 days to hatch, so today may be the day Star’s three eggs hatch. I haven’t “candled” them (no tools) to see if there’s a developing baby in there, so I have no idea if any of the eggs are actually viable. If they all hatch, we will have mothers who produce white, tan, and brown eggs, all fathered by Bruce, who carries the gene for blue eggs.

My feathers are all ruffled at the thought of being a daddy, declares Bruce.

If any chicks turn out to be hens (oh please!) they should lay olive eggs. Won’t that be fun?

Yesterday I brilliantly realized I hadn’t gotten chick feed. Oops. I got the medicated kind, because I can’t give a chicken a shot, even though I got a demo once. While I was at the local farm store/boutique/dry cleaners, I got a small feeder and waterer that will fit in the nest box area.

I got all worried last night that newborn chicks would fall out of the nesting area. So, I put a rectangular, wood sign up across the entrance that should block the chicks but let Star climb over and get out to eat adult chicken food.

I have to keep up my strength for protecting these chicks, if they hatch, says Star.

I hope to get some help with a better system soon, but I did my best! Now I just have to stay patient. I drank a lot of liquid patience (that’s what my new coffee mug from the Bling Box says) this morning, to reinforce it.

Obviously, I’ve been using this mug as hard as I can!

I’m really glad there are these positive and interesting things going on at the ranch right now, because my anxiety levels are absolutely through the roof. I just keep going outside, looking at the life all around me, and breathing. I’m trying to work on the things I can affect and let the things that are out of my range of influence just drop. That’s what Lee said a Stoic would do.

The distraction today was how many different pollinators were buzzing around the false dandelions over by the chicken run. I saw at least four different kinds, ranging from tiny hoverflies to a long-horned bee about the size of a honeybee.

We have also had very, very large ground bees or something like that flying around. They are different from bumblebees in that they hover and dart around very fast. On iNaturalist, they identified one of my photos as a bumblebee and one as a carpenter bee, but judging from the behavior, I think it’s the latter.

I do know what my last photo is, because I managed to look it up. It’s Carolina bristlemallow with seeds. They look so interesting, don’t they?

I’m sincerely hoping you have something interesting and maybe even fun to distract you from whatever challenges you’re facing today. We’re all in it together, and I’m busy trying to make my own happiness over here. Sure I am.

Summertime Is Coming and the Chickens Are Laying

I hear y’all like my ranchy stories, so here’s what excitement greeted me when I got back to the ranch today. Since no one had picked up eggs, the first thing I did was check the top of the garage fridge. There were at least three eggs per hen, but 5 white ones. Little Henley had gone into overdrive! I’m guessing she laid two in one day. Wow. One was tiny compared to her usual eggs.

Then I went to find Bertie Lee’s eggs. But there were NONE where I found the last bunch. So I looked under everything. Voila! There were 7 eggs, one broken, in the original corner where she first started hiding her eggs, on an old mop. Let’s hope she keeps this location up.

That just left Big Red. The little darling had laid two while I was in Austin. Oddly, they were two different colors. That led me and Sara to wonder if she’s really two hens, but they never appear in public together. That’s plausible, right?

Now I am about ready to sell or give away some of the eggs. We have lots now!

There are other signs summer’s coming around here! I’ve seen scissor tail flycatchers already. Another summer of watching their beauty has commenced! And the intensely fuchsia wine cups on our property showed up. I’m relieved.

My favorite jewel of a flower. Look at all the pollen!

I’ve saved the best for last, though. My favorite violent murderer bird is back! I really missed the loggerhead shrike when it left last year. I haven’t seen it. But it’s handiwork is easy to see.

Loggerhead shrikes impale insects and save them for later. This is a female grasshopper, because you can see her wings.

I was never so happy to see two dead bugs in my life!

Yeah, it’s hot already. But I’ve got my two red buddies, Apache and Big Red, to entertain me. After my long week, I just sat and watched them this afternoon while Sara worked with Ace. As always, being with them helped. It’s yet another way I can maintain my equilibrium.

Hope you have a peaceful or fun weekend. I have a Zoom wedding to look forward to.

Where Do Easter Eggs Come From?

Not bunnies. Not baskets. Nor roosters! Not even from capons (see below). Most of them come from the grocery store or the drugstore, as far as I can tell. This question is just an excuse for me to talk about chickens…again.

It ruffles my feathers to think I’d try to lay an egg!

It’s been quite a time in my chicken-raising career, but it seems like things have settled down. I finally seem to have a bunch of hens and dear Bruce, who have stabilized and aren’t getting eaten by anything. I did see the harrier out yesterday, though. Beautiful hawk, but I’m keeping my eye on it.

I do want to get some more hens soon, as soon as the henhouse gets set up to keep young ones separate for a while. I now know which kinds to get, anyway. Tough ones.

Of course, I’m looking forward to seeing if the eggs Star is setting on will hatch. I’m hoping they’re hens, since I don’t know how to caponize (castrate) a cockerel (young rooster). I have no idea if anyone around here does it as a service. I did read, though, that capons make great brooders and surrogate mothers, since they have hen hormones, but don’t lay eggs. The things you learn on Wikipedia!

I actually caught star out on one of her daily food runs recently. She is all fluffy, I guess from sitting all fluffed up on the eggs. I took a peek at the eggs, and they all look fine. I debated removing the dud egg, but didn’t want to confuse her. I’ll remove it when and if the others hatch on the 15th!

Even a good mom needs a break sometimes.

It just makes me happy watching them explore the area and down massive quantities of insects. We always seem to have plenty more, so I don’t think they’re ruining the ecology out here (it’s mostly ruined by herbicides the tenant ranchers put on the fields, anyway).

Henley says to leave her alone. She’s NOT sociable.

It’s so relaxing to just sit on the grass or in my official chicken-watching chair and enjoy what they do. And I guess I’ll always be looking for egg stashes, since I think that darned Bertie Lee may have gone somewhere else now that I took all her supply from under the work bench.

None of these ranch hobbies are inexpensive, but I do get a lot of joy out of the animals, and I think that’s what counts. They got me through the quarantine by giving me a purpose every day and something to do that forces me outside in the fresh air. I’m pretty grateful for the chickens (and the horses) for that.

If you celebrate Easter, I hope you enjoy your eggs, whether from a hen or from a rabbit that poops out chocolate ones. I haven’t had a chocolate bunny in years, though I do manage to snag a creme egg on sale after Easter every so often. They are tasty!

I hope you also are experiencing some hope for the future. I am, because it’s actually raining over here. Rain brings flowers and keeps those tanks full!

You don’t think I’d make it easy on you, so you? Says sassy Bertie Lee.

Springsteen, the Jersey Giant, reminds you that black IS beautiful, as are her pinkish eggs.

So tell me! What is bringing you renewed joy and hope this season? I’d love to hear from you! I’d also love to knit you some washcloths, if you feel like being a supporter of this blog and podcast. Click the support button on the main podcast page, or hey, you can even send me a voice message about what brings you joy and hope from there!

All the Hermits of the Hermits’ Rest send you lots and lots of virtual hugs and support, however you may need it.

The Great Hen Detective Strikes Again!

Take THAT, Bertie Lee! You can’t fool us forever! You’re just a chicken, and we are human hen detectives! I think they could start paying me for this egg-finding work. Yep, I finally found where Bertie Lee is currently stashing her eggs. I say currently, because I only found ten. Of course, she could have just started again after finishing molting, or after the cold episode. I don’t know. I’m not a chicken.

Look at all those sort of dirty Bertie eggs! And one very clean Henley egg that was just laid.

Lee helped on this one, because yesterday he said he saw her coming out from behind the work benches again. He thought maybe she was laying in her old spot, which she’d gotten chased out of. So, this morning, I decided to look even harder than usual, and used the step ladder to climb on top of the sturdy old workbench. I looked down behind it, and there they were! Eggs!

Bertie Lee tells Bruce that she’s glad the garage is such a mess, because it’s easy to hide eggs in. Her eggs are secretly under that white cabinet.

Of course, they were in a really hard-to-reach place, as Bertie Lee is a smart hen. She survived the 2019 and 2020 hen attacks that lost us a lot of our flock. I found the perfect egg-moving device however, our fishing net. I was able to carefully roll them forward and get them, without injury to me or any eggs. Well, two of the eggs were cracked, but I think Bertie must have done that herself, since the mess was dried up.

When I brought the eggs in, I immediately tested them for viability by seeing if they floated, just like I did a couple of days ago when I found Big Red’s egg stash. These were all in GREAT shape, with only one looking slightly iffy. I put it in with Big Red’s, along with a couple others, ready for becoming deviled eggs for Easter!

Bertie is trying to tell Buttercup to hide her eggs better, but Butter is focused on bugs.

Now I have seven hens capable of laying, and six of them are active (I hope; I couldn’t find Springsteen this morning, and she’s the low chicken in the pecking order). Theoretically, I may have enough to start giving eggs away again. And I can’t wait to see if Star hatches any baby hennie chicks! She’s still in there, setting away.

She knows she’s my favorite. Don’t tell Buttercup.

What a great way to start a day off! The Sherlock Holmes of Laying Hens strikes again! I’ve already had my personal Easter egg hunt.

I’m the Sherlock Holmes of Nesting Hens

This one had us laughing much of last night. You may remember that not too long ago, I used my chicken detective skills to discover that my Hermits’ Rest hens had decided to start laying eggs in an artificial Christmas wreath on top of our garage refrigerator. I’d looked high and low, but finally saw Springsteen up on the fridge in the middle of the day, looking very much like she was laying an egg. Now everyone lays there except Bertie Lee (mystery location) and Star, who’s brooding three eggs in the nest box, where they are supposed to be laying eggs. I just climb up on the fridge every day and retrieve the eggs. Not an elegant solution, but it works.

There’s one more chicken, though. Big Red lives with Apache and Fiona, and I hadn’t gotten an egg from her in over a year. Hmm.

What’s Red’s Story?

Well, once upon a time about three or four years ago, there was a chicken coop and run over the cabin on the greater ranch property. At one point, two people decided to raise some chicks, and got like two dozen production red chicks and two dozen black meat chickens. It was fun to watch them grow and grow. (Here’s a link to a longer story from 2018; podcast listeners can search for chickens on the blog and find it.)

Soon we were getting a LOT of eggs (I say “we” because I took care of them when their caregivers were out of town). I dutifully trotted them up to the neighbors’ storage area and labeled them, where they got sold at farmer’s markets.

Fast forward, and one partner stopped coming around, the residents at the cabin moved out, and I ended up being the caretaker. More babies arrived, some we bought and some that came as gifts. I became the half owner. We ended up with Americaunas, barred rocks, leghorns, and more and more. I sure enjoyed all those chickens, and enjoyed selling my half at work.

Yep, the neighbors had a LOT of chickens back in the day. That’s Buckbeak, the nice rooster, in the center.

At some point, an owl began systematically eliminating the chickens, including the wonderful rooster we had back then. Sniff. I felt powerless, because there was no roof on the chicken yard, and a hole in the door to the coop, which allowed owls in. But it wasn’t my coop, so I couldn’t exactly work on it. The other partner was going to make the hens all into sausage, so I took over as the queen of the dwindling flock. It was sad.

I decided to let nature take its course (which was awful, with so many dead hens), and to just get myself my own chickens at my house, with an enclosed coop, where they would be easier to care for and less vulnerable. As we know, the joke was on me, because we still lose chickens to predators over at our part of the ranch, though we have been working hard on keeping the chickens safe…at least when they are young. The old ones insist on living outside.

Well, I thought all the chickens over there were gone and stopped feeding them. But, soon we realized there was still ONE old chicken left. That’s Big Red. She outlived them all. She was out scrounging for bugs and grain over by the horse area. That made sense.

Plenty to eat around here! (August 2020)

We’ve enjoyed her antics with Fiona and Apache, especially when she drinks from the big troughs. We never found any eggs, but once found her laying an egg with no shell. That led me to start bringing some chicken feed over to her, which we give her when we feed the horses.

She’s a fine hen, and that’s no bull. (This beefy guy is behind our house.)

Once she started eating, she began to look better and better. She doesn’t look at all like an “old” hen, and she’s friendly as heck. She made it through the cold weather, too, and had a nice warm place to hide out. For the past few weeks, though, we’d been wondering if her improved nutrition has enabled her to start laying. I put on my detective hat again.

I’ve been looking in various spots, like the storage area, the cattle pens, etc. No eggs. Then, day before yesterday, I heard an odd noise in the old chicken run. There was Big Red, scratching away. Hmm, I hadn’t seen her over there in a long, long time.

So, yesterday, on a whim, I decided to take a look in the nesting boxes where the hens used to all lay. Oh my goodness. There were 9 lovely Big Red eggs in there!

Well, of course. The great egg detective figured out that the eggs were in the egg boxes. Go me!

Which egg in the Easter basket is not from Big Red?

I took the eggs home, curious as to whether I’d found fresh eggs or ancient eggs. I tested them in a bowl of water, and while none of them floated (which means they aren’t old, rotten, bad, and such), a few of them were iffy. They are marked for future hard boiled eggs.

It’s hard to tell, but this is a picture of the eggs NOT floating.

My guess is that, at her age, Big Red is laying a couple of times per week, so these eggs may be from about the time the cold weather event occurred. I’ll be checking daily from now on, so I’ll know how often she’s laying. I’m so surprised and pleased that she’s still churning out eggs, especially since the production hens tend to lay a lot for the first year, then pretty much stop after their second year. Way to go, Big Red!

Now Suna the great hen detective needs to solve the Bertie Lee mystery. She should still be laying…somewhere.

Trying Again with Chicken Parenting

Since it’s looking like it will still be a while before the relatives are back and I can get some new pullets (I need help rearranging the coop), I decided to try the old egg experiment again. You see, for the past few days when I go outside to feed my little flock of 6 (five hens and Bruce, the rooster), I see this:

Yes, I see five chickens. Someone is missing. That would be Star, the beautiful and large gray Czech Blue Sapphire hen. Coincidentally, she is now the only one laying in the actual hen boxes, since she chased Buttercup and Henley away. I still don’t know where Bertie Lee is laying, but everyone else has been laying away since it warmed up.

Yes, Star has gone broody on us. I guess it’s her turn. I decided to go ahead and let her set on some eggs, if she’s so fired up about it. I took a couple eggs from the other hens and stuck them under her, so I’m guessing she has 3-4 under her (including one dud). I wrote down on the calendar when 21 days would be up, and we will see if she continues to brood away and produces some chicks.

I know she’s eating, because she gets out for a while when it’s warm outside. That’s probably when it’s easiest to maintain warmth. She’s definitely in there all night, and not taking up space in the garage (yay). So, I guess we have another waiting game on our hands, and this time no one is gonna shew the broody hen off the nest. We can spare a few eggs, and who knows, maybe some of them will hatch into hens that lay green eggs (thanks to their baby daddy, Bruce, who’s an Easter Egger).

I’m looking forward to hearing from you all! Send me some comments. Blog listeners can even send voice messages (unless that turns out to be a big mistake).