Daily Chicken Cuddle

Kate and the Kraken!

Daily Chicken Cuddle

ZaSu Pitts
The Kracken
Jonathan

Signs of Spring

Signs of Spring

Signs of Spring

Chicken names we are considering: The Kracken, The Dada Movement, Zasu Pitts

Signs of Spring

Daily Dinner

fresh pasta with backyard eggs, sauce with mushrooms from Kim + garden herbs, chicken soup from Dr. Wanda's bones, herbs, and brocolli

Slaughter

We ate Dr. Wanda. She had pretty much stopped laying eggs. Plus she was mean to the other chickens, and she sometimes ate their eggs. And, we've been thinking for awhile that we should learn to slaughter animals since we sometimes eat meat. It seems like we should be able to face the idea that meat used to be alive. We had a lot of help, especially from Roxanne. The internet taught us a bunch- for example how to hypnotize a chicken (hold chicken upside-down, draw a line in the dirt moving away from its face-see photo below- nice work Robin). It was much more peaceful than what we had expected. Dr. Wanda stayed totally still and calm as we cut her throat. I held her as she bled and died. After we dipped her body in hot water, the feathers came out very easily. Supposedly this is a sign of a calm, non-traumatic death. Thanks Dr. Wanda.

Daily Harvest

Daily Dinner

Daily Dinner continued

Look how purple our mashed potatoes were! Look at these half-formed eggs we found INSIDE (!) Dr. Wanda.

Worms!

We harvested casting (fertilizer/poop) from our worm bin. The chickens were excited. We also made liquid fertilizer from the gross juice that collects below the worm bin. You dilute the grossness 10:1. It looks like delicious dark beer and smells like satan.

Chickens

We can have the chickens out and about a lot more now. The summer crops are about done and the winter greens are big enough that the chickens can't kill them with one nibble or kick. Run around ladies!

Chicken Poop

Our chickens eat glass.
I'm sure our chickens aren't alone in this. I'm sure this is something common to urban chickens.
They also eat small rocks that collect in their gizzards. These rocks grind up their food, similar to what our teeth do for us.
I think that they are eating the glass for the same purpose that they eat rocks: to grind their food. The glass is no match for the rocks though. When our chickens poop it back out again the result looks like beach glass.

This photo is of one chicken poop after the poop has gotten washed away. There are a couple of tiny rocks, some sand, but mostly ground up glass.

Daily Harvest

Wanda's secret spot.

Portraits of the two new chickens

Lemon Harmon & The Flash

Presenting the new chickens!

Lemon Harmon, a Light Brahma

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and

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The Flash, a Delaware

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Jonathan has been looking on Craig's list for a chicken. We wanted one that was not so young

that it couldn't stick up for itself and that it wasn't laying. We didn't want one so old that we couldn't tell its age - I personally cannot guess the ages of full grown chickens - and then have it not lay eggs.

He found someone advertising six month old Light Brahmas. Our all time favorite chicken Gavi was a Dark Brahma. It was perfect.

He left a note on the door of the neighbors whose dog killed our chicken with the details of the ad. When the nieghbor's called back they asked if we wanted two. They read my mind.

Thursday night, after I had fallen asleep on the couch, the neighbors arrived. They were carying a small cat carrier with the two chickens inside. Combining different groups of chickens is hard to do well, so we tried all of the tricks we had heard about. We put the new ones in while the old ones were sleeping. We put out lots of extra food so that when they woke up they could eat together and not feel competative. We gave them special treats - grains and corn any thing we could find in the kitchen that would appeal to chickens. We went to bed and hoped for the best.

So far, three days later, things are not going so well. Our old chickens have been pecking the new ones, and the new ones have been hiding behind the food box. When they are out in the yard they are foraging in two separte packs. I'm still hoping that they will learn to get along eventually.

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These breeds are really interesting to me. The Brahma chicken is a very old variety, from, as you may have guessed, India. They have feathered feet and are famously calm and friendly.

The Delaware is a really new breed, developed, you guessed it again, in Delaware, in the 1930's or 40's. The Delaware is cross between a Barred Plymouth Rock and a New Hampshire. Wikipedia lists it as "critically endangered."

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So given these differences are you really surprised at how similar they look? Look at the photos. Isn't is kind of eerie?

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Unless you are the kind of person who just thinks that a chicken is a chicken is a chicken. In which case it makes perfect sense.

Daily Harvest

Daily Harvest

Eggs & who made 'em.

Murder

This morning I heard some chicken noises from the back. They got louder and louder. At first I thought that someone was laying an egg, but then it seemed like there was a problem - I thought that maybe the chickens were fighting. The noises were serious enough to get me to pull on some shoes and run out into the yard. I was surprised and scared to see this dog in our fenced off yard running around with Lady Gray in his mouth. I started screaming and yelling but the dog was so focused on killing that it didn't even turn to look at me. I got out the hose and started spraying it and yelling, still to no effect.

The dog took poor Lady under the porch where I couldn't reach either of them, so I started looking for the other chickens. I found Dr. Wanda and Petunia under the artichoke and got them back in the coop and shut the door. I couldn't find S.B.

I didn't know what to do. The dog wouldn't come out from under the porch and I was kind of scared that if I could actually get it out that it wouldn't be a friendly dog. Evidence = it kills chickens. I thought that I should at least be able to identify it later, so I ran in the house and got the camera. Here are some pictures I took of it under the porch and then later when it came out and tried to break into the coop.

Then I thought to call animal control. Apparently this is what they do and the truck came out very quickly and a friendly and competent man caught the dog. The dog had no tags and was surprisingly clean.

The neighbors who own the dog showed up just as he was getting the dog into the truck. They were very upset, and I was mad. The animal control guy said that they were lucky that their dog hadn't gotten into the backyard two houses down or it would be dead. He said that the man there is a retired police officer with a registered gun and lots of chickens that he is very attached to. Did you know that it is legal to kill any animal that is disturbing your livestock? Even in the city.

I didn't want the neighbors to lose their dog (it turned out to be owned by nice neighbor George) so, assisted by the animal control guy we reached an agreement that I thought was fair. They would put up an electric fence TODAY and put the zapping collar on the dog and they would get us another young laying hen. The animal control guy added "and don't be going down to Lucky Dog to get it either. They have been selling people roosters and saying they're hens. Now the shelters are filling up with roosters." Also in our agreement was that I wouldn't clean up dead chicken and that George would help me figure out how his dog got into my yard. "Look for dog hair," advised animal control guy. He also said that next time the dog got out that he would take it and gave us all his number to follow up with him.

The animal control guy was really the hero of this story for me. He knew so much about my neighborhood, he had actually been to my house before when a deer had died in the back yard years ago. ("You've done a lot of work in the yard," he said "it looks great!" I did a double take. "When have you been here before?") He was calm with mad people, he went above his job, I thought, by mediating rather then just following the letter of his job, which was 1. take dog away 2. charge impounding fees. I also thought that his perspective of my city was facinating and so different from mine. Where are all of the wild and domestic animals of the city, living and dead? How and when and why do they move through the city?

Thank you animal control guy. Rest in peace Lady Gray. Stay away murdering dogs. Get that electric fence up George.