arrivals and plans

My nest box and my feeder have arrived.  Planning perhaps a simple coop.   Might talk to husband about a temporary "fence" between the driveway and the chicken area--just some type of barrier to keep out any marauding dogs, so the chickens can have a little peace when they're yardbirds.  I'm less worried about 'possums, raccoons, and cats.  They exist, but big hens are somewhat fearsome to smaller predators who might want to make them dinner.  We shall see.

The new chickens are likely to be Red Star (red sex-link) hens.  Cute new redhead residents.

Hen cave flooring coming along.  Still henless, for now.

Sad end for one of the 'hood chickens

Next door neighbor told me he saw a neighborhood chicken (he thought it was Dorothy, but she hasn't been around....might have been Sophia), floppy dead and hanging from a nice neighborhood dog's mouth today.  Don't know if that dog killed the chicken, or just found it after something else did.  That dog has always been very sweet.  Doesn't mean he might not be capable of bird killing, but he's an old dog at this point, and I've never known him to not be very sweet and gentle.

Anyway, a sad end for one of my biddie buddies.  She'll be missed.

A nest box for my soon to be hens

I got my soon to be girls a cheap, simple nest box.  There are all kinds of various choices, most are more than I'm interested in spending.  This one is actually meant to be inside a coop, but I'll probably put this on some sort of stand to get it up off the ground and keep it dry, and will place it somewhere under the front stairs, aka the hen cave.  Will likely go ahead and put some paint or varnish on it after it arrives, to protect it from weather and poop.  And then get some shavings to line it.

From my reading, it appears hens are perfectly happy to share.  You don't need to provide each with its own nest box.  AND, an interesting thing I learned is you can teach a hen to lay somewhere by using a fake egg.  Even one of those plastic easter eggs or a golf ball.  How funny is that?

Update:  We just got a gully washer, so I went to do some hen cave research about water issues.  Gully washers produce temporary flooding.  The hen cave brick patio I built gives the chickens a place to stay dry.  A teensy bit of dripping from the stairs, but most of the water is flooding water, not dripping or blowing water.  There's a place along the wall of the house that stays entirely dry, even from blowing rain, so we should shoot to "hang" my nest box there.  Husband said when nest box arrives, he'll do a few quick presto chang-os to it, and we can probably put a couple hooks in the wall to hang it from. And I'll varnish it for good measure.  My aim is to hang it where wetness won't get it, but I want it to be removable so I can clean it as necessary.  It'll probably have pine shavings in it as nesting material.  

Readying the hen cave for new occupants

So the hens don't walk in their pan (and poop in their pan), I got a covered feeder.  It says the pointy top keeps them from deciding to sit on the lid, and this feeder holds about 16 pounds of chicken feed, so you don't have to refill their dish nearly so often.  I have a waterer too, which has made an appearance in other pictures.

I've already named the new hens I don't even have yet.  Mae and Lena.  Hope Mae and Lena like red.  This feeder is really red.

This is essentially what Lena and Mae will look like.  I think they are Red Sex-link chickens, also known as Red Star chickens.  I'm not 100% certain on that, but from my combing chick lit, that's my best guess.

In the meantime...

...there are always kitty doings......

Even wild girls eventually pass out.....

Birdie babble will be back

I've taken my roosters (oh phooey) to the feed store now.  Since there's infrastructure work going on on my block, and my yard and sidewalk are completely torn up with large equipment and dump trucks etc etc all coming back next week, I'm going to hold off at least a week on getting any real hens.

I think I may get just 2 hens, and the feed store has them clearly identified as boy or girl.  No need for a large flock, and they can keep each other company.

Now back to thinking up names I guess.  Hmmm.....

By the way, the little roosters did almost jump in the cat carrier.  It was suggested by a friend that I put a pan of food in there and see if they'll just walk right in.  Worked with 2 of them, and if the third hadn't jumped on top of the carrier instead of around it (he startled the other two, which then startled him too), it might have worked with all 3.  Husband caught the third for me, and off they went in the car with me to the feed store.

This is what the 3rd looked like while we were trying to catch him.  The picture is borrowed, but you get the idea....

Dude looks like a lady....

Turns out Frosty, June, Helen and Peg were actually Frank, Jack, Horace and Paul.  Sigh.

As of this morning, my remaining three "girls" have all crowed or are valiantly trying to manage a crow.  While I didn't want to look my gift hens in the mouth, it appears not a one of the original four was a hen.  I'd seen at least 2 of them wrestling daily, but a chicken forum said girls sometimes do this too, so I was in blissful denial for as long as I could be about their true gender.  No eggs will be coming from these hims.

So, later today, I'll gather them up (or at least try....good heavens....it's not like they'll just hop in a cat carrier willingly), and take them down to Wabash (the feed store).  I'm grateful Wabash is willing to take them and find them a more appropriate home.

The big question next is.....should I replace these 3 with two known hens (no guessing !!).  Wabash has some grown ones, who are clearly one gender or the other.  I'm thinking "yes", however I may wait until the contractors are finished with the infrastructure work on my block...maybe a week.  They're doing brick sidewalks and putting in sewer lines etc and there's much noise and confusion and torn-up yard etc.

To the Hen Cave, Robin !

Did some improvements to the Hen Cave this afternoon.  The thunder boomers create flooded areas temporarily, and while the chickens themselves survive, their food bowl gets flooded.

So, the Hen Cave received its own brick patio today, with a raised platform for food and water.




I'm sure we have a few more gully washers coming, so we'll see how my engineering works, and adjust accordingly.

Like my high tech pie plate hen feeder?

Only my chicks left??

Well, there's been an odd turn of events, and Dorothy is now finally gone.  Here is my best guess.  The place the 'neighborhood chickens' have lived is owned by a guy.  But one evening earlier this week, a lady with an English accent saw me on my porch watching my chickens, and she asked me if I have seen hers.  I told her indeed I'd made friends of hers, and liked the black one especially (the one I call Dorothy).

I saw what appeared to be someone moving in or out at that house recently, and all of a sudden that yard has cleaned up greatly.  My best guess is that the owner rented it out for a couple of years or something maybe, and perhaps the woman (who I've never seen prior to that evening) might have been a renter??

And perhaps she's now moved on, and taken what was left of the flock with her?  All guesses.  I'm just sad Dorothy isn't around anymore.  She was my pal.

Cecil B deMize, I's ready for my close-up

June says "Dis is me, primping and preparing for my portrait."  A girl's gotta fluff her wings.





" See, I a pretty girl".

World's foremost recyclers

Gotta give the girls credit.  They can turn a cup o' seed into an impressive amount of fertilizer.

Copious caca, mess a manure, bounteous buffalo chips, extensive excrement, generous guano, plentitudinous poop, major meadow muffins, no-end night soil.

All well and good in the gardens and grass.  Not quite so welcome when they sneak a visit to the front stairs at night :-\

I have found a perfect turd tool though, for just such occasions.  A little paint scraper works wonders.  The girls provide hooey with heft, so it's eminently scrapeable, right off into the grass.  All's well that, well, ends well.

Itsy bitsy, teeny weeny, yellow polka....oh, no swimsuit....

"June, I think this may be a hot tub."









"But, hey, Peg, there's gunk and tadpoles.....I think we could find a snack in here !"

Mama is home this week...

....and can tend to our every need.  So, how come she invited these guys to wake us up, and then dig up our yard?  Harumph !

We took cover in the bananas.  Hope they aren't going to dig this up too !

Score !!!

June says:

"Helen, Peg, check this out....we scored digs with a POOL !".

what goes in must come out

Early in our fowl activities (before we started discouraging the porch as a hanging out spot), husband went to the porch and said it was, um, foul.  The hens had discovered the porch and thought it a lovely place.  And left many, many, many calling cards. 

Husband wasn't quite as delicate in his verbiage.   His was more like:  [expletive, expletive] they [expletive] as much as a big [expletive] dog.  They [expletive] all over everything.


Ooops.  Now we keep the baby gate up at the entrance, and the hens have respected that, and the chicken fertilizer stays where it'll be of benefit, and not where it'll be sat in.

The 'Hen Cave'

It's summer and it's hot.  No bird brains, my girls.  They're hangin' in the shade under the stairs.  You've heard of a man cave, right?  The girls have a 'hen cave'.

Helen wanted to know:  "we have HOW many more months of this heat?"

Potted chicken

...you never know where you may find a chicken.  I didn't manage to get a picture of it, but one day while walking, I saw what looked like Dorothy's tail feathers sticking up out of a good sized, empty concrete planter that was sitting on a porch column.  So, I called out "Dorothy, is that you in there".  And she raised her head up as if to say "yeah, it's me".  It made me laugh out loud.  Chickens really are very entertaining, and very social.  And very curious.

Mayhem

I tell ya, I can't leave for even a minute before the 'kids' are misbehavin'.   Either that, or a cat came and disturbed the nice afternoon nap the hens were enjoying, and they scattered widely.  Here's June, visiting the neighbor.   Oh, don't mind me, I'm just sitting on your window sill, minding my own business (or hoping you'll buy my Avon).

I have no idea at this moment where my two other girls are.  They aren't in the usual places, but there are no signs of a struggle, so perhaps they're visiting elsewhere too?  Hmmm, hope they make it home in time for dinner.

Do you know where your children are?  Clearly, I don't.

Update:  Neighbor said a big yellow dog came marauding down my driveway and chased the chickens.  Dang, I should have closed the gate.  By choice the hens don't wander far, but I didn't do a good job of protecting them.   I may be down to two.  :-(

2nd Update:  Crisis averted---3rd 'hen' (I hope they are hens) showed back up.  She's now put herself to bed in the tree (I hope all 3 of them start doing that--it's just safer for them), and the other two are wandering back and forth deciding where they'd like to sleep.  Whew.  No lost hens today.

And then there were 3

Sadly, one of my 'hens' started crowing.  Since this is life in the center of a big city, I can't keep a him.  Fortunately, Wabash Feed carries livestock and is willing to take my little buddy Frosty, and find him a good home.   Here he is, pert and alert, and also showing you his best side as he dives into the feedbag.

Have a good life, little buddy.  We'll miss you here at chicken central.

Where do sleeping chickens lie?

Well, my chicken farming days have begun, ready or not.  The girls (we hope they're all girls--too soon to really tell) have been trying out different roosts.  They've rotated around several...will be interesting to see what their final choice is.  I noticed Dorothy has a place on a fence several yards down, where she sleeps each and every night.  And when Blanche was still around, there was a tree branch she headed to every night as the sun went down.  So, I think these girls will pick a place when they find just the right spot, and make that "it".  They're still trying out the choices.

I don't have any pictures of them sleeping on the banana stumps, but a couple of nights each picked a stump and fell promptly to sleep.  My husband put a ladder up in the bananas to see if they like that, and they've spent a couple of nights there.  They like to huddle up together, so 3 were on the top rung, and the one that didn't fit had to descend one level.  A couple of other nights they have chosen the fence post and railing, and they cram themselves very close together, and I guess the 2 most dominant get the post.  Last night, I noticed two of them trying to fit on top of the post, and one sliding off.  When I woke up in the middle of the night, I couldn't resist looking out the window to see how that finally played out.  Chicken 2 was asleep atop chicken 1.  Voila.

A big rain

Dorothy is generally pretty happy-go-clucky, but we had a gully washer one weekend morning, and Dorothy (being the coopless chick she is) didn't quite make it to cover soon enough.   It appears she took cover in a bush, which didn't keep her dry and did cover her wet feathers with small leaves.  I saw her soon after it quit raining, and this is how I found her.  Dejected, embarassed, soaking wet, and in NO mood to talk.   It's funny all the old cliches regarding chickens.  She truly was mad as a wet hen.

Re-gifted

I've thought about getting my own hens---someday.  But hadn't even considered doing it now.

I arrived home Tuesday after my nightly walk, to find neighbor Scott sitting on the front porch with my husband.  As I ascended the front stairs, I saw a box with a sticky note that said "Merry Christmas".  Scott had brought 4 chickens.   I laughed and said "where are you going to put these?", to which he replied "they're for you."   I guess he'd heard me lament one day that another of the 'neighborhood chickens' had disappeared, and thought I'd like some of my own.

 Oh goodness.  Now what? He told my husband some of the back story...something about a company that got Easter chicks for it's employees--I guess not all the employees were pleased with the gift.  We hope this is all pullets (girls), but it's hard to tell until they get old enough to either crow or lay eggs.

 I live downtown in a big city.  We have no coop.  Wasn't expecting this gift.  Hmmm, now what?  Well, here they are, so I'm an instant chicken farmer.   I decided to name them June, Frosty, Helen and Peg after some longtime friends.  And we do have a fenced yard (not that a chicken can't just fly over the fence), so we're going to see how it goes.  Husband created some roost choices for them, I had at least some scratch on hand (that I keep for Dorothy), and I can make a quick water bowl for them.  Turned them loose in the yard, sprinkled some scratch in the flower bed, and there they are.

Where do I begin?

I'd originally had a different direction I thought I'd take with a blog. Then the neighborhood chickens came into my downtown big city life, and their antics are so entertaining, I decided blog about them.

Maybe a year or so ago, the neighbor on the corner got some free range chickens. Looks like he might have had them penned when they were very young, but they've roamed at will since becoming pullets. When I met them, there were 3, and I called them Dorothy (black with yellow markings), Blanche (yellow with black markings) and Rose (a white Leghorn). Since I walk almost daily, I would see them and visit them, and since they live across from a little store in the middle of the neighborhood, people are just part of their landscape, and they're really quite tame.

All 3 were around for awhile, and then I saw Rose about 5 blocks away, living a "spa life" at the home of one of the neighbors. They enjoyed her antics, tolerated her scratching up their mulch, and fed her until she disappeared. I think someone nabbed her :-(. So, then we were down to 2 hens. I have no idea where they lay their eggs, but I do know their favorite sleeping spots. And the two of them were around for months, until Blanche disappeared. Bummer again. I think someone nabbed her as well. No sign of trauma, they just come up missing. Shortly thereafter, one I called Sophia showed up, and was the same size as the original hens. Not sure where she'd been before because she was new on the scene here, but appeared to be the same breed, except reddish. So, Dorothy was happy to be one of 2 until Sophia disappeared. Now it's just Dorothy. I think I'm her best pal....her owner doesn't seem to pay too much attention to the hens, and I've been quite fond of them. Dorothy is the tamest of the bunch, so it's a little bit ironic that she's the only one of that flock left.

Dorothy comes down pretty much daily to see if I have any scratch for her, offers herself up for petting, and looks to see if I've freshened her water bowl.

Unless and until her owner gets more chickens, I guess Dorothy will be the only of those pals left. She's always been my favorite and I hope she sticks around.