Free-Range Chickens and Cheese!
The chickens aren't babies anymore. Some of them are big enough that they can put up a bit of a fight when you catch them. For the first time yesterday, I had the humbling experience of chasing a chicken around the yard.
These pictures are actually a couple of weeks old. This was the first time that we had the chickens out in the yard to free-range. They are now out of their brooder box and living in their coop full-time. We realized that it was time when Bobby went downstairs one morning and found them roosting on the side of the brooder box! Or the time that we were giving Molly her eyedrops and Rose wanted to be picked up and finally got impatient and flew over the side of the box.
The two types of chickens--New Hampshire Reds and Australorps--continue to be night and day in terms of personality. (Not surprisingly, it was an Australorp that I was chasing around the yard yesterday.) The Reds are friendly, even affectionate. They're smaller, so they started flying before the Australorps, and when we would reach into their brooder box to change their feed or water, Rose would flutter up onto our arms. Soon, the other two caught on, and we'd sometimes have two or three Reds perched on our arms. We take them out of the box, and they'd flutter onto our shoulders or just snuggle down into our hands and fall asleep. Those Reds know how not to get made into chicken soup!
When chickens get in their minds to fly somewhere, they're not particularly subtle about it. They stretch their necks in the direction of where they want to fly and look rather silly. Soon, as soon as the Reds would see us, they'd start stretching their necks and peering up at us, like they were asking, "Pick us up, please?" Of course, we were hard-nosed and never did. >.>
The Australorps can sometimes be coaxed into our hands but don't have the interest in socializing like the Reds do. They're just as content to never be handled, where the Reds seek it out. I hope the Reds continue to be so friendly! It would make taking care of them as big chickens much easier.
(Because we saw both full-grown NH Reds and Australorps at the Carroll County 4H/FFA Fair, and they will get big.)
We have had some chicken-related drama. About a week and a half ago, we noticed that one of the Australorps wasn't behaving as expected. She was lethargic and showed very little interest in anything. She was usually huddled in the corner or against the side of the box. One of her eyes was always shut, and it became clear pretty quickly that she had an eye infection. Soon, it was gummed shut entirely. She started to show some improvement--including gobbling down a big piece of earthworm in the yard one night--so we let her be and monitored her, but then she took a turn for the worst again, so we called our vet, who doesn't treat avians. Luckily, she could refer us to someone who did, so took the little one in, and she was diagnosed with conjunctivitis and given antibiotic eyedrops. On Friday, she went back for a follow-up and is all good again. Yesterday was her last day on meds, and she's back to running around with her sisters like nothing happened.
Given her affliction, she earned herself the name Molly Malone. ;) Luckily, she did not die of a fever, for Dr. Ryan did save her--this won't be the end of sweet Molly Malone!
However, because of her illness, she is much smaller than all of the others, even the Reds. When the vet tech weighed her, she weighed 79 grams! (Awwwww ...)
The other two Australorps, Dice* and Dorothy, are starting to look like full-grown chickens. They have their combs and wattles in and are starting to get their big-girl feathers. They are big. The Reds are growing too but still look like babies, though their coloration is also changing rapidly. They literally look different from day to day!
* Dicey grew so fast that at first, we had our doubts and wondered if she might be a rooster. However, she has shown no sign of developing spurs. She's just ... bigger. Her comb and wattle are no more developed, just bigger because she's bigger. Dorothy is catching up to her now, so it looks like she is indeed a hen, thankfully. Though we still go out to her pen and greet her with, "Hey, Dice! You better not be a fucking rooster!" And, at night, "Goodnight, Dicey Riley! Have good dreams about not being a rooster!" We think she might have been a week or two older than the others or just had a growth spurt.
Okay, Photobucket is done uploading, so here are the pictures. I will have to post some of what they look like now. This was about two weeks ago.
The first time we took them outside, they could've cared less about bugs. They all wanted a dust bath! They rolled and fluffed around in the dust for about fifteen minutes! It was very cute to see all these miniature chickens dust-bathing just like big girls!
Now I'm going to wax ideological for a moment. When we brought the girls home, I knew jack about chickens. I had always heard how awful factory farming is for egg hens--hens are crammed two into a space about the size of a sheet of typing paper--but never realized how awful that truly is for these animals. Joel Salatin, one of the pioneers of sustainable agriculture, often says that he lets his "chickens be chickens." (Or cows be cows, pigs be pigs, and so on.) To watch them in their natural behavior, it is unthinkable treating them the way that factory-farmed hens are treated. They were less than a week in their brooder box and, as soon as they were outside, could think about nothing but a dust bath. Factory farm hens never get a dust bath. They never eat a bug. They never stretch their wings. Sometimes, they go so long without moving at all that their feet grow into their cages.
Sick sick sick.
/ideological rant
Rose having a dust bath. (Rose is still hands-down my favorite! Not that mommies have favorites. >.>)
Molly Malone. This is basically how she looks now too, since she didn't grow much while she was sick.
Watchful Mommy:
The three Australorps. The big fool to the left is Dice. Dorothy is toward the bottom, and Molly is toward the top.
The whole gang!
The chickens love playing on the patio. There is a weed growing in my marjoram that they love to eat. Go for it, girls! It saves me the trouble of pulling it out!
(Yes, I am wearing Christmas socks.)
Of course, in the midst of all of this, there have been the Goldens. Things have gone pretty well so far. We had to draw some boundaries, but the Goldens are getting used to the chickens being in the yard and learning that the first thing they do when being let outside is not tearing full-blast toward the chicken pen and watching them flutter around in fright. The chickens soon learned, too, that the Goldens can't get into their pen. Now they could kind of care less about the Goldens.
Here, I'm not sure if Lance is relishing his role as a big brother or thinking himself of a chicken dinner.
The first day the dogs and chickens were in the yard together, Lance just planted himself in front of the pen and watched. It looks like there are no chickens because they're all crowded directly in front of him! Maybe the curiosity was mutual?
Here is their coop, where they are slumbering as I type this.
Their first day in their pen with the coop constructed (taken a few days ago, so this shows how they have grown).
Tonight, Bobby and I went out to check on them after dinner. As soon as the Reds saw us, they started stretching up their necks, so we opened the door at the back of their pen and soon had our arms full of baby chickens. Sophia snuggled into my shoulder, Blanche settled down on Bobby's arm, and Rose kept fluttering between the two of us. (The Australorps had no interest in coming out to play and continued pecking around for bugs.) I do love those little chickens!
And completely unrelated to chickens in any way ...
Bobby and I undertook a new culinary quest tonight: cheese-making! We made our first homemade cheese tonight, mozzarella. Tomorrow, we are going to have entirely homemade/home-grown margherita pizzas with it. The crust is in the bread machine now. I will make the sauce tomorrow from garden tomatoes. And the basil comes from our back patio. The milk for the cheese, of course, comes from a local farm too.
Here is our first cheese, not quite as cute as the chickens, but we're proud!
These pictures are actually a couple of weeks old. This was the first time that we had the chickens out in the yard to free-range. They are now out of their brooder box and living in their coop full-time. We realized that it was time when Bobby went downstairs one morning and found them roosting on the side of the brooder box! Or the time that we were giving Molly her eyedrops and Rose wanted to be picked up and finally got impatient and flew over the side of the box.
The two types of chickens--New Hampshire Reds and Australorps--continue to be night and day in terms of personality. (Not surprisingly, it was an Australorp that I was chasing around the yard yesterday.) The Reds are friendly, even affectionate. They're smaller, so they started flying before the Australorps, and when we would reach into their brooder box to change their feed or water, Rose would flutter up onto our arms. Soon, the other two caught on, and we'd sometimes have two or three Reds perched on our arms. We take them out of the box, and they'd flutter onto our shoulders or just snuggle down into our hands and fall asleep. Those Reds know how not to get made into chicken soup!
When chickens get in their minds to fly somewhere, they're not particularly subtle about it. They stretch their necks in the direction of where they want to fly and look rather silly. Soon, as soon as the Reds would see us, they'd start stretching their necks and peering up at us, like they were asking, "Pick us up, please?" Of course, we were hard-nosed and never did. >.>
The Australorps can sometimes be coaxed into our hands but don't have the interest in socializing like the Reds do. They're just as content to never be handled, where the Reds seek it out. I hope the Reds continue to be so friendly! It would make taking care of them as big chickens much easier.
(Because we saw both full-grown NH Reds and Australorps at the Carroll County 4H/FFA Fair, and they will get big.)
We have had some chicken-related drama. About a week and a half ago, we noticed that one of the Australorps wasn't behaving as expected. She was lethargic and showed very little interest in anything. She was usually huddled in the corner or against the side of the box. One of her eyes was always shut, and it became clear pretty quickly that she had an eye infection. Soon, it was gummed shut entirely. She started to show some improvement--including gobbling down a big piece of earthworm in the yard one night--so we let her be and monitored her, but then she took a turn for the worst again, so we called our vet, who doesn't treat avians. Luckily, she could refer us to someone who did, so took the little one in, and she was diagnosed with conjunctivitis and given antibiotic eyedrops. On Friday, she went back for a follow-up and is all good again. Yesterday was her last day on meds, and she's back to running around with her sisters like nothing happened.
Given her affliction, she earned herself the name Molly Malone. ;) Luckily, she did not die of a fever, for Dr. Ryan did save her--this won't be the end of sweet Molly Malone!
However, because of her illness, she is much smaller than all of the others, even the Reds. When the vet tech weighed her, she weighed 79 grams! (Awwwww ...)
The other two Australorps, Dice* and Dorothy, are starting to look like full-grown chickens. They have their combs and wattles in and are starting to get their big-girl feathers. They are big. The Reds are growing too but still look like babies, though their coloration is also changing rapidly. They literally look different from day to day!
* Dicey grew so fast that at first, we had our doubts and wondered if she might be a rooster. However, she has shown no sign of developing spurs. She's just ... bigger. Her comb and wattle are no more developed, just bigger because she's bigger. Dorothy is catching up to her now, so it looks like she is indeed a hen, thankfully. Though we still go out to her pen and greet her with, "Hey, Dice! You better not be a fucking rooster!" And, at night, "Goodnight, Dicey Riley! Have good dreams about not being a rooster!" We think she might have been a week or two older than the others or just had a growth spurt.
Okay, Photobucket is done uploading, so here are the pictures. I will have to post some of what they look like now. This was about two weeks ago.
The first time we took them outside, they could've cared less about bugs. They all wanted a dust bath! They rolled and fluffed around in the dust for about fifteen minutes! It was very cute to see all these miniature chickens dust-bathing just like big girls!
Now I'm going to wax ideological for a moment. When we brought the girls home, I knew jack about chickens. I had always heard how awful factory farming is for egg hens--hens are crammed two into a space about the size of a sheet of typing paper--but never realized how awful that truly is for these animals. Joel Salatin, one of the pioneers of sustainable agriculture, often says that he lets his "chickens be chickens." (Or cows be cows, pigs be pigs, and so on.) To watch them in their natural behavior, it is unthinkable treating them the way that factory-farmed hens are treated. They were less than a week in their brooder box and, as soon as they were outside, could think about nothing but a dust bath. Factory farm hens never get a dust bath. They never eat a bug. They never stretch their wings. Sometimes, they go so long without moving at all that their feet grow into their cages.
Sick sick sick.
/ideological rant
Rose having a dust bath. (Rose is still hands-down my favorite! Not that mommies have favorites. >.>)
Molly Malone. This is basically how she looks now too, since she didn't grow much while she was sick.
Watchful Mommy:
The three Australorps. The big fool to the left is Dice. Dorothy is toward the bottom, and Molly is toward the top.
The whole gang!
The chickens love playing on the patio. There is a weed growing in my marjoram that they love to eat. Go for it, girls! It saves me the trouble of pulling it out!
(Yes, I am wearing Christmas socks.)
Of course, in the midst of all of this, there have been the Goldens. Things have gone pretty well so far. We had to draw some boundaries, but the Goldens are getting used to the chickens being in the yard and learning that the first thing they do when being let outside is not tearing full-blast toward the chicken pen and watching them flutter around in fright. The chickens soon learned, too, that the Goldens can't get into their pen. Now they could kind of care less about the Goldens.
Here, I'm not sure if Lance is relishing his role as a big brother or thinking himself of a chicken dinner.
The first day the dogs and chickens were in the yard together, Lance just planted himself in front of the pen and watched. It looks like there are no chickens because they're all crowded directly in front of him! Maybe the curiosity was mutual?
Here is their coop, where they are slumbering as I type this.
Their first day in their pen with the coop constructed (taken a few days ago, so this shows how they have grown).
Tonight, Bobby and I went out to check on them after dinner. As soon as the Reds saw us, they started stretching up their necks, so we opened the door at the back of their pen and soon had our arms full of baby chickens. Sophia snuggled into my shoulder, Blanche settled down on Bobby's arm, and Rose kept fluttering between the two of us. (The Australorps had no interest in coming out to play and continued pecking around for bugs.) I do love those little chickens!
And completely unrelated to chickens in any way ...
Bobby and I undertook a new culinary quest tonight: cheese-making! We made our first homemade cheese tonight, mozzarella. Tomorrow, we are going to have entirely homemade/home-grown margherita pizzas with it. The crust is in the bread machine now. I will make the sauce tomorrow from garden tomatoes. And the basil comes from our back patio. The milk for the cheese, of course, comes from a local farm too.
Here is our first cheese, not quite as cute as the chickens, but we're proud!
