Chickentainment

In my neighborhood - the greater Ann Arbor area, keeping chickens has become popular. There is an active group of people who are promoting sustainable living. The new ordinance in town regarding chickens is one result. Several neighboring towns have passed ordinances allowing people to keep chickens in their backyards, too. The idea is that you can raise healthy organic protein right at home and reduce your carbon footprint. You can't keep a rooster because of the noise it makes, and you can't slaughter a chicken either. I always could because I am outside the city limits, but I never did before this. If you want to eat one, you have to take it live to a meat processor and he charges you to dispatch and clean it and put it in a package suitable for freezing. Personally, I would find it difficult to kill one and then eat it. I think I could if I was starving, but absent that motivation, I won'tdo it.

Don't get me wrong - I am not making pets of these chickens. Being an animal lover, I can't help but spend time getting acquainted with them. I've never had chickens or been around them before, so everything is new and entertaining. The things I learned raising horses, dogs and cats seems to apply to chickens, too. If you establish a feeding time and religiously show up with treats, they will all come running every time they see you. They crowd around, and the rooster struts by making a sort of growling sound. I don't know if that's a warning or some sort of greeting. I do notice that when he hears my voice out on my deck, he will crow and crow. He almost never crows when I am in the barn. The hens usually spot me first, and they crowd around, clucking. They literally come flying, running and squawking as they hurry to get to the treats first like Chicken Little in the cartoon. The rooster strolls up to me, head erect. I think he is beautiful. He struts. He is, after all, cock of the walk. I kept the most docile rooster the other four are in the freezer. I have thirteen hens. One is an escape artist. She usually greets me at the door. Now, seven of the hens have figured out that they can fly over the top of their horse stall which is their "coop", and land in the hay pile. I haven't invested in all the chicken wire and posts it takes to build a proper chicken yard. I am still deciding if I want to have chickens this winter or just kill them all and start over next spring. Then there are the eggs. Six or seven of the hens are already laying eggs. They are ahead of the curve. They aren't supposed to start laying for another month it says here in the book. I guess they didn't read the book. I now have four dozen eggs in the refrigerator. I am looking for people to give or sell them to. I already sold two dozen to one of Murphy's friends, and gave a dozen to my son. If I keep the chickens I will need to find customers for all the eggs. I am looking for recipes for custards and such. I saw a recipe for a cheese soufflé in Bon Appetite that looked delicious. I wonder if I can find it again. I bought some ramekins for it.

So far, the chickens have been somewhat of an expense. My son bought them for me for Mother's Day, so start-up costs are somewhat defrayed. Murphy made me a feeder out of a plastic tub and a flower pot tray. We made nests out of milk crates stuffed with straw, and a roost out of a section of old steps from a deck that was replaced long ago. It's been sitting around in the weeds out behind the barn. It found a new purpose in the chicken coop. Murphy put up an electric wire across the doorways to the barn. I let the chickens roam around in there picking at the straw, the manure, the haypile, stray horse feed and catching bugs. Recently, they found out that they can just hop over the white tape and it can't "bite" them. They devastated my bush beans and my Roma tomatoes. I went out there with the horse whip and tried to herd chickens out of the garden and back into the barn. I gave the rooster, the leader of the raiding party, a big smack with the whip and it sent him running for the safety of the barn. The hens eventually followed. Herding chickens isn't easy, but once you figure it out, it goes relativelywell. They like to be together in a flock. When you contain the rooster and most of the hens, the stragglers will follow. They were grounded for two days while I let my temper subside. Lately they have been respecting the white tape barrier that marks their boundaries. I put all snacks and feed in their stall. I make their time outside, with the help of Billy, the dog, uncomfortable. It's the same way I trained the horses to respect the electric tape around their pasture. They have plenty of food and water inside the fence and outside is lots of yelling, running around and getting spanked by Mom's whip. They decide to stay inside. It's a gentleman's agreement we have. Everything is wonderful as long as you stay inside. Go outside, and you will get no rest. It's an easy decision on their part. It's been good for me, too. I am getting lots of exercise and fresh eggs and chicken-tainment.

Chickentainment

Last night I was watching the movie 'Commitments' about some Irish kids in Dublin that started up a band whose motto was "saving soul". It was a pretty good movie with excellent music. I think I will look up the soundtrack and order it. I enjoyed the off-stage shenanigans of the band members. In one scene the women were all fighting because they had all slept with one of the band members. Two of them squared off nose to nose, yelling and screaming at the top of their lungs. I remarked to Murphy that they looked and sounded just like the hens when two of them get into a fight. They get beak to beak and jump up and down, screaming chicken screams and they fluff out their feathers. it's really funny to watch. Usually the rooster rushes over and breaks them up. He chases the loser off and gives her a good pinch with his beak. Murphy remarked that I am getting a lot of enjoyment from watching my chickens. He thinks I should write up a diary about them and all their ways. I will think about it.

Farm Report

I’m experimenting with being self-sufficient food-wise. I’ve always loved to garden, and I love to make my own bread. The cost of a balanced diet has been rising, so I embarked on a plan to have the best garden ever this year. It’s coming along, but it all needs work. The war of the weeds is intense. I think they are winning, but I have some weapons – a shovel and hoe and lots of deep mulch. I am holding my own. Also, the chickens are growing. I have hopes for them.

Mid-July is a busy time here. The garden is in full swing. I plant in small plots four feet by four feet. It’s about the amount of ground I can turn and tend. I can reach across the plot and can walk all around it. I mulch a circle around the plot with old hay and horse bedding. It keeps the weeds down. The garden looks like a crazy patchwork quilt. I don’t plant in rows. I noticed my neighbor (the cranky one) staring at the chaos with a frown on her face. I’m sure she disapproves, but results speak loudest. I bring baskets of food out of my garden. It works for me. Every day I weed something, plant something and harvest something. I also spend at least a half hour with a pitchfork keeping the manure pile turned so it will become compost. I am getting pretty fit. I can wear my jeans! I have pots of fall vegetables started that need planting – beans and some squash and pumpkins. I need to fight the mosquitoes and get their plot ready. Mosquitoes are a plague this year. The spinach is finished and in the freezer as are the peas. Their spot is ready for me to plant some beets for greens. The chard is coming along. The tomatoes look awesome, but the peppers are just sitting there sulking. They are so temperamental. Today I will dig a few potatoes. I have never grown them before, so I don’t know what to expect. The plants look vigorous. Onions are looking good. I pulled some for stew. They are sweet and strong. My garlic is all pulled and dried. I braided it, but the braid looks awkward. I’m sure there’s a trick to it that I don’t know. There is at least a six month supply there – maybe more. I pulled some of the smaller cabbages that were planted too close together. They are waiting in the kitchen for me to make cabbage rolls and freezer slaw. I will eat maybe one or two cabbage rolls and Murphy will eat maybe one or two and the rest will go into the freezer. The lilies are blooming spectacularly. I need to weed the flower beds again. The iris never bloomed even though it has grown knee-high and looks strong. I can’t figure out why.

Every day there is what I call “chicken-tainment”. The chickens are a hoot. This is the first time I have ever had first-hand experience with them. It’s been fun watching them grow. I still have them in an empty horse stall in the barn. The chicken coop hasn’t materialized yet. They seem content where they are. I made a small pen in the grass behind the barn and put two of them out there as an experiment. I used whatever materials I could scrounge. It is the most hill-billy contraption you ever saw with old pallets, pieces of plywood and some wire all cobbled together. It took me all day and Murphy helped, too. Obviously, my coop-building skills need some improving. The chickens both escaped almost immediately. There is one red hen, the smallest of the lot, which is an escape artist. She runs around squawking for a while and then tries to get back into the stall with the others. Billy gets all excited and tries to herd her. Eventually she lets me catch her and sometimes I pet her and carry her around for a little while. I am surprised at how soft they are. I always thought chickens would be prickly. I plan to keep a few of the hens and one rooster. The rest will go into the freezer. They get all the kitchen refuse except meat. Billy gets that. I have picked out the rooster that will be the coop-master. The reason for the rooster is so there will be more of them next year for the freezer and I won’t have to buy them. He was the first to grow a comb, the first to “crow” (that’s really funny to watch) and he has a harem of hens that surround him all the time. He is protective of them. If Billy approaches, he runs at him. There is one other rooster that has two hens that follow him everywhere, and the other three roosters are just tolerated. They are going into the freezer. It’s a shame. They are all handsome fellows - all white with black necklaces and black pin-stripes on their wings with bright red combs that stand upright. The hens range from dark red to a paler pink and white on their body and darker red on their heads. I am told this variety is good both for broilers and for eggs. They will lay jumbo brown eggs. Of course, they are being fed all organic foods so there will be no antibiotics. I wanted to let them out to free-range, but I have a cranky neighbor. To let them out I will need a good chicken fence and that isn’t in my budget. I am saving my egg cartons. If six hens each lay about four eggs a week, then I will have – um – calculating . . .24 eggs a week.

I think that if one has a garden thirty by thirty and six hens and one rooster, then one can eat well most of the year.