Berlin's Whimsy

Chicken Chronicles: Chicken Therapy

We miss our chickens. We see them fairly often but it isn't the same as walking out to the chicken house in the morning and watching them flee from their confinement----a spectacle of legs, wings, and squawks, leaving feathers floating in the air. Or listening to their plucking grass and bantering back and forth. Yes, even Macho's gruff crow is missed.

I especially long for sitting outdoors with a bit of knitting while absent-mindedly watching our chickens interact with one another, listening to their chicken conversations. As much as it is amusing, it's just about the best prescription for stress relief----another lesson in simplicity. I know it sounds odd, but until you've tried it, you just won't understand.

We don't experience our "chicken therapy" on a regular basis any longer and I think both my kids & I are feeling it. We've found other distractions and sources of entertainment nearby but we still crave our chicken time.

Our "baby chicks" have begun to to lay, as well. Yes, our adopted Rosetta is an egg-laying champ, but our little girls haven't laid one single egg until this past week.

This past weekend, my Mom found a little miniature egg in the hen house. Imagine quail eggs and you have the idea of the size. Yesterday, another unidentified egg was found... We suspect this new egg came from one of our New Hampshires.

We will still find time to visit our chickens on a regular basis and very soon there will be many eggs to gather from the nests!

Chicken Chronicles: Bird Bath Zen

Our chickens enjoy staying "clean." That is, if one can call them clean after they flop around in the dirt.

It's quite a spectacle.

They seem to go into some sort of 'chicken zen' while performing their bathing routine. If someone was to come across them in this state, I'm fairly certain they would think they had found the results of some kind of tragedy, as they look pretty out of sorts.

Chicken Chronicles: Hormones

Well, I'm assuming chickens suffer from hormonal changes, too? Am I right in this (any vets out there)? What else would explain the sudden change in behavior of Macho and Pi. Especially Macho and his dreaded beak.

The first instance occurred when I was walking beside him and suddenly felt this horrible pinching pain on the top of my foot, followed by my recognition that it was our Macho biting me! Not just a nibble, either----he held on like a double-strength clothespin. I have no idea why. The next day, he bit my son who promptly chased him around the yard with his squirt gun. Later that day, Macho performed a sideways dance beside our innocent little pug dog and then tried to bite him! Our pug thought he was trying to play and did his own little crouching down "let's play" dance in return. We quickly removed him from the scene. And now, when the kids want to catch Macho, instead of his usual dodging around, he just stands still with his beak at the ready. I think we still have the upper hand, but for how long?

And then there is poor little Pi. He's been taken over by the macho testosterone monster, too. He doesn't bite us, but he bites the hens on the neck. I guess he's practicing his mating skills. Unfortunately for him, all of our hens tower over him and are quick to put him back in his little place. He's also developed his own little dance but it looks more like he's losing his balance as he dances around in a circle.

So, what do you tell kids when they ask why their innocent roosters have "turned mean" once they grew into their manhood? Ah well, we're trying to explain it away as their in-between adolescent years...

We're trying to record "The Macho Dance" but we haven't been successful yet. Macho's eating frenzy video will have to suffice...

Chicken Chronicles: Meet Rosetta

We came home to a new chicken. She was part of another flock that was decimated by neighborhood dogs and needed a new home. For us, it was love at first sight. She is as sweet as a chicken can be! My daughter immediately named her 'Rosetta.'

Rosetta had a difficult first couple days, apparently. Our spoiled flock of chickens didn't find it in their chicken hearts to welcome this new hen into the family. Perhaps they were envious of her shiny black feathers reflecting an iridescent green in the light, or her quiet and unassuming demeanor.

Or perhaps it was her talent that they lack: laying eggs! Yes, this new chicken lays beautiful, large brown eggs!

By the time we returned home from our trip, Rosetta was fairing much better with the other chickens.

Our first morning with Rosetta, my kids watched her expectantly as she sat on one of the nesting boxes that have remained empty all this time. Awhile ago, my kids placed a golf ball in one of the nest boxes as if to encourage our chickens. Rosetta chose that nest. I saw her slip the golf ball underneath her black fuzz.

My daughter petted her as she snuggled down on the nest and used her beak to move straw around 'just so.' I wasn't there for the triumphant moment, but according to my daughter, she puffed up her feathers and scrunched down her neck and plopped out an egg. She stood up and there it was!

After reviewing her eggs from earlier in the week and then this warm new one today, my daughter declared, "Rosetta lays Grade A eggs!"

Chicken Chronicles: Walking the Line

It's a common sight whenever we walk outside: our chickens "walking the line." Or so their behavior is now called for its resemblance to a picket line, or perhaps even prison! They all congregate at the fence and walk frantically back & forth, awaiting some hole to magically appear.

And why wouldn't they walk the line? When they're allowed out, they enjoy eating grass and they make for great little lawn mowers----heck, they even supply their own fertilizer to the lawn!

And they receive LOTS of attention from their admiring fans. Yep, a whole wondrous world can be found outside their pen.

Chicken Chronicles: Pesky

At first it was charming----our chicken's ability to wander about the yard and scratch for bugs. And scratch. And peck. And bite off. Yes, bite off---as in biting off our burgeoning vegetables and flowers. Each time they travel through our corn patch, we find yet another stub where once there was a corn plant. 

And the scratching-----as they've grown, they've become more adapt at scratching. Typically, they're scratching for bugs under the surface, but in the meantime, they uproot our plants in the process! We've found more than one cucumber plant uprooted in the past week.

As a result, the chickens now must have a babysitter when they're out of their pen. My son is more than happy to fill this important role. It seems that out of all of us, he enjoys the chickens the most. He returns from his babysitting duties with tales of chicken quarrels, funny antics, and general observations. He takes his job very seriously...

Chicken Chronicles: Overheard

A crow. Two crows, in fact. One a surprise and the other long awaited. What? Two roosters in our flock? We thought we had researched our chickens a week ago and determined that they were all hens except for our Macho!

Alas, amateur chicken farming presents another suprise-----a surprise because the least likely of our feathered friends must certainly be a rooster: Pi. Pi, as in the chicken who is the most timid, cuddly, and endearing of our flock. Could Pi really be a rooster?

Well, I'm the one that witnessed the pivotal event. I was outside enjoying my morning coffee and I heard a strange sound come from Pi's direction. I figured it was because she was alone and calling out to her flock. When I turned to check on her, however, I noticed she was on top of a low fence. No sooner did I look in her direction but she stretched out her neck and crowed up towards the sky, for all of us to hear. It wasn't the crow from movies, though---full pitched and proud----no, this crow was more scratchy and timid. It took a bit for my brain to register what her noise meant----I wondered what our dear little Pi was doing?! Does she have a bug in her throat? 

And then, as Pi hopped down from his perch, he continued to crow periodically. It was an odd sight because he almost seemed to do it involuntarily. Almost like instinct was playing out before my eyes.

My kids didn't witness Pi's instantaneous sex-change, so they're still a little ambivalent about this new reality. Tomorrow, we'll watch for more crowing.

Oh, and Macho crowed today, too. Same kind of sound but coming from a physically obvious rooster. We were expecting that!

Chicken Chronicles: The Circus.

Our chickens are fairly tame because of all the handling they receive----and training. They each have a turn on a step stool where my kids "train them." They train them to be tame and to sit still and enjoy it. I doubt they actually enjoy their training sessions for they'd much prefer another watermelon rind or some leftover rice----eating, that's what they really enjoy.

And eating is what our newest member of the flock enjoys, too. A squirrel took up residence under our chicken's coop. The coop is probably a squirrel's idea of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon in its oasis-like perfection: a fence to keep the predators away, a continuous supply of food (a smorgasbord, really), and fine shelter. To see the squirrel's plump cheeks and swinging belly, I suspect he's eating more than his fair share of our chicken's feed, too.

Ah, but the story becomes diabolical...Right around the time this sneaky squirrel showed up, we discovered someone at the end of our driveway removing something from the trunk of his car. A cage. Upon further inquiry, we learned that this person had been catching squirrels in his own garden and releasing them at the end of our driveway! In fact, he had already released three squirrels. We told this man that we were already suffering headaches from his relocation project and that we had had enough of his squirrels. He was apologetic, but we still wondered at his choice of our driveway for his squirrels. Is there some sort of regulation on "excessive squirreling?!"

Alas, we now have a fat squirrel living under the chicken coop. The chickens don't seem to mind the squirrel but our cats lay in waiting around the perimeter of the fence----licking their chops...

It's turning into a circus around here!

Chicken Chronicles: Milestones

It was a couple weeks ago that we realized Macho was in fact a boy. A rooster. After settling into this new reality for a bit, we all wondered how in the world we had thought he was a hen for this long? Look at him! Does he look like a hen to you?

Well, I guess we were looking at him through glasses of firm belief in the poultry industry's 95% guarantee that the chicks from which Macho was pulled were females. The others----the more exotic chickens we have, four of them----were "straight run" which means they could be either sex. Well, with the fact that our only rooster comes from the sexed lot of chickens and that we don't have any roosters in the straight run mix leads me to wonder about the accuracy of sexing chicks!

Some of our chickens are more pet-like than others. This one is Pi. I wish you could feel her because she's so soft and fluffy-----kind of like petting one of those feather dusters! The kids have a particular affinity for Pi. She really is as sweet as a chicken can be! 

Both Pi and our Silky, Fancy Feet, cannot fly very well. Their feathers and their wing shape are not conducive to flying upwards. That's to our advantage but not to theirs because they cannot reach their roosts to nestle in with the rest of their flock for the night. My kids decided to make Pi and Fancy Feet handicap ramps in the chicken coop. Now they can climb up to the upper roosts with the rest of the flock using those ramps. As you can see in this photo, Pi and Fancy Feet are resting on the middle roost----my kids were gone this evening but I documented their chicken's achievement so they could see the success of their ramps! 

We're still waiting for a couple chicken milestones: Macho's first crow and our first egg. Macho could crow anytime now and surely it will be a surprise when he does! We don't expect eggs until the end of July. We're very anxious for that chicken milestone---not so sure about the crowing! To be continued...

Chicken Chronicles: Macho's Surprise

You cannot see what Macho is doing in this photo... And you'll thank me for that when you read further on...

Our chickens are allowed out of their coop and pen for a period of time each day while the kids watch them closely. They are still small enough to become an easy victim in one of our cat's wildest predator/prey fantasies. Strangely enough, of all three of our dogs, our Pug seems the most interested in taking a big bite out of one of our chickens. This, coming from the dog that would usually rather lay on the couch than chase anything much less kill it. Nonetheless, we must keep him leashed while he's around the flock.

Macho seems to be the leader of the flock even though she is most likely a female. And Macho is the most daring and intelligent of the bunch. On this day, we saw the beginnings of a chicken chase and looked to see what the lead chicken had found. Protruding grotesquely out of Macho's beak was a wriggling Jerusalem Cricket.  Alas, I didn't have my camera at that point (Note to self: must keep camera nearby when around the chickens). If you haven't seen one of these fat and juicy Jerusalem Crickets in real life, well they're rather disgusting. They are harmless, however. I remember feeling revulsed at the sight of them as a child----their black stripes alternating with that eery translucent sap color, their size, those big, wriggly legs and antennas, and the way they always seemed to surprise me when I least expected to find one. My daughter feels the same way.

Well, much to her delight, Macho found one and ran around the back of the coop to eat her prize in peace. That's what the top photo captures the image of----her slimy, messy, and delicious meal. My son watched in a kind of rapt captivation-----his face holding an impish grin, while my daughter hung back and groaned in disgust, slightly gagging. I couldn't bring myself to get close enough to document the meal in detail---this benign photo of a corn cob will have to do. Use your imagination. Or don't.

I told you you'd thank me!