Yeah, There's an App for that

 Not much to say about this other than, why didn't I think of that.  The Pickin' Chicken app for the iPhone and iPad will help you select the breed that best fits your needs.

Tales from the Coop: Cleaning Day

Cleaning day is the chickens favorite day!

About every two weeks I clean out the old hay, clean the coop, and add new hay.  The rest of the day, the chickens spend their time straightening and organizing the straw.

Happy chickens are the best chickens.

Farm Update: Eggs

Its been far too long since I've updated about the chickens.   I am checking for eggs two or three times a day: the pre-dawn check never yields eggs but I am feeding anyways, the home-from-work check is most fruitful, and the evening check will occasionally have an egg. 

On average,  we receive three and a half eggs a day.  Once in a blue moon, we will have a five-egg day.  Since the eggs are slightly undersized, we do a good job of eating all of them.  Every once and a while we will send half a dozen or so to a neighbor or friend.

Meet the Ladies: Goldie the Golden Lace Wyandotte

Forgive the lame names. We're going with the things that stick in the mind of a two year old. Goldie is a Golden Lace Wyandotte.  She is a big beautiful lady. Though they have the reputation for being dominate, Mother Hen has her in check and she's content to be the buddy. 

As she's grown, her rose comb has gotten much more pronounced.  She's also the most enthusiastic drinker and gives us a happy chuckles when we change the water. 

We're pretty sure she's laying eggs. We collected four eggs yesterday. We're finally collecting enough to share with the neighbors just as the national egg supply is compromised. Keeping backyard chickens is not a realistic solution for everyone to the current food safety problem, but for now we're happy to have safe eggs from happy fluffy ladies. 

Chick Lit: Kids Books about Chickens

The Chicken Book Selection

We've been slowly collecting children's books about chickens and eggs. Mr. Joe really loves the chickens and he's into any book that features his favorite feathered friends. Half Price Books is pretty awesome and I actually found a couple of these books on the $2 cart.

The Problem with Chickens - a beautiful, simple story that Joe loves.

Hedgie's Surprise - Lots of people love Jan Brett books. The illustrations are very detailed and we can sit and pick out extra things in the borders for a long time.

 Busy Chickens - A simple photo story about chickens. Several chickens look like our ladies and Joey likes to pick out the "matchers".

Henry and Kelly recently gave Joey Chicken Said, "Cluck!"He digs it.

We also read First the Egg, The Little Red Hen, Cock-a-doodle-whoo, and Chick.

Lots of teaching philosophies advocate regular rotation of books so that kids don't get bored and can make connections across a theme. While I don't pretend to be an expert in early childhood development, this idea makes a lot of sense to me. Right now, we have the chicken books, a selection of books about the ocean, and books about trains. More than one simple theme, but it works for us.

Meet the Ladies: Mother Hen the Barred Rock Hen

Mother Hen. She's one bad mother...shut your mouth! She a tough bird.

Mother Hen is a Barred Rock Hen. She should lay brown eggs. She is awesome. She's big and bold and has really tough looking feet.

Of all the chickens, she looks the most like a dinosaur to me. She's not as friendly as some of the other chickens but sticks close in the coop to keep an eye on us. She is the most fascinated by the camera and comes right up close to the lens. When we let the chickens free range (as we rarely do now that they have the Ritz Cooperton), she's the leader of the pack.
 
In other chicken news, another chicken is laying eggs! We collected a brown egg from the coop on Monday. It was a big egg. We're jazzed.

Meet the Ladies: Boots the Partridge Cochin

A fancy lady indeed. Boots is a feather footed partridge cochin. She has distinctive feather "boots" that extend over her feet. She has beautiful pinstriped feathers with brown and black stripes.

Boots loves to roost. She loves to sit on top of the old coop inside the larger swanky coop. She also loves to eat leaves high up on trees. She stretches her neck way up and stands up tall.

She's a pretty fancy lady, but she's quite shy. She's less likely to come up and say hello to us than the other chickens. Her feathered feet aren't fully grown in yet, but she's a unique chicken and we're happy to have her.

{This Moment}

{this moment}  from Soulemama - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see. 

Wishing everyone a lovely weekend!

Tales from the Coop: Hawk-Proof Fence

Last week, Grandpa Steve and I spent the better part of a day building a 12'x12' chicken run that attached to the existing coop to protect the ladies from predators and to keep them from accidentally fence hopping too close to the doggies.

Less than a week later, I caught a hawk in the act of trying (and failing) to break in to gobble up a chicken.  I quickly ran to the camera and snapped a few photos of the culprit, a red-tailed hawk.  The picture to the left is of the fella posing in a tree after giving up.  Moments later five sparrows chased him off.  I estimate Mr. Hawk to be 20 inches tall or so but I didn't get a very good look at him.

The lower picture shows him trying to break into the top of the chicken run.  I am so amazed that I was able to take a pic of the criminal in the act and it wasn't even too blurry.  I feel a little like I'm on CSI, zooming in on the bird and making a positive ID.  The top of the coop was closed in with multi-purpose plastic screening; who knew it was so strong! 

Meet Fawkes the Silver Phoenix

Fawkes at 4 Months

We're dorks and love Harry Potter. So of course when we figured out that we had a Phoenix chicken, we had to name her Fawkes. Despite the breed description, she's really a very friendly lady. She likes to interact with Mr. J more than any of the other chickens.

We haven't been able to get a good picture of her breast, but she has beautiful golden feathers with little white pinstripes on them. She's a very striking, if tiny, bird. We thought she might be a Silver Grey Dorking, but they have a 5 toes and she only has four. She's also the smallest of the chickens and the dorkings seems to be bigger birds. 

We're happy with our Phoenix chicken, even if she isn't supposed to be a good egg layer. The chickens are partly for eggs but also to introduce Mr. J to animals. Fawkes is friendly and does a good job as ambassador for the flock.

What We Made: Chicken Run Expansion

About a month ago,  Jenny and I realized that we desperately needed a more secure chicken run for the ladies.  They had taken to hopping the four foot fence between the backyard and front yard, and they could easily do the same into the street.  Before leaving for Canada, I set up a temporary chicken run for them by patching an old six foot fence enclosure attached to our alley.  Aside from it being completely ram-shackled, we quickly found out that six feet was not enough to contain Houdini.   She could perch on the coop and hop over the fence and occasionally would fly out from the ground. 

For a few weeks we kept them in the portable chicken coop and attached run with about 35 sq. ft. of ground space.  They did not appreciate the cramped quarters so I spent all day Tuesday building them a palatial 12'x12' chicken run.

The sides are made of poultry netting with a reinforced 3"x3" welded wire fence panel overlaying it (not pictured).  The top is a plastic multi-purpose netting to create a visual barrier for the chickens flying out and predator birds flying in.  The portable coop was used as one corner of the structure so it is portable no more, but I think the extra space is well worth the loss of mobility.  Truth be told, I nearly gave myself a hernia every time I picked the dern thing up!

Here I am looking very proud of my nearly finished work.  Please note that this is after a shower and a good night's sleep.  Remind me never to spend all day outside in the San Antonio Summer heat.  To say the I was tired, cranky, and hungry by the end of the day is an understatement.

You may notice our dogs lurking in the background of each picture.  By building the coop/run in the front yard, the dogs again have unfettered rein of the backyard through the doggy door.

Houdini Update!!!

UPPATE!!!!

Facebook Friend, Heather, has helped us ID Houdini.  Heather and I both believe that our hen is a Fayoumi.  Fayoumi are described as flighty runners that have a distinctive Road Runner shape by www.BackYardChickens.com which describes her well. The breed is from Ancient Egypt and often mistaken for Silver Campine.  Take a look at both and let us know what you think.

Tales from the Coop: Meet the Ladies: Houdini

Okay,  so I am going to try posting about each chicken again.

Houdini is our problem chicken.  She is the first to run out of an open door, and she can hop a six foot fence.  That is a big enough jump/fly to get into a lot of trouble.  She can hop into the alley or get a little too close to the doggies.  Because of her escape artistry, we have had to confine the chickens to the mobile coop.  On Tuesday, I plan on creating a completely enclosed 12x12 run.

We are not exactly sure what type of chicken Houdini is, but I hope she is an Easter Egger, or cross-bred Araucuna.  Araucuna hens lay green tinted eggs and I hope that at least one of our ladies will do the same.

Our First Egg!

Here is the official first egg from our ladies!  It is just a little thing, but its a big deal to us.

While performing the morning chicken duties, I saw this little fella resting by the water bowl.  It is about two inches long and light brown with white speckles.  We aren't supposed to eat the first few eggs but we are going to save it for a while to show Mr J and anybody else who will listen.

It should be a busy day at the homestead so expect more posts!

The Long Weekend

Weekends are supposed to be relaxing.  Generally they are, but they can be long.  I tend to try and cram all of my productivity for the week into the last few days.  This weekend we had Jenny's birthday party with family, a birthday party for one of Mr Js classmates, and stacking yardwork we had to address before our trip to Canada next week.  We had a blast each step of the way,  well not the yardwork, but it just adds up to a long weekend.

On top of that, we lost a chicken this weekend.  Eliza managed to avoid being put away in the coop Saturday night and our doggies got to her in the morning.  We can't get mad at them for being doggies, but Jenny and I feel horrible.  Lets just hope we can make sure this doesn't happen again

I spent most of Sunday doing yardwork and securing a more secure, all-be-it much smaller roaming space for them.  They will be officially fenced off early this week.

Early Eliza

Tales from the Coop: Meet the Ladies

Since the ladies are almost to egg laying age, we thought it would be a good time to give each of them their time in the spotlight. Each day we will spotlight a different hen by posting pictures and telling you all little bit about her.

Tales from the Coop: Yard Chickens

Our little ladies have quickly outgrown their coop. We haven't had time to upgrade the structure for them yet, so our previously chicken tractor bound hens have gone wild!

We let them out for a few hours a day to stretch their wings and roam for bugs.

It also gives Mr J more opportunities to commune with the chickens. He thinks he is part of the flock and loves to hang out in shade with them!

I haven't been worried about the chickens flying out of the yard until today. We have a four-foot fence around our yard, and they haven't shown much interest in flying until recently. Today they decided to roam further than ever! If they keep this up, then I will either have to learn how to clip wings or build faster.

Tales from the Coop: Hen Pecked

Sometimes when I look at the hens, I can't help but see dinosaurs. Once the whole dinosaur-bird thing is pointed out, it's hard not see the connection. Strip off the feathers and you have one tough looking little animal.

Eliza is still the most photographed bird. The poor thing can't really see around her top hat so she waits until she can hear us to move. The other hens are much faster and run away before I can get a decent shot.

New things we've learned about chickens:

1)They love old brown rice. Love it. They actually chuckle with joy when we put it in the coop.

2)The chickens love pecking at the camera lens.

3)The chickens need a larger coop. We had hoped to let them run around the yard more, but the dogs are not warming to the chickens and we will need to keep them apart. Luckily, we have an old structure from my Grandpa in the yard that can easily be converted into a large run for the chickens.

Hopefully, they will start laying eggs in the next month. It should be fun!

Scenes from a weekend

Taking pictures like Mama

A morning chat

Most awesome chicken

Tomato in progress

Tomato filched by a squirrel and left half eaten to taunt me.

Feathered friends

What are YOU lookin' at?

Jumping for joy when the coop is opened

Chicks: The first full day and night outside

Dinosaur feet

Braving the ramp

Eliza posing for her close-up

Ruffled feathers

A golden hen in the sun

She's slowing changing colors

The last to lose her baby feathers

We finally finished some of the added security features to the coop this weekend. Though we are worried about unknown predators, we are a little more concerned about the predators that live in our house. Specifically, a small toddler boy who would love nothing more than to hug a chicken and two very patient dogs who have been wondering when we're going to let them eat the snack we've been raising in the laundry room.

The chicks weren't so sure about using the ramp, but the large black hen, who seems to be top bird, went for it eventually. She's not only physically the largest hen, but she also seems the most curious about us. She likes to get very close to the camera - too close for me to focus on her - and peer at me with one eye. I wish I could capture it on film.