Harvardchicks

Credit worthy baby

2009-06-29T11:39:00.000-05:00

A+ received her first credit card solicitation on Saturday from American Express. I thought about applying for the card on her behalf and seeing if they would really approve a line of credit for a 10-month-old with no job, assets, or concept of money.

Monster-Sized Baby and Chicken Bingo

2009-06-19T13:00:00.000-05:00

The picture on the left was taken at the hospital just before we put Baby A+ in the car to bring her home. She was two days old. The one in the middle was taken in the same carseat yesterday at nineish-months. And finally, the one on the right is in her new, big girl car seat (in Cow-moo-flauge. Ha ha!) that she will have until she's 3 or so. I can't believe she was so tiny! I really don't remember her being so little. And now, I can't believe she's so big. She's in the 50th percentile for weight at 18#11oz but the 90th percentile for length/height at 29" long. Basically, she's tall and thin. Sigh. She certainly didn't get that from her mom.

She's learned to clap and can wave but somewhat indiscriminately. She hasn't figured out that waving is a salutation so she just randomly waves from time to time. She's also starting to scoot on her tummy. She still hates tummy time but I am committed to making her do it everyday or else she'll be 14 before she can crawl. Daddy hung a swing on a tree branch this weekend and that's pretty fun. She sat in it this morning and watched the chickens rummaging around in the hosta garden.

Speaking of chickens, I let them out into the garden everyday now. After reading "The Omnivore's Dilemma" (I think I am the last person in the world to have read it--better late than never), I felt like they should be able to wander around the garden and do their chicken thing. So they do. The girls have also been invited to be the stars of "Chicken Bingo" at our food coop's Crazy Days celebration. (Crazy days is a town-wide sale and festival of sorts that happens in late July.) I'll be sure to post some photos here after the big event. In the mean time, I'm trying to figure out what to feed them and when so we can maximize their poopiness. It's really a crazy thing to want to do--make the chickens poop even more--but I suppose it's called Crazy Days for a reason.

Baby A+ vs. Green Peas, Part II

2009-05-27T12:06:00.000-05:00

Success! No gagging and even a smile. Next stop, prunes and liver!

Belated happy birthday

2009-05-22T08:43:00.000-05:00

I forgot to mention: happy birthday to the chickens! They turned one on Tuesday. Their gift was a pile of yellowing broccoli and mushy watermelon discarded by the Coop. I didn't sing to them, tho'. Our neighbors already think I'm a weirdo; I probably shouldn't push it.

Freebird

2009-05-21T19:43:00.000-05:00

Baby A+, Beanie (the dog), Meep (the nice cat), and I were all out in the yard this week. Roaming around sniffing (Beanie and Meep), eating grass (Meep and Baby A+), and generally being content with Spring's arrival. Thinking that their 6'x7' area must get boring after a while, I decided to let the chickens wander freely around the yard. "What's the worst that could happen?", I asked myself. :o)

So, I caught Tallulah and plunked her down in the grass. Beanie made a b-line for her, and I growled "LEAVE IT!", so Beanie just ran figure 8s around Tallulah and didn't actually touch her. Then I scooped up Dixie and Sydney. Beanie was enthralled to have more potential playmates in the yard, and was soon walking around with the chickens eating grass along side of them. She showed no malice nor prey-drive response to the birds. I guess she is a terrible labrador but a fabulous dog. Meep, who a year ago was plotting ways to eat the chicks, took one look at them and decided that they were too big to hassle with and went on her merry way. Baby A+ tottered between interested/bewildered by the non-furry walking things and ignoring the chickens in order to laugh riotously at the dog running around with sticks in her mouth. So, all in all, it was a harmonious afternoon in the yard for the cat, dog, chickens, baby and me.

Once again, it is fun to have the girls. I'm simple-brained, I guess, but watching them peck around, strutting and scratching, is entertaining. They are just funny little creatures. And they eat dandilions. Bonus.

Here is a three-shot series of Beanie following Tallulah, sniffing her bottom, and then recoiling at the nasty peck that Tallulah inflicted for Beanie's sassy, fresh behavior.

And here are a couple of Baby A+ enjoying the fine weather.

I worry that our Baby might hurt our Pit Bull

2009-04-06T10:51:00.000-05:00

When she's not causing TBI to our dog, she's laughing at Mommy hamming it up. I'll do just about anything to get her to laugh!

Funk

2009-04-05T12:46:00.000-05:00

I spent over two hours doing a complete Spring cleaning of the chicken coop this weekend. We've just been adding fresh pine shavings over the winter without removing the old, dirty shavings; the shavings were at least 8" deep. The top layer was mostly poop. Under the poop, was a layer of funk. And, finally, the bottom layer was a layer of wet yuck that reeked of ammonia. GROSS! It's been shop-vacced, bleached, scrubbed and dried, and we're set for another 3-4 months.

So the chickens have not been very fun over the winter. Partly it's been cold so we couldn't be outside hanging out watching them. Instead, it's just been drudgery of going out in the dark, cold mornings to let them out and again in the dark, cold evenings to put them in. Hubby and I have decided that if we do not enjoy the chickens this summer, we will enjoy them on our dinner table before next winter.

Baby A+ vs. Green Peas

2009-03-12T19:10:00.000-05:00

We've started with solids. Rice cereal mostly but last night we introduced green peas. I thought they had a mild enough flavor that she would tolerate, if not enjoy, them. My, oh, my, was I ever wrong.

It was fortuitous that the camera was rolling and captured the hijinx and hilarity that ensued.

My favorite part is when she lets forth an audible gag. I've laughed every time I've watched it. (I'm a terrible mom, I know.)

Frostbitten chickens

2009-01-28T13:37:00.000-06:00

The chickens have frostbite.

Dixie, in particular, has a frostbitten comb atop her head. (The grayish area shown in the photo.) During the really cold days (negative temps) this month, we've kept them locked in the coop or let them out for maybe a few hours each day because, otherwise, they don't have the sense that God gave a cantaloupe to stay indoors. Chickens are not the brightest creatures but I thought that, at minimum, they would have a sense of self-preservation like most living things do. Apparently not. The frostbitten bits will hopefully just slough off without getting infected, and life will go on for the now cosmetically deformed chickens.

They are still laying eggs: about 2/day. They've slowed down a bit but considering the cold and the dearth of sunlight we get these days, they are doing well.

A handy feature

2009-01-27T15:29:00.000-06:00

It would be really great if Baby A+ had a sleep button.

Notice anything different?

2009-01-04T20:16:00.000-06:00

Word on the street is that there are a few optically-challenged geezers reading this blog, so, just for you: bigger, bold type. :-P

Oh Ye of Little Sleep

2009-01-04T11:14:00.000-06:00

A belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all thirteen of our devoted readers. :-) We had a very nice holiday; Hubby's folks came to the Frozen Tundra from Sunny California (they are certifiably crazy), and there was a lot of time with both families. It was very nice.

The downside? I thought Baby A+'s head was going to start spinning like Poltergeist by the end of the week. She was so out of sorts and overtired from all the going to and fro, family and happenings. And when Baby is unhappy, ain't nobody happy. Or well-rested. Her nighttime sleeping went from a blissful 8pm-6am, maybe getting up once or twice to nurse to a choppy no-rhyme-or-reason sleeping in a few hour blocks and then screaming in between. Last night was the first night in a week that she was able to sleep from 10p-6a, getting up only twice. I got 7 hours of sleep last night. Hoorah!

Before anyone leaves a snarky comment that we are lucky that she has been sleeping well at all, babies are sensitive, hard work, "my baby didn't sleep through the night until he was 27 years old" or anything else of that nature, let me say that I know, I know, I know. Still, it's PAINFUL--physically and mentally. Especially after she had been sleeping so well, so we knew she could do it, it just stunk to High Heaven that she was sleeping so poorly. I felt terribly for her that she felt and was so disrupted, and I felt guilty for wishing the little stinkbug would just go to sleep. In fact the lullaby I sing to her each night changed this week from something like "you are my muffin, my sweet little baby; I love you so, I don't mean maybe" to a mandate of "Go to sleep and stay asleep; your parents are tired".

I was so desparate that on Friday I went to the library and checked out every book on babies and sleeping that I could find. If it had "happy", "baby" and "sleep" in the title, I checked it out. I didn't even look at the content to see if it was worth reading; I was so tired that I wouldn't have noticed if I checked out, "Make Your Baby Happy: Drink a Few Pints of Guinness and She'll Sleep for Days!" Heck, maybe I did check that one out. (For any concerned readers out there, we would never and have never given Baby A+ alcohol. I don't even know if we have more than a bottle of cooking wine in our house.) I have been very anti-sleep training; I figure babies are fairly self-regulating and if we give her gentle and loving care, a safe environment, and as much consistency as possible, she will regulate herself. Eventually. And in the mean time, we, the parents, suck it up. As I said very inarticulately to another mom in a new mom's group who had her three-week old on a sleeping and feeding schedule (horrifying!) when she asked me, no joke, "How do you, like, meet her needs all the time?": I didn't have a child so that my life wouldn't change.

I accept that I don't get to sleep, nap, go out, do whatever I want when I want to now. It doesn't mean that I practive self-abnegation either, but small babies need what they need when they need it. All that said, I understand why people let their babies "cry it out" and "train" them to sleep, or at least, accept being ignored/abandoned in their crib. I understand. I thought about it this week. I thought about putting her in her crib and going into another room to sleep. And if she cried, oh well, she could deal because I needed some sleep. But the problem is, she can't deal. She is working on learning to self-soothe and she is leaps and bounds ahead of where she was even a month ago, and when she wakes up in the night, sometimes she can get herself back to sleep now. But sometimes she can't. And sometimes she can calm herself down when she's upset. But sometimes she can't. And my job is not to abandon her, or in less damning terms, leave her, to figure it out. My job is to help her figure it out. And that means reading her cues, paying attention, and not swooping in too quickly but not leaving her to struggle much beyond her abilities right now.

I didn't have a child so that my life wouldn't change.

I really wrote this for myself as a reminder. I feel really strongly about this but stong feelings or conviction can be tested by pain and sleep deprivation. That said, if you feel judged or criticized by what I wrote, and you are over the age of one, you can kiss my patoot, suck it up and deal. If you feel judged or criticized by it, and you are a baby, cry all you want and I will come give you a snuggle.

Back by request: Baby A+

2008-12-11T11:57:00.000-06:00

We had a long-distance request for photos and a video of Baby A+, so for all her adoring fans out there, here you are.

Daddy and A+ have been working on the alphabet. She has "i" down and now we're working on "a".

Chickens have feelings, too

2008-12-09T16:45:00.000-06:00

So my lack of blogging can be tied to today's topic: taking the status quo for granted.

Last week, I started a post but then deleted it because it was too inane for even my low standards. Within that lame would-be post was a lament about being sick of eggs because our hens lay up to a dozen-and-a-half a week and, well, that's a lot off eggs to consume. I was also going to write that it's annoying to have to go out each night and close up the coop so they don't get eaten by a cat, skunk or a carnivorous squirrel (are squirrels carnivores?).

So. Basically, my hens are healthy and well. They lay a lot of eggs. And that's about the best one can hope for. So, clearly, you can see why I would be whining, right?

Then came a reminder to be grateful and not take things for granted.

Reminder #1- Over the weekend, Hubby commented that Sydney seemed to have a pink lump on her abdomen. Uh-oh. I immediately thought that she might be egg-bound, meaning, she might have an egg stuck in her oviduct. That can cause infection or death unless you can get the egg out. I did some research before heading out to the coop and learned that I would either have to give Sydney a steam bath (basically, hold her over hot, steamy water to help the egg along...either that, or hope that she just gives up, jumps in the boiling pot and makes herself into some delicious chicken soup) or else lube up a finger with Vaseline and stick it where human fingers were never intended to go. Armed with that knowledge, I headed out to the coop to size up the situation. I was now feeling nervous that I might have a sickly chicken and realized that I'd been taking them and their health for granted. They have been pretty self-sufficient little beasts, and really only require food, water, and us closing up the door at night. That's not much, especially in return for eggs. Anyway, I went out there and, of course, couldn't catch Sydney without crawling (literally) into the run with them. I cornered her, grabbed her big chicken feet, and flipped her over. I didn't see anything so I poked at her tummy a bit while she expressed her great displeasure at the unprovoked molestation. Nothing. Whew! I was really relieved. I checked her the next day just in case but, again, didn't see anything. Apparently the egg made its way out sans sauna or lube job. Hoorah! After that, I won't grouse about having to close up the coop at night and I've been thanking the chickens and saying, "Good job, girls!" each time I get an egg from the nest. It's nutty and kinda lame, but a good habit to get into. Be grateful. Express gratitude. Even if it's to a chicken.

Eggs, eggs and more eggs

2008-11-25T16:41:00.000-06:00

The girls are averaging about 2 eggs/day. Sometimes we get none, once we had four. They are quite noisy when laying; I can hear them carrying on from across the yard. One book I read explained that they are proud of their achievement and want to celebrate; however, after going through childbirth, when I hear the girls clucking I can only think, "Somebody get that hen an epidural!"

More later.

I'm so egg-cited!

2008-10-31T16:23:00.000-05:00

Our first eggs!

Two of them! Woo-hoo! Yesterday, Hubby texted me to ask if I had put the two eggs in the coop; he deemed them too clean to have come out of a chicken's posterior. I advised him that they must have come from our hens; even I am not weird enough to plant eggs in the coop. One was in the nest and one was on the floor of the coop. We don't know which two hens laid them but Hubby guesses that it was Dixie and Tallulah because they were hanging around the coop and because "Sydney is the least girly so I don't think it was her." (The "least girly"? We'll let that go for now.) So. Two eggs.

We are going to a friend's house for dinner, and are in charge of dessert so I used the eggs to make brownies. We were invited to go treat-or-treating with them and their baby but we decided that Baby A+ is too young too enjoy the festivities, so we're just going for dinner. Plus, I had decided not to dress her up in a costume since it would be for our amusement only; I didn't know if she'd like, much less tolerate, a costume. However, I came across the perfect costume that solidifies her honorary harvardchick status, and I had to get it. For my amusement, not hers. While it's not quite Jon Benet Ramsey level exploitation, I did feel a little bad for making her wear it for two minutes while I got a photo. As you can see, she was not loving it.

It's a bit big for her right now so don't be surprised if it's reprised again for next Halloween. If she wears the chicken, I think I'll dress up as an egg.

I'm serious.

Huh.

Poor child. She's going to need a lot of therapy, isn't she?

She's smiling

2008-10-27T06:29:00.000-05:00

Baby A+ flashed her first smiles this week. Oh.my. It made my entire day when she smiled at me, and now I'm working so hard to get her to do it again and again. She uses her whole little mouth and face and just puts everything into it. It's just the greatest thing. I've not been able to get her gummy grin on camera, yet. Below is a happy baby face with a slight smile, but it's nothing when compared to the real deal.

The Great Gonzo and his chickens

2008-10-26T02:45:00.000-05:00

No eggs from the girls yet. And they don't entertain me, either. Oh, Great Gonzo, if only my girls could be like yours!

Have you no decency, Sir?

2008-10-20T14:19:00.000-05:00

At least McCain is funny. Skip to 12:45.

(And Obama starts at 33:09.)

Looking for a good fried chicken recipe

2008-10-19T21:02:00.000-05:00

I really like fried chicken but rarely eat it because it is so terribly bad for my heart (in the long term) and my colon (shorter term). But I'm thinking of finding and trying three recipes for modified, less fattening fried chicken. I figure I have three freeloading hens that aren't laying any eggs so, heck, let's make a taste test out of them.

Grumble, grumble. Sigh.

I'm not serious, of course. But we are still waiting for an egg. The girls and I share a birthday tomorrow: I'll be 31 and they will be 6 months old. The books I've read say that heavy breeds are supposed to lay by 6 months but apparently, no one has told Tallulah, Dixie or Sydney.

In other news, their coop has been winterized. I stuffed straw under the coop and have 4 bales along the north and east walls for insulation. The girls also have a light now and we'll put in the heated water bowl in the coming weeks. The $200 egg has gone up to about $230.

Baby A-plus is fabulous, if screamy. She has a thing about fighting sleep and feels she must scream for a few minutes before konking out. On the flipside, she is working on smiling. Like the proverbial egg, we are waiting for our first baby smile. Last week, she half smiled at a toy she was looking at. I must say, I was a bit irratated with that. "Does that toy get up with you at 3 in the morning? Does that toy feed you 8 times a day? No. So how about directing that smile towards your mama instead, Tootsie." Speaking of getting irratated, she also witnessed her mom yell at some poor kid on Thursday. At least, I think it was a real live person; however, I may have chewed out a robocall....

We got one of the now famous calls from the McCain campaign on Thursday. I don't think it was a robocall because I picked up and said hello, and then a girl said, "Hello? Hello?" I said "Yes, hi." And she said, "Oh, hello. I'm calling from the McCain campaign because you need to know that Barack Obama associates with domestic terrorists...."or something to that effect. After Wednesday night's debate and both candidates being taken to task for their negative ads, I thought that they would be shamed into better behavior. But no. Not the case. And I lost it. "Are you kidding me?! You can't tell me what John McCain is going to do so you need to smear Barack Obama instead?! You know, I respected McCain and thought he was a man of integrity before this campaign and his recent behavior but now, I would never vote for him! And when he loses this election, he's going to have no one to blame but himself. And I hope in 10 years time you look back on this and are deeply ashamed for having been a part of it!" And I hung up. Yeah.

I want this election to be over. I'm tired of the nastiness, and we don't even have a TV so we've not seen any ads! And I want Sarah Palin to be sent back to Alaska to get mauled by a moose. Or a wolf. Or a salmon. I don't care. Just send her home.

To leave this post on a more positive note, here's video of our stupid cat enjoying one of Baby A-plus' toys: the swing. And no, I didn't put him in there. It was his idea.

The $197 egg

2008-10-08T17:27:00.000-05:00

I calculated what we've spent on the chickens so far. Including supplies to build the coop, their feed, the chicks themselves, and all their chicken accoutrement (feeder, waterer, pine shavings, straw, etc), we've shelled out almost $200. That first egg will be a $197 egg. Our first dozen eggs will come out to $16.41 each. It will be a while before we break even, if we ever do. We may not considering that we keep incurring the cost of feed, electricity to heat/light up their coop at night (so they can read in bed before going to sleep), and bedding.

Chickens = snoozeville

2008-09-29T23:16:00.000-05:00

I am so over the chickens. BOOOOORRRING. What do they do all day but the same thing they did the day before: eat, peck, coo, poop, scratch and not lay any eggs. Whoopee doo. Been there, done that.

Baby A-plus is where it's at. (My sister has a daughter whose name also starts with "A", and my sis calls her "Baby A." So, one of my coworkers suggested our daughter could be "Baby A-plus." :-)) Granted, she also just eats, coos, sleeps and poops all day, with the occasional scratching of her face with her nails-turned-claws but it's quite different, I assure you. She's three-weeks old and is interesting and cute and perfectly lovely.

So, Baby A-plus is now an honorary harvardchick and will make cameo appearances here. In case you're wondering why I'm not naming names, even though probably 100 percent of this blog's readers know me/us, the paranoid parent in me is wary of some whacked out screwball knowing too much about us and where to find us, etc.

Speaking of worry, when I step back from it, I'm intrigued that my thoughts of late have been mostly about the dark aspects of life. I don't think it's post-partum depression, either. There has been something sobering about having this new life in our care and seeing how fragile and dependent her life is. It reminds me, I suppose, that all life is fragile and dependent. And finite.

We've created something that will someday cease to exist. We created and brought a life into the world that we cannot sustain forever. Like all of us, she is finite. That's painful to contemplate. It feels like we gave her an incomplete or broken gift. But there's nothing to do about it but to live and enjoy life as we know it while we're here. So I wonder what she'll do with whatever time she has here. What will her life be like? Will she be happy? Will our love and care for her be enough to at least get her started down a road that's fulfilling and joyful? I hope so. It's both the least and the most that we can do.

Nothing much to tell

2008-09-01T20:28:00.000-05:00

The girls aren't doing anything particularly fantastic these days. They eat, scratch in the dirt, poop, sleep, and wander about, clucking as they go. That's their typical day. So, this update is more obligatory than it is to note any chicken milestones.

-Perching at night: By George, I think they've got it. Last night and again tonight, we went out to close up the coop and all three girls were on the roost/perch in the hen house. That's the first time all three of them have managed to get their wits and wings about them and get up there. For the last month, we've been having to scoop at least one chicken off of the floor or from the top of the feeder and place them on the roost. Hopefully, those days are behind us now.

-Eggs: None to date. They are heavy breeds and should be laying by 5 1/2 or 6 months of age; that means it should another 6 weeks or so--end of October?

-The food of champions: The girls can vanquish an entire watermelon, except the rind, in under an hour. Holy smokes. They also like tomatoes and bread. They do not enjoy mango or arugula or escarole. It's going to be a tough winter for them without all this great summer produce.

-Political preferences: In an earlier post, I noted that I couldn't quite explain the sound that Tallulah makes. The other night, Hubby nailed it: Barack or "Bah-raaahck." So far, neither of the other two have chimed in with "Obama." I'll see if I can get a sound clip on here.

-Predators: no signs of predators digging. We are pleased with that. As for other predators, the girls are aware that they live in a conceal-and-carry state, and have posted a sign using the official state-sanctioned language to keep guns out of their hen house.

Vile, filthy dinosaurs

2008-08-02T21:07:00.000-05:00

Our shop vac has had a workout pver the last few days. Yesterday, I cleaned the cluttered garage; the day before, I cleaned the chicken coop, and today I cleaned our filthy basement. All were dirty, but without question, the coop was the nastiest and least pleasant of the three.

The bulk of the problem stems from the filthy beasts pooping and flinging litter (pine shavings) into their water. Then the water gets gross and spills into the coop. As a result, we end up with matted down, wet litter breeding all sorts of foul disgustingness. It was quite the challenge to get it all up, and I evicted a number of multi-legged, creepy-crawly bugs from beneath the damp pile of litter.

Once I got it all out and santized, I let it air dry before putting in less than 1/2" of litter. That's it; that's all they get this time. No matting down. The 5-gallon waterer is now in the run and not in the coop. I don't know what we'll do come winter, but for now, everything is much cleaner.

'Cause you've got chickenality; walk, chickenality, talk; chickenality, smile; chickenality...

2008-07-26T20:08:00.001-05:00

In my last post, I mused that I should write about each of the girls' personalities, or chickenalities but, alas, I needed to pass Chemistry class and birth a baby before chickenality blogging became a priority. Well, guess what? Baby has a few more weeks of cookin' to do, and passing Chemistry became an a equation that looked less like,

H2O + HCl +hard work + time + studying = passing grade

and more like,

CO2 + Fe + hard work + time +studying + miraculous intervention by Chemistry Fairy = passing grade, maybe

The Chemistry Fairy was no where to be found this week, and so, I withdrew from the class. I'm a Chemistry drop-out. But the silver lining is that blogging about the chickens moved up in priority. That's right, folks: I have no life.

So, the girls. Let's start at the top with the chicken leader, Tallulah: the Benevolent Chicktator.

She is definitely viewed by the others as the leader of their little chicken gang. Fortunately, Tallulah doesn't seem to be a bully; thus, Hubby cleverly dubbed her the benevolent chicktator. She's often first to tread into dangerous territory: she's willing to scope out whether I've tossed them tasty kitchen scraps or a grenade, or whether the dog's tongue is an instrument of peace or aggression. She also leads the other two into the coop when it gets dark. I've seen her do this twice. She'll jump up on the ramp, cheep a bit, then walk into the coop. The other two then follow. Speaking of cheeping, she's the most vocal of the three. She doesn't really coo or cluck, it's more of a wobblely-tune she sings. I can't describe it. Anyway, I will confess that Tallulah is my favorite.

Next up is Sydney: the Hen Buddhist

Sydney is pretty laid-back and go with the flow. She seldom gets ruffled, literally or figuratively, and while she doesn't seem to love being picked up or held, she'll just go with it and hang out quietly if I do pick her up. She's not very vocal unless being vexed by the dog or Dixie, but neither is she shy. She just does her thing and doesn't make a big deal out of it. It must be all the meditation she does.

Finally, we have Dixie, who could use some Xanax and/or some Whiskey to calm herself

Dixie overreacts. Dixies overreactss to everything. Sydney budges her out of the way trying to get to the kitchen scraps? Dixie will start a fight. I open the door in the morning to let them out? Dixie flys out and runs circles in the yard, flapping her wings and clucking bloody murder. I toss a worm into the coop? Dixie runs screaming from where the dangerous, blood-thirsty worm landed. In particular, picking her up and holding her will set her off. She scratches and screeches LOUDLY until the whole unpleasant ordeal is over, and she is released from the tyranny of the humans. Buff Orpingtons are supposed to be calm and docile. Ours is anxious and neurotic. It's like having Woody Allen running around in your yard. Only Dixie isn't funny.

So that's the girls. Very different chickenalities. They are quite individual considering their humble dinosaur brains.

We have the smartest chickens EVER

2008-07-13T22:24:00.000-05:00

Granted, even if we do have the smartest chickens ever, they still aren’t all that bright. Harvardchicks is, perhaps, a misnomer. Although, Hubby and I could make a donation to the college and get them in that way…oh, wait. We don’t have that kind of money.

Moving on. Why are the chickens the smartest ever? We had been told that we would have to train them to go into the coop (from the fenced-in run) at night. Tonight, we went out to do that (meaning we went out after dark prepared to herd them into the coop) and the three of them were already stacked their chicken pile in the coop. Chicken rockstars.

That they were out in the run all alone leads us to the question: how? Well, another rockstar (Hubby) finished the chicken fencing this weekend. I need to finish putting rock around the perimeter to prevent break-ins, and it will be totally finished. But in the meantime, Hubby’s excellent prison-like design ensures no chicken breakouts; thus, the girls can be out alone during the day. Sweet freedom!

They are getting hefty, especially Dixie. She’s particularly large after I pick her up, hold her for a bit and then put her back with her friends. She puffs her feathers and struts about indignantly, preening herself to remove the human filth from her feathers. She’s also getting bolder; she doesn’t run away from Beanie the dog anymore. Instead, she pecks Beanie’s nose/tongue/paws until she retreats a bit. Sassy chicken…which reminds me, I should write a post about each of the girl’s personality, or chickenality. It’s interesting (to me) how they differ one from another.

So writing about chickenalities. It’s on the to-do list. Right after pass Chemistry this summer session and birth a baby.

Never give up. Never surrender! (even if building a chicken coop takes more time than you ever dreamed it could)

2008-07-03T21:56:00.000-05:00

Hubby hard at work. Notice the happy look on his face.

TA-DAH! Finished!

I'm sorry that I've not posted in a month; the time has been eaten up by poultry-housing responsibilities. In the past month, hubby and I have spent over 100 hours combined on the chicken coop. I swear, it felt like 'cooping' was all we ever did. I despised the coop by the time we were done. Thankfully?, Hubby’s stoic sense of suck-it-up and willingness to endure, if not cause, his suffering came in handy in getting this project done. In fact, dear Hubby took ten or so vacation days in June and spent at least half of them working on the coop. What a trooper.

Here's a recap of the last month:
1- the chickens got bigger and were booted from the baby's room onto the three-season back porch.
2- the chickens got to go outside in a small dog kennel and poke around in the grass.
3-our dog loves the chickens; our cats want to eat/maim/kill them.
3-Hubby finished the coop last weekend (yay!) but the fence is not yet done (boo!).
4-we have decided that we are never ever building animal housing again. Ever. Never. No way.
5- the chickens poop a lot. I mean, a LOT.

So indeed, the chickens got bigger; they turn seven weeks old next Monday. Currently, Dixie is in the lead. She's about the size of a small cantaloupe. Sydney and Tallulah are more large-mango size. (I receive emails about "your pregnancy this week"; each week, it uses some food to describe the baby's size. Grape tomato early on, avocado by week 17, last week she was a cabbage and this week she's a cauliflower. I can't wait until she's a half-gallon of chocolate ice cream...yummy baby.) They are all feathered out now; the ugly teenager stage was worst for Dixie. Cute, fluffy yellow down and more severe-looking, pointy tan-buff colored feathers don't mix well. If she was a person, looking at her you would have thought the poor, disheveled thing needed some help from social services. Tallulah and Sydney were a bit more graceful in their feathering out. Once everyone had her feathers, I decided that the stinky things could survive on the back porch. I moved them out of the baby's room two or three weeks ago. Since it was consistently in the 60s at night, I also took away their lightbulb. They seemed to be fine with that; they slept in a chick-pile to snuggle and stay warm. Usually, you'd only see two of them unless you startled the box; then the third one's head would pop up from underneath the other two.

Moving to the back porch also meant getting yard privileges. Like hardening off plants, I figured the chicks should be introduced to the outdoors before they permanently moved outside. For the past few weeks, while Hubby and I were outside 'cooping', I'd bring the girls out and lock them in a dog kennel that our dog outgrew (the humane society adoption staff swore up and down that there was "no way" our adorable pup would get so big as to outgrow that kennel...uh huh). Their first outing was interesting. Dixie just stood looking shell-shocked and didn't peck around at all. The other two peeped happily and ate a variety of grass, creeping Charlie and the occasional dried leaf. The dog also met the chickens that day and was quite exuberant in her greeting. Tail wagging, running circles around the kennel, the occasional 'woof', and then finally, plopping down next to the kennel--exhausted and panting--and licking any chicken derrière that got too close to the bars. That pretty much still describes the dog and chickens relationship, with the addition of the chicks pecking at her tongue when she does a Gene Simmons and extends her tongue as far into the kennel as she can. I really glad that Bean (the dog) likes the chickens. It's surprising that a bird-hunting breed would be so gregarious with feathered creatures but I'm not complaining. The cats are a different story. They are indoor cats and have only met the chicks once. Briefly. Their relationship is more like Syria-Lebanon. Crazy, (power) hungry cats stalking and threatening a relatively stable chicken state that makes good hummus and pita bread, or eggs in this case.

Beanie loves her chickens!

Speaking of predators, last week a skunk dug under our neighbors coop and killed one of her chickens. Poor Penny. Our neighbor heard a ruckus about 3 a.m. and got outside in time to save her other chicken and scare the skunk off. So predator deterrence is what we are currently trying to figure out with the fence. I'm not worried about the coop since it's up almost a foot off the ground; however, the fence is another story. I didn't bury wire when I put it in and am trying to decide if a 2-3" deep and 4-6" wide layer of landscape rock around the fence perimeter would be sufficient. Our house's previous owner loved her ferns and plunked them in a oh-so-natural-and-visually-stunning garden of landscape rock; I've been digging it up by the wheelbarrow-full but can't find a sucker to take it off our hands so I may as well find a use for it.

Once we felt the coop was secure, we moved the girls in. It was time. Sunday morning Rich went out to the porch to discover a mass breakout had occurred since I had left a few hours earlier. The cardboard box walls had been breached. It was chicken pandemonium. I was not home so Hubby was left with the task of recapturing the girls. I really wish I had been home because Hubby's exasperated description of trying to catch the little buggers made for a good visual image; I'm sure the live performance was that much better. Hubby was successful after 10 or so minutes and many failed attempts, and all was well by the time I returned home... with exception of the clean-up. Hubby generously left me the task of cleaning the many, many, many piles of chicken poop off the back porch carpet. The girls couldn't have been free for more than two hours but had pooped like they'd taken Metamucil after a month of constipation. Good grief.

So. That's been the last month. You are up to date in the lives of Tallulah, Dixie and Sydney. And since it is dark outside and they have, no doubt, fallen asleep, so should I. Happy evening, all! I promise the next update is less than a month away.

No, I'm not answering the chicken-phone or listening for the ocean. I'm triumphantly holding up Tallulah before flinging her into her new coop.

getting the stink eye from Tallulah

2008-06-03T22:06:00.000-05:00

"Get that camera outta here!"

Here are some photos from today. The girls are big big big. You can really see it in the photo of Dixie sitting on my hand. Tallulah is giving me the major stink eye in the photo above; I think she thought the 15+ previous photos I'd snapped should have been sufficient....

Dixie in my hand -------------------- From left- Dixie, Sydney, Tallulah

Chicken Little isn't so little anymore

2008-06-02T22:50:00.000-05:00

The girls are two weeks old today and have doubled in size. No longer round little fluffballs, they are more oblong shaped and have lost a lot of the downyness in exchange for real feathers. They remain darling, but just not as cute. I'll post photos tomorrow. I put a short perch or roost in their box last week; Tallulah was the first to be brave enough to try it. She got up, wrapped her big ol' chicken feet around it, and wobbled back and forth a few times before falling off. All of the girls have tried it out since, but they don't seem to stay their long. I hope they figure it out soon.

I've put a moveout date on the calendar: June 24. We'll start the transition to the outside earlier in the week, kinda like hardening off plants-bringing them out in their box during the day and back inside at night-but the evening of the 24th, they move into their big girl beds in the great outdoors. Hubby knows that the date is 3 weeks away and promises to have the coop and fencing done by then.

We scored on Friday night in regards to a fence. We drove by a pile o' screen windows that someone left on his/her boulevard, and we nabbed them. They are wood framed and about 4' tall, 2' wide. We figure we'll reinforce each side with chicken wire, screw the frames to wood posts, pound the stakes into the ground, and hay-presto!, we'll have a screened chicken run.

In other news, I ate chicken this weekend for the first time since getting the chicks and I must say that I pondered the chicken and my eating it more than I ever had before. I'm too tired for deep thoughts at this moment. More on this later.

The coop has walls!

2008-05-25T22:19:00.000-05:00

Hubby spent over 10 hours in the basement today working on the coop; major process was made! The exterior walls are cut, insulated and reinforced. Interior walls are cut and in place. The door has hinges. We even duct taped it together so we could see how it's going to look. What would life be without duct tape?

In other news, the girls moved out of their zappos.com box and into a larger amazon.com box today. Tallulah, in particular, has been flapping her little wings and eyeing the top of the box. This is a photo taken not from the side, but from directly above her. Notice her shifty little eyes trying to plan an escape.

Also, the brooder is too dang hot. There is a 250W heat bulb supended above the box but even raising it up 3' above the brooder's top doesn't lower the temperature below 100 degrees. I'm going to replace it with a 75W incandecent bulb and see if that, combined with the 70 degree house temp, will keep them at a toasty 90-95 degrees.

Here is a lame video (no sound and crappy camerawoman) of the chicks eating and running amok. If I'd caught them pooping and sleeping, too, we would have the entirety of their day in 20 seconds.

A Preview of Parenthood

2008-05-24T18:50:00.000-05:00

The little fluffballs are growing and are visibly bigger than they were just a few days ago. I suppose they won't stay cute forever. Several people have told me not to base my ability to care for our soon-to-arrive-child on my ability to raise baby chicks, primarily because chicks can drop dead of a myriad of diseases in their early days. While heeding this advice, I can't help but think that the chicks are offering a glimpse of two distasteful aspects of parenthood.

First, poop. Lots of it. I've spent the last few days hanging with the peeps for about an hour a day waiting for each one to poo so I know they are not pasted up. Poor Tallulah pasted up repeatedly from Wednesday until yesterday. ("Pasting up" means that the poo sticks to their fluffy behind and prevents the chick’s ability to poo further. It can be fatal if not “addressed”.) There has been more cleaning of chicken butts and picking poo off of Tallulah's rear than either one of us would like, although Tallulah has the worst of it. So, poop. Good times.

Second, I’m getting a lot of ungrateful featherball attitude. I feed them, change their water, have a thermometer in the box to ensure that it stays a toasty 95 degrees, protect them from the cats, and pick poo off their butts to prevent their untimely demise...and what do I get?! Attitude. I pick them up and they peep bloody murder and try to get away. I'm trying to bond with my chickens and they hate me. OK, OK, in fairness, given the relative size difference between us, I imagine they see my putting my hand into their box as the hand of god descending to smite them for their poultry sins. I would run from the hand of god, too. Also, I tend to anthropomorphize all of our creatures and, although I'm sure my chickens will grow up to be a smart and civilized lot, they are just little dinosaurs. I must remember this. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6548719.stm While it's possible that dinosaurs had a rich and deep emotional life, I suspect not, and I should not expect love and devotion from the chickens. I suppose it's much the same for children--I have to love the little dinosaur no matter what; she gets to decide whether or not to like or love me. That stinks.

Poop and attitude: the rewards of parenthood. But at least the chickens will lay eggs at some point. And children will eventually... put me in the home.

Hmm.... chickens 1, children 0.

Babies!

2008-05-20T18:09:00.001-05:00

Oh.my.goodness. Is there anything cuter than a baby chick? Well, yes. But the chicks are pretty darn close to be the cutest creatures ever. Farmer Kathy called at 8am to say the post office had the chicks, and she was on her way to get them. I was at the farm by 8:20. While Farmer Kathy told me I would get to pick out which ones I wanted, when I spent more than 30 seconds looking at the Buff Orpingtons, she told me to hurry the hell up. So. I basically picked the ones that were on top of the chick pile. I drove them home in a pre-heated car, dipped their little beaks in the water, and plopped them in the box where it's 95 and sunny, thanks to the heat bulb. I watched them for a minute, closed the door, threatened the cats with a one-way ticket to the humane society if they ate the chickens, and reluctantly, left for work.

I was pleased to return to the house several hours later to find 3 living chicks and no blood-stained cats.

Anyway, the chicks are Tallulah (Barred Rock-black with white spot on head), Dixie (Buff Orpington-yellow), and Sydney (black Australorp-black with yellow and black head).

The US Postal Service has been entrusted with my peeps

2008-05-19T13:04:00.000-05:00

My farmer friend called me at the crack of dawn (apparently she doesn't realize that we townies sleep past sunrise) to tell me that Hoover's Hatchery in Rudd, Iowa has shipped our chicks! They were supposed to arrive 2 weeks ago but Hoover's had a horrible hatch. It sounds like a Dr. Seuss book. I don't know if someone forgot to turn on the incubator or what, but for some reason, they had a low birth, or hatch, rate. Anyway, they are on their way. They come overnight mail via USPS, and should be at my farmer friend's post office tomorrow.

Update on the chicken coop: oy. So, Hubby didn't want much to do with these chickens. He was anti-chicken-in-the-backyard, and I have been on my own for the planning and building of the coop. The coop was to have been the first thing I've ever built. I am not handy, spatial, or precise in my work; in fact, my dear friend Kendall has (dis)assembled my futon frame and IKEA things for me. So, I spent the fall and winter reading up on chicken needs and planning the coop. I bought some supplies this spring, and with some trepidation, undertook my noble cause: to build a comfortable, warm, dry chicken coop. I was quite proud of myself for measuring and cutting the exterior walls, the window and door openings, and even building a nest box. Then I got stuck--I can't even remember what I needed help withbut I recruited Hubby.

Perhaps it is a difference between men and women, or perhaps it's just a difference between Hubby and me, but my idea of help is to do what is requested by the helpee and maybe offer encouragement or a suggestion or two. Hubby's idea of help has proven to be quite different. Not even half-way down the basement stairs, upon seeing the exterior walls he proclaims, "did you even try to cut those straight?" Long story short, Hubby is willing to endure the tedium required to do things precisely and perfectly. (I am more of a "it's good enough" kinda gal.) So, he re-cut all of the walls, and from there, has pretty much taken over the project. In fact, he deviated so far from my plans that I don't really know what he's doing; since it's all in his head, I can't really help. In other words, I have been relieved of my post and now enjoy my weekends and evenings spent not in the basement. I should take this opportunity to say what he is building surpasses anything I could have built, and come Armageddon, all that will remain are the rats, cockroaches, and our chicken coop.

Case in point, Hubby dear comes up from the basement the other night to ask if I have a calculator with a square root function. I'm sure all you smart people out there know why he needed it, but my first response was, "what the h$#% are you doing down there?!?" He handed me a piece of paper with A2 + B2= C2 written on it; the roof is going to be slanted, and he was trying to figure the length of the hypotenuse. Right. So, then he proceeds to tell me he's also making a change on the roof design because the wind comes from the South, and the wind speed plus the thermonuclear something-or-other plus the rotation on the Earth's axis was not ideal. OK, he didn't really say anything about thermonuclear whatever or the rotation of the Earth, but he may as well have. Thoroughly perplexed, I dusted off my good old TI-85 graphing calculator from high school algebra, handed it to him, and went back to reading "O magazine".

Hubby is uber smart, precise and likes things right. I appreciate that he has taken on this project; he is much more inclined to build something that won't collapse on the chickens and/or be an eyesore in our yard. (Thanks, Hubby.) Still, the chicks come tomorrow, and we don't have a finished coop. So, until they feather out, which occurs at about 5 weeks, the chicks will live--where else?--in the baby's nursery. I have a cardboard box with a heat lamp all set up. My hope is their getting bigger, smellier, and less cute (they get the awkward, ugly seventh-grader look at about 5-6 weeks) will act as a impetus to get the coop done and the chickens outside.

They'll have to be out of the baby's room by September when the real baby is due to arrive....

Building the Coop

2007-10-02T11:22:00.001-05:00

So the chicks won't appear until next Spring but I wanted to get a move on with the coop before the ground freezes. Hubby is not uber supportive of the chicken idea and so help from him will not be forthcoming. So, left to my own devices and having never built anything--even my IKEA furniture had to be assembled by somebody else, I spent hours looking over other people's coop plans and looking up words like "joists" and "plumb" in the dictionary. I found a lot of good information but ran into two issues: 1) I want 3 birds; many plans out there are for much bigger coops; and 2) god bless the self-sufficient, homesteading frugal peeps, but I don't have a lot of scrap wood and other materials that I can scrounge or recycle. I will need to buy materials for the pullet chalet.

Issue one: space. Since these will be free-ranging, or rather, 20'x20' fenced area ranging birds, the coop can be small. This is necessary since we live in the upper Midwest and it gets mighty chilly in the winter. The smaller the coop, the better able the birds' body heat will be to keep it warm. So, I decided that 4'x4'x4' cube would be a good size. However, with discovery of a pallet that I could salvage, the dimensions have changed slightly to 54"x36"x48". It will be a cube shaped with the door and window on the south side. I'll put in another window, I think, on the east side for more light. The roosting box will go in the northeast corner, and I will create a drop-side door for access. The roof will slant, south to north from 4' to 3 1/2' so that rain and snow can run off. I will hinge the roof on the east to west axis about half way across so I can lift it to access feed, water, and to clean and add litter. The perch will go whereever the feeder is not. I'm thinking above the nest.

Issue two: I neither want to spend $300 on supplies nor do I have a lot of things sitting around to salvage and reuse. I am willing to spend what is necessary for a safe, warm coop for the girls and also to make it attractive so as not to incite complaints from hubby or neighbors, but some of the coops I looked at were pretty involved and expensive. Since I don't know if will like this chicken experiment, I don't want to out hundreds into it only to find that chickens are, as my mother has proclaimed, "filthy, mean and disgusting." I planned to buy 6 sheets of plywood and cut them into 4'x4' squares since I really didn't think I had much sitting around that I could use. Oh contraire! Lesson learned for the townies and the novices: you'll be surprised what you have sitting around once you start looking for it.

Case in point, we had furniture shipped here when we moved from the east coast a few years ago. Since that time, this pallet that the furniture came on has been resting aganist the backside of the garage. While it meant reconfiguring my design and dimensions, when I saw it and saw that it was in good shape, I decided it would make a perfect subfloor and base for the coop.

Bouyed by that $30 savings, I headed to Menard's (the midwest's Home Depot) and scouted out supplies. Concrete pre-mix was $2.18 for a 60# bag; I got 5, but only used 2 in the end. I rumagged through the scrap wood and found cedar 4x4s about 2 feet long. $1.29 each. Perfect. Basically, I screwed (with a jar full of screws I found in the garage. Thanks, previous owners!) the cedar 4x4s to the pallet where the 4x4 would be supported by the frame already. Does that make sense? I don't know terminology so I'm struggling here....

There is an old firepit (for burning trash, I suppose) behind the garage. I thought building over it would be a great idea. So I set the newly footed floor back there and started to mark where I'd need to dig. It wasn't until I was done marking and picked up a shovel that I realized that only 2 inches underneath the grass and creeping charlie is more concrete. Argh. So, I just backed up slowly, moving south, digging the spade into the ground until it hit the earth, and not concrete. I had to move back about 7'.

Not a problem. Crisis averted. I then stood the coop back up in the spot, spray painted the grass around each foot to mark where I needed to dig, moved to coop, dug about a foot down, and plopped the footings in. I got out ye olde level, and made adjustments adding and subtracting dirt and rock as needed. Then the fun part: concrete! I'd read in another blog that someone didn't mix the concrete together ahead of time, but instead poured some dry concrete mix in the hole, added some water, stirred, and repeated until the hole was filled and the consistancy was good. That sounded like a great plan to me. If I were pouring footings for a house or shed, I wouldn't advise this but for 3 chicks and their gear (total of 50 lbs, I would think), I think this is a fine method. So, I did that and I think it worked brilliantly. I checked this morning and the concrete hasn't shrunk or sunk dramatically so I would call it a success.

Total time so far: 2 hours, 10 minutes. Total cost, $11.60. Now all I need are four walls and a roof. And the chicks.