Posts Tagged ‘chickens’
Coming Together
I was keeping Delilah tied close to me while cleaning up around the paddock, partly to keep her out of trouble with the horses, but also because I don’t want her venturing to the full reach of the leash, scouting chickens. She seems to understand the drill.
After retrieving her from the kennel located behind the house, we walked along the back pasture fence line toward the chicken coop. I had already checked on the chicks earlier, so knew where to expect them. Keeping myself between the chicks and Delilah, we strode parallel to the coop where I stopped to put the memory card in the trail cam for the night.
She was appropriately curious, but not frantic over the presence of the birds. I doubt she will ever reach a point where she would let one of the birds walk into her space without attempting to grab it, but it feels nice to have her practicing a respectable level of calmness with them in view.
In the paddock, I had my attention on the task at hand, letting Delilah explore the immediate vicinity around me. When she stopped and stared, I looked up to find the chicks making their way over from the coop to join the horses for some short grass grazing.
Although separated by safe distances with Delilah restrained on the leash, it felt good to have us all coming together in the paddock. It was a hint of the ideal we wish could somehow come to be.
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Joking’s Over
Last weekend, while spending extended time with friends in our home, I came to realize from some comments that I tend to paint an unbalanced portrait of Delilah, which leans toward the harsh. As recently as two days ago I posted a picture that I intended as humorous, giving her a thought bubble that played on my tendency to trumpet her carnivorous nature.
By frequently referring to how ferocious she can be, I have been neglectful of her gentle side. Our little pooch presents with a happy-go-lucky gentleness more often than not. In fact, it is probably why I don’t tend to write much about it. Her good behavior is so common as to become overlooked. We take it for granted.
It’s the exceptional moments of craziness that grab all the headlines.
Well, it’s hard not to write about the exceptional moments.
Today, I am feeling some regret about my attempt at humor over Delilah’s interest in our chickens.
Yesterday morning, while Cyndie was cleaning up under the overhang of the barn, Delilah could hold back no longer. She lunged hard enough against her leash anchor to break the handle and bend the hook it was hanging on. The handle banged against the siding of the barn and caused the horses to jump, alerting Cyndie to go check on what happened.
In that flash of seconds, we lost our first chicken to a predator. A domestic predator.
We knew all along that having free-ranging chickens around Delilah was high risk, but we simply hoped for the best. It seemed that our gradual controlled exposure to their presence was being accepted with surprising calmness, between bouts of excessive interest.
We knew she wasn’t to be trusted yet, but there were enough moments when she was demonstrating appropriate acceptance of the chickens that we felt hopeful about the chances of further improvement.
We don’t fault her for acting on her natural instinct. Delilah has given us a chance to more closely consider the delicate balance of predator/prey relationships. She is also forcing us to renew our attention to directing her exactly in the manner we need her to behave.
It’s not the dog that needs the most training. It’s her handlers.
To her credit, Delilah’s choice of victim turned out to be the extra Rhode Island Red from the batch of 10 we received for our purchase of 9 chicks. We are now down to three each of the 3 breeds we ordered.
Maybe yesterday’s incident will help me to think twice about joking over Delilah’s carnivorous ways in the future, but I’m guessing my writing will still highlight more of her wild behaviors than her quiet moments. It’s the nature of this beast.
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Chicks Exploring
I have no idea whether the raccoon Delilah alerted us to outside our sunroom in broad daylight yesterday afternoon had anything to do with the new presence of our 8-week-old chicks roaming the property. It was certainly a surprising and uncharacteristic sighting.
Daily, our chicks have expanded their excursions from the coop, and yesterday achieved milestones that gave me great satisfaction. Cyndie found them marching along the edge of the woods toward the compost area where they quickly unleashed their best chicken behavior on the piles.
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Later, after running with Delilah to follow the scent of the raccoon, we moved behind the barn to check on the birds. When they spotted us, they scooted from the paddock over toward the coop. The paddock is the other spot I hoped the chickens would frequent. My two primary goals realized in the same day. Huzzah!
While I am grateful that Delilah is attentive enough to call out the presence of a raccoon threat in our yard, I’m not yet convinced her concern for the chicks is as altruistic as we would wish. While Cyndie was cleaning the barn, Delilah held an uncomfortably intense focus on the compost area.
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Chicken Catching
We are getting close to opening up the netting and giving our chicks a chance to do some exploring. They are currently confined to a small courtyard at the foot of the ramp out their door, as well as the space beneath the elevated coop.
Cyndie tossed a little food as I was preparing to take some pictures while they were out and about. That resulted in most of the heads being down and the butts up.
I didn’t make it out to see the show when Cyndie moved them back into the coop for the night, but she said it was quite a spectacle. She had read one suggestion about training them to come in for the night by regularly using a unique call and shaking a little container of food for enticement.
I asked her what her call was going to be. She didn’t have anything specific worked out yet. I think it might be, “Here chicks.”
Sounds like they were unimpressed with her offerings.
At first none of them wanted to go in. Then one headed inside on its own accord, but when it realized it was alone in there, it came back out.
After Cyndie got a couple of them inside, one chose to lay down right in front of the door, obstructing the opening.
With the food offering failing to impress them and Cyndie’s call not inspiring action, it was time to resort to the long hooked stick to pull them in by their feet.
All this was accompanied by Delilah’s unwelcome barking, which did not contribute one bit to Cyndie’s calm demeanor.
In fact, from the house, it sounded like there was some cursing going on down there. At least, from what I could sense between the barking.
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Trying Hard
Our wonderfully sweet and incredibly carnivorous Belgian Tervuren Shepherd, Delilah, was trying so hard to be a good cooperator yesterday for Cyndie. There is currently nothing more enticing to her than the scent of chicken manure and she has quickly figured out there is a really good supply of it around the chicken coop.
I suppose the presence of flittery feathered figures darting about enhances the allure quite a bit, but honestly, she seems almost more interested in the scent they leave behind. (I wish.)
In attempt to train her to better control her urges, Cyndie restrained Delilah a short distance from the coop while the chickens were romping in their courtyard and Cyndie was cleaning the coop. Delilah’s job was to practice staying calm while observing the action.
I think maybe she was closing her eyes in attempt to overcome the powerful drive revving inside her.
Sounds like it went well for a little while, but over time the urge would become unbearable. Delilah would get all wound up and let out a yelp. Next would come the nervous yawn.
After a little calm assurance from Cyndie, the exercise would resume for another round.
We are hoping to keep up a regular dose of exposure to the chickens for Delilah, while closely supervising her state of increasing excitement. In time, if we last long enough, she should become bored with the situation. When that happens, we ratchet up the exercise to bring her another step closer to the chickens while working to help her maintain a state of calm submission.
I am inclined to think we will get bored before she will, but I think the only alternative involves risks to the chickens that we don’t want to take.
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Good Time
The chicks seem to be having a good time getting comfortable with their coop, especially since we are experiencing the return of wintery cold rain and dreary gray skies outside this week.
It’s almost time to scrape the poop board!
Cyndie snapped this wonderful photo of the bulk of them making good use of their roost perches. These birds keep doubling in size every few hours, it seems. Can’t wait for them to be out chasing the local fox away and eating all our bugs.
It does work that way, doesn’t it?
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Morning Visitor
When I moved the trail cam away from the coop to provide a better view, I also adjusted a setting so it would only capture one image per trigger. I felt that getting 400 images in one 24-hour period was a little excessive. The first day after making these changes, there were zero pictures.
The batteries had died.
I replaced the batteries and prepared for the new views.
Now I am going to reset the number of images per trigger. In the past few days, we ended up getting only a single image from each overnight span of hours. The images captured in the first two nights were simply a pair of eyes in the dark. For some reason the camera isn’t taking a second image before the visitor departs. There’s probably another setting I need to review for time between triggers.
The good news is, thus far, the predators aren’t loitering around searching for ways inside the coop.
This morning, in the minutes when the sun was beginning to appear over the horizon, the cam snapped more than just a pair of eyes. We are guessing it very well could be the same critter whose eye reflections glowed the other two nights.
Here is our first view of the fox checking out our hen house.
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Author Captured
Before we moved the chicks out to the coop, we had dumped some of their droppings in the manure pile and noticed how hyper it made Delilah over the scent. Thinking it might do the same thing to natural predators, we decided to move the trail-cam to monitor the pile for a few days to survey for night prowlers attracted to the new chicken smells.
The only thing we captured was the author of this blog in his natural habitat.
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Roost Achieved
I was all excited to check the image card after another overnight on the trail camera, but there was nothing there. I think the batteries expired. If any new prowlers showed up on the second night, we’ll never know.
In a strange result of nature, we received a quarter of an inch of rain yesterday before I got home, but the grounds looked like five-times that amount had fallen.
There’s almost nowhere to step that doesn’t turn out muddy when you move off the pavement or wood chips. Delilah jumped up on Cyndie in a fit of excitement and painted a wonderful image with her dirty paw. It’s time to pull out her kiddie pool and park it by the front door so she can wash her feet each time we enter the house.
On my way home from work yesterday, I stopped in Hudson to pick up some accessories to improve our electrical hook-up to the coop. It’s just extension cord for the time being, but at least it can be more soundly secured extension cord while it’s there.
I’m working toward properly burying a supply wire from the barn and securing it per electrical code guidelines, but the chicks needed heat much sooner than I could execute the necessary steps to wire it right the first time.
Later in the evening, when we walked down to reset the trail camera with new batteries and a cleared image card, we found one of the Rhode Island Reds had made her way up onto one of the two parallel roosts that offer the highest perch in the coop.
I have wondered whether having the roosts set right at the level of the large window would be a drawback for them, so seeing a bird on the roost was a big deal for me. I felt good that she didn’t panic or jump down when I came all the way up to the window.
I’m not confident they will be so comfortable when it is a large cat that shows up to look in on them.
If it proves to be a problem, I can easily add a board to provide increased privacy for them. While we were lingering there, one of the Buff Orpingtons joined the Red up on the roost. It won’t take long for the rest of the copy cats (chicks) to follow suit, I’m sure.
Remember, our chickens are brilliant.
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Close Watch
I think the trail cam was too close to the coop. It seemed to trigger upon the movement of the shadow across the front door. There were 400 images recorded over the 24 hour period! That was really only 200 triggers, because I had left the setting at 2 images per activation.
The chick(en)s were under close watch for this first day in the coop. Temperature is not controlled as much as it was in the brooder located inside the barn. As far as I can see, they are not showing any signs of discomfort or distress. Why would they? These birds have moved into a Taj Mahal of chicken coops.
Still, Cyndie is not sure we are avoiding minimal desired temperature and is checking on them regularly.
I peeked in the window after setting up the camera Sunday night.
Cyndie checked on them first thing in the morning, yesterday.
Then she stopped by several times during the day.
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Delilah even made an attempt to monitor their status on her own. Luckily, Cyndie was on the other end of the leash.
Finally, at the end of the day, the front door got opened for some adjustments and the introduction of a larger food dispenser. With little in the way of bugs to eat, the poor birds are devouring the starter granules faster than Cyndie can keep up.
That was all interesting enough, but the real winner on the trail cam was the night vision capture. It didn’t take long for us to have the first visitor make an appearance. There is no doubt in my mind that my attempts to critter-proof our coop will be well-tested.
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Let the games begin…
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Relative Something 