Posts Tagged ‘chicks’
Mixed Mind
It’s a battle to maintain a positive, hopeful outlook amid a pandemic that our government has failed to effectively manage, which has our economy teetering on the brink of collapse. Meanwhile, Cyndie’s garden extravaganza can be described as nothing but a bountiful success and our new brood of rambunctious chicks inspire visions of a wonderful future. 
My mood of the moment has been swinging wildly between hope and despair.
Federal secret police snatching protesters in Portland? The White House disrupting coronavirus reporting to the CDC? What is our government up to and why does there seem to be no way to enact checks and balances that once protected our democracy? Why is it that the current President has been allowed to keep his financial interests secret all this time?
Last night we lucked out once again in the stormy weather lottery. We were spared even a hint of destructive wind in the moments after warnings and radar images indicated a tornado was headed in our direction. We have yet to hear any reports of whether the vicinity around us was impacted negatively.
I can report the lightning bolts flashing dramatically in the clouds overhead were more frequent and numerous than I have ever witnessed before in my life. The constant rumble of distant thunder never once appeared to match the immediate flashes occurring directly above our location which baffled my understanding of the way things work.
I cannot fathom what actual energy was at play to generate such a dazzling display of countless electrical arcing bolts without the usual accompanying impacts of typical thunder. Just one night prior, we suffered two BOOM!s of thunder that scared me into a clench of inadvertent reaction that lasted three times as long as the explosion of thunder itself. The worst of those incidents surely was one that struck somewhere close enough that light and sound were simultaneous.
I can’t say for sure because I was attempting to be asleep at the time.
The warming of our planet assuredly is unleashing greater intensity of local storms, but each time we escape unscathed I feel a moment of hope that our destruction is not imminent. Tornadoes can be devastating, but they can also be relatively precise as to the areas of impact.
That is a little like deciding to raise free-range chickens in an area that includes foxes, coyotes, possums, skunks, feral cats, occasional passing mountain lions, neighboring dogs, and marauding raccoons.
It mixes my mind.
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Finally Out
Yesterday was a big day for the chicks. After having spent a month in the brooder and two weeks confined to the coop, they finally set foot on mother earth.
Cyndie and I created a fenced courtyard that allows us to open the chicken door and let them test out their skills on the ground.
We also installed plastic awnings over the side windows for added protection against blowing rain. The warm days that have finally arrived necessitated removal of the plastic panels over the windows, to increase cross ventilation. All the windows and the entire ceiling are covered with 1/4″ metal hardware cloth for enhanced air flow.
The temperature in the coop soars when the sun is shining high and hot.
The chicks were typically tentative about venturing out. We slid open the chicken door while working our way around the fence perimeter, burying the bottom in the ground. Despite our verbal enticements to coax them out, the top of the ramp was the farthest any of them wanted to venture.
There would be five or six heads peeking out, and maybe one brave bird stepping on the stoop. Then there were none. The chicks would all move back inside to the safe familiarity of their last two weeks.
It was getting hot, I was getting tired and sunburned, and the hour for lunch had already passed. Without waiting to witness the chicks achieve touch down, I headed up to the house.
Not long after, Cyndie arrived to join me, announcing they had all suddenly conquered the ramp and made landfall. I missed it.
That’s okay. I also conveniently missed the other end of the milestone: the frenzied struggle to make them all go back inside again at dusk. That’s when you end up crawling around on hands and knees beneath the coop to snag birds and toss them back through the chicken door, trying not to let the ones already inside come back out again.
Thankfully, Cyndie took the first shift. I’ll have my turn soon enough.
Today is World Labyrinth Day! The weather is good, our land is mostly dry, the trees are budding and the grass is growing. If you are reading in the Twin Cities, it would be a great day to visit us and walk with the world for peace!
The coffee will be on and the fresh horse-shaped cookies are delicious. I’ve tested one or two. Cyndie says she made them with less sugar than the recipe specifies.
Peace!
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Bigger Digs
The chickens are out of the brooder and into the coop! They seemed pretty happy with all the new space, if a little bit confused over the unfamiliar surroundings.
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Our weather has turned the corner finally, and the warmth of April sunshine is making a big difference. Time for me to stop whining about the suffering we’ve endured in the face of the extended winter that has blanketed our region.
Look at that.
I don’t have anything to whine about, and I can’t think of anything else to write.
It’ll probably be too hot outside today.
Let’s Move
When they started out in the brooder five weeks ago, our chicks had plenty of room. They are now getting a little testy with each other over their lack of space.
It’s time to move to the coop.
We probably would have already moved them, except it’s been so cold and snowy.
Now we are expecting a run of warmer weather and they are going to be movin’ on up.
You can see in the photo that they are sprouting enough feathers to reveal their eventual colors. The Golden Laced Wyandottes are showing that golden lacing nicely. They all have a long way to go before maturing into their wattles and combs.
By that time, we will need to have decided whether to let them roam free or keep them confined to protect them from predators. For a while there we felt okay with last year’s experiment, but with the rash of springtime attacks polishing off the last of that brood, it doesn’t feel quite right to not try something different.
We’ll move on that decision when they start to out-grow the coop in a month or two.
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Feathered Friends
The new chicks are growing into chickens already! They are sprouting feathers and flapping around in the brooder like the little adolescents they are. The downy, peeping hatchlings that arrived in the mail are gone but for the memories.
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If they keep up at this pace, and the weather continues to pretend it’s still winter, these guys are going to have a shocking move to the coop and the great outdoors. The landscape is under a two-and-a-half inch blanket of white stuff this morning. Based on the forecast I read for the coming week, with more snow and cold temperatures due, it’s as if spring has forgotten to sprung!
Yesterday, the three adult hens were busy aerating the forest floor.
Looks like they are going to have to put that project on hold for a while now.
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Too Cute
The chicks are doing very well at staying healthy and looking lively. After just a couple of days of not seeing them, the difference was clear. They look bigger, seem more robust, are more active (between frequent bouts of insta-napping [see example at 1:02 of video]), and are showing clear evidence of feather development.
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We are hoping their early vigor will be a characteristic that stays with them through adulthood.
Before we got chickens, I had no idea they could be so captivating. I now understand how some people get so obsessed with them.
Count us among the smitten.
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Year’s Difference
We are enjoying the continued lessons from the self-learning school of raising chickens. A year ago was our first attempt. After building a coop from scratch, we ordered nine chicks to be delivered by mail.
Three of those have survived the year and are managing really well today. We are on the verge of asking them to help us learn about introducing them to the twelve new birds that just arrived last week.
What a difference a year makes. Here are pictures from yesterday of our one-year-olds and our new arrivals…
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Here’s hoping they will respond well to our efforts to slowly introduce them to each other in the months ahead. It will be a learning process for all of us.
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New Chicks
I am happy to report that all chicks arrived safe and healthy, traveling in a box through the US Postal network in freezing temperatures. I am fascinated that this process works, given the despicable condition of a few other packages we have received over the years. Live chicks sent through the mail is a marvel.
Last year when our chicks arrived, I wasn’t around. Yesterday, Cyndie let me get in on the excitement of picking them up out of the shipping box and dipping beaks in the water to get the chicks drinking.
The birds come with a 48-hour guarantee of good health, plus, we received one extra of each of the three breeds. We figure, given their guarantee, it’s cheap for breeders to provide an extra, in advance, to avoid the expense and risk of shipping out a replacement should there be any infant mortality.
As of last night, they all looked to be doing just fine.
That’s not always easy to determine. Chick naps seem to happen at all times, in the middle of any activity. It looks like sleep just sneaks up and swallows them. When they lay down, it often looks like they must be dead, sprawled out with legs askew. Then another chick will stumble over them and the sleepy bird will pick up its head and look around. Sometimes they get up and get back in the action, sometimes they try going right back to sleep.
They will fall asleep while eating, or in the middle of all the other chicks that are flitting about, chirping. Occasionally, one will look like it might drown, getting snoozy head-first in the waterer.
We are happy with our healthy start, and are hoping for more of the same for the duration of time they are in the brooder, and beyond.
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Slow Start
Despite an early wake up call from the Post Office this morning, informing us we need to come pick up a package containing our new chicks, I’m experiencing a bit of a slow start. Maybe it is because I stayed up later than usual watching games of college basketball in the men’s NCAA March Madness tournament.
Maybe it’s a Foo Fighters hangover after bingeing episodes of Sonic Highways, Dave Grohl’s self-described 2014 love letter to the history of American music.
Whatever it is, I need to shake out of it and hit the ground running after I finish writing this and eating the breakfast Cyndie just served before she heads out on the chick run. She said she was making home-made eggs. We had eight in our stash this morning.
I wonder how many eggs we will be getting per day next year at this time? I’m guessing that will depend on how many chickens we can avoid losing in a massacre like happened to our first flock last June. It’s one of the facts of free-range life around here.
Predators happen. We are choosing to take our chances and have elected not to get a rooster or confine our birds to protected spaces. It may be an inefficient model for having chickens, but the benefits of enjoying our roaming hens everywhere around the property seems to balance the risks for us to have accepted the situation.
I gotta go.
Check out this photo of the way snow is melting in the shadow of the wood fence.
Isn’t nature fascinating?
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Relative Something 