If all goes as planned, next Friday you’ll be able to listen to the new season of Too Many Chickens! right here. Stay tuned.
Also, I pick up my new chicks from my parents’ house this weekend. EXPECT TO HEAR ABOUT IT SOON.
It’s been a while since Garden Guys aired, and as far as I can tell, it may be a while before they air again. Meanwhile, I’m itching to tell some chicken stories. So, in the next couple of weeks I’m going to start posting new “episodes” of Too Many Chickens! that I record myself. When GG picks it up again, I can go back and do them live, but for now I can’t withhold anything from the public for much longer. So stay tuned.
Other changes that are coming are some new baby chicks, currently at my parents’ house. I’ll be bringing them home in a week or so, and I’m sure I’ll have things to say about them. I tend to not shut up sometimes. Keep your eyes on this space!
Peckin’ in your earholes
I’m no expert, but since I tend to be vocal about how much I like keeping chickens, people sometimes ask me questions. A friend of mine’s neighbor is interested in getting chickens, and wanted to know how much it cost, how much space they might need, and how much of a time commitment it was. This was my response. He was so happy with it he suggested I post it somewhere, so here it is. You may disagree with me, as this is the internet, that’s what people do. Have fun with that. Anyway, here’s my first advice column.
Dear Chickie,
A few days ago, our neighbors proposed the idea of raising chickens in our yard. As our town allows such a thing, we want to figure out what it takes to do this, so I’m asking you, our resident poultry farming expert, for any advice you may have. We want to find out how much space we need for say 3-4 hens (we don’t want to keep them constantly “cooped” up), how much effort is required to feed/clean/etc., and a rough ballpark of cost.
Your friend,
Bawking in Belmont
Dear Bawking in Belmont,
Doesn’t matter if you know karate, don’t mess with a rooster.
Depending on your definition of “candy.”
Some day this will be delightful fertilizer. That is not this day.
I’m running out of space on this heap, and it needs time to mellow, too. I’d better find another spot to start a new one. This reminds me of a time a friend of mine, who was not a native speaker, asked what a dung hill was. Another friend replied, “It’s a hill of dung.” The asker, suprised, confused, and delighted, said, “There’s a word for everything in English!” She should try German sometime.
Someone seems to keep forgetting that the eggs go in the nesting bucket in the coop, NOT in the dirt under the feeder, or elsewhere in the run. Every so often they forget, and then it rights itself. Well, get to righting it, ladies. I put that plastic egg in the nesting bucket to spell it out for you and everything! Also, you have been doing this for over a year. Maybe they’re just bored and trying new things. I don’t really know how their minds work.
Meanwhile, here’s a chicken and some baby otters.
I’m not sure what’s going on, but twice in the last couple of weeks it would seem that Boss Chicken has laid two eggs in one day. This is pretty unusual, as it takes a lot for a chicken to lay one egg a day. Two would really tax her system, but there they are in her hutch.
She’s as surprised as I am.
All I can figure is that I miss one of them the night before, but there’s nowhere for an egg to hide. If there’s an egg, I’d see it, and I check for them at night when I close everyone in for bedtime. Very odd. But hey, more eggs!
With nights being above freezing now, Boss Chicken gets to stay outside 24/7. Her rabbit hutch isn’t so well set up to deal with wind, so if it gets too cold or windy, I’ll bring her inside in the winter. I think we’re finally over winter, and so she gets to hang out in nature all the time now.
“You gonna just stand there, or are you gonna give me a treat?”
Still no word on when Garden Guys is going to be back up and running, but I’m as anxious as you are. As soon as I know, you’ll know!
Last week I mentioned that I had a broody chicken. The broodiness was really hard to shake, in spite of my having the Miracle Broody Hen Cure. She’d be in there for a while, seem better, I’d put her back in the coop, and she’d go right back into the nesting bucket. So then I’d put her back in the MBHC, and she’d act all agitated, so I’d put her back into the coop, and you probably can see where this is going. It turns out I was doing it all wrong. Observe the below photo:
Before!
What do you notice about this? That’s right, you can see everything. My mother-in-law, just out of trying to get a moment’s peace, went and covered the cage with a dropcloth. (The chicken can be quite vocal when the mood grabs her, by which I mean I now know what an unholy racket sounds like.) Well, it turns out this cage coverage was the missing link we needed. A day later, the chicken was cured!
After!
We’ll see how long it takes them to get resistant to this new cure, but hopefully this works for a while.
In the meantime, I’ll keep telling you I’m not sure when Garden Guys is back on the air, because I don’t know. But I’ll be sure to make a post about it when I find out anything.
Not that time of the year where Garden Guys starts back up (though I swear it will be soon – the computer issues they’re having are apparently legendary), but that time of the year where someone gets broody. They’re laying more eggs, it makes sense that someone’s gonna want to sit on them until they hatch. Of course, that will be never since we don’t have a rooster, so I put them in the “broody buster,” aka, an old bird cage. It tends to cure them of the urge to hatch the unhatchable. You can read more about it here. So, I’ve got this to deal with while Garden Guys sorts out their computer woes. Of course, it’s mostly sitting around waiting for the voices that tell the chicken to brood to go away, but hey, someone’s gotta do it.
The blurryness of this photo is meant to evoke Bigfoot photos. Bigfoot also likes to sit on eggs.
