Too Many Chickens!

Sometimes the impossible, or what feels like the impossible, happens. We didn’t get any eggs between January 6th and February 15th. That’s the longest stretch of no eggs we’ve ever experienced, and I was honestly beginning to think that we’d never see another egg again. Well, at least from our chickens. I know where to see eggs, they just weren’t showing up in the place I wanted them to. My house. Or the coop, because I can carry an egg into the house myself, if I have to.

I mean, within reason.

On the 15th, I opened the coop, saw the egg, and was so excited I said, “An egg! Thanks, chickies!” Notice that I included them all in the praise, in the hopes of encouraging the whole group to get on the egg train, or at the very least to not egg-shame anyone. We fell into an egg-every-other-day pattern for about week and a half. This was where we had left off in January before everything just stopped. I figured we’d hold there for a month or so until it really started getting light out, since the pre-hiatus egg pattern had gone that way. So when I went into the coop on what I thought was an off day, I was pleasantly surprised to find another egg, but figured they’d make up for it by skipping the next day. You know, a put in some extra hours at work, then take a comp day sort of thing.

Phonin’ it in.

The evening of February 26th, I stepped out into the cool night air, and smelled the smell of someone cooking out. This is not a big surprise. It was a nice night, and people cook out all the time. I went about my chicken duties, saying goodnight to Boss Chicken and closing up the front of her little bedroom in the the hutch. I closed the main door to the coop, removed their yogurt dish and waterer, closed the door to the run, and set the electric fence. Then I went to check for eggs, though I was fairly certain there wouldn’t be any. I opened the rear door to the coop, and there, in the nesting bucket, was an egg. “An egg! Hey, thanks chickies!” I said again, a little louder than last time, since I was so surprised. Then, just as a force of habit, I checked the nesting bucket that they never use. And in there was another egg. “What!?!” I shouted. “TWO eggs, way to go chickies!” I wasn’t faking my enthusiasm, either. They, at least statistically, had really gone overboard this time. I gathered everything up and brought it into the house. “We got two eggs today,” I announced to the household. The household was not as impressed by this as I was. I put the eggs in the carton and marked them down in my egg journal. Then I went outside to get one more thing that I had forgotten to bring in the first time, and that’s when I noticed that the reason I smelled someone grilling was because our new next door neighbor was out there at his grill. And had been the whole time I was yelling with joy at the chickens. And his grill is about 50 yards from the coop, so there’s little doubt that he heard me.

They get that far-away look in the eye whenever I appear.

Oh well. He was bound to figure out I’m a nut sooner or later.

(CREDITS: Theme music: Chicken In The Barnyard by Fireproof Babies, Music Bed: The Royal Vagabond by Jockers Dance Orchestra)

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. A polar vortex descended on our region, plunging us into negative temperatures at night, and barely letting us get into the positives during the day. The weather website I check tried to tell me we hit double-digits, but my thermometer in the coop begged to differ. The few times I had to go outside made it clear that a couple of degrees didn’t make a difference anyway. It was just plain cold.

I have my own rating system.

This weather trend caused some concerns around the home and coop. Mostly the coop, which is around our home, but I decided to include them both. It was far too cold for Boss Chicken to be out there alone. It hit -11 the night before, and that was cold enough for me to worry about the others, who could clump for heat. When I got up to take care of everyone’s food, it was still in the negatives. Based on that, I made the decision to keep The Boss in for the day. This then caused me to have to figure out how to get her fed and watered while in her newfangled storage tub. The food part was easy. I just used the container that I usually use to bring her food out to her hutch as a dish, dumped some mealworms on top as an act of contrition, and put it inside. She made some very excited clucks, so the mealworms worked. Now I had to deal with the water set up. As with many crisis situations, my first instinct was to just use duct tape. I tried taping a small water bottle to the side of the tub, but the combination of it being cold, the tub being too smooth, and my duct tape being kind of not great made for a very unstable system. When duct tape fails, look to bungee cord. I took a couple of coolers we had in the storage space, bungeed the water bottle to a milk crate, and put the milk crate on top of the coolers. She now had easy access to water, and all was well. At least inside.

Glug glug glug.

Outside, I was quite concerned about Henny Penny’s butt. Her butt feathers still haven’t grown in. She gets feather nubs, then they seem to disappear, then reappear, and I’m never quite sure what’s happening. But she was out there in the cold with a bare butt, and I was worried. I briefly thought about trying to put vaseline on the skin to protect it, but my experience with trying to put vaseline on their combs proved to me that greasing up a live chicken was a fool’s errand. When I said goodnight, she had her tail down, covering the exposed area, and I figured the combination of that and being out of the wind should be enough. She got through the entirety of last winter with a bare butt, and there were worse temperatures than this, and for extended periods. I figured she could hack one night. When she came out in the morning, I looked for signs of frostbite, but she seemed o.k. I’ll keep an eye on it, but with luck we’ll all make it through.

The news has really gone downhill these days.

Of course, this being New England, it was 54 two days after a Polar Vortex, so if we hunker down a little, we get relief. This is much better than last year where the entire winter was one prolonged hunkering. This winter needs less hunkering, but more questioning just what is going on. -11 to 54 is a big range of temperatures. I think this is why everyone in New England is a little nuts. You would be too if your weather kept pulling this kind of nonsense.

Meanwhile, don’t ask me how a bird that can’t walk or fly managed to do this on her own.

(CREDITS: Theme music: Chicken In The Barnyard by Fireproof Babies, Music Bed: Oh! By Jingo! by All-Star Trio)

One of the best things about doing this podcast is that I have a pretty good record of all the chicken problems I’ve run into over the years, and how I dealt with them. Sometimes, my memory isn’t that great (or most times, if I remember correctly), so I may forget that I had a certain issue come up, and then I actually find my own post when searching for a solution. It would be embarrassing if I thought anyone saw. Right now, we’re in the middle of winter, and my chickens don’t seem to want to eat very much. The problem with that is that they need to eat in order to generate energy to stay warm, and for those of them that are still molting, to regrow feathers. I go and check the feeder regularly, and think, “Hmm, they’re not eating much.” Then I go to mix the latest podcast, and for some reason, whenever I try to save a new file, it always wants to save in the folder called “Not Eating In The Winter,” which is the third episode I did post-Garden Guys. So this “dieting” has been going on for a while, and I should know they eat less in the winter because I am reminded of it weekly, but every few days, there I am looking into the feeder and thinking, “Hmm, they’re not eating much.” THANKS, BRAIN.

Wise guy.

I always wonder how much of their eating behavior is a vicious circle. I give them high-protein snacks when it gets cold, to help with staying warm, and with feather re-growth. But checking the archives, I see that they originally stopped eating their normal feed before I started adding extra goodies. The goodies came in because I was worried about them not eating, and had to tempt them with exciting food. But then if you can eat cake all the time, why would you eat oatmeal instead? Once the cake is out there, you can’t go back. Sure, the cake is actually scratch and sunflower seeds, but you can buy that in cake form if you want. It’s great if you celebrate chicken birthdays, but your kid will never forgive you if you try to be funny at theirs.

Children don’t like gag gifts, or seed cakes.

The first winter they stopped eating I was so concerned that I mixed their yogurt with regular food, apple cider vinegar, and scratch. I asked a guy at the feed store if he knew what was up, and when I described this concoction to him, other people in the store began to make fun of me for spoiling my chickens. Maybe so, but they’re still alive, right? They’re not starving to death on my watch.

Not that not starving.

I’ve begun to wonder if the fact that they only eat the high-protein stuff instead of the layer feed could have something to do with why we haven’t had any eggs for almost a month now. Sure, some of them are getting old, and some are molting, but this is an unprecedented dry spell. We had to buy eggs recently, and that fills me with shame. Shame is the mother of invention, at least for me, and so I’ve arrived at a compromise. I still give them scratch and black oil sunflower seeds, but I mix it in with layer feed. In their excitement to get the treats, they end up eating the regular food too, so I know they’re now getting at least a small dose of the full nutrition they need. I’m pleased it’s worked, and I’ll see if any eggs come about as a result.

The things I get excited about.

I’ve heard of people who try similar tricks with their kids, and somehow this feels wrong to me. It’s o.k. to trick chickens, but tricking children feels like a violation of trust. Plus, my son only eats pizza or macaroni and cheese, both of which are difficult to hide things in. Perhaps if he ate food that lent itself to deceit better, I’d change my tune. I suspect this may be where his distrust of smoothies comes from. Good thing he’s not a chicken. I’d never get him fed.

Somebody say pizza?

(CREDITS: Theme music: Chicken In The Barnyard by Fireproof Babies, Music Bed: Placeholder by Jahzzar)

Due to my birthday, illness, and snow (making it the second year in a row the first week of February involves me digging out while sick) there will be no podcast this week. Next week’s lookin’ good, though. In the meantime, enjoy this picture of birthday chickens that was posted to my Facebook wall.

I’m older than 7.

We managed to dodge a terrible snowstorm last weekend, but I know the winter is far from over. Our nightmare last year only began at the end of January, and then was just relentless in pummeling us every week with at least another foot of snow. So on the one hand, I do genuinely feel for the people I see on Facebook posting pictures of how hard it is to dig out their cars and driveways, however, I’m also doing a little dance that it’s not me again. Note that the dance is little. I’m trying to avoid moving into hubris territory, and I think a large dance would do it. Just a hop and a skip, and then back to business. Right now business means keeping the chickens warm. We didn’t get the snow, but it’s been awfully cold for the past week, at least by this winter’s standards. (Once again, last winter was a whole different ballgame.) Normally if I walk past the coop, all the chickens gather at the door, wanting to be let into the yard. In this kind of cold, I walk by and maybe one of them sticks her head out to see what I’m doing, and that’s about it. One of them gets confirmation that I’m not there to let them all out, and they go back to huddling in the relative warmth of the coop. Of course, first thing in the morning they run out for the pile of scratch I leave out, but once they’re done with that, they have indoor recess, chicken-style.

The eyes are always watching.

The cold also officially crossed over into Boss Chicken-must-come-inside level temperatures. We even hit single digits overnight once or twice, so in she came, and then back out during the day so she can get sunlight, and balmy temps in the 20s. My idea to put her in a storage tub has been a mixed success. On the one hand, it holds a chicken and some wood chips. One the other hand, it’s only marginally better at keeping those wood chips contained than the dog crate I normally put her in. I couldn’t figure that one out, until I realized that if she flaps her wings in a small, contained space, it will create enough wind to blow chips over the edge. My investigation of the storage tub area would lead me to conclude that there has been some wing flapping. But I suppose that’s what vacuum cleaners are for. Or so I’ve heard.

Post-chicken destruction.

The best news so far is that it hasn’t been so cold that I’ve felt I need to keep her inside all day. Last winter, we went months without coming out of the teens. This winter has been more “mild” than that, so she can go out during the day. It’s only really an issue because I can’t figure out how to hook a water bottle to the storage tub. When I was a kid, you used to be able to get water bottles to go over the side of an aquarium, so your hamster or gerbil could live in an aquarium and drink water from a bottle. I’ve been to all the pet stores in the area and I can’t find this sort of bottle anywhere. Perhaps there’s been a shift in rodent husbandry, and this sort of aquarium arrangement is now frowned upon. I don’t know. But if it gets real cold, I may either have to really MacGyver something, or put her in the dog crate, which works fine with the commonly available water bottles. However, hamsters can easily escape from them, so don’t put your hamster in a dog crate. That piece of advice is free.

Escape From Hamcatraz.

Winter is always full of ongoing challenges. Keeping water from freezing is always a big one, making sure they eat enough to stay warm is another. And that’s with the regular chickens. Boss Chicken has problems all her own, and I’m doing the best I can with what I have available. I hope she appreciates it.

Where’s the water bottle?

(CREDITS: Theme music: Chicken In The Barnyard by Fireproof Babies, Music Bed: 12th Street Rag by Imperial Marimba Band)

It was New Year’s morning. I decided to let the chickens celebrate by giving them some of the mealworms my mom had given them for Christmas. I mixed the worms in with the scratch I’ve been putting out to give the chickens the protein they need to get through their molting, opened the door, and stood back to watch the fireworks. Steve, John, and Suzy Creamcheese Junior were the first ones out, as usual. The old guard, like me, prefer to get up slowly and greet the day at their own pace, if possible. The n00bs hit the scratch, but didn’t seem to pay much attention to the mealworms. Then the old guard got to the ground, noticed the mealworms, and went straight for those, ignoring the scratch. Then it hit me – the n00bs had never known the joy of mealworms, so they were probably wary of something new. Then Steve (or John) ate one, and I saw the realization that these things were a delicacy dawn on her, and finally, all of them started attacking the mealworms with gusto. Luckily, no fights broke out. But I hope it was at least a good start to a new year that they have absolutely no concept of.

Say what again?

Don’t worry, Boss Chicken got some mealworms too. She actually was a little more excited about breakfast than usual for some reason. Often I’ll take down the piece of wood I use as a wind guard to her inner sanctum in the rabbit hutch, and she’s pretty reluctant come out. Why get out of bed if you don’t have to? But she seemed to sense this day was different, perhaps by the fact that I was reading way too much into the actions of chickens, and she came out and starting digging into her food before I even put the worms in. It’s nice to see her excited, because very soon it will be time to bring her inside, if only for a day or two, which may dampen her spirits. I keep checking the forecast, and Monday’s overnight has gone from 18 (which I decided was my cutoff temperature for leaving her outside) to 10, and now to 5. Single-digits are a definite no-go for a solo chicken. I have decided, at least temporarily, to keep her in a storage bin rather than the dog crate she usually goes into, in the interest of keeping the pine shavings more contained. I still have to get said bin, but they are easy enough to find. I’m also going to put her in a different room than I normally do, since Spooky is currently in Boss Chicken’s usual winter room. That way the Boss will be free from feline attention, wanted or unwanted. Best to not stress out a chicken or tempt a cat.

There’s also an app, of course.

We’ve been slowly introducing Spooky to the rest of the cats. Oddly enough, the rest of the cats don’t seem to mind Spooky much at all. Our big tomcat walked right up, sat down, and looked at her as if to say hello. Spooky hissed and ran off. She did the same for our tortie, who seemed a little less welcoming, but nothing beyond hissing went down. “As long as they don’t fight, everything will be fine,” I said to my wife, since the only way Spooky could transmit FIV to the others would be by biting.

“Well, they kind of have to fight to establish the hierarchy, don’t they?” she replied. “How do we stop that?”

“I suppose we sit them down and explain it all rationally,” I said. “I’m sure they’ll listen once they know all the facts.” This is not going to happen, but they have all kept their distance during Spooky’s forays into the regular part of the house, and so the more familiar they get with each other, the less likely a battle royale is to break out. And then we’ll have a happy cat family, and a chicken who gets her normal winter digs back. I am absolutely sure this will go as easily as I am imagining it, because that’s how everything always works, right?

Cats like PowerPoint presentations, right?

(CREDITS: Theme music: Chicken In The Barnyard by Fireproof Babies, Music Bed: On The Mississippi by Prince’s Band)

May the Force be with you in 2016. New episode next week!

This is how I feel right now after eating too much Chinese food.

Even though it’s almost Christmas, let’s think back to summer, when you could just lounge by the pool and watch your chickens swim.

These are not actually my chickens. I don’t have a pool.

No podcast this week because of reasons, but next week get ready for the end-of-the-year wrap-up!

In the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, it can be hard to focus. People also tend to take their Thanksgiving leftovers and throw them all together and see what they can make (Mike Dukakis is a prime example). You have a bunch of things that don’t exactly make a whole meal on their own, but when combined with other loose ends, now at least you’re full, if not satisfied. I think that might be my new slogan for Too Many Chickens!, or at least the theme of this episode.

Testing out some postcards with the new slogan.

Suzy Creamcheese Junior has some feathers on her butt now. I’m not going to get my hopes up that this is the road to a non-bald butt for her, as this happened once before and then they fell out, but I’m going to at least get hopes. I’ll just keep them down. While her butt looks decent, the rest of her still looks really awful. Her right wing looks totally skeletal at the base. I realize it’s actually feather and not bone, but that doesn’t stop my immediate reaction of “Oh no!” every time I see it. Some little tufts seem to be sprouting in there, which probably means the new feathers are on their way, but they sure are taking their time. Her chest looks rattier than ever. Since that started getting fuzzy during the mite conquest, I’m not sure if it’s molting or mites. I make sure to get it when I give everyone a diatomaceous earth shakedown once a week. Only time will tell. Time seems to be pretty tight-lipped these days.

Why do I keep buying these awful clocks? This one won’t even tell me what time it is.

Boss Chicken has been toughing it out in the cold, though we haven’t had a ton of cold nights so far. We’ll get one or two in the 20s, and then it’s back into the 40s for a few weeks. I decided to figure out a plan for what constituted too cold for her to be out there alone. The night I found her under the coop (which was the night her legs gave way) it had been 18 degrees out. She survived that being exposed in the run, so I figure that at the very least is a baseline to go off of. However, given my overdeveloped sense of worry, I think if it dips below 20, that’s when she comes in. Even though she’s more protected in her hutch than she would be outside, I’m still not willing to take too many chances with her. So hopefully by the time it gets that cold at night, we’ll have figured out the Spooky situation.

America’s Favorite Weather Chicken

Spooky, at the time of this writing, is in a dog crate in our kitchen. We gated the whole kitchen off, and then put her in the crate for extra protection as a means of introducing her to the household. Our big tom cat, whose real name is Hamish, but we call him “The Bone,” came up, took a look at her, snorted (he has sinus woes) and walked away. He has never been the one we’ve been worried about fighting with Spooky, though. He’s pretty unflappable and easy-going. Jenny, our tortie, is the one who used to try to smash through the glass door to get Spooky when Spooky would come to peer longingly into the house. Jennie did go right up to the gate and stare Spooky down, but it remained pretty civil. That’s a good start. Spooky just came out of heat a day or two ago, so I hope that will make things easier. The day we decided to go the dog crate route was the day she went into heat, so there was more howling than I would have liked. She’s much quieter now, but still a little freaked. It is a lot to take in, and our house is a bit of a mess. I’d be freaked too. I’m kind of freaked right now. But soon I think we may have one big crazy cat family, though we’re only at 4, and I’m told 6 is when you’re a crazy cat person. Almost there!

This time of year, it always feels like you’re running around a lot, but not necessarily getting anywhere. We are running around a lot, but I feel like I’ve at least figured out a plan for the things I have some control over. Suzy Creamcheese Junior’s feather issues are out of my hands. Boss Chicken’s cold weather digs I totally have a say in. The Spooky introduction I can control, the behavior of the rest of the cats is, well, cat behavior. Good luck influencing those people at all. I’m doing the best I can. Hopefully Santa will notice.

He noticed!

(CREDITS: Theme music: Chicken In The Barnyard by Fireproof Babies, Music bed: Who’s Sorry Now? by Memphis Five)