Tag: roosters

Winter bounty

by Karen, posted in chicks, raising chickens

Lately we’ve been getting so many eggs because we’ve (well, full disclosure: it’s mostly been my husband) been working on the timing of new chicks. . . the September 1st chicks have now begun laying brown eggs. In the spring, we will refresh the white and green egg layers.

We used to only get new chicks in the spring; now we get new chicks in the fall as well.

Eggs, ready for bagging

The girls have been working overtime producing up to two dozen eggs per day, depending on variables, some known (like availability of water, food, and light, the presence of predators nearby),  and some we can only imagine (“She’s touching me! Make her stop touching me!”).

Some credit must be given to the boys, too.  We have a few roosters, one dominant, and a few lesser that know to stay out of his way. Right now, they have a good balance of boys to girls, so everyone is getting along. Harmony in the flock is most certainly conducive to good egg production.

Basically, chickens are happy campers. They eat, sleep, lay eggs, and peck the ground and each other. If they have thoughts, our consensus is that this it is one, shared, universal thought. Here it is:

“I’m a chicken! I’m a chicken! I’m a chicken!”

For all of the people who wonder why we bag the eggs: it’s for health reasons. It just seems more hygienic than reusing the egg cartons. Also, it keeps costs down.

:>)

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(Chicken) Food for Thought

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, raising chickens
The flock

 

To all my gardener friends and friends of friends local to Wells: 

Want to do a good deed for your feathered fowl friends? Give us your tired, wretched masses…of produce!
Reasons to bring your inedible, unappetizing, or otherwise unappealing garden food items to my house:
  1. Drive by and drop off! You don’t even have to get out of your car; just lean out and place your unwanted items on the bottom shelf of the egg stand at the bottom of the driveway.
  2. You will feel good because you will be supporting a local farm.
  3. Chickens LOVE most produce.
What to bring?
  1. Unwanted post-halloween pumpkins
  2. Baseball bat sized zucchinis or cukes
  3. Apples and tomatoes (of any color and ripeness) that fell to the ground before you got to pick them
  4. The tired looking, wilty lettuce from the bottom of the crisper that you forgot about
  5. Banged up produce of any kind that you are too nervous to eat..

The chickens say thank you for any and all efforts! 

How it feels to be attacked by a rooster

by Karen, posted in health, raising chickens
The rooster

 

Ever wonder how it actually feels to be the target of a rooster? I didn’t give it much thought, actually, until it happened to me. 

So, what’s it like? 

  1. Well, the first thing was, I was surprised! I had no warning that the big guy was about to come at me. I was just collecting the eggs at the end of the day, when I hear a squawk and felt something pierce my leg. This leads us to the next feeling:
  2. Pain! I felt searing pain in my calf at the site of the pecking. It felt like my calf was on fire. I had heard in the past that if a rooster is coming at you, you should advance toward him. So, with a “never let ’em see you sweat” bravado, I advanced. Unfortunately, so did the rooster (please note: rooster’s bravado was not false). Score another peck for the rooster.
  3. Next, anger starts to creep in. At this point, I didn’t know how badly I was hurt. I was trying hard to hold it together so that my daughter, who was on the other side of the (closed) coop door yelling, “Mom! Mom! Are you all right??”, would not freak out. But hey, this rooster was big! and was not backing off! I decided that a well-timed scream of “Get away from me!!”  at the offender was in order at this point, as I made for the door and managed to get out without him following me. This time I exhibited some well delivered, effective bravado for the purpose of relieving my daughter of her fear about my well-being.
  4. Finally, time for my fear. How bad were the wounds? Puncture wounds from farm animals seemed to me to be a likely source of virulent infection. I reasoned that since it was my own farm animal, however, I had less to worry about than I might have had it been a wandering, vagabond rooster  (I also began to second guess my artless, not quite factual affirmation of a tetanus booster “within the last 5 years” to the ER nurse last month where I went to have a foreign object removed from my eye). Well, it actually didn’t look too bad, thank goodness, which led to the final emotion:
  5. Relief. No ER trips today; home treatment is all that is needed.  After a good old-fashioned washing with soap and water, ice and arnica would do the trick.  Three days of observation for symptoms of infection were also indicated, which I did, and there were (fortunately) none.

For future reference, here is some advice about how to protect yourself from a rooster attack.

Any other tales of rooster woe out there?

reasons to keep a (possible) rooster

by Karen, posted in raising chickens
the rescued runt!

recently my husband was at the feed store getting (you guessed it!) feed and supplies for the chickens. in the chick brooder outside, there were baby chicks and while he was waiting, he stopped to take a peep (:)) at them. Longhorn is a good source for baby chickens if you are looking for just a few chicks (rather than the lot of 25 that many online hatcheries require you to order). now, my husband is sort of a chicken snob, ordering from texas, iowa, specialty breeders to get unique egg colors from our flock, since most of our hens are chosen for egg color, size, and quality. this day, one chick in particular caught his eye, and when he was finished with his feed transaction, he asked ‘what’s the odd-looking chick?” the clerk replied, “it’s an oddball mixed breed from an incubator project”. “i think it’s a rooster,” he added. now as i’ve mentioned in the past, you generally can’t give roosters away, and labeling it thus would typically have been the kiss of death, but it was this little guy’s lucky day, because when the clerk said, “you can have ‘im if you want ‘im,”  instead of averting his eyes and politely declining, my husband said, “okay!” and rescued him. he traveled to his new home in a spot-light bulb box. sigh. This chick has personality; it’s what made him stand out and, in the end, what saved him.

So, reasons to keep a possible rooster:

  1. it has a unique feature; this guy has a fluffy gray crest on his head and some perky tail feathers
  2. (s)he has a pretty trilling peep
  3. (s)he is petite; well, to call a spade a spade…is the runt of the litter, calling out to be saved.

Next issue: to name or not to name it? what would you do?