With apologies to Anne Lamott, here’s what I’ve taken to doing with novel drafts. My local feed store ran out of wood shavings, so I’ve been using shredded office paper inside the coop.
I don’t know why I didn’t do this before? Maybe because in Livingston’s famous winds this can sometimes get messy, but the girls really really like the shredded paper. They’ve been making little nests with it.
And this is one way to keep oneself from getting too precious about “the work.”
Seven chickens, it turns out, was a little more than my yard can really handle, and for the past several months, I’ve only been getting 2-4 eggs a day from the bunch. I’ve been trying to figure out what to do — and while I thought about trying to pawn them off on someone else, really, I knew all along that the responsible thing to do was to cull a few of them. (And for all of you Angry Vegans out there, I have heard your arguments, especially in light of my post at Ethicurean about how I don’t consider my chickens pets, and let’s agree to respectfully disagree.)
As I was going back and forth, trying to gather up my courage to actually deal with the situation, one of my older chickens came up lame the other day. They’d been out doing their chicken-y thing in my yard, and when I got the scratch and called out that it was snacktime, one of them was limping badly. This just brought home to me the problems posed by getting chickens when I didn’t know how to humanely kill one. That one was on the list, and now it was in pain, which was the one thing I wanted to avoid all along. I’d read online about wringing necks, but as I looked at the chicken, I was afraid I’d just botch it and hurt it more.
So I put out a couple of calls — to my Egg Lady, and one to Mark Rehder, who runs Farms for Families here in town, and who’d come by this spring to see the coop on a coop tour he was leading. Isabelle got back to me first, or rather, her husband Larry, who came by with their daughter Azalea to show me how to kill a chicken. Larry’s a Vietnam vet, a big gruff guy (and who has the sweetest relationship with Azalea, who is about eight, she and her dad just adore one another) and he showed me how to hold the bird, stretch it out, and quickly and quietly break its neck. It was very humane and over quickly. He did all three for me, cut their heads off, and we hung them from the apple tree. “You can do the rest,” he said. “It’s just like gutting a fish.” Um, sure, I thought as I waved them off.
So there I was in the backyard with three headless chickens hanging from the apple tree. Frankly, I wasn’t sure I could do this, but I figured I had to try. I put my biggest stockpot on to boil. I dug out the latex gloves I use for painting because I didn’t think I could stick my hand in warm chicken guts without them. I sharpened my knives. And I went online! Where I printed out instructions from these two sites: Cultivating Home, and this one, from Howling Duck Ranch. Thank you internets! Thank you people who posted good, close-up pictures in step-by-step format!
I set up a folding table (to which I later added a heavy cutting board), put the hose on low and left it to water the plum tree in the meantime, got a bucket with some hot bleach water for a rag and to clean my knives in between chickens, and lined a bucket with a garbage bag. I’d seen my dad and my brother field dress ducks, and of course, during my time with the Mighty Hunter there was even the antelope, but I’d never done it entirely on my own. I was kind of excited too, this was a skill I’d been wanting to learn.
So I put on an apron and went to work. I dunked a chicken in hot water, swished it around, and started plucking feathers — they came off really easily, most of them. It took me 15 minutes maybe, not too long. Then I had to start cutting. The first one, I broke the crop trying to get it out of the neck cavity, which was a little messy, but I just kept hosing everything down, and I was clumsy getting the guts out, but eventually, I had a clean bird with a clean cavity. I didn’t try to save the livers or hearts or gizzards because well, I don’t really like them that much, and I sort of tore things up getting the innards out. Next time. The first bird took the longest, after that I sort of got a system down, and I can see how raising a bunch of meat birds would be useful if you wanted to learn how to kill and butcher. Like anything, they’re skills that come with practice. It took me just over 2 hours to do all three birds, which now reside in the freezer, waiting for the stockpot.
They’re pretty skinny — about 3 pounds each, and they were old birds. I might try a coq au vin though … My sweetie thinks it’s all more effort than it’s worth, in part because he doesn’t like livestock, but even though these were not the most economical chickens I’ll ever cook, I’m really pleased that I learned how to do this. I now know that if the end times come, I can kill, clean and butcher my own chicken. Which is something.
Ever since last fall’s episode of food poisoning, I’ve been meaning to finish enclosing the garden. However, I had to wait for the ground to thaw, and well, the freelance life means that finances have been just tight enough that I didn’t want to go out and buy copper pipe. But this weekend, I finally got it done. I tried to come up with some solution other than more expensive copper, but since I’d done the rest of the trellis/fences that way when I built the garden (this is summer number eight — how did that happen?), well, I just couldn’t bear the thought of two beds edged in pvc when the rest uses copper. So I sucked it up and spent the money.
The trellis/fencing is 1/2 inch copper plumbing pipe, and because I don’t know how to weld, I used duct tape for the joints. It was really easy to put together, and with the pipes jammed a foot or two into the ground inside the raised beds, and lashed to one another with zip ties, they withstand the wind nicely. So this weekend I enclosed the last two beds on the end of the garden, and strung them with nylon trellis. Unfortunately the trellis openings are large enough for chickens to get through, so I then stretched bird netting around the outside of the beds. I’ll need some help from the Sweetheart as far as gates go. Right now I’ve got an old piece of screening leaned up against the front opening, and that seems to be working — but once there are delicious greens inside the garden, I think I’m going to need something a little bit more formal to keep those chickens out.
But it looks nice, and I kind of like working inside the enclosed space. When I first built it I didn’t want to demark it from the rest of the yard so much, but now that it’s all enclosed, I’m finding it has a nice “secret garden” kind of vibe. And because the “fences” are just pipe and trellis, you can still see right through it.
Now if only real spring would come. And some rain would be nice. It’s so dry I’m having to water already.
According to the BBC, the town of Mouscron, in Belgium, has 50 pairs of chickens it plans to give to residents as a way to decrease the waste stream.
I have to say, my chickens have both significantly lowered my household and garden waste, and here in the arid west, they’ve exponentially sped up the composting process. Composting is a real problem here, because it’s so dry. Because there was an 8×10 concrete pad in the back part of the yard, that’s where I built the chicken coop. And because the compost heaps were already in that part of the yard (my very fancy setup built from recycled pallets) we decided it would probably be easier just to enclose the compost in with the chickens. We didn’t really know what we were doing, but it worked out beautifully. The chickens scratch around in the compost piles all day, digging holes, excavating for bugs, and aerating the compost in the process. And cleaning out the coop and yard is really easy — I rake out the shavings from inside the coop, then hurl the shavings and straw (that’s what I use to cover the concrete) into the compost heaps. Then the chickens pull it all down, and I toss it back up. I’m getting compost in months that used to take years. Plus, I think it gives the chickens something to do all day.
I’ve been bartering eggs for all sorts of things, and I’ve gotten big compliments on how delicious my eggs are. If I know the person well I tell them the secret is compost. Compost the chickens, compost the garden, it’s all good.
I’ve been meaning to blog about this for ages, but my vacation got in the way. We finally finished the chicken coop. Chuck built the actual coop part ages ago, but after Ray killed the hens, we had to enclose the whole space, which took a little while. And I’m proud to say that the only thing we bought for the coop was a roll of plastic bird fencing. Everything else was recycled. There is chain link fence along the bottom part of the enclosure and then I covered it with old twig fencing that I’d saved when I replaced the chain link with stockade fence — it looks good and keeps the chickens from sticking their heads through the chain link (where Raymond would like to bite them off). I also used recycled twig fencing on the roof of the enclosure for shade (although I have to get out and zip tie it down before the fall winds start). It gets really hot in that back corner of the yard, and not only does the twig fencing provide some shade, but I can hose it down for a little evaporative cooling as well. I used an old window screen up on top of the coop roof — it provides some structural support and keeps the hens from breaking out into the alley.
I made nesting boxes from stuff that was lying around. We’ve been drinking this cheap beer all summer, and the boxes work really well. I also used five-gallon buckets for nesting boxes under the roosting bar — they protect the eggs from chicken poop. We’ll have to see how this all works in the winter. So far, the chickens like the nesting box closest to the wall, and the two buckets. There are seven chickens, and when it gets cold and we have to start closing the coop door at night, it might get pretty crowded in there. But for now, these are working really nicely.
The last frontier was the gate. The original gate is the recycled gate from the chain link fence, but since the wily chickens kept coming over the top, Chuck pulled this partial screen door out of his stash of recycled house parts, built a frame for it, and attached it to the original gate. It’s a little goofy looking, but works really well and keeps the chickens safely inside.
So there it is, the $21 chicken coop. I spent money on the hens (about $12 for the first six, then $5 a piece for the replacement hens), and money on the feeder ($15) and waterer ($27). But for the coop itself, it was all recycled. The wood was from Chuck’s stash, the body of the coop itself was a packing crate in which my friend Sabrina had some old family portraits shipped over from England, the twig fencing was orignially on the chain link fence I replaced here at my house, the wire fencing for the roof was left over from the garden. It’s been about a month with the new chickens, and so far, mortality is at zero, and we’re getting half a dozen eggs a day. Go chickens!
Looks like another hen managed to escape via the compost heap this morning, because when I went out to see if there were any new eggs, there were feathers in the yard. Raymond had gotten another one — and had her hidden between the tall iris and the rhubarb.
It’s my fault really, I didn’t insist on building an enclosed chicken run like I thought we probably should because a) Chuck was being nice enough to build it for me in the first place and b) we had the recycled chain link, and I hoped it would work. But it didn’t. So now I’ve spent all day plotting enclosed chicken runs. I think I have a pretty simple idea, that might also provide them with a little more shade. I’ve got an old window screen in the basement that should make a decent door.
We’ll have to see. Someone with carpentry skills is muttering about diminishing returns. But I’m hoping that my nice milk lady will sell me a couple of laying hens, and we’ll be back in business. I was prepared for total failure during year one of chicken farming, but it’s still very disappointing. I liked those little golden hens so much, and now the remaining one, and the rooster, are all freaked out.
Bad dog! (Who can’t really help it — he’s bred to find birds after all, and well, he’s short on self-restraint to begin with. But he’s still a bad dog. At least for today.)
As for Miss Hen, she’s been buried in the yard, under an iris that was in the way of the new gate to the inadequate chicken yard. Circle of life and all that. Sigh.
The two surviving hens are laying eggs. On Saturday, Chuck put in the fence for the chicken yard (which is great — photos to come) and he was rewarded by finding the very first egg. Since then, they’ve each been laying one a day — little eggs, about half the size of a commercial egg, but then again, they’re still sort of little hens.
Here’s a photo of an egg in the nesting box. It’s like a prize every time I find one — very cool.
We also let them wander around the yard, which seemed to entertain them mightily. They explored the flower beds, and I’m hoping they ate some bugs. Although this morning I caught them eating the green raspberries, so they got shooed back into their yard.
Well, it finally happened — the little red hen went over the fence this morning, and before I could get my robe on and get out there, Raymond (bad dog!) had done her in. I sort of figured I’d lose one to dogs before it was all over, but frankly, why couldn’t it have been the problematic rooster (who could also have given him a run for his money)?
Ray’s in the doghouse — no breakfast, bark collar turned to high, not looking at him, locked in the front yard where he can’t even go look at the chickens or go roll in the scene of his crime. Bad Dog.
And the other two hens, and the problematic rooster, are hiding under the chicken coop. They came out briefly when I took them some leftover spaghetti and the diced red potatoes that mysteriously refused to cook (another story, but they went from hard to rubbery without ever really tasting cooked). But they seem to have decided that in this dangerous world, they’re going to huddle under the coop.
Thanks folks for all the camera advice both here and on Facebook. I wound up with a Canon Powershot SD890 for just under $200. It’s so tiny! I like it a lot, and you all saved me much angst. I hate choosing things like this.
So back to life on the backyard farm. The chicken coop and enclosure wound up in the same corner of the yard as the compost heap, which is working out really well. They like taking dust baths in the more composted bin, and I’ve taken to throwing them buckets of weeds to let them pre-compost them. They like weeds, and they really liked the arugula I thinned the other day, and they seem to like lovage, which is good because that stuff will take over your herb bed. It was four feet tall! And growing — so I hacked it down and threw it to the chickens, who had a field day with it.
Here’s the whole setup. There was a vestigal concrete pad back there, so that’s where we decided to put the coop. Plus it’s sheltered from the street by the fence, and not too close to any of the neighbors. And there was the extra convenience of proximity to the compost piles — all I have to do when cleaning out is to scoop up the straw and dump it into the compost (in the wooden pallet composter on the left). Turns out, the chickens love the compost. They take dust baths in the side that’s mostly dirt, and they climb up on the full bin to take a look around.
In fact, they were getting so bold up on top of the compost, that I had to add a little extra fencing. Classy, eh? There will be an official fence, eventually. We salvaged our friend Sabrina’s chain link fence that she replaced during her home renovation — there are posts, and a gate, but they’re currently in a heap under the apple tree. I’ve been promised a real fence by the 4th of July, but in the meantime, I rigged some fencing with a couple of stakes, the chain link, and baling twine. It’s a little “shenji” as my friends Bill and Maryanne would say, but I sort of like it, and it’s keeping the curious chickens from dropping down into the rhubarb where all sorts of hysterical chicken-and-dog interactions are likely to occur.
I don’t think I’ve posted a picture of the actual coop itself. Chuck built it for me out of a packing crate (Sabrina had some paintings shipped over from England, and the crate was far too gorgeous to throw out). The door was from his stash, and you can’t really see it in this photo, but he put in a temperature-sensitive foundation grate for ventilation along one side. It opens when it’s hot, and closes when it’s cold. I used an old wine crate for a nesting box, and there’s a perch inside. They hang out underneath when it’s hot during the day. I’m a little worried about winter — I think it will be warm enough but they might need a window. However, we can figure that out when we get there. For now, they like their house a lot, and it only took them about two days to learn to roost up in the evening.
No eggs yet, it’ll probably be another month before there’s eggs. And of course the rooster will probably have to ship out about then. He hasn’t started crowing yet, but he’s getting a little randy and seems to be chasing the hens around quite a bit. I’ll miss him, he’s got a funny personality, but I have no interest in hearing him at three am. So off to Isabelle’s he’ll go, poor boy, it’ll be quite a shock to be the smallest boy in the yard.