Click Clack Moo

I used to read Click Clack Moo to Reese every single day, as a baby. She had the stuffed cow and it was one of the first books in our children’s library.  The cows get cold at night in the barn, so they go on a milk strike and send the farmer a letter requesting electric blankets.  Soon, the chickens jump on board with the plan and an egg strike begins.  I was pretty sure this is what was happening in our backyard, so I spent weeks spoiling our little flock so they would lay eggs.  Yesterday was so encouraging and hopeful. 

Then, today, yesterday’s layer (which we are pretty certain is Sunny) gave us a second egg today, AND one of her sisters jumped on the egg train and produced that gorgeous dark brown egg on the right!  

Dear Chickens, 

Sorry for all the mean things I said about you when you were on strike (read: freeloaders). Thanks for the eggs. Keep em coming, and I will keep spoiling you rotten with the meal worm, raisin, cracker corn, and sunflower seed snack mix I made for you. 

Sincerely, 

Meg

An Egg! Finally!

We found an egg in the nesting box! Yahoo! 

It was either Sunni (the Buff Orpington), Bellatrix (the Australorp), or Steve (the Barred Rock). They are all 28 weeks old.  The 30 week old Americaunas, or Cream Legbar (who will all lay blue/green eggs), or the 30 week old Maran (who should lay very dark brown eggs. 

We suspect Sunni the Orpington because the egg has a pinkish bloom to it, and is still a pretty decent size for a first egg. Sunni is a big breed known for larger, pink hued eggs. Also, our friends who gave us the chicks that are all 28 weeks said their buffs were the first layers in their flock (who came from the same hatch). Theirs have been laying for weeks. 

Hooray for the end of the egg strike! 

The Race Continues/hen shaming

Aren’t these the fattest and most beautiful hens you’ve ever seen? They’re gorgeous and they’re lazy little freeloaders. 

Not. One. Egg.  

These girls are 30 weeks old. The barred rock Steve and Australorp Bellatrix are breeds that can both begin egg production by 16 weeks old. 20 is more typical. 18-22 for the americaunas Blue and Raquel. 20-24 weeks for the Crested Cream Legbar Pizza, and then Sunny and Ginger (our Buff Orpington and Wheaten French Marans) bringing up the rear at 26-30 weeks.  

These gals have a perfect diet, a light that turns on at 3:30am to extend their “daylight hours” and supposedly stimulate egg production, and the fanciest coop ever. I added some more walls to make their nesting box more “private” in hopes of it helping, treated the entire flock and coop with a preventative mite spray (our friends lost a hen to mites last week. So sad! We have no problem with them, but I’m being overly cautious), and I added another roosting bar to their palace and an additional watering tray in the yard.  

I’m fresh out of patience, chickens! I want eggs! 

These hens are so symbolic of our life right now, it’s comical.  There’s no visible reason for why we are waiting. We are trying to be patient, but we’re done. We’ve done the time, put in the work, and now we want to see results! Who will be our first layer? WILL we ever see an egg or do we have seven barren hens?  Come on gals, give us SOMEthing good to show for 2020. We need a win, up in here!  Also, I’m sick of buying eggs at the store when our hens are “prime laying weeks” and I should be getting a dozen from my flock every two days. 

Crazy birds. Good thing they’re pretty, because if I didn’t love them so much I’d be considering a smoked chicken for Thanksgiving Dinner.

Egg Races

The race is on! We have been charting the weeks of our chickens’ ages and have marked the earliest each breed typically begins to lay eggs. So far, Blue and Raquelle our blue and black Americaunas are 1 week “overdue”. Pizza, our cream legbar could lay in a week. It’s chicken neck and chicken neck between Steve, the barred rock, and Bellatrix, the Australorp. Both breeds are known to lay as early as 16 weeks, but typically begin production at 20 weeks...which is this Thursday. Who of the 5 will lay the first egg?  Sunny, our buff Orpington probably still has about a month to go. And Ginger, our fancy feather footed french wheaten Marans won’t warm her keep until almost thanksgiving.  Considering we had a 6 week setback starting over with a new flock, we are SO ready to see the fruits of our labors! 

Moving On Up

The chicken coop has been a good little quarantine project, but I’m really ready for it to be finished. I’ve loved having my dad come down and work on it with me and all the opportunities for the big kids to contribute. 

The floor is a little out of control. I know it. But I don’t care. It makes me happy and was super affordable.

Cowbell, Steve, Waffles, Carol. 

It has been raining for a week so coop progress has been nearly impossible. But they HAD to get out of the garage. Too big, and way too stinky for the brooder. 

But the coop floor is a muddy mess because the restoration company is ghosting us and hasn’t finished the landscaping. They are supposedly getting new chocolate rock for the whole side yard, but until they do, it’s just dirt there right now. And dirt plus rain = mud. Mud + chickens = a mess. 

So Quincy laid some recycled pavers That were under my parents deck down to provide a dry space. It is a temporary fix, but it is enough for them to move in. 

Hopefully we will get some dry weather so I can putty, paint, build a pipe feed station, and get shingles on the roof!  

The are afraid to leave the coop to the run still, so we had to chase them down the ladder this morning so they could be let out to free range. Their favorite spots are under the raspberry bushes and taking dust baths in the gravel inside the greenhouse. The more time they spend out in the yard eating bugs and weeds, the better. 

Winner Winner Chickens Lay Dinner

Four of the ladies are laying, now. My guess is that it's these four shown above, because of behavior, redder combs, and timing in the nesting box. Luckily, for them, I did not resort to pet-shaming. I considered it, though, when my friend, Karissa texted me this pic. 

My guesses are (starting at the top, moving clockwise) Myrtle (black marans), Kitty (Americauna), Steve (barred rock), and Bergita (Americauna). I haven't caught Frances (grey Americauna) or Gracie (the pea combed barred rock) in the boxes yet. Hopefully soon. 1/2 dozen eggs a day will be great! 

Aren't they gorgeous? I'm a little bummed that myrtle's eggs are not the deep burgundy typically associated with the marans breed, but I knew there was a 1:4 chance they would just be dark brown. That's why I upped my odds and originally bought two Marans...but one turned out to be a bert and taught me that my cool plan for "beating the odds wasn't cool at all. Oh well. I was still the winner winner with a chicken dinner in the end ;) 

Thanks, ladies, for the delicious offering. And, uh...sorry for all the mean things I said about you back when you were lazy free loaders. Way to up your game. 

Ta-Da!

About dang time, ladies! 

Almost 25 weeks old. 

That said, isn't it the cutest little egg you've ever seen?  She's a beaut, Clark.

Imagine My Surprise

When we woke up to 

"Cock a doodle doooo!"

The morning after cooking and killing our rooster?! 

There's another one. Sadly, I think it's the white Americauna, Maude. Once we are certain, he'll receive the fate of his brother, Bert. 

Speaking of Bert, check out the chicken fried rice that the Ratsachacks made with him. They brought some over to share. It was really really good. 

Dispatched.

WARNING: there are a few images of a chicken being processed on this post. It's no more gross than raw chicken you'd buy at the store...except that a head and feet are still attached. So there's my disclosure in case you aren't in the mood to see a dead chicken. 

Our friends, Ben and Saeng are some of the most genuine people I think I've ever met. They're just awesome.  

Ben offered to take care of our little rooster problem for us. ;) He stopped by with his family and Aaron asked is he needed a cage or a box to take Bert home in. He looked at us like, "uh, why?" And held up a bag. "Do you have a knife?"

At that point my interest piqued. I've watched a few YouTube videos k how to cull a chicken, but they sort of grossed me out too much to actually try it. 

Here it was about to happen in my backyard. I had to participate. What a great learning experience! 

The kids were upset at first. Corbin, in particular, wailed "just because it's a boy you're just going to kill it?! That's do mean!"  Ben, in his calm and gentle nature said very sweetly, but also matter of factly, "Corbin, God loves his children so much, he created a beautiful earth for us to live on. He provided our bodies with  food to eat so we can be strong and do His work. The plants in your garden are a gift to nourish you, as is the chicken.  This rooster is a gift that will not be wasted." 

Corbin and the girls listened and nodded cautiously as they considered Bens words. Then, Corbin saw the knife and lost it again.  This time, as I started to reason with him, he started to come around, and then Saeng brought up the scriptures. "Do you remember that Nephi was a hunter? They were in the wilderness and they were very hungry. Nephi hunted and brought back food and was a hero that provided for his family." 

And so the cycle of life was allowed to be completed in the woods behind Ft Willy. The children didn't watch as we dispatched the rooster, but once it was done, Saeng's Yohng boys ran out to "see all the blood." 

There was hardly any. 

You guys. Killing and cleaning a chicken was not so bad. Like at all. Ok, so it was Ben who did the slicing, but I held the rooster and it really was not a gory mess. It was beautifully humane and almost peaceful.  It gave me a new understanding for why we offer our gratitude when we ask a blessing upon the food at every meal. Countless animals give their lives every day so that we can eat.

We accepted the invite to come help finish the preparation and followed Ben and Saeng to their home.  I wanted desperately for my kids (and even me) to NOT find this gross. While I am grateful that lovely companies like Tyson exist to raise, kill, and clean chickens so that I don't have to, I'm bothered that it is SO foreign. I wouldn't have even known where to begin. Here she is, ready to be plucked. 

I tucked Bert's head out of view for the photo so it wouldn't be too graphic to publish in the blog book for the kids. But really, they were not bothered by the sight at all once they got used to it. 

Ben boiled a large pot of water on an outdoor camp stove on the back porch. 

Saeng and I lowered the chicken into the water about 30 seconds, and turned it around in there a few times. That's it! Time to de feather. This part took us forever, because a) uh hello I've never plucked a chicken before! And b) we paused a lot to get the kids to take a turn. Ben says that a professional van have all the feathers off in less than a minute! 

 

We just sat out on the back porch with the chicken on a metal pan and pulled feathers off and skinned the feet. Minimal mess.  I learned the skin pulls off with the feathers and the meat starts to cook if you leave the chicken in the boiling water for very long. It's just a dip to make the feathers easy to remove. 

Saeng had a special way of sliding her thumb over the feathers and they would slip out easily and quickly. 

Removing the insides of the chicken was the interesting part for the kids. They wanted to know what every part of the chicken was, so each part was laid out on the cutting board for the children to examine. 

There. Now doesn't Bert look just like a whole chicken you'd buy from the store? I mean except for those gigantic feet....

We removed those, too. 

And finally, we cut the chicken into pieces for cooking. Here, Saeng is showing the kids the rib cage. 

I'm so thankful to have great people to learn from, but also for the opportunity to teach my children where their food comes from. We gave the chicken to the Ratsachacks to thank them for teaching us, and they cooked it for dinner last night. 

As we sat at our own table, last night, Reese poked at her salmon and said, "I wish we were eating Bert, instead. I don't like fish." 

Perhaps cleaning a fish is next on the agenda. 

The one where Betty is a Bert.

 We woke up to something strange at 6am, this morning. 

"Cock-a-doodle-dooooo!!!!" 

Uh oh. 

"One of these things is not like the others. One of these things just doesn't belong...." 

I spy a roo in the Willy flock. 

It would appear that "the chick is goin' through some changes, right now." As Joey would say.  

Of course it had to be one of the black marans, because I was looking forward to their eggs the most. 

Sorry, Betty Lou. But you're a "Bert the Roo" and you have to go. We can't have crowing at Fort Willy. This coop is for da ladies only. 

Your green plume and saddle feathers sure are beautiful, though. 

Anyone need a pretty rooster? 

Pet parade

We are now into the make up snow days. Kids and teachers alike are ready for summer, so it's field trip, party, and activity overload around here.  The Cooper pet parade was this morning and the children were begging to participate. 

Only a mother will chase down a chicken at 6:45am, put it in a pet carrier and take it to school. And when the chicken freaks out and poops all over itself in the crate, only the love of a mother is enough to take the hen out, clean her up, then wrap her in a towel and carry her around the parade so 500 children can pet her. Reese followed behind and gave everyone that touched nugget a squirt of hand sanitizer. 

The kids were so excited when they reached their own classes. 

There were cats, dogs, bunnies, guinea pigs, ferrets, and bearded dragon lizards, but Nugget was the only chicken!  She was a big hit. I was surprised how many kids recognized her as a barred rock, and how many Bella vista kids said they, too, have backyard chickens. 

It was an adventure. We finished just in time for Reese to join up with the 4th graders for the Kona ice truck, then I met Aaron and sent Sloane with him for her doctor appointment, came home to feed Soren lunch, return Nugget to the coop,   clean the chicken poop out of the pet carrier, throw a load of wash in, then go back to the school to check kids out an hour early for a dentist appointment. Now I'm siting in the