The Radwood Chicken Experience

Fake post

2009-12-10T12:35:00.001-08:00

This is a fake post. Bye!

My website goes big time

2008-03-07T19:24:00.000-08:00

Oh yeah! www.mudproject.org/chickens is in the news... at the bottom of the local food and agriculture column

You can find it easily on google if you use search terms "chickens missoula" although using "missoula chickens" is not quite as effective.

Awesome.

Surprise snow storm

2008-03-06T07:50:00.000-08:00

After a week of melting, I thought spring was here. Mud was everywhere, no snow in sight hardly anywhere in town, tulip sprouts around the house are about an inch tall.

And then we had a surprise winter storm blow in, and it dropped nearly a foot in just over 24 hours.

The hens are angry! They don't like deep snow. They have been pouting in the hen port and under the front overhang. It is hard to catch a good photo of them in the hen port because when I come out to take a photo, they rush over to see if I have a treat for them, thus ruining the shot.

They eat snow instead of going the extra 3 feet to the water dish. It isn't like they can't get there- I think they just don't like to walk in the deeper snow. Maybe it feels funny on their fluffy butts or something.

New website! and a photo

2008-02-26T16:20:00.000-08:00

I've been seriously slacking off with this blog. Inexcusable. Almost two months without a decent post!

I have excuses, but... whatever.

For one thing, Matt and I have now finished our fun project to create an informative website on keeping chickens in Missoula. I got the approval of a local sustainable non-profit, called MUD (Missoula Urban Demonstration) to use their website as a host for the chicken website. Thanks also to my friend Julie who helped me think of a few extra things to include.

To see the new website, now public, go to;
www.mudproject.org/chickens

Additionally, now that the snow is melting, the chickens are willing and permitted to terrorize our property. The melty slushy mess makes for good chicken tracks, so I took a photo late this afternoon. As you can see, as I took the shot the chickens came by to investigate. I think that is Biggie's chest in the corner, and I'm fairly sure that is one of Mrs. Tweedy's toes in the top of the photo.

Lastly, I just want to memorialize my friend's two chickens that got attacked and killed by their neighbor's cat. They were good chickens, friendly and fluffy. One was a good egg layer, and the other one had a fabulous personality and amazing feathers. We'll miss them dearly, and I was so sad to hear of their loss. RIP, two hens.

Photos from infamy

2008-01-05T09:16:00.000-08:00

During the course of the great 2007 chicken controversy here in Missoula, many reporters visited our chicken facility to take photos and interview us. One of the best videos (in my opinion) was done by Anne Medley at NewWest.net

That video, if you missed it, is really funny. View at
http://www.newwest.net/city/article/missoulas_urban_chicken_squabble/C8/L8/

Anne was also kind enough to send me her favorite still shots so I could post them on this blog (she took a long time, but hey, we are all busy people!). I think she caught some really nice chickens-in-autumn photos, many of which have a sort of comical bent to them. Here are my favorites. These are all by Anne Medley, not me, and were taken in early November if I recall correctly.

1) Beldar is soooo regal
2) Biggie would like to know if the camera is edible, please
3) Tweedy, Rosie and Biggie bunch up for a group shot
4) Rosie considers her nesting box with care
5) Littles makes a quick getaway from the coop

Ooops

2007-12-27T11:00:00.000-08:00

Heee hee... this post was for the baby blog! Bye-bye!

Hens in the snow

2007-12-22T17:29:00.000-08:00

The hens are holding up extremely well in the cold weather, ice and snow. They seem to relish eating snow, kicking at it, and they generally are undaunted by sub-freezing temperatures. We have noticed that when it is really, really cold (like below 10 degrees) the hens often stand on one foot like a flamingo to keep the other foot tucked up into their warm feathers. But that doesn't keep them from strutting about happily- it just seems to be a sensible habit for the cold ground when they want to stand still.

Article in Missoulian

2007-12-18T09:12:00.000-08:00

Today's article in the Missoulian focuses mostly on important things like subdivisions and the retirement of a long time councilman. However, at the end, it goes over some chicken news...

The early visit by Santa - looking suspiciously like Mike Jakupcak, who earlier came to a meeting in a chicken costume - cheered council members already peppy from the tribute to Reidy. Jakupcak wished council members a “Merry Chickenmas” in a variation of “Twas the Night Before Christmas.”

“The chickens were all huddled outside the city limits in pens / Awaiting the decision to stay put or gather speed, put on mittens and en masse descend,” he read.

But they probably won't descend en masse. At least one council member said passage of the ordinance will probably not lead to a sudden influx of chickens in city limits.

Article in Missoulian, in full

To celebrate, today we are giving the hens some stale bread and delicious bird seed. Tasty!

Victory!!

2007-12-17T21:23:00.001-08:00

The chicken ordinance passed the city council tonight, with a 7 to 5 vote. Yeee haw!

At the last possible second, one of the 5 dissenters changed his vote to "yes" (making it 8 to 4) and thus enabling him (by an odd procedural rule) to call for a recount within the next two city council meetings. This means that when the new council takes their seats in January, this council member can call a re-vote.

This is a mean spirited and ultimately pointless attempt to get the chicken ordinance repealed. The new council that will take its seats is actually more pro-chicken then the currently active council.

Take that, suckers! Chickens rule!

Also- I came to the meeting late so I missed this, but Matt informed me that a man in a full Santa suit with the beard and everything got up at the start of the council and read a "T'was the night before christmas" adaptation urging a pro-chicken vote. I am so, so sad I missed this spectacle but I am addicted to my prenatal water aerobics class which had a small time overlap with the start of the council meeting.

Rumor has it that the local media will be publishing the poem in full tomorrow. I will link to it ASAP if that happens.

One step closer to victory!

2007-12-12T15:45:00.001-08:00

The chicken ordinance took a giant leap for chicken-kind today- we are almost there! Here is a reprint of the article in www.newwest.net about the exciting developments. To sum up if you don't want to read it; the deadlock was broken and next week we'll get a real vote.

Missoula City Council’s Public Safety and Health committee Wednesday morning approved the urban chicken ordinance, including an amendment to require annual $15 permits, sending the contentious proposal to the Council floor for a final vote Monday evening.

The vote went 5 to 4, with Dave Strohmaier, Stacy Rye, Bob Jaffe, Heidi Kendall and Jerry Ballas all in favor.

If passed by the Council Monday, the ordinance would allow Missoulians to keep as many as six female chickens on their property, subject to certain standards and conditions.

The proposal was approved after Councilman Jon Wilkins proposed adding another amendment to the ordinance requiring Missoulians who want to raise chickens to receive permission from all immediate neighbors first. “I think it’s important to keep good neighbors,” he said.

But that motion failed by the same 5 to 4 vote. “I appreciate John’s effort,” Kendall said, “but I would oppose the amendment because there is no similar requirement for dogs” and other pets, which pose the same allergy problems that opponents of the chicken ordinance claim of chickens.

(ME!!) of East Missoula, a proponent of urban chickens, stood and made the point that requiring the permission of neighbors and the associated paperwork and management would just create another headache. “You’re actually greatly increasing the financial obligations of the city.”

City Council will meet and vote Monday, Dec. 17 at the Council Chambers on Spruce Street at 7:00 p.m.

For the actual article with a lovely photo of a chicken (not ours), visit the article itself on newwest.net

How to get the chickens back into the yard

2007-12-09T13:12:00.000-08:00

6 out of 7 chickens agree- being bribed with tasty seeds is great.

1 of 7 chickens requires a more energy intensive method.

(note: Matt claims there is nothing funnier in the world than watching a pregnant woman trying to catch a crazed chicken. After watching a video of myself, I agree.)

A rainbow of eggs

2007-12-09T10:32:00.001-08:00

Here is the photo of the egg color variety we are currently harvesting. Pale sage is Pot Pie, white is Beldar, the pinky-flesh browns are Wyandottes, the darker brick tint browns are Rockettes, and Tweedy laid the pale brown big diameter egg in the closest egg nook on the right side- see how it fills the compartment? She's a "large caliber" layer.

Beldar becomes a hen

2007-12-04T12:00:00.000-08:00

I had a crazy dream last night that Beldar was really a rooster, and that we had all these baby chicks running around with black and white afros. It was weird. I woke up confused, and then I had to pee so I forgot about the dream for a while. That was at 6am when the world was dark and asleep.

At around 8:30 before I left the house, I checked the nestbox to collect eggs. To my utter shock, there was a white egg in there. A perfectly shaped, petite, white egg. I picked it up and examined it. It is almost translucent and very delicate feeling. Our Beldar, our spastic funky weirdo polish trainwreck of a chicken, has become a real hen! I'm so proud.

The white egg is a perfect counterpart to the pale sage green, peachy tan, and pale brick colors of the other girls' eggs. I took a photo of their gorgeous palette of eggs and I'll get it up on the blog soon.

My hope is that now that Beldar lays eggs, the other hens will respect her just a little bit more. Maybe that is unrealistic, but it is worth it to hope.

Winter is for the birds

2007-11-21T19:57:00.000-08:00

We have discovered that wet snow likes to stick to the anti-hawk netting. Thwacking the netting with a leaf rake helps, but nothing short of a thaw will cure the problem. This photo was taken at around 6am, pre-dawn, when the hens are still locked safely away in their henhouse.

The hens seemed baffled by our sudden snow storm. Do we go out into that white stuff? Should we eat it? Should we stand in the freezing cold water dish? OK, only Beldar seems to think that standing in the water dish when it is 20 degrees out is a good idea.

Biggie, being the dominant hen and the explorer of all things new, was the first to venture out of the warm and well lit henhouse into the cold, cruel, snow filled world. She immediately headed into the chickenport, where she could hang out in the dry hay and stare into the snowy world from comfort. The second photo was taken around 7:30am, when the light is still faint in our backyard but the chickens and dog are intent on being awake.

New chicken video!

2007-11-14T19:45:00.001-08:00

We are in the news, again!

Another reporter decided to interview us for a story on the chicken controversy. Behold- a new chicken video for your watching pleasure... you can access it from this page.

http://www.newwest.net/missoula/

Incidentally- Tweedy's limp went away completely and she is back to normal. We never did figure out what caused it, which suggests that it really was a muscle or ligament strain.

Limping is getting better

2007-10-19T09:53:00.000-07:00

Tweedy seems to be getting a little bit better. I've increased the amounts of treats the chickens get (more sunflower seeds, and more mixed grains) so that if she needs extra energy right now, she gets it. Her limp yesterday looked really bad, but today it seems less painful, more mobile, and she looks more fluffy. Unhappy hens are not a fluffed up, while happy hens are fluffy and perky looking. Yesterday her feathers were definitely downcast, which concerns me.

I really hope she feels better soon. Poor girl.

Also, it has been wet here for a week or two, so the hen yard is a muddy, filthy mess. I really hope that isn't making her recovery more difficult. Her nails are pretty sharp so I doubt she is slipping in the mud, but still. It can't be making it any easier!

Tweedy's limping!

2007-10-17T19:48:00.000-07:00

Poor Mrs. Tweedy! We don't know how or why, but sometime in the last two days she has hurt her leg. Both Matt and I have inspected her for injuries and failed to figure anything out, which is puzzling. She is still her aggressive, large, fluffy self- except that she is limping when she walks. Also, today she has been sitting on the ground (probably because standing is uncomfortable) which made me very nervous.

I hope she is OK soon. Matt replaced all the shavings in the coop today to make it fluffier and softer for her, so maybe that will help. With a sore leg she probably can't jump up onto the night roost, so I think she's sleeping on the floor. I really hope she gets better soon. There is nothing sadder to watch than a limping hen slowly walking across the hen yard.

Of course, she is still laying huge eggs. It is in her genes- I hope at least she is proud to keep that hard work up under such strain.

Adventures of Carrotzilla and Timmy, part two

2007-10-10T12:08:00.001-07:00

"Don't move! Stay calm!" yelped Carrotzilla as he desperately tried to think of a way to escape.

But the giant birds could smell the fear in the air, and it was too late. They moved in closer, and closer.

"AAAAAAhhhhh my eye! My arm!" shrieked Timmy.

The red bird had made her move. Pleased with her predation of Timmy's right eyeball, and she sauntered off into the grass to consume it in private.

As Carrotzilla saw Timmy's disfigured face and severed arm, he gave up all hope for survival. "I'M DOOOOMED!" he bellowed.

One of the black and white birds moved in for the kill. Once she was done brutally dismembering Timmy, she moved on to Carrotzilla.

In a few brief seconds of brutal pecking and clucking, Carrotzilla was reduced to an eyeless, legless wreck.

As the orange juices seeped out of his nearly lifeless body, he regretted letting Timmy convince him that walking in the garden would be a fun and safe pasttime.

-- THE END --

Adventures of Carrotzilla and Timmy, part one

2007-10-08T17:21:00.000-07:00

This story is dedicated to my mother...

One day, Carrotzilla and Timmy decided to venture out of the house for a walk.

"Such a nice afternoon!" Timmy declared.

Carrotzilla agreed, "Oh yes, delightful!"

They walked along in the pleasantly dry grass and came upon an overgrown chard.

"What a horribly large chard plant! It sure makes a nice place to sit down for a moment."

"Well, we shouldn't stay too long." Carrotzilla was concerned- he had noticed a gang of monsterous birds milling ominously in the distance.

Then, the birds began to approach.

"I'm scared!" Timmy said.

"Don't be frightened, I'm sure they are harmless." Carrotzilla was trying to comfort Timmy, but he didn't like the look of the black and white striped ones. Too... thug-like. All of a sudden, the birds were upon them.

"Eeeeek!" screeched Timmy.

to be continued...

Giant egg report

2007-10-06T15:45:00.000-07:00

I promised I'd write about the occasional giant eggs that the chickens lay. One of the chickens (we think maybe Tweedy) laid an absolute monster a few weeks ago. Because it takes months for eggs to go bad, we just kept it in the fridge until we got around to photographing, hardboiling, and dissecting it.

Recently I remembered that darn giant egg I was stockpiling. Here is the size comparison- on the right side is a normal sized egg. You can clearly see this egg is especially large!

After I took the photo, I hard boiled a bunch of eggs to make egg salad. Before I got too involved with the salad, I did remember to cut the giant egg in half and photo document the results. Results? Two yolks! This is pretty normal for free range chickens, especially in small flocks. One of our friends even found a triple yolker from one of her hens. That has to hurt coming out, I would think.

For the curious- A double yolk or a triple yolk is a mistake of the hen's reproductive tract. The yolk gets made first, then the white gets wrapped around it, and then the shell. It is kinda like an assembly line. In this case, two yolks get accidentally wrapped in one white, and then the shell just ends up encompassing the whole thing. Also, you would never get fraternal twin chicks tucked into the egg somehow- the egg is large, but it is not big enough to allow for two fully grown chicks at hatching age. The poor little twins would not survive.

I ate the whole thing, by the way. Delicious!

Laying eggs

2007-09-11T16:48:00.000-07:00

Our hens are laying eggs like they are going out of style. We've had many, many 6 egg days and our 4 egg days seem to be rarer and rarer. The eggs are also getting larger, which is something I read would happen as the hens became more mature and adultlike. At 5 or 6 eggs a day, we have already reached 3 dozen eggs in the fridge twice in three weeks. Luckily, we've been able to give them to friends without complaints.

One of the eggs that was laid this week is absolutely huge. It doesn't really fit in an egg carton socket properly because it is so immense. This egg entertains me. It seems to have been laid by a Rockette, but of course we are not sure which one. I told Matt he is not allowed to eat it until we take a photo of it. Also, we have bets placed on whether or not it contains two yolks.

Not having the camera has been seriously cramping our blog-style. The camera returns this week from its little "vacation" in Boise for the last three weeks, and I am really glad. The hens have done so many ridiculous things that we were unable to document since we got home from New Zealand. Mostly they concentrate on destroying one of my tulip beds (AAAaaaaaarg) but also they do cuter, funnier things.

Also, the hens are all grown up. You won't believe how beautiful and fluffy they are! I promise I'll do glamour shots ASAP.

Angry hens

2007-09-02T17:53:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, the hens were making really loud noises in the front yard. The front door was closed, but we could clearly hear at least two hens making an absolute ruckus. Matt and I were both puzzled- the hens never make loud noises except occasionally when they lay an egg. Had someone laid an egg in the cool grass of the front yard? It just seemed... so wrong.

Lucky and I went to the front door to investigate. I opened the door and there, sitting in between the two lilac trees, was a big grey cat. The cat was lying down, not looking too horribly aggressive, but there was no doubt that it seemed threatening to our hens! Three hens were pacing and ba-cocking loudly in the cat's direction, only a few feet away. I quickly commanded, "Lucky! Get the cat!" in my "Lucky go chase that squirrel out of the sunflowers" tone of voice. He locked eyes with the cat, took about two huge steps onto the front porch, and then launched himself clear off the porch, completely over the backs of the hens, and onto the spot that the cat was lying. Of course, the cat saw him coming so she was already up and over the front fence before his paws hit the dirt. Lucky did some pacing and quiet snarling as the cat hid under Matt's car, and then it ran across the street. I told Lucky he was a very, very good boy and he pranced proudly around the front yard. "I scared it! Did you see?!" he seemed to be announcing with his tail straight up and his posture especially erect.

Good dog. You protected the hens from the evil cat!

We are FAMOUS

2007-09-01T08:46:00.000-07:00

Our chickens (and the two of us) got interviewed, photographed, and videotaped in the last few days. The results are on the web today. I'm stuck somewhere between proud and mortified, but mostly proud.

Feature story in Missoula.com online magazine- don't miss the video at the top of the story, it is pretty cool.

Video including clips of our chickens that focuses on a recent question about chicken cannibalism.

Local news story on chickens in Missoula. Nothing about our girls specifically, but still interesting.

The guy who interviewed us and came by the house to record the sights and sounds of chickens, Tim, was really friendly and nice. It was fun to talk about the hens "on the record."

Setback for urban chicken rights

2007-08-28T09:02:00.001-07:00

Sadly, the meeting last night did not go as well as we had all hoped. The ordinance was not voted on; instead, it was sent back to committee for revisions. This is mostly a delay tactic by the opposition, which is frustrating.

To read a brief and over simplified version, you can look at the article in Missoulian today; Click here for article

So from here, what do we do? Well, the ordinance gets revised, then there are some tricky votes and such that will occur, and then after that the revised ordinance will return to public hearing and vote. At that time, it **should** pass.

Our loner hen

2007-08-26T13:18:00.000-07:00

Beldar is really awkward and she's been socially rejected by all the other chickens. She can't really see anything because of her bizarre head feathers, and the other chickens all pick on her, both literally and figuratively.

Matt has been increasingly concerned for his little socially awkward hen. He's been talking about giving her a better "hair cut" so she can see, and I know he's been keeping a special eye on her. We finally did trim back her feathers today so she could see better, but it didn't have any immediate effects.

Poor thing. Matt is convinced she won't survive the winter, and I don't really disagree. At least, despite it all, she is beautiful.

Meeting on Monday

2007-08-25T16:55:00.000-07:00

The official city council public hearing is on Monday the 27th, at 7pm in the City Council Chambers. This is on Pine next to Sean Kellys, in case any Missoulians need to know.

At this meeting, the public (as well as select city council members) will talk about the proposed ordinance change. Then, all members of the city council that are present will vote to either accept the ordinance change, or to "send it back" for revisions.

It is going to be a very tight vote. I have been asked to prepare a statement and present it at the meeting. I'm supposed to talk about my personal experiences owning backyard chickens just outside of city limits, as well as a couple of other odd issues that have come up (composting chicken poo, and feather allergies).

On a more personal note, all the brown layers laid today, but Pot Pie is having a day off. She's laid a minimum of 4 days in a row, so she deserves a break. Her eggs are really, really pretty.

Full report upon returning

2007-08-22T19:39:00.000-07:00

We are back, and the hens are wonderful as ever. It is very fun (and very funny) to watch their egg-laying and bug chasing antics.

First of all, after talking with my mom, I wanted to mention that chickens DO really throw themselves a little post-egg celebration every day. My mom thought this was a purely cartoon and movie creation, which I suppose I might of thought too until I got my chicken literature and did some research. We heard them clucking, ba-cocking, and generally having a funny chicken party this morning as they were laying their eggs. Mrs Tweedy in particular seemed to like congratulating other hens on their eggs- she was very, very vocally supportive of Biggie's 10:30am egg (which was a nice brown egg).

I want to be clear that this is not a loud egg party. Hens are not loud. For instance, with the windows open, you could hear them faintly from the living room when two were having an egg party. With the bedroom window being at a 90 degree angle from the chicken pen, I doubt you could hear it from our bedroom at all. Also, I doubt my neighbors would have heard it unless they were in their backyard. Besides, 2 out of 3 of my direct next door neighbors are functionally deaf.

The real news is that the egg laying is going so well. We arrived home to 5 eggs on Tuesday, and another 5 were laid today. They are fascinatingly slightly different- different textures, finishes, speckly-ness, and shapes. We are still not sure on all the exact personal differences between the eggs, but a few things are clear;

Pot Pie lays a pale olive or avocado colored egg. In some lights, it looks kind of bluish in tint, but I'd say it is more on the light green side. It is a slightly smaller egg than a commercial AA egg, and more elongate. It is somewhere between matte and glossy finish, tending towards matte.

Mrs Tweedy lays a big, matte finish, perfectly brown egg. This is an egg you might buy at the store and not blink twice. Her eggs seem to be on the "plump" side, as opposed to elongated. They tend towards spherical, although not extremely so.

Biggie lays a bright brown, glossy finish egg. Her eggs are shiny and smooth, and tending towards elongated. Also, her eggs are a little bit small- about the size of Pot Pie's. This surprises me, as she should be a large size layer. I wonder if she'll grow into it.

Littles has yet to lay an egg that we can definitively pinpoint was hers.

Beldar has yet to lay an egg. Her eggs will be white. She is both the youngest chicken, and the one with the longest time to maturity, so it might be another month.

The Wyandotte sisters are laying medium sized, slightly pale, matte finish brown eggs with a very very subtle white dotted speckles on them. The speckles are a nice detail that sets them apart from the other eggs. Their eggs are the most conventionally egg shaped, although they are smallish. Like someone shrunk a brown AA egg about 15% and then airbrushed some perfect tiny white dots onto it. I hope soon we'll see if there are differences between Zippy and Rosie's respective eggs.

Hens, I am happy to report, like over-ripe tomatoes, accidentally kicked unripe pumpkins, too-large-to-eat cucumbers, enormous squash, and stale crackers.

We return!

2007-08-22T09:46:00.000-07:00

We returned to 7 happy hens, 5 fresh eggs, and this in my email;

One of your chickens is a mutant. Well, beyond the obvious one. A brown egg laying chicken produced a very long egg, unusual in appearance. What was much more unusual- when I cracked it open, out popped....TWO yolks!! Creepy siamese twin chicks.
What is in your water?

Gotta love our housesitters. Thanks ladies and gentlemen!!!

More later.

Take the Chicken Survey

2007-08-07T16:37:00.000-07:00

The Missoula City Council and the Urban Fowl Subcommittee have built a little survey to gauge public opinion on the chicken issue. If you live in or near Missoula, you are hereby encouraged to take the survey!

http://www.missoula-neighborhoods.org/Survey.htm

Also, FYI, here is the latest from our "farm" reports...

They are laying in the boxes! I haven't seen any eggs anywhere else. I can't really tell who is laying, Beldar may not be. I got 4 eggs today, 1 lg. brown, 1 small brown, 1 small-med brown slightly white speckled (only if you look closely), and 1 blue. Yesterday I think there was 2 small brown and I think the rest of the brown all varied in size... I'm enjoying your farm...!

Awesome. This suggests that everyone but Beldar is laying regularly. She was expected to be a late bloomer (she is more for show and amusement, less for egg production) so that is not a problem.

Eggs everywhere

2007-08-06T19:45:00.000-07:00

The latest report from the field is highly encouraging-

The chickens are doing great. They must all be laying now, I've been collecting 7 eggs/day, all brown and one blue.

What is interesting about this is that we have 5 brown layers, 1 green/blue layer, and 1 white layer. So either my friend miscounted (certainly possible, and not a big deal) or one of the brown layers is double laying (also possible, but probably not good for that hen) or the white layer is laying brown eggs to spite us.

I'm forever indebited to my remarkable friends and their dedicated hen sitting. I know that the eggs are a nice bonus, but I just am sooooo glad that my friends are so thoughtful and careful to keep our hens watered, safe, fed, and happy. Thanks!! We'll be back soon and we'll bring presents!

City Council victory

2007-07-26T00:44:00.000-07:00

Another report from the chicken field is that the very biggest hurdle to chicken law supremacy was cleared recently.

I went to the Public Health and Safety Committee meeting today and we've got a public hearing!! Yea! It's August 27th at 7pm. (A UFC member) asked me to go and give a few comments so I did. It's slightly scary to talk in front of some of those folks. They've also approved the use of City Chat for public survey. Sounds like things are really rollin'. I'm going to round up the troops now to write their council members and give their support. It's so exciting!

Also, thought you'd be interested that it looks like Millie (our golden sex-link) is laying now too. By the time you guys come back we'll all be up to our eyeballs in eggs! I can't wait!

The chicken world is going very well in our absence. Egg-cellent.

FIRST EGG!!!

2007-07-26T00:37:00.000-07:00

Report from the Radwood Egg Cabin's housesitter came in via email. I am blogging from Christchurch NZ to relay this incredibly exciting info to you all...

Guess what I found this morning? AN EMBRYO! Well...a presumably unfertilized embryo....

Yes indeed, one of your lovely hens has laid an egg. It is little, about the size of a large peach pit. And green. Sorry, I haven't yet taken a picture of it. I was quite excited, I shouted, and the chickens jumped. It was on the floor of the shed, near the door. I don't know who did it- they were all excited...though maybe because they miss human attention.

The timing is impeccable. Perhaps they felt your expectations and felt too pressured to perform. Left alone, they gave up and succumbed to their own (cloacal) pressure.
Excellent, well I hope to find another on my return tonight. Not sure when they prefer to lay.

The green egg must, by the biology of our hens, have been none other than POT PIE! Atta girl! Daddy's little hen came through.

He is very, very proud. So am I.

NZ is lovely, and cold. Delightful!

Ordinance in Legalese

2007-07-12T13:28:00.000-07:00

This just in! This is the ordinance that will be put in front of committee, and then up for public hearing! Remember, this is in the "No Livestock" section so it is phrased as an exception to the larger rule.

------------

F. The prohibition to keeping chickens in this section also does not apply to the keeping of up to 6 female chickens while the animals are kept in such a manner that the following standards are complied with:

1. The chickens must be kept on a single-family parcel(s), and chickens may be kept on a parcel(s) under one ownership with more than one dwelling if all residents and the owner consent in writing to allowing the chickens on the property. When chickens are kept on a multi-dwelling parcel(s) the owner of the chickens shall keep a copy of the signed approval document for inspection upon request by animal control personnel.

2. The chickens shall be provided with a covered, predator-proof chicken house that is thoroughly ventilated, of sufficient size to admit free movement of the chickens, designed to be easily accessed, cleaned and maintained by the owners and be at least 2 square feet per chicken in size.

3. No chicken house shall be located closer than 20 feet to any residential structure occupied by someone other than the chicken owner, custodian, or keeper.

4. The chickens shall be shut into the chicken house at night, from sunset to sunrise.

5. During daylight hours the adult chickens shall have access to the chicken house and may have access to an outdoor enclosure on the subject property, adequately fenced to contain the chickens and to prevent access to the chickens by dogs and other predators.

6. Stored feed must be kept in a rodent- and predator-proof container.

7. It is unlawful for the owner, custodian, or keeper of any chicken to allow the animal(s) to be a nuisance to any neighbors, including but not limited to: noxious odors from the animals or their enclosure; and noise of a loud and persistent and habitual nature. Animal Control will determine whether or not a nuisance exists on a case-by-case basis.

Enforcement: Upon receiving a complaint of a possible violation within the city of Missoula, Animal Control will investigate, determine if a violation exists and when appropriate leave a notice of violation and order to take corrective action with the owner or temporary owner and provide them with written notice of the violations that require correction. Animal Control will revisit the owner’s address 10 days or more after the notice of violation is issued. If the owner has failed to comply with the ordinance, Animal Control may issue a citation to the owner, custodian or keeper for failure to comply with any applicable section of this chapter.

I'm on strike

2007-07-09T20:22:00.000-07:00

The hens refuse to lay any eggs. I am getting frustrated!

They should start laying any moment, and I feel like I've been waiting forever. Every time I have to go buy eggs it is a painful reminder of my insufficiencies as a chicken owner. LAY! NOW!

So I'm on strike, too. I refuse to glorify chicken ownership via the blog, any further, until...

a) one of the chickens lays an egg
b) one of them does something extremely funny
c) one of them gets eaten by a bald eagle
or
d) we leave the country, trusting chicken keeping to our friends while we are away.

Let us see what happens first. Stay tuned!

P.S. Urban Fowl Subcommittee update will be posted on Friday. Exceptions for local politics must be made.

Ned the Naughty!

2007-07-07T20:53:00.000-07:00

My friend's gorgeous Silver Laced Wyandotte has had a suspiciously large comb and wattles for a while. Sadly, the reality of this situation became apparent the other day when "Nettie" the hen transformed loudly and decisively into "Ned" the rooster. He spent the last two mornings crowing as loudly as physically possible- in a residential neighborhood, at 7:30am, where chickens of any kind are against the rules. No good!

Luckily, my friend's efforts to get Ned to a new home ASAP were very successful. He is being transported to a new happy home on a small farm tomorrow. She posted him on Freecycle and had a nice family offer to take him.

Farewell Ned! It was nice knowing you! Maybe your crowing is a sign that we'll soon get some EGGS.

Still no eggs

2007-07-03T20:47:00.000-07:00

We returned triumphant from the great 2007 East Coast Niece Tour to seven very happy hens. I think somewhere in their tiny pea brains they missed our company. They've been clucking and cooing at us through the fence all afternoon. Our nice neighbors down the street took excellent (eggcellent?) care of the hens while we were gone- ten points! I harvested about a pound of strawberries and brought them over to them in thanks. Mmmmm... so good.

Alas, no eggs yet. I think my estimate of their laying start date was very optimistic. However, Mrs. Tweedy grew a big comb while we were out of town, which is a sign that she is reaching hormonal maturity. I think it will be any day now that we find an egg. You'll be the first ones to know!

Who could oppose chickens?

2007-06-26T17:48:00.001-07:00

Seriously! They are fluffy, quiet, and very charismatic. Tomorrow is another meeting of the Urban Fowl Subcommittee (9am Wednesday morning, City Council Chambers!) and I am hopeful that it will go well. Matt is coming to the meeting, too, so that will be fun.

Sometimes, when I feel like I need to relax, I sit on the lawn and feed macaroni to the chickens. We all enjoy it very much- especially Mrs. Tweedy.

Over two dozen!!!!

2007-06-22T18:58:00.000-07:00

Summer is officially here, and it gets dark around 9:45pm. You are probably not surprised to hear that our veggie garden is doing extremely well these days. Matt and I decided not to let a one month (August) adventure away from home prevent us from having the best garden we've ever had. Last year the wedding prevented us from fully realizing our garden's potential (failure to plant potatoes, with both Irish and Polish heritage, is almost a cardinal sin). This year, we planted weeded, tilled and mulched like crazy people.

This year everything is going according to plan. From broccoli to zucchini, if it grows in Montana, we are growing it. Yesterday I did the first big harvest of our incredibly awesome strawberry patch.

Over two dozen!!! Fooooooooled yoooooou!!!

Still no eggs. EggWatch 2007 is officially on.

Rough Draft of Ordinance!

2007-06-21T16:54:00.000-07:00

The Missoula Urban Fowl Subcommittee is meeting next week to discuss the first draft of a pro-urban chicken ordinance. This ordinance, if the draft is approved, would then go to a vote in front of the whole city council (I think). Here is the wording of this first ordinance draft, care of one of the UFS members. This part follows a general no livestock in the city section of the Missoula city ordinances, hence the "prohibition in this section" verbage in the first sentence.

F. The prohibition in this section also does not apply to the keeping of up to 6 chickens within the city limits in situations in which the animals are kept in such a manner that the following standards are complied with:

1. No person shall keep any rooster.

2. The chickens must be kept on a single-family lot, unless all parties who share a multiple-family lot consent to allowing the chickens on the premises.

3. The chickens shall be provided with covered, predator-proof housing and must be kept in a covered or fenced enclosure at all times.

4. No enclosure shall be located closer than 25 feet to any residential structure occupied by someone other than the chicken owner, custodian, or keeper.

5. The enclosure must be thoroughly ventilated, of sufficient size to admit free movement of the chickens therein confined, and be at least 2 square feet per chicken in size.

6. No person shall slaughter any chickens within the city limits.

7. Feed must be kept in a rodent- and predator-proof container. The management of chickens and their feed shall comply with Ordinance 3330, Chapter 6.02.

8. It is unlawful for the owner, custodian, or keeper of any chicken to allow the animal(s) to be a nuisance to any neighbors, including but not limited to: noisome odors from the animals or their enclosure; and noise of a loud and persistent and habitual nature.

9. If a chicken owner is in violation of these standards, the mechanism for enforcement is as follows:

...i.Upon receiving a complaint of a possible violation at any given address within the city of Missoula, Animal Control will respond and leave a notice of violation/warning and/or a verbal warning with the chicken owner or temporary owner and provide them with written or oral information on how to correct the alleged violation.

...ii.Animal Control will revisit the chicken owner’s address 10 days or more after the notice of violation/warning is issued. If the chicken-owner has failed to comply with the ordinance, Animal Control may issue a citation to the owner, custodian or keeper of a chicken for failure to comply with any applicable section of this chapter. At this time, Animal Control may also confiscate the chickens without a court order. Animal Control may also recommend to the court that the chicken owner lose the right to keep any other chickens for 1 year or more.

Profiles: Littles Rockette

2007-06-19T20:32:00.000-07:00

Littles is a sweet, skittish chicken. Her older sister Biggie is constantly getting all the treats, all the attention, and all the publicity. Littles prefers to quietly graze on grass in the background, nervously eyeing the other chickens, the dog, the sky, the ground, and anything else that might somehow pose a threat to her existence. You can see in this first photo that Biggie is hogging the shot, while Littles is lost in a sea of chickens in the back. Typical.

Don't get me wrong. She isn't named for "Chicken Little" as you might think. She is named because her big sister got spontaneously named Biggie, and Littles just seemed like a nice counterpart. We considered "Smalls" but "Biggie Smalls" is the name of a rap star (I think) and that did not appeal to me. The pluralness of her name, Littles, is just because I thought it was a better name that way.

She is a curious bird- much more so than some of her fellow hens. But if I had to guess where she is on the pecking order, I would say she is only above Zippy and Beldar, and below Biggie, Mrs. Tweedy, and Rosie.

Littles' head is smaller than Biggies. I know that sounds funny but the most noticeable side effect of that fact is that Little's eyes are kinda bugging out of her head. Subtle, but funny, and it adds to her nervous persona. The other thing is that Littles' head feathers are darker and denser than Biggies'. She looks more black with white stripes, while Biggie is sort of really dark grey with really light grey stripes.

I looked through my past photos and discovered that there are two kinds of photos of Littles- ones where I am not sure if it is Littles or Biggie, and ones where both of them are in the picture. So I set out today to get some good pictures of her. The three shot sequence that I captured is the result of cheese-baiting her. Mmmmmm... cheese... I think it is pretty funny. She came, she pecked, she left.

Littles Rockette will lay large brown eggs and should be a steady hen in bad weather and cold winters. Even if she isn't a big clown like her sister Biggie, we still think she is very cool.

Free Ranging

2007-06-16T20:24:00.000-07:00

This afternoon we visited our friend's chickens over in the University district. They have a chicken tractor (very cool portable chicken housing unit) and 6 young hens. Their hens free range around their yard pretty frequently, and Matt and I decided after our visit it was time to let our free range.

The hens have been outside their pen before, but never for very long. When we let them out they wandered for while and then moved to the far edge of our lot to scratch around in the potato and pumpkin garden. You can see the majority of the chickens in the first photo are in the pumpkin patch (back left of the photo), while Pot Pie calmly allowed me to photograph her. She looked so nice in front of our flower bed.

After they scratched around in there for a while, Matt and I decided they needed some leftover macaroni and cheese. Mmmmm... They swarmed Matt for this tasty treat. You can clearly see in these photos how fabulous Beldar's poof has become. She is a beautiful bird. Her personality leaves something to be desired- she is skittish, whiney, and antisocial. It is not easy being gorgeous, I guess.

Pot Pie, on the other hand, is a very placid, accepting hen. Matt scooped her up and she calmly stood on his hand, observing her chicken domain. "Some day, Pot Pie, all this will be yours."

UFC meeting #2

2007-06-13T21:57:00.000-07:00

The Urban Fowl Committee met again today. Again, very fun and productive.

Here are the current ideas for the ordinance as I recall them from the meeting this morning;

- 6 hens (chickens only, no turkeys)
- No roosters
- Coop must be 25 ft from nearest neighboring dwelling
- No butchering
- Run must be fenced, Henhouse must be covered/enclosed
- Hens causing a nuisance are covered by animal nuisances clauses elsewhere
- Feed attracting wildlife is covered by Wildlife Attractant clauses elsewhere

Pretty straightforward. It is mostly modeled on the Madison WI ordinance, but of course they don't have bears that roam around downtown so the Wildlife Attractant clause is something a bit more special for Montana.

The wording of the ordinance will be drafted by the end of next week. I'll post it here for reference and general interest once I get it. After that, we'll have a third meeting to agree on the wording. Then, it goes before the whole city council. I hope this all happens before we leave for our big vacation!

My favorite quote from the meeting was, "Does the 25 feet have to be horizontal, or could you put a coop on the roof of your home?"

Good question, sort of. I can see it now...

HENS... IN... SPAAAAAAAACE.

Built a new feeder

2007-06-10T11:02:00.000-07:00

I've been displeased with my feeder lately. I feel like it is too prone to feeding other things (mice, starlings) and just a few days ago a whole flock of house sparrows descended upon it. I decided then that I wanted to make a new feeder.

The idea with the new feeder was this; I wanted to have the food access be inside the coop, but the food refilling be outside the coop. Simple, right? I thought about this for a while and decided that what I really needed was some kind of feeder tube that went through the wall. What is a tube that goes through walls? Duct work tubes! Where can I find duct work tubes? My favorite place! The used building supply place!

So here are the steps to building a new feeder.
1) Think up the design for the new feeder.

2) Go to the used building supply place and spend $2 on four old ductwork fittings. The pieces I bought were; end cap (to cover the feed from the outside), double end fitting (to allow the cap to fit on the next piece), 90 degree elbow (to tilt the tube through the wall), and rectangular register fitting (to dispense feed into the bowl).

3) Distract hens with honeydew melon rinds. Mmmmmmmm... tasty.
4) Assemble ductwork fittings on the lawn and take measurements.

5) Cut a big hole in the wall of the coop with the reciprocating saw and a spade bit. Fun! Super duper deafeningly loud with the corrugated tin!

6) Re-fit ductwork together inside (register/dispenser and food pan) and then attach the outside tubes from the outside (90 degree elbow, double end fitting).

7) Fill with feed to test system

8) Place cap on new feeder
9) Watch as dominant hen, Biggie Rockette, immediately attacks new feed. Go Biggie! Good hen!

Now all I need to do is fill the small gaps from the rough cut I made in the wall of the coop. It is hard to cut an 8" diameter hole in 1" of plywood and corrugated tin, with a reciprocating saw. I'm thinking expandable insulating foam plus some kind of "cuff" to keep the hens from pecking at the foam. We'll see how that turns out. For now the weather is nice enough that those gaps are not a problem.

The cat came back

2007-06-08T19:59:00.000-07:00

The big black cat was at the back door last night, looking in. I don't know where this cat came from, but I worry about him. Apparently, Gladys and Ray have one of his toes held hostage- the cat got caught in their extremely frightening raccoon leg hold trap that is in their tree (no kiddin') and left a black fuzzy kitty toe behind. I feel bad for the cat... sort of. It harasses our chickens, poos in our gardens, and screams in the middle of the night sometimes. Not a good kitty, really. And only 15 toes, so I know it is him when he walks on my car with muddy paws.

Anyway! The cat was stalking across the lawn this evening towards the hens so I snuck up on it and threw a shoe at it. Missed, but he got the message. Honestly, I picked the wrong shoe. I think I would have hit him with a "chaco," but I grabbed a "croc" instead- totally an amateur mistake.

While I was wearing only one shoe in the cool evening grass, I remembered I should take some photos of the hens enjoying a snack for the blog. I got the other shoe and the camera and took some photos of them eating diced spinach stalks out of a tupperware container whose lid I lost at least a year ago. It is the chicken treat bin now.

Pot Pie is just so very... special. She is not interested in treats the vast majority of the time. She spent the photo shoot preening her feathers (her favorite past time) and staring into space. You can see her preening some belly feathers in the first shot. I took a photo of just her when she deigned to make eye contact. She is really weird, and by weird I mean wonderful in a very unique way.

Snowy day for hens?

2007-06-06T17:41:00.001-07:00

Today is a rather stark contrast in weather from my last post. It is about 45 degrees and it has been pouring rain, cats and dogs style, all day. The mountains around the house have been getting some very wet snow. For those of you that are familiar with the topography, there is snow on Marshall, snow on the back of Pattee Canyon, snow on the top of Sentinel, and a hint of snow on the ridge above Jumbo.

The hens are not entirely displeased with this weather. They don't mind rain all that much. I've seen them scampering about in the rain, taking mud baths in their dirt bath hole (filled with mud today, of course, not dirt right now), and even perching and preening in the rain. Their feathers seem very water resistant. Beldar's hairdo is not water resistant, however, and she is not looking very sassy in these conditions. She's gone from Cher/Liberace to more of a... Sonny Bono. Not flattering.

I've put some extra food in their coop to allow them to eat in the warmer location during this cold spell. They still go outside to eat all the time, but I'm just a little nervous about them with all the moisture so I figure better safe than sorry.

Hot day for hens

2007-06-03T16:09:00.000-07:00

Today it is really hot out- I'm talking bright sun, low 90's. The hens are getting so big that yesterday when two friends of mine came over for dinner, they both exclaimed "Holy Sh**t they got big!" when they saw the girls. The combination of these two things (big birds, hot day) means that the girls are trying really hard to keep comfortable. All those adult bird feathers makes it hard to stay cool, I think.

Apparently, the preferred techniques if you are a hen for staying cool are;

1) panting in the dark henhouse
2) taking dirt baths in nice dry dirt
3) sitting in the shade under the plum tree and panting some more
4) drinking cool water

I think these all sound pretty reasonable. The Wyandottes, who are the thickest set birds and are built for cold winters, are having a tough time with the heat. Rosie is panting very aggressively- she's huge, fluffy, and very, very plump. You can see in the picture that Biggie barely has her beak open (front and center), while Zippy (out of focus in the back) and Rosie (foreground) are both panting quite obviously.

I'm thinking that some more shade might be good once summer gets into full swing. Maybe something like an extra awning near the chicken-port could be good. I'll have to think about that.

I took a week off from posting to the blog because I was distracted by the birth of my new niece, Eleanor Caroline!!! So exciting. Now I have two beautiful baby nieces; Jacqueline Sage (now 3 months old) and Eleanor Caroline (now 5 days old). I'm really really happy about these little additions to our families.

Pria's new owners

2007-05-27T08:42:00.000-07:00

Pria got adopted yesterday! Very exciting.

Pria was a rooster and we didn't want any roosters. I posted a note on the local freecycle listserver here in town a few weeks ago and got two really good responses, so I just picked the first one.

The family that adopted Pria lives West of here in a small town farming area. Their town is kind of near Tarkio, where Matt and I got married last year. The youngest son raises chickens for 4-H, and as you can see in the photo, he has dwarfism. He was really good at catching and handling Pria, so that made me happy to see that despite his physical challenges he's got a farming-related hobby that he can be good at. His older brother is on the right- very nice kid. Pria is inside the cat carrier in the photo- you can't see him, but he is there.

In this picture of Beldar (left) and Pria (right) you can clearly see that Beldar is calm, while Pria is freaking out. This is a constant state of affairs for Pria, and one of the reasons that we didn't even consider keeping him on the long term.

Farewell Pria!

First ever Radwood Chicken movie

2007-05-26T15:30:00.000-07:00

Today Pria is getting adopted by a nice family. One of the kids breeds Polish chickens for 4-H and he's coming to get Pria this afternoon. I'm sort of sad.

To make myself feel better, I decided to give Pria his favorite treat- cheese! All the chickens love cheese. Mmmmmmm... doesn't everything in the world love cheese? Anyway, I tested out the movie capabilities of our little, slightly out of date, digital camera and I was pleased/amused by the result.

This is a movie I took by propping the camera on an overturned flower pot, and then hitting go. The action is a little off center, the chickens are sort of out of focus, but it is still funny. Also, the second half of the movie is me tormenting the chickens in a very funny way.

Note that at the end, Pria stares right into the camera for split second. I think he knows his days at the Radwood Egg Cabin are over.

I am in the news!

2007-05-25T07:50:00.000-07:00

OK, sort of. A friend of a friend writes this local food and farming column in the free "hip" newspaper, and he published my question in his Q & A section. I am referred to under the psuedonym "Chick Chick" which is think is hilarious.

Click here to see the weekly "Flash in the Pan" column. My question is at the bottom.

See "Chickens in the News" link on the right for the link, too.

I love Biggie

2007-05-24T20:09:00.000-07:00

Biggie is definitely my favorite chicken. She is plump, very fluffy, and acts like a dog. She runs up to the fence whenever I am anywhere nearby, and stares out longingly. She is good at taking treats out of my fingers without nipping me, and when you pick her up she coos and chortles in a very sweet way.

I think she is at the top of the pecking order. She gets her way all the time, and she has no problem shoving another hen out of the way with her big hen bosom. She is kind of a bruiser, really- large and in charge. I like that about her. She isn't mean like Tweedy, of course. Biggie rules with a fluffy fist, not an iron one.

Last night at about 11pm I went out to shut the door to the henhouse for the night. All the chickens were sleeping under the warming light. Biggie saw me coming through the little chicken door, jumped up, and came to the edge of the henhouse to say hello. It was raining, so she just stood on the threshold and cooed. I had to gently nudge her backwards to close the door tightly- wouldn't want to snag a toenail or something.

I'm going to bet that Biggie lays the first egg. I'll be so proud!

The first UFS meeting

2007-05-23T21:58:00.001-07:00

I know, I know, I've totally gone off the deep end.

I was invited to join the first ever meeting of the UFS- the Urban Fowl Subcommittee.

Yes folks, it is true, the City of Missoula has formed a sub-committee of City Councilmembers to propose a new ordinance allowing a yet undetermined number of hens to be kept on city lots within the city limits. It was really interesting to go to the UFS meeting.

First off, I was the only "out" chicken keeper there. The other guy that was there that had chickens didn't want to talk about them (we talked beforehand so I was privy to his illegal chicken ownership) because:

1) he lives in city limits and could get busted
2) he is there to make impartial recommendations as part of his work for a local sustainable agriculture non-profit

So I was the smiling face that represented the chicken owners of Missoula! So exciting! I think I did my fellow chicken owners proud. I talked about how quiet and nice hens are, the amount of space that chickens need, and some realistic ideas for how to help Missoula pass a good ordinance allowing small all-hen flocks.

I feel like the meeting went really well. Everyone was positive and engaged in the conversation, and in the end the concerns raised by the UFS members were all reasonable and thoughtful.

Here is my educated prediction- Missoula will pass the following basic ordinance sometime this summer:

- Six hens allowed per household
- No roosters allowed
- $10 annual licensing fee administered by Animal Control
- Hens must be enclosed and coop must be 20ft from nearest neighbor's structures
- Chicken feed must adhere to the pre-existing "wildlife attractant" ordinances in Missoula (to keep bears and such away from people and houses)
- No butchering allowed
- Coop must be tidy, low odor, and judged sanitary

That sounds really good to me. I think this would be a big victory for urban hens.

Yeah!

I'll keep the blog updated on this topic. The next UFS meeting is on the 6th of June, I think, and the draft ordinance will be there for us to comment and edit.

Pics of the netting

2007-05-20T18:21:00.000-07:00

I've been slacking on getting some photos of the anti-hawk netting onto the blog. Mostly that is because Matt and I agreed that we needed to sink two more posts to make the netting sit properly, and then the netting needed to be trimmed up. Now, with these things accomplished, the netting is ready for primetime.

You can see in some of the photos that we had to put a center post in, and we strung some support lines (kinda like a circus tent) to keep the netting from sagging too much. Now that we have the center post and support lines, Matt doesn't brush up against the netting in about 50% of the pen, and I don't in about 75%. The remaining section is mostly next to Lucille's yard and under the plum tree, which is not a problem because you have to hunch over by the tree no matter what.

As much as the netting is to keep hawks out, it is to keep the chickens in. Pot Pie and Beldar in particular are forecasted to be pretty decent flapping/jumping chickens and a 5ft fence would be a very achievable clearance for them.

In other news- Tweedy, the Rockettes and Rosie and now all bigger than Pot Pie. Zippy still is a little petite but I'm confident that she'll get big soon. The size order when mature will probably be (smallest to largest): Beldar, Pot Pie, Tweedy, Rockettes, Wyandottes. I am leaving Pria off the list because we are giving him away very soon. Otherwise he'd probably end up between Beldar and Pot Pie.

New feature on this blog!

2007-05-19T08:37:00.001-07:00

Chickens have been causing a huge "flap" in Missoula lately, and so I've decided to track the progress of the whole thing. At the right side of the blog, I have a sequential list of articles in local (and a few non-local) papers and magazines that deal with city chicken ownership and conflicts.

This list is as much for me as it is for the readers of the blog. It is getting hard for me to keep track of this coverage so I wanted to make a centralized location for it all. I hope you all find it interesting, too.

Profiles: Pria (Prymaat)

2007-05-18T19:10:00.000-07:00

Pria is a rooster. I thought he was going to be the female of the two Polish chickens, but instead Pria has decisively turned into an aggressive, weird, and awkward young rooster.

Pria started out life with a kind of "high and tight" hairdo- similar to Montana's senator Jon Tester. Because Pria's hairdo was less impressive than Beldar's, I (wrongly) assumed that he would be the hen. That is why I named them in that order, of course. However, had I done more homework on the internet about Polish chicken breeds, I would have discovered that with Polish chicks, the hairdo starts fluffier and more hilarious in the females and the males only surpass them around 3 to 4 months old. Ahhhh... so that is why Beldar (the hen) is now looking gorgeous in sort of a drag queen in a former life kind of way, while Pria still looks kinda strung out on acid.

Pria is going to a nice adoptive home near here. The people that want to adopt him are a family that raises fancy chickens for 4-H. I think he'll be happy there- lots of hens to bother, lots of space- literally, a stud. They said they'd wait a year or two until they eat him, which I think sounds pretty fair.

One of the reasons that we cannot keep a rooster is that roosters are downright mean. Tonight we watched as Pria attacked Little- pecking her in the face, biting her head, and chasing her around the pen as the other hens all watched in horror. Poor Little is kind of low on the chicken hierarchy, so noone stepped in to stop Pria's vicious abuse. We didn't bother either- I've read that if you interrupt their pecking order battles, they will just do it again later. No need to torture Little twice in one night.

Pria's wattles are pretty amazing. They seem to grow more scarlet red and longer every day. It is really neat, and it gives me faith that the other chickens are all females.

Will they eat it? Part Two

2007-05-15T18:50:00.000-07:00

Added to the list of things they will eat: craisins, leftover bird seed from chickadee research experiments, pear cores, and macaroni & cheese.

Started a list of things that they have attempted to eat and failed: shoe laces, leg hair (Matt), leg hair stubble (me), sandal straps, string, the rivets on pants, and Lucky's delicate wet nose.

Tweedy: 2, Lucky: 0

2007-05-12T17:00:00.000-07:00

Lucky is very interested in the chickens, and the chickens like to come over to him (from the other side of the fence) and say hello. It is kind of cute, and Lucky seems to enjoy it seeing them get that close to him.

Mrs. Tweedy has become a very aggressive and accurate "pecker" lately. She is getting to the point now where I cannot trust her enough to give her a piece of cheese with my fingers. She has bitten me often enough, and hard enough, that I really think she is doing it on purpose. None of the other chickens bite, although occasionally Biggie will accidentally grab your finger in a quest for a treat. There is a crucial difference between Tweedy and Biggie, though. One does it hard, every time, and the other does it fairly gently and very rarely.

Back to Lucky Dog. So today Lucky was sitting next to the chickens, whining quietly and sniffing at them, and Mrs. Tweedy and Biggie walked up to him. Biggie looked at him, tilted her head, thought for a while, and walked away. Biggie's Assessment: Big fuzzy black thing is not edible. Mrs. Tweedy did the same, except then she pecked him- hard- on the nose. Lucky was startled, and Mrs. Tweedy ran off a few feet. Matt and I laughed. Then, Mrs. Tweedy walked back over to the fence. Lucky, again, was sniffing and so forth right towards Mrs. Tweedy. Matt and I were watching, fascinated. Would she peck him again? Does somehow he deserve it this time? Then, she pecked him really really hard in the right nostril. Lucky jumped and sort of half snapped at her, but she was off and running, clearly triumphant.

I think Mrs. Tweedy is going to end up teaching Lucky that he cannot, and will not, mess with chickens.

Will they eat it?

2007-05-11T20:31:00.000-07:00

I've heard of this thing called "Will it Blend?" that is supposedly a commercial about a high powered blender. I think the host puts weird things in the blender, and then blends them while being videotaped. Things like iPods, and video cameras.

Ok, now I just googled it and apparently they have a website; www.willitblend.com Are you really surprised? Me neither.

That isn't the point, though. I've started to conduct my own sort of experiment that I've entitled, "Will they eat it?" Perhaps you know that chickens will eat most things. I've actually read up on the subject and discovered (via the internet) that there are a few basic rules to feeding weird things to chickens.

1) Nothing that has "gone bad," has mold on it, or is otherwise suspiciously slimy
2) No raw potato peels. Bad for digestion
3) Not too much meat. A little niblet is ok, but stick to an amount that mimics a bug or small lizard that the chicken would theoretically catch and eat naturally.
4) If they are laying eggs, and you want those eggs to taste good, nothing that seems unwise like garlic, cabbage, asparagus, or onions.
5) Rumor has it that coffee grounds are too acidic for them.
6) Chicken meat. Don't feed chicken meat to chickens. Got it.

Other than that, I think I have a carte blanc to feed them just about anything. So Matt and I have been giving them random things.

I know you are all wondering what they have eaten so far. Here you go: cooked white rice, cooked brown rice, carrot peelings, Maui Kettle chip bottom-of-the-bag crumblets, Hint of Lime Tostito bits, shredded cheese of virtually every flavor, raw spinach, cooked spinach, burnt bagel crust, cooked leftover cous-cous, cooked rotelli, scrambled eggs, hard boiled eggs, pie crust crumbs, the crusty stuff stuck in a casserole dish after I baked a Mexican Lasagna and forgot to soak the dish over night, dandelions, large black squirmy beetles, earthworms, caterpillars, grubs, thinned squash seedlings, thinned lettuce seedlings, crumbled graham crackers, uncooked quinoa, dead flies, stale raspberry crunch granola, uncooked broccoli, cream cheese, butter, and yeah... chicken feed.

Profiles: Zippy

2007-05-10T21:13:00.000-07:00

Zippy is the other Silver Laced Wyandotte. She conforms to breed standard, by which I mean that her comb is a squishy little flattened blob. This is good in cold weather because it minimizes the chances of getting frostbite on the comb. Pot Pie is the only other chicken with this kind of comb- Rosie should have had this kind but, well, she doesn't.

In this picture, it is Rosie in the foreground, Zippy to the back right, Pria in the middle left, and you can just see Beldar's poof behind Rosie's tail. The Wyandottes tend to stick together and are a bit shy, which might relate to the fact that the Rockettes are kind of bossy while Mrs. Tweedy and Pot Pie are very... Jay and Silent Bob.

Zippy doesn't really like to be held as much as Biggie and Rosie. Really, Zippy just likes to run around and eat stuff. She is a plump, vigorous bird. She actually clucks, and said, "Ba- Caaawk!" the other day. I was really proud of her.

The feathering on the Wyandottes is really gorgeous. They should be very good layers of large light brown eggs, and the Wyandotte breed is specially prized for quality cold-weather egg laying. They were bred for egg production in Wisconsin, and that is why they are big plump birds with frost-bite resistant combs and a high tolerance for cold winter nights.

Speaking of cold winter nights- look at my tulips!! Spring is sooooo here.

Netting is complete

2007-05-08T19:59:00.000-07:00

We had feared that putting up the netting would be sort of a "grandpa and the christmas lights" kind of chaotic stupidity scenario, but instead it went rather smoothly. The whole run is now covered with used fish netting that I bought on Ebay for a very reasonable price. It is black and seems quite durable.

I'll post pictures in a day or two. It is getting dark and the netting hasn't been trimmed on the edges yet, so I think waiting a little bit is a good idea.

Oh no! Cat!

2007-05-07T20:42:00.000-07:00

A big black cat was seen stalking our girls at dusk this evening. Matt saw it from the bathroom window just in time. He ran outside yelling to scare the bad kitty (which in turn startled me). It was apparently on top of the coop roof, slinking along, trying to get close enough to pounce.

Bad kitty! Bad!

We are putting up the netting tomorrow. The girls need to be safe from evil neighborhood cats. Perhaps we ought to leave Lucky out at dusk for the next few days just to be sure- he would intimidate the darn cat just by being there.

Profiles: Rosie

2007-05-06T21:03:00.000-07:00

Rosie is a Silver Laced Wyandotte, which is a breed from Wisconsin. She is an Aries- she likes long walks in the run, earthworms, and being held in a firm but gentle fashion. As a Wyandottes she is destined to be plump and attractive with white "lacing" that will decorate every one of her feathers. Wyandottes are supposed to have compact, flattened combs, but Rosie is not "breed standard" and instead she has a single comb. This means that her comb is taller and more fingery-looking than it is supposed to be. No matter- she is beautiful to us!

Rosie doesn't like to be picked up, but once you have gotten her in your arms she soon starts to coo and chatter quietly, and she very rarely struggles to be put back down. In this photo, she is inspecting my fingers as she perches nicely on my arm. She likes cheddar cheese, noodles, and cooked white rice. She doesn't nip like a certain other chicken (bad Mrs. Tweedy!!!) but instead delicately plucks food in a very dainty and (true to her midwestern roots) polite manner.

When Rosie was a little bitty fluff ball, she had reddish feathers on her head. That is how she got her name. Now that she is an adult, she has lost these colors and instead we tell her from Zippy by Rosie's single comb. What is kind of funny is that the formal name of Zippy's comb type is a "Rose" comb. So Zippy has a Rose Comb and Rosie has a Single comb. EEEeek! Don't sweat it. Zippy's comb is sleek for better aerodynamics, while Rosie's is more perky and cute.

Henhouse update

2007-04-29T13:58:00.000-07:00

The henhouse is now 99.5% done. I am really excited, as are the young hens. I've taken a bunch of photos of the various features of the house, but as always the blog isn't good at allowing me to label photos, so please try to match the description with the photo as you go. They get more and more out of synch as you read down!

This is a front shot of the henhouse with attached henport. You can almost see in this photo that there are 8 wingnuts and bolts holding the entire front of the henhouse in place (one is visible in the sunlight near the top left). This will allow us to take the entire front wall off once a year or so to do a big cleaning of the coop. Also, note the elevated food sled to prevent the need to stoop under the henport to swap out food or water buckets.

Close-up of nifty dual purpose door bar. Keeps the door bolted up, or very tightly down, depending on how you use it.

The front and rear walls have vent covers below the roof line that can be opened to allow a cross-breeze, or closed to retain heat in winter. These pictures show the front left side closed, then opened. You can tell the rear vent cover is open in the second picture (hence the bright rectangle of sunshine in the center of the photo). I'm short one hinge right now so that vent cover is still waiting to be completed.

The egg door is now fully integrated into the fencing of the chicken run, and weather stripped. We'll eventually put a nicer doorstop in than that piece of yellow string, of course.

The back of the henhouse opens up into the vegetable garden with a large "maintenance door" that we installed. This allows Matt and/or me to clean the henhouse out with easy access and adjust the inside of the henhouse if that becomes necessary. This also permits the hens to access the veggie garden if I so choose. When I opened the door to take the picture, Mrs. Tweedy decided to visit me and you can see her in that last photo.

The food sled was a neat idea I had. I didn't want to have to lift heavy water or food buckets at a funny angle when they were under the chickenport. So I designed a little food sled (complete with rounded runners and a slatted top) to allow me to easily slide the heavy stuff out from under the chickenport like a drawer. The open design prevents mold or other yuckiness from building up under the sled. Also, it is suggested that you elevate the water to prevent poo contamination and this accomplishes that as well! I haven't found just the right size bucket for the food yet, so only the chick feeder is up there right now. Soon though, I hope to put about 20lbs of food on the sled, and about 15lbs of water. I hope the sled technology is as handy as I think it will be.

The only thing remaining is the anti-hawk netting I purchased on Ebay. Once it is installed (and I purchase one more pesky vent hinge) I'll put the very final results up on the blog!

Profiles: Biggie Rockette

2007-04-29T13:46:00.000-07:00

Biggie Rockette may be my favorite hen. She is plump, friendly, bold, and really funny to watch. She loves to come and hop up onto my lap and seems to enjoy being held.

Biggie (and Littles) are both really soft, attractive birds. Their feathers are a neat black and white striped color that makes them really look snazzy in a subtle way. Biggie in particular has always been a very outgoing hen- she runs right up to me whenever I go into the chicken pen and often pecks at my pant cuffs or shoe laces. In a nice way.

Biggie is expected to be a very good egg layer. The "Plymouth Barred Rock" is one of the oldest and best known egg laying breeds that originated in the USA. Her eggs will be either pale chocolate brown, or a pale pinky brown, and they are guaranteed to be quite large.

When the gate is open, Biggie likes to sneak past me and run out into the lawn. This is scary because I fear that Lucky will try to "retrieve" her. I try not to let her do this naughty breakout that she so enjoys, but she has made it out twice in the last week by sneaking past my feet when I'm busy carrying water or feed. Luckily, Lucky was inside both times (not a pure coincidence). Soon, the young hens will be big enough that I will be confident I can let them out with Lucky under close watch to teach Lucky that they are not to be messed with. He's learned that lesson with cats and babies, so I don't forsee chickens being all that different.

Because Biggie is bigger, bolder, and a little more red in the comb than Littles, I do still fear that she might possibly be a rooster. This is really unlikely but the proof will not come until she either crows (AAAAhh!!!) or lays an egg.

Addendum to Mrs. Tweedy and Pot Pie

2007-04-26T16:51:00.000-07:00

As my sister pointed out, I did neglect to include forecasts of egg production for Mrs. Tweedy and Pot Pie.

Mrs. Tweedy is a Rhode Island Red, which is a breed well known for huge egg production in quality and quantity. She is expected to lay an egg every day for about eight or nine days, and then she'll take one day off. Then the cycle repeats. If she lives up to breed standard, she should produce the largest, brownest, and most plentiful eggs of all our chickens. This is one of the reasons I'm not too worried about her being stunted- she has a long way to fall before she would be less productive than say, Beldar. Technically, her breed is classified as "prolific" layers.

Pot Pie is an Americauna, or possibly an "Easter Egger." Both these breeds are actually mixes of several breeds that pretty much always include Aracana bloodlines from Brazil. As a mix, it is hard to say what she'll lay. Most likely, her eggs will be either pale olive, or pale teal-blue in color. They will be bigger than Beldar's, but smaller than Mrs. Tweedy's. Pot Pie should be a pretty good layer, but she isn't a "production" chicken like the Rockettes or Mrs. Tweedy so we expect her to lay eggs for about four or five days before taking a day off and starting over. Her breed is classified as a "good" layer.

The official laying classifications go; poor, fair, good, very good, prolific. Beldar is a "poor to good." We are hoping she is an overachiever.

Hope that fills you all in. I'll profile Biggie Rockette tomorrow.

Profiles: Mrs. Tweedy

2007-04-25T21:46:00.000-07:00

Our Rhode Island Red hen Mrs. Tweedy had a rough start in life. First, she attacked her only friend (Pot Pie). Then she suffered from the runs for a few days until we put her on chicken parasite medication. Once she started to get better, she instead developed pretty awful constipation for about three weeks. You haven't lived until you've watched a three ounce baby bird go red in the face trying to poo. Terrible. I force fed her molasses to give her some relief, which seemed to work. What have I become?

We think all those issues made Mrs. Tweedy who she is today- highly dependent on Pot Pie for moral support, very pushy when it comes to food, and kind of skinny. She still has not caught up growth-wise; she's bigger than the Rockettes (who are a week younger than her) but distinctly smaller than Pot Pie. Pot Pie should be noticeably smaller than Mrs. Tweedy- their breed's average adult weights are 6lbs for Pot Pie, 8lbs for Mrs. Tweedy.

Mrs. Tweedy is an aggressive, active hen. She loves treats (especially cream cheese) and will hop up onto my arm or leg to get closer to the source. Once she gets a large tidbit she usually goes running through the pen, shrieking. This seems to be a form of gloating. It is really funny.

Her feathers are becoming a really lovely deep russet brown and her tail is finally growing in. I hope that someday she'll overcome her early nutritional issues, but I guess if she ends up a little runty I will just accept her for who she is.

My friend's dog Ricka likes Mrs. Tweedy, and Mrs. Tweedy likes Ricka. Awwww...

Next up: Biggie Rockette

Profiles: Pot Pie

2007-04-24T17:16:00.000-07:00

Pot Pie is the plumpest, sweetest, and least focused chicken. She is not curious and seems extremely cautious. She has a rather disconcerting beak-eye coordination problem that results in a total inability to snatch treats off a surface. This disability makes it very painful and fraught with peril to offer her something from your fingers- she grabs a little pinched bit of your flesh and pulls hard on it, thinking she had finally gotten what she wants. It hurts.

My mother astutely reminded me that Pot Pie was the chick that Mrs. Tweedy pecked in the eye, so she hypothesized that the eye pecking incident precipitated Pot Pie's apparent vision issue. It is also possible that Pot Pies awesome little cheek fluffs keep her from seeing below her beak, thus making it really, really hard for her to see what she wants to peck at.

Thank goodness Pot Pie just isn't that interested in treats. She's more interested in drinking water, staring off into space, avoiding new things, and clucking in the form of a question. She's the only chicken that has learned to cluck so far, and every cluck or coo that she emits is in the form of a question. I think she thinks she is on "Jeopardy!"

Alex: "These are the three favorite noises of six week old Americauna hens."
Pot Pie: "Cluck cluck? cluck? cluck? Coooooo? Squeee?"
Alex: "Correct!"

Last but not least, Pot Pie is Matt's favorite chicken. She is soft, beautiful and calm- Daddy's little hen.

Next profile... Mrs. Tweedy!

Profiles: Beldar

2007-04-23T18:27:00.000-07:00

I've decided to profile each chicken in turn on the blog. I'll start with Beldar, one of the young Polish hens.

Beldar is rapidly becoming the most talked about chicken. While we all love Pot Pie for her quiet gentleness, cute clucking, and fuzzy little cheeks, Beldar is far and away the most bizarre conversation piece. Everyone marvels over her. She is a sight to behold, even at only five weeks old.

Beldar is a fearful, spastic young hen. She excels at running full speed into stationary objects like fences and rocks. On Sunday, Matt and I watched her run full speed, headlong, into the external wall of the coop. Her navigation skills may in fact be impaired by her amazing hairdo- there is no question that she has the poorest peripheral vision capabilities of all the chicks in the flock.

If she manages to survive in spite of herself, she'll lay medium size white eggs. Really, she won't need to justify her existence with edibles however. We like her just for comedic relief.

Next up: Pot Pie!

So proud of my girls

2007-04-16T19:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I put the final touches on the henhouse, including running the extension cord with a heatlamp into it, as well as putting mesh on the ventilation holes. Then I filled it with pine shavings, and added eight chickens.

Pandemonium!

The chicks were great, though. It got into the mid-twenties last night but the henhouse held its heat and in the morning, it was still in the mid-fifties inside their snug little house. They looked calm and happy. I was thrilled.

They can't hang out outside unsupervised yet because some of them (Beldar and Pria) still fit through the fence. Also, I don't have my anti-hawk meshing yet, so they would be too vulnerable to aerial assaults. This evening when I got home from work, I let them all out for a few hours while I read on the deck and watered the gardens. As dusk fell, and the robins started to sing, all the girls quietly started to gather in front of the open door to the lit, warm, henhouse. Would they go in? Are they becoming responsible young hens?

GASP. Littles Rockette decided it was time. She marched through the open door and settled deep into the soft shavings. Ahhhh... so warm. Bedtime. Everyone followed her lead, and I quietly crept up after them and shut the door.

My chicks are growing up so fast! It is bittersweet. It seems like only yesterday, they were like this;

Glamour shots

2007-04-15T20:06:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine has a nice digital camera and she reads the blog. She came to my rescue yesterday and we did a fantastic photoshoot of the chicks. The photos are awesome.

Sadly, the blog site here doesn't really let me label the photos very well, so you'll have to just remember this order; Rosie hunting for bugs, Beldar in his "bald eagle" pose, Mrs. Tweedy plotting world domination, Biggie being forced to hold still, Pria pouting, Zippy enjoying the lovely dirt, Little being her neurotic self, and Pot Pie getting a fresh sip of water! Remember- you can click on any photo to zoom in on it.

Thwarted!

2007-04-13T22:26:00.000-07:00

The girls (or whatever they may be) were all out in the sunshine today looking particularly funny and very photogenic. I even had a friend over that could have helped me take some really great portraits. But noooooo... the camera is very thoroughly missing. I have a sneaking suspicion it is sitting in a certain '99 Subaru Outback parked three and a half hours from here in Belgrade, Montana. Arg! No pictures until late next week unless I'm wrong and the camera shows up somewhere in the house, which is totally possible but I did look pretty hard for it.

Anyway, the other news is that I did some research into sexing crested breeds (the Polish). Turns out that the crest develops fuller, fluffier, and rounder in the females when the chicks are still young. Eventually the crest of the mature rooster is far bigger and foofier, but when they are chicks it is the female that gets to look fabulous.

Oops. Given this information, I am almost 100% positive that Beldar is a hen, and Pria is a rooster. I would show you why... but no camera this week. Damn. Is it against the rules to swap their names, or am I now doomed to have a hen with a white afro named "Beldar?"

Girls... all I really want is girls

2007-04-11T08:21:00.000-07:00

The boys (Lucky and Matt) are gone for the week and all the feminine energy around here is fabulous. My fears for Biggie Rockette are still there (why does she always look so perky and alert? And those short tail feathers? Hmmm....) but the rest of the older chicks are still looking hen-ish and also quite fabulous. Both Rockettes are becoming delightfully stripey and sleek, and the Wyandotte sisters are starting to look spotty and elegant all at once.

Mrs. Tweedy has a sort of "wet" looking head right now because of the way her feathers are growing in. It is very awkward and makes her look lizardy or even dinosaurish. Pot Pie is almost 100% adult feathered and she looks amazing. She also coos softly when you pick her up- very endearing.

Last but not least, the polish. I have no idea on their gender, but Matt and I have decided that they look like an unholy union between Albert Einstein and a Bald eagle. But smaller and freakier.

Pictures to come at a later date.

Happy Easter!

2007-04-08T19:59:00.000-07:00

The chicks had another big day out today- even Beldar and Pria got to revel in the 70 degree sunshine. Beldar, Pria and "Little" Rockette can all squeeze through the fencing pretty easily, so we have to keep an eye on the flock and place boards along the base of it to keep Lucky's curious snout out of their safety zone. It was Beldar and Pria's first time out of the house and gosh was it exciting! They scratched in the dirt, ate dirt, ate grass, fluffed their feathers into the dirt... oh boy!
We finally built the chicken ramada to keep the snow off them in winter, rain off them in spring and fall, and blazing summer sun off them in the summer. It is a neat little addition to the chicken run and one that they already really enjoy.

This is a front shot of the whole chicken palace- ramada, covered side patio, and henhouse. I took it from the far plum tree covered corner of the chicken's run. The henhouse is not yet open for business because it still needs a light bulb for heat and light, mesh along the roofline ventilation, and some weather stripping along the doors and flaps. The chicks will probably move in about three weeks from now, which gives Matt and I plenty of time to do these last few adjustments.

Coop-tastic

2007-04-07T19:01:00.000-07:00

We worked on the coop today in the gorgeous high 60's sunshine. We put in the fencing, gate, finished the staining on the henhouse, and generally did a bunch of yardwork. After we were done, we let the girls hang out in their sweet yard. The Polish chicks are still too little to go outside- they seem to be growing slower than the other breeds. Soon, though, they'll be big enough!

The Wyandotte girls (Zippy and Rosie) really liked taking dirt baths in the sunlight. After Zippy made a particularly wonderful dirt bath site, she let her sister Rosie share in the glory of it.

Lucky is totally fascinated by the chicks, and he continues to stare intently at them, and whine profusely, no matter what!

All the ladies of the Radwood Chicken Experience in the coop, so happy together!

GRE Question

2007-04-03T08:03:00.000-07:00

If you have 6 chicks that each have a 1 in 10 chance of being male, and 2 chicks that each have a 1 in 2 chance of being male, what is the chance that one of your chicks is male and the rest are female?

First person to get this right and post it as a comment wins a free signed photo of Pot Pie.

Give the people what they want

2007-03-29T19:25:00.000-07:00

And I quote;

But I want more! More close-ups! More plumage! How about some frolicking?

You want frolicking? Pot Pie will show you frolicking!

She's a crazy chicken that looks the camera in the eye. She thinks that fresh grass on her feet is far, far less exciting than perching like a parrot on a pirate (yes, she hopped up there unexpectedly, all by herself. I was sitting on the grass at the time, taking photos of Mrs. Tweedy).

Other chicks travel in small packs, darting around in the sunlight (left to right Biggie, Zippy, Mrs. Tweedy). Some of them venture out on their own into unknown areas (Biggie Rockette) while others investigate the camera a bit more nervously (Rosie). And then some are good friend and don't like to be alone (Zippy and Tweedy).

Note: The smaller Rockette was feeling shy and didn't want to come out of the cage, while the Polish chicks are too small to venture out into the 60 degree sunshine (they are still babies and need a constant 85 degree tropical paradise).

Bird houses

2007-03-28T18:28:00.000-07:00

The girls are getting bigger and bigger, so we've had to move them to a bigger indoor facility. Biggie the butch Rockette was lobbying for the birdhouse I got for Christmas '05 from my sister-in-law Pam, but then she realized that it was waaaaay too small.

Instead, we've moved them into Lucky's old puppy kennel. Placed on its side and propped on bricks, the kennel is a fantastic chick house for the next few weeks. The chicks romp around rambunctiously in their new big space and can practice flapping and jumping without knocking over their food and water dishes.

Paranoia sets in

2007-03-27T21:01:00.000-07:00

I'm becoming very paranoid that some of the chicks are roosters in disguise. The chance that one of my supposed female (called Pullet) chicks is actually a rooster is 1 in 10, and the chance that one of my polish chicks is a rooster is 1 in 2. This puts the reasonable laws of probability at; one polish rooster, and perhaps one rooster among the other girls.

I'm eyeing Rosie nervously these days. She has developed a little baby comb, which Wyandottes should not have at all. Does this mean she is a rooster? Does it mean she isn't purebred? I don't care if she is a "mutt," but I'll be sad if it turns out Rosie is actually a rooster. I can't eat her. No way.

And might I add- one of the Rockettes is distinctly more "butch" than the other. Biggie, as I call her, is plumper, taller, thicker through the legs and toes, more aggressive at grabbing treats, and a lot more curious. Does this mean she's a rooster? Eeeeek!!

As for the Polish- who knows? They are such weirdos. Pria is more curious, talkative and active while Beldar is a bit bigger, more shy, and maintains a more ridiculous hairdo. Beldar stubbed one of his little toes yesterday and it is all bruised up- so pitiful on a teeny weeny little punk chick.

Only time will tell. One thing we know, though. One of the chicks is gonna look like this;

I now have a chicken-owning compatriot

2007-03-25T09:49:00.000-07:00

A good friend of mine that has been watching the blog, and the actual chicks, with increasing excitement and interest has finally broken down and gotten her own tiny flock! She bought a Rhode Island Red (like Mrs. Tweedy), a Barred Rock (like the Rockettes), a Golden Sex Link (like the chicks we decided not to get for no real reason) and a "Mystery" Bantam that has feathery feet.

A Bantam is a 1/2 size chicken. Her bantam is a pale hay-beige color and has very feathery feet, making it probably a "Buff Cochin." Only time will tell if this is an accurate guess.

My friend and her husband might get two more chicks next week. Exciting!

Interestingly, aside from both owing chickens, we also both have pregnant sisters named Jennifer, both are from New York, and both got married this past summer. Coincidence?

Three out of four walls are complete

2007-03-24T17:42:00.000-07:00

We made some serious headway on the coop today. First, though, we let Pot Pie survey her domain. None of the chicks have been outside yet, so it was a brief and scary adventure for Pot Pie.

The front wall of the coop us 95% done- all that remains is some mesh over the vents under the roofline. But you can see the pop-hole for chicken entering and exiting here- it is slightly ajar in both photos. Sadly, it is looking like we won't have a "ramp" for the chickens. I know, everyone wanted one, but it just wasn't feasible with our design.

In the second henhouse photo, you can clearly see how it will look from our deck, which is of course the most important part! So snazzy.

Last but not least, the final picture is of the egg-door. This is the direct access through the wall to collect daily eggs. It is accessible from the outside of the fencing, so we won't have to get chicken poo on our shoes or anything to collect daily eggs. You can see it faintly in the other photos, but Matt and I are very proud of this innovation so it gets a close-up, too.

Coop progress is made

2007-03-21T18:47:00.000-07:00

I worked on the henhouse this weekend- roofed, put up a wall, and expanded the brick patio to the southwest. In this photo, you can see the new spiffy roof, our "Recycle-chic" siding, and the patio. The wall is done in recycled cedar boards from our old fencing, and the skirting is done in the same re-used corrugated tin as the roofing. I bought the tin from the local recycled building materials place for a very good price. What is funny is that the artistically rusty stuff was TWICE the price of the gently used stuff that I bought. I guess a good rusty patina is hard to find!

In this one, you can see how the henhouse is positioned in relation to our house, the plum tree, and our deck. When I took this I was standing in my garden, where the tomatoes will be (come June).

3... 2... 1... chicken

2007-03-20T08:50:00.000-07:00

After a special request from one of my many visitors, I have taken a special photo just to compare the chicks. From left to right, it is Pot Pie, a Rockette, and Pria. Pria is the smaller of the two crested chicks. It is hard to catch and photograph three chicks at once- it ends of up being chick in right hand, chick in left hand, camera in right pocket, chick in left pocket. The ages of the chicks are 3 weeks and 1 day, 2 weeks and 1 day, and 1 week and 1 day, respectively.

Pria did not like having her picture taken.

They are huge!

2007-03-18T20:39:00.000-07:00

The chicks are getting really, really big. Especially Pot Pie- she is enormous! Unfortunately, Mrs. Tweedy has been suffering from some "intestinal distress" that is affecting her nutrient uptake and thus growth, so she is kinda runty right now. This is a photo of Pot Pie a few days ago- look at how big her wing is!

The Rockettes, Zippy and Rosie are all almost as big as Mrs. Tweedy, and they all have amazing little black and white spotty wings. Beldar and Pria are starting to hold their own, and they too are growing stubby little wings and getting nice and spunky.

I've plum run out of AA batteries for the digital camera- Damn! I worked on the henhouse this weekend and got it completely roofed. It looks awesome.

WE ARE FROM FRANCE

2007-03-15T18:15:00.000-07:00

I found out, via checking Matt's email for him (yes, he wants me to do this while he's away for work), that he got accepted into the Social Work program today. YEAH!! To celebrate his victory and his ethnic heritage, I bought two Polish chickens.

Waaait... what? Polish chickens?

YES! White crested polish chickens. They look like aliens- complete with distinct coneheads. I wanted to just buy one, seriously, but they don't come in sex-separated bins at the feedstore, so I bought two to make fairly sure that at least one is a hen.

I have named them Beldar and Pria (my nickname for Prymaat). If you haven't figured out why yet, then... well, google "Beldar Prymaat" and see what happens.

When they grow up, they will be profoundly ridiculous looking birds. Something to look forward to!

Lucky loves his squeaky little friends

2007-03-13T16:39:00.000-07:00

Everyone wants to know how Lucky is dealing with the chicks, so I thought I'd post some proof that he is utterly fascinated by them. He likes to sniff them when we let him, and he whines when we are looking at them and not including him. If we put the chick bin on the ground, he stares into it and squeaks along with their little peeps and squawks. He is never allowed to be near the bin unsupervised because despite his good intentions, we fear he might try to "play" with them, or possibly snack on them. He is, after all, a dog.

Official portraits of the chicks

2007-03-12T19:32:00.000-07:00

We took the time to do mug shots of all the girls so that our friends would know which one we are talking about, and have a cheat sheet to refer to. Sorry the names don't line up with the photos- click on any name to see a close up of that chick!
Mrs. Tweedy, Rhode Island Red (Rhode Island breed), 17 days old

Pot Pie, Araucana (South American breed, Matt's favorite chick), also 17 days old

Rosie (Silver Laced Wyandotte, Wisconsin breed), 10 days old

Zippy (SLW, WI), 10 days old

The Rockettes (Plymouth Barred Rocks, Massachusetts breed), both 10 days old (note the glamour shot! ooooo!)

Spring is for coop buildin'

2007-03-11T20:57:00.000-07:00

Matt and I took advantage of some ridiculously nice springtime weather this weekend to start the run and henhouse. Just so you are down with the lingo; a run and a henhouse together constitute a chicken coop.

We started by researching the space requirements of chickens and visualizing how this would work in our yard. So you know; our henhouse is the correct size for 8 hens (we have 6) and the run we are building is the right size for about 20 hens. Wow. Hens are not real estate greedy, that is for sure.

Then we started building the fence and gateposts. The ground was a bit frozen in places but Matt is a fence post digging machine. I probably dug two vertical feet worth while he did about twelve feet of digging. Good man! Instead, I worked on digging the space for the brick footing of the henhouse. This was an idea I had to keep the hens clean and dry. Much easier then renting a cement mixer, and we already had all the materials leftover from older projects.

After the posts were set, brick patio built, and a quick visit to our friend's place who has a sweet dado blade on his table saw, we were ready to build us a henhouse. The house is 4W x 4L x 4tall in the front, dropping to 3 tall in the back to shed rain and snow. Matt and I have never built a structure like this, so it was a fun little challenge.

You can see me resting my arm on a recycled roof rafter- virtually all the lumber for this project we already had left over from other renovations or from friends that have gotten rid of stuff. We've spent less than $100 so far, including chicks, food, medicine, lumber, fencing, hardware, books, and tools. The blog, of course, is free.

Once the four walls were framed and joined, the roof was really easy to frame and nail into place. We have a whole roll of roofing paper donated to us from our nice neighbor Dave, so we set the paper on in preparation for the corregated tin that we'll purchase to truly roof it. Lastly, Matt and I built the nest boxes (in photo on the right) and perches (not in the photo) inside the framing with our scraps from the rest of the project. They only need two boxes, hens apparently share very nicely.

We are waiting for a shipment of free plywood from a friend to move forward from here with the sheathing and siding. The chicks have about 5 to 6 more weeks before they can move to the outdoors so there is no rush.

Last two chicks get named

2007-03-09T07:41:00.000-08:00

The other Silver Laced Wyandotte is now named "Zippy," and the big brown Araucana been awarded the funniest name of all, "Pot Pie." She just didn't seem like a Noodle Soup but Pot Pie fit her perfectly.

This makes the chicks- in size order; Mrs. Tweedy, Pot Pie, Zippy, Rosie, and the Rockettes. Mug shots to come soon.

The best name EVER

2007-03-08T19:23:00.000-08:00

Matt just had an epiphany. We are naming the twin Barred Plymouth Rock chicks... drum roll... The Rockettes.

New chicks have arrived

2007-03-08T18:59:00.000-08:00

Matt and I drove over to the feed store this morning to get the best picks of the chicks. We were so excited to see all the little girls- all sorts of colors and sizes were there.

Last night I mentioned I thought we should get two Barred Rocks and two Silver Laced Wyandottes, and just skip the Golden Sex Links. Matt was a little surprised that we would get a total of six, but he agreed the traditional breeds could be more fun.

The chicks are hard to tell apart, but this one we've named Rosie. She is a Silver Laced Wyandotte. Her sister (yet unnamed) looks pretty much identical except Rosie has a little reddish stripe on her head, hence the name.

The other two new chicks are Barred Plymouth Rocks. These two are always moving, except when they are sleeping, and they are very delicate and dainty. I tried to get a good photo of one of the little Rocks but the one I picked completely thwarted me- she managed to poop, scream, fidget and run away all in the course of about thirty seconds. One of the Rocks has a single white blotch on her head, and the other one has two. Other than that, I can't tell them apart yet.

We have named the big bad Rhode Island Red, Chick one, "Mrs. Tweedy." That is the name of the villianous woman in the movie Chicken Run. In the movie, Mrs. Tweedy is trying to make all her chickens into chicken pies so that she can become wealthy. I think it is funny and ironic to name an actual chicken that name. Mrs. Tweedy the chicken is about three times the size of the little Rock girls, but they are miraculously getting along really well.

Tomorrow's chick selection

2007-03-07T17:07:00.000-08:00

Thursday morning Matt and I will be picking up three (possibly four) new chicks from the feed store! Yeah!

At least one will be a Barred Plymouth Rock , but there will also be Silver Laced Wyandottes available, and they are amazing looking hens. Isn't this one beautiful? Like living art!

Also available will be Golden Sex Links, a special crossbred chicken that has one color chick for males, and another for females. Very handy if you only want one gender chick! This drawing is from a hatchery website- I'm not sure how I feel about this breed.

We might opt for two Barred Rocks or two Wyandottes instead, Matt and I will have to talk about it. I think I like the idea of getting traditional breeds, rather than new hybrids. We'll see!

Chicks fart

2007-03-06T22:22:00.000-08:00

Audibly.

That is all.

They grow so fast!

2007-03-05T18:03:00.000-08:00

I am amazed by the growth rate of these chicks. They sprouted little wings overnight, and I'm not exaggerating- they really did.

The chicks are very bonded to each other and I have to say, the way they sleep together is totally adorable. They like to squish themselves in between some towel and the waterer or feeder. I tried to get them while they were both sleeping but the sound of the camera inevitably wakes at least one chick up, everytime.

Like most babies, the chicks are completely lulled to sleep by the sound of the dryer. They, and the dryer, both live in the bathroom and it is really funny to watch them fall asleep standing up when I turn it on. "Dryer makes me sooooo... sleepy...."

I added a FAQ for my visitors

2007-03-04T13:35:00.000-08:00

I've added a Frequently Asked Questions section at the bottom of the blog. If you have a question, you can add it to this post as a "comment" and if it has broad appeal, I'll add it to the FAQ.

By the way, chick two's eye suffered no lasting effects from chick one's assault. In contrast, chick one seems to have had some residual bad karma that expressed itself as chick diarrhea for much of the day Saturday. Eeeeeewww... I've been struggling to keep her fluffy little butt and the bin very clean and this morning she seems to be getting over it. Probably just stress.

Both chicks have abruptly starting growing little wing feathers- they are stubby and awkward and the chicks are incessantly preening at the feather's bases. It looks like an itchy process. Perhaps tomorrow I will post a photo of their budding wings.

Chick one was a naughty girl

2007-03-03T14:01:00.000-08:00

Chick one decided to get mean last night. I was in the shower (the chick-bin is now in the bathroom to keep it above dog snout height as a pre-emptive safety measure) and I heard this high pitched peeping. The kind of peeping that even a new "mother hen" can recognize as panicky. So I finished up very quickly and hopped out of the shower to stare in the bin. Lucky was staring at the side of the bin with his head cocked sideways. All appeared happy in the bin until- WHAM- chick one (the redhead) pecked chick two right in the eye! AAAAhhh!!

What was she thinking! Chick two ran off screeching. I was horrified. How do you discipline a one ounce baby bird? I told her she was being bad. I watched for a while longer. Was peace restored? Then chick one crept up to chick two and WHAM again she pecked her in the eye and chick two ran off screaming. Horrible! Pecking order doesn't mean in the eye!

So I lifted chick two out of the bin. She immediately relaxed into my hand and closed her wounded little right eye. There was no damage visible, but it had to hurt. Chick two is almost half the size of chick one, so it wasn't a fair fight. Chick one started screaming because she does that when you separate the two chicks. I was in a quandry- put them back together and risk permanent eye damage, or separate them and listen to chick one scream?

Separate them.

I got a small cardboard box, put a hand towel, water bowl, and food dish in it all while carrying a much relieved chick two in my breast pocket. I think she was sleeping (playing dead). Then, I placed chick one in the naughty chick quarters and put chick two in the regular bin. Both were safe, warm, and well provisioned.

Chick one would have none of this. She hates being away from chick two, so she started peeping so loudly I considered ear plugs. This ungodly peeping went on for a few minutes. Then, she starting to plot. She paced her little box, not screaming so much as whining, while chick two calmly ate pellets and drank water in peace. Chick one eyed me. She eyed the rim of the box. Then, to my utter dismay, she launched her tiny fluffy self eight vertical inches to the rim of the box, and perched wobbly while fluttering her pre-wing stubby arms. Then, she plunged another eight inches back down into the bin.

Then she pretended like nothing was wrong. She happily nibbled pellets along side chick two, drank water along side chick two, and they scampered around like they always do. It was too good to be true- but I had no other ideas, so I let them be.

About an hour later they were snuggled together asleep, safe and sound. It is hard to imagine that in about two months from now, chick one will look like this;

The chicks have settled in nicely

2007-03-02T07:24:00.000-08:00

Chicks one and two have settled in since last night. They are no longer peeping incessantly (peeping is a sign of distress) and they've carved out little spots to sleep on their towel.

Last night I discovered that chicks do sleep through the night, which is great. Their brooder is in the living room so that I can keep an eye on them. It would have been a long night of peeping and chick-wrestling if they had been up all night, but at around 11pm they started to look drowsy and then they settled in for the night.

Chick two has a very uniquely striped and speckled outfit she parades around in. When she grows up she'll have exuberant sideburns, which should be adorable. This is her drinking water while chick one eyes me warily. "You aren't gonna mess with my little sister, are you?" They like to play chase around the food dish and they snuggle together to sleep. Very sweet. I need to get them some chick toys to play with. Hmmm...

The first two chicks are here

2007-03-01T20:18:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I went to the feed store here in town and they kindly informed me that their chick delivery was going be to two days late, and thus I had another day of waiting ahead of me. Two days! Good god- those poor little chicks in their tiny cardboard shipping carton! And I'll never survive the wait!

So I dutifully set up my brooder (warm and safe chick living quarters) last night and tried not to loose sleep over my impending mother-hen-hood. After I got done with work today, I went to the feed store. OH MY.

There were about 200 little chicks, of four different breeds, running around in heater water troughs in the store. It was pandemonium of the chick kind. I spent a long time looking at the two breeds that were to my liking, and then I kidnapped one of each type. I tried to pick spunky, healthy little chicks but honestly- it was chaos.

Chick One; a Rhode Island Red. One of the oldest American chicken breeds- known for good egg laying, nice temperment, and the ability to withstand very cold weather. This chick is outrageously spunky. She can jump over six inches in the air already and peeps in a disgruntled fashion when you take her awkward little stripey 'sister' away. She likes to stand on my fingers like a little perch and isn't afraid to walk up into my hand for a nibble of chick pellets.

Chick Two; an Araucana. A relatively new chicken breed that originates in South America. They typically lay pale blue or pale green eggs- pretty nifty. This chick is shyer, and smaller. She likes to fall asleep in awkward positions that make me think she is dead. She is super cute with little chipmunk stripes.

They have settled into their brooder and aren't being nearly as loud as they were in the car or for the first hour or two. Both are drinking, eating, and pooping constantly. I have read that the life of a baby chicken is happiest when they can do those three things frequently and without interruption. Excellent.

Selecting appropriate chickens

2007-02-06T20:29:00.000-08:00

I've been carefully researching the breeds of chickens available in this area, and what is best for the rugged Montana winter. I am so excited with the breeds I have found- lots of neat plumage patterns. My favorite chicken breed that is inexpensive and very appropriate for a small, backyard flock is the Barred Plymouth Rock, as seen in this lovely painting I found at the Murray McMurray Hatchery mail order chicken website.

Of course, when I buy the chicks from the feed store, they won't look like that. They will look like this:

Ooooh they are so cute! I think I might post another couple breeds that I like in the future.

A quick test of blogging abilities

2007-02-06T19:26:00.000-08:00

In order to test my photo posting capabilities, I will inaugarate the blog with a cute photo that is not of a chicken. However, you may notice that it is, indeed, a photo with a bird in it.

I am starting a goofy chicken blog

2007-02-06T19:06:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about getting chickens for about two months now. OK, maybe three months. After telling a whole bunch of people this, I've been amazed that the response from virtually everyone has been, "That is so cool! I wanna see them!"

Admittedly, I did get confused silence from one friend, followed by a very serious declaration that, "Chickens smell really bad."

Matt is getting excited as well, and I'm happy about that. I think it is mildly crazy that I've started a blog, but it might be fun for everyone to watch the chickens grow up and romp around the backyard.

I want to encourage my friends everywhere to comment, ask questions, and generally visit as they see fit. I hope it will keep your momentary lapses of concentration at work that much more entertaining.

-Leigh