Barnyard meanderings

The chickens gobble up slightly imperfect tomatoes, corn cobs with shreds of corn, and the rinds of cantaloupes and watermelons. They bolt into the compost area when they see me coming to the fence carrying the compost bucket.

If you're going to have chickens, it's worthwhile to have a few tomato plants because the chickens love tomatoes. They provide a recycling repository for the slightly imperfect tomatoes. I love f being part of a cycle where my waste is recycled a few steps away from where it was grown. They make weeding fun because weeds are like salad to them.

While the birds relish weeds, they rejected a bag of stale Trader Joe's whole grain hemp corn chips. Shocking. Maybe they needed some salsa.

Bob observed the two marans picking on Charlie Brown, the lowly bird at the bottom of the pecking order. Not much we can do, but let nature take its course.

When I brought a load of compost this morning, I tossed some goodies towards Charlie Brown, but her self-esteem is so low, she didn't think she was worthy of pecking away at an ear of corn.

Denali says to keep the birds busy so they don't pick on each other. I'm still learning what chores to give them. Maybe if they had more to do they'd leave Charlie Brown alone.

Silly little amusing chicken antics

We have composted for a long time. It has always been a chore.

Suddenly, with eager hens with access to the compost, I look forward to taking out the compost.

They dive right into it, especially watermelon rinds, leftover peach pulp and even weeds. They see me coming with the bucket and come over in earnest.

I didn't realize that I would enjoy watching bird behavior or get attached to them. I'm in this for eggs. I'm not a great animal lover. However, these birds are winning me over.

We have collected four eggs now, so a whole new attitude has hatched. Literally.

However, there are other perks to compensate for the regular care. Just watching them is relaxing and amusing. Red Star -- the odd ball -- has a lonely life as the outsider. Red Star is older, bigger and more experienced.

She has become a little aggressive, but she also teaches the younger six birds a thing or two. They had no idea what to do with the compost until Red Star came along. And she knows how and where to lay eggs -- which is more than I can say for the rest of the flock. They harass her -- maybe out of jealousy.

According to the web, Red Star chickens produce the most number of eggs for the least feed, and in "this economy," that's important. She produces, that's all I care about.

Then there's Houdini. She likes high places and was fond of escaping until I put netting over the pen. Today she perched on the fence between the chicken yard and the compost. It gives her a sense of accomplishment, I think.

I went to my friend Denali's Chalet Poulet -- it's really the Taj Ma Chicken. It's HUGE, about twice as big as my coop. She spent a small fortune on it and built it sturdier and neater than ours. Ours is "just a chicken coop.

The best part of her setup is that the birds can be viewed from her deck, with a glass of iced tea, with your feet up, a restful and entertaining treat. Nature is like a dose of Valium. Daydreaming about butchering counteracts that.

Denali wants to raise birds for meat so she's game to learn to slaughter them. I'm willing. Being self-sufficient is appealing and part of the back-to-nature movement that I've been swept up in. There are instructional videos online on how to slaughter. Someone else is doing it for me at the slaughterhouse and CAFOs -- commercial animal feeding operations. They don't even have the courtesy to consider themselves a "farm." On a farm, people look at the animals, appreciate them and name them -- even though they will be sacrificed for food.

Hurray for sacrifice.

Two eggs, sunny side up

My chicken adventure started in January with an idea, followed by months of thinking, planning and talking.

Next came the building phase. After the mental phase of talking myself in and out of keeping chickens, the building phase was the toughest. We built a shed with doors and pseudo-windows. It took time and money.

Then the coop was vacant for a few months until my hen friend Lori gave me some pullets -- birds a few months old -- that were not laying yet. They settled in, but I don't expect any eggs from them until October or November.

Then Lori dropped off Big Red -- a solitary hen a few months older than the rest of the gang -- in exchange for a rooster. My other six birds have been together since birth and bonded. Big Red is often on the outside of their clique. She's a bit of a bully. Big Red has been lonely and isolated.

Allegedly, Big Red is a "layer." Three weeks have passed and I was beginning to wonder if Big Red was transgendered or mistaken as a rooster. Hens are very susceptible to stress. It was taking her a while to find her place in the pecking order.

I placed golf balls in the laying nests as a hint. I checked the nests every few days for eggs. My hen friend Denali reported, "I got my first eggs!" I was green with envy. All I wanted was a few eggs for months of effort.

Last night, I grudgingly checked the nests again, with low expectations. It was a chore. Nest one had a golf ball and some chicken shit in it. Nest two, the same. Nest three, WAIT! Amid a little chicken shit were TWO BROWN EGGS!

I gathered them up, took them into the kitchen and called an emergency family meeting in the kitchen before dinner.

"Did either of you lay these two eggs?" I held them up victoriously to my husband and daughter Kristen. "Did either of you place these in the hen house to make my day?"

We whooped with celebration. Bob put on the frying pan and we ate them immediately.

Those two eggs were ALMOST worth the six-month wait! They were delicious. Today I gave the birds fresh water with a little more joy, a bit less resentment, and a great deal more anticipation and appreciation.

I love getting eggs from nests in my backyard!

The chickens have come before the egg

We've been on the chicken adventure for a few weeks now.

Many of my chicken illiterate friends (a group I have left!) have asked during the barnyard tour, "Do you have any eggs yet?"

"No," is the answer because our birds are pullets (one must learn chicken lingo). Pullets are only 4 months old and won't start laying until they're 6 months old. So that is a disappointment.

However, I might be getting a few eggs a week from a chicken trade. Chicken keepers are like soccer moms -- we share information and children and rides. It's good to know each other.

"I would like the dark rooster back for breeding," said Lori, the chicken mama who sold me my 7 original birds, including three roosters, to be butchered when they're mature at 6 months.

I can't remember what breed my chickens are, and don't really care, I agreed to the trade. Hens are imminently more valuable than roosters, who are loud and pretty much useless except to occasionally breed, for amusement (they like to dominate!) and to butcher and eat. Yes I intend to learn to butcher chickens. I already know how to eat them.

Lori violated chicken etiquette. She dropped off the hen into the yard while we weren't home, a major faux pas. New birds, particularly older birds, should be sneaked into the hen house at night, when allegedly, none of the other birds will notice.

Big Red, as we have named her, has been ostracized. She spent the first night roosting in Bob's lumber house because she was afraid to go into the hen house. By the time I got out after dark to check on them and shut the door, I couldn't find her. Bob found her in the morning. The next night, she joined the flock inside, but still separate.

I feel a little sorry for her. Having been a dash of salt in a bowl of pepper during high school, I feel compassionate for lonely creatures, who are excluded for whatever reason.

Big Red has not laid a single egg in her debut week. I need to put some golf balls in the egg-laying nests to give her the hint. Hopefully she will settle in and produce. Chickens are very susceptible to stress.

Maybe I'll play her some nice elevator music to relax. I just want a few fresh eggs for the several hundred dollar investment, to date! In this case, the chickens come before the egg. Gimme a few eggs!

It's shocking how many chicken allusions are in the English language, even though we don't raise chickens any more. I'm curious -- give me a few in the comment section.

The chickens have arrived - finally!

My chicken odyssey finally reached a climax: I GOT 8 CHICKENS on Sunday! My friend Lora had ordered 15 chickens and been delivered 30. She gave me eight that she didn't want that are three months old. The four hens will lay eggs in three months.

After talking, reading and researching, and chickening out more than once about getting chickens, I finally decided against getting chicks because of the work involved and fear that some would die on my watch because of negligence.

Some have already died. The night before I picked up the chickens, a fisher cat attacked the cage they were staying in and killed about eight. It was a bloodbath. The chickens stuck their neck outside of the wire cage and the fisher cat chomped it off for sport, according to my friend Ruth, on whose farm the chicks were living.

So I didn't get as many chicks as I anticipated. I'm going to get some more. One of my eight died unexpectedly, inexplicably. I'm not sure of the breeds of my birds, and don't really care. I can tell the roosters. They are amusing, assertive and aggressive. I guess the Y chromosome influences behavior in the animal kingdom. "And the hens love it," someone said.

Our dog Gonzo has taken quite an interest in the birds. She wants to sniff and nip them. That's her watching me with interest on the first day we adopted them .I made it clear to her that they belong to me and she is banished from the chicken coop and yard.

So much has happened since I got fed up waiting and took a hiatus from blogging. We had to build the coop and get permission from the town and decide when and how to get what kind of chickens.

In January when I embarked on this chicken adventure, I didn't expect it to take until July to get them. The un-named guy in Groton said, "Chickens are easier than children and dogs." He was right. They are very low maintenance. The hardest part about the whole advent was building the coop.

I'll catch you up on the coop details later. Gotta go feed the birds now.

Organic lawns are easier than you think

All drinking water in the USA contains traces of pesticides and herbicides – that we spread on our lawns regularly. Such poisons have been directly linked to ADD and ADHD.

These chemicals kill bugs by toying with their nervous systems. They’re endocrine disruptors – which means they interfere with the sexuality, nervous systems and mental abilities of living things – including us. These legal and liberally applied chemicals are lynching us.

Joann Bisetta of the Concord, MA Water Dept. and Frank Koll, owner of GreenScapes Lawn, an organic lawn service in Arlington, MA, know how to battle dandelions, grubs, acidic soil, and crabgrass using compost tea, corn gluten, hummus, a Weed Hound -Hound Dog dandelion picker, oatmeal, [yes oatmeal!] and milky spore.

When you stop using Scotts or Chem Lawn, anticipate that your lawn will get worse before it gets better because it is addicted to the drug, according to Frank.

It will require several years of natural lawn care to establish deep roots and healthier soil to support grass and some weeds. Once it’s in recovery, your lawn will become healthier and more rugged because it will be thicker and deeper roots.

“Ironically, after a few years of natural lawn care, customers don’t need me,” Frank said of his organic lawn treatments. The grass grows so strong and healthy, it doesn’t need chemical treatements. You will save money in the long run too. Even though organic fertilizer is somewhat more expensive initially, you can make your own compost tea. [http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/deputate/airwaste/wm/recycle/Tea/tea1.htm]

Joann and Frank recommended a 5-step process:

1. Start with a standard soil test with organic matter -- $13, from UMass Extension, soil testing lab -- 413-545-2311, www.umass.edu/plsoils/soiltest.

2. Create an environment for healthy soil to crowd out the weeds. Use compost tea – made with compost in water – to fertilized a few times a month or season.

3. Grow the right kind of grass- Fescue is recommended in Mass. It’s more native than Kentucky Bluegrass. Don’t attempt to grow grass in the shade. It won’t happen! Come up with other garden plants for shady areas.

4. Grow grass at the right TIME. Feed and seed your lawn when forsythias come out in spring. Rake the dirt spots and sprinkle Fescue seeds in spring. Don’t expect an overnight transformation. In fall, fertilize generously with hummus and compost tea and put more seeds down.

5. Sharpen your lawn mower blade every 10 times and leave the grass 3 inches high to crowd out the weeds.

Changing our lawn care practice is part of the overall scheme of changing our paradigm about how we use energy and treat the earth. Organic lawn care can grow a healthier and safer lawn than when chemicals are used.

West Chester County, NY and some parts of Canada have outlawed chemical lawn fertilizers. The trend among golf courses is to go organic.

Make sure the “organic” brands of lawn care at garden stores really are organic and don’t have nitrates or urea. We need to get our state legislature to pass similar laws to ban those chemicals. Educate yourself and your neighbors on the benefits of organic lawn care.

The Egg and I

Looking back with nostalgia to when time were simpler -- is usually with selective memory or false information. There have been multiple return-to-nature eras, glorifying farm life. Read "The Egg and I" by Betty MacDonald, and she will annihilate your nostalgia.

Her hilarious best-selling memoir was first published in 1945. She also wrote four Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle early readers for children, which are delightful. In 1945, America stood on the brink of crossroads of departing from slow-motion farm life sustainably anchored in the four seasons, to shooting fast-forward like a rocket towards electronic consumerism, founded on greed and economic growth -- that is impossible to sustain.

Betty makes light of farm life -- without electricity, central heat or running water. "I estimated that I carried a minimum of 16 buckets of water a day--16 ten-quart buckets or 160 quarts a day for about 360 days. Is it surprising that my hands were almost dragging on the ground and my shoulders sagged at the sight of anything wet? That I was tortured by mirages of gushing faucets and flushing toilets?"

Her distaste for the hardships of a rustic farm in Washington State extends to the chickens she and her husband raised. One chapter is titled, "I learn to hate even baby chickens.

"I learned to my sorrow that baby chickens are stupid; they smell; they have to be fed, watered and looked at, at least every three hours. Their sole idea in life is to jam themselves under the brooder and get killed; stuff their little boneheads so far into their drinking fountains they drown; drink cold water and die; get W.W.D.; coccidiosis or some other disease which means sudden death. The horrid little things pick out each other's eyes and peck each other's feet until they are bloody stumps."

Betty found gathering eggs, a task usually relegated to children on a farm, challenging. "Gathering eggs would be like one continual Easter morning if the hens would just be obliging and get off the nests. Cooperation, however, is not a chickenly characteristic."

Luckily, most hens in the new millennium have had "broodiness" bred out of them. They don't realize their eggs are their offspring.
Roosters are still the same. The rooster pictured above is doing what he does best: dominating and intimidating.

"The rooster, now, is something else again. He doesn't give a damn if you take every egg in the place and play handball. He doesn't care if the chicken house is knee-deep in weasels and blood. He just flicks a speck from his lapel and continues to stroll around, stepping daintily over the lifeless but still warm body of a former mistress, his lustful eye appraising the leg and breast of another conquest."

Betty immersed me in her life with hilarious and heart-rendering descriptions of a hard life, dependent on nature. I kinda like modern amenities.

My chickens -- if they every arrive -- will be a hobby. My livelihood and next meal don't depend on them right now. Someday we'll finish building the chicken coop and yard for them.

Honey bees prefer a low-stress lifestyle

The humble honey bee is in trouble. The mysterious Colony Collapse Disorder is wiping out bees by the droves.

Beginning in October 2006, some beekeepers began reporting losses of 30-90 percent of their hives. Einstein predicted humans would starve within four years without bees. An estimated 80 percent of our food depends on pollination by bees.

(The fantastic bee photo comes from Autan in Japan.) We're copious consumers of fruit in our home, so we're indebted to bees for their magnificent pollination skills.

Nature writer Rowan Jacobson documents the bee predicament in "Fruitless Fall: the Collapse of the Honey Bee and the Coming Agricultural Crisis." Researchers cannot pinpoint ONE cause of the colony collapse disorder. So I like Rowan's analogy of the quandary of the beleaguered honey bees (page 138-139). It sums it up marvelously.

"You stagger off a coast-to-coast red-eye flight and chug a Pepsi for breakfast to revive. You hop in your rental car and head for your business meeting, but wouldn't you know it, the GPS is malfunctioning in the car and you get lost. You show up for the meeting late, edgy and shaking.

"You have to excuse yourself to hit the bathroom because you've got a stomach but and the antibiotics just aren't helping. Not to mention the fleas that seem to be leaping from the carpet into your socks. Halfway through the meeting a pest-control guy steps in and sprays the room with a white fog that makes you retch.

"You are useless throughout the meeting and don't make the sale you'd hoped to make. But you can't dwell on that because you have to head directly to another meeting. In fact, you have meetings all day, until late at night, and then you have to hop another red-eye home. No time to sit down and eat, so you wolf down a box of doughnuts as you drive.

"You're in bad shape. Not only are you constantly irritable because of the impossible schedule, but lack of sleep, a sugary diet, and chemical contamination are taxing your immune system.

"You'll probably get more illnesses, and your work performance will continue to suffer. When you finally make it home to your mate, you won't be terribly interested in romance, because you've got too much on your mind--such as the fact that your kids seem to have some sort of learning disabilities."

Most commercial bees are trucked around the country to work various harvests, including the "Almond Orgy" (credit to Rowan) in California, where 82 percent of the world's almonds are harvested -- super-intensive-mass-harvesting at its best -- or worst.

Almond growers contract to bring in 1.5 million full-strength hives to pollinate the crop. Beekeepers like the fast and seemingly easy cash. However, the dark cloud is the "brothel effect" (credit to Rowan): the bees can catch all kinds of communicable diseases.

The colony collapse disorder is another "canary in the flock of canaries in the coal mine" that we humans are ignoring while our ecosystem systemically weakens and sickens. Because pesticides are a contributing factor to the Colony Collapse Disorder, it has influenced me to start buying more organic produce.

My son Ian, the organic farmer said, my friends Brittany and Mark decided they could afford to buy organic produce if they gave up cable, about $60 a month. Me, too. Except I don't have cable. I can give up something else, for Lent, forever.

The last frog on earth?

"Did you see the special on PBS last night about frogs?" asked Mike, a painting contractor, when he saw a book on my kitchen counter about global warming.
"They're dying of a fungus that inhibits them from breathing through their skin. About 5 percent are immune, so workers incubate frog eggs of the resilient ones and hope they'll survive and reproduce," Mike said.
Of course, no one knows why. They do know that frogs are ONE of our "canaries in the coal mine." Are humans next?
"What do we have to do to start thinking and acting differently?" I asked Mike.
"Critical mass," he said.
"What have you done to green up your painting business?"
"I wish the paint manufacturers would take back the cans. No one will take them. They end up in landfills," Mike said.
"Why don't you initiate a movement to change that?"
"In my free time?" Mike said rhetorically.
All of those small steps add up to a healthier environment, but no one is willing to take a few extra minutes to initiate a movement to change our systems.
"Mike, do you have children?"
"Yes, two babies."
"Some people say they'll change for the sake of their children. Every other organism on Earth survives by leaving a clean environment for their DNA to reproduce."
"Not geese!" my husband interjected.
"They leave THEIR environment clean," I said.
"What can you do in your realm, Mike, so fairy tales isn't the only way your kids know about frogs?"
It gave him pause for thought -- which is the antecedent to changing behavior and critical mass.

Flip-Flopper

Call me a flip-flopper. It's true. I'm having a hard time deciding what kind of chickens to get and when.

When I first embarked on this chicken adventURE, I thought I'd be part of a herd. Groton Local would make some key decisions and I'd comply: Pick up XX chickens of XX breed on XX date.

No such luck. Groton Local made their order without me. So I formed my own Hen Talk group and we've been researching, visiting chicken raising operations, reading, talking, and asking questions.

I FINALLY decided to buy 14-16 week pullets that would be ready to lay in a month or so. It would give me immediate gratification in the form of eggs -- my purpose in this adventure, and eliminate the nursery stage of caring for cute little chicks.

However, I called the Townsend chicken farm so I wouldn't have to get them mail-order from the Midwest, and found out they administer the chicks antibiotics.

Michael Pollan, a modern-day Cronus or Saturn [Greek and Roman Gods] of agriculture, reports that 70 percent of all antibiotics used in America are on CAFOS - Commercial Animal Feeding Operations. They don't qualify as farms -- they are factories. Without the antibiotics, the animals would not survive in such close quarters, and grow more slowly.

Put that piece of the puzzle together with MRSA, an antibiotic-resistant strain of Staphylococcus bacteria [Strep Throat] that infects 100,000 Americans a year and killed 19,000 in 2005. More people are dying of MRSA than AIDS.

Recent studies point to CAFOS as MRSA breeding grounds. MRSA also thrives in hospitals. For the full story, click on Michael Pollan link for his 2007 article in the NY Times Magazine.

Either way, I'm going organic, even if it means losing a few chicks to death and disease. One of the most common ways of sharing disease among chickens is if I visit other chicken keepers and track home their ailments on my shoes.

I'm going with a heritage or endangered breed, too, because of a Yahoo Group on Organic Chickens. After stern admonitions in the welcome-to-the-list-serve-rules, such as "Don't ask stupid questions," such as "What breed should I get?"

They say, "We will make one recommendation: choose a heritage breed" and help save a breed. OK, I've flip-flopped to a new plan. There are no rules!