In addition to everything else...chickens are afraid of the dark

Well things have been going along pretty smoothly.  The chickens are loving their new house and the ability to play outdoors all day.  The Spring weather has brought out tons of weeds...chickweed, dandelions, and clover.  Every time I feed them something that is a nuisanace in the yard and turn it into savings on the chicken feed bill I am truly thrilled.  I am thinking of introducing them to mugwort, a weed of incredible durability.  I have spent the last 2 days at the farm pulling it out of the blueberry and asparagus fields until my fingers are sore, so if I can get them to happily do that project that would be a true blessing to the farm.

Yesterday there was an event at the Bethpage Restoration and the farm was asked, in the spirit of greenness, to compost all the food waste.  So at 4 in the afternoon I found myself picking through buckets of leftovers bagels, wraps, and pb and j sandwiches looking for things a chicken might want to eat.  I settled on apples, some half eaten cores and others whole but flawed and unwanted, red pepper rounds (platter decoration I presume), coarse leafy greens (also decorative) and some red leaf lettuce.  I also dug up three bunches of clover growing outside the farm trailer.  Dan, the farmer, also gave me some aging cabbage from the storage cooler.  I went home and threw a bit of each into the chick yard and waited.

The clover they loved.  It turned immediately into a mob scene.  I have learned to spread food out so that they don't step all over each other (and the food) trying to get at the good stuff.  But I forgot.  Sometimes I am a slow learner too.  The red leaf lettuce they also went for...I think tender is their highest criteria.  The apple core and the pepper were totally ignored.  This morning I went out and picked some more peppers and apples out of the bin and brought them into the kitchen and diced them up...saute size...to see if that would make them more interesting...somewhat, but not really.  So I picked a few more, went back to the kitchen and pulled out the cuisinart and finely chopped each food separately....a mash of peppers, a mash of apples and a mash of cabbage.  I then sprinkled them all around the play yard....and SUCCESS...they loved it all.  So now my care of the chicks includes using and then washing up the cuisinart...ugh.  A friend referred the other day to looking forward to eating the eggs of my "Pampered Poultry".  I thought that was cute.  Now life is immitating art.  They are truly pampered.  If you find me writing about cooking for them next week someone please come over here and smack some sense into me.  There has to be a line somewhere.  But I am happy they are eating more vegetables and food scraps and less purchased feed grains...they have to develop these tastes to be really useful at the farm.

Back to the scared chicken story....

So as the weather got warmer I started to turn the lights off in the coop during the day.  At night I would plug it back in.  About three days ago I decided that the nights were now warm enough to dispense with the lights at night as well.  For several days before that the chicks were all dutifully going into the coop at sunset so that when I came out just after 8:00 pm I would close the chick door, count heads (several times to be sure), and say goodnight to the girls.  But when I went out on Sunday night there were 6 or 7 birds at the top of the ramp.  Curious, I peeked inside and saw that the other 25 chicks had all bedded down in a heap just inside the coop door, effectively blocking the others from getting in.  Perhaps they had never gotten very far in, or perhaps as it got darker they kept edging closer to the waning natural light coming in through the door, but by the time I arrived they were all huddled together in the faint remnants of the daylight and the chicks at the door , who I would normally think would not hesitate to step on the heads of their fellow chicks if something they wanted were just beyond, were effectively stopped in their tracks.  So I went to the garage, plugged in the light, and in the 5 seconds it took me to return everyone was calmly marching into the coop and finding a comfy place to roost.  I of course was laughing hysterically once I understood what was going on and ran inside to share my amusement with Steve.

The next night I tried leaving the light off once again.  This time at 8pm I found about 20 birds filling the ramp to capacity.  Faced with the prospects of dark inside or dark outside the birds seemed paralyzed by indecision and were left huddling en masse on the ramp.  Again I went and plugged in the light and everyone dutifully marched inside.  So my thought is to buy a night light and see if that is enough light to get them to voluntarily go inside.  Yesterday I was busy and forgot to buy it so I simply turned on the light in the evening.  But next week the coop and chicks are moving to the farm where there is no electricity in the fields.  I am going out now to buy a night light...I hope I can find one that uses batteries...just in case.

Pile up at the coop ramp

These chicks just never fail to surprise me...so much fun!

The Passover Seder and the Chickens

We were invited to Robin and Roger's for a Passover Seder on Monday night.  I volunteered to bring the salad and a vegetable soup with matzoh balls.  I got up early and made the soup and then went off to Restoration Farm to spend the day weeding the peas.

The support posts are in but before the netting goes up it is much easier to hand weed.  My afternoon was relaxing, talking with Dan and Trish about the recent Small Farm Summit held at SUNY Westbury last Friday.  The event was like a mini version of the NOFA (Northeast Organic Farming Assoc) meeting I attended this summer in Saratoga Springs.  There were terrific sessions to attend on many aspects of land use and availability, farming methods, food education and outreach, food processing.  The keynote speaker was Joel Salatin, as near to a rock star in the world of organic farming as it gets, and he gave a keynote address on (mis)perceptions about farming that make it harder to have farms in densely populated counties like ours.  He is a very entertaining speaker and he was speaking to the faithful so ...it was great.  He also gave a workshop in the afternoon on pastured poultry which both Trish and I (and Dennis and Steve, two more of the farms committed volunteers) attended.  Trish is using Salatin's model of pasturing poultry to raise her broilers (meat birds) at Restoration Farm starting in May.  Besides the usual talk about chickens we also discussed a workshop all of us had attended on raising nutrient dense crops.  The essence of the talk was that most plants only live out a small fraction of their DNA potential because of limiting factors in the soil.  Paying greater attention to creating a healthy immune system in your plants =greater insect and disease resistance.  The more balanced the fungal environement in the soil the more plants can communicate their nutrient needs and then receive the macro and especially micro nutrients they require. The result is longer life and increased health of your plants and also increases the yields and the nutritional value of your crops.  It was a talk heavy on science and technique but the basics were clearly valuable and we are all interested in taking first steps in this direction and improving the immune systems of our plants and the nutritional quality of our produce.  It was a nice way to pass the time weeding.  Anyone interested in learning more about this should check out  Dan Kittredge and realfoodcampaign.org.  He is also at work trying to develop tools that consumers can use in a shopping environment to test/compare the nutrient content of food choices on the shelf...an aim and shoot device with a readout...really interesting and great if he can do it.

Back to the chicks...and Passover.

So I went home, made the salad, showered and dressed up, put on my heels, and then thought about the fact that the seder was at 5:30.  I either had to go and come back at sundown to close the coop door after all the chicks had naturally gone inside , or if I didn't want to have to run out halfway through dinner I had to get all the chicks inside at this unnaturally early hour.  So I took off my heels,  slid my farm overalls, a ratty old ski jacket and my rubber boots on over my nice clothes and went out to the coop.  I remembered from my early days helping Jen with her chickens that she suggested using oats, a chicken favorite, to make friends with her rooster who had been bothered by my presence and shown it by pecking at my legs and generally terrorizing me when I stepped into his territory.  Well it had worked.  With oats he was literally eating out of my hand and I was able to go about my business in his yard.

I grabbed a bag of rolled oats and went out to the coop.  I started by sprinkling a few in the yard and interest was heavy.  So I decided to sprinkly them on the ramp hoping that once on the ramp I could encourage them up into the coop.  At this point about 15 of the 32 chicks were outside.  When I sprinkled them on the ramp everyone came running.  Unfortunately this meant everyone inside as well.  More chicks came out than went in.  However, I was undaunted.  I then went inside the coop and started rattling the bag loudly and sprinkling the oats all over the bedding.  This worked somewhat better.  Lots of birds headed in.  When I ran out of oats I went outside to count birds.  Better...only 4 still outside.  Now it was already after 5:30 but I was so close, so it was time to get down on my belly and start crawling under the coop (in the poop).  Two of the birds were easily coaxed out and shooed up the ramp where I quickly opened the door and let them in.  The hardest part of that was the quick shimmy backwards out from under the coop to get to the door before the chicks changed their minds and no longer saw the ramp as the preferred method of escaping from me.  I had visions of chicken poop smearing in my hair...the clearance under the coop is only about 15 inches.  The last two had to be chased down individually and captured and the backward shimmy repeated with a squawking bird in two hands....I wish there had been a video camera....again.

With everyone safely in ...and counted ...three times because they keep moving and I often get the wrong number...I went to change...again.  The phone was ringing...where was I?  is everything ok?  even my husband Steve, who NEVER gets anywhere before me, was calling to ask where I was.  Yes, yes, I am just leaving now...getting the soup and salad and wine into the car...running back and forth now in the high heels to the car that is no longer parked in the garage...I was an hour late.  My clothes were nice, my hair a mess but not poopy, and I think my friends are getting tired of my chicken stories...they just prefer to sit down and eat chicken...but I am still loving it.  A happy Pesach to all.

Cleaning Up The Dust

Sunday was spent cleaning the basement and trying to remove the thick layer of chicken dust that covered the walls, ceiling, floor and all the collected "junk" that occupies the basement storeroom.  I took the opportunity to get rid of a few items like a broken vacuum cleaner and Ross's childhood fishing poles, but largely I just dusted and rearranged the piles.  It does look neater down there but the dust is going to be with us for some time.  Perhaps this week, and every week for the rest of the summer, I should damp mop the floor and open the doors to air it out.  I think the chicken dust will be a part, albeit a small part, of this house till it gets its next owner who renovates or at least repaints everything.

Next I moved to the garage, which was inch deep in sawdust, tools and about 15 boxes of nail, screws, staples etc, all of which had somehow been opened but barely used.  My dreams of returning lots of unused items to the Depot were totally dashed.  I now am well prepared to build a chicken house if anyone else wants one.  There is also a lot of leftover wood scrap.  So it all needed to be hauled out, swept out, and neatly rearranged if I ever wanted to pull my car into the garage again.

It was a beautiful day and by 4 I was exhausted but happy to crack open a bottle of wine and show off the new outdoor coop to some friends that came by.  Our friend Robin, is our canary in the coal mine when it comes to chicken dust.  Unfortunately, after all my labor we did not pass.  It's a work in progress.

I am just loving this chicken adventure

Last thursday was the final coop building day.  We installed the roosting bars and took care of the punch list...hardware installation, final adjustments to the chicken ramp, building a fenced yard for the chicks to play in using an old tennis court wind screen and some extra garden stakes, and setting up extension cords for the lights.  Charley and Larry volunteered to drive to Agway in Hickville and pick up a bale of straw for bedding and then we were good to go.

While they went to the store I got the bbq going...finally a nice warm day to sit and eat outside and enjoy the prospects of Spring.  Like most of our lunches this one was late, close to 3:00 and normal quitting time.  Everyone eats bagels all morning anyway and because rarely does any real work get done after lunch  I usually put it off as long as I can anyway.  But today we were running really late.  Fortunately I had saved the best task for after lunch so everyone hung in there.  After lunch and a desert of Hagen Daz pops it was finally time to move the chicks to their new home.

We all descended the basement steps, took the netting off the top of the play yard and everyone jumped in and grabbed a chick.  It was chaotic but there were so many of them is was relatively easy to catch one as they were all getting in each others way of escape.  One by one we started the parade of walking them to the coop.  There was         

Gene

Charlie and Ray

Larry

Charlie

and Me 

As the number of chicks left in the basement decreased they became harder to catch.  We switched to me being the catcher and handing the birds to each of the guys in turn to walk them out to the coop.  32 trips later they were all happily installed in their new home.  Here's me, the proud mother hen with her babies.  

 The coop was surrounded by the temporary fence and the chicks had a lovely yard to play in safely.   In the rain, which we had lots of this last week, they could be outdoors under the coop.  They could duck through the holes in the fence to wander in the larger yard, or stay in the small area surrounding the coop.It was now time to open the door and let them out into the yard...

Now come the adventures in learning to use the ramp.  When I opened the door everyone rushed to look out.  But when the first chicks reached the top of the ramp and put a foot onto its new and rather slippery surface they immediately changed their minds and turned around to go back.  Unfortunately, they turned to face a solid wall of chicks all wanting to get a look at what was going on.  Now chicks were going in all directions except down the ramp.  You've all heard the expression scared shitless...well as each bird got to the edge of the ramp its bowels began to give way.  And as they began to slip and slide in the mess the ramp got even more slippery.  I took a utility knife and quickly cut some leftover roofing shingles into non-skid treads. That helped.  Slowly, things got calmer and more chicks ventured out onto the ramp.  I only wish I had a video to capture this truly comical scene.

An hour later they were pros...

Spring Has Finally Arrived and Things Are Getting Busy

Taxes are just the least of what has to get done this week.  To all my kids, don't worry...it's all under control!  The weather has really improved this week and a lot is happening both at our house and at the farm.  We had two coop building days this week...Wed and Thurs.  I have thrown myself at the mercy of the Habitat coup builders, imploring them to finish the coop before the smells emanating from the basement push Steve to the breaking point.  He is amazingly patient but when he finally hits his limit it is sudden and explosive...so I am anxious to reward his kindness thus far with a move outdoors before we get to the breaking point.

So the crew came through, working two days, thursday until after 5:00, something that I have rarely seen.  I nearly had to cook a third meal that day.

Wednesday the roof got shingled.  The only issue I have with the roof is that the nails are all sticking through on the inside.  I am worried about putting one through my own head but I am also worried about flying birds.  Tom has suggested rigid 1/2' foil coated insulation boards to line the roof and cover the nails but I am reluctant.  The advantage is that they will keep the coop warmer in winter and cooler in summer but the down side is that every added surface is another place for mites, or molds, or other disease-producing thing to find a home.  Still have not decided what to do.

We also made a second set of small roosting bars for the chicks to practice on in the play yard.  With a new feeder, a waterer and lots of chick weed thrown in the chicks are enjoying the play area and spending lots less time in the saggy, smelly box.







On Thursday Tom came and within a few short minutes, and with the help of a compressor and a nail gun, built a beautiful set of 6 nest boxes.  I was in awe...so fast, so well designed.  Later after he left we installed them in the coop, a foot off the ground so some birds can nest under them on the floor if they wish.  They look and fit great.

They also installed the hinged drop down soffits on the side of the house.  I need to make yet another trip to the Home Depot to buy more slide bolts so they can be sealed shut at night or when it is cold.

Slide bolts were also installed on the front door (2), the chicken door, and the cleanout door.  No more predators are going to be bothering these chicks when they are in the coop.



So the coop is looking really sharp.  We decided to take a group photo of the crew and coop.  Pictured from left to right are Tom, Ed, Mike, Ray and Larry.  The top of Chris's hat is just visible above the roof.  He is more than a bit camera shy though I have managed to catch him at work in several of the photos included in the blog.  Missing that day was Charlie.

And in case anyone wants to see the house without the guys blocking all the detailed trim work ...  I think it's beautiful.

Before leaving late Thursday the guys mounted the rails that will hold the roosting bars.  They are angled so that the bars will be 18" apart , the lowest one about 18" off the floor and the highest close to 4'.  The birds like to roost as high as possible so the competition for the highest rail will hopefully get everyone in and settled before nightfall.  I expect I am going to be walking out of the farm by moonlight many nights this summer.

They left me with the job (and the jigsaw) of cutting u-shaped supports to hold the rails.  The idea is that they will be removable to either clean or ultimately replace.  Sort of the way closet poles are supported.  Of course I have not yet found the time to get this done.  The birds don't need them to move into the house so i'm ok for a while.  I also need to buy stain and treat the outside of the house so the wood doesn't rot.  And Chris wants the window trim painted white.

Friday was back to farming.  I spent the morning and early afternoon (about 4 hours) planting spinach seeds for Restoration Farm.  Caroline had baby Kobi last week and I am trying to help by doing some of the greenhouse work.  I prepared 14 flats of spinach, one seed carefully placed in each cell.  I have got to get an ipod or something to listen to for those kinds of jobs.  In the afternoon I went to Ralph and Susan's  to visit them and their garden and see if I could pick up my seedlings that have been growing in their greenhouse.  But no one was home so I left and went back instead on Saturday afternoon.

Saturday at the farm was busy.  On Thurs while I was coop building Dan, Trish and Lesley they were planting the kale, swiss chard, onions and leeks.  On Saturday we had a lot of volunteers, and much better weather, and we planted beets, red and yellow, and lettuce, green and red leaf.  The weather was beautiful, warm and sunny, and everyone was so happy to be out in the fields there was little mention of aching knees.

I snapped a few photos

Wayne and Terry- now experts at popping out starts

 Trish, Jay and Susan

 Proud grandma Susan holding baby Kobi

.lunch at the farm...every week the table gets longer...you should come join us and see

For those dedicated friends who have managed to get this far, I asked my son Evan about the problem with posting comments.  Apparently you need to push preview after you write your comment and then type in the scribbled word they give you ...this is to prevent programmed posting of ads or other noxious things on blogs.

I hope that solves the problem.  Thanks for reading...enjoy tomorrow...it is supposed to be in the 70's and sunny.

The Death of A Brave Chick

Well things started out pretty well this weekend.  Saturday afternoon after returning from work at the farm the sun was shining, it was warm and Springlike, and it seemed a good time to air out the basement storage room and start the chicks on getting a little fresh air.  As with every other move the chicks were slow to warm to my new idea so I started a program to encourage them to check out the out of doors.  I dug up a shovel full of chick weed and placed it the open doorway and waited.

It didn't take too long until a few brave chicks came to the door to check out the yummy food and I waited and watched with my camera.  Things were looking good but none of the chicks was willing to venture past the doorway and out onto the patio area.  We were expecting dinner guests so I closed up the doorway and went upstairs to cook.

Our guests that evening were treated/compelled to come downstairs and see the chicks.

The next morning was again sunny so I opened the door, added a few shovels of chickweed and set up a water fountain outside.  And on day two the chicks started to come outside.  But just a brave few.  The rest of my "chicken" chickens were apparently smarter than I was and knew there was great risk in leaving the box and the indoors.  Things were fine for a while.  There had been a pile of bricks in the far corner that I put under the water fountain to keep the chicks from stepping in it.  The girls were thrilled with the pile of bugs that had been unearthed from their dark home and a party ensued in the far corner.

More friends came over to visit and we stood above the birds, watching them play.  Then I walked them out to their car and that's when I lapsed in my responsibilities.  I left them alone, forgetting that my dogs, Thelma and Louise, were outside and had been enjoying watching the birds out there as well.  I was only gone about 10 minutes or so but that was too much.  I came back to find Thelma out on the lawn with a baby chick in her mouth.  I let out what was, even to my own ears, a blood curdling yell, something that came from way deep inside that I had never heard before, and ran to Thelma.  She of course dropped her but it was too late.  The baby chick was still alive, but barely.  I ran and put Thelma in the house and by the time I returned the chick was dead.

I dug a small grave in the back, in the same place where we buried one of our dogs that had died years ago.  I threw in a bit of chickweed and covered the grave with a large rock so neither the dogs or other backyard predators can dig her up.  I am so sorry.  I ordered extra chicks when I started, knowing that some might die in the raising up process.  The fact that they all made it after one month was pretty remarkable.  In fact she made it exactly 4 weeks.  I never thought it would be because of my inattention or carelessness that I would lose one.  I am just so sad about it.  I didn't sleep very well last night and as I write this I am weeping.