Somebody is going to Earth Day

Somebody is going to Earth Day...

"Whaddaya think that means?" "I don't know, doesn't sound good." "Yeah, but it doesn't sound exactly bad." "Well, 'earth' is good; 'day' is good, but I think 'going' might be trouble."

"We have nothing to wear!"

The Newest Girl

Here she is! Hopefully future photos will better show her lovely feathers. She is dressed in an interesting costume. Her crown is a narrow red comb. Slender black and white feathers swirl around her head, neck and shoulders. Her body is covered with silver tipped 'partridge-like' brown feathers. (The red and white to her immediate left is a plastic waterer.)

As typical in chicken life she has had to fight for acceptance into her new home. Goldilocks, the teenage smart aleck, was the first to challenge the New Girl, and after a couple of pecks ran off singing a song of acceptance. Rosie was subdued almost as fast. Then there was Lacey. Remember Lacey...she came from the farm a few months ago where too many roosters were 'using' her. Consequently she is a real scrapper...."I don't take nuthin' off nobody!" They fought a few rounds, wings flapping, feet raised and clawing, beaks trying to draw blood. New Girl ran into the hen house for a breather. At that time I remembered to get the Rescue Remedy to spray a bit on everyone, including myself first. After a direct spray into Rosie's mouth, she walked past New Girl with an exprssion that said 'I know I had something to tell you but I forgot what it was.' After the homeopathic wore off Lacey started bullying again but less seriously. When darkness arrived they all went into the henhouse and slept overnight together. The following morning New Girl strategically kept her distance from Lacey, so everything is going fine according to typical chicken time.

Meet Goldilocks

Miss Goldilocks is a unique chicken. We are not too sure what kind she is. She is quite stunning. Her head is covered in sleek copper feathers, which filter into the black feathers on her back. Her legs are yellow. She is not as large as Uma2, nor Lacey but she's a smart gal. She holds her own when green weeds are doled out. She runs and dodges quickly when Lacey is after someone to blame for whatever! Don't feel sorry for Goldilocks. She has the brains and agility of a street-smart imp!

Uma & Henry

Here is the lovely couple. Note Uma's body language. She is not leaning into Henry (formerly, Henrietta).Lovely little Lacey is standing behind him. Neither she nor Uma hang out with him very much. He often sits alone.

Nighttime is a different story. They all get on top the run, on top of a tarp stretched over it. Uma is such a broad-beamed gal, Lacey and Henry vie to get in the middle next to her. They look like they are braiding themselves. Lacey will be up and around to get between Uma and Henry, then Henry will wiggle around until he dislodges Lacey. In the pushing and shouldering, Uma often slides down the tarp and has to flap and scramble to regain her postion.

Yesterday the girls were seen reading the Classified ads hoping to find a home for Henry. Any takers?

Uma shows off her beautiful collar

Henrietta : "Uma is such a show-off! She waits until I'm standing next to her with my dark feathers and then, she does her fancy show-off bow!" Lacey: "I know. I don't stand next to her when the camera is around. I have a beautiful head of black and white pin stripes, but the camera never catches me at my best. Being a teenager is so hard, especially around you-know-who." Uma: "Good morning, girls. Did I hear my name?"

Uma feathered legs

Uma's beautiful feathered legs make her walk a bit funny. It is odd that the feathers only run down the outside of her legs....much like the way we used to decorate the outside seams of our jeans. Hers are more like opera gloves! Henrietta and Lacey are now treating Uma like their mother. When they lay down to rest, the two darker, smaller ones try to snuggle under Uma. It make for much undulating movement, one up, one under, one over, one up, another under.....and on and on. The previous group never did this.....proves no 2 chickens are alike.

The Grass is always greener & Lacey's revenge

Photo 1. Henrietta, Uma and Lacey love the green grass, weeds and iris leaves that grow next to their Taj Mahal. Photo 2. Lacey is the smallest of the three so she often gets hidden behind her larger sisters. Photo 3. Lacey's revenge: She races around wearing her eagle costume!

Fox-proofed Chickie Pen with extra protection

Returning home Sunday night from my fabulous Sedona trip, I pulled the car into the carport. The lights shone onto a scarey sight.....a HUGE CAT as big as the whole chickie pen!!

In this photo just below the bulbous black nose, the brown tarp is covering the run which is attached to the PeptoBismol pink eggloo.

As you can see the pen roof is completely enclosed. Mr. Fox and Mrs. Raccoon will have to bring strong wirecutters to get into this new Taj Mahal.

My friends, Camille, Tom and Susan are not only expert constructors but very clever arty folks!

Mom escapes

Me, the chickie Mom is taking advantage of an opportunity to escape to Sedona. Who wouldn't? The girls will be lovingly watched over by Aunt Camille. Her adventures will be reported when I return next week. The lovely iris blossomed in the middle of the day lily garden. Thought you might like it.

Escapee chickens drive Mom crazy

As the smart ones among you suspected, those girls would eventually fly off the edge of the pen. True, it happened once to Lacey, who immediately panicked and flew back in. Then it happened to Henrietta, but it was no accident. She's too clever. This morning I opened their bedroom door to find all 3 of them walking around on the floor outside the pen inspecting everything at beak level. It took several attempts to get them back in. I'm a human. Surely I can outsmart 3 chickens? It was questionable for the first 2 hours! I finally wedged them into a corner. They are now in the pen with old baby gates placed across the top. We all rested after a dose of Rescue Remedy.

To follow: Life under a baby gate.

Swan name change to Uma, as in Thurman

Swan is a Light Brahma standing at the back. The pictures of the standard are gorgeous. It may be a case of the Ugly Duckling. But, until she morphs into gorgeous I am changing her name to Uma. She has long legs, long wings, long neck and she is pretty in an ugly way. Same as Uma.

My poor sweet girls are gone

Date: May 24, 2008chickens About 6 AM today a fox climbed over the chickie pen wall and killed all my girls. Camille saw him carrying off the last one. We didn't hear a thing. Dreamer and Ivy and I were asleep in the front bedroom. Camille was going out to work in the garden. He was a fox she had never seen. I am so sorry for them and me and you having to read this. Arriauna Americauna Born April 22, 2007 Died May 24, 2008 Queen B Barred Rock Born April 15, 2007 Died May 24, 2008 Hecky Astralorp Born April 15, 2007 Died May 24, 2008 Henny Astralorp Born April 15, 2007 Died May 24, 2008

Chickie Taj Mahal

No longer do we worry about escapee hens OR uninvited deer and foxes. Mr. Fox still has us on his list but he just runs by as he checks out the neighborhood. Word has it he asked Santa for wire cutters. Tom and Camille built this incredible fortress. The corner posts are set deep in the ground. Two opposing walls were made as kennel walls for very tall dogs. The other 2 walls are made of cattle corral wall wire covered with chicken wire. The roof is yet to be complete but will be a continuation of the cattle wire. The base of all walls have an apron of chicken wire, one foot up the wall and one foot out pinned to the ground. This will thwart any predator digging.

The birds and squirrels think it was all built for their perching pleasure. It has already served one squirrel escaping from the cat. The pen was closer than the tree! The hens love it. They can run around, even fly (a bit), in safety. I love the people door. It is very secure, yet easy to get in and out.

Tune in again for how to keep chickens warm, happy and laying in freezing weather.

Big Ears in the Backyard

This lovely deer is one of three who frequent the yard. The mom brought her two fawns through earlier this year when they still had white spots like Bambi. Now in just a few months they are gray/brown like the mom. They still have the curiosity of youngsters, consequently, this young one turned back to look at me as they were leisurely exiting the backyard. As charming as they look, they still do damage to plants. They have munched on the new apricot tree branches and the new cherry tree branches. Who knows how much they will enjoy the fruit in the spring! I camp out during the day to watch over the chickens, from Mr. Fox. I might as well be shooing the deer away from the fruit trees too.

Eggs like eggs should be

http://www.omlet.co.uk/ includes several 4-banger egg cartons as accessories to the Eglu. Knowing the chicken owner will not have zillions of extra eggs, the little 4-bangers make nice gifts to appease the neighbors. The photos show 2 shades of eggs; light brown matte finish, darker brown glossy. Do these chickie girls have PhotoShop in their fancy hot pink eglu? Maybe. The light brown matte finish eggs have tiny white speckles that do not show in the above photo. They are from Queen B, who was shown in an earlier blog as the prime mother suspect when we got the first egg. The darker brown glossy egg is from Hecky, a lovely black Astrolorp with a green metallic sheen to her black feathers. Hecky is not a very fancy name for such a lovely hen but when she and her ‘litter mate’ Henny were little chicks they were solid black fuzz with outsized black beaks. They looked like Heckle and Jekyll, the crows from the cartoons. After they got larger we started calling them Hecky and Henny. Henny has not started laying yet. She is a bit smaller than Hecky and much more reserved. I hope she has not decided that laying is not for her. She is not really late….yet. They were not expected to start laying until 18 weeks old, which would have been September 15, but Queen B laid that first egg on September 4, Labor Day! Henny is only a day or so late. Arriauna, the Ameracauna, is a week younger than the other three. No one is being rushed into production…after all, this is just for the fun of it! It was fun to eat those tall golden yolks too!

Arriauna is growing into a beauty

Arriauna Ameracauna is such a special chickie girl. Do you remember her from the ThreeChickenFarm blog masthead, a tiny chick measured against a clothespin? Now she is a beautiful redhead with a bit of blond-in-the-brain. She has a love of life and would rather fly than walk. Most days find her atop the run more often than along side it, pecking the ground with her sisters. She watches the squirrels in the tree overhead. She watches the Flight For Life heliocopters traveling to nearby Penrose Hospital. Yesterday she listened and spotted high-flying geese. Yes, they were flying north.

When the other three hens rest on the roost in their run, they all face the same direction. Not Arriauna, invariably she will squeeze in between them, facing the other way. She just clucks to a different drummer.

Could Queen B be the new mom?

Our first egg! It is a beautiful medium size light brown egg with tiny white specks. Queen B has been SWWAAAK-SWAAAKING a bit lately but 'the books' say they will not lay until 18 weeks old. This is only the 16th week so it didn't seem like an egg possiblity. Last night I opened the egg door to bring Henny outside for a dusting (she has been scratching her neck feathers out). I glanced down into the nest before reaching in to lift her off the roost. Voila! a lovely little egg in the nest bowl looking so alone because I had not put straw into it after the last eglu cleaning. Queen B is a Barred Rock. She and the 2 Astralorps produce brown eggs, Arriauna Americauna will lay green/blue eggs, so there are only 3 possible moms of this first egg. September 3, 2007 appropriately named Labor Day.

Attack of the Killer Vegetables

“What are they?” squawked Hecky. “Where did they come from?” peeped Arriauna. “I saw Mom put them in here, so they can’t be bad,” offered Henny. “Let’s just freeze in position and see if they move,"whispered Queen B. The girls are very cautious about unknown things outside their area, but even more cautious when four odd shaped things are inside their run. Henny, the more mature levelheaded chickie girl advanced on one of the interlopers. Actually it was more like a canta-louper. I had placed a corncob, two cantaloupe slices, a cornhusk and a tomato inside the door of their run. At first they all ran to the opposite end, away from these unknown objects. Little by little they slowly came forward. Arriauna pecked at the cantaloupe, maybe drawn to the color similar to her own feathers. Queen B stepped on the tomato as she moved to pierce the green cornhusk with her beak. Henny and Hecky are always interested in stealing whatever Queen B has in her beak so those three darted and bobbed around for awhile. Later I saw the tomato had been reduced to a small dirt-coated blob. The cornhusk was in a zillion strips. The cantaloupes were history.

Fox Spies on The Girls

See Arriauna (orange), Hecky and Henny (black) in front of the eglu door, but safely in the run. See Mr. Fox (red and white with triangular face) sneaking closer from the upper left. One second later the girls spotted him and dashed into their eglu house. This photo was taken through the kitchen window screen.

I walked out to watch him from the top of the back steps. He was not frightened by my presence. We stared at each other for a few minutes. The girls (bless their dumb little hearts) came out of the eglu when they heard me talking to him. He sat and watched them for awhile. I told him to leave and moved toward him. He yawned! Finally he strolled away, stopping to pee on some weeds. He slowly walked to the back by the compost pile where he usually hops up on the hay bales surrounding it to scramble over the fence. This time he went not over the fence but into the Austrees. I saw him walking the labyrinth. He was not doing the path properly so I threw a handful of pebbles at him and he scampered out of sight which appeared to put him over the edge toward the creek. I was not confident that he had really gone so I stayed out there for awhile.

He's young and curious. I like him and wish we could all be friends BUT I know he would kill the chickies just for sport if not for food. His regular presence is foiling my simple plans to expand the chickie's foraging territory.

The intermediate solution is to plant a tray of grass to give them. I'll keep a couple going to alternate.

Senor Rooster Arrives

Senor Rooster Arrives The UPS truck pulled up in the gravel parking area at the front gate. Camille and I were working in the yard. She called out “UPS, I didn’t order anything but I’ll receive. I said, “I don’t think it’s for me.” After hearing our comments, the driver said hesitantly “I have a package for Three Chicken Farm. Is that you folks?” “ Yes” we answered laughing. He handed down a 3 ½ foot long box. Sure enough, it was addressed to Three Chicken Farm. After a bit of puzzling about no chicken supplies on order, I noticed a familiar name on the label…Ann Dettmer! We took the prized box into the shade. Camille went in the house for scissors. I pulled up lawn chairs. After cutting through much Cello Tape, it appeared to be a box of alien green packing peanuts. Clearing those away revealed another box…more Cello Tape cutting…more, but different Styrofoam shaped to fit the top and bottom of………………A HUGE CERAMIC ROOSTER!!! He is quite handsome with a creamy white body, black vertical stripes, all topped by a vivid red comb and red wattles (the hangy-down chin thingies). He is perched atop an earth-colored ball from which he reigns. When I presented him to the chickie girls, Henny (the most feminine) came running over and nearly fainted with joy. I placed him near the run. The four girls began to parade in a circle past him. When each arrived in front of Senor Rooster, she did a funny lifting of her head. That must be a secret Chicken thing. It has been alternately suggested meaning, ‘Me first’ or ‘Hi there, Big Boy’ or ‘Things are looking up’ or ‘Where have you been all eight weeks of my life? We may never know, but your suggestions are welcome.