Lucy Goose

Um, oops.  I guess I accidentally messed up the camera settings when I headed out to see how big our gosling had gotten....

...Lucy just looks like a giant ball of grey fluff!  But Evie's jacket and boots look awesome...  Lucy is now out of the chick brooder and in with the flock.  Gwin has adopted her, but not until Evie had a good strong bond with her.  Evie has always been such a little farm girl.  She has a nest of duck eggs brooding under a hen right now.

Chickens

Another spring, another batch of meat chickens are in my freezer.

I told Mark right from the beginning of this project that I would be far too pregnant to deal with chicken butchering this year.  I just wanted to buy chicken and not even deal with a pregnant belly leaning up against a butcher table. 

Mark was able to butcher and process all 18 chickens with Shane, Evie, and Fiona's help in one day.  Those three kids were amazing workers!  Daniel started with them, but the smell was too much for him.  Ian got out of butcher duty by getting invited to an air soft event.  I stayed indoors with the three younger kids and the dogs.  But I didn't completely get out of butcher duty.  I packed the quartered chicken pieces with my Food Saver and boiled the rest of the meat off the bones.  It was a long day!

Chicken Lickin' Good!

Two weeks ago we added 20 meat birds to our flock. Yesterday we added five layers.

The size difference is amazing.  Meat birds grow so quickly!

Evie has also decided to let this broody hen hatch out some eggs.  Her name is Strawberry and she is the daughter of Kenny, our first rooster.

We know this because she is the meanest hen in the flock and Kenny was the meanest rooster we've ever had.  Evie decided to let her brood the eggs because it was easier than trying to get the eggs from her! She pecks us really hard when we try to get too close.  Unfortunately for the chicks, she will only let two chicks hatch before she starts kicking the other newly-hatched chicks out of the nest.  When our old Rhode Island Red (who might even be Strawberry's mother) goes broody, which she will, we will give her the rest of the chicks.

The chicken above, who I call Naked Neck, has quite the story.  Mark and I had to use our CSI skills to figure out what happened to her.  One morning, about a month ago, Ian found her next to the chicken coop covered in blood.  He put her on our "quarantine" side of the chicken coop until he received further instruction.  I heard him mention to Mark that we had a bloody chicken out there and he separated her and gave her food and water.  He didn't sound too worried, and I rarely go out to the coop, so I didn't bother following up on the bloody chicken.  A week passed and the chores rotated.  Shane saw this hen and noticed she was doing just fine (including laying eggs) and let her go back with the flock.  When I finally got out there, I saw for myself what had happened.  The skin on her neck had been completely ripped off, all the way down to muscle, and was hanging down her front.  She stepped on it whenever she scratched and pecked, so it was all muddy.  It was so gross.  Here is the CSI version of her story: She and some fellow coop mates decided to stay out all night and roost on some shelves in the carport.  They have done this before and it gets really messy, so Mark added some field fencing to the shelves to deter them.  The fencing was only propped against the shelves and not secure and the chickens just went around the side.  One night, a racoon reached through the fencing, grabbed the chicken by the neck, tried to pull it through the fencing.  During the struggle, the chicken was injured and the unattached fencing fell down, scaring the racoon.  I'm surprised she lived through this ordeal!

Free Range Fail

We have this perfect scenario of letting the chickens free range for greens and bugs until 10:00 AM, then locking them in their yard until they are done laying for day, and releasing them to free range after 4:00 PM.  That schedule only works in our heads.

Shelf in the carport

We like the chickens free ranging because they will eat healthy natural foods.  And we don't have to buy pellets.

The base of the quince tree-you can tell one hen laid all those eggs

We don't like free ranging because the chickens will just feel the urge to lay an egg and lay it in any convenient place.

Behind the "papaya" tree, which isn't actually a papaya tree.  We've just called it that for so long.

If they like the convenient place, they return day after day...

Another carport shelf- How can that have been comfortable?

...and the worst thing? They move into the carport and forget all about the chicken coop.  And where a chicken lives, a chicken...well...I don't want to be gross or anything, but eggs aren't the only thing that comes out of a chicken's behind...

Another junk shelf in the carport.  Again, how can that be comfortable?

...and the carport is looking pretty bad.  Mina never let the chickens hang out in the carport.  Finding eggs in strange places was fun for the first year we had chickens, but now? I want my eggs!

Chickens!

After four years, chickens have gotten a little old for us.  The kids are tired doing chicken chores and eating eggs.  I'm tired of free-ranging chickens pooping on my porch and laying their eggs in the bushes.  The kids will sometimes leave the eggs in the coop for a week and of course I don't notice because the eggs from the week before are still sitting around.  That's how we got:

Three black chicks and three gray chicks! 

When Mark discovered how long the eggs had been brooded, he decided to go ahead and let the hen hatch them.  That hen, by the way, is the lone remaining survivor from our first batch of chicks.  She hid in the woods the day the rest met the stew pot.  She isn't even laying eggs anymore, but she is a great brooder.
 

You can see how she has her wings spread out over the remaining eggs.

Today when I checked on them, the hen was still sitting on her unhatched eggs while keeping her little chicks close.  The food and water were far enough away that I knew she wouldn't let her chicks get to it.  After I brought the food within pecking distance, she started pecking out bits of food and dropping them right in front of her.  She started making a clucking sound I've never heard before and the little chicks started pecking away!  A few got confused and pecked her comb and wattles.  They were so cute!

Surprise Miracle

Guess what Evie found when she went out to feed the chickens this morning?

Fight or flight? Fight or flight? I can't make up my mind!

If you guessed a guinea with 17 chicks waiting at the gate, you guessed right!  What a surprise!  Especially since we thought all three of our guinea were female.

Fight!  See how her back feathers are all puffed up?  She is also hissing at me.

Evie caught all the chicks (keets, actually) while the mother was eating and we got them all settled into the brooding side of the coop.  We have never had a bird go off in the woods and successfully hatch out a nest of chicks.  Mark has three nests brooding under hens right now, something that I wasn't happy about.  We already have too many chickens.  But I can't be mad about a guinea hatching her own nest in the woods. Evie has named the mama guinea "Miracle" and is completely smitten with the keets.  Now we just need to clean up the brooding side and make a proper space for them.  (Thank goodness the weather is warm; the snake is using the warming light)

The Country Song

Somedays feel like a country song.  You know, you lose your job, your truck, and your dog?

We haven't lost our job or our truck (yet), but we are pretty close to losing our dog.  Mina has been slowing down and losing control of her back legs, which could be caused by Wobblers Disease.  In addition to that, she appears to be experiencing dilated cardiomyapthy (DCM).  This isn't a surprise; our last doberman died from a sudden heart attack and one study showed that 58% of dobermans had DCM.  Mina spent the weekend coughing and gagging.  I thought she just had a doggie vitamin stuck in her throat, but I went to a doberman forum to rule out some kind of dog virus.  I found out that the coughing and gagging is a sign of congestive heart failure.  Sure enough, Mina's heart rate is crazy fast and irregular.  She has an appointment to see a vet tomorrow.

I would take her in today, but I'm having another problem.  Shane has a bruised (or broken) hand bone (another scout threw a rock and it hit Shane over the weekend).  Ian is gone with Mark.  I can't possibly load up six kids, the strongest and most helpful with a broken hand, into a van for an undetermined wait time anywhere.  I won't even take Shane in for x-rays for that reason.  Loading Mina in the van would hurt her hips and probably give her a heart attack from panic.  She is just too high strung for a van ride to the vet.  She is better off hanging out in the backyard and chasing chickens...

...or she can just leave that to the eagle that killed one of our chickens today!  The circus just never ends!  Jack and Shane chased the eagle off, but I'm wishing the eagle could have at least finished off more of the meat.  I hate to see a killed chicken go to waste.  Jack guarded the chicken yard for at least an hour after the eagle flew off.

All this, and it is only lunchtime.

Spring Ahead!

Daylight savings is a good time to spring ahead into my favorite season of the year!  However, my kids are ready for summer already.  Then again, a Pacific Northwest Native can't really tell the difference between spring and summer with all the rain and all...

Really, all my kids need is a sunny afternoon and a couple of blankets and a body of water and they are set!

Even Lula was released from the house so she could enjoy the sun!

The chickens, sadly, have been sold, pending pickup.  I'll keep a few, but with half the family not eating eggs and me not having the desire to wash and sell eggs, they are just taking up valuable resources.  They sold themselves in just a few minutes from this picture I posted on the local Buy, Sell, Trade page:

Don't they look happy and healthy, free ranging on all that grass?  I'll get back in the chicken business when the babies are older.

Mina is getting old and gray, just like me.  You can see all her little gray hairs on her muzzle and its taking her longer to get up out of her dog bed.  She has been my constant shadow for the last eight years.  She has accepted Heidi into the pack and brings her toys to play with.  It's gross, but cute, to see Mina gently place her deflated ball on the tray of the baby swing while Heidi stares at her all bug-eyed.  In the picture above, Mina was making sure no chickens came too close to us.  If one came inside the invisible baby circle, Mina jumped up and chased it off.  But I don't think we will ever cure her of her binky addiction:

March 2006: A bad habit begins!

It is so hard to believe that we've had this Pathetic Doberman (the original blog title) for eight years!

I'm getting ready for heat.  I don't like heat.  But the National Weather Service is telling me that the next few days are going to be HOT.

I sewed a little sundress for Lula.  I made it nice and big so she can wear it this winter with a long-sleeved shirt and wool pants when it gets cold.

Hahli has a second chick (and nine more eggs).  Mark moved them over to the other side of our coop so the other hens will leave the chicks alone.  He decided that when one of our hens goes broody, we will just give her eggs to sit on.  It seems cruel to try to break her and get her off the nests.  This time of year we have plenty of eggs and not a lot of desire to eat hot things, so the hens can have a few to hatch and mother.  Mother hens are beautiful things.

I love how curious this chick is.  Hahli keeps telling him to get back where he belongs, but he keeps popping out to say hello.  I watched Hahli try to teach him how to eat, but the pellets are too big for the little guy.  Well, I don't know if its a guy or a gal, but I'm going to call him a guy until his comb doesn't grow in.

Jack says, "These shoes belong to my victims.  I dare you to come closer! I can add YOUR shoes to my collection!"

Mark is busy getting the pond mowed so the kids can swim when it gets really hot in a few days!  I am so thankful we have our very own pond and we don't have to go anywhere to cool off.

Hahli is Hiding Something!

Hahli is a hen we hatched out last spring.  Her breed is an unknown mix, but she is turning out to be a good brooder.  See what I found under her this morning?

Instead of plugging in the heat lamp and running up our electricity bill, we are going to let Hahli keep the chicks under her and see what she can do.

I was actually surprised to see this little chick.  I have not been involved with the chick hatching process this year, but last night I decided to go out and candle what they (Mark and the kids) had going.  This little one had just started pipping-it had made its first hole in the shell.

Meat

It's that time of year again...

...the eagle has been flying over the chicken yard every day, sometimes more than once, trying to get an order of chicken nuggets from McDownens to go.  We've invested a lot of time and feed into our meat birds and I wasn't willing to share.  Every day we get closer and closer to optimum butcher weight and every day the chances we would start losing birds to eagles and other health issues increased.  Finally, today, we cut those odds down and butchered 11 meat birds.

"Are we going to eat those feet?"

We practiced our routine a few days ago when we took care of five guineas and our mean rooster, Roosty.  Mark and I are getting so good at coordinating the work.  We each have our tasks.  Even the kids work!  We like the have the boys out plucking while Evie takes care of the younger kids inside, but watching three younger siblings can be a big job for a seven year old.  Ian usually gets sent inside to help her out while we keep Shane with us.  Plucking.  And plucking.  Most of the process time for a chicken is plucking.

Less talk, more work, marshmallow boys!  (The air was steamy from dipping the birds in hot water)

Mark's job is to kill and pluck (and tell the kids, "Talk while you work!") and I try to keep up with the pluckers with gutting.  When I'm done gutting, Mark quarters all the birds for storage.  Then he does all the outside cleaning and cooks a big meal and does all the dishes.  The most important job he has is to pick the playlist of work music.  I have one awesome husband, let me tell you!

I gutted seven birds in 57 minutes and 48 seconds, which happens to be the length of the Soundgarden album we listened to.  I'm getting pretty good at gutting, which is hilarious to everyone who knew me in high school and college...when I was a vegetarian.  Yeah, that lasted until Ian was on the way.  I decided there was no way I could eat my daily requirement of protein in tofu every day, so I switched to meat.  Way more efficient. 

We store our meat quartered and vacuum sealed in the freezer.  Now that we have such a large family, one bird no longer feeds us.  This year we wrapped five quarters in each package.  I did the packing while Mark did the quartering-outside; it was so much cleaner that way.  It was nice for Mark to come in after all the quartering and find that most of the chicken was already in the freezer.  Then we cook the remaining carcasses for stock and pick the meat for enchiladas and chicken salad sandwiches (oh, I'm getting hungry) and little snacks for my baby carnivores (Fiona and Lula).  All we have left to do now is eat our dinner of guinea, mashed potatoes, and gravy.  Oh...we can't wait!

Seriously Spring!

Time to plant trees!

Mark went up to Bellingham yesterday to pick up his annual tree order (the trip deserves its very own post).

Planting buddies

He took the two girls and Daniel into the woods this morning...

My favorite spring wild flower...

...and a springtime wild girl!

 ...and then after I got home, Mark rototilled the small garden because I brought home some rhubarb and asparagus and...

Mark works while...

...Lula watches!

 ...some meat chickens!  Wilco had a deal where you could get five free cornish cross with the purchase of a 50lb bag of chick food.  We got 20 birds and 200lbs of food.  I also caved on three americauna chicks.  I'll go back in a few weeks for turkeys!

Spring Ritual: De-spidering muck shoes!

Today's weather is absolutely gorgeous!  We've spent most of the days working on trees, chickens, and...

...playing in the dirt...

...looking at bugs...

...and looking for spiders!

We seriously love spring here!

Weekend Projects

Mark had three weekend projects:

1. Wi-Fi: He made it possible for our portable devices to access the internet wherever we are in the house.  This wasn't easy!  Now I can download books to my Kindle anywhere (that's the only portable device we own).

A good big brother teaches...

2. Washing machine: it started malfunctioning again.  We ordered the new part, but the machine started working again after we took the auto load sensor off and put it back on.  So whatever.  We'll have the auto load sensor as a back up until the the first one fails again.  I also mixed up a 10 gallon batch of laundry detergent-now that's satisfying and cheap!  I can't even calculated the per load cost!

...how to be a good big brother!

3. Weight Watcher Roosters: you burn more calories butchering these than you get from consuming them.  Our rooster flock is four less (good bye Lunch Meat, Biter 1, Biter 2, and Furno).  Fiona and Daniel crack me up; they have no idea that giblet eating could be gross (it is).  They each ate an entire heart (cooked), right off the cutting board.  Chomp, chomp!  They followed it with liver and gizzard.  Grandad would be so proud!

Guess which one named the roosters?

4. Winterizing: we cleaned the gardens up a bit and set the chickens loose to eat the rest of the greens.  We're already dreaming about what we are going to plant next spring.  Mark is also mowing around his baby trees and dreaming about which trees to plant!

Sunny Sundays are the best!

Slugs and Bugs

Slugs and bugs are the big thing at my house...still.  This morning, while I was taking a lovely nature walk around the house, D pointed to something on the ground and called it a yucky bug.  F bent down to examine it.

F: Yep, it was a bug.  I absolutely stepped on it.
Me: You mean you accidentally stepped on it?
F: No.  I absolutely stepped on it.

Others we've heard this last week are:
S:...and in one day, you will be eaten by a SHARK!
F: No it won't.  It will be TWO DAYS!

Me: ...and S, don't let F get your goat, okay?
S: What's "get my goat?"
F: I already have it! Ha ha!

(warning: bathroom humor)
F: ...my poo is so smelly, it smells almost as bad as mama's bathroom!
And that would be because we are back on disposable diapers until the baby is born.  Disposables are much nastier than washing cloth.  But I have no energy to do laundry.

And on a final note, my blog no longer qualifies as a member of Timberdoodle's review team.  Sniff, sniff.  I have to have at least 500 readers to qualify.  And I'm not interested in expanding my readership, I'm only interested in scaling down before the baby comes (which is why we sold 22 laying hens this last week).  Timberdoodle offered me a free extreme dot-to-dot book (500-1400 dots per puzzle) as a consolation prize...free with my next order, that is.  Ummm....no thanks.  By the time any of my kids can count that high, they no longer want to draw other people's pictures.

I'm off to make some tomato soup out of V8!

More Life Cycles

Life and death.  Life and death.  Our Life Cycle Unit has grown past the hours of school time and encroached upon every area of our daily life. 

I've been so tired this last week with the growing of this little life inside me.  I just want to sleep all day (one day I took four naps).  I'm tired of going into public and having people ask me if I'm having twins or if I'm due any day now.  Don't they know any better than to mention anything like that to a pregnant woman?  Shouldn't they just keep their mouths shut? Or say something like, "You are positively glowing with new life!"  Not, "Oh my gosh! You are HUGE!"  I have only gained 17 pounds as of this morning.  So all those people can just go to the lake of fire and fry!  Okay...getting past the cranky.  I haven't had a lot of motivation to get anything done.  In the last paragraph of this post, I wondered how motivated I would be to...

...pluck and gut our meat birds while 8 months pregnant.  Well, it's done.  All 20 birds are dead and resting before their trip to freezer camp.  Was I supremely motivated and full of energy like I was a month ago making freezer meals? NO!  My motivation was: I'm not getting any less pregnant!  It's a three day weekend!  And I don't want to pay their feed bill anymore!  And when it is done, it will be DONE and I won't have to do it again (like laundry).  I won't traumatize you with butchering details, but these birds are the fastest, easiest birds to process.  One of them died when M picked him up.  Two heads fell off all by themselves (practically)! I am getting very good at my job in the processing and we have become quite efficient with our routine...okay, enough with the death...

...on to the LIFE!  Funny how we spend two mornings (four hours total) taking care of our food and then the afternoons saving little guinea keets from the big mean hens in the yard:

I found this little one being pecked by a hen in the nest.  It is our first guinea to hatch!  I quickly rescued it and brought it inside to treat its wound and keep it warm until we could get a warm spot set up.  It's living on the other side of the chick brooder until some siblings can come and keep it company.  Two chicks ended up with the pasties (a chick problem that can kill them), so I spent some time nursing them and trying to save their lives.  Really, a very strange way to spend the day.

We captured some frog eggs at the pond and S now has his very own life cycle project:

Watching the tadpoles turn into frogs!  We will let them go in the pond when the project gets boring or forgotten.  Like the butterflies.  M let them go yesterday (without warning me) so he could use the terrarium for guinea keets.  Out with old, on with the new, eh?