mad chicken disease

A bad case of it too, very very mad. and definitely contagious. It's not as commonly known as mad cow disease, but you better believe it's just as ugly.

If you're not familiar with this dreadful condition, allow me:
Mad Chicken Disease, short for Mad At Chickens Disease, aka Mad That I Feed Chickens Who Don't Even Lay Eggs! Disease.

ahem. this brings me to my point: an update on my beloved chix coop!
Forgive my bluntness but lately the chickens are pissing me off.

Who, us?

A brief history: These are my first ever chickens; I acquired the role as their caretaker almost one year ago during which time we have shared many ups and downs.
When Mama Canela began laying, I looked optimistically on our future egg producing/eating exhange. Her girls, the Chicklets, also started popping out a daily egg. happy days!
Sadly, a frustrating period commenced, as Canela became broody and refused to lay eggs. I tried every trick in the book, enduring her angry pecking and dramatic squawking as I attempted various anti-broody techniques. A stubborn hen, Canela refused to yield for many weeks.
Patiently I waited until the joyous day when she resumed egg laying service.
This brings us to recent incidents.
For about a week after our vacation, eggs were rolling in! then, one day instead of 3 eggs, I found only 2. the next day, only 1. eventually, you guessed it: 0 eggs.
The girls all seemed normal, eating well, no sign of broodiness. I beefed up their feed ration--maybe they were malnourished?? Still, no eggs.
Meanwhile, the coop was overtaken by a voracious ayote squash vine, a live decorative shade structure.

The squash leaves were so large and dense,, they were able to hide these from view:

aha!

Sneaky sneaky STRANGE chickens!! They had been laying eggs on the roof of their coop! which makes no sense. Are they doing this to upset me on purpose?? it's not cozy, private, safe, or any of the things a nesting box should be. but, there they were--a secret stash of perfect protein.
Well, now that the laying question was settled, we could get back to our previous arrangement, right?
not. so. fast.
Egg-laying ceased. from that day on, I have yet to find another egg. and i've looked, oh I'VE LOOKED! i've spent mucho tiempo in the coop this week, watching chicken tv.
what I did start to notice were the feathers. everywhere. fluffy down, long wing tips, you name it. all over the ground.
It appears my chickens are MOLTING. and during the 6-9 week molt, hens stop egg laying.
Seriously? because these girls have spent more time the past year off the nest than on.
is it any surprise that these chickens are making me MAD??

so for now, it is off to the mercado to BUY eggs, and stopping by the chicken coop each morning to gather squash ;)

farm-away-from-farm

Faithful readers! Sorry for my absence. Even though I am away from my sweet little farm, I should and will document farmy stuff around me here in suburbia. Admittedly, it has felt a little painful to consider blogging when I am so removed from all of my beloved plants and animals. We are coming up on one month away, and I experience a stab in the chest whenever anyone mentions my pups. or my goats. or just chickens.
Enough!
Within the confines of your typical Californian suburban neighborhood, I am proud and inspired by the amazing and industrious projects of my favorite aspiring-farmer niece!

Paige's passion for animals led her to summer camps at Hidden Villa, an educational farm, and on to 4-H with whom she has undertaken an awesome and ambitious agricultural enterprise.

A surprise awaited me in the family garage,,,BABY CHICKENS!

The fluffy chicks were delivered into Paige's care in early April--she is a loving mother hen, refilling food and water and cleaning out their bedding with care and attention. The garage flock is growing fast! In even the few weeks since I met them, their fuzz has turned feathery.

Paige is responsible for rearing the market chickens to about 8 lbs, when they will be plump enough to be auctioned off at the 4-H fair. Chickens who weigh in at over 8 lbs do not qualify, so feeding and monitoring is a serious job. Generous donors have been known to pay HUNDREDS of dollars for a chicken (and to support 4-H of course)!

Luckily, Paige has chicken experience! In the backyard the family's very own egg-laying flock free ranges in the grass amongst bicycles, skateboards, and gardening tools. Here I find my antidote to farmsickness :)Pufflegeorge and her 2 hen-friends sleep soundly in a funky garden shed turned coop, safe from urban raccoons and possums. Like our hens on the farm, they contribute about 3 eggs a day to the human family's diet.

Good luck to Paige at the fair,

and Thank you for the farm fix!!

we're having eggs now

Rooster or no rooster, the hens are a' laying!

It took the Chicklets a good 6 months, and finally they are both laying regularly! Along with Mama Canela, that's three fresh eggs a day :) This is exactly the reason we got chickens, but after so many months without eggs, I sort of forgot and started to see them as feathery pets.

The young hens are not quite the size of their mom, and are still going through an awkward featherless neck stage. hopefully this is normal?

Way too many people are under the false assumption that hens require the presence of a rooster to lay eggs. Scientifically I knew this was not true, but I admit that after several eggless months, i began to wonder. As I swept out the coop and fed my chicken friends, the old camp song "The Rooster" played in my head. the only line i actually remembered was we're having eggs now, just like we used to, ever since that rooster came into our yard! Silly, and thoroughly incorrect.

Anyway, when a mini egg appeared in Canela's nest one morning, oh happy day! The girls take after their mother in refusing to utilize the handsome laying boxes we crafted just for that purpose, all three sharing a dug out dirt nest on the ground.

The first few eggs from the Chicklets were half the size of a normal egg, adorable! Mama Canela, chicken that she is, initially approached the new eggs as any cannibalistic grandmother would: pecking aggressively. Once chickens adopt the revolting habit of eating newly laid eggs, apparently it is difficult to "break." (the habit, that is). Luckily, Canela did not develop a taste for them and has shown no interest since. whew

And so, unless an undercover rooster is sneaking into the yard when i'm not looking, the myth is disproven, and i am enjoying fresh eggs for breakfast--my compliments to the lady chefs ;)

blood & feathers

Home invasion, murder, and mourning: An update from The Coop

The chickens have had a rough start to the year. You may remember the unfortunate but necessary removal of Pimiento, the chicken who was a rooster, and how his absence traumatized the flock, ie. Mama Canela and 3 sisters. It was weeks before Canela was on the nest again; we sighed with relief and all was well. We were back to a regular egg-a-day schedule and the Chicklets (new nickname) seemed amiable. Imagine my surprise when awakened in the middle of the night to frantic squawking and frenzied clucking!
I stumbled out to the garden in my slippers, my fading flashlight beam illuminating inside the coop and the horrific cause of alarm: un zorro!
Neighbors and friends had warned me for weeks of a dreaded "zorro," a carnivorous nocturnal predator known to chomp chickens and who knows what else in the cover of darkness. Since zorro is spanish for FOX, I was only a little nervous and a lot thrilled. Cool, a fox! we have wildlife on the farm! I was confident that the coop was fox-proof.
Silly gringa. In Nicaragua, zorro means many things. Including skunk. and including POSSUM.
Slipping through a tiny gap in the chicken wire, a wimpy but vicious possum invaded, terrified, and grotesquely be-headed one of my Chicklets. Luckily I arrived in time to spare the others, but one of our girls was a goner.

Now they are three.

Don't worry--I won't post any gruesome headless chick pics, or even head-bashed-in possum photos. but you can imagine.
The Chicklets managed their grief by exercising more independence--they refused to come into the coop at night! Mama Canela was re-traumatized and egg production halted, again. The loss of a second chick triggered broodiness, when a hen instinctively stays on the nest to incubate her eggs. Except, there were no eggs. Our favorite chicken mama didn't eat or lay eggs for weeks.

Online research for my chicken troubles advised hands-on intervention. After daily prodding and shoving the poor girl off her nest, Canela finally began interacting with her flock again! We are happy to report that today she laid her first egg of the new year, and that the coop has been more extensively secured.

To encourage more adhesive flock dynamics (cooperation?), all of the hens are now cooped-up day and night. This will also establish the coop as a safe home base, and allow me to collect mass quantities of their nutrient-dense chicken poop for the garden.

chicken t.v: All in a day's work.

chicken tv

With no cable television on the farm, we are frequently left to our own devices during our ample leisure time. No one offers better live entertainment than the chickens.

back in September

Recent coop drama has brought about big changes amongst our chicken familia. You might remember that since September, I've watched and waited to learn the gender of the four pollitos, crossing my fingers for at least 2 females. At around 4 months old, chicks begin to outwardly display their sexual maturity, but until then, they are physically identical. Keeping my hopes up, (and attempting to conjure some chicken voodoo), I gave each of them a girlie name.

Look how they've grown!

But, last week my little Pimienta, (now Pimiento), uttered his first croaky cock-a-doodle-doos!

As handsome a rooster I'm sure he will be, we decided way back to only keep gallinas--the coop can only accommodate four comfortably; hence, there is no need for an on-site sperm donor.
Upon learning Pimiento's true identity, he was abruptly removed from the coop as an impromptu christmas present for Don Chico. Little did we know what chicken stew pot we had stirred...

Up until now, Mama Canela has been an overprotective mother--call it empty nest if you will, this mother hen all but suffocated her adolescent chicks. She nudged the tastiest morsels into their beaks, and I caught her still trying to sit on them at night! With all of her attention focused on the big kids, Canela had yet to lay a SINGLE EGG.

The minute Pimiento's absence was felt, so was Mama Canela's grief. For days she clucked and puffed and keened, leaving her three young gals to fend for themselves. However cruel our intervention appeared, it also triggered the very act we'd been waiting for:

¡HUEVOS!

Coop dynamics have been overhauled. Gone is the sweet chicken family sitcom; today it is all HEN. Canela keeps her own company, usually pecking about the coop or resting in a dust bath until nature calls: with much squawking fanfare, she heads up to the laying boxes every day at noon!
Las muchachas are your typical teenagers--constant gossip and rustling feathers, cackling that can be heard throughout my garden.
Who will be our next layer? Will the threesome remain close once their eggs come in? Will Canela's lonely days in the coop incite her to become broody once again?
Stay tuned for more CHICKEN TV!

FARM CATS?

Cats seem like the perfect farm pet, no? Chasing rodents, communing picturesquely with the horse and cows...
Weeeeell, that's hardly the case over here. We LOVE our cats--I think it's obvious they provide much more in the realm of companionship and entertainment than in the maintenance of the farm.

Zaya did catch a mouse though (once):

we were so proud!

Granted, it was tiny :)
I chalk up her fat laziness to her american upbringing--in California, we only let her outside on a leash (how embarassing!)

I have greater hopes for Chia, born on the streets of Nicaragua.
She's not afraid of Lucinda, which is more than I can say for poor Zay, who flees at the mere sight of the horse.

Chia's more than healthy interest in the chickens makes me think she harbors tigress-like hunting instincts. But though she ambushes the chicks, really she is intimidated by Mama Canela!

It is tricky business training kitties to be farm cats. We encourage them to chase down the cucarachas and rodents, but interfere when they molest butterflies and stalk song birds.

It's ok to dig up soil in the yard, but bad bad bad when they tear up my potted plants!
What's a cat to do?

Chia takes cover in my lemongrass harvest

Zaya keeps watch over the internet connection

talkin' trash

Gone are the days of "just trash it" and "throw it away." As my Culture and Ecology professor Dr. Boyer pointed out to an eager group of aspiring environmentalists some 10 years ago: There is no such thing as away. To which we all passionately nodded and agreed, but perhaps did not fully implement back then into our capricious college lifestyles.

There is an ugly, endless list of data corroborating Dr. Boyer's astute warning. to name a few:

Landfills are surprise! filling UP
Most landfills leak toxins into ground water
Nobody wants a landfill in their backyard (do you?)
Sending our trash into outer space is ridiculous and irresponsible.

In the face of this dilemma, there is some absurd percentage of landfill waste that could have otherwise been diverted. aha! this is where i focus attention on my dinky little farm in Nicaragua, where i am trying to follow the sage advice i received a decade ago.

Before we send our trash "away," it has several possible diversions:

Yummy raw tidbits like fruit and vegetable peelings are gobbled up by Mama Canela y hijos.

mmm, so much tastier covered with dirt!

Other organic waste, including coffee grounds, tea bags, and banana leaves are buried in here, our newly fashioned our worm bin!

Simple concrete bins with an aluminum lid house a prosperous community of both African and Californian worms.The roof/lid keeps the temperature cool and I water daily to maintain appropriate moisture. Note the drainage faucets for collecting compost tea!
We are counting on these slimy decomposers to transform our "garbage" into rich, fertile soil.

The trusty old Compost Bin receives primarily citrus peelings, known to be too strong for worms; avocado pits and large seeds; and egg shells, known to harbor potentially harmful bacteria (and even though they would probably eat them, it seems too gross to feed them to the chickens).

Lastly,,,,, o.k. yes, we are still consuming products packaged in plastic bags, wrappers, bottles, etc. So we make use of the municipal garbage service. Sadly, most folks living out of town burn their trash--yes, even the plastic-- in weekly toxic fires that are completely legal here. I did visit the local dump, and it makes me wonder which is the healthier option.

vulture paradise

Thank you Dr. Boyer! Majoring in anthropology wasn't such a "waste," after all ;)

happy-go-clucky

Thanks to the creativity and kindness of our latest industrious visitors, yet another micro-habitat has been built on the farm!

With drills, saws, nails, and screws, Michella and Jamie transformed our old pick-up truck's cab-over

into a deluxe two- story condo!

From the outside, an enormous yet unpretentious tortoise adds an eclectic and mysterious energy to the garden.

Who's living in there????

INTRODUCING:

¡Mama Canela y Familia!

La Señora and her four chicks seem pleased with their new residence. They've been busy scratching in the dirt, pecking at weeds, and nibbling table scraps since they arrived. We hope Canela will make good use of the laying boxes positioned conveniently at the rear of the structure,

where i plan to gather fresh eggs every morning!!!

and surprise, surprise: it looks like i've already got a volunteer to help me
You can't argue with the perfect protein of an egg. I do get grossed out by their slimy consistency, but that is easily amended with a well cooked scramble. Despite our eagerness to eat only our own local eggs, Canela is our sole layer for now. Hopefully a couple of those pollitos will be hens (supposedly 50%), though we have several months to make bets.
And no, we will not be eating any of our feathered friends; i am not against doing it, but my other half is ;)

p.s. farm work at our place isn't all work:
Muchismismas Gracias for work and play well done, mis amigos!