Here is our Silver Laced Wyandotte, 1 week.

We’ve had our little chickies for a week now and it is amazing to me how much the little guys are growing and changing every day.

What were once tiny stubs on the sides of their puff-ball-bellies are now sprouting feathers, a few even have teeeeeeeeny little rump feathers poking out of their fuzz, like our RIRs and the SLW.

The silkies are the craziest looking, hands down, with their ultra long necks, furry feet, extra toes and beginning fluff.

Here is our largest of the three silkies.

Little "teeny weenie", as my husband affectionately refers to her, is our partridge silkie. Although she is small her fluff feathers seem to be coming in a little faster than the blue silkie. I'm wondering if this one is just destined to be the runt.

You can see Goldilocks and Aurora beak to beak there in the back with our long-neck silkie to their right. The chick closest to the feeder is a Plymouth Barred rock with the SLW nearest and to the right.

Our daughter has already named two of the chickens.  We have Goldilocks, a RIR with a yellow head, and Aurora, our Welsummer, “because she has the eyeliner, and we KNOW she’s a girl and we won’t have to eat her.”  Goldilocks has a backup name…The Big Bad Wolf, just in case she turns out to be a he, our 4 1/2 yr old daughter said it would be okay to eat him if he has a bad-guy name.

She’s also decided that any others who crow are going to be named Chick Hicks “because then Bubba won’t care if we kill it because he doesn’t like Chick Hicks”.  Somehow I don’t think our son is going to have trouble eating the chicken, he’s already decided he’s going to eat the Barred Rocks (the only breed he, as a 2 1/2 yr old, can identify) and I have tried to convince him that we want them to all be girls so we can just get their eggs.  But he has informed me that the black ones are boys and the red ones are girls.  It’s hard to argue with that kind of logic.

Goldilocks, our friendly little Rhode Island Red. I hope she keeps her cute little blond head! (and check out teeny weenie's fluff back there behind her!)

Our little Easter Egger didn't want to pose for the photo but you can see already how her wing feathers are coming in...and a few little fuzz feathers there at her soon to be tail.

We painted the coop the other day and it is looking pretty great.  We have to attach some chicken wire to the cracks and put in the door, ramp, and locks.  We’re still trolling craigslist for cheep posts we can use for fencing a yard for our girls, but considering they have 5 more weeks before they can go outside full-time we’re holding out for a good deal.  It literally pains me to spend money.

Here's a photo from last week, when we brought home the little guys. The kids are still very excited about their new pets. I still haven't figured out how to keep our son from crawling into the garage via the cat door just to see them.

My uncle has his own, ever-growing, backyard flock and has been a wealth of information for us as we embark on this new journey.  Aside from picking his brain, he literally got us started.  The base for our coop was the old play structure from his yard.  It also didn’t hurt that he loaned us all his power tools so we could build it.  Even though he has a flock of laying hens, we were the first ones to get Barred Rock Chicks (granted he just picked up a couple yesterday…maybe he wants to be more like me?  Well, a girl can dream, can’t she?)

Considering he has been on the bandwagon a little bit longer I guess we can make him President of the chicken club.

The Pecker Palace New Recruits

The residents of the Pecker Palace had different reactions to the news.  ”If these chicks think they are taking my customers, they have another thing coming,” clucked Dixie.  ”Yea,” added Trixie, “they better keep their tail feathers to themselves or they are going to find out what a mother clucking country beat down is.”  On the other hand, Roxie, the Barred Plymouth Rock, is thrilled, “I’m so excited,” she trilled, “I never thought I would be happy again after the murder of my twin Barbie, but I met one of the new recruits and she reminds me of Barbie so much, I’m hoping she makes it through the process, she could be Barbie 3.0.”  Although, not all the hens of the house are thrilled about the new recruits, Madame Foghorn, the spokeshen of the Pecker Palace, assures the public that they will “get over it.”

But lets talk chickens.  Because, let’s be honest, baby chicks are freaking adorable!

day one of our side yard flock

We screened for docile birds who will be good layers, and plan on eating any of them that start to crow.  (By “we” I mean my husband, who knows I have zero desire to assist in the killing but will be more than happy to cook them once they’re cleaned.)

We have 3 Rhode Island Reds, 2 Plymouth Barred Rock, 1 Silver Laced Wyandotte, 3 Silkies (2 partridge and one blue) of which we are keeping one hen and returning the other 2 to my uncle.  I am also headed to the feed store to pick up a Welsummer, and an Ameraucana (Easter Egger) for my husband.

Of course now that we have our chicks we should finish their house…

nest boxes? check.

Window? Check.
Walls? Check.

Chicken doors? Check.

We used an old play structure from my uncle as the skeleton for our coop.  Bella and Wesley and been very excited about the process, and yesterday they both helped me sweep out the coop so we could add a laminate floor (before it started to rain).  We got half of it done before baby’s nap was over, so I call that a good day!

And this is where we’re at so far. Yes, I used the old cabinet doors from the downstairs bath.  I am a genius.

Well.  I suppose I should send this inaugural post out into the sea of internet…though i’m sure my readers will be limited to close friends, parents, in-laws and other family that’s okay with me.

Welcome to our side yard flock.

This is Omelet #2.  She is the smallest one of the bunch;  She is a White Leghorn.

And this is Alli pretending to sleep with her chickens.

Allli had to miss two days of school this week.  She has an ear infection.  She’s on meds now and a lot happier.  We had a date at the Cracker Barrel for breakfast and I can say, I’m not impressed.  Their biscuits and gravy was not good.  Alli did get a Webkinz pet Kangaroo there though.  She spent her Communion Money on a chicken and a Webkinz.  She is proud that she was able to buy them for herself.

This is Pretty Pretty.  She is an Black Austrolorp.

This is Cutie Pie.  She is a Barred Plymouth Rock.

This is Fluffy.  She is a Barred Plymouth Rock.

This is Daisy.  She is an Ameraucana.

This is Omelet.  She is a White Leghorn.

This is Kelly Kelly.  She is a  White Leghorn.

Why chickens?  Why not?  They are very sweet chicks.  They like their new home.  They are peeping happily most of the time.  They are warm under the heating lamp.  They will make eggs for my family and friends.  I know that my eggs will come from a place where the chickens are well taken care of.

Shawn made the chickens a Brooder.  It’s kept at a toasty temperature with the heat lamp going.  Trust me, those chicks get upset if the light gets turned off.  The light and heat are very important for their growth and development.  I use pine shavings for their bedding.  It is soft for the chickens to walk and lay in.   They are good water drinkers and love their chick crumbles (a 50 lb bag is $12.99) .

Peyton and Shawn getting things to make the brooder.

The story can be told mostly in pictures. As much as his beak is twisted, he is able to drink. That is good. Food will be a challenge. Instead of having a shallow food bowl, I am going to try one that is deep. It will be filled with chick starter food (fine crumbles).

Chance II is an amazing chick so far. He cracked his way out of his shell with that crossed bill. Maybe it was an advantage and worked like scissors (I really should not joke).

Surprisingly, despite this baby’s special physique, he is strong and healthy. He peeps and runs around behaving just like the other chicks. If you look down in the brooder bin, you really can’t tell that anything is wrong.

I saved the best view for last. This angle shows the left side of his face as normal, but he right side gone a-rye in development. He can see fine out of his left eye. The right one did not form into something usable. I am glad that he is not completely blind.

It was hard to get Chance II to keep still for photos. This is a good thing. Maybe our oddball chick will not only drink, but eat some chick starter food soon.

June

I think I mentioned before that my grand plan was to add one more chick, a Rhode Island Red (RIR) in a couple of weeks after I got the first three girls. My buddy Michael told me that was when Buck Moore Feed would get a batch of 1-day old RIRs. Well, as we had beers a couple of days ago, he told me that Callahan’s General Store would be getting RIRs today! This was exciting news, since I wanted all the girls to be around the same age so they’d get along and be able to move outside as one big group. Michael and I decided we’d meet out there today. He texted this morning, saying that they’d arrive around 2:00 p.m., and we decided to meet there about 2:30 p.m.

Michael texted right at 2:30 p.m. to say he’d be running about 45 minutes late. I was already on my way out that direction, though. Sure enough, the RIRs were there, as was the head chicken lady. She’s a friendly gal and asked how many I wanted. I told her just one.

Then. I saw the Ameraucanas. I also had this breed on my short list. The most interesting reason was because they lay blue-green eggs, never mind the fact that they’re pretty frequent layers. They’re also called Easter Eggers (I assume because of the pretty eggs they lay). According to the piece of masking tape across the top of their brooder, they just hatched on Tuesday. So, chicken math took hold, and I walked out of Callahan’s with two chicks instead of one. 3+1=5… somehow.

This will be the end of chicken buying, though. I swear!

In other fun chicken news, Whitney has continued to be the life of the party. Anytime I stick my finger in the crate, she runs right over and starts pecking at it. If Dolly’s there (which is always), she’ll try to fly up at the side of the crate toward her. It’s the cutest damn thing. After a few times, I started wondering if maybe this was rooster behavior and started worrying a little bit (I don’t want a rooster). Everything I’ve seen online is consistent with the sex-link traits she has though. A fairly compact white spot on her head and black on her shanks and toes (shanks is a fancy word for legs) indicate that she should be a hen. Please, please, please.

Our Brood - 1 Week

Well, we haven’t killed them yet!

As mentioned earlier, this is our first foray with raising chickens and we were a bit worried.. recently we had a pretty good cold snap kick through here, so I was concerned about maintaining the temperature where it needed to be. But the chicken coop held up well (no leaks) and our breeder light kept the temps well into the 90′s even with potential drafts (wind gusts were hitting 40-50mph). They all came through with flying colors!

We also finally nailed down names for each of our brood. Names? Wow! You guys seriously are city slickers!

Of the Rhode Island Reds, there is now Blondie (the lighter of the two) and Paprika. Our Ameraucana chick has been named Bluebell. Finally the two Cuckoo Morans, one has an very prominent white spot on its head, so I named her Eightball and the last was a toughee.. since we had such difficulty coming up with one, ‘She Who Could Not Be Named’ is now called Voldemort )

Blondie

I’d say a job well done so far! They are now just over a week old. The wing feathers are coming in nicely! Appetites are strong and they like to engage with us now (especially if we’re providing Mealworms for a tasty treat).

The next steps will be to ween off the breeder light and reduce the temp about 5 degrees each week. I’m also going to need to add a cover on the breeder bin eventually, to negate accidental ‘jumpers’ from leaving the area too soon.

Some observations thus far.. of all the birds, Bluebell is by far the most docile and accepting of being handled. She also has a serious chicken sweet-tooth for meal worms and likes to do a happy dance as soon as she’s got her beak on one.

Paprika

Next up, Blondie and Paprika are more lovers than fighters, though they take a bit more time to warm up to being held. Already you can see that their gobblers are starting to form on their heads. Lastly there is Eightball and Voldemort.. who would prefer not to be picked up and are typically vocal about it, they are also the biggest of all the chicks. These little guys need more one on one time

All chicks are starting to form feathers on their wings as well as testing the use of said wings. Each one DEFINITELY has a unique personality! I’ve never had a bird for a pet and found it kinda strange those people who do, but now I’m starting to understand it more and more.

Eightball

The only other item of  I’d like to mention has been that they do need stimulation. Chickens I’ve found like to have items to keep them occupied. We’re planning on adding in a straw tower in one corner for them to peck at and later I’m thinking of installing a sandbox in the run for them to scratch around in once they’ve existed from the breeder box.

In the next week or two I plan on adding an automatic door to the coop and some perches for them to roost on once they’re older. I’ll post those updates as soon as I have them.

Bluebell

Voldemort

I got Sussex, Plymouth Rock Barred, Ameraucana, Rhode Island Red and Barnevelder.

At this young age of 2 days they are difficult to tell apart. The cutest and easy to identify is the Ameraucana.

Loudest and easiest to spot is the Rhode Island Red. She’s the orange one in the middle below.

The darkest one is the Plymouth Rock. The other two darkish ones are Barnevelder and the speckled Sussex. I believe the Sussex is slightly lighter than the Barnevelder.

I believe that is the Barnevelder (above).

I am pretty sure that is Sussex (above) together with Ameraucana in the back and Rhode Island Red to the right.

It is very hard for me to not hold and stare at the chicks for hours now that they are finally here, but I have read carefully in my many chicken books that you must leave them alone for the first 24 hours to avoid stressing them out. These little things can easily get sick and die and I have nightmares about killing my chicks.

This summer these little girls will provide company, fertilizer and eggs for us.

Today's Eggs Include Our First Ameraucana Egg

Most chicken breeds lay either white or brown eggs.  The Araucana, or Easter Egg Chicken, is different as it lays eggs of varying colors from blue to green.  The 2 different hatcherys we’ve received our birds from describe the breed here (scroll to bottom of page) and here.

Cleopatra, A Member of Our September Flock

Upon hearing about this breed last summer, we decided to add some of these ladies to our flock in order to create more color variety to our farm fresh eggs.  We now have nearly 40 Ameraucanas (38 hens and 2 roosters) and look forward to them all laying!  Our first chicks were hatched on 9/20/11, so it’s taken just over 5 months (20.57 weeks) for them to start laying for us.  Can’t wait to hear what our customers think!

Fluffy, The Ameraucana Hen

In the spirit of full disclosure, our adventures in backyard poultry rearing have not been without, um, shall we say,  challenges.  We started back in April with three Rhode Island Reds – Fred, Tweety and Sally.  Things seemed great at first – we were getting three eggs a day, the chickens seemed happy (we let them free range during the day, and put them back in the coop at night), and it wasn’t a tremendous amount of work.  We made sure they had food, water, and fresh air, and they provided us with a dozen eggs every four days. It seemed almost too good to be true.

And that’s because it was.  We lost Fred in August to what we believe was a black widow spider bite, and we lost Tweety in October to a predator of some sort or another.  We didn’t want Sally to be lonely, so we found her four new friends – Spot and Dot, two lovely black and white Barred Rock hens, and Fred, Jr. and Tweety, Jr., a couple of Ameraucanas.  We promised to keep them safe, well fed and watered, in exchange for eggs.  We were looking forward to four or five eggs a day, perhaps enough to share with our friends and neighbors.  This was in November.

At first, Sally wasn’t terribly keen on her new coop-mates.  In particular, she decided that Tweety, Jr. was her nemesis.  Every time that poor hen would get close to Sally, she would peck at her and pull her tail feathers out.  Tweety, Jr. became scared to leave the corner by the nesting boxes – she would huddle there, trembling, trying to make herself as small as possible.  Sally was like the schoolyard bully, exerting her dominance over the new kid on the block.  I’m not sure what it was about poor Tweety, Jr. (maybe it was her name), but after a while Sally left her completely devoid of tail feathers.

In addition to this little pecking-order drama, the egg production was not what we’d hoped it would be.  For a while, it was only Sally laying.  Then occasionally one of the Rocks would lay – either Spot or Dot.  We know it wasn’t an Ameraucana because all of the eggs were of the brownish variety – Ameraucana eggs are greenish blue (part of the reason we chose the breed).  From late October to late January, there was nary a green egg to be had.  We’d been told that the hens were 8 months old when we got them, so they should have been of prime laying age.  Had we been swindled?  Were these gals completely infertile?  Was the trauma being inflicted upon them by that bully Sally too much to handle?  We weren’t sure.  What we did know was that they were eating an awful lot of feed and not producing anything in return.

Over time, the drama subsided, and Tweety Jr.’s tail feathers began to fill in again.  Both Rocks began laying regularly, and things seemed to be on a more even keel in the hen house.  When the weather began to get cold (for those two days back in January) we decided we need to put a heat lamp in the coop to keep the water from freezing overnight.  The light seemed to make things even better – the egg production from Sally, Spot and Dot increased.  Tweety, Jr. and Fred, Jr., though?  Not so much.

My mother and my husband have “joked” on more than one occasion about sending the Ameraucana’s to the stew pot.  I chose to ignore them.

The other day I went out to the coop, as I do in the afternoon, and I lifted the door to the nesting boxes.  There, nestled in the straw, were four eggs.  Three brown and one green (!).

And there was much rejoicing.

The (theoretical) trip to the stew pot has been stayed.

This morning I used that beautiful green egg in some cornmeal pancakes I’ve been wanting to tell you about.  I made them for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve been thinking about them ever since.  I make whole-grain pancakes all the time – usually a mixture of rolled oats and freshly ground wheat – but this is the first time I’ve really delved into the cornmeal variety.  I think it’s because I’ve been getting all of this lovely freshly ground meal from Rockin’ S Farms – I really want to showcase it.  The sweetness of the corn lends itself really nicely to a pancake application.  Together with some local raw honey, cultured buttermilk, and those coveted eggs from our backyard flock, they make for a delightful breakfast. 

Honey, Buttermilk and Cornmeal Pancakes
prep time: 5 minutes
cook time: 20 minutes
yields: 16 4-inch pancakes

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups cornmeal
• 1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 2/3 cups buttermilk
• 1/4 cup honey (I’ve also used molasses here, for a deeper flavor)
• 2 eggs
• 3 Tablespoons melted butter

1. In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, honey, eggs and melted butter
3. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir to combine.  Do not overmix.
4. Ladle by quarter-cupfuls onto a hot griddle.  Allow to brown on the first side before flipping to the second side.
5. Serve warm with warm maple syrup, honey or fruit compote (I used some warm blueberry jam).
6. Enjoy!

Maybe you haven’t heard, but there is a growing number of “pet chickens” in this world.  A few years ago I wanted to start with just “a few” (I wanted six, but was encouraged to get sixteen because “they’ll all die before they even grow up”), but we ended up getting an assortment.  You’ll meet a few here and there as time goes on.

However, one of them ended up being “special.”  At a very young age (a few weeks) she demonstrated a preference for people over poultry.  When they were moved out into the chicken house where all the big chickens go, she refused to stay with the others and I would find her in the dark, alone, perched on a fence or a branch somewhere.  That’s a good way for a chicken to get eaten.

We’re too tenderhearted to be the “right” kind of farmers – the kind that cull our herds and flocks.  I googled the internet for suggestions on how to integrate her with the flock, and was surprised to have “chicken diapers” come up.  At the time I was more interested in keeping her with the flock and muttered, “That’s crazy!”

Well, you can guess where this ended up, right?  You’re right.  A few years of a house chicken.  A house chicken that went to fall festivals on my shoulder and sat beside me at my son’s baseball games (complete in booster outfit).

I named her Maria because of the song from The Sound of Music.  Maria has been gone less than a month now.  I really miss her.  I have realized, also, that chickens are intelligent, funny and very winsome creatures.  I’m glad that she took the time to teach me that lesson.

Here is a closeup of an Easter Egger. (The pan in the background is not foreshadowing– just lax housekeeping.)

Three of the chicks are Easter Eggers. The fourth is a Turken, or Naked Neck.

My photographer friend Paul mentioned in his blog once that the littlest blemish can make the difference between a Pulitzer and just another photo. For instance, the water marks where the pot was left to dry likely have disqualified me. The next photo, however, belongs on an animal website. Last week, I photographed the main use of a hen’s vent. This week, a different use…

completely by accident, I assure you.

Our poultry is a big concern. We had added lots of different kinds of fowl to the mix. There are no regrets. We have loved having them all and learned a lot from doing so. This year, mainly by attrition as predators such as feral cats, coyote, foxes, and hawks discovered easy pickings in our domesticated bird lot, we have downsized by type.

We had started letting them back out, again, but that had dire consequences – worse than the last raid on our bantam coops a bit farther back in time. Everyone is now locked up for good unless we are out keeping a careful eye on them… They just love running around picking green shoots of grass and reducing the insect population, but it is not safe to leave them out for very long. We need to build a few mobile mini yards, so that they can enjoy more freedom.

We will be keeping our pet turkey raised from a week old poult.  She sits down to be pet like a dog and will follow you everywhere. Gertrude is a farm pet. We also get extremely big eggs for breakfast every Spring.

However, her beau Bart is FOR SALE. He is 1/2 Royal Palm and 1/2 Standard Bronze. He is a proven breeder and is 2 years old. We got him as a Jake. He is not aggressive (actually shy), but will follow you for food. Bartholomew puts on quite a show for his girl and will gobble up a storm during breeding season, or when feeling a bit cocky – throughout the year.

Bartholomew the Tom Turkey - $40.00 OBO. "Update" Gertrude for sale also if purchased with Bart. $75.00 for this big, healthy, breeding pair. Note: Need incubator for eggs since hen is so heavy. Gerti and Bart - SOLD

We have 2 female Japanese quail (need to get a boy). And the rest of the flock is made up of Mini Bantam chickens. Chicks are hatching out of our incubator now. It is located in my office so that I can keep it properly maintained and monitored at all times.

Our focus is on “the Ridiculous-looking chicken” project. We cross Americauna, Polish, Silkie, Silkie Showgirl, D’uucle, Serama, Sebright and Cochin in order to accomplish this goal. One great by-product is that the crosses are extremely healthy since inbreeding flaws are bred out in the process. You get a lot of great looking chickens, wonderful layers and a strong genetic pool.

Project Chicks

Chick Pic 2

The following pics show last Spring’s crosses and Parents.

Silkie Showgirl x Polish Hen

Cochin x Silkie Hen

Serama Rooster

Polish Roo

Polish Top Hats have quite a Headdress

Bantam Americauna Rooster

D'uucle x Silkie Hen full shot

D'uucle x Silkie Hen head shot

Silkie Showgirl Rooster head shot

SSG Roo

This RIDICULOUS masterpiece is up for sale. He is an Americauna x Silkie Showgirl and falls into the Easter Egger category since his female offspring will lay blue or green eggs.

Americauna x Silkie Showgirl Young Rooster - SOLD to Becky M.

Alternate pose

Head shot

This hen is a Serama x Sebright with a little Cochin mixed in. There is also one more hen. She is a black with rust colored Serama with a little Cochin mixed in. She produces nice tiny chicks.

Serama x Sebright Cochin Hen

Serama with a twist of Cochin Hen

And last but not least is our Purebred Silkie Roo (a bit muddy today).

White Silkie Roo

Marshmallow

Have a Cockle Doodle Day!

In July we were able to finish the coop, complete with hen boxes and external storage compartment.  I love having both of these features.  The hen boxes don’t take up any much needed internal coop space.  And the storage compartment is wonderful and just the right size to hold all the feed, extra straw, bedding and supplies – right there where it’s needed.

We “patiently”  - NOT – waited for the first egg to appear.  As 20 weeks came and nearly went we were almost frantic.  If the little ones checked once, they must have checked a dozen times a day.  Finally, just like the books said, a little brown egg appeared one day.  It was perfectly formed and petite, but beautiful non the less.  Each day we would marvel in the addition of additional eggs greeting us in the hen boxes.  I do believe they barely had time to land before a little one was checking to see if one was there.  It took some time before we were greeted by a green egg from the Ameraucanas.  They are our treasures for sure.  We have had a couple double yolk eggs but for the most part they have been normal.  Only once did we receive a no-yolk egg.

During the summer months we spend a lot of time outside.  The ladies decided during this time that if the little ones were having snack outside that they should join in too!  We soon learned to protect the plate of people food from the chickens!  It was like having another group of pre-schoolers to teach manners to.  Goodness – they do like treats!

We went through a time when there was a definite pecking order situation going on in the flock.  We noticed that the two Ameraucanas where being picked on buy someone.  Come to find out, it was the smallest of the Buff Orpingtons.  We separated her from the others a few times – she didn’t like it at all – and it seemed to help somewhat.  We started calling her soup and telling her she was going to end up that way if she didn’t start “playing nice”!

In August my husband and I were lucky enough to take a trip to the Chicago area for our son’s Boot Camp Graduation from the Navy.  That meant baby-sitters for the flock!  Between family and friends they were well cared for.

Unfortunately, in the late part of Fall we lost one of the Buff Orpingtons.  We believe it was a hawk that got her during the mid day.  Given her condition and the time of day it really couldn’t have been a different predator, and we do have a lot of hawks.  I just hope they don’t continue to think this is the place to come for lunch  I had been letting them out in the yard during the day to forage but now I only let them out if we are out there with them.

When Fall returned and the days shortened it was like someone flipped a switch and poof no eggs.  I was amazed at this.  The first thing to happen was molting – lots of feathers everywhere.  It’s good thing I knew what was going on or it could have been an alarming situation!  They recovered nicely and after about 10 weeks the eggs are now coming in earnest once again.  I wouldn’t say they are all producing daily but we are getting there.

Have an “eggstra” wonderful day!

I miss them but Linda says they are happy and healthy in her new virtually inpenetrable fortress of a hen coop.

A few weeks ago I meandered by the duck pond to see how Sweet Pea and King, my former pet ducks, were doing. They are completely acclimated; they waddle up the bank with all the other fowl to get free food, rather than play it safe  staying in the pond.

Both Pilar the Ameraucana (or Easter Egger) and Summer the Welsummer became women this past week and now lay eggs: blue/green and medium brown, respectively.

These girls were inside on the kitchen table for a quick visit and a photo shoot. They love to branch hop in the bushes so they can fly over the fence. Loud squawking and wing flapping is a sure sign that the girls are out and need to be rescued from under Gracie’s (the black lab pup) playful paw.

Pilar in the first photo has a “pea” comb and Summer sports a “single” comb.

My next post will be a photo journal of how this exact egg came to be outside the hen, not inside.

Unfortunately, the rest of the week has ended up being quite hectic and I have gotten a moment to write anything since that post.  But hooray and great joy!  Here I am now!

As I mentioned above I have just returned from my lengthy nine-day honeymoon, which was wondrous.  While I could easily write a lot about it, for now I will just say that Eliza and I had a really great time.

What I want to write about here is eggs . . . specifically the eggs that my lovely chickens have begun to lay.

Now obviously we knew when we got the chickens that eggs would occur at some point (eggs were a very big point in getting chickens at all). However, we didn’t really have a clearly defined idea of when these future eggs would occur.  With a little bit of research we had the general assumption that eggs might start arriving sometime in October (which ended up being true), but as the month approached we became a bit skeptical.  Chickens do not lay as well (or sometimes at all) in cold weather, and so there was a thought that maybe our birds would not start laying eggs until the following spring. 

How fortunate we are to have been proven wrong!

Over the past several weeks we have collected several eggs (I think we have over a dozen right now).  So far we only think that maybe two or three of our six birds are actually laying, but hopefully the rest a soon to follow.  These first eggs have tended to be smaller (which is normal for young chickens), but they are exciting.  One of the layers is one of our Rose Comb Brown Leghorns, which has been laying lovely white eggs.  Our other layer(s) are one or two of our Ameraucanas which have been giving us awesome light green eggs (we’re hoping that maybe the third Ameraucana will produce blue eggs).

Tonight I plan on cooking a quiche with our first good collection of eggs.  Not sure what all I will put into it (bought some feta and olives last night thinking that they might go well).  I am getting really excited to figure out all forts of things to make with eggs.  Besides quiches (which I super love and want to make tons of) I’d like to do frittatas, creme brulee, deviled eggs, custards, etc.  If any of y’all out there in the net-o-sphere have good egg recipes that you’d like to recommend or share I’d love to hear them (and maybe I’ll write a post about them upon trying to make them myself).

Anyways, it is awesome to be finally getting our eggs from our chickens.  Now if they will just stop destroying our garden they might actually start really earning their keep (I kid, we love these birds).

I think if you love to cook, you can’t be afraid to fail.  There’s always going to be that one batch of cookies that you burn, or that jelly that didn’t set or the bread dough that just didn’t rise for whatever reason.  The important thing is that you try to learn from those mistakes and move on.  Sure, sometimes it can be painful to your ego (and to your wallet, in some cases), but it’s not the end of the world.  I’ve curdled a dozen egg yolks making custard, and had an equal number of egg whites that never whipped to stiff peaks.  I’ve turned multiple batches of failed sourdough bread into sourdough breadcrumbs.  I’ve tossed out a stockpot that had sugar burned so badly on the bottom that it was irreparably damaged.  Believe me – I’ve had plenty of disasters in the kitchen.  Sometimes they push me to try harder, and sometimes they make me take a step back and reevaluate whether I really have the time and the inclination to babysit a sourdough starter.

The answer to the second question, by the way, is no.  At least not right now.

Speaking of stockpots....

Yesterday was one of those days.  You know the ones – where nothing seems to go quite the way you’d planned?  I woke up thinking that I’d do some grocery shopping, wash some clothes and maybe make some granola bars to send to school as snacks for the boys.  A productive day – that’s all I’d really hoped for.  And it’s not that it wasn’t productive, it was just not the kind of productive I’d planned on.

New chickens on the block

You see, rather than running my grocery errands and washing the umpteen piles of laundry that are currently carpeting my laundry room floor, I spent half the day yesterday driving 100 miles round-trip to procure these lovely Barred Rock and Ameraucana hens.  We started our backyard flock back in April.  Three Rhode Island Red hens, which my oldest son promptly named Sally, Tweety and Fred.  Since then, the trio has dwindled to a lonesome single Sally – Fred was felled by a Black widow spider, and Tweety we lost to an unknown predator just a couple of days ago.  While we know that these are just some of the perils that come with raising livestock, it’s still a sad affair when you’re faced with the loss of an animal.  Poor Sally seemed a little lost without her flockmates, and we’d been thinking of expanding our numbers anyway, so I felt justified in postponing my chores for a bit so that we could do just that.

Once we got back home, got the chickens’ wings clipped and transferred them safely to the coop to get acclimated, I decided to move on to making granola bars.  I had placed some apple chunks in the dehydrator before we left for our chicken wrangling adventure, and they were nice and leathery upon our return.

Semi-succesful granola bars

I had attempted granola bars earlier in the week, based on this recipe from Smitten Kitchen.  They were good, but they didn’t really ever set up the way I expected them too.  First, they burned and stuck on the edges; and, second, they were too soft at room temperature to maintain their bar shape.  I’m not sure if its my error (probably) or a flaw in the recipe (probably not – Deb’s pretty much a genius, plus she tests her recipes carefully), but I wanted to start over from scratch to try and get something that was more bar-like and less really thick oatmeal-like.

I used a combination of rolled oats, wheat germ, dried apples, raisins, unsweetened flake coconut, sucanat, agave nectar and coconut oil.  I sprayed my pan liberally with oil.  I only baked them for about 15 minutes.

And they were a disaster.  A complete and utter failure.  At least as far as granola bars go.

As granola, though?  A total success (well, except for the part that was so baked on the pan I couldn’t get it off without soaking it in hot water for an hour or so).  With a little almond milk, it makes a delicious breakfast cereal.

So despite the fact, that nothing that I initially intended to get done yesterday actually got accomplished, I wound up with some beautiful new chickens, and some delicious granola.  I won’t bother sharing the ratios I used, since I really was trying for something completely different from what I ended up with.  However, once I do figure out the perfect granola bar recipe, I’ll be sure to pass it along to all of you.  In the meantime, don’t be afraid to try and fail in the kitchen- it’s better than never trying to cook at all (or something like that).

Oh, and those new chickens?  My oldest son ran right out to the coop when he got off the bus and promptly named them: Spot, Dot, Tweety, Jr. and Fred, Jr.  He’s nothing if not original.

In case you’re just really jonesing for some homemade granola bars, here are a few recipes that seem promising:

Alton Brown’s Granola Bars

King Arthur Four’s Chewy Granola Bars

Ina Garten’s Homemade Granola Bars

Apartment Therapy’s Crunchy Granola Bars