Who Rules the Roost

Our ladies made it through the winter! The winter sure is boring for chickens. They spend time in the run when the weather is warm enough and make occasional trips out into the snow-covered yard, but when there isn't anything green to eat, life as a chicken is not fulfilling. They spend lots and lots of time eating, pooping and scratching around inside the coop. Thankfully, spring is now here!

They get let out into the yard at least once, if not twice, a day to roam free and fill their bellies with bugs, grass, weeds and dirt/grit.

Camilla hasn't changed one bit. She is still the most curious, engaging and food driven of the flock. She is also the smallest, lowest on the pecking order within the flock yet bravest in running Uli off. In short, she is awesome. I suspect she might be the smartest of the flock as well, as she realizes where the scratch treats come from and makes attempts to help herself.

And, Petunia, oh Petunia. Over the winter, our flock developed a little bit of an issue. Nellie and Camilla's butts got a little poopy and it pulled out some of their tail feathers. Then, since they had naked patches on their bums, someone (not naming names) thought it was a good idea to peck at their skin and pull out any feathers that might try to grow in. Someone did that. And then someone got a set of pinless peepers.

Pinless peepers are annoying to the chicken but not harmful. There are little plastic pegs that go into their nostrils to hold them in place and blinders to make it harder to go after what is right in front of you.

She can still eat and move around fine, but the pinless peepers did seem to knock her down a notch or two in the pecking order. She is still on top, but not so dramatically so. The process of putting them on her did nothing to grow her trust in us. In her eyes, we are to be avoided if possible. Exceptions are made when we offer really appetizing treats.

It seems to be working, though, since the other 2 are slowly regrowing their feathers. You can see a peak of Camilla's naked bum in the photo below.

You know what is hard to do? Take pictures of chickens that are foraging. Especially chickens who know you are the bringer of good stuff to eat. You might get one photo like this:

But, your next photo would look like this as the chicken charges towards you:

The chickens are just over a year old now and are experiencing their 2nd summer in the backyard. However, this year, things are not the same. There is a whole new dynamic: Uli. Uli is a German Shorthaired Pointer, which is a sporting breed meant for bird hunting. We knew this when we got him, but we were hoping we could train him to accept OUR birds as family and not prey. It seems to be going pretty well. He spends a lot of time hanging out with them when they are in their run.

The chickens free roaming time does not usually overlap with Uli's outside time. When Uli naps inside, the chickens come out to play. When Uli is outside, the chickens chill out in their run. It works pretty well but takes a bit of extra juggling and attention from us to rotate them. And occasionally, there is an overlap. Like this one:

photo credit to Paul

 Paul let Uli out and went out with him to make sure nobody got hurt. Our bird hunting dog was promptly corralled under the deck but our brave little Camilla!

It doesn't always go that way, though. Uli has brave moments where he runs at them and they flap their wings and squawk, which gets him even more excited. We are hoping that we can gradually work up to them all being out in the yard while we are nearby doing yard or garden work.

But, for now, they will take turns roaming the yard and hanging out on the back steps.

The Mullweiler Menagerie

We are acquiring quite the collection of pets!  Today marks 2 weeks having Uli at home. He is the current star of the show as we train and socialize him. Fanny is still trying to come to terms with Uli joining the family but is making great progress. The chickens are making it through their first winter and are all laying eggs regularly.  Things are going really well and we are so grateful and happy to care for this collection of creatures. They each contribute to our lives in their own wonderful ways.  On to the pictures!

Puppies need to chew and bite and chomp almost constantly. We have quite the collection of toys for Uli so that we can keep him engaged and chewing the right things instead of us or our things.

Even with nearly constant supervision and redirection to appropriate chew things, he still tries to sneak in bites on things he knows he shouldn't.  This fringed rug I knit is a very hard to ignore temptation.  It might have to go into storage until he gets a bit older and calmer.

In addition to exploring everything with his mouth, he also has a ton of energy for running and jumping, which also means lots of slipping and sliding on the wood floors.

We saw a lot of progress this second week when it comes to his comfort with being closed into his crate. The soft bed is a big draw!

Uli is also still taking visitors and was happy to snuggle up to Jason and Elise.

And to my mom, too! We really love that he can play hard and then settle down for some mellow, cuddling time.

He has also been going to puppy socialization classes and to puppy playtime sessions in order to make sure he remains friendly to other dogs. The first few minutes of his first class were kind of scary for him.  He moved around the perimeter of the room with his tail between his legs and seemed intimidated by all of the puppies and the new space.  And then, after he had taken it all in for a few minutes, he decided it was all right and he started wrestling and running with the other dogs.  Hooray for socialization!

All that play can make a puppy tired.  Uli's favorite napping spot is on top of this heating vent. This Minnesota dog is not a fan of the cold weather so far. I feel you, Uli.

For the first few days, Fanny hid upstairs.  We don't allow Uli on the 2nd floor yet, so she very much stuck to that safe zone for the first few days. She had her food, water, litterbox and plenty of places to sleep up there.   Even though her basic needs were met, she was peeking around the corner of the stairs and testing out the safety of the 1st floor before too long.  She doesn't like being left out of the action!

She has slowly started to lessen the distance from which she observes Uli and his shenanigans.

He can still be a bit overwhelming to her when he tries to elicit play.  Despite his comical attempts at engaging her through play bowing, growly flips and barking spins, she hasn't taken the bait.

We are optimistic that through a combination of our monitoring and calming of his behavior towards her and her growing confidence, we will be able to find a point where everyone has accepted each other.

And, the chickens!  Winter is boring for chickens. They have a pretty tricked out coop that keeps the temperature at 20 degrees F or warmer, a string of lights that supplements the darkness to provide about 14 hours of light and we open the door to their outside run whenever the temperature is 10 degree F or higher. When they are in the run, they have access to a dust (wood ash) bath, some things to perch on and we give them food scraps, grit and scratch.

They must be happy chickens because they all started laying eggs! And, as I was hoping, Petunia's eggs are blue!

The blue eggs are such a beautiful novelty.  The color of the shell makes no difference when it comes to the egg on the inside, but it makes me happy to have something so special looking.

Nellie and Camilla both lay brown eggs, but I have figured out how to tell them apart.  It helps to be able to know who is laying which egg so I can have a vague sense of the frequency each bird is laying at. Three egg days are not uncommon for us but not an everyday thing.

Nellie's eggs are a bit lighter in color than Camilla's and Camilla's are a bit pointier in shape. I have learned that each bird has a signature shape to their egg based on the shape of their body.  It makes total sense but I never knew that before!

We have been getting enough eggs that we have been able to start giving them away a half dozen at a time. It seems I am not the only one to be thrilled by the blue shells.  The recipients of our eggs have all remarked about the color.

We have also been receiving egg gifts from my Aunt Audrey. She has ducks and chickens and has been sharing her duck eggs with us.  Between her duck eggs and our chicken eggs, it is safe to say that we are rich in eggs!

It has been fun to make new recipes prompted by the need to use up some eggs.  For example, I have been making Mark Bittman's cornbread recipe.

Thus concludes the pet update!  Well...here is one last puppy shot for the road:

PS "Mullweiler" in the title is a mashup of my last name and Paul's last name.  We decided not to pick which one to use for Uli but instead gave him this fun hybrid for his last name.

Happy New Year!

2015! As Crafternoon tradition dictates, I welcomed the first day of the new year with friends, knitting, tea and great food. Although not well documented, I assure you the year was properly greeted with a potluck brunch that favored the sweet over the savory.  After the sugar-filled month of December, I think savory was what we were all craving.

This year I made beaded stitch markers as a gift to Crafternoon attendees. We usually have a mix of crafts, but this time everyone who came was a knitter so I hope the stitch markers bring a little sparkle to their notion bags. Inspiration credit goes to Jamie who, years ago, made me a set of beaded stitch markers that inspired this beadworking session of my own.

I am making a sweater for Paul, which marks the second such occasion in the 12 years we have been together.  Between the holiday driving time and crafting gatherings, it has been coming along quickly! 

With 2015, came a surprise.  Another of our chickens started laying! We are supplementing light in the coop but doing so conservatively.  A timer prompts the light to go on at 3am and off at 4pm, giving them about 13 hours of light.  That amount of light is a bit shy of what is recommended to force laying. With that choice, we thought it unlikely that the other hens would start laying until the spring. Surprise! The addition happened this week and so far we have had 2 days where we have gotten 2 eggs.

I am thinking it is Camilla that has started laying because I am still holding out hope that Petunia will lay blue/green eggs. So far we can tell the difference between the eggs from the 2 layers due to slight differences in color, size and shape of the egg shells. As they settle into their rhythm, it is a rare day where we don't get an egg. With our newly acquired riches, I think it is time we start delving into the egg book Paul got for his birthday!

I hope this year provides you with happy surprises, good food and people to share it all with.

4th Quarter Chicken Report

It has been a long time since I have dedicated a post to our hens, but as you might have noticed, they now have bios on the sidebar! As you can read in her bio, the exciting news is that Nellie is laying eggs!  She laid her first egg on October 25th and has been laying on an every other day (sometimes daily!) basis since then.  It took us a bit to figure out it was her but we are 100% confident now that she is our hardworking hen of the moment.

All 3 ladies have learned that we often provide excitement in the form of treats (kitchen and garden scraps.)  That means that they pay a lot of attention to us.  Whenever we appear in the backyard while  the chickens are out of the run, the scene looks a little like the pied piper (minus the death!).  If we squat down, we get even MORE attention.  It looks like this:

This sort of relationship is intentional on our part as we want our city chickens to be well socialized.  To achieve this we made a point of giving them scraps out of hand and handled them regularly from the start of their lives.  Even if we had not taken these efforts, I think they would still pay a lot of attention to us since we are the ones keeping them fed and healthy. The resulting comfort level and focus on us ended up being a little more intense than I had envisioned. I have had to put them back into their run from time to time in order to get my yardwork or gardening done without interference (stealing raspberries out of my container when I am picking, getting in the way of my hands whenever they are with range of their bodies, pecking at my clothes while I am weeding, etc).

This is our first winter with chickens, so we had a lot to do in order to prepare the coop for the cold weather.  Thanks to Paul, we have electricity running overhead from the garage to the coop.  Outside of the coop. we have an electrical box where the power attaches to cords that run inside the coop.  Those cords power a string of rope lights on a timer, a flat panel heater connected to a thermostat that triggers it to turn on when the internal temperature gets to 20 degrees F and a heated water base that keeps their drinking water thawed.  This set-up has worked well so far, which is a victory since we made it through a few weeks of January/February like weather already this season.

When I got back from my trip in early October, I got to see how the chickens were undeterred by the frosty mornings as well as their newly acquired raspberry picking skills.  They figured out how to jump up and get the berries from higher up on the branches. I think I am destined to forever compete with our pets when it comes to those raspberries! The dogs were pretty good raspberry harvesters, too.
 

After the first snowfall, we decided to add a corrugated steel roof on top of the run and plastic sheeting on the exterior run walls.  Our thinking is that if we can keep a lot of the snow and ice out of the run as well as provide a bit of a windbreak, the chickens will be happier and healthier throughout the winter.

I think they appreciate our efforts! And, they really appreciate whatever kitchen scraps we offer as their foraging options are suddenly non-existent.

Sometimes I feel a little guilty that our Fanny cat is inside so snuggly and warm while the chickens our outside in their cold coop.

But I guess as far as chicken lives go, ours have pretty great ones.  Case in point, we leveled up in the chicken keeping world today when we brought Nellie inside to give her a bath.

Over the past few weeks I have been watching a mat of droppings stuck to her bum grow bigger and more compacted.  I was hoping the situation would resolve itself but without any dust to bathe in, it didn't look like she was going to be able to do anything about it. We took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather today to bring her inside and wash her off. Paul and I teamed up, he holding her steady in the tub and me doing the loosening up and washing. She was surprisingly unbothered by the ordeal, quietly clucking a little when she first was set in the tub and then settling in to the situation. In case you are wondering, it is uncool to send your chicken outside with a soaking wet bum. How does one address that problem?  With a light toweling off and a hair dryer! Yes, I dried my chicken's bum with a hair dryer. I was thoroughly amused by the ridiculousness of the task.

My reward? A steady supply of clean, delicious eggs.

Camilla

Petunia

Nellie

Hidden in the picture below are all 3 of the ladies, busy foraging on one of the last days before the frost really changed the landscape.

I don't think I will have much more to say about the ladies in the coming few months as they hunker down for the winter, spending a lot of their time in their coop keeping warm. You can bet I will be checking for eggs regularly, though as this is the season for baking and eating hearty foods! Every time I eat an egg, I announce "This is Nellie's egg!". Paul is wondering how long I will keep that up. I am wondering when our other 2 ladies will be added to my pronouncements!