I Turned My Chickens Into Cannibals

Having chickens for the first time is like having a new baby.  Everyone wants to visit them; everyone asks a lot of questions about them; and finally, everyone who has ever had chickens gives you advice.  The other day at Costco, someone in the refrigerator aisle asked me if I thought it was worth it to spend the extra money to buy the organic eggs.  I said, "I don't know. I'm waiting for my new backyard chickens to start laying eggs so I don't have to buy them anymore."  He said, "Oh, you have chickens!  I used to raise chickens.  They eat everything, you know.  You're feeding them all your food scraps, right?  Make sure to feed them your scraps."  I got this advice from several chicken-raising veterans.

Actually, I had been wondering what I could feed them besides the store-bought feed.  I give them different raw vegetable scraps, but moving the coop around every couple days provides a constant supply of yard weeds to eat, so they aren't always enthusiastic about the vegetable scraps.  The other day, I gave them some watermelon rinds, and it turns out they love watermelon as much as my kids!  In short order, they ate everything right down to the thin tough green outer rind.  I got the same result with cantaloupe rinds.

Over the Fourth of July, we had some friends staying with us.  They used to raise backyard chickens and also encouraged us to feed them more table scraps.  They had some restaurant leftovers they didn't want to take with them when they left.  They said, "Just feed it to the chickens.  They'll eat anything."  I took their advice, and sure enough they devoured everything with gusto, especially the meat.  And then I realized I had just turned my chickens into cannibals.  They were eating chicken enchiladas.

Undercover Chickens: The Chicken Wrangler

The girls are growing up.

Anna loves the chickens.  I'd like to tell you she is a chicken whisperer, charming them with gentle words and a soft voice like the picture below implies, but you're more likely to see her chasing them around trying to catch one.  She's more like a chicken wrangler than a chicken whisperer.

Undercover Chickens: Bundles of Fuzzy Goodness

We live in a suburban neighborhood that has a covenant against backyard poultry.  However, we also have one of the largest and most private backyards in our neighborhood.  Our yard backs up to a strip of wooded city property with a pond.  I felt certain that having a few quiet hens in a portable coop was not going to disturb any neighbors, so I decided to make my backyard chicken dream a reality.  On May 17, we picked up the six baby chicks we ordered from a local garden center.  They were all the fuzzy cuteness I imagined they would be.

Their first home was a newspaper-lined plastic tub in our unfinished basement.  When they weren't eating, they gathered in a tight huddle under the heat lamp (or in our case, a shop lamp with a 100-watt bulb clipped over their tub).  Over the first couple weeks, they started to acquire names.  First, Anna named the bigger Barred Rock "Cutie" because, well, she was cute and she was Anna's favorite.  

Then Ehren named one of the Rhode Island Reds "Pilot" because she was always trying to fly.  I named the smaller Rhode Island Red "Little Red."  Cousin Elsie visited and named the two Orpington Buffs "Khaki" and "KaCoach" (which we shortened to "Coach"), and the remaining Barred Rock "Madge."  Our six little bundles of fuzzy goodness were a big hit at show and tell in both Kindergarten and 2nd grade.   But after about three weeks, their growing feathers moved them right into the ugly duckling stage.

Those feathers were also a warning that Dan needed to hurry and finish building their outdoor coop.  I'm not going to lie.  Building the coop to my specifications was a lot of work for Dan.  He often reminds me that my dream of turning him into a farmer is never going to happen, but nevertheless, he finished the coop, and it was beautiful.

In mid-June, the girls moved outside.  On their first night in the outdoor coop, a big thunderstorm rumbled in.  We worried that they might not be able to climb the ramp up to their snug dry roost.  We kept looking out the window during flashes of lightning to see if they were still outside.  It was a rough initiation into outdoor living, but those resourceful girls made it to their roost.

April Fools

April Fools!  But, it's not a joke.  There were Bloodroots bursting into bloom, a full three weeks ahead of schedule.  Here's a photo I shot with my iPod while I was out running.

It's terrible shot, I know, but I just had to have proof in hand that these little guys were really there on April 1. 

Seventy on St. Patrick's

Are we still in Minnesota?  I have never seen a winter like this, so I have to write this down. We have three days in a row with highs of 79 degrees, preceded by a week of 60's and 70's. I just looked at the forecast, and another week of the same is predicted. Yesterday, on St. Patrick's Day, the ice went out on the lake, and we had a bonfire in our backyard in the evening.

My onions, garlic and tarragon are up, and I even noticed a few weeds sprouting. 

Saturday and Sunday night, we slept with all the windows wide open, listening to the frogs in the pond. We were not cold. The robins arrived in full force last Tuesday, March 13 (after Monday's rain). The plants, animals, and I are lulled into a false sense that the calendar says May, but it's not. It's a little weird and scary if I stop to think about it. The kids were unable to have any outdoor hockey games this winter; cars were going through the ice on the lake in February. The kids got virtually no sledding time because of the warm winter and lack of snow. How will we pay for this unnaturalness, I wonder? A summer drought?

Compliment Gone Awry

Whenever I see Christian get that look in his eye and make a beeline to talk to a stranger, I know it's not going to end well {for me}. Tonight after church was over, I saw him heading toward a man getting up to leave. I trailed Christian just in time to hear him say with much enthusiasm, "You could be on the Biggest Loser!" Are you imagining me cringing? Oh my word. But let me backup and say that Christian meant this as the highest compliment. My kids love that show. Of course you can imagine it might not have been so well received. Thankfully for me, the man happens to have a son with Asperger's. I don't really know the family, but I'm hoping he didn't take the comment too personally, and maybe, just maybe, he even went home and had a little chuckle about it.

Christian does not have a mean bone in his body. He would never intentionally hurt anyone's feelings. It's just that he sees the world so differently than the average person. After all, how could anyone not want to be on that popular TV show?

Leap!

Anna has begged to take dance forever {too many Angelina Ballerina books!}.  Finally this winter, we let Anna step into the world of dance via a community education class.  The students had their final class today and got to show the parents a few moves. 

I was a little frightened at how well Anna had this move down.  Look at her shaking those hips!

Even though the kids didn't learn anything very technical, Anna gave it her all.  Her enthusiasm was something to be proud of.

But truthfully, I wish I had signed her up for the six-year-old class because being with a whole lot of preschoolers was a little boring.