Natural Instincts

I don't get it. How can these birds know they need to fly up and rest on a rod? Well instinct is strong and the plain and simple reason is... most predators come from the ground... snakes, skunks, bobcats, small transformers - although I think they could fly in like a chicken, roost with them and then take shape into any predator. Can you imagine this...? The chickens sitting there... "Ahhhhhh cluck, cluck...." Here comes another chicken-looking chicken... clucking robotically and WHAM! It takes the shape of a toaster!

I have really digressed here.

I visited the coop this morning and here they are... I am still working on the water attachment for the Auto-Wata and then need to come up with a way to feed them automatically. They eat like they've not had food EVER!

Whew - Time Is Flying And Chicks Are Growing!!!

UPDATE - June 25, 2009. I took these pictures this morning before flying off to work. Loa (Arcauna) is on the left. This bird is looking good. Gold with brown and white markings. Loa has this weird little trait where she, tilts her head in 20 different directions in order to check you out. I understand I am confusing and she does not understand my sense of humor...sometimes I don't pick up my shoes or leave soda cans around the house... wait am I still talking about Loa...? Anyway, Loa is great fun and very curious. Millie (RIR) is a spaz, but taking on the typical reddish coloring and flat back of a RIR. Hoot (Arcauna) is on the far right and is getting some nice coloring as well. Gray and white, she is looking like an Eagle, but flies like Eddie The Eagle - remember him from the 1988 Calgary Olympics?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7MmJIy0bjo

Not sure what language they are speaking, it has to be Scandanavian or Jibberish...

Here is another picture with Millie in the foreground, Loa on the left and Hoot in the back. Hoot is always the first to the dinner table, the first one out of the coop and the first one to fly AT me.

By the way, the ABM bedding material is working out great. At first there were some "drive-bys" and I could smell the stench, and then it seemed to level off and become non-existent. Thank goodness, nothing like having trailer trash farmer wanna-be's living next door to you.

Rhode Island Reds

Great article I discovered on Rhode Island Reds (RIR). We have one of these - Millie. She is a cool little hen and is turning out to be stunning. This is an excerpt from a radio interview I grabbed from "Living the Country Life" Website. Another nice website.

One of my favorite chicken breeds is the Rhode Island Red. It's the chicken of choice for those who want quality egg-layers and good fryers.

Bud Wood owns a hatchery and says Rhode Island Reds are one of the earliest breeds developed in the United States and are among his best sellers because of their production qualities.

'They're a fairly gentle breed, and they lay a nice big, dark brown egg," Wood says. "They're a hardy breed, and easy to raise. Rhode Island Red is probably the beginning genetics of all of the commercial brown egg layers today."

At peak production, the hens are egg-laying machines. Just one hen will give you five to six eggs a week.

The Reds have a larger body type than other breeds. Wood recommends feeding them a commercial layer mix, which gives them all the nutrition they need. You can also provide a place to forage. It cuts their consumption of commercial feed way down, maybe even in half. Grubbing around the yard for plants and bugs makes their yolks a brighter yellow color.

We attempted to let them out in the garden yesterday, but they are as trepiditious as a kid is eating brussel sprouts.

Happy Father's Day

Friends!!!?

So now that buddies know I am keeping chickens, they find humor in chicken jokes...

England And Flight

It is fairly well known the British were not the most innovative, adventerous, poineering air-travellers. Don't get me wrong, they had some minor victories, but for the sake of this blog... they were WAY OFF THE BACK... compared to the United States, France, Germany and even Australia. I think the Hondurans were flying before the English.

This leads me to their chicken breeds - The Orpington

William Cook of Orpington County Kent in England is credited with the development of the 'Orpington' variety of chicken. In 1886 he introduced a fast growing, dual purpose (good for both eggs and meat) chicken that was black in color, had white flesh, and slate (grey) legs. He developed the breed by crossing Langshan, Minorca and Plymouth Rock chickens. Continued development eventually resulted in a Buff color varierty, introduced in 1894. Over time, a number of other color variations have been produced, such as the Spangled, Cuckoo and Blue, but none of these has achieved the popularity of the Buff Orpington. The hens can be good layers, laying some 200 eggs a year, and lay well into the cold weather. 200 eggs!!! I have two of them. This means I am going to 400 eggs a year!?

What is not mentioned here is they are tenative fliers, like to sit, eat, talk about victories in WWII, debate how awful French chickens are. How they smoke, rarely take dirt baths and think all chickens should cluck like them and how Princess Di's untimely death was a national tradegy.

Which makes this news all the more fun - Our Orps (Sunny and Scat)... took flight and made it to the roosting rod last night. It was quite the celebration - all the other chickens golf clapped for them and threw back some tea in honor of it.

Chicken's On The Lamb

I get home tonight and run over to the chickens like it was Christmas morning only to see the waterer looking like a commode. I quickly open the door to the coop and Kapalua the Arcauna decides to make a run for it. They have gotten very use to us coming in the coop. They know when we are there = food and actually don't run off like it is a bomb scare. I also left the gate open to the backyard which opens her world like an Amish boy at a toy store - she decides its movie night and she's off to downtown. Fortunately the nickname "chicken" was accurate. She walked 10 steps out the gate and looked around like she just walked into the Lion's Den and runs back into the backyard as fast as possible. The grass is always greener theory is bunk... and this chicken realized it quickly. She tried everything to get back in the coop with the others... of course the others look at her like she was a convict. "Weirdo!!!! You always were the unstable one". Of course the two Buff's, sat back and mumbled something about "Americans always running off to better places! It took some chasing to get back in because as we got close to her, she decided to try her martial arts skills on us. We managed to get her herded back in where she promptly laid down.

More tomorrow on the waterer... Ebay'ing it.

Raising Chickens - Trend or Stupidity?

Here is an article I read on Reuters today -

Despite Jack Shafer's recent complaints, newspapers continue to report on the "trend" of people raising chickens in their back yards.

The latest: The Dubuque, Iowa, Telegraph-Herald, which has taken it even further than a trend—according to that newspaper (whose article was picked up by the Chicago Tribune), it's a "movement": "Whether they are owned as pets or food sources, chickens have become the animals du jour, the darlings of the growing 'backyard flock' movement," the paper reports.
Of course, there is nothing to support the idea that such a "movement" actually exists; the article is built on nothing but anecdotes. The only trend here is of newspaper reporters insisting that there is a trend.

It may well be true that more people are raising their own chickens. But these stories offer no real data to indicate that it is so.

The Telegraph Herald attributes the "trend" to "a recession and rising food costs or ... food safety and animal welfare concerns." But as Shafer, Slate's media critic, noted a couple of weeks ago when he recounted several similarly flimsy articles, "keeping chickens is a filthy, time-consuming, and expensive way to keep the pantry filled with eggs."If the recession or safety are the primary motivations for raising chickens, the chicken-raisers aren't very smart. A part-time job at Popeye's would be a far more effective way to offset the effects of the recession than would building and maintaining a backyard coop."

Seriously, this person doesn't know the first thing about raising chickens. It is painfully obvious this person enjoys the confines of a second-rate fast food restaurant, e-coli and endless teasing to raising chickens, working the land, producing food, controling pests and having a constant supply of humor and entertainment.

Carmel Valley and Chickens Part 2

As you ramble down Carmel Valley road it becomes clear you have moved from the well-to-do retirees to well-to-do wineries like Bernardus, Chateau Julian, Talbott among many others. The landscape is stunning and as you drive the valley seems to narrow with oak studded mountains becoming closer and closer.

Is it any wonder why celebrities and dignitaries call this place home; Doris Day, Betty White, Clint Eastwood, Earth, Wind and Fire (at one time), Merv Griffin, Leon Panetta, Charles Schultz (Peanuts), Charles Schwab, The Kohler Family, The Firestone Family to name a scant few.


Once deeper into the Valley you come upon the Village. Once a cowboy hitching post has now become a village of great restaurants, unique shops and artisans. The newest and one of the more lively is the Volcano Grill owned by Billy Quon Lee. Mr. Lee made a name for himself back in the 80's by opening a string of successful restaurants on the Monterey Peninsula. His success seems to continue.


http://www.volcano-grill.com/



If you dig a little deeper there are great spots to stop and take in the view, the Carmel River and even go for a horseback ride through the foothills and wineries at Holman Ranch.

http://www.holmanranch.com/



My point to this travel tip is; ranches and farms are everywhere. Chickens meander about along with wild turkey, quail and jack rabbits. Horse stables abound and discoveries are awaiting.

This is getting too sappy...