I order my chickens on the internet, like the settlers used to do

Over on my friend and neighbor's HenCam.com (which is a fantastic resource for all things chicken-keeping related, and voted one of the internet's best time-sinks by Country Living and BBC or some such), I shared some thoughts on what we're doing about our flock of chickens this year, and why. 

Since it is a natural follow on to my last post, I thought I'd reproduce it here as well. 

How many new chicks to get this year has been the topic of much conversation at our house lately – we’ve just put in our spring order (chicks arrive in April). The primary purposes of our flock are to 1) provide a living lesson in business and the care of animals for the children (they sell the eggs) and 2) to keep me amused.

Whether you're an old hand at chicken-keeping, or just thinking about getting a couple of birds for the first time - knowing why you're getting them should certainly be an important part of your breed selection. 

With our goals in mind, I always am looking for: a) a steady supply of eggs, and b) a good variety of hens (both egg & feather color). 

I’ve got a no [boys/feathered feet/feathered heads] rule, just because I’m a low maintenance (i.e. “lazy”) kind of chicken farmer. (Roosters make noise that annoy me/the neighbors. Feathered feet and the crazy feathered-headgear birds like Polish hens are high maintenance in care/trimming to keep healthy that I'm not willing to invest time in).  

I’ve also generally shied away from bantam (think: miniature chickens) breeds because I feel bad about the kids selling smaller eggs.

To maintain a flock of around 25 reasonably productive hens, I’ve found that we need to order/replenish about 5-10 hens a year.

Predators generally account for about 2/3rds of our loss (hawks, raccoons, possums, fisher cats) (but mostly hawks), which is just part of the life and risk that comes with free-range chicken keeping.  Plus: while we have been lucky/careful enough to avoid any other serious issues, we always lose a couple per year to other natural causes (egg bound, cancer, etc). 

Then there was the rooster that showed up in last year’s order. He ended up on the dinner table (see the “no boys” rule above).

Chickens can live to be 15+ years old with a luck and a (more than) a bit of care, and our oldest hens are about 4 years old. But they start to slow down in laying after a while, and because of their vulnerabilty to anything with a beak, claw or teeth and their tendency to go from perfectly healthy to death's door with very few indicators, the numbers of backyard chickens that make it into the 5+ age range are definitely a minority. We've also always been pretty pragmatic about our hens: they're not pets; they're production livestock. So with the rare exception that displayed a bit more personality, we take very few extraordinary measures to extend the lives of our birds. (e.g. none  of them have ever been crated for a trip to our veterinarian). 

This year, the Critter and I settled on 10-ish as the magic number. I have bought small lots of pullets (young hens just about ready to start laying) from local(-ish) folks (my bride’s preference), but I was looking for a little more variety this order. And I kind of like getting them as chicks. The kids love that part of the process. However, this limits the places I can order or buy the hens to a very few sellers unless I find someone to share an order.  I figured I’d go ahead and try MyPetChicken.com – I’ve heard mixed reviews, and the cost/chicken is relatively high, but they do offer vaccinated chicks and have a respectable selection, so I’m willing to give it a try.

I think we’ve had around 15 different breeds at this point. I don’t like to have just 1 of any bird generally, so that was a factor as well. We spent some time talking about which chickens had been our favorite and why, and which we were willing to try out and ended up with the following:

• (2) Silver spangled Hamburgs (we just lost our last one to natural causes a couple of weeks ago. We’ve had 5 or 6 over the years. They’re not very friendly – they don’t even socialize well with other chickens – but they are pretty to look at.
• (1) Rhode Island Red (great bird, but a little dominant, as you mentioned)
• (1) Australorp (Always try and keep a few of these in the flock)
• (1) white Plymouth Rock (we haven’t had an all-white hen in a couple of years. This was a special request from the Critter. We’ve got another RIR, so this will be the only ‘single’ in the flock)
• (2) silver Lakenvelder (We’ve never had these before, and selected them just because they looked pretty in the catalog)

For the first time, I’ve also ordered a couple of Golden Sebright bantam hens. We’ll keep back the smaller eggs for our own consumption, and I thought it’d be fun to mix it up a bit.

This will take us up to 30 birds total, but I’m planning to re-design and build an expanded coop this summer. Plus, my experience is that you lose up to 10-15% of chicks in the first 6-9 months (they get sick/die after shipping issues, or they're bred weak, or other random chicken issues). Combine with expected attrition of the current flock, and this should keep our numbers relatively steady on average, and the birds happy. 

By the way, introducing new birds to an existing flock is a bit of a trick. (We lost a couple of adolescent hens to bullying from the older girls before we got the hang of it). Terry's got a good reference with some ideas here. I'll post our method (which has consistently worked for the last 3 batches of new birds) later in the spring. 

Snow hens

From time to time, people ask me how well the chickens do in the colder weather. I worried a lot about this as well the first couple of winters. Until someone pointed out to me that chickens have survived a few thousand years of domestication, winters and all, without too much effort. 

They do tend to slow down in the winter, but that's as much about having fewer hours of daylight to get out and scratch for interesting tidbits as anything. As you can see, while ther sun is out, our hens take maximum advantage to soak up the rays. 

These are all 3rd generation birds of our flock, less than 2 years old. (The second one from the left is a Speckled Sussex and the others are all various shades of Araucana, which lay pale green, olive or blue eggs). The older birds tend to be a little slower to make their way out into the snow, and stay back in the more sheltered areas. 

The biggest issue with snow is that it covers up all that lovely dirt for scratching and the hens can get a little bored (which can lead to some issues - more on that below). This year, I planned ahead a bit more and rather than having to go out and clear the snow away by shovel, I created a wind & snow barrier around part of their coop to give them an easy place to get out and stretch their legs. Just a simple structure of stacked hay bales does the trick.

Added bonus, the little vermin that naturally seek out the hay bales to nest cozily through the winter provide an interesting diversion for the hens. 

About the only real challenge in the winter months is keeping their drinking water from freezing. Fortunately, I ran electricity out to the coop a few years ago, which allows me to put a low voltage heater under their water supply, designed to keep things liquid and accessible (available at pretty much any feed store). 

This also allowed me to put in an overhead light on a timer. Hens want between 12-16 hours of daylight for consistent laying (depending on the breed). Clearly not going to happen without artificial intervention during the colder months of the year.  There's still some slowdown, but generally, they keep going right through the winter months.  Just don't leave the eggs out too long, or they will freeze and crack.

I'll admit to one other concession - I put a red heat lamp in the coop during the darkest months of the year as well. Partly for the heat (although they really don't need it). But also the boredom of cooped up hens (Ha! "cooped up") can lead to pecking. And if they draw blood, they'll keep at it until it causes a real problem. The red lamp disguises any red they might see, and minimizes that kind of issue. 

This really shouldn't be too much of a problem, as long as your hens have ready access to the outside and something interesting to do. Like kids, they just get up to trouble if they're left without a better and more constructive distraction. 

This speckled Sussex is one of the friendliest (i.e. dumbest) birds in my flock. She's also one of the prettiest.

There may be a correlation between these facts. 

So there you go. Hens are really pretty easy to keep all year round, in even the colder parts of the country, with very little special preparation.. And seeing a pretty girl like this out pecking and hunting for interesting tidbits all fluffed up to keep herself warm will keep you entertained about as long as you can stand still in the snow yourself. 

P52: Week 3 - Your favorite thing

From the LensProToGo 52 Week photo challenge: 

'We all have and do a lot of things that we ‘like’. I like to hike, I like my iPad, I like the Patriots (okay… maybe I love them…), I like camping, I like my rug under my coffee table, I like my high heels… but what do I ‘love’? We want everyone to get to the core of this and find something that they like more than everything else and hold close to their heart.'

Well. High heels were out. And honestly, it was difficult to choose a thing I'd rush back into a burning house to save. My books? Maybe. But they can be replaced generally. My banjo? I'd love to say yes, and I do love the artistry and workmanship that went into the Stelling Master's Cross. But as poor a banjo player as I am, I can't say it defines me very well. 

I settled back on my truck. It's a large thing, and since I got my shiny new Mini Cooper S last month, it's no longer my daily driver as it was for most of the last 4 years. But I love it, perhaps more than any other posession I might lay claim to. 

Manual steering. Manual brakes. 3-on-the-tree, 6 cylinder. No radio. No air conditioning. Vinyl covered bench seat that cracks in the winter and scalds in the summer. 

Pure steel. 

Pure joy.  

A little dusting of snow today added a few touches of white to the picture in unexpected places. You can see a little rust bubbling under the logo. And it's a little louder and slower to get started these days, especially as it sits for longer durations between runs. 

Yep. 

That pretty well defines me. 

A little of the white stuff

Normally, we'd have a couple of feet on the ground by now.

Last night's dusting will probably gone by the time I head home.

P52: Week 2 - My Front Door

This week's "getting to know you" photochallenge in the LensProToGo.com "Photo 52 Project" is titled "Your front door."

 

We have lived in a 1739 farmhouse in Carlisle, MA since moving back to the US - one of the earliest built, and the first in the village to have gotten electricity way back when. While the house was expanded and updated in part, the core of the house remains very much the original Colonial farmhouse, much as it was nearly 300 years ago.

Well.. I admit that I've got some suspicions about those light fixtures in the picture. But otherwise, you know.

I wanted to find some way to capture the history and fantastic lived-in patina of our home that comes along with literally centuries of continued inhabitation, and to highlight the character, continuity and spirit of the Yankee farmhouse on the river that it still is. 

I also wanted to try my hand at a bit more editing, and to learn a little more about all of the dials and switches on the fancy SLR camera that I've generally been pointing-and-clicking with for the past couple of years. I tried a few settings, and experimented with the lighting at different times of the day. 

Fortunately, with the software on my computer and the ability to take as many photos as I need thanks to all of the futuristic digital technology we take for granted these days, that was easy enough. 

This was taken with my Canon EOS Rebel with a bit longer exposure setting, and then edited a bit to recall the old daguerrotype feel from the very earliest days of photography. Something a proud resident might have spring for back in the day. 

Maggie, our faithful pup, was curious about what I was doing on the lawn so long. 

She seemed to fit right in, I think.