Killer Chicken

I have been feeling sorry for my rooster, Hercules. He roosts in the barn wherever he pleases now, but he no longer has the small space and accumulated body heat in the coop to keep him warm. (See my last post for an explanation.) I have been suffering from scruples about him, trying to figure out if he needs a separate house, if I should attempt to re-home him, or if he should be... ehem... dispatched. But I haven't had the time to make a snug house or build a new run. And I can't bring myself to kill him, despite knowing that it may be more humane than letting him get frostbite, which is inevitable. 

For some time now my son and husband have complained about Hercules. They fill in for me with animal chores sometimes and have reported being flown at, pecked, scratched, even having a leg clung to by him. Once my husband kicked him in self defense! At first I thought that it was a little bit humorous to feel threatened by a chicken because I had never experienced the terror myself. 

Hercules did do his strut and his funny one-wing-down, side-stepping shuffle with me. He did charge at me. But he only feinted. I figured that he did not see me as a competitor or a threat and was used to me, so I didn't worry about it too much. Mostly I've had too many other things to worry about.

But lately, Herc has been more and more aggressive towards me. I suppose he hasn't taken kindly to being banished from the chicken run. He's seen me enter to tend the food and water, and probably thinks that I have stolen his "girls." He has started seeing me as a "competitor." 

Now he lurks silently and flies out at me in a fury when I am off guard. He leaps at me, all flying feathers and thrashing wings, with his talons extended. He strikes at my feet and legs with his beak. He scratches with his legs. (Thankfully, his spurs are not fully formed yet!) And most recently, he flew at me feet first, clutched my pants with his claws, and pecked ferociously at my knee. Ouch! Now my husband is the one who thinks it is funny, since I sort of shrugged off his earlier complaints. And now I am always looking over my shoulder so as not to be caught off guard by "the killer roo." It makes my chore times much more unpleasant, and I don't like to be mildly bullied by a chicken.

As I contemplated the state of affairs tonight on the way back to the house from the barn, I remembered a story I was once told many, many years ago by a previous co-worker of mine. Let me relate it to you as I remember it, and as my imagination has embellished it over the years, because it relates to my future. And, frankly, it's a bit funny too. (I shall change my co-worker's name, for the sake of her privacy.) 

Jane was a horse lover. For as long as she could remember, she had always wanted a horse. In her youth she took riding lessons, and dreamed of the day that she would own her own horse. After college, when she was young and single and had been hired into a steady job, she saved up her money until she could buy a beautiful gelding. She lived in an apartment and didn't even own a car yet, but she scrimped and saved in order to board her horse at the most inexpensive place around at which to do so. 

Soon Jane learned why it cost less to board her horse at the stables she had chosen. An aggressive rooster had the run of the farm. It tormented all of the visitors. Soon she dreaded encounters with this flying ball of thrashing, sharp fury. She learned to only wear long pants and long sleeves when going to visit her horse. Then she took to wearing gloves.

The scratching, feathered ferocity always lay in wait for Jane, so it didn't stop there. Once the rooster landed on her head as she was bending over to muck her stall. He got his feet entangled in her hair, and gave her a sharp blow with his beak before she managed to get him off. After that, since Jane had bought a horse instead of a car and therefore traveled by moped, she began leaving her helmet on for protection when working in the barn, leading her horse out to pasture, or heading to the riding ring. Once safely outside of the range of the rooster's possessiveness, she would take off the helmet and hang it on a fence post until it was time to return to the stables. 

Finally, after so many scratches and attacks, tired of prying the raging rooster off of her leg, unable to carry the pitch fork or muck rake with her for defense from the motorcycle to the barn or from the motorcycle to the pasture, Jane began arming herself with a baseball bat, which she kept bungeed to the bike. It happened at first as an afterthought after softball practice, but soon is became a regular habit to carry it as a club of defense. Armed in such a way, with her riding boots, long pants, long sleeves, leather gloves, and motorcycle helmet on, Jane was once heading out from the parking area to bring her horse in from the pasture to the barn so as to curry him. Just as she bent over to duck under the electric fence, the sneaking rooster flew up from the rear and sank his talons into her derriere, clinging tightly, thrashing wildly, and gouging whatever he could with his sharp beak. Just as she instinctively swung wildly and blindly behind her with the ball bat, a sudden pain caused her to jerk herself inadvertantly upward. This brought her into contact with the live wire, which added extra ferocity to her swing.

Jane quickly lowered herself to break connection with the searing, numbing wire and tried to move forward, only to arch her back again in an involuntary response to a particularly sharp and dragging jab of the beast's hooked beak. Again this caused contact with the hot wire, and again she was jolted with the buzzing, fiery electricity as she swung. This time she made contact with the choleric chicken. 

For what seemed like many minutes, but what must have only been the matter of seconds, Jane was caught in this precarious position with the rooster firmly attached to her backside, the electric fence wires above her making contact off and on as she struggled to pry him off, strike him, or move out from under the fence. She gritted her teeth against the exploding pain and used all her willpower to hold still in a half-crouch under the wire. She took a split second to assess the situation. 

Her helmet screen had become fogged and splattered with perspiration, so she couldn't see well. Her breath was fast and hard, like Darth Vader on speed. She felt some blood trickle down her leg. A broad band on her back felt burned and tingling. Wait, was it her imagination or was that fiendish fowl flapping about with a little less vigor back there? 

Jane decided that this was her opportunity to be free of him. She lunged out from under the fence. Then quickly she rose and swung around with all of her force as she lashed out once more in desperation with the baseball bat. As she completed her swing, the rooster let go of his hold on her bottom and was flung with centrifugal force toward the fence. He grazed a wire for a moment, twitched with a sickening spasm, and then fell lifeless to the ground beneath the fence.

Jane inhaled sharply. She wrenched off her helmet and threw it down to get some air and a better view. She stood there in pain, panting. "Oh, no!" she thought. "I killed the damned thing!" She tossed aside the bat that she found herself still clutching tightly, tore off her gloves, threw them toward the helmet, and gingerly felt the back of her pants as she twisted round to view the damage. They were sticky with chicken dung, blood, and the mud and manure that had been on the rooster's feet. "He deserved it!" She thought to herself. 

But then a wave of worry passed over her when she realized that she would have to tell the owners of the farm that she had killed their rooster. Would they let her horse stay on or would they ask her to leave? Where else would she find a place to stable her horse for what she could afford? How would she pay to transport him? All of these thoughts raced through her head. She decided to get the ordeal over with right away. For one thing, she thought, maybe they would pity her in the bedraggled, beaten state she was in. 

As it turned out, the proprietors of the stables were very apologetic. In fact, they told her that they were actually relieved. "That infernal bird has tormented this place for far too long. We should have killed it long ago, but we didn't have the heart to. In fact, we ought to thank you!" 

As a token of their appreciation, and perhaps in an effort to keep her from suing them for damages, they gave her six months of stabling for free. The best part was that she could once again wear shorts, muck a stall without a motorcycle helmet on, and never had to be on the lookout for the tiny terror again. But it it took a while before she could sit down without wincing or could ride comfortably. 

And this folks, is the predicament that I am in. Much like the farm owners in the aforementioned story, I don't want to harm the feathered fowl that is slowly flowering into a full fledged fiend of frenzy. I don't want him to suffer by getting frost bite. But I also do not want him to tear up my hens, terrorize me while working, or worst of all- attack one of my small children. This is why I ordered all hens in the first place. Something will eventually have to be done.

Hercules is Banished

One evening, recently, I entered the chicken run to close up the attached coop. As usual, I hung up the food to keep rodents from eating the chicken feed. I checked the waterer, and noticed it was low. So I unplugged it. (It's a heated fountain.) I lugged it out of the hoop run, through the pasture gate, and over to one of the yard hydrants. When I prepared to wash and fill the canister, I noticed that it was covered with tiny splashes of blood. 

My heart stopped for a split second and my mind raced. I wondered if some vermin had dug their way in and harmed or killed a chicken. I had seen signs of digging on days when the ground was thawed a bit. I wondered if one of the birds had gotten injured and was cannibalized. None of the options seemed good.

When the reservoir was scrubbed and filled, I carefully flipped it over, so as not to spill it. Then I carefully lugged the heavy thing back to the hoop house. I leveled the waterer to prevent leaks, plugged it back in, and stood against the door, observing the birds and looking for signs of a scuffle or digging. I saw neither. All the birds seemed fine. The only thing that seemed odd was that Hercules, the biggest rooster, had pink saddle feathers. 

So I began to count. Five times I counted them, and each time I came up one short. I sighed. My heart sank. I prepared mentally to find a dead hen in the coop. Since the pop door on the coop is so low, and the coop so dark, I exited the run and walked around to the coop side. First I checked the nest boxes, thinking an injured bird might hunker down in a close, dark space. All four were empty. Then I unlatched and lifted off one side of the roof. All looked normal, except that there were small spatters of blood on the coop doors and walls.

Perplexed, I retraced my steps and walked into the hoop house again. When I counted again, I came up with the correct number. One of the hens must have hopped out of the coop just before I peered inside. 

Then my close inspections began, and I found that a big, reddish hen had bled at the base of her comb. Her feathers were spiky and wet there and where the blood had dripped onto her neck. The tiny splatters were probably from the dripping blood tickling and causing her to shake her head, which flung off some of the blood from her feathers as if from a paint brush. She was eating and moving about normally, so I let them all roost for the night and closed them up safely, as usual. 

I determined that the rooster, who was stained pink, was the culprit. He was rough with the "girls." And with the predator problems and the cold weather, they had been penned up, so they could not escape him. He often pecked the back of their heads fiercely when treading them, or nipped them and pinned them down while staying clamped on. 

So the next morning, when Hercules did his usual strutting and made his scuffling advances toward me, I opened the run door a crack and let him slip outside. The hen's wound was clearly better and the others were leaving her alone, so I completed my chicken chores and tended the goat. I put water and food out for the exiled rooster, but he was beside himself and paced the perimeter of the coop all day, crowing in what seemed like rage and sorrow. I felt guilty. But I also felt that I had no choice.

It was my intention to repeat this scenario each morning, but when I went out for my evening chores in the barn, Hercules had already roosted above one of the sliding horse stall doors. Although I flipped on the barn lights, he showed no intention of moving. His long tail feathers curved down, and he eyed me witheringly with one of his beady, red-rimmed, yellow eyes. 

As my little ones were in the house with my 15 year old, I didn't feel comfortable lugging a ladder over, grappling with a struggling roo, climbing down with him as an unwilling companion, opening the barn door, opening the pasture gate, opening the chicken run, and stuffing him into the pop door on the coop. It would take so long. What if he made me lose my balance? What if I lost my grip on him and he was out in the fast-falling dark and not roosted? So I left him. But I did leave a light on, to deter any prowling raccoons.

And this has been our arrangement ever since. Hercules is a lot less agitated by being separated from the females, and the hens have been happy and uninjured since his departure. He roams outside the pasture now or in the barn, occasionally perching in some prominent place and repeatedly crowing as loudly as he his able for a longish spell, as if defiantly proclaiming his ownership, despite his limitations. Sometimes he even makes his way to the house, ascends to the picnic table on the patio, and struts back and forth on its top, crying out for intervals as if with impotent rage. 

The one rooster left with the hens is a bantam named Rosie. (Read more about him here.) He still looks like a half-plucked cornish game hen, and the "girls" ignore or easily spurn his half-hearted and wimpy advances. He spends most of his time pulling his naked legs up against his body for warmth, hunkering down in the bedding on the floor of the run in order to conserve his body heat, or eating with slow steadiness, as if determined to gain enough size to be able to throw his weight around. We tried calling him Petey instead (like Pete Rose) once we learned he was a male, but with his bright pink skin and mild temper, Rosie he remains. 

Adding Martyrs to the Mix

This year on All Hallows Eve, we attended a parish costume party, complete with games and prizes. Since my kids are older, they kicked up the costume fun a notch. Of course I prodded my kids about costumes for over a month beforehand. No one was particularly interested. None of them wanted to settle on their saint or work on their costumes. Then,  the day before the party, they kicked into high gear. 

I had been trying to interest my oldest and was making jokes about how he should attend as a martyr, especially one that was unique like St. Lawrence, Pope St. Clement I, etc. His imagination and sense of humor was finally stirred by my suggestion to be St. John the Baptist after he was beheaded. This is what we came up with. 

For the table, he took a box, fixed wooden fence stakes to it for legs, and a thin piece of plywood to the top so that a tablecloth would hang in a convincing way. We duct taped some spare fabric around the plywood edge so that the cloth went to the floor, and used an old decorative table cloth layered over that. He cut a hole big enough for his head to fit through the box and wood. We cut Xs in the cloth so that his head could fit through those. Then we cut an aluminum serving tray in two, duct taped the edges to protect him from cuts. This was to be fitted on either side of his neck in order to make it appear that his head was on a platter.

He really didn't need a wig, but thought an old ratty one we had was extra humorous. So he used red lipstick for blood on his neck, eye liner for a scruffy beard, crouched in the box, donned the wig, and tried to look dead. Unfortunately, this first dry run was the only picture I captured, but you get the idea. 

My oldest daughter liked the martyr idea after that too. She decided on St. Joan of Arc due to her hair cut. I fashioned cardboard flames for her that caused an emotional and nerve wracking kick off to the party. (We ran out of time when working on the flames, and had to settle for plain yellow paint which wouldn't dry. That meant that we had to go in two separate vehicles and that she was late for the line-up. We didn't even get time to make her look like she was tied to the stake! Oh, well.) The flames were zip tied to a PVC pipe that I spray painted to look like hammered metal. She wore her dad's white shirt, an old skirt of mine, and some awesome shoes that she constructed. She had old, orange, Croc-style rubber shoes. To these she tied some split wood by lacing twice around the wood and through the holes in the shoes. To the shoes she hot glued sticks and leaves. They were cumbersome to walk in, but really "made" her costume. Here's how it turned out.

My youngest daughter was St. Kateri Tekakwitha because she wanted to put her long hair to good use. :)

My middle boy was St. Joseph.

My husband went as St. Maximilian Kolbe in his prison uniform. 

I transformed a striped pair of pajamas for the occasion.

And I went as St. Christopher holding the Christ Child (my youngest, curly-headed son.) I wore a button-down shirt of my husband's, some rolled up work pants, my rope sandals, carried a staff, and lugged my son around. He was dressed in a white onesie under a white slip, with white leather slippers. He was absolutely adorable.

My oldest two were the only saints depicted during or after martyrdom. I guess that's a bit gruesome, but we tried not to be too gory, and it certainly resonated with my 'tween and teen. They would have been begrudging participants otherwise. 

Coyote in the Road

Early last week, while driving, as I rounded a blind curve on a road near our house, I came upon a coyote. It was hemmed in on either side by cattle fences, so it turned and ran from my vehicle along the road. I followed it at a distance, slowly, in awe, making exclamations to the kids. Eventually, I thought to fish out my phone and snap a photo. That can tell you both how slowly I was driving, and how long this coyote ran down the road! It passed a driveway, but did not turn off. It even passed a horse pasture with board fence, as this picture shows. Finally it came to a break in the cattle fence where there was a pipe gate, and it ducked through. I stopped the car to look after it. And it turned to look at me. It was a weird, magical, surreal occurrence. But all five of my kids were with me, and they will attest to the the veracity of this description. And I have these blurry pictures as proof too. And no, for you skeptics out there, it was NOT a German Shepherd mix- different tails, different ears, different coloring, different leg set-up that makes coyotes look more "leggy." And the coyote was near a point where we often spot coyotes hunting in some fields. 

Chicken Attrition

the "ladies" foraging through the leaves in the bluebell pasture

Remember how I figured I'd lose some "ladies?" Well, I have. I had been letting the chickens free range. It started because they were such great flyers and sailed over the 5 foot fence lining the small pasture I wanted to let them forage in. They also scooted under the sliding barn door and flew up into the hay and walked the stall doors and walls. They perched on the top of the hoop house, and even the roof of the barn! 

Hercules and the black Sumatran hen

Because I am busy with a one year old, and four other kids who are home educated (even a high schooler) etc. I just didn't have the time to clip flight feathers. Besides, that takes two people, and my husband is gone a lot, making getting that difficult to line up. I did not having the heart to pen them up either, especially with the roosters treading them. Two roosters to twelve hens is a lot. So they blissfully scratched through leaves and gravel, took dust baths in the flower beds, foraged through the grass, and snuck up into the hay bales.

Our first poultry loss was the chick that my middle boy held a little too firmly. It didn't make it through the night. Then there was the first missing hen. It was gone, no alarm call that anyone had noticed (although my husband had responded to one that seemed to be a false alarm that day) no pile of feathers, no trail of blood... in broad daylight... the middle of the afternoon when most of the family was outside. I figured that it was a hawk, since I had chased one away previously.

Even after this loss, and down to thirteen chickens, I continued to let them roam. The thought that the roosters were a bit much for the hens to bear with no means of escaping them, and I didn't have the heart to kill them. I did get mean and murderous by not cooping the roosters up on several occasions, but they were always crowing at 4:30 the next morning and strutting around the coop, so I eventually gave that up. 

About a week later, I lost another hen in the middle of the day. This time there was a tiny pile of feathers on the turf near the bluebell pasture and next to the animal pen that their coop was in. It was under a branch that extended out over the grass. There was no sign of a fight, no blood, just some white down, some under feathers. Maybe the hawk again? Maybe it was going to come back once a week for a good meal. 

Rusty the rooster, RIP. His crows ended on a downward slide.

So plans were kicked into high gear for readying the hoop house for their permanent occupancy- electrifying the hoop house for winter so as to keep their water from freezing, attaching an automatic door between it and the coop, and adding a light to supplement them on the short days of winter. Before all the plans could be realized, we lost a ROOSTER in the middle of the day. It was the red one, the more aggressive one, the only rooster  that had earned a name at that time- "Rusty." Again, there was no sign of a scuffle, no blood, no trail, no feathers even. Maybe we were dealing with a coyote marauding by daylight. It seemed unlikely that a hawk could take out a rooster. And we see coyotes all the time. At least it was a rooster, and it was the meaner of the two... but still.

Hercules crowing his heart out. His crows end on a raised note.

Now the girls have been shut in with the white rooster that I have since taken to calling Hercules. They would have ended up being cooped up this week anyway, because the weather has been wintry (we've had snow on multiple occasions) and they would have been at risk of frostbite roaming about outdoors at 19 degrees. 

This is Rosie, looking partially plucked for roasting.

Speaking of frostbite, the chicken that is going though a "hard molt" (which can take up to FIVE months I just read during another stint of research) is still half bare. She could pass for a poorly plucked cornish hen! I'm going to have to bring her inside in a cage to keep her warm enough and to coddle her in an effort to induce refeathering. Because of her large, red, and strange comb, my daughters have named her, "Rosie." 

Attila the Hen is on the left in the foreground.
She's a silver laced Wyandotte.
To her right is a silver spangled Hamburg.

So now we're down to one rooster named Hercules, and ten hens. So far only four of them have names: Millie (a Lakenvelder), Myrtle (a Dominique), Attila the Hen (a silver-laced Wyandotte), and the aforementioned Rosie. 

Herding Chickens

So... the chickens.... They are 18 weeks old now. Most of them have beautiful feathers. I am a little disappointed at how similar the Sicilian Buttercup, the Golden Penciled Hamburg, and the Golden Campine look though. Other than the nuanced differences in tail angle and body shape, they mostly just have necks of slightly different colors at this point. 

I say that "most" have beautiful feathers because there is an oddball, an "ugly duckling," if you will. She seems to suffer from a genetic mutation or from being ill-tended while in the egg (not turned enough or a period without the proper warmth.) Her partial molts, that all pullets go through, have been slow and ugly, with large bare patches of bright pink skin showing. She has not been fully feathered since they began. The feathers she does have are partially frizzled, and some stick out at weird angles. 

At first I worried about some chicken disease or malnutrition, but I have made certain that she is well fed and that she is not being henpecked. And none of the other birds have presented with any oddities. She is primarily white, with a few black flecks, and very long legs. She has a double comb like a red cap, which I ordered, but which is not white. The only primarily white hen that I ordered was a Lakenvelder. Lakenvelders have a white body with a black head/neck, black tail, and a black wing band. I clearly have one of those. So I can't even identify what breed she is out of the list that I ordered! She resembles none of them so far, and the roosters complicate identification too.

Yes, you read that right. I have not one, but TWO roosters- out of an order of 15 HENS. One of them seems to be a Silver Leghorn. The other might be a Rose Comb Brown Leg. (It's a bit hard to tell because they don't have all of their adult feathers yet, and because roosters are marked differently than hens.) 

The Rose Comb/"red rooster" crowed from pretty early on. We thought perhaps it was the phenomenon wherein the dominant female, due to lack of a male, takes on the role of boss and protector and tries to crow. "She" didn't have spurs. But then "she" got saddle and hackle feathers, and the rooster like squawks became definite crows. Sigh. 

Eventually, I noticed that another "hen" seemed to be getting saddle and hackle feathers too! But I never heard or saw it crow and it didn't have spurs either. So I clung to the hope that I was just seeing fancy feathering that were misleading. Nope. 

The chicken with the red comb is the Silver Leghorn/"white" rooster.
The blurry hen in the lower left is the Lakenvelder. 

One day the rooster crowed incessantly. I thought perhaps there was a predator bothering the chickens and went out to investigate. What was really going down (or should I say, "up") was that the suspected white rooster had flown up to the 6 foot tall fence post, and started crowing. He was taunting the "red rooster," who is not as agile of a flier or who is a natural home-body. (He always hangs around the hoop house/chicken run. It was a war of sorts. Ever since then, 5 of the hens have seemed to be in the white/Silver Leghorn's harem; he and his flock fly over the fence each day and worry me by often wandering into the edge of the woods during their scratching and foraging.

Speaking of the woods, I've had a couple of fun times with the chickens and the woods. Once, the goat got fed up with the chickens. In the morning when there is heavy dew or when it is rainy or when they are bored, they like to go and scratch in the bedding of her stall. She does not like this, especially now that there are two noisy males. She sometimes charges at them, chases them around, etc. Well that day I had not walked her to the back pasture. So she got annoyed, managed to kick the chain latch loose on the gate, and herd all the chickens out and into the woods. Fully satisfied and full of defiance she came to the house, stood right out front, and stared into the windows until one of the kids noticed her. 

I went out to close her back up, and she followed me eagerly to her stall without any shenanigans. It was only after she was safely closed up again that I realized that it was too quiet and still. I realized that I didn't hear or see even a SINGLE chicken anywhere! Then I noted that the Lily was covered in burrs and weed seeds and was soaked. So she didn't kick open the gate and just mosey up to the house because she was looking for companionship or because of boredom. She had been out gallivanting through the "bluebell pasture" or the woods. 

I went in, settled children, changed clothes, and went in search of the flock. By then, the misty morning had turned into a rainy midday. So in the damp chill I beat through the undergrowth of the woods with a stick, stopping every now and then to listen. Finally, I heard the red rooster make a weak and feeble crow. (This was before the white one revealed himself.) There were my bedraggled chickens, huddled under some multiflora roses. It was the first and only time that I have been happy about owning a rooster. With his help, I herded them back to their pasture and into the hoop house/run, and didn't lose any. Have you ever tried herding chickens in the woods? Phew. 

And just this morning, I was upstairs reading aloud to my 5 and 7 year olds when my 10 year old came in, asking what that crazy noise was. I paused and heard an unusual, loud, and steady squawking. Sighing, I put a kid on temporary toddler duty, booted up, and went to investigate. Upon exiting my house, it was clear that the noise came from the woods. I walked over and before entering, a hawk flew off through the trees and a hen came scurrying out of the undergrowth, and made a beeline for the chicken pen. I chased all the chickens under cover. (They free-range, as I have not clipped pin feathers, and they are exceedingly good flyers.) I observed the hen that had escaped for a while, and she showed no visible signs of injury. Luckily it was Attila the Hen, who is the largest of them all. I'll have to do a closer inspection tonight after the children are in bed, but she has been perching and scratching normally so far today.

I'm lucky that the chickens are good flyers though. Yesterday we had an incident that could have been ugly. When showing my mother-in-law the chickens and their set-up, my 5 year old let the pop door fall on the hoop house. So when my husband went out to close the coop, only a few birds were inside. They could not get through the hoop house/run to get into the attached chicken coop. Some chickens were roosting on the stack of square bales in the pole barn, and some were roosting on the top of the hoop house/run. The white rooster was pacing about. 

After much difficulty, which included a flashlight, ladder, and a broom, chasing hens in the twilight, and carrying struggling squawkers to the run, we thought they were all inside. The white rooster flew to the barn roof for a while, but we managed to get him down. I counted the milling, disoriented poultry in the coop over and over again, usually coming up one short. But after a time, I gave up, assumed they were all in, and went back to the usual duties. 

This morning when I went to let them out of the coop for the day, the Egyptian Fayoumis was pacing along the pasture fence- on the outside. So I WAS one short. Luckily she had found a safe perch, and had made it through the night. It's a good thing too, because coming in last night I heard an owl hooting in the woods. 

As you can see, by just the example of these few adventures, chicken ownership has been eventful this far.

Close-up Vulture

One day, recently, my son called out to me from the living room, "There's some sort of hawk or something thrashing in the bushes!" I feared that a hawk, hunting for a small bird, had entangled itself in the deer netting that had been draped over the bushes by the previous owners of our home. I sighed. 

When I took a look, I knew right away that it wasn't a hawk. I couldn't see much of the bird at first, just a wing flapping up now and then, but it was a BIG wing. After some minutes, it became obvious that we were looking at a turkey vulture. We still didn't know if it was caught in the netting or not, but it was thrashing about wildly in the bushes. 

Just when I was wondering whether or not to go out to it to see if it was stuck, and wondering if I'd need to call a wildlife specialist, the vulture moved. It became apparent that it was eating something. I snapped a few pictures, and must have disturbed it when  my lens bumped the glass of the window, because it flew to a nearby branch. I took a few more pictures while it moved about the branch preening. 

Later, after tending the livestock, I caught a whiff of something terrible. It came from the bushes that generated such movement and excitement earlier in the day. Gingerly, and unable to ignore my morbid curiosity, I walked closer and took a look.  What I saw was the carcass of a giant black snake, about as big around as my wrist. Yuck. To my knowledge the snake is still in said bush. I am not going to extract the smelly, torn, and mangled thing. Those bushes are slated to be removed anyway. So the snake can wait. We just won't hang out down wind of it!

A few days later, two vultures showed up on the same branch that the first had occupied. They never returned to the bush. Perhaps some other varmint had already eaten it. Perhaps our presence at the nearby window deterred them. 

We often see these birds from a distance soaring and scavenging. I love to see them riding thermals. But up close, their nostrils and ugly heads are far from beautiful! Here are links to a previous posts of mine about these giant birds, in case you're interested: http://livingwaterhobbyfarm.blogspot.com/2013/08/vultures.html  http://livingwaterhobbyfarm.blogspot.com/2014/03/fish-and-vultures.html

Blue to Red

My husband on the little Ford clearing the driveway last winter

My husband ended up buying another tractor. He likes to say that we "switched from red to blue." But we haven't switched yet. We simply have two tractors now. But the old one IS a Ford, and the new one IS Massey Ferguson. Actually, there's no "we" about it either. I've never driven the old tractor or the "new" one. The one time my husband suggested that I learn how to drive the Ford, I couldn't fit behind the steering wheel because I was an obscenely pregnant woman. And I never even saw the new one until it was parked in front of my house.

But back to the story. In order to get the tractor to our place, he had to figure out how to haul it here. Being the schmoozer that he is, he somehow got a real estate agent who also has an office in his building, to loan him her husband's trailer. It turned out that her spouse was part owner of a used car lot. He also found out from her that the folks from whom he was going to buy the tractor had been convicted of animal cruelty last year for having starving horses. They had 34 of them, and were in the process of buying more when they were indicted! Lovely.

Anyway, despite my protestations, he drove to another small town with my oldest and picked up the trailer. His light connector couldn't be adapted to work, so the trailer had no lights. Even better. Luckily it was close to the location from which he purchased the tractor. Unfortunately, neither were close to our home!

He found out the hard way that the trailer and tractor together were heavier than the truck, for the truck started rolling away upon his first attempt at loading. He had to chock the wheels. But despite all the risks he was taking, he managed to get home safe, much to my relief and much to my children's delight. He was the hero of the day for my tractor loving boys. In fact, our youngest sat for a very long time blissfully "loading" his siblings and monkeying with the controls as his doting oldest brother kept him from tumbling off.

Unloading the tractor was a bit dicey, and I think that the ramps were a little more bent than they were to start with. Upon the first usage of the tractor, it wouldn't start. This led to several frustrated hours until my husband finally figured out that the battery terminals had corroded and he was losing connection to the battery. Phew! His next step was to get a seat belt and install it. Of course,  the seatbelt kit didn't arrive with bolts, so after he tracked some down, he was good to go. Now the tires just have to last for a bit. They're in terrible shape. 

"Attila the Hen"

The goat has been escaping lately. She's lonely. We keep finding her standing quietly in the drive behind the garage. She meekly follows us back to her stall when we take her. When we leave her out to be near us, she is skittish, and starts away from any sudden noise or movement, which basically means, she shies away from the kids. 

Due to this tendency, I have not turned the chickens out into her pasture, as I had hoped to do, as it would afford them a bit of protection. But I'm afraid she might trample or charge them or that they might batter themselves against the fence in a flurry of feathers in their efforts to escape her. Because they are skittish too (sigh.)

The chickens are still a pain. The bossiest one is pulling the others' tail feathers out. It's better that the cannibal chicken adventures I had a while back, but it is still frustrating.

I suppose that they are bored. They are very active, being heritage breeds. There are also a few that are physically bigger than the others, and so the cycle perpetuates, because their bossiness prevents the smaller, more timid birds from eating as much, leaving the bossy birds always bigger. 

It's gotten so bad, that I'm close to taking out "Attila the Hen" and letting her roam the place. If she were taken by a hawk, fox, coyote, raccoon, stray dog, or wandered off into the woods forever, it would not be the end of the world. Although, the pecking order would change and another pullet would rise to her place, it is hard for me to imagine another as vicious as she is. I've seen her defend two different feeders at the same time, and not eat a bit. She's charged at pullet after pullet, flying at them, striking them hard with her beak on the back of their head or their back. Grasping a tail feather with her beak and giving a sharp tug. 

Sometimes, the other chickens are not so easily deterred, and they meet midair with talons extended, feathers flying, and a great squawking and fluttering. More space should help with this, as then the feeders could be too far apart to defend both. But then maybe I'd just have two bossy birds. And I don't like the idea of a feeder outside. But it would help with the boredom.

I keep getting close to turning them out into the "yard" when we're out, but then worry that the stinkers would wander into the woods, never to return, would roost in the trees at night, leaving me to search for them for hours, haul a ladder from tree to tree, and then have to physically remove the cluckers. 

For those of you who don't know, chickens go into a passive, trancelike state when they sleep at night. You can't wake them up really. I once had to dislodge a Lakenvelder from our front crabapple tree at our old place with a broom in order to transfer her to her roost and safety for the night. It took some doing! Gentle nudges and bright lights didn't cut it. After the time and money invested so far, I keep wimping out. Hopefully I'll get the gumption soon.

As I type, my oldest boy and husband are off checking over a used tractor that they intend to purchase. They have a borrowed trailer and the road that the tractor is located on is a bit of a doozie, so I'll rest easier when they are home, despite my complete lack of enthusiasm for this purchase. (I just don't see it making financial sense, and fail to see the need for a front end loader, etc.) 

The baby is up from his nap, so I'm off to tend my own little chick.  

Rain

Another day is nearly done. A storm with heavy rain blew through earlier today, and then it tapered off to a steady rain. We anticipated its arrival just in time to coop up the chickens, shut in the goat, gather all the scattered outdoor toys and close up the toy shed, take down the hammock, and bring in the mail. 

Once the worst of it blew over, we let the chickens back out into their run. Some of my children decided to stay out after that. They enjoyed frolicking in the light rain and filling every container they could find with rainwater. They came in to dinner thoroughly soaked and happy. 

After some black bean and salsa soup, with a side of home-made guacamole and chips, and a warm shower, they are all tucked snugly in their beds. The worst of the mess is cleaned up and the dishwasher is now running. My husband is away, so I am taking a much-needed breather on the screened-in porch. 

The rain is falling steadily. It pops on the cloth gazebo roof. It pings in the fire bowl. It drums down  the bent drainpipe. It thrums on the cement patio. It patters on the many trees, causing their leaves to dip and flip. It is an altogether soothing sound, and in general, I like rain.

The chimney swifts raising their second brood in a mud nest plastered to the stone siding under the eves are busy. As the sun sets, they swoop in the golden, glowing downpour with determination, catching insect after insect just above the moss-green grass. Their chicks peep all the while in a frenzy of hunger.

But I'm thinking of the complete battery of tests I started administering my oldest daughter today and of the math section that is slated for tomorrow.... of the research paper my oldest boy is wrapping up... of the tractor my husband put a hold on today- without consulting me first... of the latest fit my middle son threw at bedtime... of my youngest daughter's teeth. They are failing to fall out of her now shark-like lower jaw, and I need to schedule a dentist appointment to have them pulled. These and a myriad of other jumbled thoughts crowd my mind.

A cardinal is calling now. It sounds so loud, even above the noisy rain. It calls me back to my surroundings. A robin chucks occasionally, as if complaining about the cardinal. The sagging gutter on the barn is overflowing where is has for too long. Our neighbor's portion of the hay sits on the field still, irking me. The large round bales seemingly balanced at precarious angles along the ridge and the back side of the hill. And my mind wanders to the recent haying and the dishonesty and disrespect shown to us by the neighbors with whom we share this task. Where is my peace? It eludes me tonight.

I suppose I should go fold the four waiting baskets of clean laundry. I suppose I should correct my son's Spanish exercises. The shower surround I re-grouted is still waiting for an application of grout sealer. The stair carpet removal project is still only half finished. Four banker boxes of filing are waiting for culling and reclassification in the stone room. The downstairs bathroom is still without paint, a sink, or a mirror, etc., etc. And those are only the bigger things. My list is so long. Sigh... 

The infrequency of my posts is usually caused by one of two things. Either it's lack of time, because I am so tremendously busy that I can't even steal any. Or it's the fact that I'm temporarily blind to the bits of beauty in my life, and don't care to immortalize my pessimistic thoughts. Lately, it seems to be a bit of both. In fact, Patty Griffin's song, "Rain", is running through my head right now. It'll give you a glimpse into my mood.

Sometimes the hurt is so deep, deep, deep
You think that you're gonna drown
Sometimes all I can do is weep, weep, weep
With all this rain fallin' down

Strange, how hard it rains now
Rows and rows of big dark clouds
When I'm holding on underneath this shroud
Rain

It's hard to know when to give up the fight
Some things you want will just never be right
It's never rained like it has tonight before