Chickens - Meryl Natchez

The power behind the Stones

Posted on May 25, 2014May 27, 2014 by Meryl in Chickens, Philosophical

An influential guy you probably never heard of, Prince Rupert zu Lowenstein, had an obituary in the Times on Friday. He was born a Bavarian aristocrat (where is Bavaria anyway? does it still exist?) and left Paris on the last plane to London before the Nazis invaded, studied history at Oxford, became a financier and later the money manager for the Rolling Stones.

He got them out of a draconian contract that payed them practically nothing, convinced them to reside outside England to avoid taxes, and copyrighted that red-tongue logo. He got them to stop accepting paper bags full of cash as payment, planned their blockbuster tours, and licensed their music to advertisers. On a more personal level he negotiated Mick Jagger’s divorce from Bianca and separation from Jerry Hall. He described himself as “combination of bank manager, psychiatrist and nanny.” Continue reading “The power behind the Stones” →

The failed hatch

Posted on March 20, 2014 by Meryl in Chickens

For those of you who follow the chicken saga, I wrote about my attempts to incubate or have my broody hen hatch some chicks. I have to report failure on both counts. Nothing in my homemade incubator hatched. I wasn’t so surprised at this, as I had some initial problems regulating the temperature. But for whatever reason, the eggs under the broody hen also failed to hatch. After 23 days, I took them out. Three had complete chicken embryos inside, but not alive. I don’t’ have any idea why, as she was a very diligent setter. I slipped seven day-old chicks from the feed store under her the night I took away the eggs, a mix of Rhode Island Red and Americana chicks.

Two of the Americanas are black, as is the mother. For whatever reason, she rejected the two black chicks. She refused to let them be, but pecked at and chased them around the cage. A self-loathing racist hen? In any case, I had to take the black chicks out and foster them inside. Continue reading “The failed hatch” →

My chickens fly first class

Posted on March 4, 2014March 4, 2014 by Meryl in Chickens

The NY Times this morning had an article about chickens on the front page, “Wishing They All Could Be California Hens.” The article discussed a California law that requires cages for chickens “roomy enough to stand up, lie down — even extend their wings fully without touching another bird.” This law requires importers of eggs to meet these same generous standards, which has inspired potential lawsuits from out-of-state hen jailers. These larger California cages mean that you have about 60 hens in a cage the size of the back of a large pickup truck. In other states, farmers can continue to house chickens “in battery cages about as big as a filing-cabinet drawer.” The article compared this to “sitting in an airplane seat in the economy section all your life.” Continue reading “My chickens fly first class” →

Broody

Posted on February 25, 2014 by Meryl in Chickens

One of the young hens has begun to sit on eggs, or get “broody,” as chicken folk say. (Yet another metaphor from the world of chickens.) With a great deal of perseverance (though not much discrimination), she was sitting on one wooden egg in the hen house until I moved her to a separate box and put some real eggs under her. I got the eggs from an accommodating hatchery in Pennsylvania, who shipped them in bubble wrap. For 21 days the hen will barely get up, perhaps rising once a day to eat, drink and eliminate, and then renew her slow vigil on the eggs. Talk about confinement! I’m not going to disturb her by opening the door and taking her picture. She has enough to deal with.

Actually, I had put a few of my hens’ eggs under her for the first ten days, until the new eggs arrived. She had to start over with the new batch. Continue reading “Broody” →

Spring chickens

Posted on February 6, 2014February 7, 2014 by Meryl in Chickens

The hens have definitely decided it’s time to start laying eggs. Along with the magnolia, the cherry, the apple, all blossoming, the change in the light has convinced them that spring is here–rainy or not.

Today I got my first, tiny Americana pullet egg, a green jewel among the brown.

And the hens themselves are looking sleek and fluffy and they want to eat continuously.

Luckily, gorgeous eggs for breakfast make everyone around very cheerful.

What about the chickens?

Posted on June 3, 2013 by Meryl in Chickens

A reader asked, “Why haven’t I seen anything about them lately?” There are currently 11 hens and a rooster, the soft-voiced, gentlemanly Cloud, a Lavender Americana. The flock consists of three of my original six Americanas, four young Americanas, a Black Sex-linked hen, a Silver Wyandotte hen, and two banty hens. It’s almost impossible to get a picture of them altogether, but here are most of them, busily hunting for a handful of grain.

Because they are voracious, they have been eating away their hillside habitat.

So much so that the black and white banty, who I have renamed Houdini, has been finding little holes where the dirt is eroding, and escaping daily into the garden. To begin to remedy this, on Saturday, three strong guys came and salvaged enough concrete from the hillside to build the first level of a terrace:

The wall is three and half feet tall and about thirty feet long. Apparently, people in this neighborhood just toss old concrete down the hill when they remove it. My neighbor said he has this much embedded in his hillside, too. There’s a sizable pile of leftover concrete–but I’m not planning on tossing it down the hill.

As soon as it was built,
the chickens settled into their
new terrace for a dirt bath. It’s fun to watch them toss dirt all over their feathers.

But all in all, feed, maintenance, etc., makes me understand why “pasture-raised” eggs are over six dollars a dozen. I’m sure I’d have to sell my eggs at at least five dollars each to break even at this point.

Still, it’s hard to beat chickens for entertainment of a livestock variety.

And there’s nothing like fresh eggs and greens from the garden for breakfast. I’ve never had an egg at any price that tasted so good. I’m going to have to think about a few new chicks, to make sure I have eggs this winter.

The chickens lend a helping foot

Posted on March 31, 2013 by Meryl in Chickens, Garden

Yesterday was the last Saturday of the month, which is the day of the great Berkeley compost giveaway. From 7:30 in the morning till it runs out, energetic Berkeley gardeners can shovel as much compost as we want into whatever vehicle or containers we bring.

This was the scene about 10 minutes before the official start of the process. I was in the middle, so this is about half as long as the compost mountain stretched. Nonetheless, people come early, as I did.

Then I spent the day carrying bags of compost downhill and spreading it in the unplanted sections of the garden.

As I have most of the growing sections fenced off, I decided to let the chickens participate. They went right to it, picking out weed seeds and bugs, taking deep dirt baths, and generally mixing up the soil for me. For once, they did just what I needed, and left my seedlings alone.

Plus they were very happy to do it.

Where metaphors come from

Posted on September 13, 2012September 13, 2012 by Meryl in Chickens

The young chickens–all four of them–have successfully integrated with the existing flock. Despite the dire predictions of my local chicken expert, the older hens did not kill or try to kill the young birds. I followed the advice of the “Chicken Whisperer,” who appeared last year at the Albany library. I bought her book City Chicks, which has advice about everything chicken, including how to clip a rooster’s toenails. She recommended that I introduce them in a cage inside the coop first, then merge them. This gave the older hens a chance to get familiar with their presence. The hens weren’t exactly thrilled to have the newbies, and asserted themselves with some vicious pecks, but there was enough room for the young ones to evade them, and they’ve been together two days now. In general, the young ones stay as far as possible from the older hens. Here they are, keeping their distance. Continue reading “Where metaphors come from” →

Outfoxed

Posted on August 5, 2012August 5, 2012 by Meryl in Chickens

Metaphors aren’t usually driven home with the force that I experienced on Friday. I had brought the hen and chicks to a new cage in the garden next to the house, and (I thought) secured the area with bird net. I left for an hour at about 9:30, and when I came home, all that was left was one peeping chick and this:

I don’t think I’ve ever felt worse about my role as farmer. I totally underestimated the fox, and the hen and chicks, who I’d just taken a little movie of earlier, died as a result. The one survivor went in with the chicks the girls had persuaded me to get, and now I’m glad they did. Continue reading “Outfoxed” →

Newly hatched

Posted on July 23, 2012 by Meryl in Chickens

We’re back, and on the day we returned, the eggs the broody hen had been setting on hatched. We have six new baby chicks, all offspring of Malawi and his hens. Surely at least one will be a rooster. Really, hopefully only one, with the rest hens!

WE have many garden and chick chores to attend to–more later!

Malawi’s memorial

Posted on July 8, 2012 by Meryl in Chickens

After letting the rooster rest in the refrigerator for a couple of days, I turned him into stock and used the stock and some of the breast meat to make a memorial dinner. I was going to use just his meat, but most of it was too tough, so I added some commercial chicken breasts.

I used paprika to get that red color–matching his feathers, with spinach standing in for his iridescent green tail. Lots of chopped, sautéed veges to thicken the broth. We drank a toast, lit candles, and said a few words commemorating his bravery and loyalty. On her way home, one of the guests saw a fox crossing the road!

I had spent two days doing my best to fox-proof the chicken run, stapling bird net in a looping arc from the top of the fence outward. We’ll see. Now it’s time to wait to see if we get a rooster offspring from the eggs under the broody hen.

On another note, a reader sent this link to a Public Television biography of Robinson Jeffers. She titled it “Ascots and Creakiness,” which aptly describes it!

Death in the morning, an elegy

Posted on July 4, 2012 by Meryl in Chickens

This morning I woke to squawking from the chickens. I didn’t think much of it; they’re often noisy in the morning. But it went on, and I went out in time to see a large grey fox with feathers in his mouth standing in the corner of the run. He stared as I approached, and then easily climbed the fence and ran off. The ground was littered with feathers, and one hen was trembling with several bald patches, but the real heartbreaking find was Malawi, the rooster, who lay alive but with his neck broken.

Here’s to beautiful, proud Malawi, who always led his flock to food and always waited and ate last. He successfully defended all seven hens from the fox, who went away with nothing for his trouble but a mouthful of feathers.

Continue reading “Death in the morning, an elegy” →