Lesson 771 – Chicken Shaming

There is an internet trend called “pet shaming” where owners of cats and dogs have their pets confess their bad behavior to the rest of the world using placards – examples of the bad behavior being reported are things like, “I peed on my mom’s favorite slippers” and “I locked my mom and dada out of the truck.”

I thought to myself, why is it that only cats and dogs get to admit their past indiscretions? There are so many other pets that occasionally deserve credit for their spectacular misbehavior.

And so, I submit to you, the first ever (and probably not the last) “Chicken Shaming.”

And you want to know the sad thing? When Marc replaced the keyboard, Charlie went and did it again.

That was about as close as we’ve ever gotten to having one of our chickens in the stew pot.  

What about you? Any chicken shaming secrets you’d like to share?

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Wendy Thomas writes about the lessons learned while raising children and chickens in New Hampshire. Contact her at Wendy@SimpleThrift.com

Also, join me on Facebook to find out more about the flock (children and chickens) and see some pretty funny chicken jokes, photos of tiny houses, and even a recipe or two. 

Lesson 770 – Winter bedding

Marc brought our last chick back to the nest this weekend and while it’s wonderful to see him in the home again, interacting with all of his flock mates, his return raises the age-old question asked by all mama hens whose chicks have left and then returned home again from college.

Lesson 769 – Quotable Chicks

Friday’s Quotes for the Chicks

“Tomorrow hopes we have learned something from yesterday.“

John Wayne

What a week. If ever there was a true statement, it is this: Thank God it’s Friday.

We slide into our weekend with the flock all over the place. Marc and two of the boys are out picking up our last college student to bring him home for the summer, Addy is going to a FIRST competition, Emma has soccer games, and Trevor, as always, is doing his thing.

Which leaves me home to man the fort.

Absolutely fine by me. The weather is supposed to be perfect and I hear the yard calling my name.

Lesson 768 – Lessons learned

This is the beauty, strength, and power of a community. In the hundreds and hundreds of replies I got about our Violet’s experience (and I’ve read every single one several times) I received some tremendous gifts.

 

There was a comment from another chicken owner who had had a similar experience with cinder blocks.

 

“Shoot, yeah, we never get to quit learning and improving in this life. Even after 50+ years of chickens, I just found out about the cinder block thing. I flood irrigate so my coop is on blocks, and recently some of my girls decided that laying eggs underneath it was better than the nests. I had boarded it up, but they knocked one down and for several days we kept wondering where all the eggs were. By the time we figured it out and re-secured the boards solidly, they were so fixated on that being the place to lay that the next day I found one stuck in a cinder block hole! So stuck, in fact, that it took me a while to get her out…but that ain’t gonna ever happen again.”

 

Another person shared some examples of other unknown dangers in the coop that I would have never thought were a problem. Now I know.

 

“Other suggestions for coop safety:  Someone told me once that a piece of plywood leaning against a barn wall fell on one of her pullets and killed her.  Also: cracks in the roost —- toenails can get ripped.  It’s happened to my bird.”  

 

One fellow chicken owner left this fabulous suggestion to use when integrating chicks into the flock. I will be using this trick the next time we have chicks:

“Squirt bottle. It’s my training tool of choice for chickens (when it’s not freezing out of course). I have trouble accepting pecking order sometimes and other times they simply take it too far as you have learned. Armed with a good squirt bottle I can inflict a “peck” from several feet away, and it only takes a few squirts to show them who is really the boss of the yard. It works like magic. They are pretty fast learners. The instant you see a behavior you don’t want, squirt. It shouldn’t take more then a dozen squirts for even the most determined behaviors. Take care, loss is never easy, especially when you feel responsible.”

And I got a whole lot of compassion from people who understood my pain and my sharing of our story. Because of Violet, cinder blocks are either being removed or are being filled up in coops all over. Chicks lives may be saved.

Violet had a short life but just look at what she was able to do.

“Thank you for making me aware of the issue. I have blocks in the house for the waterers. When the new chicks hatch they will be removed. Our grown hens are much too large to squeeze their fat bodies into a block hole and they have settled into their order… but with new arrivals things can get interesting.”

“I am so saddened by your loss. I am just now back into keeping chickens, with my first batch of four chicks, and a deep concern about how to provide a safe environment for them, secure from predators. I will now focus on inside safety as well, and keep your lesson (and Violet’s) in my mind as I plan their coop and run. Thank you for the courage to speak the truth and help others be aware of unknown dangers. Hugs!”

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Wendy Thomas writes about the lessons learned while raising children and chickens in New Hampshire. Contact her at Wendy@SimpleThrift.com

Also, join me on Facebook to find out more about the flock (children and chickens) and see some pretty funny chicken jokes, photos of tiny houses, and even a recipe or two. 

Lesson 767 – One bird at a time

First of all, I want to say “thank you” to everyone who reached out to me on this blog and Facebook yesterday. The chicken community really does understand what these feathered critters mean to us and I have to tell you that every comforting word did its job. I still, and will always, carry the guilt for this one, but it was wonderful to be given so many hugs from fellow chicken owners.

One person, who hatched some chicks yesterday even named a chick “Violet” in honor of our little bird. How beautiful is that? Violet’s spirit lives on.

I did get one letter from a woman who has decided to not follow me anymore because of what happened to Violet. She raised some interesting points in her email (which is now a Facebook post.)

She chastised me and said that you should NEVER introduce less than 3 chicks into a flock and while this is ideal, it’s not going to happen with some backyard chicken owners. Concord NH, for example, allows you to have 5 hens in your flock. If one died over the winter, you can either wait until more die to replace them or try to replace that single bird. Most people go with replacing what was lost. Flocks simply come in all sizes.

I got Violet as a single chick, just like I had gotten Charlie as a single chick. Neither bird had been planned but I wasn’t going to say no to them. In Charlie’s case, she lived because I was willing to do her foot surgery. In Violet’s case, she died, not because she was a single bird, but because I didn’t recognize a danger in the coop.

Lesson 766 – She’s just a chicken

Some are going to read this and say, what’s the big deal? She’s just a chicken.

Violet quietly died last night around 7:30pm. There had been signs of hope throughout the day but when she stopped eating, when fluids started coming out of her beak, when she went the entire day without pooping, I knew that things were not good.

Fortunately I had time yesterday to hold her, swaddled in my sweatshirt, in the sunshine.

Lesson 765 – Violet is in trouble

Today’s post was meant to be a celebration. A way to announce that Violet has been fully integrated into our flock with little or minimal damage.  It was going to be a post celebrating the power and tolerance of the flock.

And up until last night, it certainly looked like that was how it would turn out.

Yesterday was Mother’s Day and our family spent much of the afternoon in our backyard surrounded by our foraging chickens.

After several days of being kept caged in the hen house in order for her flock mates to get used to her, I thought it was time for Violet to join the flock. Oh sure, the larger and older birds would occasionally peck her but being the very clever bird that she is, she would run over to me and hide from the others behind my feet.  Violet knew that this mama hen was looking out for her.

Violet was so very sweet that one of our visiting neighbors even got down on the ground to play with her.

“That’s one nice bird,” he told me while gently stroking her chest.

As the afternoon wore on and the sun started to set, I felt very comfortable putting Violet in with the others to roost together for the night.

“How much damage can be done overnight?” I thought to myself.

Lesson 764 – Quotable Chicks

Friday’s Quotes for the Chicks

“Happy Mother’s Day“

Every greeting card in the world on May 12th.

When you have 6 kids, Mother’s Day is a very big day in the house.  It’s a morning of breakfast pre-made (which has varied over the years from gummy worms, cereal that has been sitting in milk for an hour waiting for me to wake up, and in the more recent years, pancakes, eggs, and bacon.)

The kids give me cards and (usually) let me read in the sun as they attend to my every need.

Need more water, Mom?

Lesson 763 – Pennies in water

I wrote an article about catching flys for Community Chickens. One of the commenters left this response:

“Take a small cup or bowl and put a few pennies in it and fill with water. It is an old Amish trick. I have seen it used at an outdoor reunion on the tables, and no flies bothered a single thing. It just kept the flies away from the area. I keep one in my garage now”

And then another one added:

“This really works! I use a ziplock bag half filled with water and a couple pennies. You can hang it anywhere!”

Which is why this now sits on our picnic table.

Can’t hurt right?

When you have a few minutes, go to that post and read through the comments for some great advice on controlling flies in the coop.

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Wendy Thomas writes about the lessons learned while raising children and chickens in New Hampshire. Contact her at Wendy@SimpleThrift.com

Also, join me on Facebook to find out more about the flock (children and chickens) and see some pretty funny chicken jokes, photos of tiny houses, and even a recipe or two.

 

 

Lesson 762 – Violet meets the flock – step 2

Well look who survived the night?

Morning sunshine.

I’m leaving for a 3 day camping trip with our town’s seventh graders (how else am I going to get into heaven?) and so won’t be around for Violet during the next few days. The plan is to let her be around the girls as they free range (babysat by my non-seventh graders) in the afternoon but to keep her in the cage while in the coop until I get back at which point I’ll see if she’s ready to be released.

The action part of Violet meets the flock part 2?

Relax, that’s all, just relax.

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Wendy Thomas writes about the lessons learned while raising children and chickens in New Hampshire. Contact her at Wendy@SimpleThrift.com

Also, join me on Facebook to find out more about the flock (children and chickens) and see some pretty funny chicken jokes, photos of tiny houses, and even a recipe or two.