Lesson 1272 – Staying low for a bit

I was going to write something witty about chickens today, but first thing this morning, I went in for a long-overdue root canal on one of my back molars.

Yeah, things are a little sore right now (can you say kicked by a mule?)

Lesson 1266 – Down on the farm

A few weeks ago I wrote about how Charlie, our Black Coper Marans chicken liked to come into the house and head straight to the dog’s bowls of food and water.

When she was a chick, Charlie lived in our house for 6 months (I know, I know) and as our dog Pippin was her closest flock member, she quickly discovered that eating what he was eating was far better than eating what we wanted her to eat (chicken feed from the supply store.) For months our dog and chicken ate out of the same bowls.

Eating kibbles

Whatever, hakuna matata, we rolled with it.

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Lesson 1255 – Such magic

My kids play a video game called Portal. From what I understand you compete in a world where various round openings (portals) suddenly occur and when you step through them you are transported to a different place in the game.

Mind blowing.

I was recently reminded of this game due to Charlie, our Black Copper Marans’ behavior.

Lately Charlie has been doing this little trick (also called training me) where she stands on the front porch and screeches in order to get my attention.

When I go to front door and open it in order to see if she is okay (as I would do for any of my chicks who screech), Charlie boldly saunters into the house and immediately heads over to Pippin’s dog dish for a snack. When she lived in the house with us (for 6 months), Charlie much preferred dog food to chicken food and I can only assume that once you’ve had dog food, you can never go back. She sure remembers that the dog bowl means yummies.

When Charlie’s had her fill, I open the back door and she gracefully exits into the backyard to join the rest of the flock.

From the front yard to the back yard simply by way of opened doors (and with a tasty snack along the way to boot!)

Such magic by which these featherless flock members seem to live.

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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

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Lesson 832 – Jumping chickens

Okay, you all know the joke about the chicken crossing the road, but here’s a new one.

Question: How high can a chicken jump?

Lesson 817 – Charlie in the house

During the heat wave, when it was brutal outdoors, every time I opened the door, there was Charlie waiting to scurry around my leg in order to come into the house. She knew that inside she’d find cool Pippin water, and if she pecked at the smaller pieces, she’d probably be able to eat a dog kibble or two.

Lesson 730 – Once Upon a Flock by Lauren Scheuer – Giveaway

Lauren Scheuer is definitely a rare bird. She’s one of those people who has tremendous talent, a huge heart, and is someone who understands chickens  – a winning combination in this game called life. She’s written a book about living with her backyard chickens and forgive me, but I’ve just got to crow about this accomplishment!

Lauren and I found each other on Facebook years ago, I had seen her chicken art from her fabulous blog Scratch and Peck, (if you haven’t seen it, go over now and have her illustrations make your day) and she had noticed I wrote about chickens. We started conversing. When chicken people meet chicken people, nothing can stop us. It was a friendship meant to happen.

It was Lauren who invited and organized the NE chicken ladies (Hencam, Tilly’s Nest, Scratch and Peck, and me, Lessons Learned from the flock) to attend the Northeastern Poultry Show two years ago in January.

It was a cold day, the kind of day where you think twice about retrieving your water bottle from your car parked at the far end of the lot. (Then you realize, there’s no need to fetch it because it’s probably frozen solid anyway.) We all showed up at the designated meeting place.  We met.  We clucked with each other over food.  We saw the most incredible chickens.  We left with newly found chicken friends.

And I also came home with Charlie.

Lesson 632 – Houston, we have some Maran eggs

We have been waiting and waiting (and waiting) for our Black Copper Maran chicken; Charlie to lay an egg. She was born in early January and that makes her 10 months old. That’s certainly old enough to be laying eggs. Marans lay dark brown eggs that look like they are made of chocolate. But even though we’ve looked and looked, we’ve found nothing.

Maybe she’s hiding them I thought, and I inspected all corners and rafters in our henhouse.

Still nothing.

But then I took a look at our egg collection and something caught my attention.

Do you see what I see?

Some of our eggs are darker. When you look at them alone, they just look like rich brown eggs, but when you compare them to our other brown eggs then you’ll see that something is clearly different.

Lesson 485 – Charlie and the Superbowl

I wasn’t kidding when I said that Charlie likes to sit on us while we watch TV. It’s a dark picture but here you can see Charlie sitting on my knee while she watches the Superbowl.

Yeah, I know, we're probably the only family left without a flatscreen TV

Oh and by the way, even with several geeks in our house last night, apparently none of them could figure out how to remove the translation feed so we watched the game while reading the announcer’s comments in Spanish. I just told the kids to think of it as extra credit for their foreign language studies.