Oh No, You Don't.

Yesterday was spent on a windy, cold hilltop with an accordion and no coat.  I have been unable to get warm, so this afternoon, I covered myself in red fleece.  With white accessories, I could be mistaken for Santa Claus at a distance.

Not by Buck, though.

This morning was spent hoeing out the coop and putting up nice branches for the girls as an alternative to being breathed on by a 12 lb rooster all night.  The ladies have been picking the feathers out of Bucks neck.  That will not feel good in a couple of weeks. 

To hoe out and replenish the bedding and supplies in the coop I wore an ensemble consisting of ratty old jeans, crocs and a sweatshirt.  My appearance did not spark any interest or aggression until I changed into red fuzzy clothing, and then Buck decided he really had to do something about the lowered standards.  

He attacked me with full and undiluted attention. I had no shield nearby so I decided to grab him. 

 Easier said than done without a towel or a net.  We had a tussle in which I got pecked numerous times, kicked and hissed at.  He got pinned to the ground.

I picked him up - he didn't care for that either - and held him in my lap, stroked his feathers and told him he was a good chicken.

Nice chicken. 

Pretty Chicken.... 

His pupils dilated. 

They constricted and dilated again. 

He grumbled slightly.  He allowed me to scratch his comb, tickle his neck and 

when I put him on the ground he stood there, considered what to do next and then walked away.

I went into the house.  After a few minutes, Buck and the ladies came 'round to see if there was any lettuce left for them or perhaps something more interesting.  I'm not going back out there though.

Some Plan.

It has been difficult to find information that I'm comfortable with about what to do next.  Winter is coming.  It has been lovely and warm, and Buck & the girls have gone back to their summer ways of lounging on the outdoor furniture, scratching and begging, fluttering up and down the glacial erratics out back, chasing the new girls around the garden and rushing up to the van in hopes that it contains something magic, just for them.

Today it began raining and being gray, and we were all reminded that the halcyon, thoughtless days are over, and if we're lucky, we'll have a week or so before global climate change slams us with another 3 feet of something cold, damp and hard to get through with bare legs the circumference of a ball point pen.
With this in mind, I have been researching coop heating options that won't set fire to the chickens or their dwelling, but stories of people's combs freezing and falling off doesn't seem like much of an alternative.  The combs do not grow back, once frozen off, and as I have said in a previous entry, the people who think that's ok might not feel that way if it was their comb falling off.
I have found over these months, that there are things that bother me that don't bother chickens.  I can't always tell where concern ends and transference begins.

There are heated floor pads.  There are heat lamps.  There are wall units that look like a flat piece of enamel [that looks the most promising].  There are ceramic lamps that emit no light so that they don't keep the chickens awake.
No inexpensive options that are safe.
It's a good thing I'm not trying to make these chickens pay for themselves.  It would come out to about $9.00 an egg.
I can consider it expiation for the decades of devouring their children.

Fashion Statement?

Were the Elizabethans trying to look like outraged chickens?

Fine. I'll do it myself.

This morning I overslept a bit and was woken by the sound of happy chickens, gurgling on the porch.
"How did they get on the porch?" A voice in my head asked me as I woke up further.
"I don't know."  I said back.
Then Buck could be heard crowing - full volume, not muffled by chicken shed, right under my window.
Some mornings I get up and let them out and then go back to bed.  I'm hoping this wasn't one of them as I watch for signs of creeping dementia.
Forgetting that I had gotten up was not what I had forgotten, though.  I had forgotten to close the smaller chicken door, so it was open all night.
Still have all the chickens - how did that happen?
I dragged a bag of greens behind me to deflect attacks but Buck was determined to hammer me this morning for my carelessness.  No amount of salad was going to fix this.
I ended up throwing the bag in his path and getting back to the house before he got over being confused.
Today is dump day anyhow, I'll clean it up later.....

Sooner or Later

"Buck, I'm telling you that
 sooner or later,
 you're going to have to put that
 other foot down."
"No, I'm not. "
"Yes, you will."
"No, I won't."
"Yes you will."
"Not..."

This is the gist of the morning conversation.

The ramp is not too bad but the ground always has frost on it, and if I had bare feet, I'd try to get away with keeping one of them tucked up into my feathers for as long as possible too.

I won that argument.  Buck had to use two feet and a beak

 to express his opinion of my shoes .

He should talk.

A minor indignity

In his enthusiasm, Buck tripped over the edge of the big water bowl.  It might be 24" across and 9" deep.  His intention was to flap his way to dominance, and make the secondary point of letting me know that he was unhappy with my weather management and the solid condition of the water in the coop overnight.  He wound up standing chest deep in the water bowl looking thoughtful.  After about 5 seconds, he jumped up and out, shook himself and charged around the yard in a couple of circles.  It reminded me of the scene in the Producers where Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel are having a set to about Bialystock having grabbed Blume's blue blanket from his hand.
"I'm wet, I'm hysterical and I'm still in pain."

Sartorially Challenged Chickens...

After grocery shopping at a local farm that supplies many of the stores around here with free range eggs, I walked across the parking lot to the field to get a closer look at their chickens.
They had a number of roosters, none as big and handsome as Buck.  In fact, a couple of the roosters were limping.  There weren't any that weren't bedraggled, and the hens were sparsely feathered.  Some had been so chewed they looked as though they were suffering from freezer burn.
The woman at the farm stand told me that all the chickens would soon be moved into the big chicken barn for the winter.   She said they wouldn't be coming out again until spring .  I suppose that in order to be in the egg business, you have to have a volume of chickens, but it doesn't seem to be as good for the chickens as it is for the egg business.
I'm seeing what kind of time and thought it takes for someone like me with no veterinary background flying only on good intentions to keep my chickens cheerful.  If my livelihood depended on them as commodities instead of sentient beings, my perspective on their happiness would be different.
Plenty has been put out there about the treatment of meat chickens without me adding to the gross out fest, it's enough to get to know some chickens to see their beauty, sweetness, humor and intelligence 

I don't know what that is, but I'm not stepping in it.

14 inches of it.  All over anybody's FB page is glorious paeans to the snow, but not 'round here.  I'm thinking if this is what we are in for, I'm putting the chickens and the cats in airline grade carriers and taking us all to the keys.  I'd go further, but I don't think immigration would allow me to land in Santiago with 8 chickens.
It is sunny now, and warming up, so I opened the coop and got blank stares from everyone.
Yesterday I made an awesome haul from the grocery store of chicken scraps which included bunches of basil, lots of salad mix and 3 loaves of locally baked artisan bread, all one day past the date, but it's in such good shape that the chickens have to share.  I'm not throwing basil away that's mostly better looking than if it had hung around my fridge for a little too long.
They were mostly very excited about the bread, but showed some interest in the greens as well.  I hope they'll appreciate the greens more as the winter comes on and they're harder to find on the ground.
After a bit, the brave chickens hopped out, trying to land in the holes my boots had made.  They are on the porch enjoying the sun.  This tells me that the best place for their winter dust bath location will be on the deck where they'll be out of the weather but I won't have to construct another shelter.
 Buck is just happy to have all the hens nearby so he can stop with the hyper-vigilance for a few hours.

Even chickens face uncertainty

Buck has been in a nasty temper ever since the October nor'easter, today I tried to give him and the ladies a bowl of treats and needed to use a barbecue spatula to hold him off so that I could put it on the ground.
I was going in to the house at one point and he came up behind me intent on bruising my calves.
I tried to close a door and he went after my shoes.  He especially has a problem accepting shoes.  Is he jealous?  Would  he like a nice pair of chicken wellies?
I have to stand there on one foot with the sole of my shoe facing him, waiting for him to get tired of attacking it, and go away.
Maybe he's a Muslim chicken and considers it a profound insult to be presented with the sole of a shoe.

Little does he know that trouble is brewing in the kingdom he rules with an iron claw.
Wind turbines, 1.67 miles away. Will he and the girls lose their balance  and fall off their perches?  Will they feel like a little Dramamine crumbled into their food wouldn't be amiss?
Some of the health effects on humans are irritability and depression.  What do you do about depressed chickens?
I already am dealing with one irritable chicken, but will depressed hens lay?

Fine Feather

"What are you doing?" Buck yelled at me this morning.
"Put that BACK" he advised.
Since I have had chickens in the yard, my place looks more raggedy than ever, and gets worse faster than I can keep up.

In honor of having the floors redone, I thought I could rake the walk, sweep away the chicken debris and fallen leaves.  People have commented to me that my house looks deserted.  I've been leaning on the electric heat, so there's no smoke to show that I'm here, my van is covered with lichen, and chickens stand around underneath it.  Add to this picture the downed branches from the storm and my unwillingness to shovel and you get the idea.
I had not quite gotten as far as the mailbox when Buck came charging around the side of the house squawking at me, calling the ladies brigade for help and proceeded to, what I can only describe as systematically, engage 5 pairs of chicken feet to kick all the leaves back on to the path.
This was followed by crowing, lungeing and drawing himself up to his full height and stamping off in a marked manner.
I raked the path again in Buck's absence.
I returned from a trip to the market to find the path covered with leaves.

You're not bringing that thing in.

Today I picked up a painted stool at a roadside sale.  It's a 3 legged stool, painted to look like a spotted animal of some kind, with a moon face on the seat.  I'm not sure what the idea was, but Buck would not let me bring it in the house.  He ran to the van as I was getting out of it and launched an attack on the furniture.  I tried to dance around him in a circle to get by, but he was focused.
By the time I go to the porch, he had knocked two of the legs out of the stool and having wrestled them to the ground, went after the remaining bits in my hand.
I dropped it on the porch to his hissing and growling, and realized I'd just paid money for kindling.

You Gonna Eat That?

To make the Avian Americans feel better about an early winter - some places got 31" last weekend- I put out a bowl of what chickens would have wanted if they'd come to the door on Hallowe'en:  Peanuts, grapes, ciabatta and carrot shavings, served on a bed of lettuce, garnished with Purina.

Mostly in the morning Buck puts his beak near the open door, sees white on the ground and grumbles.  He won't come out unless it's above 35 degrees [F].  He doesn't encourage his ladies to either.




 The B's won't consider it as long as they
 have water and food in their shed,
 but after the night I put them in the main coop they were the first ones out hopping
through bootprints to get to the porch.
These girls are very easy to catch, and seem to like being held and scratched.

It took a couple of days of thawing out for Buck to feel as though it would be a good idea to get some sun.
I barely do any shoveling for myself.  If they think I'm going to shovel and elaborate run for them, well..... maybe what I'll do is figure out a way to do what was done 150 years ago, to squash the snow down evenly and not hurt my back clearing it away.
During the night, the girls are picking the feathers off Buck's neck, so that now as his tail feathers grow back, his neck feathers are vanishing. I"m feeling such a dread of winter, wondering if the chickens are too.  I know the breeds I have are supposed to deal well with cold, but they are out there with bare heads and feet.  Can they fluff their feathers up enough ?  Are their heartbeats fast enough?  These are things I don't know.  I wonder, do chickens get Seasonal Affective Disorder?  Do they yearn to be in Borrego Springs?