Hide And Seek

In the past week or so I noticed an odd trend in our egg production. I had been anticipating a gradual increase in volume but instead we started seeing a decrease. I had seen some evidence of a couple of new hens beginning to lay but now it seemed that they were producing less and less. At first, I thought this could be due to the increasingly cold weather and the shortening days but the literature claims that our Orpington's should actually continue laying right through the winter.

When I saw that yesterday's haul was only two eggs I decided to poke around a little bit. It didn't take me long to figure out what was going on. In the unfinished southern half of the chicken coop I have a number of doors and windows leaning up against the wall awaiting their day to finally get installed. I poked my head behind one of the doors to find a handsome clutch of eleven eggs as shown in the picture.

I'm not sure why a number of the hens have decided to lay here instead of the nice nest boxes that I built. My guess is that it has something to do with the improved privacy that this quiet corner provides. In any case, until we finish up this second half of the coop we will just have to add this location to our daily round of hide and seek to find the eggs.

Since we didn't know how long these eggs have been sitting there, I concluded that we couldn't keep them. Early this morning Freya and I let the birds out just before departing to drive to her school and me to work. We enjoyed a brief game of spotlight egg fast pitch as we took turns shining the flashlight at a tree out in the woods while the other attempted to smack the spot with the eggs. She won the contest handily with a slightly low but direct hit on the tree. Hopefully we won't have to waste any more eggs in that way but it was kind of fun just the same!

The Prince Who Loves To Dance

The day is approaching when I am going to have to cull the extra roosters in our flock. In doing so, I will slaughter five roosters and leave the best two to be the breeding stock for next year's flock expansion. The trick is determining which of the roosters exhibit the qualities that we want to keep.

The poultry raising guides that I have read for our breed of chicken make recommendations on this selecion process. The best roosters to keep will have a certain color, body shape, comb configuration and temperment. Sean and I have been eyeing the flock and believe there are two obvious choices. There are two roosters who stand out above the rest. The first we plan to use as a replacement for Marco Pollo. He will take his place as patriarch of the northern flock as "Marco Pollo II" once Marco I meets his fate. (Marco I is the agressive bird that I mentioned previously who also happens to be inferior genetically according to the standards.)

The second rooster that we are thinking of keeping is another fine specimen. He will take his place as the rooster of the southern coop and will be dubbed "Gallus Rex I" or Rex for short. There is just one thing about Rex that gives us a slight concern about his eligibility to ascend to the throne. Rex is a dancing chicken.

Rex's stylish displays do not happen every day but there's nothing like it when he decides to kick up his heels. He dances by spinning in a tight circle in one direcion, and then reversing his movement to retrace his steps backward. If you watch the video below, you will first be tempted to believe that I reversed the video for the latter half. In fact, the video has not been touched in any way.

We are hoping that Rex's fanciful ways are not evidence of some pathology. You would be tempted to think that he had a serious brain defect of some sort except that he behaves perfectly ordinarily when he isn't dancing. He will go for many days acting like every other rooster in the yard, then break into a fit of dancing for a few minutes, and then go back to his ordinary pecking and strutting as if nothing happened.

I have searched the internet and my literature for some chicken disease that would cause spinning but have thus far come up with nothing that would indicate that the dancing is a problem. I would hate to cull an otherwise handsome bird if this behavior is normal. I would also hate to cull all of the rest of the roosters only to find that there is something wrong with him. Will we end up frustratedly watching him pursue his dancing obsession instead of fathering new chics? While I ponder this question Rex continues to kick up his heels and spin his way through his first pleasant summer.

Broccoli and Cauliflower

As I've mention in earlier posts, the harvest season has been going very well this year. We have been especially happy with the cauliflower and broccoli which have yielded large and very sweet heads.


Our earlier troubles with cabbage moths had been handily fixed with a single application of an organic gardening biologic control (see earlier post for details). They still nibbled on some of the leaves now and again, but the amount of damage done never again rose to the level that I felt a need to do something about it.

Our daughter Freya (in center of photo) happened to have a couple of her school friends over for a visit and we put them to work. I snapped this picture as they were delivering some produce to the kitchen for processing. A small amount of these were steamed for dinner. The rest we blanched, vacuum packed and stored away in the freezer for use this winter.

Sprinkler System

The weather has certainly been odd this year. The spring was the rainiest that anyone could remember. Then along came July and it was incredibly dry. Knowing that I was supposed to make sure the garden received at least 1" of water per week, I spent a fair amount of that month setting up and moving our one sprinkler around. It didn't take long until I was telling myself, "There must be a better way".



I headed off to the hardware store and bought more sprinklers, some more garden hose, some valving and a watering timer. Now what was once a chore is as easy as can be.




I placed fence posts at various points in the garden and topped each with a sprinkler. I ran hoses between them and hooked it all up to the water supply. Unfortunately the output of our well pump isn't quite enough volume for all of them to run at the same time so I added some valves to break them into two groups. Now I just set the timer and stand back while the sprinklers do all of the work.

Harvesting In Heaps

It would be fair to say that my garden plans will require some adjustment for next year. Some items such as peas have been too few. Other things such as zucchini, collards and yellow summer squash are yielding in such huge quantities that it is laughable.

We have been harvesting the garden literally by the wheel barrow full for the past month. We have tried to find time to can some of it for winter use, have been having fresh vegetables at nearly every meal and chopping up some to feed to the chickens. Inevitably, some of it has been heaped in piles between the rows and left to rot in the sun.

In my defense, I only ordered one small packet of seeds per variety. The problem was that I doggedly planted every single seed in every packet no matter how impractical that might be. Now that we have this first year under our belt, I will be able to make some adjustments to the plans to better match our ability to consume what is grown. All of this may be reversed someday if we ever manage to start producing for sale at the local farmer's markets but right now we are just too busy getting the kids back into the school routine.

In the quiet time between the last harvest and maple tapping season, I have a long list of website improvements and similar projects to tackle. Among them will be the final assessment of our garden's successes and failures. I also look forward to adjusting some of the varieties that we grew that didn't turn out so well.

But for the moment the sun is still warm and things are still growing. I think I may take the kids aside this evening and work out a special strategy to help with the problem. I'm starting to think that Janet and I could intentionally distract any visitor who comes to our house just long enough for the children to pack every cubic inch of their vehicle with squash!

Eggs At Last!

Of all of our children, Sean seems to have taken to the chickens the most. During idle moments he can often be found visiting the henhouse. He likes to scoop up a hen or rooster, cradle it under his arm and sit or walk around the chicken yard petting it. I have to admit that I understand the appeal and do the same myself now and again. They are soft, friendly and very entertaining birds.

During a recent weekend afternoon, I was working in the garden when Sean passed by on his way to the coop for a visit. Shortly thereafter he came running out into the yard yelling excitedly that he had just found our first egg! He brought it to me and the family gathered around as we admired the little treasure. It was a small egg and brown in color. The boys are shown holding it in the picture below.

Since that day we have had a steady increase in the size and frequency of eggs arriving as more and more hens have gotten into the act. We now can count on three eggs every day. We have used them in baking and eaten them for breakfast. They range in size from medium to large and have a better flavor than store-bought eggs. Thus far our consumption has kept up with the supply and we are happy to know that we may never have to buy eggs at the grocery again.

My plan is to build our breeding flock up to include 16 hens and 2 roosters. Based on the fact that each Orpington hen is supposed to lay about 265 eggs each year, that should mean we will eventually be hauling a dozen eggs out of the coop each day! We plan to hatch some of them to provide meat birds for the table and replacements for aging birds in the breeding flock. The rest we will either sell or eat.

I have to say that I am very impressed by the productive little hens. Walking back to the house with the day's hand full of eggs, I find myself thinking that it seems miraculous that their bodies can create such an amazing thing let alone withstand doing it day after day.

Even before we have slaughtered our first bird I feel humbled by the relationship that humanity has forged with these once wild creatures. In return for feed, water and protective shelter, it seems that they will cheerfully provide us an endless supply of protein to sustain us as well as entertaining company. I can only imagine the work that the little hens go through each day. Even considering all of the work that has been going into building a safe and pleasant coop for them, it still seems to me that we've got the better part of the deal!