A hawk's eye view of the broilers

Saturday morning as I was bringing the goats down from the barn, there was a great commotion in the chicken yard. I was on the far side of the barn, so I couldn’t see what it was and thought it was just the layers fighting for position as they were coming down the ramp. Once I got the goats penned, I noticed a group of 8-10 broilers were on the outside of their electric pen. I glanced over at the tractor and saw two more hiding under the tarp and one or two pacing nervously near the fence. I realized that the commotion I heard was something going after the broilers. I extracted 3 more who were cowering under a large pile of kindling and did a quick head count. There were only 17, and there should have been 25 plus a yellow one with fuzzy feet that was the free “exotic” that came with the order and one black Australorp hatchling that had been living with the broilers, both of whom were also missing. Something had gotten into the broilers and made off with a bunch of our chickens.

I had seen a hawk fly over head the morning before, but there was no way a hawk could have made off with that many, and it seemed unlikely that a fox or raccoon or something like that would have come in daylight, or made off with so many in so short of time — and while there were some feathers strewn about, there was no real sign of blood or struggle.

Margaret had come down from the house to investigate and help re-tally the head count. Charlotte came too and had been calling out that she had found the chickens, but we had just figured she was talking about the layers at the top of the hill. But she kept insisting, and so we gave up on our detective work and went to investigate. Sure enough, over in the high grass by the maple were 7 broilers, the yellow fuzzy chicken and the Australorp. Charlotte had found the chickens and saved the day. A final count left the flock at 24, so we guessed it probably was that hawk, and it made off with one of the broilers… it had its work cut out for it flying with one of these guys, as they’re already getting pretty fat. Clairvoyant Charlotte named the missing chicken “Lucky,” and mostly pretended to be upset saying he was her favorite. Later that day we came home to find “Lucky” wandering around the outside of the pen, trying to get back to the flock from his hiding spot, wherever that had been. Lucky indeed.

poultry chickens, hawks, predators

Beans climbing in the morning light

I love summer mornings on the farm. Once morning chores are done, I love to just poke around the garden and take in the splendor in the beautiful morning light. Here are some pictures from this morning.

Broilers, finished with their morning grain, looking for more

Bee and mustard flowers

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Garden, Goats, Photography, poultry chickens, farm, flowers, Garden, Goats, Photography

Nested in for the night...

When I went in the barn last night to put all the critters to bed, I found all the baby chicks were all snuggled in for the night in one of the nesting boxes with their mama. There’s one more that ducked back behind mama hen.

Photography, poultry chickens, chicks, nesting box

Lobsters and the first peas of the season

We’ve had peapods for over a week now, but the girls have been consistently beating us to the punch — picking them and eating them as fast as they’ve been coming in — while we’re busy in other parts of the garden. But a good rain and a good bit of sun and by the weekend we had enough peas to satisfy a handful of kids, and plenty to cook some up for Sunday supper.

Lobster and peas is classic, traditional Maine summertime fare, so we like to celebrate our first peas by showing some love for the local lobstermen and splurge on some lobsters to accompany the garden’s bounty. The result: Lobster risotto with shell peas and peapods, seasoned with lovage, mustard seed and coriander seed from the garden.

We shared the meal with the Gates family from Brooklyn, NY. Stephen, Valerie and their daughter Melanie had gotten in touch after reading The Year of the Goat, and asked if they could visit the farm during a trip to Maine. Stephen even offered to pitch in, and proved true to his word, sifting compost and helping plant the beans. A little lobster risotto was the least we could offer in turn.

Finally, a shout out to Fishermen’s Net, our favorite local fish monger, who has always done us right with great local fresh seafood. In addition to the lobsters for our delicious dinner, they offered up some bonus picked-over lobster bodies for our laying hens. Sunday night, everyone ate lobster, even the chickens.

The chickens get their own Sunday lobster dinner

Food, Garden chickens, fishermen's net, lobster, peas, sunday supper

The newest member of the flock

Yesterday morning we came downstairs to find another chick had pecked through its shell, bringing our total of hatched chicks to five. Earlier in the week, we had brought a few eggs into the chick brooder and put them under the heat lamp after the broody hen abandoned them, but we had all but given up on these last three eggs–the night before, I had even suggested to Margaret that we could throw the rotten eggs down the groundhog hole to try to stink out the varmints.

After she hatched her first two eggs, the broody hen left the nesting box with the chicks, and seemed to lose interest in the rest of the eggs in the nesting box, so as one and then another hatched, we moved the babies to the brooder box in the house, where the new meat birds were just starting to grow. The meat birds very quickly began to outgrow these baby layers that appear to be Australorp / Barred Rock crosses (we have three roosters of different breeds, so we’re not completely sure who the fathers are). They were so tiny that we were afraid they would be squashed, so we tried moving the new chicks back out to the coop with the mother hen and her two initial hatchlings. The hen took to one of them, but we had to move the other back in. We’ve now moved this newest one out to the barn, and the mother hen seems to have taken to it just fine.

poultry baby chicks, broody hen, chickens, hatching chicks

El Diablo (top right) comes out to welcome the new laying flock of Buff Minorcas (bottom)

Our new Buff Minorca pullets left the barn yesterday morning to begin their assimilation into the established flock of one and two year old hens. Our chicken yard is temporarily closed off and split in two by a chicken wire divider fence, so the two flocks can live side by side and get acclimated to one another before we integrate the new birds. In a couple of weeks, once the Minorcas are closer in size to the older birds, we’ll open up the fence and the two flocks will, for the most part without incident, become one big happy flock.

In the meantime, the established flock will live on the coop / barn side of the yard, and the new layers will live in the outer half, with a dog crate that we close up at night for shelter and protection. Typically, training the young chickens to go into the crate is a tedious task — several nights of luring them with grain and, if all else fails, catching the birds and physically placing them in the crate. Finally, after several nights, they figure it out and go in by themselves. These Buff Minorcas figured out the system with astonishing speed–on the first night! I set up their crate at yesterday at dusk and within 15-20 minutes they were settled in for the night.

You can read more about our laying flock management in the previous post “Chicken or Egg? Chicken”.

Farming, poultry Buff Minorcas, chickens, laying flock

This year, the Araucanas are out, Buff Minorcas are in.

Each February we gather around our Murray McMurray catalog and marvel over their remarkable variety of chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, and other fowl. Actually, we like browsing the catalog any month, but February is typically when we get down to business and place our spring and summer poultry order. Before I reveal this year’s chicken choices (poultry picks?), a word about the Ten Apple laying flock management plan.

We keep a laying flock of 20-24 birds. Our first flock included 12 chickens (11 hens and one rooster, an Australorp named Larry) of several different breeds: Buff Orpingtons, Araucanas, Australorps, Plymouth Barred Rocks, and Rhode Island Reds. We decided that we would keep the layers for two years and then process the spent hens for soup and stew. Each year we replace half of the flock (the mature birds) with 12 new birds. After that first year of various breeds we decided that each spring we would choose one breed for the year and get 12 chickens of a different variety than the year before. That way we would always know which half of the flock would go the way of the stock pot and which half would stick around for another year. To our initial flock we added 12 black and white Plymouth Barred Rocks. The next year, we thought, so long as we’re alternating breeds, let’s also alternate the color of the eggs that they lay so we can see exactly how productive each half of the flock is being–and get a nice rainbow in our egg basket. When we said goodbye to the Orpingtons, Australorps and Reds, we said hello to 12 colorful-egg-laying Araucanas. Last year, we replaced our aging Barred Rocks (who are brown egg layers) with a dozen brown egg-laying Australorps, who I remembered being particularly good layers. They have proven that to be true. So far this week we’ve had daily egg counts of 14,  15, and 13 eggs from our  flock of 12 Australorps and 7 Araucanas–not bad for gloomy late winter. This fall we’ll process the Araucanas, but first, this spring we’ll say hello to 12 day-old Buff Minorcas, who will eventually lay white eggs.

So without further ado… the 2010 Ten Apple Farm Poultry Order:

12 Buff Minorcas (plus a straight run of 13 Buff Orpingtons that we’re going to brood for some new friends in Unity)

Murray McMurray’s BBQ Special (a mix of 25 Cornish Cross Rock and Cornish Roasters)

15 Rouen Ducks

6 Broad Breasted Bronze Turkeys (we get our turkeys from the Ames Farm Center in North Yarmouth, because the minimum order from the hatchery is 25–way more turkeys than we need!)

Farming, poultry chickens, chicks, ducks, eggs, poultry, turkeys

Like the Romans of old, the chickens surround and begin to dismantle our holiday “ginge-agogue”

The end of the holiday season is generally marked sometime in early January with the dismantling of the last decoration and the curbside deposit of the Christmas tree. The last remnant of our holidays was the gingerbread synagogue, or “ginge-agogue”, that Margaret and the girls had made in December (see it here in all its original splendor). It’s been hanging around because we couldn’t bear to get rid of it, but the “ginge-agogue” was beginning to look a little pecked, as a few pieces of candy seemed to disappear daily from the creation. So, in an act of housecleaning as well as an attempt to save Charlotte’s teeth, we decided to give the house and what remained of its sugary trim over to the chickens. We’ve been calling it the destruction of the temple. Sacrilegious? Perhaps, but would the compost pile be any less? The chickens did seem to enjoy their part in the historical re-enactment.

Crafts, Judaism, poultry chickens, destruction, gingerbread, Holidays, synagogue, temple