"'You have a package here,' the postal clerk said when she called, 'and it’s clucking.' I rushed into town and picked up the package. It was heavier than I had expected, smaller than I had pictured, as noisy as I had been warned. At home, I opened the box and decanted the hens into the wire pen that attaches to the Eglu. They were young Rhode Island Red hybrids called Gingernut Rangers, with bright brown eyes and rich red feathers speckled with white. Their combs were small and pink and their knobby legs were bright yellow. Within six weeks or so, their combs would redden, and their legs would pale—signs that they were about to start laying. The knock on chickens has always been that they’re stupid. Even some chicken fanciers hold this opinion. I recently read an online comment from someone who announced cheerily that her chickens were 'extremely entertaining due to the fact that they are dumb as stumps!' But my hens didn’t seem stupid. They explored the pen with that stop-action motion that makes chickens look like cartoon characters, but with a brisk alertness and sharp curiosity. Right away, I figured out that 'pecking order' isn’t just a figure of speech. They adhered to a strict social system, with each hen taking her turn at the feeder and corrective nips doled out to any chicken that stepped out of line."
I'm reading "On Animals" by Susan Orlean.
Here's the website for the Eglu, a plastic chicken coop, which Orlean found by googling "cool-looking chicken coops" and "modern design chicken house" after rejecting the usual "design that was half doghouse, half toolshed, and gigantic."
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At a rental property in Austin, my tenant had two complaints shortly after moving in. First, the next door neighbors had several chickens, one of which crowed each morning at sunrise. The birds were uncaged, and roamed the back yards of several houses including hers. Second, on the other side of her rental home, an old lady was feeding feral cats, and there were at least four or five, probably more, that also roamed the backyards on the block.
I sympathetically agreed with her that both neighbors were violating city critter rules, then asked her what she expected me to do about it. She immediately realized that the situation was either in a dynamic equilibrium or one side would win out eventually over the other. I provided her with a Have-A-Heart live trap which she used in her yard to catch several feral cats, to be neutered, ear-marked and re-released by the city Animal Shelter. And maybe a free-range chicken or two, I didn't ask.
Raising chickens in the city is the new things. There was even a story in the OWH about it. It is allowed by zoning regs, but within limits.
Thomas Rogers Kimball was the Omaha architect who designed Omaha's Catholic Cathedral. I represented the Estate of the previous owner in the sale of his mother's fabulous home near downtown Omaha.
Kimball had a large chicken raising operation on the property and the City of Omaha took him to court over it. Kimball won.
We had chickens growing up. They are vicious to any who are weak or hurt. Henrietta had something wrong with her foot. One day it just fell off and she hopped around on one leg. She was promptly renamed Peg. The others were merciless, pecking at her and tormenting poor Peg. They would have killed her. We had to isolate her outside the coop for the remaining few years that she lived. It wasn't hard because she didn't move around a lot anyway.
I thought eglus were made of ice, but probably those wouldn't ship well.
Needs better fact-checking.
It's THREE hens, not four. Then, the NEXT day, it is four birds, but the birds are calling birds, not red hens.
I love going into the Post Office on a Spring morning and hearing the cacophony of chicks coming from behind the PO boxes. On the other hand, the mortality rate of mailed chicks must be appalling. Even hobby farming isn't pretty.
Our day-old chicks, 50 at a time, arrive at the post office. Picking up those peeping boxes always makes me ridiculously happy. We made a mobile coop out of an old Shasta travel trailer so they could get moved easily. A solar electric net fencing keeps the daytime predators away. Those four hens will have to lay a lot of eggs to pay for that. Chickens are as smart as they need to be.
Rat magnets.
Most expensive eggs possible. More social-virtue signalling.
On my farm I had a tiny flock of about 400 birds, producing roughly 30 dozen eggs a day. The margin over feed costs accounted out to my making under $3 per hour on the venture. Souped 'em out when they stopped laying.
These days, chickens are a FAD, but I'll make an exception for families with young children, not for the eggs, but the learning value.
You can send live poultry through the US Mail? I learn something new every day. When we had yard chickens back when I was a kid we got the chicks from the feed store.
We had "free range" chickens for a few years. (We locked them up at night.) I miss them at times. They ate a lot of insects but I had to be careful where I stepped on the lawn. We let a couple of the hens hatch their eggs and enjoyed watching the chicks. When a hen starts to brood, she's actually sitting on a combination of the flock's eggs. A hen will lay her egg in whatever nest. When the magic number is reached (and only they know what it is), one hen will incubate them. She then goes into what looks like a trance, only getting off to rearrange the eggs or quickly eat and drink.
The most fascinating reactions occurred when a chicken hawk or a pair of turkey buzzards showed up. It seemed it only took a second and there wasn't a chicken in sight and it was totally silent. We had lots of natural hiding places nearby and I couldn't see even a hint of a chicken. It was amazing.
AFAIK, only the post office will transport chicks.
Maybe it's one of those gifts that tries to imitate the Partridge in a Pear-tree nonsense.
"'pecking order' isn’t just a figure of speech"
That can't be true. Critics of Jordan Peterson have told us so. All animals are equal.
The Eglu was chartreuse but What color were the eggs?
Free range eggs are amazing. But 4 is nowhere near enough to make it worth your while; they will rapidly fall victim to hawks, skunks, raccoons, and neighborhood dogs, plus whatever else you have in your area. You'll also get (at best) 3 eggs a day from 4 hens.
Her biography of Rin Tin Tin was a great read!
A lot more people are going to start raising chickens soon.
A lot of people are going to learn how stupid and vicious and ridiculous chickens are.
The best stories will be the ones that let the Roosters live.
That’s so awesome- of course, being agrarian, I’m pleased! I have 18hens which free range in the summer and they beat the crap outta my flowerbeds. They especially love hostas- it’s a sad sight. So we bought wire and do have a pen for them. I buy organic grains, even though the cost is double b/c- why not? I eat these eggs! I have 2Spangled Sussex that are joined at the hip, the rest are 50/50 Mystic Marans and red stars. I think I still have a barred rock, as well. I like them a lot- I donate most of my eggs to the monthly Knights of Columbus breakfast.
They are very vicious to weaker birds, they will peck til they draw blood and then some. Ruling the roost is not a joke…
You mean chartreuse Eglu isn’t a breed of cock? I thought there was theme in today’s posts.
think did the postal worker told her to get that clucking package out of there?
I just received news that probably the most valuable member of our NEK farming community passed away- idk if it’s true. Maybe it’s a rumor. 1st gen American hailing from Quebec. He may not even have been born here- the ones we value most up here we may only know by 1st name- even if we work side by side for years.
Why was he the most valuable? Because he was a master at repair- anything that had a motor, that needed welding- no one can weld better- cobbling out of steel, he’s superman. About 60. I pray it’s a rumor. This whole top corner of the county will mourn hard if it’s true.
… not a rumor.
@Andrew V: once upon a time you could send live children through the mail.
It was not unusual in the late 19th century/early 20th to take a child to the post office with the address of the recipient attached to their clothing and have delivered to the other end. Of course this happened mainly in very rural areas where everyone knew each other. Economical way to get Sally and Charlie Brown to Grandma's house for the summer.
We kept turkey poults in the spring and summer, starting them in the garage under heatlamps until they were able to withstand the crazy temperature variations outside. They were toast by Halloween, either in the freezer, or traded for something else.
@farmgirl: my condolences. Totally get the 1st name basis only. I tend to keep that rule myself. You can take the girl out of Vermont....Hope there is someone to fill his shoes.
A family on the next street had peacocks that we could hear any time of day. Their roosters were noisy only in the morning.
My grandfather built a two story chickenhouse in the backyard in 1931. When ag prices collapsed soon after, he shut the operation down. Grandma was glad, because she'd killed a tray of chicks in the incubator. My great-gfather's older chickenhouse is now the neighbor's 3-car carport.
Althouse and her tiny houses.
I like that chicken tractor. You can move it around the yard so that they don't tear up one piece of ground too much, and find a fresh supply of insects in each spot, and it looks pretty spacious while being light weight. I enjoyed having hens. I don't know how you could tell if a chicken were smart, but they were entertaining, and had their own personalities.
I read that there is no nutritional difference between free range eggs and those supermarket wannabes, but I never believed it. Throw a little cracked corn in with their feed, let them follow the mower looking for the mangled frogs, or uncovered mice nests, step on a fallen apple for them. For some reason they ignored intact apples, but dug in once you broke it open for them, maybe they are as stupid as people say, or maybe it's a protective instinct, since they also leave eggs alone, but once you drop one, they are all over it. Anyway, the neighborhood dogs put an end to my days as a chicken farmer, since I really didn't want to pen them up, but productivity of eggs was never an issue. I was always giving away eggs.
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