Once again I am renaming the small garden area on the side of the house.
Back when Winifred, our sweet Belgian Malinois, was still with us, we called it Winnie’s Poop Garden. It was not a place where you wanted to spend your free time.
Last year, desperate for more vegetable growing space, I planted tomatoes and cucumbers there and dubbed it the Other Veggie Garden.
This year, the Palazzo di Pollo and the auxiliary chicken coop, the Eglu, now reside in that area. And since I was dividing what seemed like hundreds of hostas this spring, I began transplanting them into the shaded area beside the coops. Naturally, I added more hostas as I fell in love with them during visits to garden centers. I called it the Hosta Garden, but just as easily could have called it the Slug Garden, since the slugs and snails moved in to partake of the expansive hosta buffet—their fav.
Now that the baby chicks are old enough for some supervised walkabout time, I am calling this the Chicken Garden. This is where the big chickens and little chickens are currently engaged in their nightly meet-and-greet leading up to the merge of the two tribes.
Miss P adores the chickens. She would, in fact, love to eat the chickens. But being a smart cat, she understands they are off-limits and has ceased making predatory moves in their direction. It doesn't stop her from looking though.
You cannot just toss little chickens in with big chickens because they will be pecked on and could be injured. It is best for chickens to get to know each other a bit, work out their differences in relative safety and begin establishing the new pecking order prior to being thrust under the same roof. Using the Eglu as the temporary home for new chickens allows the chickens to see each other but not co-mingle until they are ready. This also allows us to ensure that the new chickens are disease- and pest-free before introducing them into the flock.
Now that the Polish and Easter egg chickens are about 11 weeks old, it’s just a matter of days before we attempt the big move. Until then, they peck and scratch in the Chicken Garden under close supervision. After all, we don’t want a repeat of the incident that took Johnny Cash.
P.S.
I SWEAR I am still gardening. I have the photos to prove it. More soon.
P.P.S.
You can see the whole chicken photo album here. Click on the photo for a larger image. There are more photos in the albums from the photos sign at the top of this page.
Robin
Due to my down time in the fall, I have been far behind on my spring gardening activities. That means that I don’t have loads of beautiful garden photos to show off right now, though rest assured things are greening up and growing nicely. The spring rains have even helped me do some springtime lawn seeding.
What I can do is report on the animal front. You were worried about my chickens, right?
T. Boone Chickens has made an amazing recovery from the fateful attack that led to the loss of our beloved Johnny Cash.
But you know how some people are improved by the trials, tribulations and crises that life throws at them? They develop a sense of calmness, serenity and patience? Love for their fellow beings?
Well, if chickens are the same way, T. Boone isn’t one of them. Although he has survived and is thriving, his temperament was not improved by the near-death experience.
Now that Johnny Cash, the former top rooster, is gone, T. Boone has the opportunity to indulge in his full roosterness. Sadly, he is not a gentle lover. In fact, he’s downright mean to my poor little hens. When Johnny was their lover, he was at least gentle with his attentions. T. Boone is clumsy, rough and—how can I say this?—not a particularly good aim.
T. Boone's clumsy attentions to the hens have left them a bit ruffled--feather tufts here and there.
The hens have to tolerate him, of course, but they are very put out by his attentions. And although he does seem to stand guard over them when they are out of their run and walking about the garden, he does a ridiculous stomping tantrum if one of the hens dares to get to close to one of the little treats he finds in the yard. Stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp with those big chicken feet, like a toddler who hasn’t gotten his way.
I do worry about the new hens who have arrived here at Bumblebee. How will they ever deal with this brute?
Four young girls—two Black Starters and two White Leghorns—arrived a couple of weeks ago. We are keeping them separated and allowing them some supervised and separated meet-and-greet time for now. In a few days we’ll allow them out of their runs together to get an even better up-close look.
Maude greets one of the four new hens.
(By the way, send me your egg-intensive recipes. We’re getting six eggs/day and there are only three of us. When Ben heads off to The Citadel in August, Harry and I will have to deal with half a dozen eggs/day by ourselves.)
With all this talk about chickens, I suppose you’re wondering if I’m still a gardener. Yes, indeed.
In fact, I was working on doing some planting this past weekend and what should I find? Well, look here…
A nest of baby bunnies in the garden--right next to the lettuce patch.
Yep, a nest of baby bunnies. And the mom bunny very cleverly located them right next to our lettuce patch. Just a short walk to the salad bar!
I have touched the nest and talked to the babies about having mom relocate them. But she seems happy with their current digs next to my lettuce. So be it.
Harry, of course, is devastated, what with lettuce being his favorite food and all.
And so it goes here at Bumblebee…
Robin
This is a sad blog post to write, because once again tragedy has struck here at Bumblebee.
Almost since our chickens arrived, we have been in the habit of letting them out of their Palazzo and fenced outdoor run to have a walkabout in the afternoons for a couple of hours.
T. Boone prior to the attack
Their habits are fairly predictable. Once the gate is opened allowing them the freedom of the yard, the hens immediately charge toward the compost bin closest to their Palazzo to see what goodies I have thoughtlessly thrown in there rather than giving to them. The two roosters follow. But having little patience for salad treats, the roosters soon grow tired of waiting for the hens to finish their first course and leave them to go to the bird feeders, where they hunt and peck at the seeds the birds drop.
Come rain, come shine, since last September that has been the routine. Only twice did we have alarms from predators. Once, I happened to see a fox in the Back Forty while the chickens were on their walkabout. Another time a large stray dog wandered down the driveway just after I had let them free.
Thankfully, the chickens are well-trained to come when I call and will follow me like I’m the Pied Piper. This visitor-pleasing trick was easily taught after I realized that my chickens are corn addicts. They will do anything or follow anyone they think has a can of corn. Apparently, when they see me, their first thought is “CORN!”
Last week while I was in Annapolis on errands, Ben freed the chickens as part of our regular routine. When I returned at sunset, though, it was clear that something very irregular had happened.
There was a large collection of white feathers in the middle of the front lawn—the kind of feather that could only belong to T. Boone Chickens.
T. Boone was always the odd chicken out in the pecking order.
Knowing something was wrong, I parked the car and yelled inside for Ben to come out. The chickens were not in the coop. The chickens didn’t come when I called.
We began circling the house and calling “Chickens! Chickens!”
In the back yard, there was another enormous collection of feathers—these blue-black, clearly belonging to Johnny Cash.
Soon after that, Maude, one of our little egg producers, came out of the woods looking frightened but otherwise unharmed. We guided her into the Palazzo and went off in search of the other chickens.
Ben found Myrtle in a state of panic. She had taken refuge high in a tulip tree at the edge of the Back Forty. Although she is a corn addict, she wouldn’t budge from her perch for even that tasty treat. We ended up gently nudging her down with a long stick, but then she couldn’t be enticed to leave the edge of the woods, which were on the opposite side of the house from the Palazzo. After several unsuccessful attempts at luring her and then trying to capture her, I ended up getting Maude, Myrtle’s best friend. I cradled Maude in my arms while she clucked and cooed. Myrtle followed us right to the Palazzo.
About that time Ben discovered a whole new area of white feathers at the end of the Back Forty. After some more calling, T. Boone came limping out of the woods. Clearly, he was injured. We guided him into the Palazzo where I found he had deep, bloody puncture wounds on both sides of his body, suggesting the culprit was either a hawk or an eagle—both of which routinely fly over the hay field in front of our house.
Judging from the massive feather patterns, I think that the predator started by attacking T. Boone in the front yard, picking him up and heading south toward the Back Forty. T. Boone is a huge rooster and, I expect, put up quite a fight. The predator probably dropped him, creating the second massive patch of feathers and allowing him to escape into the woods.
We never did find Johnny Cash. Since all the other chickens had scattered in different directions to find refuge in the woods, I kept hoping that JC would come storming out of the trees like one of those movie heroes, a little battered but defiant.
Sadly, that wasn’t to be. Although we called and searched for a couple of days, there was nothing left of Johnny Cash, the chicken in black, but a collection of black feathers.
Ironically, Johnny was carried away and on to chicken heaven on the singer’s birthday.
T. Boone Chickens was so critically wounded that I didn’t think he would make it through the night. He settled into the Palazzo and hunkered down, keeping his head low and refusing to walk, eat or drink. He, in fact, did make it through the night although the next day he was still immobile and seemed dazed.
Ben dug a hole for his grave and I discussed the possibility of putting T. Boone out of his misery with my husband. But since none of us have the stomach for performing the act, even in mercy, we settled for making T. Boone as comfortable as possible, watching and waiting.
T. Boone following the attack. He is still recovering.
Never underestimate the regenerative powers of a rooster. Although we had given up T. Boone for dead, he continues to rally and improve daily. He is still slumped and is limping badly. But he is eating and drinking. As perhaps an even more encouraging sign that he is on the mend, he has taken over the roosterly duties with the hens previously performed by Johnny Cash (if you get my drift). Perhaps in this new pecking order, T. Boone will not be the odd chicken out that he has always been.
T. Boone Chickens may never regain his full strength and, in fact, may become our resident handicapped, or differently-abled, chicken.
I haven’t yet allowed the chickens out for a walkabout. It will take some time and chicken sitting before I think I’ll ever be comfortable with that habit again. And though I had previously enjoyed the sight of the hawks circling above, their presence now takes on a whole new meaning for me. I believe the whole Circle of Life thing is vastly overrated.
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Robin
