Now that spring has sprung, I’m more willing to do outdoor guard duty while the chickens have some walkabout time at the edges of the woods and in the yard.
They have the run of the place for at least a couple of hours most days. But when I open their outdoor run, the first thing all the chickens do is run, run, run for a spot between the back of the house and my Miss Kim lilac. This is where they bathe.
For chickens, a bath doesn’t involve water and bubbles. It involves loose dirt or dust.
The chickens dig and scratch with their sharp nails until there is a nice, soft patch of loose soil. Then each hen nestles down into the spot that she has prepared and wallows around, scratching and kicking the soil onto her back, opening her wings and rolling around. It looks like chicken heaven. You should be so happy in the bath.
This little ritual serves a useful purpose for the chickens. In hot weather it helps to cool them off as the soil particles work their way into the feathers. It also goes a long way toward avoiding mites, lice and other parasites. So the dirt bath is serious chicken hygiene.
For me, the chickens have also done me a favor. They have completely eradicated some invasive morning glories that no amount of weeding could control. In the years BC (Before Chickens), the morning glories would often wind their way into the lilac bush.
“Hey, wait!” you say. “Where is the big man while all these hens are bathing?”
Well, T. Boone Chickens usually takes a very abbreviated bath and then standards guard to ensure that the hens are protected and have their privacy.
He’s such a gentleman.
P.S. This is not really a chicken blog. But I do have a chicken section in my photo album. Have you visited it?
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.
If you’re not scratching for food or running from predators intent on having chicken for dinner, you’re stuck in a coop or enduring the elements.
During a ferocious downpour just a while ago, the poor chickens had to take what little cover they could get from the ramp that leads into their coop. Yes, they could have gone into the coop, but only one hen chose the easy way out.
Until just before I snapped this photo, T. Boone Chickens, my fearless rooster, was standing in the downpour at the edge of the run guarding both flocks—the older hens you see here and the six baby chicks that are in a parallel run. T. Boone spends the better part of his days eyeballing the two groups of girls.
He takes his job very seriously. Really, it’s rather endearing. Even Harry and Ben, who usually only have mean things to say about T. Boone because of his, uh, technique with the hens, grudgingly admit that he is making an effort to be useful.
The baby chicks are growing quickly. I’ll be doing another photo shoot of the glamour girls soon to show how their fancy head feathers are coming in. Until then…
It was nearly 100 degrees while I was working outside today. I have a sliver of wood in my big toe, poison ivy and am covered in bug bites. Sometimes I think I need an easier hobby.
Holy moly, it’s hot. I was just outside providing drought assistance to the suffering greenery. Now excuse me while I cower here in the air conditioning for a bit before making dinner.
It has been such a busy work week. I have been chained to the desk. I can’t wait until the weekend. I have tomatoes to stake, flowers to plant, garlic to harvest, strawberries to keep in control, some clipping and pruning and, who can forget, weeding!
My friend Helen Yoest, from Gardening With Confidence, will be here in about 10 days. I plan to pick her brain and get advice about some real problem areas here. I was hoping for more time to prepare for an esteemed guest, but that’s just not to be. She’ll have to take me as I am.
You can’t pick up the newspaper or turn on the television without hearing more about the Gulf Coast oil disaster.
The wildlife population will be devastated for years, perhaps decades, to come. You can help with the conservation, monitoring and aid to the birds by donating to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. This is the top school and science center for birds in the U.S. and sponsor of many, many programs, including citizen scientist-type programs. If you cannot afford to donate, it’s a great place to just be informed or to get involved through volunteer activities you can do in your own back yard.
Over dinner we were talking about blast-from-the-past music and then blast-from-the-past comedy. Harry and I explained how we would play stacks of 45s on the turntable to my 19-year-old son. And I remembered my parents’ Dick Newhart album and “Driving Instructor.” And while we were talking about old comedy, who can forget, George Carlin’s “Seven Dirty Words?” Ah, the things I am teaching my 19-year-old son! Yes, I taught him about seven dirty words!
I am also grateful that the chickens had walkabout time without destroying my garden this afternoon.
And I am grateful for that arms and shoulders P90X workout, although I will be sore again tomorrow.
