Pollywogs!

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We got chickens! We’d been discussing it for a while, we’d like a humane, organic and natural source of B12 and Omega3 fatty acids and we always enjoyed eggs in various forms and foods. We thought about it a lot, the ethical issues involved but felt that treating chickens like spoiled pets and eating their unfertilized eggs, while not vegan, is not the worst thing we could do either. Oh, and the eggs of pastured hens are a heck of a lot healthier than cage free or other commercial eggs. I’m glad Kelley had enough wiggle room in her religious vegan viewpoint to allow for some backyard chickens. We had stopped by Calico Creek to look at their chicken coops. I was thinking of a small coop with attached run that I could move around like a chicken tractor. A tractor is a light and basic coop that you move daily so the chickens can graze from a new plot of grass. The coops at Calico Creek were cheaply made and overpriced, but they did have a serviceable variety of chicken supplies…and peeps! They had two or three varieties at that time, and a schedule showing roughly when new varieties came in. I believe they had primarily White Leghorns, which are excellent egg layers but I’ve heard are pretty flighty. As we’re keeping these as pets and for eggs, I wanted a laid back bird that could take care of herself. I was leaning towards Rhode Island Reds as they’re a very good all-purpose bird, winter hardy and decent egg layers. We leave with nothing but little fuzzy chick memories.

So a week or three goes by and I can’t find anywhere online or locally to get started pullets: hens that are just about old enough to lay eggs, perhaps four or five months old. I eventually decided peeps were preferable to started pullets as you get to bond with the peeps. Still, had a heck of a time finding anyone who would just sell a few chicks (due to needing enough to keep each other warm) and it costs an arm and a leg to ship them. Calling around we struck out too, only place to get a few chicks locally it seemed was Calico Creek. I dunno what did it but one day I said to Kelley “lets go get some chickens!”, she called to see what varieties they had in stock that day, and we drove up after work. They didn’t have much I was wildly interested in, something called a California Gray, something they called a Barred Rock / White Leghorn cross which looked identical, a few ornamental varieties and some fairly old White Leghorns (probably chicks that didn’t sell from the last time we were in…they looked like little dinosaurs ). We bought a bag of feed (general purpose that is supposed to be suitable for chicks to right up before the pullets begin laying), some grit, a waterer, a feeder and four baby chicks.

Went with the California Grays as I had researched them a bit before driving up very quickly and found that they’re described as a mild mannered, cold hardy white egg layer. There is precious little information on the internet about California Grays, so as I continue my backyard chicken journey I’ll try to include notes that help flesh these little peeps out. Basically, here is what I did find: the California Gray originated as a cross of the Barred Plymouth Rock and the White Leghorn in the 1930s or so.

The Plymouth Rock is a docile, hardy dual purpose bird that was very popular on homesteads during the turn of the century right up there with the Rhode Island Red. They’re a bit heavy and don’t fly, and are decent producers of large brown eggs. White Leghorns are THE egg producing bird in the United States. You buy a generic white egg at the grocery store, it was popped out by a White Leghorn crammed in a little cage and getting shit on by thousands of other Leghorns. They’re pretty flighty but won’t eat each other when stressed to hell in a tiny cage with four other birds. They aren’t particularly cold hardy either, the progenitors coming from Italy. You cross them together and you get a mild mannered, homestead ready, dual purpose, highly productive white egg layer.

Here are the links I found with information regarding the California Gray Leghorn:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Gray http://www.welphatchery.com/std_breeds/production_black.asp

http://secuservices.com/ideal/newideal/selectproduct.aspx?qty=1&ID=PBP&Product=413

http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/CGA/CalGray/BRKCalGray.html

http://www.cacklehatchery.com/califwhitepage.html

And the single best link by far:

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Endangered+chickens:+the+California+Gray-a018518047

Our baby cheeps (or peeps, I call them both things) are cute little things, personable but a little skittish inside their box. They don’t like it when I move or change ANYTHING, but once I have them out of the box they’re fine (like perched on a finger, they are AOK). I’ve leaned over them and coaxed them into jumping out of the box to us:

When I first got them on Wednesday, they were just fluffy balls with wing feathers. They’re backs, chests and heads were covered in a fuzz, with the wings showing the barring they’ll one day show:

Now on Saturday, just a few short days later, one has a good set of back feathers and the rest are starting:

They don’t have names yet, I can’t tell them apart much. One has more developed feathers, one is a little smaller, and one is more relaxed when I pick them up to change their bedding in the mornings, but I’d be hard pressed to tell them apart reliably. The box has a 60W bulb in a reflector on top, a couple sticks poked through cause they love to roost, the feeder on a brick and a glass cap to prevent them from standing on top of the feeder (and then pooping in it). They love standing on top of the feeder, ESPECIALLY right after I fill it and put it back in. Strange little peeps ;) Using pine shavings, but cedar would probably make things smell better. It’s not that they smell bad, but they have an aroma. It’s cause all they do is eat, sleep and poop. The waterer is also raised up to prevent them from kicking shavings into it: they’re so cute when they scratch around looking for imaginary bugs and other things to eat, but they’re pretty vigorous and I usually change it a couple times a day. Supposedly only have to worry about it once a day, but I feel bad for them having to drink that yucky water…

Long term, I decided not to go with the tractor but instead a permanent installation because chickens like having a lot of room, I wanted four chickens, and that means about 12 to 16 square feet of coop! I finally decided to build a coop, even thought I’m not particularly handy. About the same time I was crystallizing the decision to buy cheeps, I decided to buy plans online. I found a website that sold plans, thegardencoop.com, and the coop looked like what I was envisioning in my head. What sealed the deal was the plan preview…everything I’d found up to that point was basically a one page blueprint…and I’m not THAT handy! Looking through the preview, I saw that it was pretty much exactly what I needed: 40 pages of clear instruction! $20 dollars later and I’m flipping through the PDF, trying to cram everything in my head and source the pieces. I haven’t built it yet, but I have all the hardware purchased from Wool’s True Value, the hardware cloth en route from Aubuchon Hardware, the wood treatment from Timber Pro, the lumber and roofing en route from Avis Building Supply and I am a shit ton poorer.

By far the most expensive part of raising chickens is the coop. I could have certainly saved a ton by just getting a small doghouse and putting some chicken netting up around it, but I figured I should have something that I won’t regret and is ‘the final answer’ for the next ten years. My buddy John managed to snag me some “industrial waste” OSB, so that saved a hundred bucks and I owe him a pile of eggs! The siding I also reclaimed, mixed Red Oak and Hickory that I got from the junk pile behind the shop. Finally, I’m saving just a little bit of money by using chicken wire for the roof instead of hardware cloth…hardware cloth is expensive!!! The author has the estimated cost at $570, either that is way conservative or prices of everything has gone up a bit since he priced things out for the plans. For example, he has all of the hardware cloth being $90, whereas at ABS it was going to be $150 just for the 4′ high cloth…cheapest I could find it was $135 shipped at Aubuchon. I’ll be sure to document this project a bunch as I go along too :)

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So, it cost about $25 to get some cheeps, plenty of food to last them months, a waterer, a feeder and some pine shavings for bedding. The cardboard box and sticks for roosts are free. They should be fine in that box for another week or two, may need a slightly larger one depending on how long it takes for me to get their coop done. My coop of course is much more expensive, but that really depends on how much effort you want to put into it. A dog house with some chicken wire around it would probably be a serviceable solution.

A typical day with cheeps starts with dumping out the litter in their box. I put down about three inches of bedding, and with the amount of pooh and the smell of it being in the kitchen, that seems to be 24 hours worth of litter care. I just dump the litter and pooh into our compost bin and give it a spin to mix things around a bit. We’ve always had vastly more greens than browns, so hopefully this compost will go much quicker with the addition! I then clean their food if they’ve scratched a lot of shavings and pooh into it, and then clean their waterer.

A note on chicken pooh. It has an aroma. It isn’t really a nice aroma, but it isn’t like a cat taking a dump, either. Also, there isn’t a lot of water in the pooh, so after a minute or two on the pine shavings, it isn’t that bad. Then, with the chicks tossing the shavings about non-stop, everything gets turned over a bit, so its not like the pooh is just sitting out in the open. I wouldn’t just let them run around the house all day, but chicken pooh from cheeps isn’t that bad. We’ll see what an adult can do haha…

So, the waterer is the thing that takes the most effort. I probably clean it out five or six times a day. I suspect they’d be fine with once a day, but I’m particular. I use Dr. Bronner’s to clean it as I’ve read essential oil’s are a pretty effective disinfectant….maybe wishful thinking on my part. Anyways, only takes a minute to rinse out, and twice a day I scrub it briefly with my fingers and the soap to break free any buildup of microbes.

I’m feeding them a medicated feed, the medication prevents a protozoan from growing rampant in their bowls, but it is primirily a problem when hygiene isn’t well maintained…and I’m keeping these peeps clean ;) I’ll be switching to an organic feed once they get closer to laying age. Luckily there is a dealer for organic chicken feed right in Mill Hall (not Calico Creek, but Albright’s Mill selling Nature’s Best Organic Feeds)…a 50 pound bag of chicken feed is pretty expensive to ship!!

Throughout the day, if their feed tray gets low I either tilt it to move the feed closer to the holes they use, or pour a little more in with my fingers. Once or twice a day, I take a pinch of cracked corn and a pinch of grit and set it out for them to play with if they so choose. Kelley drops in chopped vegetable scraps sometimes while cooking. And, I’ll often go out and ask them what’s wrong if they fuss or cheep loudly. Usually someone jumped on someone else’s back, and when I ask them what is wrong and coo at them they cheep quietly and contentedly. At night, turning out the light usually disturbs them the most (they really don’t like any change), they may fuss for a few minutes before realizing that I’m really not going to turn the light back on, and then are good until the morning when we turn the light back on (even though the sun has been up for a while by then hah!).

I’m going to be rigging a cardboard box without a bottom tomorrow, so I can introduce them to the outside world and let them try some grass and bugs. Hopefully they’ll enjoy it, they’ll be seeing a lot of it!

Altogether, it’s maybe 15 minutes of work a day to take care of the cheeps. I spend about that long also just talking to them and watching them be cheeps. Tell them they’re cute peeps, tell them to be nice to each other, tell them to eat their food and not kick crap into their water…I guess I’m a crazy bird guy already. I get a kick out of them looking up at me and peeping at me when I look and talk to them. I think they really like it and miss having a mom. I feel bad that they won’t have a rooster to take care of them (haha, not like that!) when they’re outside…might have to take care of that next season. Who knows, maybe I got lucky and somehow one of these pullets is actually a cockerel…good thing I don’t have any neighbors ;p