Growing Poultry

The new arrivals.

In mid-September we sold Miss Lissamy Lucy, our APHA mare that moved here in late 2008; part of the exchange included new poultry. After Lucy left, we had six new hens and two more roosters. I had not wanted the roosters because we have so many, but was glad to have them when I realized they are breed specific. (Some days I just do not think very far ahead.)

The one of the roos and two of the hens are Domeneckers, black-and-white birds that produce brown eggs. The other rooster and his four hens are all white and produce white eggs; the farmer with whom I traded could not specify the breed. I wondered if they might be leghorns (like the big white rooster from the cartoons of my youth), but he did not know. All of the bird were a tad scrawny upon arrival. They appeared healthy enough, but I could see why the farmer wanted to be rid of them (nearly as badly as we wanted to be rid of a horse).

The day they arrived, we ousted the roos that had too-long awaited the pot. (We would eat them faster if we did not have to deal with the killing and cleaning to do so.) That made life among the free-rangers pretty lively for a few days, as the multitude of roosters established a pecking order. Their challenges to one another are beautiful to watch, especially since they don't take their fights to the level of game hen fights. Game hens fight to the death.

The "new guys" have settled in nicely.

This evening I took a look at the newcomers. They have plumped up nicely. Soon I will have to move them from the dog kennel, but first I need to figure where to place them. We recently inherited some nice nesting boxes from a neighbor down the road. (Their hens have moved into what they refer to as the Chicken Hilton, a very fancy new hen house they built.) I need to scrub them out and set them up for use here.

Each morning and evening I enjoy interacting with our avian residents. LaLa Goose comes when called, pretty well, because she knows a call is generally followed by fresh vegetables or fruit. A friend was passing along his overabundance of over-ripe cucumbers for a time, and the birds loved those. I developed a method of throwing the fresh feed down onto the driveway, effectively splitting open the fruit or vegetable, and the birds flock to enjoy the spoils. Currently they're enjoying pears gleaned from our new friend Opal, who has enough pears that she is ready to throw them over a fence to rot. We enjoy the bags and bags she sends, and we share the green pears with the horses and the overripe pears with the birds.

LaLa eats her spoils from the heart to the rind.

Everybody is happy. We are blessed with abundance this season.