Adventures in Eco-Living

As the ground quickly becomes blanketed in snow, it becomes harder and harder for the chickens to find anything other than their scratch and layer crumble to eat. In summer, greens and bugs galore filled their tummies, without us having to do much at all. Now, however, we have to make a point to help them find some healthy goodies.

We noticed at the end of summer, when we finally let the chickens in the garden to clean everything up, how much they liked plants in the brassica family (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower). So as we were cleaning out the garden and pulling up the debris, we purposefully left all cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower plants in the ground. You can see them reaching out of the snow here, their leaves amazingly still not totally frozen:

About once a week, I pull up a plant, roots and all, and toss it into the chicken pen. By leaving the plant intact, it is easier for the chickens to pull off the leaves. This time of year, these greens are a delectable treat, and they devour the whole plant!

By the way, we no longer let our chickens free range, as we have had a number of nights when the chickens did not return the coop, for some odd reason. We suspect that a possum may have gone in their, trying to bed down in the hay, and spooked them. Regardless, searching for chickens after dark with a flashlight, in over a foot of snow and freezing cold weather, is not fun, neither for us nor them. So they are currently remaining inside the pen.

We also make sure the chickens get plenty of scratch. The cracked corn in it is a bit like junk food for chickens, without a lot of nutrients, but it does help them to produce more heat, apparently, so is good for those bitter cold wintry nights.

I still make my chickens their oatmeal, yogurt, kelp meal, nutritional yeast breakfast once in while, and they just love it. The kelp meal is chock full of micronutrients and a wonderful natural supplement for just about any animals. If you are not able to find the kelp, please email us. We have some available for sale here at The Greater Green as a special order item.

We also added a brighter light on a timer in the coop, in an effort to keep our chickens laying a bit longer. As the days shorten, the internal clocks of the hens signals that it is no longer a good laying season. By setting a light to go on early in the morning, and stay on for at least 14 hours, we “trick” the hens into laying throughout winter. It is not good, however, to leave the lights on all night. That is what they do in factory farms, and it causes the hens to overlay, shortening their life and stressing their bodies.

Hawkie out foraging last summer.

I was browsing through my very first  issue of Backyard Poultry magazine, and I came across an article that made me remember something my husband said yesterday.

“Look, the chickens found the compost pile,” he pointed out, laughing, as we watched them scratch and dig through the massive pile like eager little children tearing open Christmas presents. After 3 brutal months of near-constant snow cover, the air had warmed to 62 degrees, the sun was shining, the snow was melting, and the chickens were roaming. They had clumsily flown over the garden fence, and wandered back to our very messy compost pile (the inevitable result of lazy composting). Well, I thought, they’re sure to find something good back there, and they are most certainly starving for anything, anything other than scratch.

And we didn’t really give it a second thought. That is, until I starting reading this article about lazy composting (just my style!) using chickens. I was particularly attracted to the lazy part. See, I’ve never been too thorough with the turning and mixing required to keep microbial action going in the pile. Actually, I’ve never turned it or mixed it at all (even though I have a very cool, and as-of-yet unused, compost aerator tool). I always explain to curious guests that we are doing anaerobic composting (without oxygen), which is much slower but produces a richer compost, but the truth is we have simply mastered lazy composting. And by mastering, I mean without much to show for it….yet.

So here is the idea behind chicken composting, or as I suddenly just decided to call it, chomposting. Chickens naturally dig and scratch through the soil and any debris on top of it, shredding organic matter, searching for insects, and basically tilling the area on which they forage. We already knew that letting chickens roam on a grassy area destined to become a garden plot is a great way to till the soil without breaking a sweat. But we never applied that principle to composting. Let the chickens loose in the compost pile, and voila!, you have the turning and mixing and shredding required to accelerate the whole composting process (plus, of course, the added benefit of nutrient-rich chicken poop).

We are now planning to move the compost pile from behind the main garden plot to inside the chicken run. That way the chickens will have continuous access to the pile. I will dump kitchen scraps, weeds, plant trimmings, coffee grounds, etc. into the pile, and once the growing season begins shortly, we will also be able to add weeds and other plant matter.

(NOTE: The photo is one taken over the summer, hence all the greenery. I’ve got to get out there this week and get some new photos!)

I had a new chicken adventure yesterday. As I was getting ready to head out to run some errands just before dark, I went to round up the chickens and lock the coop for the night. I was a little perplexed to find 3 broken eggs and a furry ball curled up under the hay in the corner. My first thought was that the chicks had hatched, though the furry ball would have meant some seriously giant-sized chicks. Speckles was snoozing on the roost, and the hens were foraging contentedly. What on earth was going on? Confusion ruled for a moment, until I got the idea to poke the furry blob….

At that instant a pointy snout raised itself at me with teeth somewhat bared. Whoa!! There was a possum in the coop! I gently nudged him with my foot. Didn't budge. I had a plastic shovel handy and I gently poked him with that. Scoot along, little possum. Apparently I forgot that possums play dead when frightened. We now had a "dead" possum. And darn it, if he didn't just sit there no matter what I did, playing dead, with a little snarl thrown in now and again for good measure.

I quickly racked my brain, trying to remember if possums bite. I'm pretty sure in the city they can carry rabies. What about here? Would he let me pick him up by the tail? I didn't like the looks of those teeth he kept flashing my way.

Then chaos broke loose. I swear, I think those chickens didn't even know he was in there. Because all of a sudden, Speckles got off the roost, realized there was an intruder, and started hootin' and hollerin'. The hens started clucking like mad, their very upset and agitated cluck (chickens, like dogs and barking, have different vocal calls, depending on whether there is danger, there is food, they are happy, they are upset, etc.). They all ran out of the coop. They did not like the possum. How did they not see him before?

Well, serendipitously, my kindly neighbor, Pat, at that very moment, pulled up my driveway in his John Deere tractor to plow the yucky, slushy, icy mess that had developed there, as my husband was away on business for the day and the weather had turned ugly (our neighbors are always so helpful like that). I ran up to Pat and his tractor, and the conversation went something like this:

"Hey, Pat! Thanks for clearing the driveway….. So…. what do you do about a possum in a chicken coop?"

"No problem! Um….. why, do you have a possum?"

"Yup."

"Now?"

"Right at this very moment."

"Well… what do you want me to do?" (Apparently he knows me well enough to ask this.)

"Not to kill it…."

"Oh." Pause. "Well, get a shovel and we'll see."

I was given the warning that this might not go well, and was asked to get a heavy metal shovel, just in case. Pat proceeded to try to scoop the possum up with the shovel, which alternately played dead, then did some acrobatic maneuvers on the shovel trying to get off, then played dead again. He bared a few teeth, Pat commented how ornery he was, and finally, was able to grab him by the tail (with heavy gloves on, of course) and plop him over the fence. The possum slowly sauntered off, not happy about being removed but apparently resigned to move on.

I thanked Pat profusely, who reminded me that if we didn't shoot him, he would keep coming back, now that he knew where the free buffet was. He added that we could live trap him and take him far, far away, too.

I then had the rather difficult task of rounding up the chickens. Now that it was apparent there was an intruder, they didn't want to go anywhere near the coop. I tried explaining to them that they were a little late with their paranoia, and the intruder was long gone. Silly chickens. I had to pick the hens up one by one and deposit them into the coop, from where they quickly scurried out, and then repeat the process until they finally got the message that it was once again quiet on the home front. Once the hens settled into the coop, Speckles quickly followed (a piece of chicken psychology: the dudes will always go where the ladies are).

I went inside and did some research. It turns out that possums do not always just go for the eggs. Hens have been injured and killed plenty of times by intruding possums, and so I consider myself lucky that all we lost was a few eggs.

Now we have to come up with a plan. We have obviously gotten too lax with our chicken coop security measures, leaving the coop open from dawn until dusk, sometimes well after dark. I am aware enough to realize that could very well have been a raccoon, and the damage inflicted more serious than a few stolen eggs. For now, I have gotten into the habit of checking on the coop every hour or two, just to be sure….

One of our readers, Mary O. from Citrus Heights, California, sent in an email asking how we keep hawks away from our chickens, and I thought it would be a great topic to discuss. Mary also has built a great chicken coop, so we are posting a photo of it. If anyone out there has an idea, please share! We would love some input!

"I am enjoying your blog since I ventured into the world of keeping
chickens.  We too decided to let our four girls free range during the
day in our 1/4 acre backyard area.  We got a wake up call big time at
two weeks out when a hawk attacked and severely injured one of our
hens.  She made it, thanks to a local vet and lots of TLC. How do you
handle the hawk situation?  I have covered their 250 sq ft run now 
with top flight netting and keep them inside the run.  We let them out
yesterday under close supervision since we have spotted the hawk three
times since the attack.  We back up to a creek and he sits in the oak
trees.  I was just wondering what other people do.  I don't want them
to be in danger but they sure love to scour the yard for bugs and
weeds.  I have also laid grass sod on half the run surface and built a
covered patio area to the right of the hen house.

Thanks for any words of wisdom you might be willing to share."

Thanks so much for getting in touch, Mary! I'm so glad you have been enjoying
our blog! We have been very fortunate not to have a problem with hawks-
yet. Don't get me wrong, they are indeed in the area, and we were
originally very worried about our cats. I think that having two big
dogs around keeps them at bay…. Also, we, too, have a small, totally
enclosed run, but then want them to be able to have a larger area to
roam and forage.

One thing we did was to make sure there are still
plenty of plants/bushes in their foraging area- perhaps that gives them
a place to hide? I ran out one day amidst a huge commotion to find 4 of
the 5 chickens hiding and squawking in the coop, and the fifth nowhere
to be found. I frantically looked everywhere, and after about ten
minutes finally found her hiding under the bean trellis amidst the bean
plants. I imagine that if it had been because of a hawk, the hawk would
not be able to get around the trellis and under the plants to grab her-
but that is only speculation.

I've heard that a plastic owl will keep a hawk at bay, but you have to
move it around daily, so that it seems more real- otherwise the hawk
will just get used to it. They are usually not even that scared of
people. I also would suggest providing some shelter in the middle of
the foraging area- some kind of small box or something- that the
chickens can easily scuttle into, but will keep a hawk out. A wide open
area with nowhere for the chickens to hide will certainly be an easy target!

I'm so sorry to hear you are having this trouble! Unfortunately, once a
hawk finds an easy target (like a bird feeder or chicken coop) they are
usually pretty persistent. Most hawks are migratory and should leave
for the winter, but they won't always if they think they have found a
steady food source. Be persistent and watchful, and hopefully you will
convince the hawk that this is not an easy target, and it will move on.

Good luck and please keep us updated on your adventures in raising chickens!

UPDATE: We received a useful link from Elizabeth L. in Chicago about how to create a "chicken cobweb" to keep hawks out of chicken runs. Though we haven't tried it yet, it sounds like a very clever, affordable, and low-impact solution. You can read all about it HERE.

After
months of having our chickens penned up in their relatively small coop
and fenced-in yard, we finally are able to safely allow our chickens to
roam- no small task, since we live in a very rural area where we often
see coyotes, foxes, raccoons, stray dogs, chicken hawks, and other
potential chicken predators right in our own backyard. We already lost
2 chickens to what we presume to be a raccoon earlier in the summer,
and do not want to dwindle our flock any further!

The idea to go more free-range all started after doing some
research recently regarding free-range vs. conventional eggs, when I
realized a number of important things.

First, we needed to find a
source for organic chicken scratch. There are numerous harmful
chemicals that can end up in chicken scratch, arsenic among them. Yuck!

After calling local organic farms to see what they use, we finally
found 2 dealers in the region, one that sells Fertrell Organic Poultry
Feed and one that sells Graham Organics (a local brand, and one that we
ultimately settled on). There were not many options in the Southwest
Michigan area, but we were very pleased to find the Farmer's Elevator
Co-op in Hudsonville, about 50 miles from our farm. We headed out there
and bought enough chicken layer mash for the whole winter (hopefully)-
4 50-pound bags at $22 each.

I also have become concerned about
the lack of greens in our chickens' diet. I mean, I do pick weeds and
greens for them every day, but estimates I found suggested that
chickens should have close to 40% of their calories from grass/greens!
And since grass is a low-calorie food, that's a lot of grass. But I
guess I didn't realize why this is so important….

You know how decades ago, everyone thought eggs were healthy, and then
sometime around when I was a little girl, things changed, and we were
told to limit how many eggs we eat because they can cause high
cholesterol? I think a lot of that had to do with the way that chickens
were raised, and was an indication that we had switched from small
farm, free-range eggs to mass-produced factory farmed eggs, with dire
health consequences.

See, it turns out that we get two essential
fatty acids from eggs, Omega-3 and Omega-6. The ratio of these 2 EFAs
depends on the diet of the chicken. A high-Omega-3 egg would actually
help lower cholesterol, whereas a high-Omega-6 egg would raise your
cholesterol. The green part of plants is high in Omega-3 fatty acids,
and the grain/seed is high in Omega-6. So when we overfeed our chickens
grains/corn/seed, and under-feed greens, we end up with eggs that are
high in Omega-6, and therefore contribute to high cholesterol. When
chickens are allowed to free-range, they produce eggs that are high in
Omega-3 fatty acids, and these eggs are much, much healthier, actually
having positive health benefits, especially for our heart and arteries!
I think that is totally fascinating!

And that also explains why
fish/seafood is so heart-healthy. The ocean only produces plants with
green parts, and no grains, and so all ocean life that feeds on
seaweed, or on a creature that fed on seaweed, ends up being high in
Omega-3 fatty acid, and therefore is a heart-healthy thing to eat.

So we decided that we had to let our chickens free range, if we wanted
healthy eggs. We started letting them out for a couple hours a day,
when we knew our neighbors' dogs were inside and could not chase the
chickens (we think they might be responsible for a dead wild turkey-
much bigger than a chicken- that turned up on our driveway). But I
cannot tell you how hard a time I sometimes had getting those darn
chickens back in the coop when it was time. The first day I chased them
for 2 hours (probably as much due to my lack of skill as to their
stubbornness). That simply was not going to work.

So we came up
with a grand plan! One of our larger garden plots is next to the
chicken coop. Since the growing season is over, we decided to let them
roam in there, cleaning up the weeds, bugs, and scratching/tilling the
soil, all while adding beneficial chicken poop. It's a perfect solution!

So
Alex built an enclosure that connects the coop to the garden, cut open
the garden fence, and now the chickens have a huge and wonderful
pasture to graze upon to their hearts content. Let me tell you, they
sure are some happy chickens now! And the best part- they aren't eating
half as much layer mash, which will mean big savings for us. Happy
chickens, happy wallets. Who could ask for more?

Our First Egg!

We are in celebration here at The Greater Green Farm. Our little hen, Lady, has produced her first egg! As small an event as this may seem, to us it is astoundingly huge. We have waited nearly 5 months for this tiny miracle. We will now have our own supply of eggs and, quite possibly, our own chickens, since we made a last minute decision to spare the dominant rooster, Speckles (if you missed that post, you can read it by clicking here).

Each day is somewhat like Christmas morning now- we jump out of bed, race to the chicken coop, and search all the nest boxes to see who can find the egg that Lady has so kindly left for us. They are beautiful, indeed. I have never appreciated a simple egg so much….

P.S.- We have not actually eaten the eggs yet (there are now 4). I think this weekend I will make my infamous eggs benedict with some yellow squash muffins and free-range pork sausage. Yum!

There’s an odd sound permeating the farm today…. the sound of silence. No more rooster fights, chicken yelps, and general unrest that is the inevitable result of 6 roosters in a small coop, battling for supremacy. After 3 weeks of searching, we have finally found someone to butcher our chickens.

I suppose this may seem a bit of a morbid post for some, but it is a reality, a big reality, around here, even a bit of a disturbing reality, and so it is important for me to talk about. We made the choice to raise our own organic chickens, so that we could guarantee a healthy life for them, and be sure that they are chemical- and cruelty-free. We thought we would just slaughter them when the time came, but for us, it was easier said then done. I guess we just didn’t have the stomach to do it. Call us wimpy, but it was true….

So we started asking around and had the darnedest time finding someone who processes chickens. We kept turning up empty leads. Cows, pigs, yes… chickens, nope. Finally I thought to call Belle Feed, where we buy our chicken grower and scratch, and they sent us to Homer Skinner in Gobles. And sure enough, when we called Mr. Skinner this morning, he said to bring the chickens on over, he could take care of them today. In fact, he said that it was all but a miracle that our 12-week old broilers were still alive. Due to their enormous size, he said they should have been killed before 8 weeks, because that is when they start having heart attacks and dying off. I guess we had some happy, lucky chickens.

So how does one exactly “bring over the chickens”, we wondered? With some quick thought, Alex manufactured a plywood door for our covered trailer, spread out a layer of hay on the floor, and plopped the chickens in there. Two of our chickens were enormous, and though they didn’t put up too much of a fight, Alex had to do the chicken catching and carrying. I just opened and closed the gate (still an important job, right??

Well, that’s a big weight off my shoulders. The littlest rooster had been getting beaten up so bad, we had to isolate him, but the bigger roosters just moved on to the next smallest guy to pick on. They would literally jump on his back, and start attacking his head and neck. It was terrible. I learned a lot about chicken psychology these past few weeks. When one of us came around, especially Alex, we became “the dominant rooster”, but as soon as we left, Speckles was back at it, picking on the little guy. And when we isolated Speckles, the next biggest rooster just stepped in and became the bully. There was no way around it. You simply cannot have 6 roosters living together. Men!!

So in the end, Speckles actually got to stay. Though he was the local bully, we figured he would be fine with only the 4 hens to hang out with. But really, he was just too hard to catch, since he is a fit and trim Aracauna (not a waddling, obese broiler) and he can actually run and fly. So Speckles gets to stay. And I get to stop worrying about the underdog (or under-rooster, I suppose), and start thinking about dinner….

If you look back at my first post about our new chicks, you will certainly see how incredibly adorable they were when we brought them home. I suppose it is a good thing indeed that they do not stay that way, as it would be all the more difficult to eat those cuddly little bundles of fur.

But the truth is they don’t stay that cute. See the photo? They are quickly becoming hens and roosters, which means soft fluff is shed and splotchy, sporadic feathers start popping out all over, sometimes in patches, sometimes individually. And of course, any day now, the roosters’ testosterone levels will peak, and… well… let’s just say I was told that we would be more than ready to slaughter our roosters by the time they were ready (there is an illegal – and cruel- sport that takes advantage of those high testosterone levels…). The young roosters, in sudden fits of aggression, already run at each other every now and then, pecking, poking, and flapping.

So far, no cock-a-doodle-dooing, though. I’m waiting anxiously (though I imagine I’ll eat those words before too long!). They are also becoming good caretakers, warning the hens, who are more skittish, every time something apparently "dangerous" (like Nissa, our pooch) is approaching. A few squawky chirps and they all high-tail it back into the coop.

The youngsters are enjoying the use of the chicken yard now. They took a few days to be brave enough to come out, but now I catch them chick-napping in the sun on lazy afternoons. I guess every day is a lazy day when you’re a chicken….

On a side note, I am reading Barbara Kingsolver’s book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (wonderful!), and she currently is talking about the dilemma she faces when slaughtering her own animals. This has been an issue for us, as we will be slaughtering our animals for the first time ever in a few weeks. As a former city girl, I am not stupid enough to think this won’t be a little difficult for me the first time, and maybe even the second and third. And of course everyone I know keeps pointing this out to me, as if it weren’t occupying enough of my thoughts these days already!

But I have this deep sense that what we are doing is the right way to eat meat, if we are going to eat it at all… I just have to get my heart to follow my head, if that makes sense.

I love the way Barbara Kingsolver explains it. She hates when people ask her how she is able to kill her "pets". They are not pets, she explains gently, and they are treated with the utmost respect and humanity their entire lives, so there is nothing cruel about the way they live. In fact, when we stop to think about it, there is so much inherent cruelty for store-bought chickens, that are packed into a barn with 20,000 other chickens, pooping all over each other, never allowed outside, pecking each other to death more often than we’d like to admit. Barbara goes on to explain that her chickens live a wonderfully humane life, full of sunshine, green earth, and healthy food (lots of bugs- yum!!). When it comes time to harvest them (she uses "harvest" because it implies respect and usefulness, whereas "killing" implies cruelty and waste), she says a meaningful thank you to the chickens, and lets their short but happy lives come to an end. She has come to see her animals’ death as part of the circle of life, because it allows her to survive, and her children to survive. She has embraced the fact that our lives depend on the deaths of other organisms, be it plants, or fish, or chickens, and by openly accepting her part in that circle of life, she lives with a deep respect for all living things.

So now I just have to get my silly, mushy heart to agree with that logic, which I admire and am attempting to absorb. I am fairly sure that I cannot be a part of the first slaughter, but I will do my best to face up to how my dinner came to be…

The chickens have finally come home! And what a humbling experience buying our first-ever chicks was. Walking into Belle Feeds in Gobles, where they are having their annual "Chick Days", we realized how little we knew about farm life.

The chicks were all sorted into different Rubbermaid tubs, with a heat lamp hanging over them for warmth. This would be the same set-up we would use (little did we know that until we got there and asked what we had to do!). We chose six egg-layers and six meat chickens, and got all the accesories: red heat lamp (the red glow apparently calms the otherwise-aggressive broiler chickens), waterer, feeding disk, chick feed, and pine shavings and straw for bedding. We got lots of help from the eight year-old boy who was there buying his chicks to raise for the season, who taught us that we might need to add oyster shells to their feed when they get a bit older, to ensure that there eggs have hard shells.

On the way home, we stopped at another Belle Feeds to ask even more questions, like how often to change the bedding (every day or two), how long to keep them on the chick feed (4-8 weeks), and  what we could give them to help raise them as organically as possible (bugs, worms, grubs, and veggie scraps). 

One thing we realized is how little we city kids know. It’s amazing to me that 80% of our population lives in urban areas and most of them no longer know how to do these ordinary farm things, like raising chickens and goats, and growing and preserving their own food. Once upon a time these were skills that were necessary for survival. I guess I never thought about it when I was growing up. I mean, chicken comes from the grocery store, right?

We have a lot of learning to do, that’s for sure. In the meantime, at least there are a lot of helpful farm kids out there who are more than happy to share their knowledge with some silly old adults!