Saturday on the Urban Farm

Nate had Poop Duty today:
Chicken Poop + Dog Poop + Baby Poop = The Trifecta

Guest Blogging

Deb is guest blogging today over on the lovely Heather Jane’s blog Living Senses. Come check out the Chicken post over there.

More Chicken Farmin’

Miss Isabella Bird, one of our black and white Columbian Wyandottes, proudly produced three eggs this week.  Not bad for her first week of laying!  The first one was diminutive in size, but each successive egg has been a wee bit bigger.  The production of an egg is announced with a great deal of clucking and squawking and running about.

Yesterday, Amelia Earhart the Ameraucana decided to join in on the egg laying.  How do we know it was her?  Her eggs are blue-green versus the Wyandotte’s brown eggs.

We have two Ameraucanas and two Wyandottes.  The two egg-layers are obviously developmentally ahead of the other two pullets.  Rita Hayworth’s face has turned deep red but she’s not squatting around like the laying girls yet.  Audrey Hepbird is definitely thefurthest from laying.Her body doesn’t even look fully mature yet but she’s always been a little behind the other girls and she’ll probably catch up in the next couple of weeks.

That’s the news from down on the urban

farm.

Meet A Chick: Chipmunk

As you can see, baby Chipmunk earned her name for the distinctive stripes on her body under her wings.  She was such a cute chickie!

Not that she’s not handsome now.  As she’s grown real feathers she’s lost her chipmunk stripes but gained lovely barred wing feathers and a reddish head.  She has beady golden eyes and a head and beak that remind me of a raptor.  I think we’re going to have to come up with a fierce womanly name so she can be in good company with Amelia Earhart, Isabella Bird and Audrey Hepbird.  I was thinking Eleanor Roosevelt seemed about right for her temperament but the Wise and Bearded One believes Chipmunk needs the name of a fierce AND beautiful woman.  Any suggestions out there?  For the time being, she remains our beloved Chipmunk, second in command only to Amelia.

Meet A Chick: Audrey Hepbird

Don’t be fooled by her petite size and sophisticated black and white coat, Audrey Hepbird may be small but she’s scrappy. As a baby she seemed a bit sickly. The Wise and Bearded One bought baby vitamins and fed her with a dropper every day for a couple of days and then she perked up and has been a small but assertive member of the flock ever since. She is the one most likely to steal bugs and worms from the other pullets and run away cackling in glee. She is still significantly smaller than the other girls and is the only one with fluffy chick down left on her head.

Meet A Chick: Isabella Bird

This fluffball of a chick was the biggest of our two Columbian Wyandottes.  She’s gaining her white and black plumage and is more cautious of an adventurer than some of the other girls.  But she holds her own in the crowd.  She reminds me a bit of the improbable, independent-minded, and intrepid Victorian travel writer Isabella Bird.  If you’ve never heard of Isabella Bird, I recommend taking a minute to read about her.  May our Isabella live to have many adventures (all safely in our side yard, of course).

Meet a Chick: Amelia Earhart

Amelia is the largest, most curious and adventurous of the girls. She is always the first at everything and is definitely at the top of the pecking order. She was the first to fly, hence the name Amelia Earhart. When she was a baby she was just a little brown fluffball but now she’s developed striped brown feathers and a golden head with poofball cheeks.

Amelia also has the distinction of being voted by her coopmates as “Most Likely to Be a Rooster”.

Chicken Update #2

Yesterday the chicks were 6 weeks old.  They have now moved from chick stage to “pullet”.  They are full-feathered and putting on weight fast and have developed very distinct personalities.   They’ve moved out of our guest room into a giant cardboard box in the garage.  The neighbor kid is obsessed with the chickens and wants to come over and play with them whenever we’re outside.  The dogs are also totally obsessed with them and have figured out that if they put their front paws on the windowsill and look in at just the right angle, they can see the chicks from the back yard.  We call it “chicken TV”.

When the weather is nice we let them roam outside for a little while.  We have a dog crate that we’ve set up for them in the side yard so we can let them peck away at the grass and bugs.  We usually have them out there when we’re gardening.  When one of us comes upon a fat, juicy slug we toss it into the make-shift coop and, oh, the excitement, the hubbub that ensues!!!  One of them will grab the choice tidbit, squeal in delight and take off with the other girls in hot pursuit.  Inevitably the first chick gets so excited that she drops the treat and one of the other chicks nabs it and gulps it down before the others have a chance to get it back.   Sometimes we just sit and watch the chickens.  It’s our version of “chicken TV”.

You can see more chicken pictures over here. The chickens are not very good at sitting still and posing for portraits so we end up taking a lot of pictures of chicken butt.  The chicks have already grown significantly in the last week since the most recent photos were taken.

Urban Chickens

Yes, we succumbed.  We’re not exactly sure what we’ve succumbed to—-the hipster fad going around Portland or our Mennonite farmer genes?!  Either way, we came home from the nursery yesterday with four 6-day-old chicks.  Two of them are Ameraucanas which will some day lay blue or green eggs.  The other two little white puff balls are Columbian Wyandottes.

Right now they are sitting in an oversize cardboard box on my craft table in the office (far away from the dogs) chirping contentedly.

They check the thermometer frequently to make sure it’s staying a cozy 95 degrees.

We’re trying to come up with names for them.  Since the Wise and Bearded One and I tend toward dark humor we’re thinking up names like Chick Filet, Fricasee, Colonel Sander and Ina Pot.   Our friend Amy is much nicer than we are and suggested some traditional hen names like Lula Mae and Lola Belle.  Right now Keegan and Abe’s vote goes for Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, and Midnight Snack.

Got some better ideas?  We’re open to suggestions, so come on down and Name That Chicken!