Animals

Catalog shopping: chickens on order!

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Chickens are on the way! On the left, a reportedly prolific brown egg producer, the Shaver Red Sex-Link. On the right, the reputedly hardy, healthy Frey’s Special Dual Purpose as our meat bird.

I almost broke a pretty basic rule on this one—get your questions answered first!—and ordered White Rock Cornish X for meat. Chatting with Bob, we’d decided on the Frey’s Special, but at the last minute—on the phone ordering them from the feed store—I asked about the Frey’s, and was told that “99%” of the small quantity meat birds were “White Rock” (meaning WR Cornish X), that people were often disappointed with the dual purpose for meat, that for meat, White Rock is the way to go. White Rock! White Rock!

So I got off the phone, and did some quick extra research. Talked to Bob again, who said the thousands of meat chickens he’s raised were all White Rock, BUT, they have to stay indoors, WR just stand around and EAT, which is why he thought Frey’s would be better for outdoors.

Next, hit the Web, and found stories of people successfully free-ranging WRs, even in the heat. BUT, they also said things like: “They did wander around a lot but nothing like the regular birds. They did all the normal bird things just a whole lot less gracefully. Only thing they couldn’t do was perch or fly.” Hmmm…

Which took me back to the original stuff I’d read in the hatchery catalog, things like: “Unfortunately, the White Rock’s increased efficiency at feed conversion has not been matched by improvements in the bird’s cardiovascular system. Simply put, too often the bird’s heart just can’t keep up with the rest of its body.” Yikes… Hello flip-over disease (aka Sudden Death Syndrome, aka…heart attacks), which tends to afflict the biggest, healthiest birds… And there’s lots more disease warnings, feeding restrictions, general strict instructions… Extremely fast-growing meat chickens, no doubt, and I’ll probably try some…later, but too weird for now…

For good measure, I got through to the Frey’s hatchery. The woman on the phone was great. She said most people just want to produce meat quick and go for the WRs, and they may do OK free-ranging, but really, they’ve been bred for rapid growth in a controlled broiler barn environment, AND, for a hardy, free-ranging, TASTY meat bird, dual purpose are great, friends of hers raise the Frey’s Special and love ’em. So Frey’s Special Dual Purpose it is, more traditional chickens that grow a little slower and weigh a little less, but can actually have fun, run around, eat insects, scratch in the dirt, and won’t…flip over! There are 50 2-week Frey’s Special cockerels coming either April 16 or 30, and 25 ready-to-lay Red Sex-Link on June 23.

Entering the world of CHICKENS, I’m excited!

(UPDATE: After writing this post, I read the comments below, did some more online reading, and switched the order to 40 White Rock Cornish X and 10 Frey’s Special…)

(UPDATE 2: It’s a year and a half later, and we recently processed a second flock of White Rocks. My original last-minute double-switch to White Rocks was a good one. I still want to raise other breeds, but you absolutely can keep healthy, free-ranging WRs, and they do get to a good size!)

Meet my garden spirit guide

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So I’m heading into the house this morning, by the winter front door, which is a door cut into the attached-garage door (it’s easier to keep clear of snow than the real front door…). Kinda zoned out and lost in thought, I was on my final step, arm out, automatically reaching for the door handle, when suddenly, whoaaa!, I froze and stepped back. By mere inches, I’d almost grabbed a handful of OWL. There’ve been owls in the barn, and an owl can be seen once in a while sitting on a pole in the farmhouse backyard, but we definitely don’t have owls calmly hanging out on the front door handle. This had to mean something. This had to be a Sign! The owl was just perched there, perfectly laid back, kinda squinty, looking at me. It didn’t flinch. I took another few steps back to check things out. It watched me, unperturbed. Hmmm… I checked it out for a couple of minutes, kinda walking around, moved closer again, slowly reached towards it. No problem, it just watched me back. Then I headed to the Milkhouse for my camera, returned, and still the owl. It let me come as close as I liked. It really didn’t seem to mind me being well within touching distance, a couple of feet away. A few minutes later, Bob went by and I called him over. The owl was unfazed by TWO people looming around (since it was my owl encounter, maybe at that moment, Bob didn’t really exist?). After a couple more minutes, looking perfectly airworthy, it calmly flew away through the four feet of space between us… And it was gone. So what was up with the owl? Could be that, with youthful naivety (it looked…young), and the natural confidence of a predator high on the food chain, and maybe being tired out by too much flying, and having to squint in the bright sun, it just didn’t care. That’s possible. More likely, though, it was simply there to hook me up with forces unseen and the entire spirit world. It gazed at me for a long time and I felt good. At last, my spirit guide revealed! Of course, I had to vet all of this and get more words and meaning, so I rushed inside and hit the Web. Wooo… Glancing at the first search results got me worried, all messenger of death stuff. But, the fantastic thing about the Web is, keep looking and you can find whatever you want! Like this page, much more…REASONABLE, that explained how cool having a personal owl encounter is, with words like “wisdom”, “protector” and “symbolic of inner knowing”. I particularly liked: “If an owl has visited you, an incredible gift has been bestowed.” This is good! Thanks!! Life on this tiny farm now walks with the owls… (It’s a fully-grown adult northern saw-whet owl; thanks to Sharon the BirdChick for ID-ing it in the comments below!)

The wild bunch

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Mainly mucking about today. Visited with the goats. Around 15 of ’em. These girls upfront are the current kingpins of the goat yard. Goats have their pecking order (just like the chickens to come!), which mainly means a few get first crack at food, or crowding at the fence, or whatever else they all want to do, while the rest back away and wait or get butted. It’s mostly rank by size, but a vicious streak counts, too. The one in the middle is on top now (with her friend on the right), the brown pair on the left (the Evil Twins), used to be a vicious tag team running the yard, but they lost their edge. Not that they’re always fighting, a brief burst of deterrent action goes a long way. It’s like a soap opera if you watch ’em every day. Goats…

Every year, this little period in the first half of March is kinda like waiting for the starting gun. I’m full of energy and waiting on the weather. A little EDGY. All the early starts are now under lights: onions (first time from seed), celery (another first), more leek and parsley, plus the stuff started around the end of January (leek, parsley, rosemary, arugula, lettuce). It’s another week to the peppers and eggplant, and then the grow racks will start to get full, and I’m also holding off till then to transplant the early lettuce to the greenhouse. As soon as the snow clears and the temperature warms up a bit, there’s outdoor fix-it work, starting with an old ice fishing hut to turn into a home for the composting toilet (an outhouse for the field!) and the chickenhouse to renovate. There’s a list. Plus a lot of garden clean-up, crops left over winter, that should be pulled as soon as I can. MEANWHILE, I’m waiting…

Chicken catalogs

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There’s a catalog for everything. Bob dropped off two with chickens (turkeys, ducks, pheasants, partridge and quail, too). I’m looking at dual purpose birds… It’s pretty sure that chickens will return in small numbers to the farm this year, but not a done deal till April. For me, it’s a completely new tiny farming…adventure. I’m going into it much more casually than usual with new farm stuff, because for this year it’s mostly for fun. I don’t really have a PLAN. We have room for about 50 birds in the current chickenhouse set-up, so it’s not such a big thing. We’ll see next month!

Cows and calves

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After being there for their birth nine days ago, I couldn’t not keep track of these guys. For about a week now, during the days, they’ve been in one of the yards just outside the barn, eating, resting and ambling around, exploring. They do grow up fast. It was sunny, but icy cold today, with a bitter wind, but the cows seem unconcerned.

New cows!

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There was action in the barn in the wee hours today. A couple of the cows gave birth. Here’s the first new one, around five minutes after his 4 am delivery into the cold barn.

This is the second time I’ve watched the whole thing unfold. The first was maybe a year ago. In both cases, human intervention was required, which consisted of Bob with a length of chain wrapped around a pair of calf’s feet, pulling.

Last time, he explained it was a dry birth, where the embryonic sac breaks too soon, the head dries out, and, less lubricated, it sticks on the way out. A little feet-planted-firmly tug-o-war type pulling and…a new cow!

This time was a little more complicated, a breech birth, with the calf turned right around so its back end was aiming out instead of the head. Particularly with first-time births, the mothers aren’t relaxed enough to let the bigger back end out first.

To help things along, the stainless steel calving chain was wrapped around the hind legs and attached to a cable with a ratchet, in turn attached to a steel fence post set in concrete.

The long-handled ratchet allows the cable to be pulled with more force than a person alone could manage, as long as the cow stays put and sets herself against the pull (which she seems to do, since I guess she too wants the baby out!).

After some minutes of pulling, out popped the calf. It’s a boy!

There’s lots of bloody fluid and trailing bits, and the calf lies there at first like a limp, wet, bloody corpse. But the mother is right on it, licking away, and within minutes its head is up and peering around, and if all’s well, it’ll awkwardly stagger to its feet in under half an hour. Pretty cool!

The second mother gave birth around four hours later. The first time watching all this was interesting, a little sensational with all the bloody fluid. The second time, it was simply satisfying, another really basic part of life that most of us in the modern world just plain miss (we eat meat and drink milk, don’t we…well, a lot us do)?

I’m not sure about the breeding timing or anything like that, like, Why calves now? With Bob’s cows, I’m an observer, sometime consumer, occasional chaser.

Here’s the second calf, three hours after an 8am arrival, up and tottering around! Sturdy!! It’s fascinating to watch them rapidly get used to their legs, steadier by the hour.

Welcome to the chickenhouse…

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Chicken coop? Henhouse? I like ’em all. This weather-beaten little building has been empty for a while, but a little fix-up and it’ll be ready to go. You can see the electricity cable and water hose snaking out at the top left of the pic. All the modern conveniences! The last tenants, three years ago, were half a dozen turkeys, lead by crazy Tom, an increasingly aggressive male known for a flying drop kick that could stagger a grown human. I didn’t have any close encounters with Tom, although I was curious. Before that, when I first started the garden five years ago, a dozen or more incredibly colorful ornamental chickens roamed the barnyard, darting out of hedges, zipping under fences, you never knew where they’d pop up. These were all, like the goats, kinda pets, and were eventually given away. Now, the loose plan is to get, well, WORKING chickens, for meat and eggs. At first, it won’t be directly part of the organic veggie garden, more of a side project that I’ll do with Bob. We were going to start last season, but that wound up on the still-to-do list. Yesterday, I took a quick look at the chicken-raising regulations—here in Ontario, there is a quota system that requires buying permits to raise chickens, with an exception for small numbers, and I imagine it’s similar everywhere in North America. Oh, well, more on that as it happens!


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