Milestones in Chicken History

We are pleased to announce the arrival, at 1:45 p.m. on September 13, 2009, of our first egg. Collected by Joe Dolde, it weighed in at 1 3/8 oz, which would make it Grade TSFS--too small for sale. Each of us has since checked the nest about 5 times each, but egg number two has not arrived yet. It is pure speculation, but we believe one of the New Hampshires was the proud mama of Egg Number One, since shortly after its discovery we found her sprawled out in the yard nearly on her side, feet splayed out with seeming exhaustion.

Unfortunately, it would seem that Randy the Rooster was not so pleased with the theft of his potential future offspring. Poor Cleo opened the nesting box door to check for another treasure and he jumped out, neck ruffled intimidatingly, and flew up at her with spurs unsheathed. From the sound of her screams, I thought she had broken her hand under the heavy nesting box door. She was rightfully terrified, although I think Randy was just as frightened. We chased him in circles for about a half an hour and finally left the coop door open with the hens locked safely outside. Randy tried desperately to get back to his hens through the fence, then finally found his way into the coop and didn't protest when we closed the door quickly behind him. Now, whenever Cleo peers inside, he gives his best manly crow and flies at the door. I guess she's his arch-nemesis now.

Who knows why one hen picked this particular day to lay, but her timing was excellent. I had just arrived home exhausted from a camping trip. Joe went out to check for eggs about 1 p.m., and came back with his hands behind his back. "Guess what, Mom?" I felt a little invigorated, until he showed me his empty hand and I snapped at him in disappointment. Did one of the hens rise to the occasion to redeem her dear Joe, who feeds them tasty tomatoes and other treats? Or perhaps she got wind of my threat to cook one of them up if they didn't start laying soon. Do chickens read blogs? (*Thanks to Joe, who came up with the title for this post.)

My Rooster's Name is Randy

This September we are anxiously awaiting our first egg on the Dolde Chicken Farm. All my sources say that chickens are supposed to lay their first egg at 4 to 5 months. The laying hens will be 20 weeks old this Monday and by my calculations that is 5 months and I want to see results! A couple of weeks ago I switched them over to Purina "Layena" which has higher levels of calcium for laying hens. The hens appear to be fully mature; their combs and wattles have grown and reached a nice coloration.

In fact, the laying hens are huge, especially compared to my "broiler" hens in the moveable pen. At 14 weeks (6-7 weeks older than commercial broilers), I took a half a dozen hens to Locust Point Farm, where I buy my milk and where they raise and process their own chickens. I haven't given up on my desire/interest/determination to learn how to dress my own chickens, but in the heat of the summer without any sophisticated equipment the prospect of splattering myself in blood and boiling feathers was not attractive. The Amish family at Locust Point dressed my birds for $2.60 each and vacuum sealed them in a lovely wrapper that said "Dolde - Pastured Chicken." I almost leapt for joy.

So one Sunday (Monday is butchering day), I placed the borrowed dog cage next to the moveable pen, asked my husband to act as doorman, and tried to catch some birds. Of course I didn't want to CLIMB inside; anywhere chickens live is poopy and the pen is only 24 inches high. Eventually, though I had to lean inside and grab them with my gloved hand. This is not a job for the timid. You go for the feet and bring them out upside down while they squawk like you are murdering them. It seems rather cruel until I right them, gently fold down their feathers and hold them in both hands for a second. Within seconds they calm down and settle into a purr-like clucking. Then it was into the dog cage quickly and back to find one of her sisters.

My daughter rode with me to the farm and anxiously peered back at the excited chickens in the back of the open truck, their feathers flying. "I don't think I can eat them," she worried. "You'll be fine," I assured her. I was surprised to see a whole row of cat cages, milk crates and chicken coops when I arrive at the farm. Apparently I'm not the only one experimenting with my own free-range chickens. They asked if I wanted my birds whole (yes) and if I wanted to keep the giblets (no). They would process them that morning, chill them down and they would be ready for pickup on Thursday. When I returned, the Amish girl looked apologetic. "They looked as big as ours," she said, "but I guess they just have longer legs. They are a little small." My biggest hen topped out at 2 1/2 pounds. No matter, this was an experiment and I'll just have to keep the rest of them a little longer.

We had chicken for dinner that night and everyone ate it with no trouble. We opted for butterflying the small bird and grilling it with barbecue seasoning. It was pretty tasty, and probably the best method of cooking we've found so far. I cooked another in an infrared oven someone gave me (cooks without giving off heat), and another one in the crock pot--it was 100 degrees in my kitchen most of August so I didn't relish turning on the oven and was looking for other methods. Both of those were disappointing. All in all, I am still reserving judgment. The hens are small--one barely feeds my family of four and two of us have small appetites--and I did find the texture a little stringy, but perhaps that was the cooking methods.

I am anxious to see how heavy the final six will be and how they taste. But I swear they have gone on a hunger strike. They seem to be two-thirds the size of the laying hens and although I purposely tried to pick the smallest birds when I separated them at 8 weeks, I don't think I was that successful. They just don't seem to be growing as fast. You'd think they would be happier with fresh grass every other day. Maybe it's the low roof or the exposure to the occasional thunderstorm. Perhaps I'm overthinking this whole thing? In any case, we will see what the next few weeks bring and I'll decide whether to try Delaware broilers again or switch to a faster-growing Cornish cross. I really want to experiment with brooding my own chicks at least once.

But if those hens don't start laying, I just might grab one of them and see how she cooks up. Or it just may be the rooster, if he doesn't stop crowing at 5:30 a.m. and tormenting the hens. Yes, our rooster friend Randy has found his mojo. Over the last month, I have run excitedly out to the coop several times when I heard what sounded like productive squawking, only to find Randy cornering some poor hen in the corner. Gone are the days when they would chase him away from a tasty lettuce leaf or tomato. So far, he has not inflicted any damage and he is acting naturally after all, but I can't help but regard him with a little disgust when he struts off after terrorizing half the flock. Roosters have their place, I suppose, as we learned when my sister-in-law's dog took a polite peek at them last weekend. Randy sounded a cry of alarm so terrifying that poor Rio jumped back and would have run away if he wasn't on a leash. So we'll let Randy rule the roost--for now.

Hangin' With My Peeps

Tomorrow my chickens will be 11 weeks old. They now look like full-grown chickens and talk like them too. I'm not sure when that happened; it seemed they peeped like chicks until very recently. The rooster's comb and wattle are now in full coloration, and the other day we saw him, well, trying out his moves. This morning, my husband heard something he thought was an attempt at crowing, but more like "aaarrgheew." Perhaps we have a pirate rooster.

About a month ago, I divided half of the chickens off into a mobile pen inspired by the design from Joel Salatin's book Pastured Poultry Profits. We made a few design changes of our own. The roofing is a nice barn red made from Ondura, an EPA environmentally-preferred product made from 50% post-consumer content (tires, we think). We attached some large lawn mower wheels that slip on and off of carriage bolts, and pick up the other end with a (too) small handle to move the pen to fresh grass.

The chicken tractor, however, has made it apparent that my chickens are pigs. Unable to control their desire to roost on everything, they sit on the feeder and the waterer and poop in everything they consume. Even though articles I read said don't give broilers roosts because they will develop unattractive breast blisters (huh?), I put in a 4-foot 2x2 as a roost, covered the feed with a piece of plywood and the waterer with a chicken wire cone. Somehow, they still manage to poop in the water. I have plans to create a waterer using the push in nipples that commercial growers use in lines of pvc pipe. I read about it in Backyard Poultry, but instead of buying the kit, I think I will just buy the nipples and screw them into the bottom of plastic kitty litter buckets. Fresh water goes in the top, lid goes on, waterer is hung and the chickens have to reach up to peck a clean drop of water from the bottom of the bucket. Ahhh, poop-free beverage. Part of this comes from my natural repulsion to any living thing drinking contaminated water; part of it from my desire NOT to have to treat my chickens with antibiotics because they become sick.

You may ask how I selected which chicks to remove from the flock for certain death. Initially, the plan was to pick the birds that did not appear to be as strong or that had the poorest coloration in their feathers. In reality, as my husband closed me into the coop to catch them and they all ran for a corner, it became which ones were slowest or thrown in front of my waiting hands by their comrades. In the end, I selected 7 Delawares (the white ones) and 5 New Hampshires (the red ones) because while I want to know which tastes best and/or grows the fastest, I think the New Hampshires are prettier and thus want them to live. I'm not entirely comfortable about what that says about me.

Commercially-grown birds are usually slaughtered at about 7 weeks. Sometimes they grow so fast and so breast-y that they can hardly hold themselves up on their scrawny chicken legs. Even though I will have a poor "feed to pound ratio"--meaning the cost of how much feed I am giving them versus how many pounds my dressed broilers will weigh--I have decided to keep my birds longer. Some only have a week left. Others I may keep to 14 weeks. That's twice the life they would have had, and with fresh grass daily along with treats of lettuce from the garden. We may feel sad to see them go, but they had a much better life than the chickens in the grocery store.

I AM a Chicken Tender

I have been unable to post until today about my new chickens because of a plight unique to the modern homesteader: my broadband has been down. Quite a handicap, and I was much more inconvenienced than I care to admit.

My chicks were four weeks old on Monday. They are amazing, growing machines. From fuzzy little handfuls 30 short days ago, they are now nearly fully-feathered and look like real chickens. The cockerel has his comb and wattle, and thankfully there is only one (I don't know how those hatchery people sex day-old chicks, but they are GOOD. They hatched on Monday and on Tuesday, the 25 chicks were packed into a 12x18-inch box and shipped by the Postal Service. They arrived at my house about 6 p.m. on Wednesday. I am especially grateful to the postmistress, who delivered them to our house after hours--I had checked every day and that very morning, not realizing they received afternoon shipments. (Photo above: Chicken in a box, and not the kind we're used to)

I started them out in a cardboard box in the bathroom, the only place with a door that closes to protect them from our mostly lazy, but still predatory cat. The 18x36-inch box was outfitted with a quart chick waterer, a brooder lamp with a red heat bulb (to prevent toe picking), and a simple paper plate for feed. Initially, I lined the box with paper towels over the pine shavings, since apparently they will pick at and eat anything until they find the feed. After a day or so, I switched to a trough feeder with little holes for them to stick their heads into. The chicks settled into their new home, and it was nice to pop in every 15 minutes or so to just look at them and listen to their constant peeping.


After about a week, several of the more adventurous chicks began flying up at us when we came into visit. Once or twice, they made it to the top edge of the box. It was time to move them our into the coop. It was still cool outside, mid-50s during the day and we had some pretty cold nights, so I created an enclosure inside the 4x6-foot coop with some cardboard and hooked the light to one of the rafters. Not long after, I had to abandon the trough feeder because the chicks all perched on top of it and proceeded to poop in their feed. I switched to a tube feeder and removed the cardboard circle. The chicks wanted to roam and a few more square feet was all I could give them inside.

The power of animal instinct always amazes me. The chicks were not even two weeks old, but they so wanted to perch on things. I knew I needed to replace the single piece of wood that was the only roost provided, so my son and I set about building a simple ladder-style roost that I could remove when I needed to add or remove bedding. Within 10 minutes of putting it into the coop, the chickens had learned to hop from the low perch to the highest one. A few days later, they began pecking at the window as if to say, "Hey, let us out there!"

Now, I was really under the gun since I had not expected to let them outside for a couple of weeks and didn't have any materials. I made a hasty trip to Lowe's and came back with some 2" wire fencing, metal posts, and plastic netting. Initially, my thought was to create a rotating chicken run, in order to let the chickens eat down the grass and give the old area time to recover. After an afternoon of driving stakes, clipping on fencing and wire tying netting to the top to keep out predatory birds, I realized that this run was semi-permanent. The laying hens will have to enjoy vegetable scraps and other treats; the meat birds will be pastured--but that's the next blog... In the end, I was proud of my little 8 x 14 foot run. I built it pretty much by myself, and that includes a little utility door which allows me to reach in to put feed and water outside. I later realized my fence prohibited me from opening the chicken door without going inside, but my husband kindly rigged me a pulley system which works beautifully.

The day had arrived for the chicks to make their first venture into the great outdoors. I asked my son to pull the rope, while I waited with my camera. First one chick appeared at the door, cocking its head curiously as it peered outside. Several more appeared, looking over the backs of the first ones. Soon, most of them had crowded in behind and began jostling the others about, peeping with annoyance at each other until inevitably one was pushed out nearly falling onto its beak. Two more tumbled out until those in the middle of the pack were able to step out of their own accord. It was a funny scene. Ever since, each day when I open the door, they all come streaming out at once, then take a flying run across the yard to stretch and flap their wings. I can see that now that I am a chicken tender, every day will be an adventure. (*Many thanks to my sister-in-law Sue, a chicken "hawker," for the chicken tender pun)

Chapter One: My Chicks are Born

To begin my story with the beginning of my chick's life, I record that my chicks were born on April 27th, 2009 on a Monday, in Polk, Ohio. Then came the great time of waiting, during which I telephoned the post office twice, came begging upon their doorstep once, was most unfortunately absent when called to announce the chick's arrival and still not at home when the postal service ultimately came to my doorstep, last evening at about 6 p.m. Fortunately for me--not to mention the chicks--my son and husband were home and greeted their arrival with all due manner of excitement, calling me upon my cellular phone in order that I might hear all manner of peeping. And now the comparison of my chick's story with that of David Copperfield ends, except perhaps for the story of one poor, crippled chick, whose fate remains to be determined.

Until now, I have only hinted at my plans and dreams to start keeping chickens. I intended to get them last year, but didn't feel up to building a coop myself and with my father's illness and my husband's increasingly busy schedule, I hesitated to ask for help. Earlier this year, I discovered that Good's a local Amish business that sells sheds and swingsets, also had a small 4x6-foot chicken coop. I'd seen similar coops advertised for twice the price and so it seemed like a good deal. I ordered it in February and it took well over a month to get it delivered. I'll post about the coop at a later time.

Since last year, I had pretty much decided to get Plymouth Barred Rocks. After all, these are the breed which started the Delmarva chicken industry. Then, I admired the flocks of Rhode Island Reds I saw at Rumbleway Farm and the Colchester Farm CSA, and decided to get a few of those as well. My friend Jeff, who has Dominiques, suggested I consider a heritage breed. So I went to the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy website, and found a great chart on heritage poultry breeds, their relative rarity, the types of eggs they lay, their meat qualities and their disposition.



I remembered my brother's silky bantams--beautiful fluffy white birds--and the fact that I could not play in my own backyard because of one, evil rooster. Yes, I know they don't look very tough, but this rooster would fly at me whenever I ventured past the swimming pool toward the rest of the yard. The day our new neighbors moved in sometime in the early 1980s, he attacked their 4-year old son. They were from the city, somewhere in Massachusetts; some welcome to the country and the south! When the rooster was in the coop and I had to collect eggs, I would stick a pole in and knock him around a little bit so he would be too woozy to attack. Finally--perhaps after the neighbor incident--we decided to get rid of the evil rooster. My grandmother did the deed and cooked him up for dinner. His flesh was purple like turtle meat, stringy, and basically inedible. His last revenge.

So I was intrigued when I read that the Delaware breed was gentle. Originally called "Indian Rivers" for a prime broiler area in Sussex County, Delaware, the breed was developed by George Ellis in 1940 for the burgeoning poultry industry. They were bred from the old stand-by Barred Plymouth rocks and New Hampshires. In the 1950s, they were replaced by the Cornish Cross breed that dominates today, but they sounded like a good dual purpose bird and they are considered critically low in numbers. In addition, they have a very good rate of lay for extra large to jumbo brown eggs, they grow fast and can be eaten at any age. My most recent issue of Backyard Poultry says they used to be the standard for "Sunday dinner chicken."

I looked up New Hampshires, since they are the hens from which Delaware's were bred, and they are a pretty reddish buff, satisfying my desire for a colorful backyard bird. They also have a pedigree as an outstanding meat bird, having been the standard in the Chicken of Tomorrow contests. That sealed the deal for me. One of my favorite items in our archive when I was curator at the Delaware Agricultural Museum was the copy of the 1948 film, "Chicken of Tomorrow," which was filmed in Delaware. It is the typical newsreel-type film like the ones shown in theaters during World War II, dramatic music and all. I was pleased to discover you can watch "Chicken of Tomorrow" online.
New Hampshires are also "calm" birds, lay extra large brown eggs and are fast growing up to 7 and a half pounds.

So I ordered 12 Delawares, 12 New Hampshires and one Delaware male. The Delaware rooster, bred to any of those females, should produce chicks of the Delaware pattern. If I manage to raise broody hens, I want to do my part to keep the breed going. There is much more to come about my chicken adventure. You're going to have to wait for the baby pictures!

The Long Winter

Laura Ingalls Wilder has been my hero since childhood: mother, teacher, writer, pioneer. I always considered Laura and I to be "kindred spirits," like Jo from Little Women,(or rather Anne from Anne of Green Gables). After this Maryland winter--Minnesota and Maine folks are now laughing, "Do you call that winter?"--I realize that I'm not cut from the same stock. A March blizzard (by Maryland standards) caused the collapse of my hoop house, even though I went out in boots and ear-flap hat to sweep it off at 11 p.m. After that, I gave up and have been holding my breath for spring ever since.

Will spring ever come? Oh, it's here. The signs are everywhere. The crocuses have already come and gone; the daffodils are in full bloom. The grapes, blackberries and blueberries are budding, but I have yet to prune them. You see, I can't seem to handle 45-50 degree breezy days anymore. I hung clothes on the line for the first time in three months last week, and then had to come inside and turn up the propane stove. Our new woodstove is wonderful, however, we have run out of wood trimmed to the smaller 16-inch size and so we haven't burned it for two weeks. Turning on the heat is out of the question, of course, so it is 59 degrees in my house most days. I find myself fantasizing about just driving around my Subaru station wagon with the heated seats on.


The spring chores are piling up. We had one beautiful 60-degree day last week, but I had to spend most of it traveling up to the northern part of the county to pick up a quarter of organic beef that was ready. By the time I got home, I only had time to plant about half of my onion sets (about 100 plants) before leaving for a school function. Potatoes are waiting to be planted, blueberries and strawberries are to arrive any day, and I haven't even finished building my last raised bed. Pansies I purchased two weeks ago are still sitting in their grower packs on my front step. The weeds are doing great, though!

I am pleased to report that last fall's spinach and surprisingly some romaine lettuce survived the hoop house collapse and are growing like crazy. We had a nice spinach salad on Sunday. Unfortunately, these are growing where I planned to put the strawberries. What to do?

Even now, I am avoiding going outside. Yesterday was in the fifties, but felt bitter to me because of the 25 mph wind. Today is sunny, with highs forecasted for about 60. Yet, here I am writing instead of changing into my gardening clothes, content to watch the garden from the window. I can see things are happening but--well--it's just warmer inside. Something about winter lulls me into an attitude of watching and waiting. Watching the birds, waiting for a warmer day, watching the flowers and trees bud, waiting for the seeds and plants to arrive. I feel like I'm stuck out of gear and can't shift into drive.

I know I'll get moving eventually. Winter planning has set events into motion that I will have to deal with, regardless of the weather. Soon, perhaps even today, the blueberries and strawberries will arrive at my doorstep. The still unplanted onions are starting to shrivel. I guess I'll pull on my flannel-lined plants and find a place to put them. Spring is here, whether I'm ready or not.

A Much-Needed Taste of Spring

This past week, we enjoyed six glorious days of spring-like weather--yes, in February. Temperatures reached almost the mid-60s one day. I celebrated by pruning my blueberries and preparing their new home by tilling in the grass clippings and newspapers I put down in a long row in October. While the rest of my yard remained frozen from a late January cold snap, the covered bed cultivated beautifully. Not a shred of newspaper remained, and the tough sod beneath had broken down as well. This soil is some of the poorest in my yard, but it already looks pretty good. I sprinkled in some iron sulfate to lower the pH for acid-loving blueberries. I'll apply some mushroom soil either when I transplant the old bushes and plant the new ones, or as a top dressing after they're in the ground.

It felt good to get outside and breathe in the smell of freshly-turned earth. It felt good just to breathe deeply after another bout with illness, this time pneumonia which put me out of commission for most of January. I was winded and tired after my short gardening session, but my mood improved tremendously. Earlier in the week, I made my first foray outside into the newly warm weather out of necessity. Snow and ice just a week earlier had caused my PVC hoophouse to collapse. It was my own fault. If I'd only brushed the inch or so of snow off, the icy precipitation probably would have rolled right off. But I've gotten too used to keeping myself warm and rested inside the house.



The hoophouse is yet another experiment, one that has taken nearly two years to perfect--if in fact I've perfected it. In the fall of 2007, I purchased greenhouse film and created a framework out of 3/4-inch PVC pipe, using cross and T connectors. I placed a series of hoops over rebar driven into the ground, and connected them with sections of pipe at the top and sides. Last year's structure was high and wide, and did well during the mild winter until an early February snowstorm, which picked it up off the rebar and pulled it apart.

This year, I changed my design to make the hoophouse lower and wider, using my raised beds as the base. I purchased metal channels into which the greenhouse film is drawn tight, snapped in with a sturdy piece of wire. But a late November cold snap this year did in my lettuce and cilantro. I did manage to keep my basil alive for four weeks past the first frost, but it was already gone by the time temperature dipped into the twenties.

Part of the problem was the door. Last year, I covered both ends and then slit one in the middle, applying "industrial strength" sticky velcro to close it. It was a bit of a pain to get the velcro to line up, but it sealed well...at least until the first damp night. A little cold and a little moisture and that velcro never stuck again. For the rest of the hoophouse's short season, I used spring clamps to keep the sides together. It worked o.k., but what a pain it was to get in. This year, I covered the entire end and just left one side partially unattached, weighing it down with some old boards and a couple of bricks. What I didn't consider was that the film got incredibly muddy in the wet garden, so that every time I bent down to crawl through the two and a half foot opening I'd allowed myself, my entire back would get covered with mud. Once I tripped going in and ended up with mud all over my knees as well.


So with the hoophouse once more in need of reassembly, I decided to try something I'd seen driving by one of the local nurseries. I cut two two-by-fours to the height and angle of the end and attached them to the PVC using plastic ties. I screwed the bottom ends into the raised beds for stability. Then, I attached another two by four across to be the top of my doorway. The door is only about 3 1/2 feet high, only because the plywood I wanted to use as a door was behind about 30 other pieces of wood. I stapled the greenhouse film around the doorway securely, then placed the plywood over the opening and held it in place with a 1x2 which I slid into some U-brackets. When I want to get in, all I have to do is remove the 1x2 and lift the plywood aside. Wow, and it only took me two years to figure it out!

My son helped me patch the holes in the film with packing tape and then we went inside to check it out. He enjoyed tapping the top of the greenhouse to make it "rain" on me. I checked the thermometer. It was 90 degrees inside! I think I know where I'll be spending the rest of my winter. Inside, the carrots are small but doing fine. The spinach and lettuce is not growing, but it's alive. I'm already anticipating some very early greens this year. I'm also hopeful that the greenhouse will help me get an early start with my warm-weather vegetables like tomatoes and peppers.




It has been a particularly dark and dreary winter, but things are looking up. A few fifty-plus degree days got my blood pumping and warmed my heart. I pulled back some straw on Tuesday and dug up a beautiful bunch of carrots which I cut up and put into a pan with a roast beef. Any day now, I will place my spring order and get those first seedlings started under lights in the basement. And when those new blueberry bushes arrive, I'm ready for them.