spring chickens

miracles do happen.  stephanie, the blind bantam, seems to be healed.  i had nearly given up on her after a month of hand-feeding and watching her lay helpless.  i seriously considered stopping because she seemed so far gone.  a bowl of lay mash sat in her cage for weeks, untouched.  i meant to remove it several times but never did.  last week, we discovered her standing in the bowl, pecking away at the food with a full crop.  now she's eating and drinking on her own, and walking around - amazing!  when i asked him about it, dr. martin said it was "very unusual - in a good way". 

henrietta's still lame.  dr. m said a spinal injury probably effected a nerve in her left leg, and she's lost all control of it.  she was terribly thin, so i brought her inside and coaxed her to eat for about a week.  started with the usual favorites, corn and blueberries, but she wasn't interested - she preferred sunflower and flax seeds, mustard greens, yogurt and scrambled eggs. my catering skills have paid off, as she seems to have gained alittle weight.  she also had a couple of baths in the laundry sink, which she didn't seem to mind.  dr. m thinks she should be able to stand on one leg when she's stronger.  

our neighbor, jason, asked us to adopt 6 little white pullets (i think they're leghorns) that he couldn't keep.  he brought them over in a box on saturday, and we put them in a big cage inside the pen until they settled down.  they're too small to free range, so they're hanging out with ivan and natasha in the pen til they're bigger.  ivan seemed alittle overwhelmed by the youngsters, but he and natasha are being kind.  ivan's older hen-friends were not happy to be kicked out of the pen in favor of the chicks, and hover outside of it every morning, complaining.  the chicks sleep in ivan's pen in the coop, so he has his hands (feet?) full.

pattie is raising another flock of meat birds.  she ordered some cornish crosses from a hatchery, and she's not happy with them.  these birds were bred to grow big, fast - but apparently weren't bred for an attractive appearance or happy disposition.  unliked her previous chicks, these guys don't move around easily, have spotty feather coverage, are generally lethargic and do nothing but eat.  their legs and feet are huge, too.  they kind of remind me of the factory birds in "food, inc".  interesting to see that you can breed the personality out of an animal, if your only focus is meaty breasts.

egg-laying is increasing as the days grow longer and warmer.  we're collecting 8-12 eggs daily, along with a duck egg or two and 4-6 bantam eggs.  hopefully our customers will start increasing, too.  we have a customer who buys 4 dozen eggs a week and told me that we're charging 50 cents less than everyone else in the area.  i think our eggs are a bargain at twice the price!  whole foods and bristol farms are charging $6-8 for free range eggs, and they probably aren't as fresh as ours.  

once the new pullets start laying (around july), we will have eggs coming out of our ears, and the mountain of donated cartons in the closet will come in handy.

planting seeds

gorgeous day.  the air is sweet with orange blossoms.  everyone caught a nap today, including me.  on sundays, i felt deserving of one since i wake at dawn.  tango was up with me at 6:30 when i opened up the chicken coops, fed everyone, filled the water buckets, and let the sheep out.  i raked stray straw, and bits of alfalfa into piles, and made the sheep shed ready for james to clean with the tractor.  took out the perches, hosed them down and left them to dry in the sun.  then, it was time for a big bacon and egg breakfast and a recorded episode of "top chef masters".

my post-breakfast nap was interrupted by a visit from door-to-door missionaries.  both tango and banjo went ballistic.  fortunately james greeted them before i did.  these missionaries have canvased our neighborhood on random sundays as long as we've been here.  they start speaking spanish and, upon realizing that we don't "habla", they move along to the next house.  oddly, they are disinterested in converting non-hispanics.  they do dress nicely, though.

after a rude awakening, the beautiful weather inspired me to do alittle work in the garden. after watching the "spain" episode of anthony bourdain's show, i decided to chop off the root end of some brown onions and stick them in the ground.   hopefully, they'll grow into the delicious, leek-like veggies they roasted during that show.  i finally planted the snow pea shoots, and cleaned out last year's dead tomato stalks.  the garden is covered with clover, except for a row that i turned under for the onions and peas.

i opened the burpee seed starter kit that james bought me last year.  i've never started seed inside the house, so this is a first.  the kit's kind of genius - a tray of 70 small holes filled with little discs that transform into soil (in 60 seconds) after 9 cups of hot water are added.  there's a watering "blanket" under the seed cups to keep them moist, and a drainage tray below that. once the seeds are planted, there's a clear plastic top that acts as a greenhouse until sprouts appear.  i planted a few of nearly every heirloom seed i had (tomato, peppers, cukes, eggplant, basil, leeks, onions, zucchini) and put the tray near a sunny window.  it'll be interesting to see if the tomato seeds i saved from last year's fruit will sprout.  i'm already dreaming of roasted tomato sauce!

now, it's time to get dirty by replacing the bedding in the sheep shed (which inevitably leaves me covered with shaving and bits of straw).  then, i'll put the perches back in the coop, get ready to tuck everyone in for the night, and enjoy the last moments of  peace before another crazy week begins.

april showers

a storm is coming - it's grey, cool and winds are gusty.  this may be the last significant rain before summer.  james and i cleaned the sheds this morning before he went to work (hopefully they will dry out by afternoon).  we had some drizzle this morning, and the rain is forecasted to start early this evening.

went to pattie's to pick up 2 quarts of goat milk for james.  she also gave me 3 tiny sweet potato slips, rooted in a jar of water, which i planted in a pot in the garden when i returned home. next weekend, i'll plant the snow pea shoots and get some seeds started.  clover is covering the garden now.  the figs and pomegranates have small fruit on them, as do some of the boxed saplings planted last year.  all of the citrus are flowering, along with the two giant avocados.  the pollen in the air keeps me blowing my nose constantly (didn't know i was allergic to avocado blossoms until we moved here).  fortunately, the bees are back, i've seen them hovering around the hose hook-ups, drinking the drops that fall when the water's on.

stephanie is deteriorating.  she can no longer stand, and one of her legs has a small tremor.  we're still feeding her by syringe and trying to keep her comfortable.  it's hard to watch as whatever is effecting her brain continues to progress.  i wonder if we're doing the right thing by continuing to feed her...i'm torn.  there are times she is alert and times when she seems to fade away.  i wish there was more i could do.

what we thought was a bad foot, has turned out to be a muscular or neurological issue for henrietta.  she can't stand well - settles onto her hocks instead of standing on her feet.  other than that, she seems normal.  she was picked on by the other hens, so we separated her in the pen with ivan and his friends.  dr. martin gave her a steroid shot on saturday, saying that things would improve if she had an inflamed nerve (and wouldn't if it wasn't).   he said it could be a spinal, nerve or muscular issue.  i didn't know that chickens could have spinal problems.

speaking of ivan, i caught him mating for the first time in more than a year.  natasha was his willing victim.  seems she's quite smitten with him.  ivan  has to be carried in and out of the coop and into the pen each morning and evening.  natasha won't leave the coop in the morning until he's carried out to the pen, and follows him as he's carried back inside at night.

the lambs are thriving.  maggie is petite, just alittle bigger than tango at 4 weeks.  she follows him around, trying to get him to chase her.  i love to watch her jump and hop and do the happy lamb dance.  we're thinking about keeping her, even though i've already gotten 3 calls from people looking for babydoll ewes.  danny, who bought 3 of our lambs 2 years ago, emailed to let me know that rachel (sarah's baby) finally had a black ram lamb.  it seem that, like her mom, she had a black dominant gene.

finally, spring

it's nearly easter and spring is in the air.  the yard looks so much better with new leaves on the figs and pomegranates.  james planted clover in the veg garden, which is growing fast and will be turned under within the month.  the fruit tree cuttings that rooted a year ago are looking good enough to transplant into larger containers.

the lambs are getting big.  maggie's tail is finally docked, and she's frolicking with the boys.  the ewes are eating up a storm, and enjoying the oranges and tangerines that are blown off the trees.  when the shed is opened in the morning, they storm towards the trees, looking for fruit. everyone loves alfalfa, almost as much as they love sweet feed, and they are treated to a flake or two every day.  abe, levi and ezra are now old enough to graze, and they climb over each other to get to the alfalfa in the feeders. 

we moved stephanie into the bantam coop, so she could be around her friends.  her balance seems to have improved alittle, but we're still feeding her with a syringe.  she seems to be pecking at food and water, and eating alittle.  she enjoys being around the other birds, and occasionally chirps to them.  dr. martin thinks whatever made her blind is progressing to other parts of her brain.  it doesn't look like she'll improve, but we'll let her live out her days as long as she isn't in pain.

more bumblefoot.  the wrapping of chicken feet seems endless.  when one bird heals, another one succumbs.  henrietta's limping has improved since we've been treating and bandaging both feet.  romeo has a bad case, and will probably need to be treated for several weeks.  he's otherwise healthy and romping around, but his feet are a mess.  dr. m was here today to help clean them up and remove any dead tissue.  i've never bought so much gauze and first aid tape in my life...they are a permanent fixture on the laundry room shelf.

we paid a visit to pattie's new kids - a sweet, white doe named pearl, and a white and brown cutie named gypsy.  i held pearl and she snuggled with me - so adorable.  these are the kids of last year's bottle baby, ginger, and their mom's friendliness and sweet disposition have definitely been passed down.  pattie's thinking about keeping one of them, and i'm rooting for pearl.

finally planted some new herbs and flowers in the window boxes - a sign that winter is over. pattie gave us some snow pea shoots, which i'll plant next weekend.  her garden is already going full-tilt.