Has it been 4 months?? Let me tell you what has been going on.
For years, I have been "planning" to keep chickens. At long last, everything fell into place about 2 months ago. In my ongoing mission to buy locally, I took the girls to our local feed store. Now this feed store is about 10 minutes from my house and 2 minutes from my LYS (local yarn store). However, we had never been there. From the road, it isn't that inviting. The window display is old and dusty, giving the store an abandoned store-front look. What a suprise I found inside!
Sam's is a fully stocked, well staffed, thriving local business and I want to spit for letting myself be put off. The day we chose to go, I had already gotten the house ready for chickens! I figured if Sam's didn't have chicks, we'd drive up to HMB and pick some up there. After asking at the counter, it was confirmed that chicks were only available in the spring. Well, so much for buying local. HMB, here we come.
Time for a trip to the bathroom before our long car drive... do you have a 5 year old? Have you ever had one? If not, then you can't truyly appreciate how long their bathroom breaks are. But thank goodness for it today! While we had been in the bathroom a woman had called trying to get rid of her chickens!! What luck! What timing!! There was no more "planning". This was it!
Two months later, we have gone from 4 chickens, to 3 chickens, and now we are 6 chickens strong! We lost one of our origional chickens to Mareks disease. Mareks is extremely commen and utterly contagious among birds! It pays to buy your chickens from someone who can assure you they have been vacinatted. Our "free" chickens have turned out to cost us quite a bit in vet fees. Luckily, the chicken who died was the one that was causing us a bit of trouble. In case there is any doubt, a hen WILL begin to act like a rooster if there isn't a rooster around. And that includes crowing!
To replace our fallen soldier, we drove to Cotati (NOT local for those of you keeping track) to meet Joan The Chicken Queen. Yes, that's what she's called. Look her up on Craigs List.
Joan was no nonsense. Before I had the boxes open and turned around she had already wrangled one chicken and enlisted my oldest to grab another. So much for all my prepatory reading about picking a hen. Joan had the chickens in the box before I could say "Four-point examination". I didn't even get to check their "vents" and I was sooo looking forward to gauging the space between the pubic bones. Really, I had done my homework and was ready to put it to use. Not to worry, though. These new hens have proven to be excellent (almost daily) layers of beautiful large brown eggs. I've gotten several with double yolks. Thank you, Joan! You are a Queen!
All these new chickens mean more eggs.....and more poop. Now, instead of waking at the crack of dawn, opening the coop door, crawling back to sleep. I wake at the crack of dawn, open the coop door, pick chard and weeds from the front garden to feed/distract the hens, then go about "harvesting" poop.
A word about chicken manure. You can buy it by bagfuls at the local garden center, its supposed to work wonders on your vegetable garden. I look forward to using it as a totally natural, completely local, 100% free compost on next years garden. Chicken manure can't be put straight onto your beds though, it will "burn" the plants. So you have to let it "rot". Rotting manure is just as much fun as it sounds.
The chickens have really added a lot to our family. They are a wonderful source of entertainment and remarkably low mantinence ( I know I said crack of dawn but its really more like 6:30). The poops not that bad and think of the huge payoff! Keeping chickens is a really good first step for us to eat, live, and think locally. My children are getting hands on experience with where their food comes from and the work that it involves. I am getting the satisfaction of cooking and sharing food that I can feel 100% good about.
The next post, I'll tell you about our reclaimed front yard and the garden we have started there!
