Pullet Eggs!!! Months too soon!

If there's a time to every purpose under Heaven, then WHOA! The time has come to make nest boxes for the little ladies, the Speckled Sussex hens. This is months earlier than we expected!

Pictured is a basket of duck eggs. Beside the basket, you'll see two tiny brown eggs, gifts from a precocious Lady Sussex. 

Chris opened the brooder door on her recently and she looked shocked and dismayed that he would just blatantly walk in on her while she was doing her business. There she sat feeling indignant, in a tuft of bedding she had pulled together for a nest. Chris is pretty sure she shouted, "Uh, WHAT?! SHUT THE DOOR! I'M BUSY IN HERE!" (heavy sigh)

In her disgust, she may have laid her small brown chicken egg somewhere else that day. If so, we never found it. 

With winter fast approaching, this presents us with two immediate problems: 

(1) The hens don't yet see the chicken condo as home, just as a place to hang out during the day. They sleep in the tiny brooder house. 
(2)The chicken condo needs nest boxes that are yet to be built and some more winterization. 

Soon the little hens will make the permanent migration to the chicken condo with its greener pastures. It's right next door and they're used to it. They go to it through a wire tunnel every day, range around outside for awhile, then spend the rest of the day inside. Later, toward sundown, the pullets go back through a wire tunnel to their brooder house to sleep. They've become creatures of habit. You could set a clock by them. But now, with one laying eggs already, we are so unprepared!


Another first: Roosti-Roo, our one beautiful little Sussex rooster, has learned to crow!!! He's egg-cited , I think, so he's gearing up to serve the needs of 48 hens. Poor Roosti! 

Our  4 duck hens are already giving us three eggs a day, two in their nesting box and one in their pool. The ducks are also creatures of habit, we're discovering, but they provide enough eggs that I've been able to make noodles, chocolate mousse, Hollandaise sauce, have eggs for breakfast, and still share some with friends and family!

The fact that the ducks supply our egg needs brings up another problem, not so immediate, but one that needs a solution: What to do with all the chicken eggs once the hens are laying regularly? I had looked at designing a "Farm Fresh Eggs" sign for in front of the house or barn. Now I'm thinking more and more about joining the local Farmer's Market. The people who go with eggs sell out so early! But if I do, what else should I provide? I thought about making aprons but Chris says they're not a farm product. Really? So then what? I thought about little pies: Pauley's Petite Pastries. Maybe. What do you think?

Heirloom Chicks

These Speckled Sussex chicks love being on the grass. At night they still sleep in their brooder but by day they enjoy the fresh greens, insects and sunshine that they can only get in the great outdoors.  

In order to keep out predators, Chris has their run secured with two different sizes of wire mesh. Outside that is an electric fence so that Pauley's Pampered Poultry remains safe and secure.  

Then, before long, they'll be ready to move into the Chicken Condo where they will have even more room and a larger outside run. The free range chickens will continue to be secure from predators, the greatest threat to their health. 

Known for being an heirloom breed, the Speckled Sussex numbers are limited. That may change as people begin to recognize their ability to withstand heat and pathogens, something newer hybrids don't handle so well.

Making egg-laying pets of these little chicks should be fun. Varied markings and already distinctive, but friendly, personalities will make it easier to name them. They're fun little chicks.   Maybe we'll decide to raise a brood hen so that we can raise and perhaps sell more of these delightful little cuties!

(If our suspicions prove true, 

there's one daring little rooster in among the fifty little hen-chicks!)

The Chicken Condo, in Progress

Measuring 18' X 36', this unit is big enough to house a small family. Instead, it will be a four-room building for housing different kinds of poultry. Little chicks that will become laying hens will be the first inhabitants. The plan includes nesting boxes, a roost, little chicken-sized doors, and a large run outside when the notion hits them. (No, the ducks won't live there. Chris is designing a kind of movable playpen for them that will include a wading pool.)

When this chicken house is finished, most of its inhabitants will be chickens we plan to raise for meat. The process is designed to give them comfortable and healthy living conditions and we plan to do this for several years.

There has been quite a bit of interest as people pass by the farm. Some stop to inquire. We're finding out several people, whether city dwellers or country dwellers, are interested in poultry. Some want a few laying hens in the new "urban farm design". Some want to duplicate what we're doing but on a smaller scale, and some want to enjoy the produce from ours. Occasionally, people take pictures of it. One new friend said he wanted to use some of the design ideas Chris has in the chicken condo for his family home but I'm not sure whether it's the piers he likes or the steel supports for the floor. Maybe it's the ample lighting, complete with skylights. See why I call it the Chicken Condo? By the way, a friend called it that, just in passing, and it stuck.

Whatever the reason, the chicken condo has attracted some attention. Some people are still wondering if it will be for rent soon. If our plan to supplement our groceries with good and good-for-you home-grown produce doesn't work out, it just might!

The Ark of the Chicken Condo

Ohio's rainiest April in recorded history has slowed down progress on the chicken condo only a little. With intense fervor, Chris still gets out there everyday and makes some progress but I am beginning to question what he is building. First, he loves animals and wants some to care for. Second, the rains just keep coming. Third, he's already expanded from chickens into ducks and, fourth, the project keeps growing. I'm convinced that he's building, not a tiny little chicken coop. I think he's building an ARK!

Chickens? I wonder. Chris and I were both involved in and traumatized by the primitive methods of preparing a chicken for the table when we were kids. If more people participated in that process or any other meat preparation, they might develop a greater appreciation and reverence for the animal that gives its life for our sustenance and, as a result, our nation of meat-eaters might consume less meat. Getting back to an intimacy with our food couldn't help but make us healthier as a nation. Children now are so far removed from the source of their meat that the habits of disregarding the life of the animal are well-ingrained and chicken in our country is consumed at an enormous rate! That has led to production practices that often appear to be inhumane.

I'm not the only one who feels this way. The author of The Color Purple, Alice Walker, has chickens in her backyard. I heard her interview on the Diane Reames Show on NPR. Her current experiences with chickens has caused a backlash of childhood memories of chicken day and a renewed reverence for animals. The childhood "trauma" she experienced caused her to try a vegan diet for awhile but she is back now to eating some meat, including chicken occasionally. She has written a memoir of her thoughts, her travel adventures and letters to her chickens. No kidding.

And that brings me back to this project Chris is preparing. Whether it's an ark or a chicken coop, I'm convinced that whatever lives in or around it will be treated with the utmost care and respect with windows and a movable yard where they can "graze" and find insects because chickens like to do that. Will the rains subside? Will we soon learn his true intention? I can only hope. The ducks arrive soon, followed by chicks, and then who knows? If they arrive 2 X 2, from where you sit now, you'll be able to hear me!

The Chicken Coop

Building a chicken coop has been high on my husband's to-do list ever since we talked about getting a half dozen laying hens to supply our egg needs. But how much of a building does six chickens require? When he started designing it, the size and shape was dictated to some extent by what building supplies he had on hand. Whatever he had to work with, my husband promised to offer comfortable, roomy housing for the layers. He quickly changed his design, as well as his intention, when he found that he had underestimated the number of building trusses he had, trusses once meant for a garage.

I watched his drawing evolve, enlarging steadily, and I finally pulled up enough courage to ask just how many clucking chickens he thought he wanted. I'm waiting for his answer. He started telling me, in his best Foghorn Leghorn voice, how his new design offers rooms for different kinds of chickens as well as other options. His design will accommodate some chickens for meat, some laying hens, a feed room and a special area for brooding young chicks. Outside pens will allow freedom for movement, fresh air and sunshine. I began some aerobic moves, singing Go, You Chicken Fat, Go!  My husband still hasn't answered the question I put to him. He just gets this crazed look in his eyes every time I exercise.

My earlier vision of six laying hens to name, pick up and pet is getting foggier and foggier, blurred in part by an insane vision of 2000 banty roosters chasing each other about in the next pen. If I close my eyes and listen, I can almost hear the crowing competition and I just know my dear Foghorn is out there crowing the loudest of all!