She's a chicken, not a stripper.

After we lost one of the Lizard Twins, we knew we needed to get another chicken, as we were at the four-hen count and that’s not good. As revealed in an earlier post, we like to keep the number uneven. It’s our way of assuring each other we’ll never part – who would get the fifth chicken?

I headed to the Feed Barn to see what they had. We like the Feed Barn because we don’t want to be in the business of raising chicks, and they usually have several chickens at the four or five month stage. A hen that age is bigger, which helps minimize that pecking order problem, and she’ll be laying at about six months. They are always able to tell me the date of birth of the hen, which shows on the receipt along with the breed.

My requirements were specific. I wanted the oldest hen available which was also the heartiest in our extreme summer heat. I told the owner what I was looking for, and he that I was different; most people choose chickens by their looks. I was feeling very brainy. Then he told me that the best chicken for our weather are the Naked Necks. They are named that because they have no feathers on their necks and about 50% fewer feathers overall. They are not pretty. Please don’t have any Naked Necks, please don’t have any Naked Necks. I want a pretty hen. I am not that brainy or different, after all.

He didn’t have any Naked Necks. But he had a very interesting hybrid – a cross between a Rhode Island Red (which is what the Lizard Twin is) and a Barred-Star (these are the beautiful black and white speckled hens, much like the Barred-Rock.) He got her out of the cage and opened her wings and I felt her neck while I told him about Lizard One’s fluid build-up and we discussed possible causes. We talked about the heartiness of hybrid chickens, and then I asked what her breed is. He said a Black Sex Link. Really? When I paid, the receipt said Black Sex Link. Huh.

When I got her home I took a picture of her and sent it to Bill at work. He texted back, what is her breed? I replied, Black Sex Link, and no, it’s not a porn site. He loved it and said I should give her a stripper name, but I didn’t want a chicken named Destiny, Angel or Candy.

We named her Lucky. She is our seventh chicken, and what a lucky girl she is to be out of a cage and padding around on soft grass. She must be happy to be able to stretch her legs. She RUNS the length of the yard. Always applying airline terms, Bill says she’s been cleared to do a fast taxi.

Hensence: The owner told me to keep the new hen away from the others and introduce her to them at night, after the hens are in the coop. We did that and it seemed to help a bit in the pecking order game.

News from the yard

What a busy spring it was for our family. But the chickens didn’t seem to notice.
While we were madly careening through the last months of school, hammering on grades with tutors, juggling football (yes, the new year-round sport), workouts, personal trainers, knee surgery, driver’s education and flights to San Francisco every week for work, the chickens didn’t care. They were just busy being chickens.

While my blog responsibilities piled up, I felt too guilty to post my thoughts because my clients follow and there was ALWAYS something I owed someone. During this crazy time I thought about how stressed we were inside the house and how stress-free they were out in the yard. The spring was cool and nice, and everyone was getting along. Cori started laying pretty little green eggs right on schedule and somehow that makes her all grown up in the other hens’ opinion.

There were some days where we had maximum production; five eggs a day! School finally ended at the same day asmy big San Francisco project, and in one day we went from overdrive to summer vacation. My sister Debbie stopped by one afternoon and found me in the back yard with the chickens. While we were talking, I noticed one of the Lizard Twins was breathing heavy and had fluid build-up in her neck. It’s possible she got something stuck in her crop. I researched possible issues but we didn’t find anything that described her symptoms. Two days later, she died.

I felt terrible that I didn’t know what to do for her. I visited with Dottie at Western Ranchman and she sold me a book with great information, but our best resource to date has been blogs where people share their common sense.

Beginning with this post, I’ll be adding our tips and advice in a section called Hensense. Hopefully something I pass on will help someone else. We were sad to lose one of our big, beefy chickens. The Reds had gotten so big we changed their name to “47 Heavy”, which is the term the airline pilots of the jumbo jets like FedEx and China Air use when speaking to the tower, so they’ll have extra room when taking off. Our remaining 47 Heavy is, without a doubt, in charge in the yard, but there is no way she’ll ever get off the ground.

Hensense: I now know to add a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar to water or use a dropper of olive oil with a neck massage helps a chicken who may have something caught in the crop.

The Abundance of Easter

There seems to be a lot of conflicting messages surrounding Easter, what with plastic orbs hidden in planters and underneath back porches, hard boiled hen eggs festively colored and stacked in glass vases in upscale resort restaurants (by the way, Martha colors hers with nature’s own hues), chocolate eggs wrapped in foil and hung from white Manzanita branches, and chocolate shaped Easter bunnies with big ears and round tail--all juxtaposed with Easter lilies on alter steps, the clanging of church bells and girls and boys in the First Communion suits.

Easter is a big time here in the Valley of the Sun, with visitors escaping the last of their winter for a few days to golf, take in a Diamondbacks game, spa, sun and enjoy Easter tables laden with luscious cuisine. We know some lucky year-round residents in the Scottsdale area of palm trees, always-green grass and the easy resort lifestyle. They would like you to know that they do not appreciate the homage to the Easter Bunny. They do not believe in the Easter Bunny and know exactly where Easter Bunny eggs come from. Next year we plan to have an Open House around Easter and spring so that all those who are curious about where Easter eggs come from and all the other questions we get – will be able to visit and gather up some answers and a few eggs along the way.

Charlotte Druckman covered this egg-rich season in the Wall Street Journal last week. She reminds us that it is “easy to take eggs for granted. They’re always on the supermarket shelf when we need them, ready to do their part when a morning pancake craving or hangover-sandwich hankering hits.” (Or, in our case, when we ladle batter onto a hot waffle square or choose a brownie recipe which calls for three eggs.) She listed five amazing egg recipes from talented chefs.

But if you keep chickens, eggs are not taken for granted. They are each a perfect miracle of nature. Our Lizard Twins now lay every day – with a day off maybe once a week. (It’s called a “clutch” -- the number of eggs laid by one hen on consecutive days, before she skips a day and starts a new laying cycle.) Before these big Rhode Island Reds started laying, I was a hoarder. I didn’t offer eggs for breakfast very often and would never consider an omelet. With Mona still on some kind of egg sabbatical and Baby the only producer in the yard, we were rationing the few precious little white eggs we were given. All that changed when the Lizard twins cranked up the production schedule. Sometimes at 6 a.m. when I am opening the door to the roosting box, one of them meets me in the coop. “I can’t wait,” she says. “I don’t care if you are here or not, let me up there.”

We hope you’ll stay with us on the blog as these hens mature and begin to provide us with a steady stream of eggs. By this summer we should be getting four eggs most days. My friend Sue got a four-pack for Easter and I owe Debbie and Judy a fresh-egg breakfast. Ron's on the list for the new Cackle Doo compost -- which we never run out of.

As our table scrap vacuum cleaners would say on this special weekend, “Happy Eaters!”

An Early Easter Egg Greeting

Here is an early Easter greeting from all the chickens we know.... Click here: The Chicken!

Brown is the new white this season.

Spring colors took a different turn today, with the discovery of a beautiful brown egg. “It’s all the rage,” spectators commented.

The egg’s designer made the announcement, but no one was there to applaud, except Mother Nature, whose time clock is dialed in to perfection. The Lizard Twins were six months old on March 29.

The arrival of the new spring color changes more than a palette. The twin who produced first, once she reveals herself, does not get to go to Disneyland, but she has finally earned a name. She will be ONE, and her sister becomes TWO by default.

This brown hue is the perfect shade for a pair of soft leather sling-backs with a kitten heal and flat bow on the toe, don't you think?

A Touching Story

I'm sharing a wonderful story caught on the news and sent by my sister, Joyce, who says that this is our special smile for the day. It's about a goose named Maria and her boyfriend, who, having known her, no longer eats poultry. Take a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61WkeY9Jcvw Watch how she looks at the man when he speaks to her. I know our chickens know who we are. When I am in my bathroom, even if the blinds are tilted, our chickens stretch their necks SO tall so see if they can catch a glimpse of a human in the window. So sweet. But really they just want attention and food, unlike Maria, who is all about love.

Mona's Spring Break

Last week was Spring Break here. It felt more like summer, though, with the temperature up to 95 degrees. When chickens are stressed a little, they quit laying. Changes in weather can do this, so when we saw a little reduction in our egg production, I thought maybe it was the weather. To get ready for Mark’s highly-anticipated Spring Break party and do a little spring cleaning, we put Mark in charge of power washing the back patio so we could move his weight rack outside. For three days the loud buzzing of the power washer droned on (when he wasn’t “taking a break”) and the chickens were not happy. They moved their base of operation around the back of the coop, in the Outback, as we call it. Not a comfortable spot for chicken feet, rocks and warm pavement and all. Mona quit laying. Baby took a few days off, too. On the day of the party, a dozen 15 year-old boys arrived early to start the party. They zip lined over the pool. They threw each other into the pool and beat each other with pool noodles. They were loud, and their pool toys flew over the chicken yard fence.

“Chickens don’t like spring break. No eggs today,” we said.

Then the girls arrived, and the party moved to the hot tub. The chickens tiptoed along the side of their coop, like burglers, one at a time, hoping to go unnoticed. The girls squealed, “Chickens!” The hens waited until after dark – unheard of for a chicken, to go to bed. The following day it was business as usual in the chicken yard. It was a breezy day and all the noise was gone. Baby laid an egg. Mona seemed to be on strike. I read about a woman who gives her chickens milk in the afternoon to provide them with calcium. We gave them a pie pan of milk and the chickens didn’t know what to make of it. A completely white dish. Where’s the food? The meal worms? What are we looking for? They circled the pan nervously, so we added some layer. Ah, there’s the food – and with that, they became milk lovers. They all pecked at the layer and then tilted their head back and drank the cool milk. “This will surely get Mona back on schedule,” I said. But no egg. My sister Joyce told me that horses are afraid of two things; things that move and things that don’t. Chickens are afraid of everything, but like horses, they don’t like change unless it is their idea. I started thinking about why Mona was not laying. Maybe it was because we haven’t changed the hay in the roosting boxes. Now that the Lizard Twins have been taught not to roost in there, we don’t need to change it very often. Maybe Mona needs fresh hay? I walked around the Outback to the tarp where we keep our bale and lifted the corner. There were three Mona eggs. Mona hadn’t been on strike. She had just left home for a few days. She was on Spring Break.