- Celebrating their arrival!
UPDATE!: I put some photos of the new chicks up on flickr. Click the photo below to jump to the slideshow.
Category: chickens
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Eep!
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The Making of a House Logo
Not too long ago, JP approached me about crafting a House logo. His photograph (gracing our blog banner) has served as an illuminating source. Along with that photo, Housemate feedback and our fidgety chickens rallied my signature line art to paper. Voilá—communal inspiration hatches free again!
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Hens added to the flock
After our house meeting last week we mucked out the coop to get it ready for some new birds. Maggie knows a lady outside of town with roosters and hens who agreed to sell us a few full grown layers when she heard about our recent tragedy with the pitbull. After cleaning out the coop and installing some perches made out of down limbs from the yard, a few of us went chicken shopping.
These two chickens are mixes of different breeds; on the left mainly Araucana, on the right Wyandotte. The breeder had a small operation and kept all her birds together creating eclectic mixes of colors and patterns. Before we had 4 Rhode Island Reds that were pretty much indistinguishable, which left us with no answer to the common question, “What’s this one’s name?” We made a point to pick out very different looking birds and have since begun the process of observing their behavior and choosing appropriate names.
We also got around the hanging up the feed dispenser, which seems to greatly reduce waste. More about the chickens to come. To see more photos check out my flickr stream starting here.
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RIP, chickens
On Thursday, February 4th 2010, a loose pitbull entered our yard and killed six of our chickens.
Among the casualties were our alpha-hen, Ginger (pictured above), Stegasaurus, Lucille, and all of our Rhode Island Reds. The pitbull was picked up by animal control and the owners have been instructed to compensate us for the loss.
It’s hard to put into words the emotions that this incident created. We’ve lost chickens to predators and disease before, and we had plans to butcher several hens this Spring. The mental image that causes me the most sadness, all the hens watching in terror as the dog kills one after another of their flock-mates, is hard to push out of my head.
The flock is down to four chickens, three leghorns and an ISA Brown. We plan on getting more hens soon, stay tuned…
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Recent Polaroids, Polaroid Transfers
I’ve been working on polaroid transfer techniques with my 125 Land Camera and expired peel-apart film. These are my first ‘roids of La Casa. I need to acquire new (to me) film!
(The transfer of the bees photo was not particularly visually interesting. Perhaps next time.)
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“Backyard Coops Make Chicks Chic”
NPR has an article about chickens!
The comments on the article are an interesting mix of support and opposition.The article also linked to The Chicken Whisperer. He has a blog and a radio show.
“When we go to cities, a lot of times we’ll ask them, ‘Why don’t you want your citizens to lead a more self-sustaining lifestyle? Why don’t you want your citizens to save some money in this hard economic time by allowing them to raise backyard poultry?’” Schneider says. “And I’m telling you, Animal Control, I’m sure, gets way more calls from barking dogs and dogs running loose and cats than they ever have from backyard poultry.”
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Fowl Pox – Avipoxvirus, not chicken pox
About a week ago I noticed some black crud on the comb of one of our ISA browns. At first it just looked like some dirt, but then I saw it the next day and the next. I’ve read that people new to chicken keeping can get caught up in the excitement and novelty of their flock and overlook the health of the birds. I’ve been trying to avoid that mistake by routinely checking each bird and noting any apparent changes. After doing some online research and finding photographic examples of different diseases, I went out this morning to photograph the sick chicken for comparison.
The black crud went away and now there are small white lesions on both sides of her comb. This tells me that she has fowl pox, a very common viral infection in poultry around the world. From what I’ve read online there is no treatment for fowl pox and it usually runs its course in 3-5 weeks. [USDA info page] I’m going to make a call into the local Extensions office on Monday to seek advice and see if she should be quarantined form the rest of the flock. My inclination is yes, but I don’t where we’d put her at this point. Prevention through vaccination seems to be the only way to deal with fowl pox, which makes me wonder which if any of our birds were vaccinated.
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A gift in the mail – fire salt
I received a letter this morning from a longtime friend, Chris Juby.
I was hungry…
In general we are a low-sodium house, but I always put a bit of salt on my personal meals. Of course he was correct: the fire salt goes great with fresh eggs. Made of: chiles, habanero, citrus, garlic, shallots, cumin, salt, allspice, and vinegar, good on popcorn, potatoes, and eggs. Someone’s getting eggs for easter, thanks jubes! -
Urbana Chicken Effort – 5 Year Update
Lately we’ve had several revelations about chicken keeping in Urbana, IL. It started when Ronna dug up this 2004 article from the New York Times while doing research on Urbana city ordinances. The article begins, “A movement is underfoot in Urbana.” Well, this is an update on Urbana chickens 5 years later.The article titled “From City-Reared Chickens, Farm-Fresh Eggs” (10/4/2004) quotes city attorney Steve Holz (*arrested development chuckle) “There is no restriction on livestock or poultry in the city [of Urbana].” It goes on to say that “the city can take action against owners if they keep the animals in a way that hurts the health or safety of the neighborhood.” So thats it. Keeping chickens in town is %100 legit, until they become a problem.
I joined the yahoo group Urbana Chicken Effort awhile back, which I presume was the original communication tool for the “movement” that the article mentions. With 32 members signed up, the list is still used to coordinate feed and chick buying.
The other revelation occured when Heather ran into Danielle Chynoweth at the IMC. According to Danielle, our oldest chicken, Ginger, was originally owned by Molly Stentz and is estimated to be 8 years old! The 2004 NYTimes article quotes Stentz as saying, “There are so many people in my neighborhood who are doing it. It’s low-maintenance and fun.” This means that our elderly Ginger is one of the original Urbana Chicken Effort chickens, and she’s still ticking!
So, La Casa is curious to know more about the history of Urbana Chickens. How many people are keeping chickens in town these days? Do they take as many photos as us? How can we help each other and encourage more chicken cooperation? Please comment and let us know how your ladies are doing.
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chicken anatomy – the nictitating membrane
I was out snapping photos of the chickens again yesterday. I zoomed in close and used a fast shutter speed to try to capture the moment they peck at food. I captured this image:
Do you see that white thing covering her eye? It turns out that when the chickens peck at the something they actually blink too. Birds have a third eyelid called the nictitating membrane which both lubricates and protects their eyes.This nictitating membrane is between the other two eyelids and the cornea and has its own lubricating duct equivalent to our tear duct. (from here)
I feel like I learn something new about the chickens almost every day.
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Gardening only leads to more chicken photos
Today folks were relaxing in the yard.
While Kannan and JohnE dug a fresh bed. Wherever there’s fresh dirt, the chickens gotta peck at it.
(click on the picture to see it full size!)
JohnE tried to feed the chickens.
And then he did some majestic shirtless log juggling.
La Casa Grande Colectiva 