The littlest hen lays the biggest eggs

The night we killed all the roosters, Tim did everything he could to talk me into letting Big Chicken, #20, one of only two "buff" (orange) chickens live. That was the chick Tim kept sneaking into the house after the others had moved out to the barn. Big Chicken was the one to sit by the warm air vent on Tim's computer and keep him company. Big Chicken was the one to snuggle up on a reluctant and curious Tilly. Big Chicken was named such because he was nearly twice as big as the other chicks even in their first weeks of life - a tell-tale sign of being male. Meanwhile, Little Chicken, #19, the only other "buff" (orange) chick, the mini-me to Big Chicken, was the last to fit into the leg bands, weighing more than an ounce less than Big Chicken by the time they grew their first feathers (at a wee 4 ounces).

Little Chicken was always a little odd - while the other chicks grew in a round and fluffy matter, little chicken grew long and sleek. Other chicks weighing less than Little Chicken had fatter legs and feet, fitting the leg bands a week earlier than Little Chicken. Little Chicken was the first to grow a full set of wing feathers, which further accentuated the difference between the long thin bird and the fluffy, round flock-mates.

It's cheating to post the same picture twice, even a year later, but it must be done!

Here is the first batch of chickens, last year, early June.

Note the clear rooster perched on the bottom rung with a bright red comb growing. 

Also see the two orange chickens, Big Chicken on the left and Little Chicken on the right.

When it came time to kill off the extra roosters, only the two we still have looked anything like roosters - the rest looked pretty generic and indistinguishable from the hens. To pick which to kill and which to keep, we compared their growth charts - roosters are supposed to grow and develop a little faster than hens; we watched their behavior for signs of dominance - young roosters attempting to learn the chicken mating rituals; and we looked at their combs. While both roosters and hens can grow combs, the roosters tent to have big, beautiful, bright red crowns on their heads and waddles under their beaks, while the hens keep their combs more dull colors and close to their heads. In a flock of all-hens, one hen sometimes has a comb that is a little redder and fuller than the others, and takes on more of a leadership role, but that's as much as I've seen - and only when there is no rooster.

Some of the young hens last summer had almost no visible combs, while some of the young roosters clearly had bigger combs than I'd expect on even a full-grown hen. Other members of the flock were harder to tell the difference, but overall, I felt we did a good job with our sexing, and that the numbers came out to be about half the flock male and female was reassuring.

As the remaining hens and two roosters grew, my confidence in our process grew as we seemed to be right on all accounts. My fear we had accidentally killed a star-layer, mistaken for a rooster, before she had a chance was countered by the distinct lack of hidden roosters in our flock - until one day in fall. Suddenly, my smallest, most effeminate chicken was sporting something big and floppy and red off the top of it's head. It looked like a mistake that should be removed. The other chickens seemed to agree and picked at it a bit. On top of this tiny hen was a comb big enough to rival our star roosters, but flopped over and sad looking.

Suddenly I had doubts. Most strongly was the doubt that this particular bird fit into what kids these days call the "gender binary". I had yet to see crowing, particularly striking tail feathers, any sort of respectable size, or mounting, yet I also hadn't seen any time being done in a nest box, being mounted by the roosters, and there was that comb to think about. And maybe one striking tail feather starting to poke up. Chicken #19 was changed from "her" to "it" and marked for the next butchering date. Tim, desperate to save the last little yellow chick, tried to convince me of Little Chickens merits - reminiscent of the plea for Big Chicken. This time, however, Tim tried to claim that Little Chicken was the mysterious hen behind the large, round, white eggs in the hayloft of the goat barn. No evidence.

This morning, I headed down to the the barn for our morning ritual of feeding and letting everyone out, counting chicks and gathering eggs. As soon as I opened the door to the barn, the flock followed me in. If Little Chicken and Russia had elbows, they would have elbowed me out of the way. First, the big white hen jumped into the hay manger. We fed another flake of hay to the goats last night, so their cozy nest was gone. Russia circled and scratched and tried to get cozy for some laying. Little Chicken watched from her perch on the wall, squawking what sounded distinctly like "HURRY UP IN THERE! I GOTTA GO!" After a minute, Little Chicken gave up on waiting and hopped down to the hay, crawling under Russia and booting her out of the nest. Russia gave up and hopped down to the floor, protesting loudly. In under five minutes, a large, round, white egg popped out of our very little bird. I've had chickens since I was about 3 years old, but surprisingly, today was the first time in my life I have actually watched a hen lay an egg. I don't think Little Chicken even bothered to sit on the nest for a minute - more pushing and squatting than what Mama Number 9 is doing with her developing eggs.

Little Chicken on the hay-nest (They do have nice nest boxes in their own barn...)

- Side note - Speaking of those mama hens, Mama Ukraine and her three chicks have joined in the evening levitation practice, sleeping way up on the nest box shelf instead of down on the floor. I am trying to get them used to sleeping somewhere else before our December 1st hatch date when Mama Number 9 will hopefully need the good spot on the floor.

Back in the house, I added Little Chicken's latest egg to the carton and noticed that she is my dominant layer - providing a third of the eggs and being the only hen to seem to lay every day. Russia Hen, who was next onto the hay bale, gave me a tiny brown egg, making her my second most frequent layer and producer of the smallest eggs of the flock. In one glorious morning, Little Chicken has moved from the "red banded" kill list to the "green banded" long lifespan list. As the only bearer of such bright plumage, and best layer, she has proven herself to have valuable genetics, floppy comb included.

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I hate to make our family a footnote to a lengthy post on chicken gender identity, but so it goes!

Fish Expo: Ronnie posing as a fisherman, Ariel, Tim, and Joe admiring.

Tim's dad, Joe, and Joe's bride, Ronnie, returned to California yesterday after a brief visit during "Fish Expo" - the Holiday Market of Commercial Fisherman - radars and rain gear galore! Ronnie made a large batch of cookies the night before they left, but the cookies didn't even last until their departure. Thank you Ronnie for the delicious cookies!

Daniel shoveling and packing leaves, Petunia Goat helping by eating some.

Brother Daniel and his fiance, Amanda, spent today house-hunting on the mainland - hopefully they will soon have a place of their own. Yesterday Daniel got busy helping me with some manual labor around the farm - moving leaves down to the compost pile and stacking firewood by our bedroom door.

Dry firewood piled against our bedroom door. Old barn door leaning to act as a roof. 

This is the wood from the branches Dad "pruned" when we first moved in, now well seasoned.

We are looking forward visiting Tim's birth mother, Dawn, as well as Joe and Roni and meeting Roni's family, over Christmas. My parents are planing to be here, gifting us with farm and puppy-sitting for a few days while we get away. I try not to post about the future - it's cheating and not being present - but this is exciting news to share.

The last delicate flowers to survive the week of frost and remind us of spring.

Golden orbs of future

I have made a few posts recently explaining the wonders of chicken biology, and now I have some pictures for illustration. 

Our farm-sitting neighbor, Nancy, is finally home after a long trip to visit family, which meant it was finally time to open up and try the goat cheese I made over two months ago. It has a strong, goaty, good flavor, a bit like manchego cheese. We also stopped into the hen house so I could show off the mamas. 

The baby chicks are getting so big! They are rather feathered, and even ventured outside today in the below-freezing weather to peck at grass and learn about the ramp back into the house. 

Meanwhile, Mama #9 remained steadfast on her nest - warming and rotating her eggs with the utmost dedication. Unfortunately, her sisters don't seem to properly appreciate the important work she's doing and instead treat her like a nest-hog (despite the empty nest box next to her). Last time I counted, there were 14 eggs under her! And today, two more had been assimilated. A hen really shouldn't have to deal with more than 12 eggs at a time, particularly when it is below freezing out and she's a first time mama, doing everything she can to keep those babies warm. 

It seemed prudent to do what I could to lighten her work load - first removing the fake egg from her next, then marking all the eggs in the nest so fresh ones can be easily removed (and eaten), then finally "candling" each egg by waiting until dark and holing each egg against my brightest flashlight to reveal the mysteries inside. 

Fresh, empty egg - no baby growing in here!

I went through all the eggs twice a few hours apart, first with Nancy, then with Brother Daniel and Amanda, to be sure I wasn't snatching any developing babies from their mama. Mama #9 was very patient and calm as I felt around under her, drawing each egg out in turn, checking it, then moving it to under her other wing. The empty eggs we collected to take inside. 

This egg revealed a speckled shell in the light. The spots made identifying an embryo difficult. 

With the number of eggs under the mama reduced nearly in half, she can now spend more time and energy and heat caring for the fertilized eggs. The other eggs, with no signs of life, proceeded inside to phase II of testing: the float test. About half the eggs under the hen were growing and the other half were not. About half the eggs we removed were still good to eat (sunk to the bottom of the bowl of water) while the other half were not so fresh (stood on end in the water - due to a drying out egg with increased air inside the shell). The good ones we will be eating while the other four will be thrown as far as I can off the cliff.

Veins and an eye spot showing through the shell - sure signs of future life!

Seeing into the unborn shell of the chick was magical - like a chicken ultrasound but instead of looking at a screen with a scratchy image of the baby-to-be, looking through the eggs we could see the actual babies moving around, active in their shells only a week (or less) into their three-weeks of shell-bound growth. I didn't realize how much they would be moving about inside their shells, kicking their not-yet grown feet, flapping their undeveloped wings, and maybe looking back at the bright light with their newly-forming eyes. 

I am hopeful and excited for the December 1st hatch, though I made a point of not counting my chicks before they hatch. Less than 14, more than 3 eggs under her now - and a to-be-determined number of chicks in the future. 

To give a quick update on our current Honeymoon Point Census, we now have Grandpa, Tim, Ariel, Brother Daniel, Soon-to-be-sister Amanda, Father Joe, Mother-in-law Ronni, Tilly Puppy, Oliver Pig, Petunia and Esther Goats, 2 roosters, 11 hens, 1 androgynous chicken, 3 chicks, many eggs - and Daniel and Amanda's 4 bunnies (and, of course, all our spider friends living in the corners). With Joe came a very special birthday present for Tim which Joe has been traveling with for the last few months.

This picture doesn't do it justice, but Tim was making the most delighted face I have ever seen on him.

Tim now has a miniature metal lathe/mill machine, the perfect miniature counterpart to his larger machine, only about 4% of the size - I did the math and it really is about 4% of the size of the other machine, no exaggeration. Tim's large machine is as large as he could imagine ever needing for all our projects, though it struggles with the tiny precision of amateur rocket nozzles and some of his other projects. This miniature lathe is just the thing for those fine finishing touches, and even works with some of Tim's tools and accessories that were just a little small for the big machine.

Winter

The first morning of grass crunching as I walk,
Each step breaking through the top layer of frost.
The first morning of greeting the chickens,
By breaking apart the layer of ice on their water.

Too late to plant garlic - none for next year.
Too late to dig steps - it will wait for next year.
Too late to grow lettuce - they'll die off 'till next year.
Too late to turn compost - it will settle for the year.

This is the time for sewing, repairing, mending, making.
The season of baking, warming the house and bellies.
Now I can clean, organize, unpack, decorate.
The quiet indoor time of year.

Trying to get through the last of the fall chores before winter, I spent Monday spreading the left-over barn sand in the chicken run - covering the slimy, slick layer of mud and getting the sand off the dying grass. Tuesday, Daniel ran the leaf-blower over the property as Tilly and I stood suited up for helicopter training with eye, ear, and body protecting, practicing around the loud noise, fuel smells, high wind and flying debris. She was stoic as always. Then Amanda and I dug up the remaining half of the potatoes - about 5 gallons! I estimate we harvested about 10 gallons total this year and I am hopeful next year will be even more spectacular on the potato front, though we will have nothing but Safeway powdered garlic to put on them. Last year, I planted the garlic just before Thanksgiving I think, but this year it is already freezing out. The garlic is supposed to have three weeks frost free to get established before winter but I might be too late. If it warms up sufficiently today, I may haul a couple wheelbarrows full of potato dirt onto a garden bed and plant some garlic anyway - hope for the best. Also against mid-November policy - Monday I noticed a second hen spending a little too much time in the next box. I put two extra eggs in the box next to her and she quickly gathered them into her warm feathers. It looks as if we may be having December 1st chicks if she has any success. It's not the ideal time of year to start a family, but who am I to tell her what to do!?

While digging potatoes, we uncovered this little guy trying to stay warm in the pile and rather fat from all the bugs down there with him. Our potato patch has the happiest looking worms, bugs, and now lizards I have ever seen.

I'm thinking today might be the day to start wearing my fleece pink-elephant pajamas under my clothes. It might be the day to move as much firewood as possible into the new firewood shelter by our bedroom door and keep a fire going for the next 4 months or so. Eventually I still need to clean the goat barn for winter but... maybe after I build a fire.

Light

Daylight savings time came into effect as we were camping with our friends Mike, Holly, and Zakariah at our favorite spot in Galena. Camping is a great way to make the transition in sleep schedule as we tend to go to sleep incredibly early in the woods and wake up as soon as it is light out - particularly when it is rainy, dark, and cold in November. Brother Daniel and Amanda stayed behind to look after the farm for the weekend and missed out on the two hour hike over steep, muddy woods and across hard pavement. We brought three tents with us - two super high quality four season tents and one $20, 20 square foot summer children's tent. We set all three tents up on the same sandbox platform, touching nearly wall to wall.Tim and I fitted our rain fly to our tent, but neglected to stake out the ends as it wasn't so windy and wet and cold - why bother?

In the morning, I opened my eyes and looked up at a little puddle suspended above our heads. I poked it gently and water flowed out of the pouch and onto our faces. Well, I was about ready to get up anyways! A little cold water on your face is a great motivate to go build that fire and leave the equally wet and cold and sleepy husband. From the outside, I could see the problem; the rain fly had sagged, touching the tent and making a little cup for water to accumulate. I pulled the end of the rain fly out to where it should have been staked for contrast. The puddle flowed off the tent and hopefully down the side, hopefully not on to Tim's face. I did not hear yells, so I assumed all was well and went to start the fire.

Back on the farm, the meaning of Daylight Savings took effect. I hear Daylight Savings was invented to help the farmers somehow but as a farmer, I'm not seeing it. Before the change of Time, I would wake up around 7, help Tim get ready for work, have breakfast, then see to the animals as he left for work around 8. Now I must leap out of bed and rush to let the chickens and other animals out as early as possible, then get back in to help with the human-morning things and Tilly will be awake by then and need to go out, all before 8. I squeeze what used to be the 7am to 9am routine into the hour before 8 or suffer waking up at what is now 6 and was 7 before Daylight Savings struck. I am searching for the advantage and not finding it. I suppose if I planned to get up at 6 either way, the extra light may be an advantage, though that's not the way farming works. The animals consult the sun, not the clock, on when to get up. Being young adult, going to bed by 10pm to wake up at 6am, even on a Friday night, just makes me weird. If I were designing the clock for the farmers, I would put sunrise around 8 or 9 am year round, and let sunset fall a little later in the day - then all my friends (husband) would go to bed shortly after sunset and wake up around sunrise and all would be well in the world with a unified schedule for the night-owls and the farmers. Also, who's going to complain about a rooster that starts crowing at such a reasonable hour as 9am?

Our littlest chickens are starting to grow their own little feathers, which hopefully will be keeping them warm and dry on these wet, cold days. Moving here from Alaska, we are forbidden from ever complaining that the weather is gloomy or gray when there are "only" patches of blue sky or intermittent rain. I've been watching for warm, sunny, dry days to try to encourage Mama hen and her three wee chicks to venture outside. So far no luck. Some days have had a spot of sun, only to start heading towards dusk at 1 pm, before the dew has time to dry. Other days have been so windy and rainy it would be cruel to do anything but close up as many windows and door as I can for the poor little critters and maybe throw some extra bedding in for warmth.

Thursday was a particularly blustery day, granting us with a 12+ hour power-outage. Even when the avalanches wiped out miles of power-lines in Juneau from the city to the hydro-power-plant, the city generators were up and running with the power back on in a matter of only a few hours. Here, wind knocked over trees and branches, cutting power to counties all over Washington and areas all over our island. I heard the power crew had to come from off-island to do the repairs (guaranteeing an hour or more before work can even get started). After a few hours without electricity, including the well's water pump, the internet, or our cell-signal booster for phone service at the house, I started to worry about our 100 pounds of sockeye salmon fillets filling the freezer. I made some desperate calls and found a generator to borrow to keep the food cold and was so grateful to have such good neighbors.

Our closest neighbor, however, still had power. The house that was built as a mother-in-law to this one, sharing a property, a well, and a driveway - that house had power. We were the last house in line without power; on the cutoff between power coming from Freeland and power coming from Greenbank. Unfortunately, our neighbor wasn't home and our houses seem to have been built before exterior outlets were invented or we may have been running extension cords between the houses.

Our relatively short time with limited electricity (thanks to the generator and Tim's great wiring skills) was a good reminder of how fortunate we are to have electricity and how dependent we are on it for so many things - even our water. When we are camping, we are choosing to put ourselves away from power and are ready for it - plus only crazy people go camping when it's dark and windy and rainy and cold in November! When the power goes out unexpectedly, we find ourselves at a sudden loss - figuring out where to get a generator and if it will power the microwave to make a TV dinner and going out to a diner still operating with heat and light and music and hot foods.

BIRTH! LIFE! HATCHING!

Stay tuned for many more updates and pictures this week.

Our hen is a mother! Last night we discovered 3 chicks: two black chicks and a grey chick. The mama hen is white, so it looks like she might be a surrogate mama to all three.

Mama hovering over her little peepers

We were really beginning to think she was sitting on duds and debating how much longer to wait before throwing out rotting eggs. A few days ago in a brief moment of having her off the nest to get food and water, I used my headlamp to peer inside the eggs. By holding the eggs against the headlight, the egg becomes somewhat transparent and I can check for signs of life. I didn't get through checking them all, but of the eggs I checked, at least two seemed solid and dark while the others let light readily through with little shadowing. I did the same with a store egg in the fridge for comparison and found those to also light up translucent when pressed against the headlamp. From this I decided only a few were even possibly developing and near hatching - I was right!

Unhatched clutch

I am left with a decision about what to do with the unhatched eggs. I don't think my curiosity is great enough to crack them open to see how they are inside, nor do I have the fortitude to eat them. According to the Encyclopedia of Country Living, a rotten egg can be distinguished by the tough inner membrane if you venture to crack it, a distinctive smell, and it will float in water. According to the float test, I have 5 rotten eggs and one "stale" egg (standing on end, just barely touching the bottom). If I was desperate and starving, I'd go for egg #6, but we're not. We will either throw them as far out towards the ocean as possible, or shoot them that way with the potato gun and let the seagulls and fish have a stinky treat.

Broken shells left behind by little chicks

The magic of chicks:
From getting my first hens in preschool, I've always faced a lot of confusion and questions from the people around me about chickens and eggs and the who "birds" part of "the birds and the bees". I will do my best to explain the common questions I've heard.

Chickens are supposed to start laying between 20-24 weeks old, though chicks born in spring tend to start laying sooner but less fertile eggs, less steady eggs, and smaller eggs (what we have now). Chicks born later in the summer tend to not lay until the next spring, but then lay larger eggs more consistently. There is no comment in there about chicks born in the end of October! Hopefully these little ones will make it through the winter with their novice mama.

Once hens start laying, they lay an egg nearly ever day (~255/365) with or without a rooster... just like how human women produce eggs with or without a man. The difference with a rooster is that the eggs may have the potential to develop if sat on and such. Both fertilized and unfertilized eggs are equally good to eat, and as far as I know, the only way to tell the difference is to put them in an incubator.

The hen in theory lays her first egg first thing in the morning, then each day lays her egg about an hour later until 12 or so days later when she lays her final egg right before bed, then will stay on the nest through the night and for the next 3 weeks until they hatch. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Often the hens will all use the same nest box as they have the instinct to lay their egg where there already is an egg to 'add to the clutch'. I designed my nest boxes so two hens can actually share and lay at the same time, though generally they don't all have the need to lay at just the same moment. In our modern world, going "broody" or having the impulse to stop laying and sit on the eggs for the next 3 weeks, then plan to raise some chicks and thus not lay another egg for quite a long time, has been virtually bred out of chickens to increase egg production. I have gone to lengths to find chickens that still have their natural instincts intact and am committed to letting them do what nature does without too much intervention from me. If the chicks make it, excellent! If not, hopefully it will be good practice for her and next time she'll be an even better mother.

So once Mama Ukraine, my good white hen there, saw the pile of eggs her sisters had laid over the last three days about, she decided it was time to start sitting on those eggs. Because the chickens are young, and it is winter, and the roosters don't have all their smooth moves down yet, I was afraid all the eggs might be duds - no babies. But Mama Ukrane was diligent. In theory, she carefully turned each egg every couple hours, turning them over and switching which eggs are in the middle and which are on the outside for even incubating. She slept on the eggs, spent most of the day on the eggs, and was very calm and sedated to conserve energy for her long work ahead. Each day, she took a quick break to run outside, get a drink and some food, and stretch her legs before rushing back to the eggs. I felt the eggs every time she was off the next and they were always still toasty warm from her body heat. I provided Mama Ukraine with a little cup of food and water in her nest box with her to try to help her keep her energy up. Chickens have a higher-than-human body temperature which helps them fight infections yet, coincidentally, means the eggs are incubated at about human body temperature; this means a well-endowed woman could carry an egg 'close to her heart' for three weeks and hatch a chick if she was very careful and dedicated. If I had the proper equipment, you can bet I would be trying it.

As we got closer to the hatch date, and it looked like Mama Ukrane was really set on hatching those eggs, I waited until late one night when she was the most calm and settled in, then had Tim help me lift the specially designed nest boxes off the shelf and onto the floor so her chicks wouldn't fall when they hatched. I also waited until she was off her nest to get food and water one day, then used my headlamp to 'candle' the eggs as described above. If I was really dedicated, I could have brought a few into the house at a time and held them up to the projector light in a dark room and may have been able to see veins developing in the chick embryos. I was more interested in getting a vague idea if there was any hope of eggs hatching while disturbing the nest and risking the eggs as little as possible. The result was quickly checking a sampling of eggs and going with "dark" or "light" inside. If I was clever, I would have marked the good ones from the bad ones, maybe even slowly smuggling out the bad ones one at a time to focus her love on the good ones. As it happened, I just got out of the hen house as quick as possible so as not to bother the poor expectant mother more than necessary.

Now that the chicks have hatched, Mama Ukraine promptly abandoned the unhatched eggs and went about protecting her new chicks. When all is quiet, the chicks will explore around their mama, running and hopping on their first day of life like our mail-order chicks did at a week old. When something disturbs the hen house (me), Mama Ukraine sweeps in and plops herself down over her chicks, keeping them warm and safe. I have put out baby-sized food and water containers with protective fencing around to keep the big birds from knocking them over. I also put the adult water up high to keep the little ones safe from drowning and put a foot-high board across the bottom of the hall to the outside to keep those chicks safe in the hen house and out of the rain and mud. I am afraid if they go out, they won't be able to get back up the ramp to the house, and it is quite cold and wet out there.

The Bunny Room

Brother Daniel, Amanda, and their four bunnies; Bruce, Lady, Gus, and Baby (? I think. Can't remember the fourth name) are on their way here through Canada. Leaving Juneau on the 14th or 15th, they should be here in just a few more days despite the snow, darkness, and caribou of Canada. When we did the drive, it took about 4 days driving all day long in summer when the days were quite long and the roads less treacherous. When they finally get here, We'll have a happy surprise and some pieces of home with their snugly bunny room all set up. To clarify - this is not Daniel and Amanda's room, but indeed Bruce, Lady, Gus, and Baby's room. I've fortified the door with an extra baby gait to keep Tilly out of the sacred space. It helps that she's a bit afraid of the clunky metal thing ever since Tim shook that piece of metal at her while saying "Woo woo!" Hopefully the bunnies will like their new room with hopping-level snugly spaces. I've been working on some designs for custom 4-plex bunny hutches for their new apartment and coming up with cost comparisons with buying pre-made cages. We are so excited to have the siblings down and staying, especially just before a certain husband of mine's birthday.  We are sure to have fun playing board games, card, and maybe Tim and I can even leave for a weekend knowing Oliver will be well cared for in our absence. We've got to take advantage of every opportunity at farmsitters.

Commissioned Officer Tilly

At our last Search and Rescue group meeting, the group decided on a logo they liked from my designs. Also, a few representatives from the Sheriff's office came by to snuggle the puppies, talk to us about crime scenes, and pass out badges - to the dogs. I am just some volunteer who follows Tilly about and runs the radio and GPS for her non-opposable paws; but Tilly! Tilly is a commissioned officer! If I get kicked, they will give me a bandaide and it will hurt. If Tilly gets kicked, it's assaulting an officer!