Roosting Outside

At night, when we close up the barns, we count the hens to make sure that everyone has come inside. Last night, Steve went into the Big Barn and counted… three. Out of eleven hens.

three on roost

 

It was fully dark out. This was very, very strange. Where were the girls? They were pressed together on the outside roost.

outside roost

 

My hens are not allowed to sleep outside. Raccoons rip off hawk netting. Fisher cats shred chicken wire. Weasels slip through two-inch gaps to come hunting chickens. No, outside roosts are never, ever a safe place to be at night. Chickens know this. Hens put themselves to bed. As soon as dusk begins to fall, they trot into the coop, chortle and coo, and nestle in next to their best friends on the ladders leaning against the wall.

Chickens have exceptionally good vision in the daytime, but can’t see a thing at night. They know that they are literally “sitting ducks” if caught out in the dark. And so, they go to bed early. They are never out after nightfall. So, what were my girls doing huddled on that roost? A light drizzle was falling. It wasn’t because they wanted to enjoy the summer weather.

Chickens avoid roosting inside only if there is something wrong with the coop, or if there is something threatening in there.

When it is very hot, hens avoid stifling temperatures, and so they’ll find a cooler place to roost. If that is the case, improve your coop’s ventilation and possibly add a fan. That wasn’t the issue last night.

Sometimes, without you realizing it, the coop becomes infested with mites. These usually come out of the woodwork at night and attack the flock. That wasn’t the case here, either.

Predators can scare chickens away from their roosts. Snakes take up residence. An opossum decides to nap in a nesting box. A bobcat has been pacing by the door. Again, that wasn’t why my hens were outside.

Sometimes, the design of the coop keeps the hens from going inside. One popular blueprint, available on-line, of a coop on stilts, has the ramp going into the coop from the center of the floor. Sited in the shade, the area below the coop becomes too dark for the hens to see their way inside, and so they can become stuck out in their pen all night. I’ve advised a couple of people who have had this exact issue, to cut a door on the side of the coop, and the problem was immediately solved. My girls can easily see their way inside. What was going on?

The answer was obvious. That morning I had put a new feeder inside the of the coop. Grandpa’s Feeders had asked me to try one of their models. The hens step on a lever to open it up. This prevents sparrows from getting to the feed. I have a sparrow problem, and this sounded like a good idea. My hens didn’t agree.

feeder

 

I put the feeder out-of-the-way (or so I thought!) in the corner of the coop. For the first week it is kept in the open position so that the hens learn to step up to eat. Obviously, my girls had no intention of stepping anywhere near it. In fact, that piece of metal was so terrifying that once they were outside, they daren’t come back in. Not even at night to go to bed.

One by one, I carried the girls inside.

carrying hen

 

This morning, after the sun rose, the hens had more time to eye the contraption.

scary feeder

 

They didn’t like what they saw and stayed safely at a distance, talking heatedly about the intruder.

under roost

 

I, on the other hand, think that the feeder is well-made and would be delighted if I could stop providing sparrows with laying hen pellets. I left the feeder in the corner and opened up the big door so that the girls could hurry out past it.

At some point the Gems will figure out that there is food in there. Maybe. You can guess, but you never really know what chickens are thinking.

Dead Tree Beauty

I tend to take Lily on walks through the same stretch of woodland.

Lily in woods

 

It never gets boring. It never feels the same. This week the ferns are up and lush. It’s like walking through a prehistoric landscape. As much as I like seeing the green and growing, my favorite things in the woods are the fallen logs. They become old friends, as I watch them change, host moss and lichen, and slowly disintegrate back into the forest.

log

 

If I were a textile designer, I could make a career out of creating designs inspired by lichen.

lichen

 

It’s a shame, then, that many homeowners, as soon as they see a tree with damage, call a company to have it removed.

maple

 

If a tree is hanging over your roof and threatening your home, it should be taken down. But, if the dead wood is in a place where it can fall apart, embrace the mess.

dead tree

 

I think that it adds to the texture of the landscape.

landscape

 

Yes, a dead tree hosts insects. Don’t be put off by the ants and creepy crawlies. Those are fodder for birds.

pileated woodpecker

 

Leave the unsightly tree and you just might find that you have a spectacular visitor.

pileated closeup

Pileated woodpecker

Hot Weather Preparations

Although I’m always asked about how to care for chickens in cold weather (don’t they need heat? and what about snow?) after twenty years of backyard chicken keeping, I can tell you that your flock will weather cold weather just fine. (It’s all about good coop design and management. See here.) I wish, instead, that people would ask, How will my hens do in the heat?. The answer to that is that chickens get heat stressed. When it’s too hot, and they don’t have cool water, they can die between the time you leave for work and the time that you get home. I’ve written a FAQ about hot weather care for your flock. Read it now, so that you are prepared.

Although nights here have remained cool, and we haven’t had any extreme high temperatures yet, that heat wave could come at any time. We’re prepared. Steve has put up the shade cloth. We take it down in the winter so that the hens get as much sun as possible, but it goes up in the spring. The fabric is designed to block sunlight, but let water and air circulation through. You can purchase these at home stores, or find a supplier on-line to make a custom size for you. They last for years, and it is a very good investment for your coop.

shade

 

As soon as all danger of freezing is past, provide outside waterers. Chickens would rather drink water outside in the pen than go into the coop for a drink. To keep them hydrated I keep both the inside and outside dispensers filled. The Ladies empty that plastic waterer in just two days. (The red ceramic feeder contains grit which they eat when they need it. Free-choice grit is essential for your hen’s ability to digest food.)

shade and water

 

Veronica says that all of this is quite interesting. She’s ready to sunbathe.

Veronica

Springtime Blues

Mother Nature does things on her own idiosyncratic schedule. Usually, by early June, my perennial bed is full of color. By now the peonies in the perennial bed should be opening up into showy bursts (which soon become loose, falling petals that require tidying up so that the flowers below aren’t buried in a soggy mess.) However, this year, despite the predictions that the Northeast will bear the brunt of rising temperatures due to global warming, Mother Nature is taking her time.

perennial border

 

This year she seems to prefer a limited palate. Luckily, it’s my favorite – blues that ease into the purple and red end of the spectrum.

Borage is one of the few true blue plants.

borage

 

These flowers are shot through with a smokey blue. I can’t remember what this is, and the tag disappeared over the winter. Can someone remind me?

blue flower

 

My inexpensive, fill-in-the-blanks petunias are stunning.

purple petunia

 

Although herbs taste best if you keep their blooms pinched off, I can’t do that to this Vietnamese basil. The flower is edible, but there’s so little color in the garden, that I’m leaving it there for myself to look at, and for the bees to gather nectar.

Vietnamese basil

 

There’s purple in the meadow, too, and I’ve already watched the pollinators eagerly going from bloom to bloom. Don’t discount how important clover is for bees. I have plenty, and I pull handfuls to feed to Phoebe.

red clover

 

Chives are in bloom. Without the balance of the fragrance of the peonies, my garden smells distinctly of onions.

chives

 

The salvia can always be counted on for a show all summer. How the bees and hummingbirds love it!

salvia

 

Usually, by the first week of June, the green swath of the meadow is dotted with yellow and whites of daisies, but they’re still closed up tight. However, there are tall spires of lupine bursting with purple.

lupine

 

I’m guessing that Mother Nature will pull out her pink paints next, but I could be wrong. We’ll have to wait and see.

Mt. “Healthy”

The CDC has issued a warning about a salmonella outbreak coming from Mt. Healthy Hatchery. This is the same hatchery that salmonella outbreaks were traced back to in 2012 and 2013. There are many strains of salmonella. The ones coming out of Mt. Healthy sicken humans. This time, no one died, although of the 126 reported cases, 35% ended up in the hospital. It’s serious. It’s also a problem that’s hard to fix at the source. Most of the huge mail-order hatcheries don’t actually raise all of the chicks that they sell. They are distributors for smaller producers. That’s how a company like My Pet Chicken can offer so many rare breeds. They either get in hatching eggs, or they get in the chicks and then ship them out again. With eggs and breeding stock being sourced from multiple farms, it’s just about impossible to eliminate all risk. Mt. Healthy seems to have more trouble than other suppliers at controlling salmonella. Given a choice, I’d use another hatchery when stocking my flock.

chicks in box

It’s essential to recognize that as fluffy and adorable as day-old chicks are, that they can carry bacteria. But, chicks aren’t lethal fuzzy balls. Salmonella is transmitted to humans via the chick’s manure. All you have to do to protect yourself is to:
1. Keep the brooder somewhere other than your house! Chicks kick up dust. You don’t want bacteria-laced film coating your kitchen surfaces.
2. Do NOT kiss your chicks.
3. After handling the chicks, wash your hands.
4. Dispose of manure properly. The germs die off in fresh air and sunshine. You can compost the waste in a far corner of your yard (in a container that your dogs won’t roll in!) You can bag it and throw it out.

I’ve been hearing from worried owners of chicks purchased from Mt. Healthy. (Mt. Healthy supplies many feed stores with chicks; you should always ask which hatchery the birds came from.) There’s been a lot of misinformation going around. People are being told that once infected, always infected. That you’ll never be able to integrate the Mt. Healthy chicks in with your flock. That the best thing to do is to either permanently quarantine the Mt. Healthy birds, or to cull (kill) them. Some people have been advised to cull their entire flock, since they were all exposed, and to start over! I wanted to know if there was any science behind this advice. I called the USDA. I called my state Department of Agriculture. I talked to the poultry expert, to the state epidemiologist and to the state employee who goes farm to farm, testing flocks for communicable diseases. I read the literature.

buff_Apr7

It really comes down to commonsense.

All animals carry bacteria, viruses and parasites. Good management keeps the load down so that there is minimal health risk to both the animals and their owners. Because industrial agriculture models don’t have good management – animals are crowded, stressed, and fed poorly – bacterial load can quickly escalate. One sick animal means that everyone becomes ill. These farmers use an “all in, all out” model, which is when all of the animals arrive together, are kept for a short time, and then harvested. The empty barns are disinfected, and a new flock moves in. Not only is this impossible to do in a backyard set-up, it’s unnecessary.

Most birds are carriers of one disease or another. They don’t show any symptoms, but they harbor pathogens. When stressed, they still don’t look sick, but they do shed germs. That’s why you can purchase what looks like the healthiest hen at a poultry show, bring her home, and within days, all of your other chickens become ill. If you quarantine the newcomer for about a week, hopefully she will settle in, stop shedding the germs, and she can be added safely to the flock. On the other side of things, your birds, over time, have been exposed to countless pathogens, and these germs lay in wait in the surroundings. Slowly acclimatizing new stock, including chicks, to their surroundings helps them to develop immunity.

The reason that our flocks remain healthy despite harboring all sorts of germs and creepy-crawlies is because, with good management, we can keep the load down. We do this by removing manure, sweeping away dust and cobwebs, and providing housing with ventilation Good food boosts immunity. Of utmost importance is fresh air and sunshine, which kills pathogens. Even if your chicks came with bacteria in their guts, their load will dissipate. It won’t cause a problem for them, for your older hens, or for you (although, always wash your hands after taking care of your flock!)

If I had purchased Mt. Healthy chicks, I would keep their brooder scrupulously clean. I’d wash my hands each time after handling them. As soon as possible, I would get them outside onto ground that the rest of my flock doesn’t free-range on. I’d let them grow to be big and healthy. And then I’d integrate them into my flock.

young speckled sussex