Meet the new chickens

March 19, 2024 Elizabeth Boegel

Last Friday, I picked up these four chickens from our local feed store. I ordered them from Dare2Dream Farms in Lompoc, which is where I’ve gotten many of our chickens over the years. They delivered them to the feed store for a small fee, I met their van at the appointed time, the chickens were boxed up for me, and I brought them home.

I installed them in a large dog crate made of wire mesh, that we bought years ago expressly for this purpose. Tom sets this crate up in the coop, underneath the hen house. I line it with straw, add a waterer and feeder, and then that’s the new chicken home for a few days. They can see out, the old chickens can see in, everyone has a chance to get used to each other before being thrown into a turf war.

Best practices dictate that you isolate the new chickens for a period of weeks to make sure they have no infections, but I just don’t have the capacity for that, either space-wise or brain-wise. I trust the farm where we got them, I know they’ll have plenty of fresh air and good food in our garden, and my old chickens are, well, old. One of them is showing signs of being egg bound and is likely not long for this world anyway, and the other is extremely robust.

It’s the robust chicken (Florence, a Plymouth Barred Rock) that made me order these new chickens to add to our flock. Chickens don’t like to be left alone, and Florence was destined for that. If I had introduced new chickens to the coop and Florence was the only one there, she would be pecked mercilessly. This way, the odds are better. The old chickens bully the young ones, but there are more of the young ones and so the ratio works out.

Anyway, they were all separated for a couple of days; it probably should have been longer, but I am always impatient to get the cage match out of the way. So Sunday night, after dark, Tom and I lifted the young chickens up into the hen house and put them on the bars to roost. The next morning everyone came down together, and while I can’t say they are bosom friends, everyone is mostly getting along.

The new chickens are not quite old enough to lay, but we should be getting lots of fresh eggs starting in a month or so. Yay for spring frittatas!

Oh, I forgot to say: We named these chickens after characters in a show we watch on PBS: Call the Midwife. It’s a great show, with nuns and nurses all tending to the women of post-war East End London. If you’ve seen it, you’ll know what I mean when I say the chicken’s essential characteristics seem to exactly match those of the show’s characters. Sister Monica Joan the character is a bit perplexed; so is Sister Monica Joan the chicken. Sister Julienne and Shelagh are best buddies and both very gentle. Trixie preens a lot and is a bit forceful. We are enjoying finding new appropriate names each time we get new chickens.

the Garden in March

March 2, 2022 Elizabeth Boegel

South Garden, from the sidewalk, with the pollinator garden in the forefront

As you know, I’m teaching an Urban Agroecology course this Spring at Merritt College. Part of this course is a lecture, where we are learning the theory and ideas behind different kinds of agriculture/methods of growing. Part of it is hands-on, learning these concepts physically in laboratory. For this portion of the course, I decided the students and I would rebuild an abandoned garden on the property of the Environmental Center at the far end of campus. This whole area was neglected for years, but slowly and surely my little team is making an enormous difference in the space. Today was a banner day, as we finally got three cubic yards of soil delivered, and were able to fill all our raised beds and transplant all the seedlings we started back at the beginning of the term.

As we were happily planting (why is planting so much fun? why does it make our hearts so glad? There is a mystical side to gardening which is hard to quantify), some of my students were asking questions about how certain veg grows, particularly heading vegetables. (Some of my students have a lot of gardening experience, and others have none. This diversity of knowledge is one of the strengths of our group.) In the course of our discussion, I promised to take some pictures of my little farm to share; then I realized that I haven’t shared this kind of thing here on the blog in ages, and maybe my readers would also be interested.

Top row, left to right: Fennel growing through the fence, cabbages which we have been shredding and sautéing like greens, cilantro growing everywhere, and rainbow Swiss chard.

Middle row, left to right: The last of the broccoli going to seed, shelling peas, Russian Frills kale, and one of the garlic beds (with cilantro).

Bottom row, left to right: Oregano starting to regrow, rosemary blooming, the artichoke plants getting big, and the carrots nearly ready to harvest.

In the North Garden, where I plant tomatoes every year (it being the sunniest space I have during the hotter months), I decided to have a cover crop over the winter, to improve soil tilth, water-holding capacity, available nutrients, and soil biology. I seeded (in October) a mix of rye and crimson clover. These are going gangbusters, and many other interesting plants have also germinated here - the ubiquitous cilantro, but also blue flax (Linum lewisii), common speedwell (Veronica persica), and borage. Every so often I tear some of this out to give to the chickens, and in a month or so I will chop it all down, taking care not to disturb the roots (letting those rot in place), and use it as mulch for the tomatoes. If it regrows, so much the better, as it will provide a living mulch. I doubt it will last long, though, once the weather gets hot. Tomatoes go in the ground the first weekend of May, so I’ve got time to let it grow yet.

The flowers that are blooming are mostly native, things like ceanothus, ribes, and manzanita. The verbena ‘de la mina’ is getting ready to bloom, too. Bulbs are popping up all over the place, and my pansy ‘wall’ has looked great all winter.

The fruits are starting to wake up. Quince blooms earlier than the other fruit trees, and provides a beautiful and leafy cover for the chickens in their run. Huckleberries and blueberries have put out their bell-shaped blossoms, and remind us that berry season isn’t far away. And this photo of the lemon tree is reminding me to put up juice before the fruit rots on the tree!

I started my pepper seeds late though this light rack has been in use for a while now - first it was warming a batch of peppers for the school garden. Now it’s finally got ours, and as soon as they germinate and get potted up and out in the greenhouse, it’ll be time for tomatoes!

The chickens are doing great, all are laying well, and are providing us at least one dinner a week. Below you can see the makings of tonight’s meal - an egg salad on homemade pita bread.

I’d love to know how your gardens are doing. It finally feels, here in California at least, like spring is well on the way!

Who's Eating the Eggs?

May 25, 2021 Elizabeth Boegel

Almost every day these past two weeks, when I go out to put the chickens up for the night, there is an egg that’s been eaten. Nothing left but some slime, maybe a bit of shell. The other eggs are untouched - beautiful and perfect (if sometimes a little dirty).

If I make an effort to go out and collect them during the day, nothing has been eaten - so this event seems to happen at dusk. We wondered: Was one of the chickens getting into the habit of eating the eggs? And if so, why was the shell also gone? Would they eat the entire thing?

I had definitely been noticing some rat activity in the coop, especially around dusk. I no longer keep the chicken food in the coop - I keep it out in the run, so that if a rat wants it, they’ll have to brave being out in the open to get it (owls and hawks, where ARE you???). At night, I bring it inside. I keep the water outside in the run at night, too, though it’s in the shady part of the coop during the day. I decided that it was rats eating the eggs. They were crawling up the ladder (a flat piece of wood, basically) into the coop and gobbling it up, right before the chickens started making their way up to go to bed. The chickens don’t really use the ladder - they fly in and out of the coop instead - so I removed the ladder entirely. This seemed to stop the egg problem and I was patting myself on the back.

Then one night I waited until later than usual to go get the eggs and shut in the chickens, and darn it! An egg eaten. My working hypothesis was, and still is, that rats had figured how to get up into the roost without the aid of the ladder. They are canny little buggers.

However….

I found this in the coop this morning. Not up in the roost, but down on the ground, dead. Stretched out to its full length, it was probably about a foot. So a small snake, then, and it had clearly eaten something before expiring.

You may recall that we found a sharp-tailed snake under a brick in our garden last year. I believe this dead snake is the same kind. To be sure, I wrote to Gary at California Herps and asked for verification. He’s always so responsive and helpful when I have a lizard or snake question. Here’s a copy of our conversation:

Me: Hi Gary, I found this snake dead in our chicken coop. If stretched out, would be about a foot long. The only snakes I have ever seen in our garden are sharp-tailed. Do you think this is also a sharp-tailed?

Gary: Hi Elizabeth. From the size, the scales, the tail, what look like dark bars on the underside, and your past history, it could be a sharp-tailed snake. There are three other species of similar-looking small snakes in your area, but they don't have the blunt tail with a sharp tip that this one appears to have. All of them eat small invertebrates and small mammals but I don't think any of them would pose a threat to your chickens. The larger snakes in your area - gophersnakes, rattlesnakes, whipsnakes, racers, and kingsnakes - might try to eat chicks and maybe eggs, but I don't think they would try to eat adult chickens.

Me: Thanks Gary! I really appreciate your expertise. I’m not worried about the chickens, but we have had something predating on the eggs.... I can’t imagine this little guy could have managed that though. I assumed he was eating slugs. We also have some huge rats, so I would very much like some bigger snakes in our garden! I’ve been trying to attract them for years, so it’s exciting to see some activity finally.

Gary: The subject of the possibility of snakes in California preying on chicken eggs came up recently when I read an article about a rat snake in the east that ate a golf ball that was put in a chicken coop to encourage egg laying. There are no rat snakes in California, but gopher snakes and California king snakes have been known to eat birds eggs and chicks, and could probably prey on chicken eggs.

Well, as you can imagine, I found that exchange fascinating. I still don’t think this little guy is eating the eggs, but WHY was it in the coop? And what WAS it eating (could it handle baby rats???)? How did it die? And are there other snakes in our garden that I’ve just not seen? As usual, the answer to a question begets more questions.

Time to set up the wildlife camera in the coop, to record both day and night. We can answer a few questions that way, one of them being, who is eating the eggs? I love a good mystery.

Pine Siskins and Bird Feeders

March 13, 2021 Elizabeth Boegel

We’ve had this bird feeder in active use for a couple of years now; Tom made a place for it to hang on the corner of the chicken coop, so that any fallen seed would get eaten by our chickens rather than sprouting and making more work for me. We have just been delighted by the activity that the feeder has brought to our yard. At dawn, when I go outside to let the chickens out of their run, I also fill the feeder. All the neighborhood birds are in the nearby oak and pine trees, waiting for me. They watch me fill the feeder, and then they descend, even though I am right there working in the chicken coop. I guess they are used to me now!

There seems to be a hierarchy of birds in the order they feed; the house finches are often first, followed by the goldfinches, and then later on I notice chickadees and titmice getting taking a turn. Often times, a row of birds will sit on the fence that borders the chicken run. They chatter and sing and it’s a wonderful sound throughout the morning. The feeder is usually empty by early afternoon, with a stray bird visiting to get the last few seeds.

All of the sparrows, the migratory golden-crowned, white-crowned, and song sparrows, tend to forage on the fallen seeds below, ducking and weaving around the chickens. This morning I noticed a Bewick’s wren (usually an insect-eater) at the feeder. We’ve also had pine siskins in droves all winter. They are harder to spot because they look a lot like finches, and in fact, they are in the finch family.

In late January, we had two separate instances of a solitary pine siskin resting in our pots. Both times, the birds looked cold - feathers puffed up, a slight shivering or shaking in their bodies, breathing hard, and not at all afraid of us coming close. We thought they were baby birds fledging and did not want to intervene. The bird above looked especially cold, and both Tom and I went by it at separate times, wondering if we should move it into the sun. But we each decided, individually, to leave it alone. It was right by our back door so we were going past it all day. Eventually, Tom went out to check on it and found it dead. We were both so mad at ourselves at the time because we could have easily moved it into the sun. We thought it was our fault that the bird had died. Sometimes it’s hard to know what to do when you see an animal in distress.

But, it turns out, this was part of a much bigger problem that neither of us knew about until this past week. Apparently, there has been a Salmonella outbreak here this winter, which is affecting all members of the finch family, but especially pine siskins. Bird feeders and common gathering areas are to blame. The bacteria gets into the feces of the birds, and can then be spread easily near where the birds congregate. The advice from the California Department of Fish and Game is to take down any bird feeders and allow the congregation to stop. I want to comply, but there are an awful lot of birds who depend on our feeder right now, and I’m not sure taking it down is in their best interest.

So yesterday, I went to our local nature store (East Bay Nature), the place where I get my seed mix for the feeder, and asked the owner (Joanie Smith) what she thought. She said this information is not new, the disease and decline of finches has been going on for quite some time (and in fact we never get American goldfinches anymore like we used to, but that’s a discussion for another time and is related to climate change). However she feels that it’s not a good idea to take down the feeder now, since the pine siskins are migratory and are leaving for their summer breeding grounds (Canada), and there are so many other birds who are depending on the seed now.

Speaking of the migration of siskins, this year has seen an especially large one, called an irruption. What’s especially notable about this year’s irruption is that the birds migrated at night. Migration at night is a process that is still not fully understood; a study published in PNAS a couple of years ago found that migratory birds have something in their eyes called cyrptochromes which have evolved a mechanism which enhances their ability to respond to light, which enables them to sense and respond to magnetic fields. Pretty cool.

You might be wondering, as I have been, if any of these infected droppings have affected our chickens. The thing is, chickens live with Salmonella all the time, as we humans do. Our systems are usually able to handle and process and remove any of this bacteria from our systems. My flock seems healthy and well, laying eggs like crazy, eating and moving about as normal, so I do not think they are ill. Meanwhile we are still eating their eggs regularly. It’s also likely that, since we haven’t seen a sick or dead bird for over a month, this disease has passed on and away from here. However I will take precautions: I will be extra diligent about cleaning the bird feeder for a while, and we will cook all eggs before we eat them.

Distracted by Spring

March 3, 2021 Elizabeth Boegel

I had a lovely email from a reader this morning, inquiring after our health and wanting to make sure we are okay. This made me realize that I haven’t written since mid-February, so here’s a quick check in just to assure all of you that yes, we are well! Here’s my short report.

School and Work: Incredibly busy right now. Tom’s up to his eyeballs in work and I’m similarly occupied with projects and writing. I am taking a very full load in order to graduate the end of this calendar year (fulfilling a dream I’ve had for my entire adult life!). I’m also having some existential debates over getting a job vs. going on to get a Masters Degree. Meanwhile, I’m very distracted by the weather and the sunshine which is constantly calling me away from my computer, which brings me to…

Health: I know I wrote about our journey to better health and resiliency last December. Tom and I have both prioritized this, which means that much of our free time is spent meeting our activity goals. It’s easy this time of year, with mild temperatures and green hills motivating every step. Soon it will be so hot and dry that we’ll have to make sure we get our exercise in before 9 am, but while it’s so beautiful, we both are getting outside as much as we can.

Kids: It’s crunch time for our daughter Rin, who is a senior in high school and is making big college decisions, so a lot of time is being spent discussing and weighing pros and cons and figuring out next steps. Adam is still safely at Cal Poly, alone in a dorm room, on a computer all day. He’s looking forward to coming home for spring break and cooking!

Garden: We are eating fresh peas, kale, arugula, and asparagus most days of the week. Last night, as we were shelling peas and popping them straight into our greedy mouths, Tom mused that nothing tastes like spring more than fresh peas. I concur! My pepper starts are ready to be planted on, and instead of moving them into 4” pots, I think I’m going to try transplanting them directly into their summer locations and covering them with fleece to keep the birds and the morning chill off of them. It’s a bit cold at night, yet, but I think it might work. I’ll report back. This weekend I will also be starting tomato seeds indoors! Exciting times. The chickens are producing lots of eggs now that the days are longer, and at least one of our meals every week consists of a frittata, which is one of our favorite spring dinners. Tom is also making ice cream several times a week with the beautiful yolks. The bees are extremely busy collecting pollen and raising brood.

Irrepressible energy: One of the biggest benefits from our ongoing health journey is that we feel about twenty years younger, and our moods are super high. Even with all the stress, we are happier than we’ve been in a long time. I usually have some sort of seasonal depression over the winter, which always knocks me sideways. There wasn’t a hint of that this winter.

So, my friends, all is well here, and we hope the same for you and yours. Look for more garden-inspired posts as the weather continues to improve!

(And Juliana, thanks again for checking in with us. You’re so kind!)