Hens, Sweet Hens, At last!

Yesterday, at 9:36 am, a call from the post office marked the kick-off of The Urban Chicken Project, 3.0. After 2 unsuccessful attempts at hatching chicks from fertilized eggs, this spring, we have taken an alternate route to accomplish our mission of having fresh eggs. We ordered pullets (young female chickens) from a farm found online. www.hodgesfarms.net

I have avoided ordering live chicks because most hatcheries mandate an exorbitant minimum order requirement (24 chick for some)

Debra, at Hodges Farm, responded to my request to purchase only 6 with a kind and accommodating, "yes."

6 is still 4 more than the number that I am aiming for, but since these are "rare" Heritage breeds, I hope to find eager adoptive families (crazy, hobby farming families like ourselves) for the hens we can't keep.

For anyone considering ordering live birds, here is what you need to know:

• Shipping is a fortune!
• It doesn't work like when one orders a pair of shoes from Nordstroms or a CD box set on Amazon - your postman doesn't leave them on the porch swing.
• Communication with your shipper is important!

Debra emailed notice on Tuesday to say that the chickens had shipped. Wednesday morning, the post office called to say they had live birds, in a box behind the front counter, waiting to be picked up. I could here the chicks peeping in the background. Fortunately, I was able to immediately run over and pick them. They were shipped in a most fascinating box designed specifically for the transportation of live birds.

The boxes are USPS approved Bio-Secure shipping boxes.

Inside each single stall shipper were 3 exquisite fowl. This was better than Christmas! I love them at first sight. The package contents were as follows:

• 1 Black Copper Maran
• 1 Blue Copper Maran
• 2 Splash Marans
• 2 Blue Laced Red Wyandottes

If you have an interest in bird variety, you can appreciate the delicate and intricate traits of these birds. They look hand-painted. They seem to vary in age, clearly I have little experience here, but I am guessing they range from 5-8 weeks. The black and blue maran are the most mature looking.

I placed them all in the coop with fresh water and chick mash in our bird feeder. Then set about my busy day, pining for their company

It has been an interesting 24 hours. This experience is VERY DIFFERENT from hatching chicks. I have more empathy for Torry Hansen – the Tennessee mother who sent her 7-year-old adopted Russian child back to Moscow. That would be a harsh and extreme comparison. I am not saying there is anything psychologically (or physically) wrong with these pullets, nor that I am about to ship them back (at a shipping cost of $67, absolutely not!), but they are different from my other children, I mean chicken. They don't want to come out of the coop and eat the vegetable garden. I have soaked bread in milk, offered up cooked peas and rice and these birds express no interest in my cooking.

They actually sit in their nesting boxes. They don't like to be held. They don't run up as I approach. Its like they are ferrel farm animals or suffer from fetal alcohol syndrome. If one of these pullets threatened to set the house on fire, I probably would walk them down to Thatcher Woods and let them find their way home.

I can actually understand why Carol, in Warrenville, was willing to take all 3 of our roosters. Quicky, Fluffy and Santa Claus had been hand fed and loved with all our hearts. They were healthy and brimming with personality. Fluffy loved to watch tv and Santa Claus' favorite perching place was on top of our Webber grill.

Our 6 unnamed, new chicks, had a mother who, well... was a chicken. They have probably been living in a coop, instead of a living room or kid's play house, for their whole lives.

I am hopeful that over the next 5-8 weeks of the live of these young hens, they will start to relax and realize that its ok to let their feathers hang down and run around. I am anxious to see their personalities bud. Most of all, right now, I am quite happy that they aren't eating my garden.

Where the Rooster Roosts

Quicky the Rooster

Our chickens are now 4 months old and it no longer takes a chicken-sexing expert to tell us the gender of our chickens. We have confirmed the presence of a rooster in our brood. So has our neighbor, from 3 blocks away. I am not sure if it is simply the novelty of the sound, but I really like the rooster's crow. (In contrast to the blown-out base in the hip-hop that often bellows off of Chicago Avenue.) Surprisingly, roosters not only crow at the crack of dawn but throughout the entire day. The media definitely does not paint an accurate portrayal of rooster behavior. Quicky seems particularly talkative at 7:55 a.m., which happens to be the morning drop-off for school. Parents have started telling me that they can hear a rooster crowing in our back yard. If you ask me, this is a deliberate cry for attention on the rooster's part.

I contacted a 4-H leader this week to seek out a new home for the rooster. We don't mind the barking, but our intention has always been to only raise hens. We don't want to be frying fertilized eggs. Fortunately, I have found a woman who sounds happy to take Quicky into her brood. It would be great to find him a home where we could visit.

Chicken Coupe de Lill

Built from reclaimed wood, recycled kitchen cabinets and window screens, our Coupe de Lill is complete with two doors (one main entrance and a second for collecting eggs), front seats for up to 3 hens and luggage compartments (aka nesting boxes). There has been a mad dash to complete the coop given that we our expecting our 4th child to arrive at the end of September. Plus, Chicago weather can been precocious; it has been known to snow in September. But we did it! The access ramps were once IKEA drying racks.

Ugly Duckling

Even chickens go through an "ugly teenage phase".

Birds of a Feather

Have you ever noticed how dogs often resemble their owners or visa versa? It appears to not be a species-dependent phenomena.

A Hard Lesson

It has been a tramatic day - for some more than others. I regretfully report that, Fern, our 4th born, accidentally met her end today. Though the other family members seemed to have proccessed the day's events in stride, I am still grieving. I missed the funeral, which was held at about 7:45 pm CST, in our backyard. I am told it was a nice funeral and each attendee said a small prayer for Fern. She will be missed.

Fern had quickly become my favorite. She was the smallest and least expected of the hatchlings and had a docile nature. Unlike her siblings, she loved being held. Just last night, she was resting on top of my 7 month pregnant belly. I promised her that I would take good care of her. I utterly failed.

It was an unimprinting day until the afternoon. Homework, potty time, stories, lunch and naps. We were planning to go to the swimming pool in the afternoon. Before leaving for the pool, I decided to take the chicks outside for their 1st foray at foraging. We placed them in the Little-Tykes plastic playhouse. Wesley and Elena were very excited about the housing transition. Wesley put the chicks in the house's plastic sink. I quickly admonished him, stating that they needed to stay on the ground. After placing a chick feed and water dish on the ground, I closed the fake door and red shutters to the house and instructed the kids to leave the chicks alone.

I headed over to our garden to tend to a wilting tomato plant. Elena joined me in watering the budding vegetable garden. It couldn't have been more than a few minutes from the time that I turned my back on the chicks. Wesley walked over and declared that there was a dead chick in the house. I blocked his words with disbelief and crossed the 25 feet back to the playhouse. The thought, "I hope its not Fern.", crossed through my mind. To my surprise, there were three chicks huddled in one corner and a lifeless, awkardly bend baby in another. There was also a black rubber stick that belongs to our t-ball stand in the house. I yelled at Wesley to go and get Daddy. Of course, it was Fern.

I looked at her twisted body for a minute, then I looked away. Instead of waiting for Michael to command the situation. I picked her up to verify that she was not breathing. Lack of motion was verified. Wesley and Michael came of the house. I burst into tears and stated that Wesley killed Fern. Wesley's eyes welled up with tears and he indignantly asked why we blame him for everything. I assumed that he had struck her with the t-ball stick. We asked Wesley to give his account, but at this point he felt so embarrassed and confused that he started making up stories, all of which excluded him from having anything to do with Fern's death.

Flustered, I simply sent him up to his room.

We stood in the backyard for about 10 minutes, in disbelief that I had a dead, little chick in my hand. Michael to bury the body between our elefant-eared hostas. He was going to have Wesley help. We put the 3 other chicks back in the safe confines of the brooder and washed up. An outting to the swimming pool felt out-of-place, so I brought Elena in and set her down with some books. I went upstairs to check on Wesley.

Wesley was curled up in bed with his green blanket. I layed down with him. He said, "I have an idea - let's put some tape on its neck and that will make it better."

I wished it were that simple. I wanted an explaination but it was obvious that he was feeling guilty, sad and defensive. I told him a story about a bunny that I had had in my childhood that had frozen to death. Eventually we agreed that we to write a letter, to explain what had happened.

Here are Wesley's words as dictated by him:

I am sorry but we named a chick called Fern, but then one day she died. She fell and her neck was broken.

I was trying to move her to a different place so Fern could be close to her brothers and sisters. I was trying to give her a kiss because she was the sweetest one I ever loved. I held her up to my chin. Then she pecked at my hand and I got scared and she jumped. I freaked out because, Torin, my brother always says that.

She jumped up and hit the ceiling.

(this part of the letter has changed a few times.)

When she fell, she had a flip turn to the middle and she stopped moving. I froze in place then picked her up and tried to make her move but she didn't. I felt sad. I put her back on the ground and went to tell my mom that Fern had died.

The end.

Don't be too sad - just one chick died. I am sorry.

From,

Wesley

Wesley also drew the picture showing Fern on his arm and hand. Those are unhappy faces in his sketch. Whatever happened, I am sure that it was an accident and that Wesley feels regretful and sad. I suspect that he has moved past this incident but he hasn't asked to hold any of the other chicks since.

I am deeply saddened - for Fern, for Wesley, for Torin, who hadn't met her, and for myself because I loved her, too. I hadn't intended for our Chicken Project to include lessons about death and I certainly hadn't intended to leave so much room for such an aggregious error.

Wesley holds his new friend

Wesley with chick #1 at 7:16 AM

Wesley was so excited to meet the chicks and Elena nearly knocked over the incubator with her exuberance! The chicks flap their wings and peep a lot when we pick them up.