Stinkerpants

The State of the Coop

July 8, 2009 in Urban Hippies • Backyard Chickens

p>Many things have been happening with our chicken coop over the past few months, and I’ve barely mentioned any of it!  So here we go: the State of the Coop.

Exciting thing #1 is that we had a structure built to enclose the chickens.  The structure isn’t raccoon proof (yet), so we still have to put the chickens up in their coop at night, but it looks pretty sweet:

The eventual plan for this structure is for Y to build a new coop so there’s more space on the ground for the chickens to run around.  Then we’ll put a bench in there, so we can go in and hang out with the chickens.

A few weeks ago, I went to the Sunset Celebration with my friend Sarah and saw Sunset Magazine’s awesome chicken coop.  I was totally inspired by their coop, which used bark on the ground instead of dirt, hay or gravel.  According to the girl manning the coop, the bark chips work really well to control odor and only have to be replaced a couple of times a year.  Sounds good to me!  So bark is on the horizon, too.  :)

How about some chicken pix?!

This lovely lady is Violet:

What?  You don’t think she’s pretty?

How about now?

Yeah, that’s better.  :)

Exciting thing #2 is that Violet laid her first egg a couple of weeks ago.  We were so thrilled!!  Rosarita has been laying for a couple of months now, but she was the only one.  Then, yesterday, Rosebud laid HER first egg!  And it was green!

Here’s Rosebud and I:

Rosebud has really funny sideburns.

Right now the big chickens (ie, Rosebud, Violet and Rosarita) are all living in our old coop, and the four little chickens (Dahlia, Buttercup, Tulip and Daisy) are living in the big coop/new structure.  We tried to introduce them, but the big chickens picked on the little guys too much.  We decided to wait until the little chickens are bigger before introducing them again.

Here they are the first day we introduced everyone:

It’s important that the little chickens establish their place in the coop at night before we put the big chickens back in.  Unfortunately, the little chickens are kind of stupid–they don’t go up in the coop by themselves at night.  We’ve tried putting a light up there to lure them up the ramp, but nada.  I think we’re going to try bribing them with melon.  As it is, we have to put each little chicken in the coop by hand every night, then lock up their coop.  It’s kind of annoying.  :-/

The little guys sure are cute, though!  They grow every day.  Here’s Dahlia:

And her sister, Buttercup.  Buttercup sits like this a lot.  We call her “little turkey vulture.”

We obviously have a lot of fun with our chickens:

Things we have learned about chickens:

• The term “chicken” is totally accurate.  That is, chickens are totally afraid of everything. They run like the wind everytime they think something is scary.  And for them, many things are scary.
• Chickens like to pace when they’re getting ready to lay an egg.  Luckily, our chickens have plenty of room to walk around, but it makes me really sad to think about the chickens in factory farms who can’t walk around.  Our ladies seem kind of uncomfortable around egg time, and walking seems to help.
• Chickens are GREEDY. They’ll be best friends, but the second you give somebody a treat, they all try to steal it.  Once a chicken gets control of a treat, she will take off running, being chased by everyone else.  It’s really funny, but it takes forever for someone to actually EAT anything!
• Each chicken has a personality, and for the most part, their personalities have been there since they were little chicks.  For example, Dahlia is a total loudmouth, and she has been since the day we brought her home from the feed store.

That’s all, folks!

Bzzzzz….

April 23, 2009 in Urban Hippies • Urban Farming • Miscellaneous Ramblings

Photo from here.

This is kind of embarrassing, but I’m going to tell you anyway.  A few weeks ago, I got inspiration from Bee Movie. It is, in fact, almost entirely responsible for my 101 in 1,001 list.

Awhile ago I heard about the decreasing number of honeybees.  I was sad about it.  Maybe even a little bit worried.  But it wasn’t until I saw Bee Movie that I started to feel really bad for the bees.

I am sure that most people did not cry at Bee Movie.  Clearly I have emotional problems.

But anyway.  Bee Movie is the reason why I added #2 (“Save some honeybees”) to my list.   I started researching a little bit today and realized that I couldn’t help any bees without having a nice, friendly backyard with lots of flowers. Chances are, I’d end up killing #8 (“Raise butterflies”) with our current backyard anyway.  So I’m going to have to start with #5 (“Figure out what is wrong with the soil in our yard and fix it”) and #6 (:Grow flowers in the backyard and keep them alive for a season”) first.

I have kind of a black thumb.  I’ve killed almost everything in our backyard.  Nothing has ever flowered there.  My main problem is that I’m totally, 100%, wholeheartedly LAZY.  I get all excited in the springtime about having a backyard full of gorgeous flowers, and then I am too lazy to water them.  I have also been too lazy to do anything about how dead our soil most likely is.  It just seems like so much work.  Maybe a beautiful backyard wasn’t enough motivation for me, but helping the poor little bees and butterflies certainly is.

Well…sort of.  It just seems like so much work to garden.  I wish I could hire someone to do this for me.

Do any of you guys like gardening?  What’s so great about it?  Do you think I would like it?  Is getting started the hardest part?

the Chick Habit

April 22, 2009 in Urban Hippies • Backyard Chickens

My head is seriously all over the place right now.  Last night, I got THREE hours of sleep.  Yes, three.  I was up at 4am watching Oprah and wondering why I couldn’t fall asleep.  Although I feel horrible, I’m actually wide awake right now.  Is it the weather?  The stress?  I have no idea.

In any case, I have been working my butt off.  I have a lot of cool things to share with you guys, but I don’t want to overload you, so I’m going to go a little bit at a time.

Today I’m going to give you guys a chick update, since they’re so cute I can’t resist!  Check out these ladies:

Left to right: Daisy, Tulip, Dahlia (with the big booty!) and Buttercup.

They look like miniature chickens!  I can barely call them chicks anymore!

They’re really sweet.  I’ve been handling them every day since we got them, and as a result, they’re very used to humans.  Because it’s been so hot recently, we decided to take the girls on a field trip outside.  They had a great time pecking at various things and exploring outside of their metal bucket.

This is seriously such a fun project, I can’t get over it.

The only problem is that we now have seven chickens.  Our coop is supposed to hold 5-6 chickens, and we have seven.  Originally, we were planning to sell a few of them.  But after three chickens died, we’re (read =
I’m) feeling super close to these little guys. I don’t want to give them up!  I’m trying to convince Y to build an “add on” to the coop.  We’ll see how that goes.

It might actually be kind of convenient if one turned out to be a rooster, since we definitely can’t keep a rooster.  It would at least make the decision making process easier!  Just don’t let it be Daisy.  She’s my favorite.  Or Dahlia.  I like her a lot too, because she’s a loudmouth.

On another (completely unrelated) note, I created a Facebook page for Stinkerpants Designs the other day.  I’m not entirely sure what the point is, but I’m having a lot of fun with it anyway!  So if you’re on Facebook, become a fan!  I’d really love your support.  :)

Chicken Update

April 8, 2009 in Urban Hippies • Backyard Chickens

Hi Everybody–thanks so much for your support about Petunia.  I really, really appreciate all of your kind words.

Y and I were both feeling pretty depressed yesterday. Mostly we were sad that Petunia had died, and had likely suffered.  But we were also really worried that whatever she had was contagious.  I absolutely adore Violet and Rosebud, and if anything happened to them (or Rosarita), I would  be heartbroken.

Luckily, we have an awesome vet who offered to do an autopsy on Petunia for free.  As it turns out, she had a tumor in her intestinal tract.  This is probably why she never laid any eggs, even though Rosa’s been laying for almost a month.  So, like Lily, this definitely wasn’t our fault, and there was nothing we could have done about it.  Pretty sad though.  These were our first two chickens, and within two months, they’ve both died.

I was further discouraged this morning when I went to check on the chicks and noticed three problems:

1. One chick was standing on the counter, cheeping bloody murder.
2. Inside their metal bucket, there was blood everywhere.
3. Our little runt chick was looking kind of crippled.

The first problem was obviously easy to fix.  Pick up Tulip and put her back in the bucket, then put a lid on the bucket.

The second problem was the blood, which admittedly totally freaked me out.  Dahlia was the chicken bleeding.  As it turns out, she had a cut on her butt, and her bloodthirsty friends were pecking at her!  I separated her, wiped her tuchas and quarantined her.

Marigold, the our little crippled chicken, has always been small.  This morning, though, she looked like she was doing the horizontal splits, and she couldn’t walk.  Great.  After much googling and a visit to Backyard Chickens, I realized that she has “spraddle” or splayed legs.  Basically, it looks like she’s doing the splits and can’t stand up.

I used this guide and taped her legs together with a band-aid (photo at the top).  Unfortunately she won’t even attempt to walk.  I’m hoping that she’ll give it a try later this afternoon, or maybe her legs will start to “stick” in the right position and I can take the band-aid off.  Sigh.

I’ve been intending to draw a family portrait, with me, Y, the dog, the four cats and all the chickens.  Unfortunately the chickens are dropping like flies (I’m beginning to think this phrase should be “dropping like chickens,” as flies never seem to die), and having to delete them out of our drawing would be really depressing.

Anyway, we’re still trucking.  We’re hoping it’s a case of bad beginner’s luck and that things will not always be like this!

RIP Petunia

April 7, 2009 in Urban Hippies • Backyard Chickens

How many more of these posts am I going to have to write?!

Petunia, our Rhode Island Red, died today.  Yesterday I picked her up and noticed that she’d lost a lot of weight.  This was not something that happened over a long period of time–it was seriously in the last week or so, and she was acting fine.  I mentioned it to Y.  When he got home from work, he agreed that she might have lost a little weight, but she was acting normal.  She pooped and it looked yellow and runny.  “Kind of like an egg,” I commented. Petunia had yet to lay an egg.

This morning we got up and checked on the chickens.  Petunia didn’t come down from the top of the coop with the rest of the chickens.  We took her out and examined her, and she seemed kind of listless.

I did a bunch of Googling.  She didn’t seem to have what killed Lily, because she wasn’t gasping or anything.  I came across a forum post about impacted eggs, and suddenly I remembered thinking that her poop looked like egg.  We made the first appointment with the vet: today at 3:30pm.  I went to a business meeting in the city, and when I got back, she was dead.

And that’s it.  Just dead.

And not to be too graphic, but there was a pool of that yellow and runny eggy looking stuff around her.

Right now, I am waiting on a phone call from the vet.  I have a feeling she had an impacted egg, which broke inside her.  I feel horrible–she must have been in so much pain.

This sucks.