Silkies R Us

So after a few weeks of mike moping around following the loss of little Stuffy, we recently welcomed our newest batch of Silkies to our basement brooder (first picture).... Let us introduce you to, in no particular order and names subject to change: Veda, Yeti, Corky, Cinder, and Rupal. These are special Silkies as they are rare colors, we have one blue one who is really more charcoal grey(Cinder) and 4 lavenders. An area breeder advertised them because they all have some imperfections so are not show quality -- 4 only have 4 toes instead of 5 and one has a crooked face (see second photo). They are 7 weeks old and super super cute. They are straight run meaning they could be either boys or girls but we suspect that Cinder, Veda, & Corky are all girls and Yeti and Rupal are boys... they are super soft and cuddly and very cool so we are excited to welcome them to our family. The boys will have to go but we think we will keep all three girls. We just may add a few others to the mix later next week so stay tuned.

LuLu LuLu the Lunatic...

So our little baby, our runt of the litter, our sweet little lulu the Polish wonder chicken is causing a big disruption to our chicken harmony. Chicken harmony is our term for peace and good will amongst those in our flock. Harmony means there is still a little pecking here and there but for the most part, all chickens know and accept their place in line - aka the pecking order. Well, little lulu has become quite the hardass and is throwing the flock in a tizzy. The pecking order was recently (well until Lulu struck) like this: Gladys - Eleanore - Gerdie - Maybel - (Tillah) - Razzle -(Stuffy) - Penny - Lulu. Lulu clearly was in the rear and we worried that she would always be severely hen pecked. We had some changes as we had to re-home Tillah and sadly Stuffy passed away on us (see previous post) and Razzle has been broody for a few weeks and these changes through things off a bit. Well Gerdie and Gladys started to befriend Lulu and within a few weeks, we have mayhem. To put it simply, Lulu now beats on Gladys our all powerful leader so we thought. For good measure she beats on Gerdie as well. So our new circular order is something like this: Gladys - Eleanore - Gerdie - Maybel - Razzle - Penny - Lulu - Gladys - Eleanore - Gerdie and so on and so on. So we call Eleanore the beast because she is the number 2 chicken in order and is the muscle to the Gladys regime and she can be vicious when she needs to be. Well sweet little Lulu is now starting to back down the beast which is simply amazing. So if Lulu beats down Eleanore then its quite possible that tiny little Razzle, our smallest chicken, might be running the show because she, along with Penny are the only 2 that do not back down to lulu and actually put the beat down on her ... summary is we do not have chicken harmony and it doesn't look like its coming anytime soon... so we may as well get more chics to add???? see next post.

Good bye Sweet Stuffy

With heavy heart we say goodbye to our sweet white Silkie, Stuffy. Stuffy was a little over one year old and died suddenly on March 25, 2011. She was a special little girl and will be deeply missed not only by her humans, but by her sister and broody-mate, Razzle as the 2 were inseparable. In the beginning when Stuffy was just a little chic, she and Nicole bonded right away. Stuffy would spend hours in nicoles hands and would take mock dust baths in her hands. When she got older and moved outside, she would sit in Nicoles hands and duck her head underneath her arms and sleep and preen away. She was a personable little girl who brought big smiles to us both. She was the first of the 'littles' to lay and would go broody all the time. Along with Razzle, she spent many days with me when i would get restless and was one of the great joys of my day. Stuffy loved to have her chest rubbed right underneath her right wing - it was wierd but she loved it. Stuffy was a wonderful pet and friend and her spirit will always live on in the Modees Farm.

Goodbye my sweet friend.

Rainy Days Don't Keep Us Down

All our rain left us with a huge mud puddle all along the way to the coop. Thank goodness for Wellies! This year we knew it would need a solution- a well drained path. So Mike dug some more dirt (to the delight of the girls who quickly lapped up the worms and frequently got in the way) and we laid down some gravel. Voila- one path completed. Look to the right for a grey gravel path and not to be left out we included a photo of the front yard herb garden.

Out next project was a more permanent fence to keep those sneaky chickens away from the garden. They kept kicking out the shells and we knew when the veggies started they would decimate them. So up went a fence.


Last week Mike went out of town and Nicole put the eight week old chicks outside. Another gate keeps the little chickens in the back part of the yard and the older girls get the side yard. They are both arms full at night when they want to love and preen with the humans. Check out the partridge penedesenca in a pear tree (no kidding).

Most of the time the young chickens hide in the raspberry bushes. Why do they call them bushes when they are really canes? In any case, they are turning ripe and giving a lovely snack while we work in the yard. And there is always work: no one ever talks about the endless weed pulling and slug hunting. The hazelnut shells have deterred many slugs but not all so Mike has captured several with cans of beer. Nicole opted for sluggo (organic of course). The few strawberries that have managed to turn red despite our endless cloudy rainy weather have been spared slug death. Not so lucky- cucumbers and okra.

Since the cucumbers are getting replanted anyway and as Father's day approaches it was time to get tomatoes in the ground and think about trellises. After much research and several "failed" experiments in past years we think this just may be the winner. It's rebar hammered into the ground about 2 feet and twine. We connected the rebar with 3/4" plastic plumbing elbows. The cucumbers are in a tepee shape, melons in a ladder, and tomatoes got the full cage grid. Parr lumber was very kind to assist us in cutting the rebar to size (it was the only place in town that has a cutting option on site) and we saved some money buying 20' lengths and dividing them into 8 and 4 foot lengths for out 8x4' beds.

The garden is slow going in general this year. Late planting and a late start to summer weather has made it a challenge but it did make growing celery outside from seed a success. Rumor has it that celery is notoriously difficult to grow so I am very proud we were able to have about 20 seeds germinate and begin to grow. We even were able to harvest 20 heads of garlic this weekend! Is there a dance that has the opposite effect of a snow-dance? Come-on its time for movies in the back yard and to fire up the bbq!!!!

The Patient Farmer

Four or five weeks ago I took stock of the herb garden and was convinced our lone week of below freezing temps had killed off several plants. Well, with my thesis near completion (woohoo, sigh) I was able to look up from my computer and see that everything except for two rosemary bushes had come back and flourished. Maybe being a lazy farmer can pay off afterall. Turns out tarragon, mint, and chives completely die and return in the spring. Who knew. The tulips have sprung and the orchard has blossomed. Soon we'll be drinking lemonade watching our new expanded flock run around. We fell in love with the Silkie chicken breed when we had Muppet and decided to raise a few from chicks. They are incredibly difficult to sex so we got four thinking we will need to re-home two roos. For those of you who were privy to the discussion of how many chicken can we really get, we were slated to also get a Favorelle breed chick but they just never came in to the feed store before the silkie chicks became to old and feisty to accept new girls to their flock.

The fuzzy girls have quadrupled in size but they still have about four more weeks inside. They need extra time to get their adult feathers and for nighttime temperatures to rise before they can be outside. And they are not all girls. We even picked out names: Stuffy, Razzle, Beaker (our definite roo), and Petri (not sure yet). They like to be petted, sit in our hands, and the typical chicken activities of eating, scratching, and sleeping. Their feathers are missing a stiffening barb on the end which makes them fluffy downy soft. I think they look more like stuffed animals than chickens. This is likely the reason they all got fanciful character names.

Well (much to my sister's concern) here are the new little ones. We sadly were required to re-home both silky roos which made room for more. As luch would have it this was the same time that those elusive favorelles came in to the store along with a new very rare breed to the US called penedesenca which lay almost black eggs (we shall see . . .) So we got two each knowing we would sell half and we did to a very nice couple living on a farm. Then mike went to get more feed and found new arrivals of polish chickens and came home with a last chick. And that is how we came to have 9 chickens (including our original four adult hens). If you're keeping up with all this that means we have 1 black silkie, 1 white silkie, 1 ameraucana, 1 buff oprington, 1 welsummer, 1 australorp, 1 polish, 1 salmon favorelle, and 1 partidge penedesenca.

The new wee ones took quite well to the older silkies. As a general rule it is disastrous to blend chicks after 2-3 weeks of age. We were concerned despite being told that silkies are the most gentle and maternal of all breeds. Turns out, once again, we should listen- if you look closely your will spot a four day old polish chick sleeping soundly under the wing of our black silkie. Current names are: Lulu (polish), Tilla (favorelle), and Penelope (penedesenca).

Shells

We've been talking about it. We've been wanting to do it. The first time we saw them we thought they were soooo cool. The chickens really dig them (literally & figuratively). The Mayor of Kenton hates them ("...don't get those damn things in my yard..."). They never decompose. But Best of all, the bazillion slugs in our yard are gonna hate them and will now stay away from our fruits & veggies because we now have them (hopefully the slugs slime over to the mayors yard). Can you say 2 pickup bed full of 100% Oregon Grown Hazelnut shells from one our favorite new places, Boring Bark. Bring on the slug free Strawberries!!

Spring Has Sprung!

I don't care what the calendar says- around here there are just too many signs pointing to spring. We've got warmer weather (third warmest January on record in Portland), the bulbs are sprouted, our girls are all laying eggs (with the exception of Gladys who is slowly finishing up her molt) and brand new baby! No. Not us. Nicole's sister had a healthy (and fast) baby boy last weekend on Superbowl Sunday. Welcome to the world Roark- we are excited for you to visit and play on your aunt and uncle's urban farm. Check out the smiles on mom, dad, and auntie nicole...

We've logged a few miles on the prius- the day before our trip to Seattle for baby Roark we visited Raintree Nursery (about half way from Portland to Seattle) and loaded up on this year's perminant additions to the orchard. We couldn't help but find a few other odds and ends. We moved the apple tree to the front yard and planted lingonberries underneath to make room for a new black mission fig tree in the back. Other additions: black, white, and red currents, a dwarf half nectarine half peach tree, non fuzzy kiwi trees that produce small oval kiwis that are eaten like grapes, marionberry, boysenberry, thornless blackberries, more strawberries. and asparagus. We should have a lovely harvest in a few years when they grow up. And we took advantage of the great sunny weather by cleaning up the yard and getting ready for new projects but that's for another blog entry another day . . .

On completely unrelated news- some friends introduced us to a fabulously crack-like board game called Settlers of Catan. Its relatively new and out of Germany. Think monopoly, stratego, and risk all rolled up together. We like the sustainable spin of trading resources and building farms with the resources of grain, ore, lumber, brick, and sheep. Check it out- its hard to convey its complex strategy and how easy it was to learn. Quite engaging! Or better yet . . . call us to play!

Ode to Muppet

It's true. We lost our most beloved chicken. She went broody (sat on invisible egg babies to hatch) for about three weeks and when she came out of it we noticed she was ever so slightly favoring her right foot. Mike took her to the avian specialty hospital and they sent him home with chicken-ibprofen to reduce swelling and reduce her pain. It got worse and turned into an all out limp. We finally took her to the local avian vet down the street from our house and he was AWESOME! He suggested Merik's disease. Merik's disease is a actually a common avian virus which all hatchery chickens are vaccinated for that eventually leads to degenerative paralysis. Unfortunately, we got Muppet from the feed store who got her from thier neighbor who hatched her in their backyard. Hence, she was never vaccinated- we didn't even think to ask. The feed store owner felt awful, we felt awful, and the vet made the best of a sad situation with jokes about taking her temp and being a muppet (use your imagination . . . ) So after a good laugh it was pretty clear when her leg and wing were effected and she fell on her face a couple times that it was time. We brought her inside and she shared mike's office for a week and when it got to the point when we would hold her, she would fall asleep like a wet noodle that we knew it was time to take her in to the vet for the last time... The vet did a chicken autopsy (necropsy) and found evidence for Merik's which couldn't be confirmed until after . . . We will miss her coos of baBuhhhh and fluffy waddle. May she be scratching around the clouds and flying without effort . . .

I do feel obligated to politically comment on the issue of backyard hatches. Hatching on one's own as a chicken enthusiast does help to keep heritage breeds of chickens around. This is important because they are threatened to be lost to more genetically bred super chickens whose legs break under their rapid growth in order to provide juicy juicy boneless skinless dinner. I do believe there is a difference between pets and food and I believe both can be chickens- I love a good stir fry or taco as much as anyone but as is the current trend it is important not to loose our historical knowledge and access to our food sources. Maybe pet chickens are one way of preservation in the same way that victory home gardens have come back in vogue. However, vaccines are made in batches of 1000 with a 12 hour shelf life which makes backyard hatching unrealistic to vaccinate. Thinking of vaccinated populations continuing the Meriks disease to infect future chickens feels irresponsible and hits close to home in seeing a poor chicken fall- literally. What do you think?