winnowing

The hens start each day with scratch.  Then they bustle over to the bank of yard clippings topped with kitchen compost to take account of our recent deposits, and to make withdrawals of any bite-sized visitors unlucky enough to have dropped by during business hours.


All this gets the day off to a swell start, but for real sustenance, they turn to the pellets filling the little bin in the coop.  The bin is a simple, but clever contraption that automatically refills the trough in its base by means of gravity & friction. Unbelievably, it functions perfectly without a timer or any LED’s.


Lately, I’ve noticed fine dust collecting in the trough, as if something has changed in the production or transporting of the pellets.  I didn’t like the idea of the hens feeding from a dust bin.


I remembered from grade school the description of settlers winnowing grain, separating wheat from the chaff by tossing baskets of grain into the air so the wind would carry away the chaff.  Wind power, why not?


I filled a bucket with pellets, climbed on a low stump, and poured slowly into a second bucket on the ground.  It might have worked better in Oklahoma (where the wind comes sweeping down the Plains) but a little plume of dust trailed off downwind from the cascading pellets.  A qualified success, new entertainment for the hens, and thanks to our rural setting, no witnesses.


I’ve tested a number of variations since then.  I’ve learned to check for an actual breeze before starting, and to hold off if the stump is slick from rain.  It’s been a while since I’ve positioned the lower bucket upwind from the stump.  The persistent, still unresolved problem is how to remove the pellets from the second bucket, which has to be more wide-mouthed than the first to catch all the pellets.


All good lessons, even if a coarse strainer turned out to be a better solution.  Another simple device, gravity-fed, and battery-free.


Coo, coo, ca choo.

before Firefox, Foxfire

I enjoy starting fires, so I forsook Firefox for Foxfire and set up my chopsaw in the chicken run next to a stack of branches.  Too thick to cut with loppers, but to small to split, we like the small firewood we make from the branches because it catches fire with very little kindling, and spreads the flames to the bigger pieces.

My project was great news for the hens, as the insects that take up residence in a woodpile are a favorite snack food.  The alpha, beta & gamma hens worked over the newly cleared ground in a flurry of scratching & pecking.  I heard a low growl and looked up in time to see a buff orpington bent low to the ground with neck feathers fanned out & wings half-spread, warning off a barred rock that had trespassed on her claim.

A noisy day in a bucolic weekend.  The woodpiles are gone, the firewood stacked higher. The hens were entertained, and their yokes may be a little more yellow from the extra protein.

I built a little fire from the short ends and started it with one match.  A good day, all in all, unless Mary is still mad at me...

Coo, coo, ca choo.

a rooster votes in the night

I closed the front door quietly behind me and stepped out into the starlight.  The night was calm, the dark silhouettes of the cedars & pine rose motionless from the chicken run.

I stood listening for a moment, then turned my attention to the constellations shimmering above the black conifers.

This photo, from culinate.com is captioned

“Four roosters detracted from our idyllic life”.

A rooster crowing in the distance brought my mind back to earth.

We always end up with a couple roosters when we buy new chicks.  Their aggressive behavior marks them weeks before they starting testing the air with their first hoarse calls.  We run an ad offering free roosters and they quickly disappear.

Though sunrise was still hours away, I decided to open the polls.  It was time to settle a nagging question.  Should we keep a rooster from our next batch of chicks, to protect the hens from cats, and possibly produce a few chicks?

The rooster crowing in the night cast a no vote.  The polls closed, the vote was unanimous.  The referendum failed.  I returned to the house, quietly closing the door behind me.

Coo, coo, ca choo.

outwitted, again

The new fence has been effective thus far in its short life, but trouble looms ahead.  For the most part, the hens stay on their side, and we stay on ours, life is in balance.  True, the chicken run now resembles a small nation struggling to keep illegal immigration at bay, but it’s reassuring to know that we can retreat to it if a herd of cattle ever comes stampeding through our yard.

We added brown leghorns (“leggerns”) to our flock by accident, but we came to like them as they grew into striking hens, with lacey plumage on their necks and big white ear lobes like Lyndon Johnson.  Hatcheries market the breed as a good choice for free-ranging flocks because they are alert for predators and athletic, but as a human who asks only to love my property & be loved in return, they are rather trying because they flee in panic whenever I approach.  So I am not inclined to flatter them with adjectives like clever or resourceful.

So I was surprised to find a leghorn working it’s way around the house soon after the fence crew had packed it up.  Not just once, but almost every day. Worse yet, she was scaling the fence by launching herself from the limbs of the run’s graceful vine maple, a tree I could prune only at risk of ugly divorce or painful death, or both.

Outwitted, again, and this time by a chicken of suspect intelligence. The hens yearn for freedom.  I lie awake in the dark & ask myself, what if the other hens follow her up the tree?  We might as well pull down the fence, but then where could we run from a stampede?

Coo, coo, ca choo.

declaration of co-dependence

Evidently, the Declaration of Independence enshrines some, but not all of life’s self-evident truths. For example, It is evident to me that humans, not hens, who will record the history of people and poultry, though you will find no reference to this in that venerable document.

The history of Millie, the bantam hen, is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny.  Never have I challenged her for light or transient causes, nor have I attempted to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over her, yet I have been subjected to a long train of repeated abuses and injuries (!),
impairing my pursuit of happiness :-( .

To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

She has for a long time, opposed with manly firmness the peaceful collection of eggs, a task formidable to tyrants only :-( .

She has combined with others to raise chicks foreign to my affection :-( .

She has, in times of peace, emitted a loud cry of alarm when I enter the coop :-( .

I have warned her from time to time.  I have reminded her of her circumstances.

I have appealed to my wife, who is deaf to the voice of justice :-( .

It is said that history is written by the victors, but speaking for myself, this is not a truth, evidently.

Coo, coo, ca choo   : -)