Battery Hen Update

We have good news and not-so-great news to report.  I'll start with the good news.

The Good News

If you scroll to the pictures of the hens below, you will see that the battery hens arrived with combs that were flopping over to the side.  I figured this was just how the hens would look for the rest of their lives.  The hens who live in my mom and dad's coop began to have combs that were semi-erect.  I thought I was just seeing things, but over the past month they have changed into beautiful, fully-erect, red combs.  I learned that a chicken's comb is a easy way to find out if it is feeling well.  The hens at my parents' house are feeling fantastic.

The girls even have a couple of boyfriends.  This is our Frizzle male, trying to kill me while I photograph his ladies.

The Not-So-Great News

Things have been more difficult on our side of the farm.  We lost one battery hen suddenly as a bacteria spread quickly throughout our flock.  Another battery hen was laying next to her deceased pal, on the brink of death as well.  Several of our chickens seem to be infected with the same bug, but all the other girls are eating, laying and acting normal.  We took the battery hen to the veterinarian and he started her on an oral antibiotic.  The vet told us to treat all coughing hens with the oral antibiotic twice a day.  If any of you can think of a way to do this without going insane, please advise me.  We have decided to treat the rest of the flock with an antibiotic we will put in their drinking water.  For now we have two sick battery hens living in the house (one is still outside with the flock and very healthy).

As you may know, all chickens have different personalities.  Our very sick (and rapidly improving) hen has a social and curious personality.  We put the hens in the garden during the day when it is warm, and bring them in at night.  A couple of times we have left the back door open to the garden.  Rocket Star (I don't have to tell you who named her, right?) has found her way inside each time.  She thinks the dishwasher is really cool.

She is also so sweet and patient with the kids.  What other human or animal could make it through a life of pure torture, then turn around and give love to the same species who tortured them?  Some may say that chickens have tiny brains, but I think they just have hearts of gold.  Now if only Rocket Star could be potty trained.  She makes the perfect small companion animal!

Chicken Rescue

If you haven't heard about the 50,000 hens who were abandoned and perished from starvation in an egg factory in Turlock, California, please watch this video.

Over 4,000 hens were saved in a most spectacular rescue effort.  Six of those lucky girls now reside on our farm.  When I heard a local rescue group would be bringing 125 of these hens to San Luis Obispo county to retire, I jumped at the chance to adopt them.  The hens were stabilized for three weeks, then brought to our  farm when they were out of danger.

Four of the hens moved to our side of the property and two of the hens retired to my mom's coop on the other side of the property.  These hens have lived lives filled with neglect and abuse.  As chicks, the hens have the tips of their beaks cut off.  This is so they will not peck the other three to five hens with whom they share a small cage.  Leghorn chickens lay around 300 white eggs a year, which is why they are usually chosen for mass egg production.  They live all of their lives in cages, never having the chance to scratch the earth or chase a bug.  You can see how long the hen's nails have gotten because she has never been able to scratch in the dirt.

We moved the girls in with the quail at first so the other hens could meet them without being able to hurt them.  The hens each laid an egg the first day they moved in.  It amazed me these hens were on the brink of death and are already laying eggs.

Pearl collected the first batch of eggs.  She was proud of the chickens!

The hens have integrated with the rest of our flock and are living the lives of queens.  It is interesting to watch their behavior.  At first they would only lay their eggs on the ground.  Now two of the hens have learned how to use the nesting area.  They won't roost up with the rest of the chickens, rather they nest on the ground in the corner.  They love to make little nests, scratch around and stretch their wings.  To say I adore these girls in an understatement.  They have become more brazen over the past few weeks.  When all of the chickens free range, they carefully sneak out of the hen house and scratch around the door.  They bask in the sunlight.

Pearl and Oliver love feeding them scratch.  

I was feeling slightly smug at first about how I don't buy eggs from the store.  Pearl and I went out to breakfast the next morning and I ordered huevos rancheros.  After devouring my eggs, it dawned on me I had no idea if I was eating factory farmed eggs.  I asked the server who told me they were from the local university.  I know chickens are not free-ranging at the university.  I have decided to try and stop eating eggs if I can't tell where they are laid.  Would it be rude of me to bring my own eggs into a restaurant?  I may have to turn into these people:

If you want to help one of these chickens you can sponsor an animal at Harvest Home Animal Sanctuary or give up eating factory-farmed eggs!

Rooster Rescue

We had a little rooster problem for the past six months and his name was Moe.  Moe was a stallion of a rooster in a tiny frame.  He dominated both of our other roosters and claimed the ladies as his own.  The only issue we had with Moe was that he loved to attack Oliver and Pearl.  Oliver's fear of him became so intense, he wouldn't leave the house.  We knew we needed to find Moe a new home, but were having a terrible time convincing anyone to take him.

What do you do when you have an attack cock?  You call the "Cock Whisperer."  Sarah at Save the Cocks in Templeton, CA is just that lady.  Sarah found a home for Moe in exchange for two rescue roosters who would be moving in with our flock.  Sarah and Dana arrived with their roosters on a Sunday.  We met Cherry first.  He was a sweet, sensitive rooster.  Then we met Cherry's brother who we called Curly.  Here is a picture of Cherry and Sarah.

Sarah likes to introduce roosters while they are free ranging.  We set down Cherry and Curly and watched them meet our rooster, Francisco.  

The roosters were getting to know each other and trying to establish dominance.  We didn't count on our guineas getting involved with the tussle.  Charlie and Rocco, our male guineas grabbed Cherry and chased him around the yard.  Cherry finally got so scared he bolted into the hills behind our house.  We searched, but he was nowhere to be seen.  I figured he would be eaten that night by a fox, so I went to bed with a heavy heart.   Glenn woke up at the crack of dawn the next morning to look for Cherry.  He could hear Cherry crowing from a distance, so we knew he was still alive.  

Sarah and Dana came over that afternoon to look for Cherry.  They brought with them two more of Cherry's brothers with the hope that Cherry would respond to them.  Cherry could not be found.  On Tuesday, Glenn spotted Cherry in back of the chicken coop, but Cherry bolted when he saw Glenn.  By Wednesday morning we started to lose hope because Glenn could no longer hear him crowing.  When I arrived home from work on Wednesday afternoon, Cherry was again at the coop, hanging out with his brother.  I couldn't believe he was alive.  I called Sarah and we decided I should wait until the chickens started to roost, then track him to find out where he was roosting at night.  

I put the kids in front of a video (desperate times) and made my way up the mountain.  Cherry lost me in about five seconds, but I decided to listen for the sound of his wings as he flew up into a tree.  I hiked and waited in a clearing for 45 minutes before I started to worry about mountain lions.  As a final ditch effort, I began crowing.  I'm glad I don't have any neighbors.  

The next morning (Thursday), I woke up with a nose full of poison oak and a special admiration for the cock who had survived so many days in the wild.  Glenn had the day off, so he was on Cherry patrol.  As he pulled into the driveway, he saw Cherry at the fence line.  He sent Oliver to the back of the property to block Cherry's escape.  He then chased Cherry to the coop, where he was able to corner him and pick him up.  Sarah picked up her two amazing roosters (Curly and Francisco could not work out their differences) and peace has been restored to the farm.

I think Glenn deserves the title "Professional Cock Handler" for his astonishing rooster rescue.  If you are so inclined, you can buy him this shirt from Sarah's store to help support Save the Cocks and all of the wonderful work that they do.  

How to Get Rich Quick: Become a Farmer

Just follow these 11 easy steps to find out how to "make it" as a farmer.

1.  Start with a shipment of heritage chicks.

2.  Build them a luxurious house with a large outside enclosure.

3.  Purchase an incubator.

4.  Wait until the chickens are old enough to produce fertile eggs (six months), then collect eggs over a period of seven days.

5.  Watch, wait and pray for three weeks.

6.  Entertain your kids for hours observing chicks hatching out of eggs.

7.  Start to panic after 24 hours and open the box to remove chicks (it smelled really bad in there).  Discover several hours later that you killed the remaining six chicks in their eggs by altering the humidity too much during the move.

8.  Enjoy the chicks for an evening, then drive them to a farm in the morning.  Comfort your weeping children.

9.  Introduce the chicks to hundreds of Cornish Cross chickens (who will grow large very quickly, but will never be able to fly or walk correctly).    

10.  Check out their future home.  Our heritage Delaware chickens will lead a happy pasture-raised life on this farm.

11.  Collect your check for 22 dollars.  Pray that people at farmer's market will be interested in paying more money for heritage chicken meat so you can start the process all over again in a few months.

We may see our first profits in 2014!  At that time we will start looking into buying our second home in Italy.

Vegetarian Turned Scavenger Turned Poultry Farmer

I started eating meat this year when I found out I was pregnant with Pearl. Our bodies need so much protein to support a healthy pregnancy and I'm just not as creative with food as some of my vegetarian friends. The first meat I ate was what I call "meat without the guilt." Our friends at a local sheep dairy had recently had a mountain lion attack and leave a lamb for dead. They gave us a large portion of the lamb, which Glenn made into a fantastic stew. I tried to think of ways to scavenge all of my meat, but as it turns out, half eaten fresh meat is hard to come by. So I ate pasture-raised chicken and happy cows from a farm in Cayucos, CA. It's not that I have anything against eating meat in general, it's just that I think mass production of meat in the United States is disgusting, unhealthy and inhumane. Ideally I would hunt for my food, if only I had the cojones.

When Glenn brought up the fact that he would like to raise meat chickens, I was a bit apprehensive as I was sort of happy living on a "no kill" farm. We live close to a farm that sells pasture-raised chickens at the local farmer's market. The difference between pasture-raised chickens and free-range chickens is incredible. Pasture-raised chickens actually live outside and are free to eat bugs, seeds, plants and insects. They also have a shelter at night and nesting boxes. Free-range chickens are not confined to cages, but there are no rules about the size of their roaming area.

Glenn heard there is a demand for heritage chickens that are pasture-raised, so he started doing his research about different heritage chickens. Glenn would like to breed the chickens, then sell the chicks to our local farm to be pasture raised. Glenn ordered three rare heritage breeds from the Sand Hill Preservation Center: Buckeye, Mottled Java and Delaware. Several weeks ago he sent one rooster from each kind to the farm to be pasture raised. When the roosters reach optimal size, we will have a bar-b-cue to find out which one tastes the best. Next year Glenn will focus on breeding that heritage chicken.

The Buckeye was the first breed of chicken to be developed by a woman. It was originally established by Mrs. Nettie Metcalf in the late 1880s. Nettie wanted to develop a hardy chicken that could withstand the cold Ohio winters. This chicken looks like a Rhode Island Red, except it has a pea comb.


The gentle Delaware first originated in the state of (surprise) Delaware by a man named George Ellis. He created the breed in the 1940s and wanted to call them Indian Rivers (which I think is way cooler than Delaware). The breed was once very important to the poultry industry, but was pushed out by the White Cornish Rock. It is now critically endangered.

Also critically endangered is the Mottled Java. It is considered to be the second oldest breed of chicken in the U.S., developed around 1840 from Asian stock. These guys sell for $5.00/chick! Thank goodness they all survived (and three out of four turned out to be hens!).

I'm on board now with the chicken killing. People are going to eat chicken and isn't it better they eat a chicken that has climbed a tree or chased a butterfly than some poor soul that has never seen the sun? I'm also happy we will be raising endangered heritage birds. At least we will be helping in a small way to keep one of these breeds from going extinct.

Naked Goat Wrestling + Breastfeeding Squirrels + Poultry = A Wonderful Wednesday

Oliver had another wild, naked morning in the pasture today. I think he would be happy if we just left him out there to live with the goats. At times he certainly acts more like a goat than a human. Patches and Oliver love to knock heads together while Leche always tries to get a piece of the action.

Oliver finally put on some clothes and he strapped on his squirrel to head to town for my doctor's appointment. At the young age of four, Oliver is already quite the staunch lactivist. He is not ashamed to nurse his squirrel named "Pearl" on demand in public. If his baby needs a nurse, then damn it, she is getting one. As you can tell, she is one satisfied squirrel.

After measuring my belly and listening to the baby, Oliver and I headed to the post office. We opened the door and could hear loud chirping sounds. Our chicks and keets (baby guinea fowl) had arrived! We ordered our birds this time from Sandhill Preservation because we like that they are a no-kill chick facility.

Oli really enjoyed being able to hold one chick and one keet.


The babies are all settled in for the night. I'm looking forward to see what guinea fowl personalities are like. The keets are the smaller brown or lavender babies in the photo below.

As an added bonus to an already spectacular day, our resident wild turkey "Gerdie" decided to hang out with us all day. She has two poults and does an excellent job of keeping them from being eaten by a fox. I'm happy she has chosen our property as her home! I think it's a pretty nice place to raise children.

Good News (Another Annoyingly Optimistic Post)

1. Thank You Pacific Wildlife Care!

A few weeks ago Glenn found an abandoned baby bird near the milking parlor at Rinconada Dairy. He brought the little bird home to me to mother. Usually I jump at the chance to help a little animal, but domesticated animals are more my bag. I like to leave wild animals in the hands of professionals to ensure correct diet and care (plus, it is illegal to keep wildlife). Luckily we have a great local organization called Pacific Wildlife Care. I called PWC and was met by a local volunteer named Debbie. Debbie, a fellow nurse, took our baby sparrow home to help her feed and grow.

Oliver was not too happy about having someone else raise his baby. He named her Celestial and the two had a lovely breakfast together before we made Oliver say goodbye to his new friend.

Last week Debbie called us and let us know Celestial was doing great and was ready to be released. She was being raised with two other sparrows. Debbie wanted to know if we would like to be present for the release. We decided to release all three sparrows at Rinconada Dairy because it is a great place for a sparrow to live.

It was wonderful watching all three birds fly up to the nearest oak. They are already surrounded by a family of sparrows. In the picture below I have circled all three birds at the time of release. They moved so fast, it was hard to get a clear picture.


2. Business is Booming (or Beeping Just a Little)

I don't write about our small business too much, mainly because it has taken a back seat to everything else in our lives. We finally got it together enough the past few months to create a display for our balms. We are selling at two cool shops: one in California and one in Rhode Island. The lip balm seems to be doing quite well as we have gotten orders from both shops to refill the displays. Perhaps next year on our taxes we will be able to show that we broke even rather than claiming -77 dollars!


3. Jessica B-B, Author?

Some of you (the three of you who read my blog) might remember that I was attempting to write a children's book. I wrote a book based loosely on this blog post:

Another Weird Bee Post

Then one night back in December I was feeling adventurous, so I sent an email query to an independent publishing house. I was surprised to hear back from the editor the next day requesting the full manuscript. Then five long months later, after I had finally given up all hope, I received an email from the editor. She said my manuscript was a "strong contender" and wanted to send it to a focus group. She asked if the publishing house could have exclusive review of it during the focus group process. I'm so satisfied to have made it this far in the children's book writing experience, I don't really even need my MS to be published (although that would be unbelievable). An editor read my MS and actually liked it-I'm THRILLED!

4. More Chicks

(Photo credit: Glenn)
Our friends have decided to start keeping chickens. Instead of ordering chicks, we picked out several pretty eggs and put them under our broody hen (she really wanted some babies). On day twenty, I checked under our hen Etta and found one chick. Over the next two days, four more arrived. One disappeared the first day. We think she may have fallen into a ground squirrel hole we didn't notice under the brooding box. Glenn cemented the floor of the coop and we haven't lost anymore. Poor little chick (I just had to bring things down a little). So now we have four chicks, two from brown eggs and two from blue eggs. I hope at least a couple will be egg layers!



4. One More Goat!

The sister of my coworker lives on the most beautiful property between Morro Bay and Atascadero. She raises goats and knew we were looking for a male (with different genetics) to eventually breed with our females. She called us because a shiny, black male was born a few weeks ago and wanted to know if we would like him. Here are pictures of our fourth (and final) goat. He will be staying with his mother to nurse for a good long time, which we are very happy about. Now we just need yet another name!