Happy Birthday Girls!

It is hard to believe that this Wednesday will be the girls first birthday! I honestly cant decide what is more worthy of celebration: The three girls reaching their first birthday..........or that we have managed to keep 3 chickens living in our basement for a whole year now. When we look back on the last year it has been a roller coaster of ups and downs and trial and error. Overall, I am glad we decided to embark on this crazy journey of clandestine chicken keeping. While we have had our moments of "why the hell did we ever decide to do this?" (the disastrous first attempt at improvising an indoor coop, for example) the benefit of the chickens has by far outweighed the negatives. The sense of accomplishment of having our own fresh eggs and the amusement of all the girls' antics makes it all worth it.

To celebrate, we had a small birthday dinner with their grandparents. Yes, I realize this is totally insane, but I do have 3 chickens living in my basement here in the 'burbs, after all. I decided to make them a birthday cake but the question was..... what for goodness sake do you make a chicken's birthday cake out of? Well, I started with peanut bird suet and put black sunflower seeds and ham (their latest favorite treat) over the suet. Then I took three worms out of the compost bin and put those on top.

Before my parents came over, I took my old hamster pin and set that up over plastic from my last dry cleaning order. Then I ran down stairs and grabbed each chicken and brought her upstairs and plopped her in the hamster pin. As my parents came in the door, I pulled out the cake and we sang happy birthday. They seemed bewildered but excited by the worms. They stayed in the cage pretty well and also enjoyed a present from grandma and grandpa of freeze dried mealworms. All in all it was a nice evening for both humans and chickens alike. However as Jeff put it as we were cleaning dishes, "You know it stinks that you spent all day preparing that birthday dinner and one of them ended up pooping on you." I guess it is just a part of being a mom.

The birthday cake- I swear they liked it. Just in this pic they are all looking away!

The cake right before the worms went on.

Seriously, one of them had the nerve to poop on me!

Their present from my parents.

Goats in basement?

For awhile now Jeff and I have been talking about getting goats. Okay if we are going to be more honest, I have been attempting to talk Jeff into letting me get goats, but lets not get caught up in the details here. So this weekend we decided to start planning our garden for the season (yes, we know it is insanely early but when you live somewhere that the Weather Channel comes to do broadcasts from a parking lot that is only two blocks from your office because the late season storms are so impressive you gotta create some hope for warmer weather) anyways..... we are at the store picking up seed packets when, right next to the beans, was a book on getting started with goats. Now you see Jeff has a weakness for all thing reading (hey we found each other at a bookstore on a Saturday night what can you expect?) So I picked up the book and pretended to be really amazed (okay I have read at least five books on goat keeping and wasn't surprised by anything I read in the book but a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do). Jeff picked up another copy and also began reading..... this is very promising! Fingers crossed for me.... oh and if anyone has any info on keeping indoor goats please drop us a line.... we (me) could use any help....thanks

I hear a chicken fight brewing in the basement so off to break that up.....

Pets or livestock?

After both of us spent the previous week sick, much of the weekend was devoted to cleaning "the farm." I can't tell you my relief when I emptied the fish tank to discover that in the bottom inch of water the fish were still alive!!! It was a miracle! As I slowly took gallon by gallon out, I feared what I might find in the bottom of the murky green waters, but there they were! I feel like a much better farm "mom" to realize that I didn't kill any of the animals. However the entire point of the fish is to get them "plate ready" so I really need to work on figuring out the difference between pets and livestock... oh well another day... today I am going to enjoy the little fish being alive and the new filter I installed to keep this from happening again.

Bad Chicken Keepers!

As I start to come out of the haze that this horrible cold put both Jeff and I into, I am beginning to notice how much I neglected the farm during my sickness. The chicken pen is so gross. There is poop everywhere! The fish tank is a dark green, and I can no longer see any fish in there. The potatoes weren't watered and have fallen over. The worm bin got dry and the worms tried to escape! Yes, everywhere you look there is neglect. At least the chickens don't seem upset. It had been a few days since I had been down there since I didn't want to get them sick. When I finally spent some time with them, they all came running over to see me as soon as I stepped in the pen and dear Scabby even tried to jump in my lap. Who needs a dog to make you feel better when you have chickens? : ) This weekend is going to be a lot of cleaning though....

Chickens in Paradise

So as you gathered from our last post, we have just spent the last week in the US Virgin Islands at an EcoResort, Maho Bay on St. Johns. (We would HIGHLY recommend it for any other eco-conscious travelers along with TerraPass to offset the airflight.) The first morning I woke up groggy from the day before of traveling and despite the warm temperatures and the ocean waves, in my haze thought that I was back home in Upstate NY. You see I was being woken up by the all too familiar chicken crowing. I couldn't believe it, we had traveled over a thousand miles and wouldn't you know it, St. John has as many wild chickens as we do squirrels up north. I was fascinated by the "wild" version of our girls. When we first saw the other chickens in town (and yes one was trying to cross the road) I was amazed by how small they were. Jeff just cracked it up to being a different breed, but I am now worried that perhaps we over feed the girls and they are just lazy fat American birds. Next week I am going to try to figure out a way to weigh them and determine if they are overweight. Either way, I enjoyed the week of getting to see so many different breeds of chickens and even one family of baby chicks. Upon arriving home, we were happy to see our girls again. My parents had done a wonderful job of not only bringing in the mail, shoveling, but also chicken farming. You know, the normal house sitting duties.

Am I my chickens keeper?

I dont think I ever thought that I would get to the point in my life when getting ready to leave for vacation would not only include the normal stresses of making sure sunscreen and tooth-brush are packed, passport is up to date, and chickens have a caretaker to look after them.....Check, check, and check.....Yes, you heard me right: We had to find a chicken sitter before we could jet off for warmer lattitudes. To 99.9% of city and suburban dwellers, this proposition would seem absolutely INSANE, and I suppose it probably is. But when you have chickens living clendestinely in your basement, you find yourself arranging your life in many ways that you never would have envisioned......Fortunately, the 'rents are in the "pro-poultry" faction, and are happy to drop in to fill the feeder, refresh the water, collect the eggs, and most likely spoil the girls with treats. Come to think of it it, this is probably alot easier than having to find someone to look after dogs. But the people with chickens are weird, hmmmmm.....

If you are thinking about becoming an urban chicken keeper, and your friends and family arent so used to the idea yet, dont worry - there are now chicken hotels. Really, this is not a joke. If you dont believe me, please check out the link to the Canadian Broadcasting Company, and the linked story of the "chicken hotel". Our chickens HATE anything that has to do with change, and would probably create as much havoc at this hotel as a Gun's N' Roses re-union tour, but definitely an idea and innovation whose time has come! 

http://www.cbc.ca/asithappens/episode/2011/01/31/monday-january-31st-2011/

Moulting is getting old and I am hungry!!! : )

So before the moulting began Jeff and I were overrun with eggs. We got up to three full cartons and that was with us giving them away to friends and family. Yesterday, I was getting ready to make pasta for dinner and reached into the refrigerator to discover that we only had one dozen left!! At the same time the girls have only been producing an egg every other day due to their moulting. Forget what the politicians say, this is true deficit spending!!! To my total horror, we may need to purchase eggs. The thought disgusts me. I suppose I should take Jeff's advice and be more understanding of the chicken's moulting. It really must take a lot of energy to be replacing so many feathers, but it is also taking a lot of energy to sweep up all those feathers!