Backyard Hencam

I’ve been going a bit crazy lately. As you know I have two websites, this one, and Central Coast Gardening. Keep in mind, I’m not technically gifted. In fact, I’m barely functional. While I was updating the two websites, I ran into all kinds of technical problems and my poor hens have suffered from neglect. They’ve missed my company and their egg production is down from 2-3 eggs per day to 0-1.

Now I don’t expect an egg every day from my hens. “Take it easy,” I tell them. “Pace yourselves.” I want them to lay less and lay longer. I won’t have the heart to put them down or make them into soup when they finish their laying career, so the longer they lay, the better. A bunch of old “layless” hens doesn’t excite me but I love these girls. They are pets.

Well, while I’ve been throughly involved in updating my websites, Poppy and Tulip have been throughly involved in shedding their feathers. This process, called moulting (or molting) is also known as sloughing, or shedding. Birds do it, dogs do it, reptiles do it and my hens do it. It takes a month or two for them to moult and regrow their beautiful new covering. Until then, I’ll have to make do with fewer eggs.

Tulip Has an "Ugly" Moult

Until their feather are regrown, the hens will be getting  a serving of tuna and sunflower seeds each day which are supposed to have nutritional ingredients that will help them regrow feathers. Poor girls. Setting on eggs and moulting are the two events in a healthy hens life that interrupt their egg-laying process. They’ll just have to endure it and I will just have to buy eggs at the farmers market.

Corner Behind Henhouse Shows Moulted Feathers

Women Love Their Hens

Why is it that women love, and are dedicated to, their hens? I think I know the answer. The hens show the familiar attributes of our earliest female friends. Remember those high school girls you hung out with? They were all unique and they acted out of heart and spirit, and yes, hormones. They were glandular and unpredictable. They were wonderful!

Each of the hens in my flock has a unique personality, much like my schoolgirl friends. Take Daisy, for instance. I had a big, blond, friend, just like Daisy. She wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box but she had a big heart and enough love for the entire student body. She found it unbelievable when people were unkind. When our hen Daisy gets pecked, she squawks in disbelief then looks at the perpetrator with an expression on her face like, “What did you do that for?”

Then there’s Poppy. Poppy is the “no nonsense” matriarch of my flock. She is strong and intelligent. Not in the least gullible. She settles squabbles with a sharp peck on the cheek and the matter is finished. I had a friend like that. Wonder what happened to that “wise beyond her years” girl.

Tulip is large in beauty and “not so large” in personality. She is popular and respected through no doing of her own. Tulip sits sideways on the roost at night, taking up extra space because, she believes that, “I deserve more space, because I am me.” She is a statuesque and would be elected homecoming queen (if there was such a thing for chickens).

Sweetpea is unsure of herself. Daisy likes her, but then again, Daisy likes everyone. Sweetpea (a barred rock) is a standard kind of chicken, a hard worker (at laying eggs) and hopes that the other hens will not mistreat her and that people will like her. She is a cheerleader for others. When another hen lays an egg, she cackles loud and long, as if she herself had done the deed. Remember that girl in high school? I hope she married well and has lots of kids that love her, or, had a great career and has lots of nieces and nephews that love her.

Petunia, who now lives elsewhere, is untrusting and untrustworthy. She’s the insecure girl who has to work hard to be in the “in crowd”. She is nervous, has a sharp tongue (beak), and agitates others. As teenagers we tried to ignore this “mean girl”. As flock managers we have the option of removing “mean girls” from our environment, as we have done with Petunia.

Our deceased Rosie was the gal that was picked on and somewhat annoying because she wouldn’t stand up for herself. When I think back on my high school days, I can remember a “Rosie” or two. Why were these kids excluded? How sad and frustrating it must have been for them to want to be a part of things and just not know how to break in.

I watch the hens and understand that animals have similar desires as humans. We want to be a part of a flock, group, or a club. We want to be respected and not abused.  We want to play around with others of our kind. We want treats and sometimes to be petted. We want to snuggle up at night and be safe and secure. It’s not so difficult to see why chicken lovers find their hens entertaining and loveable. They are so like us.

A pocket gopher hole in the coop.

Our chicken run has been invaded by a gopher! It has somehow found its way under 12 inches of hardware wire that we buried under the soil to keep out digging predators. Well, it worked for the predators but not for the crafty gophers. We’ve had a lot of gophers this year in the garden. They can easily dig in the moist soil, and after an unusual amount of rain last winter, it’s to be expected. It’s turned out to be gopher heaven here.

Pocket gophers tunnel deep in the earth, leaving mounds (usually “U” shaped) of fine, powdery soil at the surface. The pocket gopher is named for the pockets inside the cheeks used for gathering food. You can see a pocket gopher gather food on this video. Their nests and food chamber can be 6 feet deep. Gophers are herbivores, preferring herbaceous plants, shrubs, and trees. If a shrub dies overnight, it is usually a sign that a gopher has eaten the roots. Trapping and applying poison deep in the tunnel are the common methods of ridding your garden of gophers. A wire basket surrounding a newly planted tree or shrub will protect the roots from these pests until the plant can survive a bit of nibbling.

A pocket gopher with pouches filled.

I’ve left the hole where the gopher came up in the run. I don’t know what the hens would do if he comes out in the daytime. They’d probably squawk and run screaming to the far corner. The hens are not very brave. They squawk and run when I throw in a big snail into the run! Now I’ve heard that chickens, especially those big burly he-man roosters, will make dinner our of gophers and rats. But my sweet hens…….I doubt it.

I wonder what the gopher is looking for. There’s not a living blade of grass in the run since hens are attracted to anything green. Perhaps he is eating the chicken feed that gets spilled on the ground. Anyway, I’ll keep you posted. He’s got to go because when he finds out he came up in barren territory, he’ll soon wander and be eating the roots of my beloved garden plants!

I’ve been engaged in what they call “flock management”. Flock management is one of the responsibilities of having a flock of chickens. It sometimes requires making a difficult decision. The decision of having to “cull” one of my hens has taken over a year for me to make. What a heartless sounding word “cull” is. In poultry, or in any animal management, it means “to pick out for rejection for not meeting the standard or to remove for specific reasons”. In poultry speak, cull can also mean “to wring their necks, cut their throats, chop off their heads, or in some other way, dispense of the offender”. Thank goodness, it can also mean to “find them another place to live, or, to rehome”.

Taylor Newton with Petunia

I finally made the decision to “cull” Petunia. Over the past year, this beautiful Golden-laced Wyandotte, became more and more of a “bully”. She had always picked on Rosie, making her life quite miserable toward the end. Sweetpea and Daisy were her other targets but she focusd on Tulip when she was recently sick, until I intervened. I never once saw her attack the silver-laced Wyandotte, Poppy, the matriarch and “no-nonsense” memeber of the group. The final straw was her treatment of Daisy when she was broody. Every time I took Daisy from the nest to try to get her to eat and drink, Petunia would chase her around the run until she went back in.

I removed Petunia from the run and kept her in the garden shed in a dog crate for a week before finding her a home. She was as sweet as sugar during her confinement, gently chorkeling to me, and to Tulip in the next cage, as I went about my gardening. I tried to return her several times to the coop but I could see that I didn’t have the tolerance for the frantic squacking and chaotic disorder that Petunia created. She needed a larger space and what I think of as “rooster leadership”. Yes, roosters do keep peace among hens, but there is an ordinance against roosters in Cambria, so we are doomed here, to have quiet, but confused, flocks.

It was not easy finding a home for Petunia. Many people, I found, did not want to introduce an “ill-tempered” hen into their established flock. I can hardly blame them. Then, along came Taylor Newton, owner of Newton Cultivation in Morro Bay; rescuer of all things living and willing to give a “mean girl” a chance. His rescued roosters far outnumber his hens. But Petunia’s a tough little beauty. I think she will do all right.

I’ve been sad for a few days now. The act of giving up has taken its toll. But my garden is a more peaceful place. The hens seem settled and content for the first time in a long time. As I handed Petunia over to Taylor Newton, I assured myself that  Petunia is getting a chance to be a real chicken, not a pampered pet perhaps, but a real chicken. I wish her well.

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Tulip enjoys a dust bath.

Tulip is soooooo much better. We’ve put her back with her flock for a few hours each day. Today she laid her first egg since her injuries last week.

The first day that we put her in with the other hens, I waited to see if they began pecking her back. It still has a bare spot but there is no blood present. I didn’t see them peck her at all. She rushed over to a private spot that the cameras don’t show, layed down and took her first dust bath in four days. I’m sure she felt like we all do when we’ve been deprived of a shower for a few days. She spent an hour fluffing her feathers and rolling about in the dirt. After a while, Poppy joined her. Poppy just sat near her, glad to have her back.

I’m not sure who started the pecking but my suspicion was that it was Petunia. Petunia has always been a bit of a pecker. I’ve made a rather tough decision in the last week. I’ve have been looking for a better home for Petunia. One with a larger run; perhaps a “free range” situation. A rooster would be good. Roosters seem to know how to handle ill-tempered hens. I believe that I have found a good home for Petunia and will post about it when I deliver her there.

Poppy visits with Tulip as she takes her dust bath.

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