Spring Shuffle

In the past few years, it's become popular to have backyard chickens.  Lately, miniature goats have also found their way into the hearts of city dwellers.  That urbanites have become fond of these cacklers and bleaters, just warms the cockles of my heart.  We've been urban farmers for over twenty years.  All those new enthusiasts are simply catching up to where we are.

Wow.  We, the Reinhart family of Wheat Ridge, Colorado, are trendy.  

I enjoy talking to the newbies about their chickens and hearing their excitement.  When they learn how experienced we are, they flock to us with their questions:

What happens if one of my hens starts to crow?  Uh...that one isn't a hen.  My hens don't go inside when it snows.  Is that okay?  Yeah.  They're not the smartest birds on the block.  What do I do with a rooster?  Chicken noodle soup?  The conversation usually ends there.

I'm sure we had as many questions when we first started out, too.  

Winter is slow on our urban farm.  There's still plenty of work to do, but it's really just keeping everyone fed, watered, and protected from the elements.  Spring is when everything starts up again.  Hens start to lay eggs, Josephine looks for a place to hide a nest, all the bird's feathers come in fresh and new, Napoleon the Rooster starts attacking our feet with a vengeance, and Gussie the goose keeps all the predators away. 

Before this starts, there is the annual Spring Shuffle.  No, it's not a dance, though sometimes it seems as if someone has choreographed the whole thing.  Every bird in the yard has to find their place.  One wouldn't think it would be so challenging or creative.  It's different every year.

This year, we've had some interesting changes.  One of those changes, we implemented ourselves.  Gussie now has a pen to himself.  In the interest of my calves and the protection of our guests, he is in solitary confinement.  He's less aggressive without the females and we don't have to worry about an accidental hidden nest presenting us with a brood of new goslings.  We have four geese.  Enough is enough.  

The rest of the geese and the female duck are out in the main yard where they can scrounge around for any food they can find.  They keep the weeds down while they're at it.  The female geese are exceptionally docile and often follow us around the yard.  

Our chickens stay in the enclosed chicken yard.  There are exceptions.  Napoleon goes where ever he pleases.  He is the undisputed ruler of the farm, and if you don't believe him, he'll let you know by crowing loudly into your ear from his perch on the fence post.  

Josephine, our banty hen, also goes where she pleases.  Our son found her hidden nest under the rabbit cage one night.  He became suspicious when he heard the rabbit clucking away contentedly.  Peering under the cage, he found Jo the ventriloquist, sitting on her nest.  We can't reach it, so perhaps we'll have a brood of banties this year.

Then there are the odd ducks, so to speak.  One is a hen who has decided to keep Gussie company in his confinement.  It's unusual to have a friendship between a chicken and a goose, but I won't argue.  So far, so good.  Then there is Little Goose.  She is one of last year's goslings who has suddenly decided she'd rather stay in the chicken yard with the hens all day, rather than graze in the big yard with her mom and sister.  Again, I'm not going to argue.  It's peaceful out there.

Now we're getting eggs.  Out of sixteen hens, one duck, and three female geese, we got thirteen chicken eggs and a goose egg today. 

It's spring!  

Score one for the Foxes

It had to happen sooner or later.  We've had our birds for a year and a half, and during this time, we haven't lost any of our birds to predators.  Between having our guard geese, large white Embdens that patrol our chicken yard, and the fox population being hit hard in our area with mange, we just haven't seen foxes around much for the last two years.  This has been a mixed blessing.  Not only do I like foxes and enjoy seeing them, but they also keep the squirrel population at bay, something we were made aware of this year as we tried to garden.

In a normal year, the foxes will raise their young in the ditch in back of our property.  When the kits are old enough to learn how to hunt, mom and dad bring them to our farm to learn the ropes.  Fortunately, this has usually meant going after the squirrels.  I remember one day when I was working in our garden and a young fox caught a squirrel about 30 feet away from me.  The little guy brought his lunch over to the garden fence and sat there eating it, right in front of me.  I didn't appreciate it at the time.  

This year, however, the squirrels ate everything, chokecherries, plums, tomatoes, sunflowers, and apples.  They also raid our chicken food on a daily basis, knocking the lid off the metal trash can where we store the grain and even hopping right into the chicken feeder.  Where are the foxes when we need them?  I've been hoping they'd come back.

I got my wish tonight but it wasn't quite the way I'd planned.  We came home from a wonderful dinner at our son and daughter-in-law's house.  Coco is an incredible cook and we sat around feeling lazy and visiting for awhile.  By the time we got back home, it was dark.  And the birds were still outside.

Chris went out to put them all away, knowing that the chickens would already be in their house and the geese would be anxious to be let out of their pen.  They guard the yard at night.  The ducks are the ones who spend their day with the run of the whole yard.  It's complicated because the different species do not get along.  The geese will pick on the chickens, sometimes literally picking them up and giving them a shake. The male duck, Harold (named after my uncle), has made himself very unpopular with the male goose because he's always chasing the female geese.  Harold is also unpopular with our female duck, whom I named Cecelia (after my aunt), because he's always chasing the female geese.  Harold would also chase the hens and would probably have gone after the female squirrels if he thought he could get away with it.

Cecelia was by herself, waiting to go into the yard.  Chris looked around and saw a pile of white feathers lying on the ground by my studio.  On further investigation, the pile of feathers turned out to be a Headless Harold. Unless Cecelia just got so fed up with him that she literally bit his head off, I have to assume that a fox got him.  We are going to have to be very watchful this week.  Once a fox finds a nice meal somewhere, they tend to come back for more.  The chickens will have an earlier bedtime now and Cecelia will be hanging out with the geese.  That's okay, because they get along with Cecelia just fine.  

If the foxes were going to make a come back by eating one of our birds, I guess Harold was the best one to go.  I can't even make myself be too upset by this.  The foxes are far more useful than Harold ever was.  I only hope that next time, the foxes find a squirrel or two for their dinner.