Macaroni Salad

Yesterday I made Macaroni Salad.  Except I did not use Macaroni, I used 'Nuggets' instead.  It turned out really tasty.  Sweet pickles add a crunch, and a tangy bite to this really easy to make salad.

Head on over to the What's Cookin?  page to get the full recipe!

Finally Getting Along

Well I think the worst is over with the hen pecking.  I still have one of the Wyandottes being a little mean but I think all will survive.  They all seem to be getting along better.  Some Still hang out with just their own kind.

Others will mingle with the old hens.  The reds seem to be generally pretty mellow about the invasion of the new hens.  They do get a bit territorial and possessive if I throw a tomato into the run for them.  I hav to make sure I toss in several so they all can share.

They are starting to develop their personalities as as they do I have started to name them.  This is Sally.  She is a Wyandotte that has a wonky toe.  It does not seem to bother her and she can move it so I am not worried about it being bent sideways.  Sally likes to talk and talk and talk.  Quite the gossip she is.

Fuzzy of course is one of my oldest hens.  She is one of my first Easter Eggers.  She got pecked some so I sprayed her butt with the purple spray then she just had to preen herself so now she also has a purple face.  Goofy chicken.

Honey is a sweet Easter Egger that is inquisitive.

I keep checking inside the coop every few hours for eggs.  A few of the new layers have caught on and are laying in the nest boxes while one insists on laying in the corner of the coop under the nest boxes.   So far I have 3 Easter Eggers laying.  I suspect it will be any day now for the rest of them to start.  They Wyandottes and Australorps are as big as the old Reds.  Any day now....

The grass is coming back nicely in the brooder run.  We plan on putting in permanent poles and extending the existing run out to include what was the brooder run to give them more room.

I try to spend time with the hens every day.  I spend time inside the run and coop with them so they get used to me and will come up to me.  Taming them will make thing easier if I have to doctor them in any way.  It also makes for a more fun flock.  I have two chickens now that will submit to me.  Fuzzy and now one of the Wyandottes submit to me by squatting in front of me and spreading their wings out inviting me to climb on as a rooster would do.  I generally just pat their back and pat them in the butt when they do this to me.  They seem satisfied with it - or disgusted with me that I have no clue how to hit home with this open invitation!  I am going to go with satisfied...yeah thats it.....  They shake and fluff out and go about their merry way.

Silly silly chickens.

Another Lesson on Eggs

Lets talk eggs again.  Eggs are a marvelous wonder in packaging,  not to mention the inner workings of the egg.  Some people think when they see that white squiggly thing in their eggs that it is fertilized.  This is wrong.  That white squiggly thing is actually called the chalaza and acts as a bungie cord to help stabilize the yolk so it does not bang around and break apart.  Here is a picture of the all the sections of an egg.  I bet you did not know they all existed.

There is a larger air pocket at the rounder end of the egg.  If a peep were to be developing its head is always at this end.  This is so that as the peep develops and gets bigger it can breath that air stored in that end of the egg.  Eggs are complicated but at the same time wonderfully simple environments.  As you can see from the diagram above there are two distinct sections of the egg white: the thick albumin, and the thin albumin.  This is very visible when you fry an egg.  Part of the white in runnier and spreads out while closer to the yolk the white is thicker and stays in place without running all over the pan.

Some may see that whitish dot on the yolk and think it is fertilized.  This is also wrong.  All eggs have that dot.  As you can see from the top picture that is called the Blastodisc.  The purpose of the blastodisc is to allow fertilization if male sperm is introduced to it.  If an egg is fertilized there will be a faint but distinct donut ring around the blastodisc as is seen in the picture below.  This will not alter the taste or texture of the egg.

If you keep the fertilized egg warm and rotate them, they will develop into embryos and hopefully hatch in healthy peeps.  I do not hatch my own eggs.  I prefer to buy day old peeps.  I do have a rooster but he is not the more charismatic guy so he does not hit home runs with the hens consistently.  I would end up wasting a lot of eggs and time trying to incubate eggs from this group.

So today's lesson we learned that the white squiggly thing is not a fertilized egg it is a bungie cord for the yolk,  That little plain white dot on the yolk is not fertilized it is the blastodisc, and my rooster needs dating lessons to improve his luck with the ladies.

Introducing my Chickens

Here are some more pics of my chickens and their coop.

This is Fuzzy my Easter Egger chicken.  She is almost 3years old and still laying bright green eggs.

Here is Chip my psycho rooster:

This is one of the newer girls sitting in the nest boxes:

This is the poor chicky I had to put down over the weekend:

and another group shot:

Here are construction pics of the coop.  It is made from rough cut lumber board and battened:

The coop is 8x8 square with a height from 6' in the from down to about 5' in the back.
The run is 8' wide by 30' long.  We let them free range in the non winter months.  The

Most people put their chickens in their back yard.  We put ours in the front yard.  That way we can keep an eye on them and keep them safe from predators.

The finished coop.  I may still paint it red and white, and add a flower box under the window.

Here are some of the eggs I typically get, green and varying shades of brown:

I clean the coop out two times a year.  They do a great job at composting 4 bales of pine shavings into fertile dirt!  I wear my space suit and do it early in the morning when the neighbors are at work or still sleeping!  I am sure I am a sight to see!  It takes me a few hours and about 5 loads with the wheel barrel to get it all cleaned out.  That includes scraping down the perches and washing the window.  Lets face it, chickens are dirty birds and this is a pretty gross job but I choose to have chickens and I will provide them with the cleanest living quarters possible.  I use hay in the next boxes and pine bedding on the coop floor.

I get about 8 - 12 eggs a day with this flock.  Thankfully in PA, small time productions can sell their eggs to the local neighbors and establishments.  I sell my eggs to my neighbors and I sell them to co-workers.  I don't have enough chickens and production to try  selling to the local mom and pop resturants.  Maybe some day.

A Sad Day

As I mentioned in my introduction I have chickens.  I have 2 families of hens, one group that is getting to be about 3 years old and a newer family that is just turning 1 year old.  All the chickens live together in a very comfortable chicken coop.  They get along pretty well.  Sometimes there are some arguments as the pecking order is established challenged and maintained.  The newer hens just don't seem to be as hearty ad my older ones.  I have lost some of the older ones due to old age, but I have also had a few of the new one die for no apparent reason.  The new hens are also very skittish and freak out when I approach them as opposed to the older hens that like to be pet, carried around and are generally pretty affectionate ad far as chickens go.  In this newer set of chickens, there is one rooster.  This dear bird is something else.  He is a big chicken in every sense of the word, but he has moments of total stupidity and tries to attack me as I turn my back on him.  I give him an attitude adjustment and he is immediately sorry for what he did but he does not seem to remember and will get a little cocky with me again and again. 

Let me introduce my birds to you.  Here are a few of the cluckers:

In this horrible picture (forgive me it was dark out and all I had was my phone).  You can see Chip the rooster and the hens with the white tails are some of the new girls and the darker ones are the older girls.  The one eating is Fuzzy.  She is one of my favorite hens.  She is an easter-egger and lays green shell colored eggs.  She is super friendly also.

Here is another older hen.  Way up high on the top perches in the coop.  As you can see their coop is deluxe with high and low perches, window, and a wall of nest boxes.

I have more picture to post but they did not seem to make the upload from my phone.  I will re-upload them and post them later.

Anyway back to the sad day.  One of my new hens prolapsed.  If you are not current with the chicken terminology that means that her vent (the hole where the egg comes out) turned inside out some and was bleeding and drawing attention of the other birds.  The other birds would peck at her problem and make it bleed more and draw more attention to it.  A vicious circle.  I did not catch it in time but I tried to clean her up after consulting my handy dandy chicken book.  I had full intentions of saving this poor hen.  According to my book all I had to do was clean the area, tuck everything back in where it belongs and apply some over the counter Preparation H cream to the area to help things shrink back down to normal.  OK, I can do that.  I caught the skittish hen and pet her gently while talking softly to her to calm her down.  I then had to bring her into the house, flip her over and try to clean her up.  As I was cleaning her I noticed that the area that was pecked by the other birds and scabbed over and there was no saving her.  I ended up having to put her down.  I hate killing my chickens.  It would be different if they were meat chickens and what was their purpose but with laying hens death is not their purpose.  I said my apologies to her then broom-sticked her.  I wrapped her up and put her in the dumpster.  I went back in the house and cried.