Chickens at Common Ground

This weekend I visited Common Ground , a school, urban farm, and environmental education center; as quoted in their site, "It is a place where all members of the community – young and elementary-aged children, middle and high school students, the general public, and environmental practitioners – can find connections to the local environment, each other, and opportunities for learning and engagement."They keep a variety of chickens and other farm animals at Common Ground as well. I visit when I have time on the weekends (mostly to see the chickens), they also have Open Farm days on Saturdays.

The fenced area in which they keep their chickens in.

Top and bottom: The chickens' nesting boxes with 2 of them occupied for the moment.

A runaway turkey, in the end it was safely herded back into it's enclosure.

Here is the little Golden Sebright Rooster who was quite a cutie, strutting around proudly in his golden dragon scale mail armor.

Top and bottom: A Dark Cornish, one of the breeds that I am hoping to get in the future.

Submitting to the warmth of the sun.

Top and bottom: This beautiful Partridge Rock rooster was pretty careful when eating out of my fingers, and at least he didn't bite a chink out of my finger as the Golden Laced Wyandotte roo did!

Just for a hen and rooster comparison, this is one of the Partridge Rock hens at Common Ground.

Here is some info on Plymouth Rocks:

A Plymouth Rock is the name of the chicken breed, not a feathering type. The varieties that are accepted in the Standard are: barred, white, partridge, silver penciled, buff, columbian, blue, and black. But keep in mind that these colors are only correct in the United Kingdom, America, and Canada. Australia's Poultry Standard divides the barred variety into two separate colors, dark barred and light barred. I often see many people get confused and call the barred variety a Plymouth Rock, but the Plymouth Rock name is only a breed, not a color variety. The most widely recognized and popular variety of the Plymouth Rock is the barred variety. To learn more about Plymouth Rocks, you should go to the Backyard Poultry site and Newbould's Rocks.

A Black Star hen with stunningly colored breast feathers being reflected in the sunlight.

Top and bottom: And here we finally are! Is the little nincompoop that ripped a bit of skin off my thumb (it bled a little bit but the wound was just a little cut). I don't blame him, he probably just had bad accuracy and accidentally bit my finger a bit too hardly

When I had first arrived, the students had thrown in some leftover vegetables on the ground that some chickens were pecking at vigorously and trashing about. And since chickens didn't have hands to tear apart or hold on end of a leaf to rip a leaf into smaller pieces, it was very inconvenient to eat the leftover vegetables. Many of them had long lost interest in the limp figures on the ground. So when I held up a couple of small pieces of what I thought was lettuce, one little Black Star pullet walked up to me, gazing up at the delicious treat. As soon as she started feasting, other chickens caught attention of the event and joined.I also gave the turkeys some greens, they were most of the time ignored by little children visiting the poultry yard who were instead, fascinated by the vast majority of chickens.

"Food. . ." the Black Star pullet looked at the lettuce piece, with big, bulgy, dreamy looking eyes.

A floppy combed Blue Andalusian joins.

A curious Red Star enjoys some greens.

Top and bottom: A Golden Campine hen scrounging for some veggies on the ground.

A Partridge rock hanging around with a Dominique hen. Dominiques are commonly called Barred Rocks, the main difference is that a Dominique has a rose comb and Plymouth Rocks have single combs.

A bunch of hens standing around the dustbathing pits.

This Buff Orpington here is taking a dustbath, and while the sun shines down on her, she sunbaths as well.

A White-Crested Blue Polish.

A Splash Andalusian standing near one of the coop openings, hunched up from the cold.

This is a hatchery quality Light Brahma.

Mellow's First Egg!

Today, after a few days of knowing that Mellow had reached maturity for laying eggs (she squatted down for me one day when I extended my arm), Mellow finally delivered her first egg! The egg was found underneath the roost, and it didn't crack because I just replaced the bedding. It was small as expected from a bantam pullet and was pale brown, or as some say, a tinted color. I also spotted a few blood stains on the pointed end of the egg, which were probably from her first struggle pushing the egg out.

Mellow's first egg was small with two blood stains.

Here's one of the stains, it looks a bit like brown egg color pigment that was wiped off.

The Chicken Coop d'état

Ever since I have moved into my new house, the chickens have been locked in the coop because there wasn't a suitable place to keep them confined in, we also didn't want them to bother the neighbors or let the chicks get caught by a predator. A talk with a next door neighbor had informed us that there were foxes, raccoons, hawks, and even coyotes in my backyard! So the best option since we were busy was to keep them in the coop for the whole day. I felt guilty for keeping them in there with no entertainment or area to run and frolic so a few weeks ago I decided to keep them in an old fenced up dog enclosure that the previous owner had left.

The dog pen, with two white "ornaments" on top.

Lemon and Spice immediately flopped onto the ground to dustbath, after being deprived of it for a week.

Of course the first few days were good, no one flew out and the chicks and Mellow quickly headed to  dust-bath and scrap up leaves. But as a week passed, Lime and Charcoal my best flyers had found the ticket to freedom. All they had to do was use their power jump and fly up onto the top of the fence, which encouraged the others to follow.This was the beginning of the long lasting war. . .

Not being content with their freedom from the coop, the chickies formed the Coop d'état, a group of young rebellious teenagers that were unsatisfied with their life.

The cold November wind blew Lime's feathers, urging her to continue and jump off the fence.

They probably think of me as the evil woman with The Stick, because when they do happen to get out of the fenced area, I will come out and herd them back in with a branch from a tree I had picked up in my old house, 3 years ago. And as always, poor little Mellow (who is now a midget, the baby chicks are starting to outgrow her!) is always left out, due to her shortness and irregular wing feathers. The war between the safety of the chicks and freedom happens everyday. and every minute it seems, a little chickie will make her escape, and again the evil woman with the stick will stalk the insolent, and shoo them back in. Until I get them in a permanent enclosure or buy some netting to cover the top of the fencing, the chickens will continue to escape and I will still have to chase them with a stick....

Here are some pictures in neutral times:

Spice being disturbed while taking her daily dustbath.

A little bit of grass for the exited chickers.

Top and bottom: The chickers are hiding in a small outdoor dog house from the cold, and basking in the sun's warmth as usual.

Lemon foraging in the oh-so interesting leaves.

This is how the pullets look at me under their veil of cuteness. Evil chickens! They watch me walk back in the house, with their shiny glinting eyes, full of mischief and trouble.

As night draws near, the sun sets and the chickens happily and swiftly make their way to the coop. They walk around and bawk their complaints (because they don't want to use the energy to jump up), and Mellow will jump using her "power" jump where she finds the perfect spot to jump, crouches down, wiggles her body close the the ground, and then..., JUMPS! The other pullets follow and in the end, they all make it to the rooster bar and sleep for the night, waiting for another rebellion the following day.

The sun sets after a long day.

Warble Garble

Lately I have been seeing these little yellow birds flying in the pine trees. At first glance you would assume that they were Goldfinches, but when I actually brought out my binoculars to view them I found out that they were warblers! It's my first time seeing them in my yard and their delicate and rich chip chirps surrounds the pine trees. I think that there are a couple of different warblers that I have been seeing and listening to. The warblers occupying my pine trees could be Pine Warblers, Black-throated Green Warblers, or Prairie Warblers.

I'm pretty sure that this one is a  male Pine Warbler. I could hear them tweeting with loud clear notes that sounded very similar to a chipping sparrow's seeps and rapid series of chips.

Top and bottom: Here is what I think could be a female Black-throated Green Warbler.

Chicken Gossip of the Week - Chase around the Compost Bin

In the evening when all the other girls were eating their fill at the chicken bowl, Lemon and Mellow sparked up a fight and Mellow was determined to punish Lemon for her "sins". Lemon seeing that evil glint in Mellow's eyes ran towards the compost bin to hide. Mellow ominously following behind her tail, confidence in her stride. Once she was behind the bin Lemon looked back and saw Mellow right behind her! So she ran another lap around the compost bin pausing a few seconds to check behind her, but Mellow was still following her. The rest of the flock happily ate their grower pellets not minding the small feud that was happening beside them. Lemon then swiftly ran around the compost bin again then shot away from the compost bin to the overgrown sandbox. Mellow appeared from behind the bin and stopped, she did not see her offender reluctantly she ruffled her feathers and joined the flock to eat. A minute later Lemon gladly joined as well.

Lemon and her buddy Charcoal.

I would picture Mellow as strict teacher always around bugging students when they annoyed her.  Mellow hates little children who don't listen and follow her instructions and she lashes out on them with any given chance. Lemon on the other hand would be the role model student, going to the coop on time and eating with proper manners, though sometimes she will get in fights with Mellow.

Mellow the Great demands you to be silent while she eats her pellets!

Moving Out

Charcoal and Mellow on the roost.

Today I decided to start moving the baby chicks into the coop. They were already completely feathered and were getting too big for the indoor ferret cage.

 "Bawk-bawk-buaaaaaaw." the chickies whined, they were already filed up ready to come inside the house. I one by one carried each of them to their new coop and closed the door. They paced back and forth not knowing what to do and wanting to get out.

The baby chicks already to go inside. 

*Please note that the outside looks really late at night, but it's actually the flash that cause the color change in the background*

 I reluctantly opened the coop door again and put them on the roost, waited a few minutes to make sure that they didn't jump off, then closed it.

Top and bottom: They little flock examines the coops interesting surroundings.

Lemon and  Mellow quickly settled down to sleep while Charcoal still whining paced along the roost bar. In the end they all calmed down and were quiet except for a few "beeuups" and "bawks" announcing their existence here and there.

As they settled down, the chicks huddled together for their first night outside.

A Little Visitor

Every once in a while a flick of white will catch my eye outside, and usually as I look out a family of deer will be happily eating away at the leaves hanging outside of the garden fence. A mother and a baby visited today though only grazing in the "meadow". Here are some shots I got of them.

Top and bottom: The mother doe grazing cautiously, she would periodically lift her head up to check for predators.

On the left is the baby and the deer on the right is its mother.

Later on as I observed the mother I found that she had a deformed or hurt leg that she would lift up a lot while grazing.

As you can see her joint is in an unnatural position.