Saying the weather in Central New York is unpredictable is kind of like saying women find Ryan Gosling mildly attractive. It is an understatement. We went from 85 degrees to a frost warning to back up to 90 in a week.
As much as I hate to admit it, one day in the not too distant (probably next week) future I am going to wake up to snow on the ground. No more messing around. It's time to process the rest of our meat birds and move the pullets in with the dragon lady herself: Chicky Rivera.
I hate to use the term, "process" because it sounds like I have some sort of Tyson chicken factory when in reality we put the bird in a cone, slit its throat, scald it and then throw it into our homemade chicken plucker; aptly named the "Mudda Plucka." I guess that sounds a little more grizzly than, "processing" the birds, but my personal belief is that keeping thousands of chickens in a tiny cages until they are killed is a whole lot more grizzly than the way we are doing it.
Since I am back to work it is going to be up to the husband to put the rest of the meat birds in the freezer. Given his dislike of butchering chickens, I think we may have a very full chicken house soon.
The two problems we immediately needed to solve were how to introduce the twenty-one pullets and one rooster named Gregory Peck (thank you CM for the name) into Chicky's lair and what to do about letting them outside during the day. When you have three chickens roaming the neighborhood it can be kind of a sweet bucolic scene, but looking out your window and seeing 25 carpeting your front yard may be our tipping point from amusing city people turned farmers to THOSE people in the eyes of our neighbors.
The husband got to work on fencing in a large area around the chicken house so our feathered friends can just exit their little door in the morning and happily forage in the wooded area all day, thus ensuring harmonious relations with the neighbors.
Once the fence was installed, all five of us lined up outside of the chicken tractor to move them one by one into their new digs. They were not happy to go and I can't say as I blame them. For anyone who knows chickens, introducing new ones into an existing flock is about 1000 times worst than being the new kid in junior high school. Even though it was twenty-two against three, chickens are not so bright and the bullying was sure to be severe. The Taj Mahal was being turned into a Brooklyn tenement circa 1900.
The new tenants did not venture outside the entire next day. By day two we had to go in and throw their fluffy butts outside. I littered their playground with melon rinds and the corn cobs from the previous night's dinner to entice them to remain outside. I then spent the next hour watching twenty-two chickens run away from Chicky Rivera whenever she got within two feet. I think she probably made it known the night before that she is the fearsome slumlord of the tenement.
We were quite pleased with ourselves and the new setup. After a year of raising chickens perhaps we had moved from dilettante to competent poultry farmers. The pride quickly faded as I looked up a couple of hours later to see one of the Cuckoo Marans walking up the driveway and another in the herb garden. Seems we forgot one little thing about keeping chickens in a simple fenced in area: They can fly.
We got everyone rounded up and contained again and they seemed content to stick close to home. When I went out around 8 pm to close them in for the night, I realized we forgot something else: Chickens like to sit in trees. This time it was the Australorps and Golden Comets.
I made Prince come out with a flashlight so I could try to grab them. I tripped and stumbled over the rocks and tree branches until I captured a couple. One was a little too high up for my diminutive self to easily reach, so I stood tiptoe on a rock directly underneath her just praying she didn't poop right then. I managed to grab her and put her safely into the chicken house.
It has been a week since we moved the group into their new digs and they seem pretty happy. For the most part everyone goes inside at night, though I did see one of the tree nesters in the backyard when I woke up the other day. It is impossible to get a head count in the dark every night. Relations seem to have gotten slightly better but the seas do still part if Chicky Rivera decides she wants that watermelon rind. The only one who remains a little skittish is a Faverolle named Fifi. She is a tiny, sweet and slightly crazy little girl who gets picked on a lot. Of course she is now my favorite.
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