Chicken Flock Report

We don’t know if the event is worthy of a Bat Mitzvah or a debutante party, but it is significant in our chicken coop. One of the chickens laid the flock’s first egg! We are now getting primed to start collecting eggs daily. Three fancy nesting boxes have been installed in the coop, but as you would imagine, the hens are ignoring it. The first egg was found on the floor. We are stuffing the hens into the nesting boxes when there is an opportunity hoping that they will get the idea.

Several weeks ago we let the flock out of the coop’s enclosure to roam around our fenced garden area. They have decimated the plants that were still in the garden, but are completely enjoying scratching and running around. Today we watched 3 chickens trying to use the same dusting hole at the same time. . . kinda like an old slap stick movie.

The rooster now has a name, Spike, and he is starting to crow and strut around like a big boy. He is also showing more authority in leading the flock, and he likes to jump the hens.

An update on the chicken gang rivalry: The Barred Rocks and Old Hens are getting along a little better, yet the pecking order is still in place. They are intermixing on the roost at night, so maybe more peace is in the future.

We didn’t have any idea that chickens could be this much fun.

Rocks versus Hens

The Montague’s had the Capulet’s, the Jet’s had the Shark’s, the McCoy’s had the Hatfield’s, but at our house, it’s the four Barred Rock chickens and the five slightly older Rhode Island Red/Black Sex Link hens. There is a feud going on, although a moderate one so far. We haven’t witnessed blood being spilled, but the number of loose feathers has increased. A chicken pecking order is definitely being established as we watch.

A little history to bring you up to date in this drama. Back in early April we bought five baby chicks from the local farmer’s coop–three Rhode Island Red and two Black Sex Link hens. They have been raised together and have received loving care from us and our granddaughter. We built a fancy new chicken coop with a fenced run and moved the young chickens into it when they were a couple of months old. They adapted well to the new facilities.

The coop we built can easily house more chickens, and we figured that adding a few more chickens wouldn’t be any additional work, so we looked around for a source of more chickens. A Craig’s List ad led us to a nearby place that raised various types of poultry. The conditions at this place were cramped and not very clean, so we felt like we were rescuing the four, young Barred Rock chicks that we bought. One of the chickens was bigger and looked older, and we suspected it might be a rooster. Barred Rock roosters are really striking birds, and we figured, why not? We are obviously novices when it comes to raising chickens, but we knew we had to isolate the new ones for a period of several weeks to ensure that both groups were healthy. So the Barred Rocks were placed in a chicken tractor for a couple weeks next to the coop/run with the five older hens.

On a couple of occasions all of the chickens were given free run of our fenced garden area. We thought this would be a good way for the chickens to say ‘hello’ to each other. The two groups of chickens scratched around and mostly ignored each other. The next phase of introduction and integration was to place the Barred Rock gang in the coop/run during the day, and return them to their chicken tractor at night. This progressed for several days. Then one night the Barred Rock gang went into the coop and hopped onto the roosting poles at dusk. So we figured if they were comfortable enough to go in, they must be ready for the permanent move. From that point the Rocks and the Old Hens have shared the coop and run. During these initial days, the Old Hens gang harassed the Barred Rock gang a lot, taking advantage of their larger size. It wasn’t looking good for the Rocks.

At this point we checked our chicken information sources for help in integrating the two groups. Our naivete became apparent, since numerous sources cautioned against mixing chicken groups and ages. Ooops! The damage was done, so we kept trying to help with the strife.

One day while I was tending the food and water, the rooster lost patience with an Old Hen that was acting bullish toward a Barred Rock hen. He grabbed the feathers behind the hen’s neck and hung on. Both flailed around for several moments. As they parted, the rooster proudly stood high with feathers hanging from both sides of his beak. Some minutes later he tried it again, but made a mistake of coming close enough for me to swat him off of the Old Hen. He didn’t like my interference and clucked and cackled his protest.

(Chicken philosophy tip: The humans need to become the ‘dominate rooster’ in their flock. This establishes the human at the top of the pecking order, making flock management easier. Thus, we don’t tolerate any aggression in front of us in the flock. . . we are the only ones to dispense chicken behavior modification when we are present.)

As a result, we have experienced the beleaguered Barred Rock chickens flying onto our arms or shoulders to seek a safe roost from the Old Hen gang. Kinda makes you feel warm and mushy inside to be a safe haven. We think the Barred Rocks had people contact at hatching and that has made them more sociable. The Old Hens were probably hatched by a machine and never connected with people, and they don’t much like being handled.

We never imagined that watching chickens could be so entertaining! More about the chicken wars in future blogs.

Flowers and mowing

It was past time to mow grass around the garage. . . second time this year, so it needed it. This area has Carolina wild petunia (Ruellia caroliniensis), a few Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta), and some other plants blooming. Over the years I've mowed around a few plants to let them go to seed to ensure they continue to bloom in future years. This has worked for 25 years and I look forward to enjoying the flowers each year.

Still, it bothers me to mow down the beauty. If I didn't mow, plant succession would take over and I would loose them in a few years. So, the mower is like a herd of grazing dinosaurs keeping the grassy meadow intact. Maybe using oil from the age of the dinosaurs to power the mower kinda keeps their spirit alive (that's a really long stretch). While mowing back and forth there isn't much to think about and the dinosaur to oil to gas to mowing idea passed the time.

The accompanying pictures were made with my new Droid camera phone. It has a pretty incredible macro setting and the pictures aren't bad. Definitely not even close to the quality of my Canon 5D MII, but not bad. I'll play with the phone camera and eventually figure out how to use it best. There is an old adage that says it isn't the camera, but the photographer, who makes good images. Time will tell.

How Wynnsum Woods Came to Have its Name

Our property in Kingston, Tennessee, consists of 24 acres along a beautiful ridge top that leads to the Tennessee River a few miles south of us. About 80% of our land is deciduous forest with oaks, hickories, maples, white pines, and other species. The remaining 20% is an old field area that we maintain by mowing. We have walking trails, benches for contemplating the woods, and some water features. We have wondered what we should call our place for years, but nothing we thought of seemed quite right.

Then, during a recent gathering of friends, a comment was made that we needed to name our property. An informal contest to suggest appropriate names ensued. One friend, who is a scholar of the Old English language, suggested we consider using Wynsum Woods. She explained that ‘Wynsum’ means ‘joyous,’ ‘delightful,’ or ‘pleasant.’ The modern word ‘winsome’ has evolved from this Old English word.

We liked the sound of the new name and its meaning, but we preferred the alternate spelling ‘Wynnsum.’ It will be useful as we plan for and advertise workshops and gatherings such as the photography workshop scheduled for early October. This workshop is the beginning of the realization of a long-time dream of ours of establishing our land as a place for people to gather to commune with nature.

When we Googled our chosen name and found it was unique on the internet, this sealed the deal! Our property will be known as Wynnsum Woods.

We Decide to Try Blogging

We recently spent a short vacation on Sanibel Island, Florida, where we visited Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge a number of times. In addition to spectacular shows of Roseate Spoonbills and White Pelicans, we also met Don and Lillian Stokes and their new Corgi puppy Phoebe. We had admired their work on birding for many years, so it was a privilege to meet and talk with them. They mentioned their blog (http://www.stokesbirdingblog.blogspot.com/. What a great idea!

We hope this is the start of an interesting blogging journey for us. More later!