Let This Be a Lesson to You

This week we learned a painful lesson. Saturday I purchased not quite 40 winter garden starts, various boc choi, tatsoi, collards, and rainbow chard to plant for our summer garden. I was very excited that our weather had forecast rain and cooler temperatures for Monday and Tuesday, as winter garden crops don't like high heat.

Saturday hubby slaved bringing a truckload of compost, and I shoveled most of it into the garden, on top of some buckwheat cover crop and coop poop-laden straw (say *that* three times fast). Sunday Michael slaved breaking up the soil and mixing it all in, and I planted, watered heavily, very happy with myself that we were just in time to utilize the wet weather.

At work Monday, I waited excitedly for the rain to begin, and was so pleased that I wouldn't have to water in my starts again because it was being done for me.

When I arrived home I walked over to the garden to see how happy the starts were and noticed what appeared to be a start eaten by a slug. I thought, "Oh drat! Oh well, they do get some of the starts." So I looked at the start next to it, and it was eaten down to the stem too. Then I looked at the start next to it and it was also suspiciously missing leaves.

At that point I panicked and looked over every single area we had planted and saw nothing but bare spots or stems! Our slugs in the Northwest are aggressive in the garden, but no slug, even with the help of a little slug army, could eat nearly 40 starts in one evening! In fact, only one creature would be interested in such a thing--chickens!

I was so furious, that I will confess I thought about cutting a few feathered lives short. Later, when I talked to Michael about it, he did mention that Rocky, Mary, and another hen did get out and he put them back, but it never occurred to him that they had decimated the newly planted garden. While I was upset for a fair amount of the evening (ok, I confess, I don't get over things as quickly as I'd like), I'm happy to report all the hens are present and accounted for.

The moral of this story is good fencing is everything. Make sure all your chicken fences are high enough to keep chickens from flying out, with no gaps they can easily go under. We found at least one area where the chickens could easily get out and increased the height of that fence. We are now down to 2 hens that still get out, Seiji, who is so well mannered she would never destroy our garden, and Mary Mary Quite Contrary, who obviously didn't hesitate to eat a garden to the stems. At this point her main escape route letting her into the garden has been sealed off, so hopefully we will not have a repeat of this.

Seiji Brown - Houdini of Hens?

This is a lovely action pic of Seiji Brown, as she scratches in the grass--after she has smoothly escaped from the run! Seiji is our last "Big Girl" hen who can still fly. After multiple attempts at improved fencing, limb pruning, and erecting barriers to keep the hens from escaping (usually into our neighbor's garden to eat the most delectable of all veggies, his starts), Seiji is the only hen who can still escape from the run.

The other hens could sometimes manage escape by jumping from limb to limb on the firs and pines, and then with a graceful "Squawk! Squawk! Squawk!", they would flap their wings frantically while they would propel themselves from the tree trops. Quite frankly, it was very conspicuous but I don't think stealth is part of the chicken temperament. Every time we heard the squawking we knew a chicken was in our neighbor's garden, would go out and promptly remove the naughty hen.

Since hens are truly "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence" type creatures, once a hen was in our neighbor's garden, they would usually forget about the mother lode of tender veggie starts to nibble upon. They would immediately realize they had been separated from the flock and begin frantically looking for a way to be reunited with their sisters.

Seiji is the hold out though. Seiji can actually fly from the ground up into the trees or over the fence, and sometimes even on to the roof of the coop. And she does so on a daily basis--she lets herself out of the run, goes to Fuzzy's sleeping box (pictured much earlier in the blog), lays her lovely blue-green egg, scratches around a bit, and then puts herself back in to the run. She doesn't seem to mind being away from the flock, and never wastes time being frantic about how to get back in--she knows she has the ability to get in or out of the run anytime she wants.

Honestly, if she continues to be this responsible about it (and doesn't, instead, let herself into our neighbor's garden to peck his tomatoes to shreds) I don't mind a bit!

All Hail the Chicken Fencing Guru!

Michael is nothing short of amazing--he put this chicken fence across our neighbor's back yard in 2 hours--and there's a portion that I couldn't fit into the photo. Our neighbor has agreed to let us pasture our chickens in her back lot in exchange for free eggs. This will add another 4000 square feet of fenced in forage access for the hens. Michael only has to put the gate in and secure some "leaks" in the fencing to make it all secure.

Originally when I posted this I listed the square footage as 2500 square feet--Michael measured it and found I was way off! The hens are very, very happy with the extension of forage area. We've been joking about continuing on down the street, just fencing the back of everyone's back yard--"You're not using this area, are you?" Our neighbor suggested we could then get a goat!

Chickens Love to be Outdoors

Our girls love getting out for yard time. Chickens love the greens (especially dandelions and strong tasting greens like collards & kale), bugs, and seeds they get from foraging in the yard. In fact, when chickens are allowed to graze on these foods you'll notice stronger thicker egg shells, and near-orange colored yolks, an indication of higher vitamin A content.

You'll note the garden behind the fence--we share our yard with a neighbor, and our chickens are not very careful about how they treat vegetable gardens. In order to preserve the peace, we erected this fence for our neighbor and also pruned some of our trees. Although chickens can't fly, they have no hesitation jumping from limb to limb up a tree and "gliding" into another yard.