The Rooster

       I can't imagine keeping a flock of chickens without a rooster. I feel for those who live in the city and can't keep one, and I'm sure I'd get used to it if I had to. It seems to me though, that it would be something less than a complete flock, and having had one I'd miss it.

       The rooster is never yours the way the chickens are. When I go outside, my girls run to me. They've been tamed you might say, or perhaps they haven't and they just accept me as another of the flock- the one with food. But the rooster just stays behind and watches me. He seems to be saying, "I don't trust you big mammal. You may have fooled my hens, but I see through you." The girls gather at my feet, Eva is closest, tucks down submissively if I reach for her, she'll let me pick her up and examine her feathers. I check her for lice, for wounds. I check her crop to see that she's eating, look over her feet and the bald patch on her back caused by the rooster mounting her. She's so tame that I tend to use her as a health meter for the rest who won't let me pick them up. The rooster cocks his head at me, he's on alert; I have taken one of his. When I put her back down, he growls quietly. Summer (the welsummer hen) is his favorite, and she comes up and gives Eva a disapproving peck on the head as if to say, "Didn't you hear the rooster? He said 'Keep your distance'!" Or perhaps her message is, "Yes, your friendly with the human, but don't forget, you're still under me in the pecking order."

       I walk to the coop to check for eggs, the girls follow me, even Summer; they're still hoping for treats. The rooster knows this and he's jealous. HE is the one that's meant to give them treats. Treats are how you win a hens' affection, he knows this well. But since he has nothing he fakes it. 

He begins cooing quietly. 'coo cuckoo coo coo' he says, picking up a leaf and then dropping it repeatedly. He's "tid-bitting". It's the same motion that a mother hen does with her chicks and it means, "I've found something good, come and eat this". Only he has nothing but a twig or an old dry leaf. He clearly feels threatened by the attention I'm getting from them and he's lying. It works though, the girls all run to him and find nothing. He'll often mount one of them too, just to make his point. 

When I do bring a treat, he's the first to take it from me. He doesn't want it for himself, sometimes won't eat a bite even if it's something really good, like an apple core. No, he just doesn't want me to give it to them, that's his job. He'll take it from me, run away and then call the girls to him tid-bitting 'look what I found girls, don't forget who gave it to you'! I've never seen him eat anything before them. He looks for nothing for himself, always feeding the hens the best of what he finds. To be honest I've never really seen him eat much at all, probably because he's watching me if I'm around.

       So the relationship between me and the rooster is a bit adversarial from his perspective. I'm a giant mammal that he doesn't trust bordering on a strange looking rooster that he doesn't dare fight, but he doesn't want to lose his flock to either. I don't mind the way the views me, I really wouldn't have it any other way. If he was a pet rooster, and overly trusting, would he still be as good of a protector? It could be that I'm mixing things up here, but my sense is that he wouldn't. I look at the flock from the window in the breakfast nook and find that his eyes are always on me. I'm sure he sees me long before I see him. When I'm out working in the garden and hear him growl a quiet "garoo" and then hear all the girls running under the shelter of the avocado tree, I can look up and sure enough; there is a hawk or a crow wheeling about up there. He has alerted for coyotes at the fence, for ground squirrels (well, you can never be too sure) and sometimes for no reason that I'm aware of. I've heard his warnings several times and never been able to find what it was that made him nervous. Sometimes there is a cat stalking a gopher hole outside the fence, sometimes I see nothing. Nevertheless, I trust him, and I'll bet he just saw something I did not. If my poodle comes running into the dog yard, separated from the birds for their mutual safety, and runs against the fence barking (he loves to watch the girls run) Django the rooster will duck his head low in challenge and come running up to face off against Jax. If he fears him at all, he will never show it. I sometimes think that fence is better for Jax's protection than for the birds. 

       In all, the rooster to me is the spirit of the flock. He reminds me that these were once dwellers of a tropical forest. He reminds me that they aren't commonplace and plain, but they are actually exotic, mysterious, and social animals that have found a niche in our world. He reminds me of what's important to me when raising animals for food- keeping them in such a way that they are not simply fed and housed well, but also given the opportunity to express their nature. He remembers his instincts, even if some of the hens have forgotten some of theirs. He is a tiny dinosaur; a chivalrous thing in hard feathered armor. He's armed with his beak, his instincts, his devotion, and not least two sharp and hard spurs pointing behind him on his hard scaled legs. He can leap into the air higher than my head when startled. It's a good thing for both of us that he doesn't ever attack me (I've had others that do) or I'd have no choice but to prepare him for dinner. Frankly, I wouldn't feel safe around him.

       As I leave the yard, Django beats his wings audibly against his sides three times, and then crows. To the west of my yard in the distance another rooster answers, one of my neighbors must have one as well. They may call and respond a few more times: "This is my yard and my flock! You are not welcome!"

Switching chickens.

Why? Why start over with the birds after so much time?

I have decided to write on this, because I think some of you who read this blog might one day keep a flock (I hope anyway) and I would like to give you the benefit of what I've learned. The answers have come to be important to my goals, and I would have liked to figure this out before I started.

Reason 1: Because I can't get what I want. 
What I want is a flock of birds that lay multi-colored eggs. I want to collect the eggs and get the full rainbow- greens, blues, pinkish brown, white, dark chocolate brown, light brown with dark speckles, and olive green. Why can't I have it? In a sense you could say that I can have it. I've basically got it now, and I got it by buying birds from others who breed for one of these egg colors. The problem is now that they are here in my eclectic little flock, they are breeding. Let them breed right? Why not? Well, the reason is that they will not breed true. I can hatch these multicolored eggs and get offspring, but I can't get offspring that will lay multicolored eggs themselves. Over time, there will be winning genes and losing genes and as it turns out the winner is likely to be greenish "Easter egger" type eggs. They will be pretty on their own, but they will be all the same, and if I had to choose one egg color this is not likely to be the one I would strive for.
Chicken egg shells are really only two colors after all, white or blue. If you don't believe me, take any colored egg you like and crack it open. Look at the shell on the outside, you might see brown, but on the inside under that 'skin' that is under the shell, you'll see it is as white as those in the store. Likewise with the green egg, the inside under the same membrane is as blue as the truest Ameraucana. The brown pigment is simply an 'overspray' of bilirubin, a byproduct of the breakdown of hemoblobin, the pigment in our (and chickens) red blood cells. So a green egg is really a blue egg coated in some amount of bilirubin, and likewise an olive egg is really a blue egg with even more bilirubin. A brown is a white egg with various amounts of the same, the depth of it's shade is just a result of more or less of the pigment.
But the genetics of the bird make the egg blue or white, and different genes determine how much bilirubin is 'oversprayed' in the oviduct. And while all the genes are represented in my flock, some will be dominant over the others. Blue egg shell appears to be dominant (maybe that's why white eggs became the standard, after all it would have been hard to isolate in a mixed flock, and we tend to like best things that are 'rare') over white, and some amount of bilirubin seems to be dominant as well. Every bird I've hatched has grown up to give me a green egg, some getting close to blue but not quite there.
Long story short, if I can't get what I want, should I pick my breed by the color of the shell? I'm deciding not to, for reasons I'll explain later.

Reason 2: Because I don't know what I'll get. 
I'm actually pretty sure of what I'll get in egg color. Varying shades of green right? But egg color is not the end all be all of the breed. If you want them for lots of eggs, there are breeds out there which will do that for you. They tend to be smaller birds, because their bodies don't put a great deal of energy in building lots of muscle, they need those proteins for making eggs. Conversely, if you want a meat breed, you'll probably find that they are not the best layers. I decided long ago that I wanted the 'complete package' from my birds. I want decent layers, who also dress out nicely; so that the concept of too many birds just doesn't mean anything. While I'm after eggs, I will need to cull those who are less productive, and that process will provide me with a secondary product: the occasional dressed oven ready bird. Now you might be wondering, why can't you do that with yours? After all if the egg color becomes secondary, what's wrong with just culling my own flock for these qualities?
The answer is that there's actually nothing wrong with it! If you have quite a few years to spend on this process that is. If that is your aim, there are hundreds of heritage breeds out there that people have been breeding for these qualities again and again, for a long long time. I wouldn't discourage anyone from making a new one if that's their aim, but it isn't mine. I'd just as soon build on the work that's been done for me.
And the simplicity of this route isn't the only reason either.

Reason 3: Because the occasional sale can be so much more effective than they are now.
Lets face it, if I think I'm going to make easy money on chickens or eggs, I'm fooling myself. I've always raised my own chickens and eggs at a loss, even when I sell them occasionally. But that's fine, because it's a hobby! I enjoy having them around, and I'd keep them even if they cost me a bit more. There's just no way I know of to factor in the joy of raising them for me, let alone the flavor difference of having the eggs so fresh. I do know however, every chicken or rooster I've ever had eats about the same amount. Rhode Island Reds, Buff Orpingtons, Easter Eggers, Barred Rocks, Welsummers, etc.. Not a one has been noticeably more expensive to feed than any other. In the past, when I've evaluated my hatches for who I will keep and who I will let go, I've noticed a big difference in what I've been able to sell them for. And the ones I've been able to sell for the most, have been the Marans. Marans are a fad! Everybody wants the big fluffy, friendly bird, with the big dark eggs. Other breeds I've had, may or may not be able to sell at all depending on the season and the age of the birds.

But do they fit my other requirements?

They are a dual purpose breed- as good in the egg boxes as they are in the oven, so yes. The downside I have seen in the past is that you'll wait a bit longer for that first egg, but they are large enough (and pretty enough) eggs that it's worth the wait. I don't intend on selling any more than I do now, but these occasional sales can buy more than just a bag or two of chicken feed.

I'm buying some Wheaten Marans, and hatching some eggs for Blue Splash Marans as well. Just different enough (in color) from those I've been able to find close by to be different, but maybe familiar enough to the beginner to still be desirable. From them I'll pick my keepers, and sell the rest (probably for a quite a bit more than I bought them- though not a profit when you factor in feed). Eventually I'll  choose between the two lines which one I like best, and focus on it. Of course my current flock will stay with me, until the new girls are laying.

Tobacco

     We've always said that if we could sum up our gardening philosophy, it could be done in one word: Pragmatic. We have always tried to grow the things that we like to eat, but more specifically things that we like to eat from one or two categories. The categories are either A) something we like to eat that has WAY better flavor from the garden than bought in the store (tomatoes, melons, brussels, etc), or B) something we like to eat that is ridiculously expensive when bought at the store (artichokes, berries, avocados, someday maybe asparagus). If the product falls into both categories, as many do, even better! I've broken this rule from time to time, just to try a certain bean, or some sweet corn, or potatoes, and have NOT been rewarded for the effort. Ironically I either have the hardest time with these- because of pests or some other factor I don't know about, or I just wind up with such a small harvest of staples that the math just doesn't work. Beans, for instance, are cheap and plentiful in the store if you know how to cook dried beans. Fresh corn, I only want seasonally and the farmer's market hooks it up just fine. One of our funniest gardening mishaps was planting a whole bag of cranberry beans, only to harvest about half of the number that I actually put into the ground- we got a kick out of that.

     Well, lately we've been smoking again. Not a crazy amount, just usually buying a pack or two whenever we knew we'd be out drinking and chatting with friends. Initially because we felt bad for constantly bumming theirs. Friends are generally kind, and that's why we all like them- but I know the price of smokes, so we have decided to start picking up the odd pack on the way to the BBQs.

     Now according to the finest source of quality information that one can turn to these days, (Yahoo answers of course) there are .8 grams of tobacco in a cigarette. Assuming this is true, that means there are 16 grams of tobacco in a pack of cigarettes, which converts to a little more than HALF of one ounce of tobacco, actually that's 0.56438 of an ounce the way I've rounded it. At $7 a pack in CA, that comes to a little less then $14 an ounce- or the number that will really shock you: $224.00 a pound for tobacco.

Can you imagine this exchange at the grocery store?

You: "Hello, these tomatoes look beautiful, how much are you charging for them?"
Grocer: "Oh, those are going for $224 per pound."
You: "I see! Well, that sounds like it should be a pretty good amount of tomatoes then, and I'm sure they must be really good for me."
Grocer: "Sorry, no. That will only get you 3-4, depending on the size you pick. As far as being good for you; if you look here at the sticker on them, you'll see that there is a good chance that if you don't quit buying and consuming them, they will kill you."
You: "Hmm.. That really sounds terrible. I'll bet they're the best tasting tomatoes that I've ever had at least."
Grocer: "Wrong again friend. Even as carcinogenic tomatoes go, these are among the worst in history. See, the carcinogenic tomato industry is organized in such a way that there are really only 6 companies in the country. [Info sourced from answers.com, clearly the only source of info that is arguably more reliable that yahoo answers] They are producing much the same product, like the beer industry used to do. Unfortunately, there is very little hope that we can expect an micro/flavor-centric movement with carcinogenic tomatoes, since the regulation involved pretty much keeps little guys out of the game. Anyway, even at their best this product is likely to make you stink and be shamed and excluded publicly. At the worst (and these certainly fit the bill!) they are filled with a crazy list of dangerous additives on top of their naturally occurring carcinogens."
You: "So then why the heck would anybody buy them?"
Grocer: "That's the catch. They are horribly addictive!"
You: "Ok, well I'm not dissuaded, how much will seven dollars get me?"
<The grocer cuts a teeny tiny sliver.>

NOTE: The preachier elements of the above exchange are truly meant to dissuade you from smoking at all.  That was the token effort on my behalf, but I'm done with that now- moving on.

     You may think that the above imaginary conversation was inspired by Homer Simpson's "Tomacco", but in fact I chose the tomato analogy because by all accounts, growing tobacco is very similar in process to growing tomatoes. They like similar soil, need to be fertilized similarly, and have many of the same pests (ok, their hornworm has a different kind of stripage- big difference). As a gardener who is "All Thumbs" (even if they are green) I can vouch for the ease of tomato growing.

     But what can you expect to yield from growing your own tobacco? According to a very wise-sounding cartoon gentleman in a Mexican wrestling mask (on Yahoo answers- google any question, it's amazing!), you can get about 3-4 cartons of smokes from one plant. At $7 a pack, that's about $180- $240 saved per plant grown.

     Even for as little as we buy tobacco, there is certainly no agricultural product that we buy that is more expensive (and with that, you can extrapolate all sorts of useful information about my personal habits), so it makes sense that we would try and grow it! Heck, I'm even fond of rolling my own cigarettes when I smoke, so no down-side there.
     Seeds are readily available online, and legal to buy. Tobacco is legal to grow for personal consumption in all 50 states- but don't even think of trying to sell it or you could have the ATF knocking on your door. Not even plant starts can be sold, from what I understand.

     The seeds of tobacco are tiny- almost a dust in the little bag that you will buy, but they will sprout way more plants than you will likely need to grow. I probably have about a hundred tiny starts now in my little starting flat. The seeds should be dusting over a wet starting medium, and not buried at all. Mist the medium daily if it looks dry, and you will see little plants in a couple of days to a couple of weeks. Mine took almost three weeks before I saw any tiny plants. They should stay indoors till they are big enough to transplant: 2-3 inches at least.

     Tobacco leaves will ripen from the bottom up (so I've read) and you'll want to cut off whole leaves as they start to wilt and turn yellow. Sew a bit of twine through the stem of all harvested leaves- leave some space between each one and hang them up somewhere in the shade where air circulates. When they have dried they will be ready to smoke. If you want, you can build a makeshift humidor to cure them in for more (or more particular?) flavors. I will likely not do so, just keeping it simple instead.
Save one plant for seed, all flowers will sprout at the top and can be bagged if you want to make sure the strain is pure- flowers are self pollinating.

I'll put some pictures up soon, smoke 'em if you got 'em.

Great TED talk about gardening!

About our Rabbits

       The Rabbits we breed are Himalayan mini-rex. Mostly they are raised for pets, shows and for kids to keep in 4H. We chose this breed because frankly, it was what we were able to find close by. It might seem like a strange choice for a meat rabbit, but we see quite a few positives to this arrangement.

     For one thing, we want to make sure that the animals we raise are as happy and healthy as they can be while they are living. It's easy enough to make sure they eat right, and that we get them an occasional fresh snack (fresh grass and burr clover seems to be their favorites), but giving them a little extra space than usual was important to me as well. We had already purchased the largest cages we could afford, but going with a smaller breed meant they would have even more space to move around in. Smaller rabbits make for a smaller carcass, but on the other hand, they eat less too- so that's about even. From further reading I discovered that they actually dress out with a really good meat to bone ratio as well, since meat rabbits were used to develop the breed.

      The downside however, was that they are "mini"'s because they carry a dominant lethal "mini" gene. Here's how it works. If a rabbit is heterozygous for mini (meaning they have been given a "normal sized" gene from one parent and a "mini gene" from the other) they will be a mini-sized rabbit. However if they are homozygous for "mini" (they got a mini gene from both parents- no normal sized gene present) they will be tiny and stillborn. These unfortunate rabbits are referred to as "peanuts". So what good is this mini gene? For my purposes, no good. Smaller litters of smaller rabbits is not a good thing for what I'm after. Mini-Rex fanciers keep the gene around, because they like these smaller rabbits, but there is a side product which is produced and that is the BUB or BUD ("big ugly buck" and "big ugly doe"). BUBs and BUDs can't be shown, but they will always be produced by mini-rex rabbits, because occasionally a baby will be homozygous for "normal-sized" gene. These are still small rabbits for meat however, so the benefits still apply to some extant.

       So essentially, we are breeding FOR these rabbits. This makes our offspring (should we become 100% successful at erasing the mini gene from our lines) ineligible for show, but I'm OK with that. I don't sell them for any purpose at all, so they are just what we need!

Just went out to feed them and caught some new baby pictures. I'm really watching that one with the really dark nose- I think that's a keeper for sure.

Dark nose here on the left side

 And here's the mama..

Cool Video

Found this just now on Youtube. A great example of how these runner ducks can be herded. Enjoy!

DUCKS!- and other news

Saw some ducks pop up on Craigslist for free, so I decided to snatch a few up. They are Runner Ducks, so they stand up really straight and tall and march along together (turning in unison) like little soldiers. They were bred in India as a herding breed of duck, and I can concur they are pretty easy to herd wherever you need them to go. Unfortunately they seem to have wobbly legs, which I've read has something to do with a niacin deficit. Most feeds don't seem to be properly formulated for waterfowl. We'll be feeding flockraiser (or gamebird?) feed dusted with brewers' yeast, and hopefully that will get them in shape. I was planning on keeping them for eggs and meat (meat from those that we hatch) but I don't really have any desire to breed these if we can't get their legs strong. Maybe with proper nutrition and some daily 'herding' to get them exercise, they will recover. Pictured here is the 'duck house' we put together for them, they already go right into it at night, so it looks like a success. I have them ranging in the garden since we had nothing much grow for winter but the weeds. In their condition, the chickens really don't let them get any food, so we have decided to separate them in this way.

Also, we just got a new egg today. The first black/copper marans hen has FINALLY started laying. These are the two girls that caused us to stew up our old rooster Tango (if you recall he was beating them up pretty badly when I tried to integrate them into the flock). They were six weeks old when our little rumpless pullets (and "Django son of Tango") hatched. And yet our little ones have been laying now for several months! So yeah, these dark marans eggs have been a long time coming for sure. But check out this picture! Definitely worth the wait. Also pictured is the Black/Copper hen who layed it- She's up front there, with the feathered feet. Also check out our young rooster replacement! Isn't he just like his father? Just a bit more yellow feathering on him, but otherwise the spitting image.

Also we have new baby rabbits here as well. Seven this time, from the same doe as before. I don't like to disturb them too much when they are this little, so this is the only picture for now. 

See you next time!