The Saga of Big Girl: The Chicken Who Almost Wasnt Part 1

Being in a fairly rural location we don't have to succumb to many zoning ordinances, and we can take advantage of opportunities to pick up animals that people want to re-home without thinking about it too hard. We were still getting started on our first flock and still fairly new to keeping chickens when an opportunity to pick up some commercial chicken farm rejects to add to our growing feathered family. Gwen found an ad on our local Craigslist and made arrangements to pick up 10 Cornish mixes that were deemed to small for commercial processing. And so she returned with a cage full of fat white birds. Now when I say fat I mean fat, birds so large they could barely support their own weight. How these gargantuan birds were decided to be too small for anything is beyond me, but then again I don't provide chickens to a commercial processor. These were large plodding masses of chicken flesh, feathered beach balls that didn't have the slightest clue as to what it meant to be a chicken. I cant speak to the conditions from which they came but I can assume that these creatures had never seen grass, they sulked through it uneasily eyeballing each blade with suspicion. The new chickens didn't know how to scratch, peck, roost or forage. Introductions to the flock caused no alarm or disruption it was as if the other chickens instinctively knew that these birds were not capable of besting them in a competition for anything, they were basically ignored. There is something that we came to learn about the Cornish mix breed that is used for commercial many applications, they grow big they are bred to grow big quick and are not capable of longevity left to their own devices these chickens will grow so large that their organs will fail from the stress of servicing their ever expanding bodies. With the arrival of sundown came the time to close up the chicken tractor and bed the birds down for the night. None of the new birds were capable of waddling up the chicken ladders or ramps to get in to the tractor and had to be lifted and placed inside. In the morning the Cornish mixes would have to taken out of the chicken tractor and placed on the ground. Its sad to see a chicken that doesn't know what it is. Two days later we lost two, the remaining ones didn't seem to notice. The Cornish that remained started to move and didn't see the grass as such a threat any more they were still far from acting like chickens but at least the demonstrated some mobility. The routine continued for a few weeks and gradually the birds grew to be chickens, some scratched and pecked with the others rooting for juicy bugs and other tasty things lurking in the back yard. There was one particular hen that caught our eye and we came to call her "Big Girl" she seemed to have a little more personality than the other birds who still seemed a bit shell shocked. Big Girl was all of 20lbs so she still needed some human intervention to get in and out of the tractor, the other birds seemed to be getting the hang of using the chicken ladders.

Barnyard in my...

BATHROOM

Yea that's right, bathroom. Here on the farm we are getting ready for the Spring season, the weather has been a little unpredictable so we are getting a little late start with getting our poultry. When the weather is not cooperating and you don't have an outdoor brooder there are a few options. Baby birds are smelly, noisy, and need to have a constant temperature until the feather out there are few options available if you if you are sans brooder. The bathroom seems like a logical choice, the surfaces are easy to clean, moppable, wipeable, disinfectable sure why not. Don't do it! build another room, invest in a barn, buy juvenile pullets. Yes they look adorable, fluffy, but the constant chatter and chirping is akin to a psychological torture.

Peter Cotton Tail My Ass

Rabbits have a place in our popular culture and mythology. The word rabbit for many evokes the images of fluffy white cuddly bunnies, sweet doe eyeed creatures. The word snugglebunny is a sickingly sweet term of endearment that some use for their loved ones. How did the rabbit get such a good rep? Rabbits are feral beasties more akin to the Tasmanian devil than a fluffy cuddly creature, in short they are claws and teeth, whirling dervishes with razor sharp hooks of doom. And they are strong, I have had more than a few tussles with rabbits and I can say I am lucky to still have my skin. So I have to say stop the lies depict rabbits as violent garden devouring beasties that they are. Dont fall for the pro rabbit propaganda awaken to the truth rabbits are bloodthirsty monsters Monty Python had it right.... RUNAWAYYYYYY!

Roo Swap

Well the day started the way they usually do around here... EARLY. So it is supposed to rain but we make the decision to see if we can sell or trade some of our extra meat chickens at the poultry swap meet. It comes down to the fact that we don't have the space for the 50 or so pounds of the processed meat and considering the one last week took forever to finish I didn't think I could get all the processing done before I got rained out. Let me tell all you Farmville players out there, your chickens our cute and animated but they don't run and they don't shit, and quite frankly the truth of livestock is etched in copious amounts of shit. The meat birds we have are huge Cornish whites, fairly slow and somewhat plodding. When we first got them they couldn't move but after a few weeks of free ranging they were happy to wander, scratch, and dust bathe just like our others. So with one in the pot, and another making the journey to that great golden coop in the sky, that left 8 big fat birds. Got the birds in the cage loaded up the minivan and headed to the swap meet.

It was damp, and not really as active as others that we've been to but it was nice to see what other people had to bring. So we sold our birds rather quickly which paid for breakfast and a bag of feed (at least they are starting to pay for themselves.) We are still new to keeping chickens and we saw a breed that we haven't come across before, a hybrid between Welsummers and Araconas that produce green eggs. A nice gentleman named John was willing to trade his roo for ours to add some new blood to his line. Seemed like a good idea at the time, and after a couple of brooding cycles we would have some "olive eggers" of our own.

Alright easy, drive back home load up one of our roos drive back ,exchange with John, get home before the rain. Nah!

Let the games begin, little did I know friends that I was about to complete in the Rural Olympics.

First Event: 100 yard chicken dash. The chickens that occupy space on the shelves in your local grocery store, probably haven't had the opportunity to range and develop all those tasty muscles, not unless you're willing to pay 5 bucks a lb. The chickens that wind up as mcnuggets probably can't outrun you and laugh while doing it. Our free range chickens can do both and call for reinforcements when they know that one is being targeted. So after 10 or 20 laps around the yard, cornering, countering, dodging, bobbing and weaving the roo was stuffed in a cage and headed to the exchange. Gwen and the kids got a good chuckle out of the whole spectacle.

Second Event: Cross Country Obstacle course. We pulled up at the place of the roo exchange, a little late but no worse for the wear. So as I open the cage to retrieve our pesky and exuberant roo, kapow, wham, somehow during journey to the exchange our chicken learned kungfu, wap, flap, kick. FREEDOM! The roo got out of the cage and was beating feet. John and I headed after the chicken and were ineffective at cornering the chicken before it reached the small patch of woods next to the gas station. In to the woods, through the branches, jumping ducking this way that way, after a good 15 minutes and several near misses were no closer to getting our roo back in a cage. John and I thought we had it cornered a few times but to no avail. So here I am chasing this errant roo deeper into the woods stick in hand and I'm thinking, man the only thing missing is a loin cloth, I have a deep respect for our ancestors and their ability to hunt for their food without directed lead projectiles.

Finally the roo is now back in the parking lot, the opposite side of the parking lot from where our cars are, but it no longer has the advantage of the woods. John and I are closing in. Now friends there is something else that your chicken sandwich never had the chance to do... fly and that is exactly what our errant roo did, took to wing and went into another patch of woods, and I imagine he was laughing the whole way. John and I looked at each other and I asked, "how much for your roo?"