Chicken Scratch

We'd like to talk a bit about eggs.  We had some guests coming over last weekend (Chris and Monica, Sara (Chris' sister) and Jeff and their daughter Roxy) and we decided to do Eggs Blackstone.  We are all getting more and more heavily into local, organic and homemade food so Jim took a ride to the Zen Hen Hut on the Mesa in Arroyo Grande (AG).  That hill is a killer.  Without the gearing on the touring bike, he never would have made it.  He claims that he's "going over the grade" to Pozo to check out the Nick Ranch which provides the grass-fed beef to Grande Markets in AG.  Peta suspects that he wants her to come pick him up at the Pozo Saloon where they can enjoy a beer and a burger.  She may be on to something there.

Long story short (too late), Jim met the egg lady, Peri, who was chopping up slightly over-ripe tomatoes and bananas(?) for her 37 girls and one banty cock.  Yeah, I could have said rooster.  Jim talked to her for too long and then bought two dozen eggs.  At $4/doz, they aren't cheap, but pastured eggs have been shown to have  

• 1⁄3 less cholesterol 
• 1⁄4 less saturated fat
• 2⁄3 more vitamin A
• 2 times more omega-3 fatty acids 
• 3 times more vitamin E
• 7 times more beta carotene and 
• 4-6 times more vitamin D

 That's good news especially if you have cholesterol issues but love eggs.  However, Jim had an ulterior motive in addition to merely purchasing the eggs.  He and Peta purchased a chicken coop off of Craigslist the week before and were going to get some laying hens (Asutralian: chooks) over the weekend and he wanted to check out her operation.  He got some pointers, but crazy things have happened since the birds arrived.  We were supposed to get three 4 month old chickens, but one died before we picked it up, so another Craigslist guy gave us a 6 month old for the same price ($12).  We got them home in cardboard boxes in the Mini Cooper along with supplies from the hardware store.  We put them in the coop and Une (we know that 'poulet' is maculine, but this chook is a Sheila!  Crikie!) a Black sex link started really whaling on Trois, another fellow Black sex-link and giving Deux, a Delaware, a few nasty pecks in between.  Not knowing what to do other than debeak them and not knowing how to do that or separate them, Jim got Une out of the coop/tractor and put her into the yard.  She walked around contentedly until Jim heard a hawk and then spied three of them circling.  So he put some temporary chicken-wire around the coop so that she'd be contained in an emergency and everything seemed hunky dory.  She got out a few times be would always return to the safety of the temporary enclosure.

It was only when the night began to fall and we'd had an adult beverage that she refused to go back in to the temporary pen.  Have you see the Rocky films?  Can you hear Burgess Meredith as Rocky's trainer Mick as he exhorts the Italian Stallion to catch the chickens?  "They're like greased lightening, Rocky!"  That was us, except for the boxing angle and that our new neighbors laughing at us.  Finally, we got her into the temporary enclosure and it was time to put her into the run for safety, but not the coop/roost so that she wouldn't kill the little gals.

Jim began to decrease the size of the enclosure and that's when it happened.  The wire formed a ramp up to the roof of the roost and she scrambled/flapped up it to the peak to gain height (and domination on Jim).  Now, you might be thinking, "Hey city-boy/girl, dontcha know that chickens can fly?"  Yes.  Yes we do.  They can fly and not too badly.  Well, better than emus anyway.  But we thought that the wings had been clipped although we hadn't actually researched what a clipped wing actually looks like.

So she's up on the roof about eye-level with Jim and he makes a grab for her.  "Up, up and away.  On my beautiful balloon..."  Over the fence she goes to the neighbors that we have not yet met.  Sweet.  Jim has heard that the lady next-door is super fussy about her flowers so he goes next door and leaves a note hoping that they won't call the cops because chicken might not even be legal.  The next day, neighbor Steve knocks on the door for our first meeting.  He invites Jim over and they spend the intervals when CJ is asleep chasing Une around his yard with bedsheets, food enticements and finally the whole roll of chicken wire.  Then it starts raining.  Then she hides under the thorny blackberry bushes.  Jim said to Steve, "Ah, the heck with this" while in his mind he was thinking, "Fuck off, chicken.  Next time you see me I'll have my pellet gun."

Two hours later as it's getting to dark, Steve informs us that Une has climbed up an apricot tree and flown back into our yard.  Hooray!   She's still loose, but to make a really long story slightly shorter, she was near the coop so Jim just opened the door and walked around the coop until she went in.  Case closed.  No eggs yet, but no bird deaths either.  We'll be clipping her primary flight wings (propulsion) this weekend but leaving the secondary wings (lift). 

They are eating a ton of weeds and CJ loves them.  Once the eggs start flowing we'll let you know how it goes.

Jim & Peta

PS: if nothing else, we now have a much better understanding of the sayings: pecking order, hen-pecked, she rules the roost, flew the coop and chickens coming home to roost.