Tag: backyard chickens

A chicken in the house and other stuff…

~ Crystal Sands ~ 2 Comments

Last fall, we ordered some chickens from a hatchery, which is against a rule I made a few years ago, but Ron insisted I needed some babies to cheer me up. They are the sweetest little chickens I think I have ever seen, but one of them came a little runty and sick. She seemed to hang in there okay though until recently. She got into the sick chicken pose and was sleeping in the corner of coop, so I brought her into the house. Her name is Bernice, and she has made herself quite at home.

She walks around the house, pooping periodically, so I have to go behind her and clean pretty regularly. It’s fortunate the cats sleep throughout the day, as they probably wouldn’t be kind to Bernice–at least I am pretty sure Betty would not be. Bella would be curious, but Betty might be too curious.

I am not sure Bernice is going to get better. I have been able to treat some of her symptoms, but I think there is something deeply wrong. Ron keeps thinking she’s getting better, but I am not as hopeful. I am just resigned to the fact that she seems to be enjoying herself and likes the wood stove and maybe is going to get to spend the last weeks of her life getting pampered. I hope I am wrong about her.

I don’t know if you remember Luna, our runner duck. A little over three years ago, when Bairre was a puppy, he ran over Luna and broke her leg. Luna had to live in the house for months, and I fell in love with her extra. She loved to pretend fly (since she couldn’t walk, I would carry her around and she would flap her wings like she flew where she wanted to go), and when she was resting, she would sit in her bin and watch television with me while I graded papers.

She’s eight years old now and seems to be winding down. I saw her sitting outside alone yesterday and the day before. I have checked her everywhere, and I can’t see anything wrong. I was hoping she had bumble foot, but she doesn’t. I think she’s just getting really old. I was so down about Luna last night (that plus the apocalypse, I think) that I think it triggered another long COVID episode, which is both miserable and frustrating. I’m having a really slow day–hence the time to write.

But it’s not all bad news around here. There are good things, of course.

I finally figured out how to make sourdough bread! It has been a journey, and it took me about ten loaves to figure out how to do it well with my limited equipment. It was worth it! It’s so good and so beautiful, and I am more than a little proud of myself. I will have to write about it more soon.

And the new hens started to really lay this month, and the eggs are beautiful. We have two little Cuckoo Marans, and they lay the most magnificent chocolate eggs. Also, one of them, Genevieve, still lets me pick her up and give her a hug. I adore her. The turkeys also started laying eggs, and the eggs are gorgeous. I am a huge fan of speckled eggs, so I am just so proud of these turkeys and their art.

Oh, and my son, the cellist, won the state high school concerto competition a few weeks ago. I was so happy for him. Interestingly, however, I found myself not only extremely empathetic to him but to the other kids as well. I sat in the front, so I could get a good video of my son for an audition for a radio program. Because I was so close, I could feel all of that energy–like too much. I was especially panicked for the kids who were playing from memory. As I have mentioned, my son also has long COVID, and it causes some memory issues. This makes me just have a kind of terror when he has to play from memory. Somehow, that terror applies to other people’s children as well.

There was one little boy playing who seemed to get a little lost for a second. My whole body tensed up as I did everything in my witchy power to will him to remember his spot. He remembered and pulled it together and kept playing. I was so relieved. I don’t know if I helped him or not, but for real, I was spending some energy on it.

Needless to say, for about three days after the concerto competition, I could barely get off the couch, but I was still so darn happy for my son and so darn happy all the kids played so well.

I hope you are all doing as well during these hard times. Sending love to you all, and I hope to see some of you Sunday morning when I’ll be talking about gardening.

Hope for Humanity in the Chicken Forums

~ Crystal Sands ~ 1 Comment

I have been studying the chicken forums on Facebook since we first got chickens more than ten years ago. I have found that social media is one of the ways I learn about humanity, and so, in the chicken forums all these years, I have not only learned about caring for chickens but I have also learned about the humans who keep chickens.

I learned pretty early on that, just like anywhere on the internet, there is a lot of misinformation circulating in the chicken forums. In the beginning, when I was seeking advice about various animal husbandry questions related to my chickens, I sometimes got some really bad advice. But it didn’t take long for me to learn who to trust in the groups and who to ignore. One of the things I learned is that being loud isn’t the same as being right.

Over time, I became experienced and would sometimes try to help others the way I had been helped. It’s hard to do online, but I would do my best, and overall, I was always thankful for the kind of people I found in the chicken forums, especially when I decided to narrow my presence to just chicken forums based on Maine. These forums were practical, helpful, and connected me to local resources. As much as I hate Facebook, I love the Maine chicken forums.

There was always a “edge” that would appear in these Maine forums though. Just like the rest of the internet, people can be mean in the chicken forums, and sometimes, when people ask for help, they get reprimanded instead.

But I am noticing a shift…

Just last week, I saw the shift illustrated beautifully.

A woman made a post about needing help covering the costs of chicken feed. She said she had been struggling financially and couldn’t cover the cost of feed for her chickens that week. In the past, this kind of post would have been met with some help but mostly reprimand.

And there was some of that. A few people said the thing I would often see before “If you can’t afford animals, you shouldn’t have them.” However, mostly, there was help. When I first saw the post, four people had offered to meet to give the woman some chicken feed. At that point, I didn’t know how far away the people were, so I posted that I couldn’t deliver food but could Venmo her the funds for a bag of feed and for her to send me a private message.

I checked back later that night, and the post had blown up–with offers of help!

Dozens and dozens of people were offering funds and feed, and I saw a post from the author that said she had already been delivered a bag of feed and was so thankful for the support and help. I think this shift in the chicken forums is significant, and the things I read lifted my hopes and spirits in a way I cannot describe but was desperately needed.

I think we are learning that we are going to have to help each other, that hardships are upon us but that, through community, we survive. I read a quote that really resonated with me not too long ago: Civilizations fall but villages live. I think we are beginning to understand we need a village and that we have to be kind to each other.

I love Maine with every fiber of my being. I could not live anywhere else in the U.S. The people of Maine are my people, but there can be a kind of grumpiness to the practicality here. I saw a few comments in that thread that were of that nature. I have learned that Mainers are truly trying to be helpful though, not usually mean. One woman said something along the lines of, “Times are just going to get harder. If you can’t afford your chickens now, you might need to re-home them.”

Of course, this comment was likely hurtful to the original poster, but I could see the earnestness there. Times really are likely to get harder. Ron and I think often about how we would afford food for our animals if I were to lose my job, and with AI being what it is and doubling in ability every six or seven months, I can see that it might happen to me one day sooner than I thought possible. I can see that it might be hard for many people to keep affording the feed for their animals, but chickens are critical for survival in hard times. They are how my great grandparents survived the Great Depression. People are going to need their chickens.

And, as I was thinking about the earnest advice about how times are going to get harder, I thought about what happened in the chicken forums that day. Times are already hard, but there are people there to help–lots of people.

And, what if, when times get harder, we just keep helping each other?

photo credit: Robert Katzki, Unsplash

A Ruby Update and a Dream

~ Crystal Sands ~ 2 Comments

Last week, I had a dream that one of our chickens died. In my dream, I went out to the coop in the morning, and there, on the floor of the coop, was one of our girls passed away. I couldn’t tell who it was, but I could see it was one of our girls from our Easter Egger line, which made me very sad.

I woke up heartbroken. I lay there in the dark thinking about how sad I was going to be if I went out to the coop in the morning and one of our Easter Eggers had passed. We have two lines of Easter Eggers in our flock–one line from Schumann and Schubert and another line from Poe. Those three chickens were some of the most magnificent I have ever known, and their children and grandchildren, mixed with Rooster’s genes, are brilliant, difficult sometimes, but so full of personality. If you follow my blog, you will know them–Kate, Juliet, Bianca, Cora, Bertha, Lenore, and, of course, Ruby.

I have been slow to move in the mornings for all of January, I think, but that morning, I was up as soon as the alarm went off. When I opened up the coop, I was so thankful to see that no one had passed over night, but there, in the exact spot where I had seen the dead chicken in my dream was Ruby.

It just came all over me that I needed to bring her in and give her a health check. This is never fun because Ruby does not like to be handled. She is an independent bird for sure. But after I put the food and water in the coop, I scooped her up and brought her into the house.

She complained as I turned her every which way to check things. She knows how to bite with a pinch, which not all of them know to do. Ruby definitely hates health checks. Even though I know she has the same reproductive issue Poe had, she was not thin, which was wonderful, but when I flipped her upside down, I could see an issue–Ruby had mites.

Ruby has always been prone to mites, but I haven’t checked her since before the holidays. I gave her a treatment and will give her the second treatment tomorrow night. She is doing great, and I noticed yesterday that she’s moved up a bit on the roost. She must be feeling better.

I assume it was a rat that gave her mites. I think we are maybe down to just one rat in the coop. I really need to tell the great rat story of 2025, but it is a long one. In the meantime, I will just share that this one rat I keep seeing is giant and smart. It has figured out every single thing we try to do.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I was in the coop in the evening gathering up the food and water for the night when I heard a bustling from the top roost. I looked up just in time to see a rat on the roost with the chickens. I screamed, and it dropped. I was in between it and the door, and I don’t know who was more terrified.

I have no idea what we are going to do about that rat. but I am thankful for my dream. Ruby needed treatment, and I need to do better about checking everyone for mites. I can’t let the depression of things keep me from taking good care of those animals. My dream was definitely a wake up call.

First Snow

~ Crystal Sands ~ 1 Comment

Today was the first big snow for our turkeys and new chickens. The new chickens are still babies in spirit, even though some of them are about the same size as our smaller hens. They have grown up quickly, but they are a long way, every single one of them, from having a place in the flock that is anything other than the bottom.

I think a lot of people do not understand how important the social order is to chickens. They are so much like humans in this way. Because the young chickens are so far at the bottom of the pecking order, if they stay in the coop with the grumpy old hens, they will be bossed around and randomly pecked on the head from time to time all day long.

So, even in the cold and snow, they head outside.

I made sure I shoveled a good area near the covered dust bath, and as soon as I opened the door this morning for the flock to come outside, the little chickens made a beeline–at least most of them. A few of them were not happy with the snow on the ground, even though I had shoveled–and then swept with a broom–to do my best to get the snow clear.

(As an aside, as I type the words that I shoveled and then swept the ground with a broom to try to give my chickens dry earth, I realize that, tired as I am, I am willing to go a long way to give those chickens a good day).

One of the little Cuckoo Maran hens started her bee line and then suddenly froze. She realized she was in the snow, and then became paralyzed. She didn’t want to go forward or backwards. I watched her and realized I would have to carry her to her people, so I did. She normally makes a scene because she doesn’t like to be held. She got tired of it because I held her quite a bit as a baby. I have found over the years that the best way to have a hen let me hold her when she’s grown is to hold her a lot as a baby. Unfortunately for me, some of them still hate being held, no matter how hard I try. It’s a personality thing, but, of course, I try until they make it clear to me that they don’t want it. Then, I try to respect their wishes.

Ruby, for example, makes a full-on scene, scream and hollers and acts like I am killing her, when I have had to help her out of situations and hold her. The only exception was that time I found her stuck under the ramp of the coop. I still have no idea how she managed that, but she did let me help her out of that jam without making a scene that morning. Clara, on the other hand, always lets me hold her. She is a Lavender Orpington, and they are very sweet, chill birds. I can pick Clara up pretty much any time, and she goes right along with it. Interestingly, Clara is one of the few older hens who will hang out with the little ones. I wonder what that says about her.

Anyway, I took the little Cuckoo Maran (her name is Genevieve) to her fellow little people, and she was satisfied.

It is supposed to get down to -2 degrees Fahrenheit in the next few days, which is a bit of a rough temperature for early December around here. We are going to have to put loads of straw in the coop starting tomorrow.

The turkeys were very interesting with the snow. At first, they had a lot of hesitation. Well, I don’t think “hesitation” does justice to what they were. Turkeys feel everything so deeply, so they were really quite sad and seemed to be upset at us that this had happened. They moped quite a bit. I mean, you could literally see them moping about, so mistreated by us who allowed the snow to fall on the earth that they own because, rest assured, they own everything around here.

They eventually adjusted, however. We shoveled a path for them, but soon they were just out and about making their own paths. I think we got about 4 inches of snow, so the turkeys were able to walk through it–and they did. They were certainly more subdued today than usual, but mostly, they just went around as usual, barking at the FedEx delivery driver in fine form.

I got a little video of them this morning as I was wrapping up my part of the morning chores. I hope it makes you smile. I hate my voice, but this video made my heart so happy that I have to share it. https://youtube.com/shorts/bgjTrMPzcrE?si=RGyQMNGCmQqaodV9

An Update in Pictures

~ Crystal Sands ~ Leave a comment

I have been very busy with the animals. Cynthia passed away last week, and both Jeremiah and I were devastated. On Halloween, we went to Petco and purchased Jeremiah a new girl, but he was very upset about it. It took me a week, but Jeremiah and the new girl (named Samhain because that’s when we got her) are now living happily. I will have to share pictures and tell her story soon because Samhain is beautiful and is the same color as Jeremiah, even though she is a fancy mouse. I thought all fancy mice were white. Samhain looks like a cross between a mouse and a teddy bear.

Also, in the fall, male ducks always get too frisky, and our male duck, Spyro, injured Anna Maria pretty badly. It has been an epic few weeks of my working daily to keep Anna Maria safe and separate and healing. I am happy to report that she has healed and is able to sleep with the flock again. As you may remember, Anna Maria hates me on a regular day, but when she’s injured, she’s just on the edge and hates me extra.

Because I have also been sick due to a terrible flare of my autoimmune struggles, I was starting to wonder if I still had it in me to care for Anna Maria. But we did it! I am now back to just having to help her stay with the flock when she loses everyone because she’s blind. Just this morning, I picked her up when she got caught up in the turkeys and carried her to the rest of the ducks.

I held her like a baby over my shoulder and said, “I know you hate me, but I will love you until the day I die.” She can’t have too much longer in this world. She is moving more slowly and getting lost all the time. There must be something I am supposed to learn from my service to her. Maybe it’s just service. I am weary though. Thankfully, she is better again now.

And despite the challenges this fall, it has been a lovely harvest season. The baby chickens are good for my soul, and I love getting to know them. Ron has harvested so much good food from the garden. I made a ton of apple butter, finally mastered the cherry pie thanks to a cheat, and learned how to make homemade English muffins. It is more than a little joyful watching that dough puff up in the skillet.

I took some pictures of the baby chickens today, so I thought I would share an update of them along with a few pictures from around here. Wait until you see one of the male turkeys. Those turkeys are magnificent creatures!

This is my favorite baby. She is a Welsummer like our dear Rooster was. She lets me hold her still. When she was little, she was the only one who would come to me. I have no name for her yet. It has to be the best name. I wish to honor Rooster in some way, but that poor boy did not have a good name. Please help with ideas!
This is Bernice. She is the tiniest of all of the Delaware chickens we have, and she is so sweet. She likes to be wild and free though and will not let me hold her very much.
This is Pingvin. She is named for the Swedish word for penguin because she had a creamy white face when she was a baby and looked like a penguin. I spent the spring learning a little bit of Swedish. The main words that stuck were the words for bread, strawberry, thank you, you’re welcome, and penguin.
And this is Pumpkin, an old girl who came to visit with me while I took baby pictures this morning. She is about 7 years old and is the hen who disappeared for weeks and returned squawking outside our bedroom window one night in the middle of the night. Oh, I wish she could tell me her stories! She is just getting over a molt, so she looks a little worse for wear right now. What a magnificent girl she is!
These are the English muffins I learned how to make. They were inconsistent in thickness but consistent in their yumminess.
And look at this cauliflower harvest last week! I told Ron that October and November must be cauliflower’s favorite months. I have never seen him grow more beautiful cauliflower.
This beautiful boy shows out like this all the time. All three boys do. I learned they will not mate unless the females submit and allow it. So far, the hens seem like they won’t be ready until next spring, so the boys just walk around showing off like 80% of the day. I keep asking them if they get tired of it. I guess they just do not. What a beautiful boy! I have to write more about the turkeys. It’s hard though because they deserve much time and effort. I’ll just share this: Their heads change colors depending upon their mood. They have red, blue, white, and colors in between!
We had a banner harvest this year. We put up more food than ever, and the onions were so gorgeous this year. We keep learning a little more each year about how to put by food. The onions have been a staple for years, but they were so beautiful I had to share a picture of them in our cold room.
And definitely not least, this is the cherry pie I made. I cheated. I used the new Bonne Maman cherry pie filling, and now I can finally make a cherry pie. It’s still not as good as my grandmother’s though. Oh, to have her recipes!

Ruby and the Fall Babies

~ Crystal Sands ~ 2 Comments

I realize I haven’t written much since Rooster passed away. There was such a depression around here. I thought we were going to lose our other rooster, Dvorak. He was so down. He didn’t crow for weeks and just sat around with his head hanging low. I didn’t know if he was sick or if maybe he just had a broken heart like I did. I guess that was accurate because after at time, he started to crow again. He seems to be doing well now.

I am not sure what helped Dvorak’s depression, but mine wasn’t getting better on its own. Ron decided some baby chicks might help, and so we stayed up late one night and looked through the online catalog of a big hatchery. So late in the season, there were not a lot of options, but he wanted dual purpose birds while I wanted heritage. I wasn’t sure if we were really going to order them because we have been trying to downsize for a couple of years, but I guess a couple of years without baby chicks was too much for Ron too because, the next day, he told me he had placed the order.

We got nine Delawares (an old-timey, dual purpose bird), two Cuckoo Marans (a French heritage bird that lays dark brown eggs), two Welsummers (a heritage bird and the same breed as our beloved Rooster), and two blue Ameraucanas (not heritage but beautiful birds with a blue tint to the feathers; they lay blue eggs).

These birds are gorgeous–all of them.

The first couple of weeks we had them, I was working a lot and really sick. I did not get to enjoy them nearly as much as I had hoped, but I started to get better and was able to spend more time with them. I am getting to know them all now, and they are magnificent because of course they are.

But the most interesting thing about getting these babies is Ruby’s reaction to them.

Last year, we did not let Ruby raise babies when she went broody. She was always the most fierce mama and so quick to go broody. She loved being a mama and would spend the whole summer raising babies and then would just go broody again, but downsizing meant no babies for Ruby. This year, Ruby did not go broody. I assume it’s because of her likely ovarian cancer but maybe also because she’s getting older.

Either way, I was thinking just a month or so ago as I looked down at a poop Ruby had left in the garage–a poop that is the calling card of the ovarian cancer–that I have to treasure every day I have left with Ruby. Every day.

I am happy to report that Ruby is treasuring every day too.

When we put the babies in the brood box in the garage, Ruby would visit with them every morning. She watched them through the window and would make noises at them. They, of course, adored her, but Ruby would get busy and go on about her day after a while.

However, when we put the babies into a small fenced area connected to the main chicken yard, Ruby went to work. She would sit the babies for hours. She would show them how to scratch through the fence. The best thing was listening to her make mama noises at them. Ruby is so fantastic. Both Kate and Juliet run around the driveway too. but neither of them seem to care one bit about those babies. Ruby loves them.

Just today Ron was outside making kindling when he popped into the house to tell me a Ruby story.

He said she was scratching at the earth, working hard to get something. She was making all kinds of mama tidbitting noises. The babies were waiting through the fence to see wha she would come up with. Ron said, when she got whatever it was she got, she threw it through the fence with her beak, and one of the babies ate it!

How fantastic is that?

I want to let the babies out to be with her more, but there are too many. Plus, Ruby doesn’t seem interested in full-time care. Still, the fall babies are getting big, and after Halloween, they will go into the big run with everyone else.

I can’t wait to see what Ruby does.

Better Creatures (or on the passing of Rooster)

~ Crystal Sands ~ 3 Comments

Yesterday, when I went to the coop to start morning chores, I saw that my dear friend of more than nine years had passed away. We knew he was in his last days, and I had been thinking for weeks “any day now.” I can’t imagine that there will ever be another like him anywhere, but, logically, I know there are. Truly, though, our Rooster was one of the greats.

Rooster arrived on our little farm in the summer of 2016. We didn’t know he was a rooster at the time. We had ordered a small batch of meat birds from a hatchery. Back then, they would send you a “free surprise chicken” with any order over a certain size. Our magnificent Poe had been the free surprise chicken we got in our first batch of meat chickens, so I was excited to see who would arrive with our second batch.

Ron, my husband, had ordered all hens in this batch of birds because we were going to have to keep them in the garden area, as we had no other fenced area at the time. Our garden area is close to our neighbor, and Ron didn’t want our neighbors to have to listen to five or ten or fifteen roosters crowing every morning.

Five or six weeks after their arrival, one morning, I was out doing chores when I heard a crow come from the meat chickens. I wondered what I had just heard and then heard it again. Our “surprise chicken” was a rooster.

We had another rooster at the time who was just a little older than Rooster. He was a Rhode Island Red rooster bought from a hatchery before I understood that there is a big difference between a modern Rhode Island Red and a heritage Rhode Island Red. This rooster was a nightmare, but it was only when Rooster got old enough to help with the girls–and start fighting with this other rooster–that I realized that we may have lucked into the best rooster ever.

I wish Rooster had had a more original name, but somehow Rooster fit. He was named after Rooster Cogburn, and somehow, Rooster seemed to like his name. It was simple and sturdy, even though it somehow never seemed to capture his magnificence.

I remember the first time I understood who Rooster was. It was before Ron built the fence around our giant chicken yard, so we had to be careful free ranging. I got a call from the neighbor that a fox was in her yard headed toward our chickens. I ran outside to find Rooster giving commands to everyone. He had those hens in a line headed straight the coop. The other rooster was hiding in the coop.

It was when the boys started mating that I could see the most profound difference. The other rooster was so aggressive I thought he was going to kill some of the hens. Some people in the chicken forums said it was normal, but I could see Rooster and see that it wasn’t normal. Rooster was a gentleman and danced for the hens before mating. He always gave them treats and was the best tidbitter.

The day I fell in love with him though was the day he saved my favorite hen’s lives. The other rooster had gotten absolutely violent with the hens. Because I was new to chickens and people kept telling me it was normal rooster behavior, I had not gotten ride of the other rooster. One day, that rooster just tore into my sweet hen. I heard her scream from inside the house, and I knew it was bad. I was running her way, but I didn’t get there before Rooster was on that rooster. They fought for a bit until I was able to break it up. Rooster had my whole heart after that, and we never looked back. The other rooster had to go, and from then on out, I would never again tolerate a rooster who was abusive to the hens.

There are so many stories I could tell about Rooster. After all, nine years is a long time, and Rooster was always so interesting. These are a few of my favorites.

When Rooster was five years old, I thought we were going to lose him. He was never one to stand for health checks. He was too independent and dignified. It felt invasive to check his little butt like I did the girls. Plus, he had always been super healthy, so I never worried. But that summer, he was just so run down and was losing weight. I decided it was a time for a health check for that boy, and when I checked him in the coop one night, I saw he was covered in mites.

I scooped him up, and took him straight to the bath tub in the house. I apologized and apologized to him. It was all very undignified, and Rooster, who was a huge boy at this point (big enough that I was a little nervous about those spurs and him being in a bad mood about all this), handled it with as much dignity as possible. I spent hours picking the mite eggs out of his tail feathers. Stoic through it all, when I was finished, I said, “Rooster, that’s close enough. Let’s get you dried, and we’ll get you some treats.” I got out the blow dryer and he tolerated that too.

It was then that the most profound thing happened. I was sitting in the floor with him, just finished with the blow dry, and that big boy walked right up to me, and leaned his head on my shoulder. We hugged for several minutes, and I promised him that he would never have to deal with mites again.

And he never did because I checked that boy every few weeks for the rest of his life.

And my life was changed because of that hug. It was an honor I cannot put into words.

Another great story to tell about Rooster is the time he couldn’t save one of his hens from a hawk. Rooster was devastated. He didn’t let the hens out of the coop for nearly two weeks, and he mourned so much. I didn’t understand that a bird could mourn so visibly, but with head down and heavy heart, mourn he did. I kept telling him it was okay. I kept telling him he got most everyone out of danger, but Rooster was an organizer and not a fighter. He did not fight the hawk, and I could see it bothered him for a long time.

But his good work as an organizer and alarm system saved many hens. I knew the call he would make if a hawk was near, and I never once after that failed to run to his aid. Rooster and I were a team. We were a great team. I think he loved me for my diligence, just as I loved him for his.

I think my favorite story about Rooster is a funny one. A few years ago, we had just put a batch of young hens and roosters into the flock. They were about six weeks old and had been “turned loose” by their mama, so I put them with the rest of the flock. I had to struggle to make sure they got their own food though. It was a challenge because those hens are relentless when it comes to new and interesting food.

So, every morning, I would call the babies into a corner of the pasture and hold off the flock while they ate their baby food. Rooster also liked the baby food and would crowd me. One morning, he got past me and pecked the babies on their heads and started eating.

“Rooster!” I said, shaming him as much as I could. “Those are your very own children. I can’t believe you would take food from them.”

I immediately felt terrible for shaming him. He put his head down and backed away from me, so ashamed looking. I couldn’t believe that I had hurt him so deeply with my shaming. I went back to house heartbroken that I had so clearly hurt Rooster’s feelings.

Later that day, Ron had been outside working in the garden while I was in the house. He came inside with an urgent story to tell me. He explained that he had been saying hello to the baby chickens when he saw Rooster actually pick up some food and literally feed it to one of the babies. Ron couldn’t believe what he had seen.

I was like, “Oh, I have a story for you!”

And I told Ron the story. We were both wide eyed and in awe of Rooster. I mean, that’s some complex behavior. That story is going to stay with me for the rest of my life.

Rooster’s capacity for language was so high I wish someone could have studied him. H listened when I told stories about him, like really stood there with us and listened. As I write this post, I imagine that he would love me telling this stories about him. He listened most when I was talking about him to the neighbors.

Oh, and he made a little noise every time I sneezed. It was three little bok-bok-boks in a row. Every single time her heard me sneeze. I don’t know why, but he only did this for me, not anyone else. Ron said he was blessing me because he worried about me. I have no doubt. Maybe I was one of his hens to him. A few weeks ago, I was in the house, and the windows were opened. I sneezed a big sneeze, and I heard, from far away, “bok-bok-bok.”

What I am going to do without that boy? I wondered.

I just do not know.

Rooster also really loved music. When we finally found a good rooster to be Rooster’s successor a few years ago, Rooster retired from his years of being on duty and constant watch. When Ron works in the garden, he always listens to music. He listens to everything from classical to Pink Floyd. When Rooster finally got to retire, I would see him sitting out there near the speak just resting and listening. I noticed he seemed to like Vivaldi, and Ron noticed that he really liked Steely Dan.

In fact, on Rooster’s last full day on the planet, Ron sat with him for a long time and played music for him. He played a Steely Dan song and sang it to Rooster as well. He said Rooster looked at him in admiration because he could sing the song.

Yesterday, after Ron buried Rooster, and we both said goodbye, we came into the house and had our morning tea and cried. I cried the most, but Ron cried with me.

I wondered how the flock was going to be without Rooster. Rooster has always been. He has established a culture of kindness and order in our flock. Will the flock change without him? Will Dvorak, his predecessor, be able to maintain the same kind of culture? Dvorak came from a breeder here in Maine and is a great boy does not have Rooster’s good genes. His genetics are so poor that we have chosen not to breed him. We will have to find another rooster pretty soon. A good rooster is hard to find, and we need Dvorak to be able to train the next one. But we also need that rooster to be smart enough to learn from Dvorak as Dvorak was smart enough to learn from Rooster.

In addition to our pain of loss, Rooster’s death presents a problem for our farm. He was integral to this operation.

Through my tear, I also wondered about the big questions. What’s the point of all this? Why do we have to hurt so badly? Will Rooster come back in a different form? Will I ever see him again?

And then Ron said one of the wisest things I have ever heard.

“We are better creatures for knowing him, and he was a better creature for knowing us.” He continued, “We respected him and gave him room to be who he wanted to be. And he was loved every day.”

I have been really struggling with depression in recent months. For all the reasons I think a lot of people are struggling, I suppose. I mean, it’s a mad world, is it not?

But Ron said these words that I have to remember always:

“Every day, you show those chickens love. Every day. There is not a single moment of their lives that they are not loved. That’s good for them and good for you,” he said. And then we both added together, “maybe it’s good for the whole world.”

When I am struggling and down and depressed, I have to remember this truth. I may not be able to change the world, but I am doing good. Maybe it’s important too. Maybe the life of a chicken is really important too.

The flock was eerily quiet yesterday and today. Our world has changed with Rooster’s passing.

Boudica Caught a Rat and Other News

~ Crystal Sands ~ Leave a comment

Well, Rooster lives, but I do not know how. Well, I do know how. Ron and I are feeding him. I don’t know if this is the right thing to do, because he is having a very hard time, but he seems to really want to keep going. He still has his spirit. He bawked at me a little bit today when I was in the garden picking tomatoes for the sauce. He wanted his own tomato.

When bit it into small pieces, so he could eat it. I cupped it in my hand, so the hens couldn’t steal it. And he struggled, but he managed to get it all down. We are having to carry him into the coop at night because he can’t make it up the ramp. And he made himself a little nest in the straw on the floor because he can’t get on the roosts.

Somehow, despite everything, he is managing to maintain his dignity. He still does everything, even get carried to the coop, with dignity. What are we going to do without him? I just cry every night, and Ron keeps playing his favorite music for him. Rooster really loves music.

And we both try to be so thankful we have had the honor of knowing this noble bird for the last nine years.

***I feel I should post a warning that, below, I discuss the death of rats. It’s a reality of farm life, but not everyone wants to read about the death of beautiful creatures. I don’t like it myself, so you may want to stop reading if you are against the death of rats. I can only tell you that we try everything in our power not to kill them, but they are overrunning most of Maine. Climate change is a part of it, but apparently, people have over-killed coyotes, who eat the rats, and well, you know how humans manage to mess everything up. ***

Boudica caught her first rat tonight! She has been after those rats for years. Years. They are quick, and she is old, which makes tonight’s kill very impressive. Those rats are magnificent, and I hate for them to have to die. However, we think the drought has brought them in like we have never seen in the summer.

About a month ago, we had some big ones running around near the coop, like so big I was absolutely terrified of them. So Ron got out his .22 and just shot at them for about a week in a row. He never killed one and just wanted them to move on. “Just make them feel unwanted,” he said. They did. We didn’t see rats for nearly two weeks, but then a new group moved in.

They were small and cute but were legion. They arrived just last week, and they were so adorable, but they were everywhere. They appeared while Ron and our son were on a mini vacation last weekend. Just when I was thinking how awesome it was that the rats moved on, I went out to the coop Saturday evening to bring in the food and water, and all I could see were cute little rat butts and tails flying out the door and under the nest boxes.

When Ron got home, he decided it was time to set the traps. He set them everywhere, and the first night, he got five rats. That’s a record. The next night, just one, which seems hopeful, although it could be that everyone who was left just got wise. Tonight, Boudica got one on her own.

Ron said she was near the chicken coop and made a super quick move and then just had one. Ron said she was so proud. This was a life goal for Boudica. I wonder how she feels now. Was it rewarding? Anticlimactic? I mean, she has been after a rat off and on for her whole 9 years. I wonder what she will do with herself now? Probably just try to get another. However, I did talk to her tonight when I put up the ducks, and she seemed quite pleased with herself.

Anyway, on the garden front, we are making the spaghetti and pizza sauce this week, and I am beat. I spent this weekend processing one big batch, and then today, I helped Ron peel the tomatoes on my lunch break from work, and then I have spent all evening with the sauce.

I have been back and forth to the kitchen while writing this. I am down to the first round of water bathing right now and am just waiting for the giant pot to boil.

How have you been? What’s up on your farms or homesteads?

A Ruby Update

~ Crystal Sands ~ Leave a comment

Friends, Rooster is not well. I think we might lose him tonight, maybe tomorrow. He is so old, and it is so time. Still, I am about to be undone by this. He is a fixture. He is my rock in that flock. He has always been, it seems to me.

But I will write more about him soon. I have to try to tell his story in a way that honors that magnificent boy. Tonight, while I was looking through pictures of him, dating all the way back to 2016. I must have a hundred pictures of that beautiful rooster, but I also ran across this picture.

At first, I was like, “Who is this beautiful baby?” Then, I checked the date and the other birds around her. This_is_Ruby!!!

No wonder she is so spoiled! Look at the magnificent baby she was!

I adore that little stinker. She is still hanging in there. Still doing what she wants, when she wants, how she wants. But she hangs out with the flock more. In fact, every morning now, after she proves her point and makes me let her out to run around the driveway, check out the garage, go visit the meat birds, she goes right back to the coop door and wants to be let in. She is almost, a little bit, maybe fitting in with the flock.

Sadly, she is laying soft-shelled eggs every now and then, which means maybe things are starting to go wrong with her health. She’s just four though, and Rooster is her dad, which means she at least has 50% very good genes. Still, Schubert was her mama, and Schubert only lived to age five.

I won’t think about that now though. It’s enough to think about Rooster.

There has been so much loss this year. Mary Jane. Hector. The ducks are starting to pass. When everyone gets so old, it’s inevitable, I suppose, but it’s wearing me down so badly that Ron ordered some baby chicks for me. They arrive in a couple of weeks. I chose some heritage breeds and some unique birds. I needed some joy.

I hope they are half as cute as Ruby was when she was baby.

The Misfits (or the Beautiful Diversity in Nature)

~ Crystal Sands ~ 6 Comments

I have a carton of eggs that I keep in the refrigerator just for us. I labeled the carton “The Misfits.” These are the eggs that come out very small or unusually large or with a strange shape or maybe they are a pale color and the poop stains the shell even after I wash them. I have often thought about how much I love these “misfits.”

They are not the perfect eggs from our flock in dark brown or light cream or blue-green with a beautiful shape, so I don’t put them in the egg cartons that I sell to our egg customers. I have the idea that people wouldn’t want to pay for the “misfits” because they are not perfectly-shaped like the ones in the grocery store. They are so beautiful to me, but I have always loved the misfits.

But lately I have been thinking about how the perfect eggs are a big lie. They are simply a lie told to us by a food system that keeps us detached from the reality of our food and where it comes from. And I feel that lie is a part of an even bigger lie about the uniformity of nature. It’s one Americans have told themselves so powerfully and so often that we can’t see the beauty in the diversity in the nature we are a part of.

Nature is beautiful in its diversity. Not all eggs are perfectly egg shaped. From our flock, we get round eggs, pointy eggs, skinny eggs, and we have one hen who just lays the tiniest little egg all the time. Sometimes, there are big eggs with double yolks. A couple of times we had an egg with a shell inside of an egg. It’s all fantastic and interesting. The egg companies take their “misfits” and use them in other products, so people who only get eggs in the grocery store never get to see the beauty in all that diversity. Oh, we miss so much!

When I researched to see what the egg companies did with their oddly-shaped eggs, I read that some people are scared to eat eggs that are oddly shaped. It’s so interesting to me that we are scared of what is different. I guess I can see a human needing to be wary of anything different, as you wouldn’t want to eat a bad egg, but we definitely need education because it’s not necessary to fear something just because it is different.

With all this in my mind, I decided last week to put some of my misfits into the egg cartons for the egg customers. It was just a couple of eggs in the 18 pack but hopefully enough to remind the wonderful humans who buy our eggs that not all eggs are the same size and shape. Goodness comes in all shapes, sizes, and colors.

Eggs are everything, are they not?