Jesse, a newly rescued chicken, warily regards Junie as they share the early Spring sunshine on a chilly, bright day.
Thai Boy carefully walks through a gauntlet of Girls to get to me.
Maji is very aware that Jesse is passing by rather closely to his resting spot. And, she too, is alert to his presence on this hot Summer day!
Ahhhh...she's passed on by. Maji can now relax his guard!
But not for long, Maji has moved to the circular garden now. Too many Girls have invaded his napping spot.
Always keeping an eye upon one another, cats and chickens can coexist peacefully.
I wouldn't trust any of the Cottage Cats - there are five of them - with baby chicks! It would be a massacre.
However, cats pose little threat to grown hens who aren't above donking a cat firmly on the head with a hard beak if a cat gets a bit too frisky or close!
Karma Kat and Sugar Baby are about as close as either of them wants to be. Any closer and Karma would probably give up his spot in the shade.
However, things are getting a little tense as Sugar Baby moves in on Karma.
I call Sugar Baby over for a snack of fresh currants to defray the standoff.
Chickens seem to have little fear of cats. And the cats know better than to get into pecking range. A few hen pecks was all it took to convince the cats that it's best to leave the Girls alone!
Even Shadow, my black Labrador retriever has learned to respect the Girls' personal space!
Generally, the chickens leave Shadow alone and unpecked as long as she's acting calmly...yet if she's excited and jumping about too close to the Girls, one or more of them will go on the attack!
Their attack isn't sustained. It's usually just a run up and quick peck. Shadow scoots away and the fracas is over...until the next time one of the hens thinks Shadow is acting in an unseemly or threatening way.
Shadow is good around the chickens. At first she tried to chase them but learned that they're part of our pack and not prey. And, that they pack a nasty peck!
When some of my Girls were young pullets the cats would ambush them by suddenly springing out from behind a bush. The pullets would squawk in terror and jump straight up into the air.
The cats seemed to enjoy this game. The young hens didn't...although the cats were too cautious to actually attack something almost as big as they are.
Eventually, the pullets tired of the game and started pecking the cats. That put a quick end to cat-on-chicken recreation.
Cats and chickens. A tense, wary treaty at best. Still, it's one that's workable for all parties.
The first word that comes to mind when asked how to peel really fresh boiled eggs is..."Impossible"...
Well, not quite so fast! While really fresh eggs are, or can be, difficult to peel, they are not entirely impossible...some of the time!
No problem if you buy "fresh" eggs from the supermarket! These eggs can be up to five weeks old and when boiled are very easy to peel. The older an egg is the easier it is to peel after boiling.
However, if you have your own hens - as I do - you'll know what a really fresh egg actually is. And, they don't peel easily. No way!
I've boiled up a dozen really fresh eggs to make pickled eggs - a good thing to do when you find yourself with too many eggs and no one to give or sell them to!
So, if I'm planning any recipes that require boiled eggs I'll need to set aside eggs for that purpose that are one to two (preferably) weeks old.
I always use my older eggs for boiling. For any other application, the fresher the egg, the better!
But, what about those times when I have no choice but to boil my really fresh eggs?
I've researched on-line for methods of making super-fresh eggs that have been boiled easier to peel. And, the results are mostly dismal. So...I've come up with a solution - via trial and error - that works "most" of the time. Nothing I've tried ever works 100% of the time.
I've read that boiling fresh eggs with copious amounts of salt is the answer. Maybe...with semi-fresh eggs. Not with really freshly laid eggs!
I've heard that leaving fresh eggs that have been boiled out on the counter several hours prior to peeling will render them easier to peel. Sort of...
Really, really, I mean "really" fresh eggs are HARD TO PEEL, if not impossible. I'm talking eggs so fresh - within a day of having been laid!
Try to peel one of these babies and you'll end up with divotted white and mostly yolk! Most of the white part still adhering to the discarded shells. Taste great but look...not so appetizing.
So, here's my own system developed out of need, necessity, invention, and desperation!
DO NOT boil any eggs less than four days old! Just don't. You'll be agitated, disappointed, frustrated, irritated, and just plain grouchy! And you'll end up with yolks scantily clad in a bit of pitted white.
If you MUST boil eggs that are less than a week old, this system I've developed will work. I'll also share a steaming technique that I recently tried that works, well, rather well!
Place the eggs in a sauce pot. Fill the pan to cover the eggs by an inch. Bring the water to a boil. Once boiling, set the timer for 10 minutes - this lower boiling time will prevent that gray, unappetizing ring around the yolk. After ten minutes, turn off the heat, allowing the eggs to sit for about 15 minutes.
Lift a relatively hot egg from the pan. Use a slotted spoon to spare your fingers!
Give the egg a quick rinse in really cold tap water, or dip it into cold, cold water. The transition from hot to cold seems to cause the egg to contract - a bit - from the shell and membrane. Then peel. Carefully.
If the white starts to come away with the shell. Peel in the other direction. I've discovered that eggs often peel better in one direction than another.
The only salvation with eggs that peel badly is to use them chopped for potato salad, deviled for egg sandwiches, or any application where crumbled, boiled egg is needed, such as on seafood salads or to garnish cooked asparagus, etc.
To peel a boiled egg, crack it gently against a hard surface over its entirety. Gently begin peeling at its base. Really fresh eggs won't have an air pocket, or depression at their base. The older an egg is the more of an air pocket it develops.
A good method I recently tried is to steam eggs for 20 minutes - not any longer or you'll have that gray ring around the yolk of oxidized protein.
Steaming really fresh eggs in a vegetable steamer basket has been, thus far, the most successful method for peeling really fresh eggs.
Fill a large sauce pot with enough water to just come to the bottom of a vegetable steamer. Cover and bring to a boil until steaming.
Lay the eggs in the steamer basket side by side only one layer deep. Cover the pot and reduce heat to medium or medium-low to maintain enough heat to continue steaming. Set a timer for 20 minutes.
After
steaming, turn off the heat and allow them to sit covered for about 15
minutes. They'll still be hot. Grasp one of the eggs - still hot, hot,
hot - with a slotted spoon and give it a quick rinse under cold tap water so you can handle it.
Crack it gently all over and peel. Repeat with the remaining eggs.
With my last batch of eggs I had an 80% success rate in peeling them. Not bad!
I've named her Opalene. She's black until the Sun shines on her feathers which glow an iridescent green. Opalene's coloration reminds me of some black opal gemstones, hence her name. Opalene!
I'm not sure what breed of chicken Opalene is...perhaps an Australorpe - a good layer that lays brown eggs - is calm and easily tamed.
At first rather wild and scared of every new thing she's encountered since she arrived last week, Opalene, is taming nicely by eating lettuce (she didn't seem to know what it was) out of my hand. She now comes running when she sees me in the yard because I often bring the Girls treats, such as rolled oats, cottage cheese (for calcium), bread, and lettuce.
Opalene too, found the nest boxes and has been laying her eggs just where she should! Good girl, Opalene.
Black feathers are iridescent green in the sunshine!
Night before last, the night after introducing Sugar Baby (from the infamous Nighttime Chicken Wrangle), I inserted the big red hen (whom I've named, Jessamine) into the coop.
In the morning a very confused Jessamine exited the coop trailing after Sugar Baby. I'm sure the questions ponging around in Jessamine's chicken brain were...
"Where the heck am I"?
"What place is this"?
"How exactly did I get here?"
"Where's breakfast?
Jessamine stayed close to Sugar Baby, her flock mate and fellow kidnapee.
Sugar Baby shows Jessamine "the ropes".
Jessamine is a big Rhode Island Red of even temperament. She seems fairly fearless in the face of the Cottage Cats, my dog Shadow, and me. Sugar Baby was afraid of me, ran from the cats (so, of course they chased her), skittered away from Shadow who was very intrigued with the small, white bird-thingy.
Now, Shadow is half Labrador retriever and half pointer. So after pointing at the the new Sugar Baby she decided to "retrieve" her. After several times telling Shadow, "No", she decided that Sugar Baby was just a chicken of another color and not an exotic game bird, after all.
Shadow paid no attention to our new Jessamine. And, Jessamine completely ignored Shadow. Jessamine is too big for the cats to want to tangle with as they've been head-pecked by numerous chickens for invading personal poultry space.
Sugar Baby led Jessamine right through the Back Garden and straight into the Kitchen Garden which has been opened to the chickens so they can scratch and peck lots of bugs ahead of my Spring planting.
Jessamine was soon finding lots of plump worms that had awakened with the thaw and thereupon decided that her new home was a keeper.
Like Sugar Baby, Jessamine figured out on her own (or perhaps from Sugar Baby) to head back to the coop and use the nest box to lay her egg. Good job for her first day in her new home! Better the nest box than hidden under a bush somewhere.
So far, so good in introducing two new Chicken Girls to my existing flock. No fights. No squabbles. A little confusion. Not a lot of mingling between the new Girls and the old Girls. Two separate camps, cliques, flocks?
It took only two days for Sugar Baby to realize which side her bread was buttered on...who, in fact, was the purveyor of food and treats. ME!
Now, each time I go outside little Sugar Baby comes running to greet me. She's a fast little dickens - a real Ferrari among chickens - who can dart under the expectant beak of a Girl aiming for a snack and whisk it away. I've quickly become very fond of her.
Just one more wrangled chicken to introduce...next post!
One of the newly acquired hens awakens in her new coop and can't figure out how to get out.
Last night, under cover of darkness, I lifted one of the new Girls out of the temporary holding hutch and put her into the coop with my other chickens on one of the roosts.
This new hen, whom I've named Sugar Baby (she's white as sugar and quite small) latched onto the roost with her toes and there she spent the night. It was my hope that in the morning my Girls would awaken and assume Sugar Baby had always been there.
Chickens seem to shed their old brains and grow a new one bereft of memories (all except those relating to food, where to find it, who provides it, etc.) during the night.
If I'd have introduced Sugar Baby during daylight hours, my Girls would likely have attacked her. However, when everyone awakened, no attacks occurred. It seems that chickens assume that if you all awaken together, you all belong together!
I'm introducing the new chickens I acquired during the "wrangle" one at a time. I don't want them to gang up on my Girls and alter the existing hierarchy, but instead to become a part of it.
So, last night it was Sugar Baby's turn. She was a bit upset when she finally ventured forth out of the coop, but then she discovered that there were wonderful things to eat beneath the duff and leaves in the Back Garden.
Beneath the leaves Sugar Baby finds yummy things (to a chicken) to eat, such as awakening bugs, sprouting grasses and elm seedlings.
I hoped that Sugar Baby would know that she was to return to the coop to lay an egg. She'd only spent last night in there.
Sugar Baby began to make some distressed cacklings in her wee, high-pitched voice. She wanted to get back to the temporary hutch she'd spent her first night in and where her two flock mates still resided. She seemed drawn to the sounds of their cacklings.
However, in a few minutes she'd found the nest boxes in the coop and after a bit of indecision settled in to lay her egg.
Sugar Baby finds the nest boxes and decides that "this must be the place".
We carefully, strategically, thoughtfully plotted our chicken wrangling caper. We were not going to rustle chickens! That would be illegal although I'm not sure that the rustling of fowl constitutes a serious problem anywhere in the U.S.
A friend of mine in a nearby rural town, Beth Merayo, knew I wanted to plump up my chicken population by a few hens. They needn't be layers as my own Chicken Girls were providing all the eggs I needed. But a few older hens, past egg-laying, would beef up my poultry patrol platoon for added insect and weed abatement here at the Cottage.
Chickens are such useful creatures. They lay eggs - a perfect protein - and that alone endears them to me. But there's so much more I love about them!
Chickens prowl the garden scratching for insects, thus constituting my most effective strategy for pesky bug eradication. Chickens save me lots of weeding time by gobbling up many as they sprout...kochia, foxtails, cheat grass, the billions of elm seedlings that come up each Spring, wild tansy, stink weed, and more! They also snarf up my flower garden's heartsease and bachelor's button seedlings but that's another issue altogether.
Chickens cultivate and fertilize the soil as they scratch about pooping as they go. When I clean out their coop in the block barn I toss those gleanings onto compost piles and into gardens in the Fall to "mulch" in over the Winter.
The sight of chickens poking and pecking about, taking dust baths, grazing on the lawn, chasing and catching grasshoppers, and napping on a soft bed of leaves is entertaining, calming...quiet pleasures I can enjoy for hours. I think chickens are very attractive birds, too.
I LOVE chickens. They are, unapologetically, one of my favorite creatures in the whole world!
So, Beth and I went a-wrangling for chickens. Beth knows a gentleman who wants to get rid of all his chickens. She's feeding his flock while he's out of town and he told her to "come get all she wanted".
We planned our wrangling-raid for dusk when chickens head for their roosts and become more docile as nighttime falls. We gathered cages and carriers so we could haul our be-feathered booty safely away. We dressed in old clothes, funky shoes (that would become even funkier after chasing chickens through the hen house, around and around their run, and through vast quantities of panic-induced pooping.
And then, when all was ready...we struck!
I'm after this wee, very spry, black chicken. Someone forgot to tell her that chickens are supposed to become more docile at dusk. She gave me a run for my money! But in the end my very unspry self caught her.
When Beth and I entered the hen house the chickens were just beginning to settle down for the night. As soon as they saw us their chicken-intuition kicked into high gear as they perceived our foul (fowl?) intentions and began flapping and squawking and kicking up copious clouds of feces-laden dirt and dust. Yarghhh!
Apparently, these hens didn't know they were supposed to become somnambulent at dusk. They about wing-beat us to death trying to get away. All parties involved in this fracas, human and hen, squawking, flapping, panting, running, kicking up dust! But we got 'em...eventually.
Beth emerges victorious - albeit a bit dust-covered - with a successfully wrangled hen.
Beth successfully "bagged" these two Araucana hens who are a bit frightened right now and clamped together like suction cups, but they will calm and settle down nicely in their new home where they can roam her vast lawns grazing and hunting plump worms! Like me, Beth doesn't eat her chickens...only the eggs. Our chickens simply retire to lives of leisure when they enter "ova-pause".
All in all, Beth acquired four new hens to supplement her flock. And I snared three to bring home with me - a Rhode Island Red, a small white one (possibly a Leghorn mix), and that cute black one (breed unknown) that I cornered after a strenuous jog around the chicken yard a few too many times!
Chasing chickens is hard, dirty work. They don't like being cornered or caught, kicking up a huge fuss and making their human captors very tired at the end of it all.
By the time I drove the few miles home to my wee, rural burg, my car smelled like panic-projected chicken poop (I'll hose out the carriers tomorrow). I left the car windows rolled down to air out the...um, aroma. Surely, my new Girls emptied themselves of everything they'd eaten for the past two days!
I settled the new hens into a straw-lined hutch in the block barn with water and food where they could calm down in peace, seclusion, and darkness.
In a few days I'll introduce them into the coop - at night - with my own Girls and when they all awaken together they'll simply think it's always been that way and it's likely they won't fight.
Yet, introduce new chickens to an established flock in daytime and they'll fight and carry on making a big ruckus over the "invaders".
I think my new hens will enjoy free-ranging the front lawn and gardens, savoring the earwigs in the Orchard Garden, gleaning the large Back Garden, and doing early Spring clean-up in the Kitchen Garden.
I'm not sure if the new chickens Beth and I caught are past their egg-laying prime, or not. All seemed fairly spry and fast-moving. We'll find out in the next few days whether they've still got eggs to lay...after they settle in.
If I get more eggs than I need, I know people who'd love to have free-range, organic eggs from "pastured" chickens ("pastured" simply means that a hen grazes on green grass, laying highly nutritious eggs, rich in Omega 3).
Ahhhh...the country life! I want...no, NEED...a bath!!!
Broody Girl has Spring fever and "sprung" herself onto a tree stump in the Kitchen Garden. She's feeling pretty perky, and glad to be free, after her three-week stint of sitting on her nest brooding some eggs, none of which hatched. Perhaps they weren't fertile, after all, or perhaps she didn't turn them every day as she should have.
I've flung open the gates to the Kitchen Garden and let the Chicken Girls in! Their early Springtime job is to cruise about and and snarf up all the earwigs and other buggy things that will want to eat my veggies when they sprout.
While the gardens still wear their Winter "drab", wee green things are beginning to come up!
The ice and snow are melted (for now...another storm is coming next week) and I've planted collards and leeks. They can take the cold. Even if we get a snowstorm it melts off quickly and simply serves to water the cold-tolerant crops I've planted - and will plant in the next few days - such as spinach, lettuce, arugula, radishes, beets, and carrots.
Indoors, I've started seeds for tomatoes, sweet peppers, and eggplants. Next month, I'll start the flower seeds that will eventually be planted outdoors when the weather becomes more reliably warm.
Peek-a-boo cruises the big raised bed for worms! The chicken wire hoop protects newly planted collard seeds from chickens and cats, both of whom love to dig in freshly tilled soil. A "field fence" tomato cage marks the future locations of a tomato plant.
One of the Cottage Cats, Thai Boy, and Peek-a-boo come to check out my recent activity in the big raised bed. I've inserted the poles for the tepee upon which runner beans will be planted in mid-to-late May after all danger of frost. I push the poles into the ground in early Spring while it's still wet beneath the surface from Winter snows. Pushing poles into sodden soil is much easier than pounding them into dry soil
Every year this Chicken Girl, whose name just happens to be...Broody Girl, goes broody.
So, what is a broody hen?
What are the symptoms?
A broody hen is one who wants to sit on her eggs until they hatch. And she does just that. Stays upon her eggs...instead of laying an egg and hopping off to go eat, scratch, peck, etc.
I've got one broody hen. She goes broody once every year. None of my other hens have ever gone broody. Here are my observations...
She makes a wet "squelchy", wet boot-sole type of noise...not her usual vocalizations and clucky-chicken noises.
She's really grouchy, cranky, ornery. Mean. A real "She-Demon". Don't try to reach under or around her. She will peck and peck hard. Brutal Girl. Naughty Girl!
She sits - clamps down - on her nest rising only about five minutes each day to eat, drink, and poop. Then, right back on her nest. A feathered suction cup!
She stops laying eggs. Simply sitting upon those she has laid...and stealing any eggs laid by other chickens in the adjoining nest box. An egg thief! Eggs are her world!
Her breast flattens and spreads like a waterbed mattress.
She seems to be in a trance or fugue. Under a spell!
She has no interest in snacks, goodies, or treats. Weird!
Her golden eyes have dilated to an almost "demonic" black.
She...IS a broody hen! Watch out!!!
These are what she's sitting on! Protecting. Nurturing. Incubating!
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