Inner City Farmer

Free at last, free at last. I finally let the broody hen out of her cage yesterday afternoon. Her time in confinement was brutal for all parties involved… but it seems to have done the trick. When she exited the cage, she was far more interested in scratching the ground and pecking at bugs than sitting on eggs. Egg production isn’t quite what it was before, but I am getting at least one or two eggs a day. I anticipate the next big develop in the coop to be the day my youngest hen, now four months old, starts laying eggs. That will probably happen towards the end of August…

This is what happens to a broody hen. I grabbed her by the feet as soon as it got dark last night and stuffed her into this dog cage. Yes, I do feel bad about it. But her time in captivity should only last a day or two, which hopefully will be long enough to break the hormonal cycle she’s stuck in.

No one ever said raising chickens was easy. I had just gotten the two chicks born this spring (nearly full-sized now) integrated with the three older hens when one of the older hens suddenly turned “broody.” About a week ago, the Black Australorp, fueled by some surge of hormones, decided it was time to hatch some chicks (even though I don’t have a rooster and it is, therefore, impossible). She’s pretty much been sitting in the nest box ever since.

Driven by their natural maternal instinct, broody hens will rarely leave the nest. So committed are they to sitting on their eggs, they can actually die of starvation or dehydration. This instinct has been bred out of many breeds, but evidently not this one. I believe it was brought on by the long days we are now enjoying.

I don’t think this hen is so overwhelmed by her biology that she’s going to starve while sitting on the nest, but I am upset about the precipitous drop in egg production. While the Australorpe is sitting in the nest box, the other hens can’t lay their eggs. So what can I do about it?

There are many ways to discourage broodiness, most of which sound pretty cruel. For example, dunking the hen in water! Or making her sit on an ice block! What you want to do is reduce the hen’s body temperature in order to disrupt her hormonal cycle. I think it might be enough to put her in a wire cage for a couple days where she’ll be unable to keep her body temperature as high as it needs to be to incubate chicks. It’s a bit of work I’m not really looking forward to doing… but I need my eggs!

The chicks I got in late March are now nearly full grown. They’ve been living in the same coop as the three older hens for about the last six weeks. They have a separate “den,” essentially a box made out of scrap particle board with cinder blocks covering the entrance, where they can eat their own food (first “grower” and now “developer”) in peace and escape the hens’ wrath. To get inside the den, they sneak through and around the cinder blocks, something the fat old hens can’t do.

One of the funniest things about my five chickens is that they are all different breeds. I have a Wyandotte, a Black Australorp, a Rhode Island Red, a hatchery-created breed called an Ideal 236, and a Polish Crested, which might be the freakiest-looking chicken of all time. Here’s a close-up of its face, as seen through a cinder block:

As my garden continues to burn out and fade away, I have become even more dependent upon eggs for sustenance. Much to their credit, my hens are producing, usually at least two eggs a day. In fact, I’m getting a little sick of omelets. Who’s up for a trade?

Self-Sufficiency Meter: 30%

Despite appearances, this blog has inspired a slew of comments that have made the journey I’m on so much easier. Funny thing though, the majority of these comments have been sent to me via email. I’m not sure if this has been done out of modesty, fear, or laziness… but it must stop! The answer to many of the problems we face as a species can be found in our highly developed ability to communicate with each other, so, for christ’s sake, let’s start talking, even if it’s only to say: “You haven’t flushed your toilet in a week? That is so gross!”

The latest batch of comments to put a smile on my face was sent by a man living in one of the hotbeds of sustainability, good old Vermont. A woodworker and a musician, this man’s got serious skillz, whether he’s making a table or strumming a guitar. Here’s what he had to say:

Re: imperfect cob arches: It’s the unofficial motto of my woodworking biz, “Imperfections reveal and highlight the mysteries of the process.” Hell, yeah, a human made it, from natural materials that behave a little differently here and there. If you want uniformity go buy molded plastic, but if you value interacting with a formerly living, organic material then it’s going to have variations, texture, oddities, character!

Re: meeting the neighbors, egg swaps, sharing gardening tips, whatever: Nothing will be more important as we go than relearning how to give and take and share and trade and support the people we live next to and near. In the future our lives take place at home and in the neighborhood and at the village commons.

Re: okra: Pickled okra kicks ass.

Re: packaging: Packaging can go fuck itself.

Self-Sufficiency Meter: 30% (I lost a chick this weekend to the jaws of an opossum, which means there will be a slight drop in egg production in the future.)