Chickens

The chickens have now been out of the egg for about ten days. Whenever we open the lid of their box they jump up and start flapping their little wings, unless it's late afternoon, when they are settled down on their newspaper bed like one big fluffy pillow. Here they are when they were first put into their box after being in the incubator. Some of them are moving faster than others: for example the really blurry yellow one in the bottom left hand corner.

We have since bought them a proper water dispenser so they don't have to walk into the bowl to drink.

Abel came round the other day and showed us how to tell male from female - the woman - as he said. At first it seemed a very imprecise science, though there are things you can look for in the way their feathers develop, when they are very little, and then in their little vent, so you have to hold them upside down and massage them a little. I could kind of see what he meant, but am not giving up my day job yet.

Mother Nature has excelled herself, apparently, producing eight female and seven male chicks, evenly — though confusingly — distributed between dark and light colours.

One of Joel's friends came round on Tuesday, and they spent a good hour just sitting and cuddling the chickens. And Jane from the chook group is coming tomorrow to bring her son to admire them. The more we handle and pet them the better. One of them hopped up on my hand a moment ago, and that was cute. They are rapidly getting too big for this box, though they are far too small to go up to Ceres, so Paul is converting the lower floor of Joel's treehouse (don't ask) for lodgings. But today it's raining steadily, and in any case he is still recovering from being bitten by mosquitoes or spiders the other day.

The chook group is losing Kelly, but before she left for her Very Big Job in Canberra, she spent an afternoon with the chickens up at Ceres, and took these terrific photos.

One of the proud fathers.

"Peck hem up right as they grow and ete hem in."

Another proud father with a group of proud mothers.

This is what free range really looks like: chickens with room to run around under the fruit trees.

End of a long day in front of the camera.

Chicken scratching for my immortality (with apologies to Joni Mitchell)

The incubator itself is nothing more fancy than a big polystyrene container. There are channels in the bottom to hold water; while the top has a small heater, with thermostat attached, and a small perspex square to look through. There's also a wire tray that sits on top of the water channels. Add a thermometer on a little stand; and that's pretty much it. You select clean eggs with smooth skins, and store them for no more than a few days after being laid before stabilising the temperature at 103, filling one of the channels with water, and laying the eggs on the wire tray. You mark one side with a pencil cross; the other with a zero. For 18 days (for chicken eggs) you turn the eggs morning and night; clockwise, then anti-clockwise. If you keep turning them in the same direction they get all twisted up inside and don't develop. Of course the hen does all this keeping them warm, and humid and turned properly all by herself.

After 18 days you make sure there is water in the outside channel (more in dry climates), turn them for the last time and close the lid. Under no circumstances must you open it until the chicks have hatched.

Before I left for work this morning I could hear a faint chirruping. And now there are about four or five that have come out of their shells, and I can hear them scrabbling around amongst the broken shells, chirping madly. Joel and I watched two come out at the same time, about half an hour ago. The first thing you see is a small triangular piece of shell broken off. Then the baby chick's single tooth breaks through the membrane. There's usually a pause of about an hour while it recovers from this exertion. Then it starts to break the egg in a zig zag pattern, around the broadest part of the egg. This might take half an hour. Then all of a sudden, the egg breaks neatly in two, and panting and puffing, the chick unfurls itself and kicks free of the egg. It's wet, of course, and can hardly hold up its head. Peering into the box, you are very relieved to see it panting and breathing. But within half an hour, it's sitting up; and within another half hour, it's dry and fluffy.

Sitting at my desk, I can hear them moving around so vigorously I think they're going to lift the lid and come out, though I know that's impossible. As I go and peer into the box again, I can see the humidity starting to fog up the little window; one or two more eggs have their first little triangle broken, and are wobbling back and forth; while some are not moving at all. I'll give them another 24 hours, then will have to open the box and start to feed the little ones, knowing that those who've not yet made it out, probably won't, or are unfertilised or damaged in some way.

Watching the two little ones emerge — one pale, one dark — with my own child was pretty extraordinary. He's seen this before, but doesn't remember; and at 15 is suitably intrigued, sentimental and concerned about them.

Warm thoughts tonight, then, of the many friends and facebook friends who've given birth recently: Nicole, Amy, Belinda, Clare, and yesterday, Genevieve; and very soon, Kim; and next year, Melanie. And for all those who nurture, in all ways. Well, it was work-in-progress day for our graduate students today; and I know we all felt so proud of them.

So if you're up at Ceres around about Christmas or the New Year, and see some smaller,  younger hens up there, you'll know you were a bloggy witness to their birth.

And just because we can link, here's Joni, in Japan:

Naughty chickens

Something there is about a chicken that wants to climb high into a tree at dusk. That's all well and good;  but the danger for chickens is early morning, when the foxes come out for breakfast.

Tonight at dusk I left the party, changed my shoes and drove up to Ceres. By the time I got there it was pretty much pitch black, and the chickens were lined up quietly on their perches in their shed. I counted them, but came up two short, and I remembered that this morning I had found two black ones outside that had eluded capture the night before (the group is on a fortnightly roster). Determinedly, I went outside with my little torch and started scouring the runs, to no avail. Finally I saw two black chickens high up in the quince tree. By climbing a couple of feet into the tree, I could just about reach them with the end of the rake, but no amount of poking or prodding (in the dark, clutching my little torch, trying to keep my balance, trying not to poke my eyes out on the tree, trying not to wreck my clothes, trying not to hurt the chickens) would budge them. I then tried giving the branch a vigorous shake, but from underneath I could just see their little feet curling tightly around the branch. Finally — it's pretty much pitch black, remember — I had to climb up over bags of mulch, onto the wooden supports of the flimsy wire fence between the two runs. Standing five feet off the ground, propping myself against a quince tree in the dark, I had to reach into the tree and grab the two chickens, one at a time, then precariously lower myself down so I could drop them onto the ground. And then I had to jump down off the fence and run around to the gate into the other run so I could chase them inside before they took it into their heads to fly up into the tree again.

All this time I had an image of how funny it all was — except that I wasn't so much laughing as swearing. The funniest thing though was when I finally picked them up to put them inside, they both set up such a dreadful complaining squark. They really didn't want to go inside; they really didn't see why they couldn't stay up in the tree; they'd been all right the night before, so what was my problem? And then when I put them inside, all the other hens woke up and squarked about being disturbed. Not sure I'm spelling 'squarked' correctly: but I kind of like the look of its awkward q and k there.

I was very glad to get back to the party, I can tell you. Our boys had played beautifully for Peter's guests: Joel set the keyboard to the marimbah sound effect, and it blended perfectly with electric bass and drums. After most of the guests had gone, the band and its parents dined on a perfect pea and ham soup and orange and almond cake, and then the boys played again. As parents, we are simply in awe of our talented children. We are of a generation that learned to play music, but learned to play set pieces from scores. These kids experiment and improvise, and take the beat from each other, and watch each other to produce perfect, irregular rhythms together. Now that Joel's wrist is out of plaster and is gradually  becoming more mobile, the drummer, naturally, has a thumb in plaster; and was holding the brush between the second and third finger of his hand.  The poor boy had a blister developing on the inside of one finger from this unaccustomed use. But they weren't going to stop the music...

Want freshly-laid 100% free range eggs you collect yourself?

For about fifteen years now, we've been members of a co-operative chook group at Ceres, the environmental park in Brunswick. The principle is simple: a group of fourteen households take it in turns, one day a fortnight, to let the chickens out in the morning, feed and water them; then return at sunset to lock them in securely against the foxes, and take home the eggs the chickens have laid that day. The chickens roam around under the fruit trees all day, doing what chickens are meant to do. Then once a month (first Sunday) there's a working bee when all the households gather together to muck out the sheds, distribute the poo over the garden or take it home, line the permaculture sheds with a fresh layer of garden mulch, and generally carry out maintenance on the shed or the gardens. We then have a pot of billy tea around the open fire and have a meeting. All the members are also members of Ceres.

There's a surprising degree of satisfaction in painting a chicken perch with lime, or spreading mulch in an orchard in a relay team of wheelbarrows and pitchforks. Yes, it's just once a month, and a far cry from real farming, but still. Sometimes we've incubated and hatched the next flock of baby chicks, too, at home, which is an amazing thing to do.

The group can't afford to buy organic feed, but we supplement grains and pellets with household scraps, bread and greens scavenged from local bakers and greengrocers. The eggs are smooth and incredibly fresh, with golden yolks. They come with bits of feathers and straw stuck on them. They come in different sizes, too: big and brown or small and sometimes greenish (there's an arakuna strain in the mix so we sometimes have chicks with fluffy heads; and I think these lay the pale green eggs).

Anyway, there is a vacancy for a Friday slot, so if you think this might be fun, email me and I'll give you the contact details for Bryan, the co-ordinator. You can follow this link on the Ceres page, but don't contact Don, the past co-ordinator, as he's in hospital recovering from a motorbike accident...

It should be said that Ceres is in process of radical change at the moment, and the relationship between the management group and the chicken group is currently being re-negotiated. The main point of tension is — unsurprisingly — land. Ceres needs to generate more of a profit, and a number of folk think the chook group "has too much land," but in fact, we use almost the perfect amount that our size flock of chickens requires to be classed as "free range." To see them roaming around under the apple trees, or digging little holes for dustbaths, or rummaging around for insects is to be reminded of the contrast with most modern farming practices. If you're going to eat meat (and members of the group have very different opinions on this), at least let it be prepared humanely.

Well, let me know if you'd like to join, or go on the waiting list for a future vacancy. Kids are welcome, of course.