Happy Eggs » My Chicken Flock

Getting a Chicken Permit in Nashville

admin — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:35:56 +0000

Well, a week after the chicken vote and the city is in the process of pulling permits together.

If you’re interested in getting your chicken permit, call Nashville’s Environmental Health Division at (615) 340-5653. You can add your name to the list and they will call you when the paperwork is ready to go.

My ladies are so excited!

My Chickens Are Legal

admin — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 23:15:06 +0000

Woo-hoo! And, check out the Amazon.com banner ad! It’s my book!!

Josie the Cyclops

admin — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 14:43:59 +0000

I have a sixth sense about my chickens. I knew I had trouble when Josie didn’t come running when I called her. After tromping through the honeysuckle, I found her hiding in the underbrush, a newly-minted cyclops. It’s morbidly interesting, I’ve never had this problem with a chicken. Her eyeball seems to be completely gone, just a bloody lump. There are no other apparent injuries, so my best guess is that she got extremely unlucky and was pecked. The area of injury does not have any suspicious items, like barbed wire. If it was a raptor, I’d expect to see talon injuries. A mammal would have just ripped her apart. So, we’ll blame her sisters (aren’t you glad your sisters don’t play so rough?)

Josie is sitting in a large tupperware box at my feet. I am going to flush her socket with saline and hope for the best. She seems a bit perkier this am, so I’m hoping she’ll recover soon. Photos seems a little much a this point. Ironically, our daughter suffered an eye injury in the corresponding eye, but a day before. Fortunately her eyeball is still intact, but it’s quite a a shiner.

Josie the Office Assistant

admin — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 13:33:58 +0000

Molting Time

admin — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 19:30:18 +0000

Once or twice a year, my birds decide to drop all their feathers and grow new ones. It’s molting time, and it’s messy. There are feathers everywhere, and the girls look a bit haggard. They also stop laying eggs during the molt, bummer! One way to help them move through the process a bit faster is to up the protein. Scatter a few handfuls of cat kibble in with their regular feed to help.

Anyway, the molt reminded me of last year’s family vacation to Jersey Shore. We visited a small zoo. It was strapped for resources, but they obviously cared about their animals and were working hard to make a nice environment for them. The most memorable animal? Not the lion (although his roar was awesome!). The honor didn’t go to an mpressive wild animal, it went to Henry, the rooster. Check this guy out:

Apparently I was not the only one taken aback by poor Henry. They had this sign posted on the fence around his pen:

Opossum in the Chicken Coop!

admin — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 02:55:08 +0000

The great chicken nemesis, the opossum, found a way into the coop this evening. Fortunately for my ladies, she was a very young predator. She did manage to frighten my birds into a cackling frenzy, chasing them off their perch and into the run. Scott found her, desperately clutching the wire at the top of the run, trying to find a way out. My years volunteering for a wildlife rehab prepped me for opossum removal (although she was fast and wiggly and I lost her on the first grab). I finally got her, and set her free.

Opossums eat chickens. We’ll have to review the coop in the daylight tomorrow to find the breach. In the meantime, I locked the door to the roosting area. Unfortunately, the opossum will return, and she’ll quadruple in size.

Close Call With a Sharp-Shinned Hawk

admin — Tue, 17 May 2011 14:39:43 +0000

I can hear my hens squawking from their coop. Josie had a very close call with a sharp-shinned hawk this morning. I was standing about five feet away when it landed on her back! It bailed on the chicken-breakfast-project quickly, probably because I was there. SSH’s are quite small, so I am not sure it could have carried her off. Josie didn’t seem to know what was happening, just let out a “WTF?” squawk and made her way back into the coop. I need to check her back for injuries today, just as soon as I finish hosting my next webinar. Ah, life in the burbs.

The Sorrow of Unsuccessful Egg Hatching

admin — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 14:45:19 +0000

Poor Josie. She really, really wants to be a mother. This is what we call a “broody chicken.” Some biological trigger was sprung, and she desperately wants chicks. It’s been about two months since she decided to hatch eggs, no matter how long it takes. She sits in her nest box all day long, hopping out once for a sip of water or a nibble of layer ration. Unfortunately, the lack of rooster in our coop means her extraordinary efforts are all for naught.

Every day I take her out and toss her into the yard. At the very least she gets a bit of exercise, a chance to eat some grass. She is noticeably frail, wobbly and extremely vocal, making a constant pipping cluck noise as she totters around. Inevitably, she loses interest in fresh air and scurries back to her box. Some chickens will never recover from this, literally starving themselves to death. Josie has dropped at least a pound, significant for a 5 pound bird. Keep your fingers crossed that her desire to be a mother passes soon!

Avoiding Salmonella from Eggs

admin — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 23:25:41 +0000

These days I am especially happy to have my own group of healthy hens. Their lives are much different, much healthier and happier, than their sisters in factory farms. Still, it’s not a bad idea to be on alert to avoid a bout of Salmonella and it’s suite of symptoms: fever, bloody diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain.

First step. Check your eggs to make sure you don’t have a bad batch. Read this page on the FDA site to learn how to identify the source of your eggs! If you’re not sure, toss them. Visit your local farmers market and buy happy eggs instead.

Ongoing Salmonella avoidance is not rocket science. Keep your eggs refrigerated. Don’t eat broken eggs, especially if they are covered in chicken poop. And cook them well – no raw egg a-la-Rocky. Here are some good resources for additional reading.

A Five Egg Day!

admin — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 20:47:06 +0000