La Gringa can't kill a chicken

Three chicks out and one to go

Once again we have baby chicks. When these hens get broody, they go off and hide somewhere to sit on their eggs. I was beginning to think that something was eating our chickens until one hen showed up with four chicks and another showed up a few days later with one chick.  I don't know what we will do with them.

We disappointingly only get eggs for a few months at a time. It's a conspiracy. The rest of the time, at least one of the hens is broody and the other hens cooperate by giving that hen our eggs! I also think that some of our hens are just getting too old to lay reliably. By the way, we still have one of our original hens, 7-year-old Conchita, and Pancho is doing well, though we have one other rooster who the hens seem to prefer now.

This reminded me of an old article that I wrote a few years ago but never got posted, so I pulled it out, dusted it off, and here it is:

Click to read more >>

Hola from Oso, Joey, Zoe, Chloe and the flock

Let me in!

That is Oso looking through the window screen wondering why Papi's favorite, Zoe, gets to stay inside while he's relegated to being a yard dog. Then he's joined by Joey, whose pitiful sad look works on me and inside they come.

The dogs generally stay outside during the day and come inside when Arexy leaves at four. They've learned to tell time and know when it is 4 pm even on days that Arexy doesn't work. Just in case I don't notice the time, they gang up and remind me.

Lately, El Jefe has frequently "accidentally" let Zoe inside during the day which gives her the idea that she is special and rightfully deserves the special treatment. At the first drop of rain, she cries like she is sure that she will just melt away if a single drop falls on her.

During the rainy season, all the dogs spend more time inside. Even Chloe, the guard dog, sometimes whines to come in although she has a huge covered terraza to keep her dry. Chloe really appreciates any time she gets inside the house. She just immediately finds her spot, puts up the "off-duty" sign, and goes to sleep. She's also taken over the chicken coop as her dog house. She shares it with the termites who are destroying all of El Jefe's hard work. :-/

At one point, the chicken coop was taken over by fire ants and the flock abandoned it for the railing on the terraza — not a good thing due to the mess they make. The rooster in the foreground is Pancho. He's still going strong as leader of the flock and you would never know from watching him that I snatched him from the jaws of death. He's almost indistinguishable from the other rooster, except for a missing spur and one of his long tail feathers which never grew back.

Generally it is best to only keep one rooster (because of fighting and increased crowing to each other), but I wanted to keep the other one because he was a white chick and I was hoping that we would get some more "blond" hens. It hasn't worked so far. The normal Red Jungle Fowl look seems to prevail with few variations. But the roosters get along most of the time since there are enough hens to go around. The photo is deceiving because there is a hen behind the second rooster and it looks like her head belongs to him. ;-) If you look closer, you'll see that his head is bent down.

I tried to get some photos of the hens but they would run away when I got too close. There are two chicks in these photos as well. For some better photos of these bantam hens, check out this article.



The hens are constantly disappearing somewhere to nest and reappear after about 6 weeks with their chicks. In the meantime, we get no eggs! I suspect that Chloe is finding the egg hiding spots before we are and is eating the eggs.


Chloe is about 8 years old now. She's a good dog except for her penchant for my eggs and a very good guard dog. She doesn't bother the chickens and mostly gets along well with the chihuahuas, though the boys have taken to growling at her sometimes when she comes into the house (their territory). She gets annoyed with that so I try to nip that in the bud. It's funny how chihuahuas don't see themselves as they are. They seem to imagine that they are Chloe's equal. Unfortunately, they have both found out the hard way that they aren't.

The egg assembly line

Aren't they cute little hard workers?

I rule my flock with an iron fist. "Produce! Or else!" is my motto. Or else what? You don't want to find out.

Pffft. Yeah, right. Don't let the photo fool you. Al contrario! My chickens have me so well trained that I cook for them. El Jefe swears that his family had better not find out about that!

We've had our egg supply ups and downs for the past couple of months. I have six hens of egg-laying age (and five more who soon will be). A good month went by with nary an egg to be found. Then we had a new load of wood shavings spread around for mulch, including the empty built-in jardinera in the photo above. The hens loved it. More comfortable digs is what they were waiting for. Eggs started appearing the day after the mulch did.

SIX eggs a day! At last, I thought, my visions of generously gifting farm-fresh, organic eggs to friends and neighbors was about to come to fruition.

But no, the egg bounty was short-lived. Three or four days later, the count went to three eggs a day, then one, then none.

Then three of the hens decided to go broody at the same time, even though they had no eggs to sit on. I bothered them enough that they gave up after a few days, but it still takes them awhile to recuperate and start laying again.

I didn't want to bother them too much because I want them to use this jardinera and feel safe there. It is protected from the rain and dogs and very convenient to collect the eggs from.

About 10 days had gone by with no eggs when we left for Utila. While searching for treasure on the beach, I discovered an egg shaped piece of coral. When we came back, I put it in the nesting box and Wallah! We started getting three eggs a day again.

Check it out for a closer look. The size and shape is perfect! Of course, one of these same hens was sitting on two flat, grey rocks a couple of months ago.


Now three more of the hens have decided to go broody again and they are fighting over who gets to sit on the rock.

I've been trying unsuccessfully to catch Pancho the rooster to get a photo of his foot − but that says something in itself, doesn't it? He is doing great, not even limping anymore.

Sorry....I have to go now. I think my chickens are calling for their afternoon snack and I don't want to be late.

Proof of Life post

Some bloggers apologize when they haven't posted recently. La Gringa has to be much more dramatic than that − so here's my 'proof of life' photo. A minor problem: We decided to cancel the newspaper for awhile so this one is dated February 23! Hahaha. Oh, well. I'm going to give you some details that only you and I know, so you'll know it's me writing, not an impostor. ;-)

No, I haven't been kidnapped. I'm still alive. I'm fine. El Jefe is fine. I've just been completely engrossed in other things. I'm kind of a monomaniac. I immerse myself completely in whatever I do to the exclusion of everything else, but you probably knew that already, didn't you?

The newspapers were just piling up while we were reading the articles at the online sites. Chloe the Rottweiler misses the paper most of all because she was paid a 'cookie' every morning for delivering it to our hands. (video proof)

Crisis continues

To tell the truth, I'm really burned out on the political crisis (which continues in full force) and the news has been depressing lately − lots of problems, conflict, and violence, and reports of foreigners (Nicaraguan, Cuban, and, yes, US American) interfering to rile up groups and to train them in the tactics that get attention from the "international community". There are serious efforts being made to destabilize the country. US Ambassador Hugo Llorens continues to sit at the head of the table, but seems a bit defensive and uncomfortable in the news conferences lately. Maybe it is clear to him (finally) that he has worn out his welcome.

I'm trying to revamp the Blogicito somewhat and trying to figure out how to code what I want to do requires my full attention. I'm making progress slowly but surely.

Rooster news

The topic that I know you all are interested in the most is Pancho. I'm very happy to tell you that he's doing GREAT! Nothing like having a rooster in your closet or on the terraza outside your bedroom to get you up early! Every morning he and the teenage roosters would have a crowing duel that went on and on and on. I guess Pancho wanted to let them know that he's still The Man!

Yesterday morning, I woke up to find Pancho standing up. I took him out of the cage and put him on the terraza and he was limping but seemed steady enough so I let him have his first day of freedom out in the garden in more than two weeks. Though he still has a bad limp, it took three of us to catch him to put him safely in his cage for the night. Today he's outside again and I gave the two teenage roosters to Carlos. I don't ask and Carlos doesn't tell, but I assume that those roosters will become beloved pets and live to a ripe old age just like the last two I gave him. (yeah, right!)

On the homefront

The floor has been repaired, the dust has been cleaned and cleaned and cleaned and the furniture has been replaced again. At last! I'll tell you more about what we did to the loose tiles another time − so far, so good. Now we have two more areas to work on....mañana.

Arexy, the maid, will be celebrating her first anniversary with us next Tuesday! More accurately, I'll be celebrating it; I'm not sure about her, but I think she will. Bet you thought it could never happen, didn't you? She's been wonderful. A good worker, a fast learner, very dependable, thorough, mostly careful, and very pleasant to be around. That's the good news. The bad news is that she's pregnant and going to move back to Tocoa soon. :-/

In the 'hood

Trees are being cut down to put a road through along side our property. Boohoo. I hate that on so many levels! Traffic, privacy, wildlife, etc., etc. At least it opens up our view to the mountains a little bit. Gradually over the years the trees have grown and covered the mountains. I guess I need to get back to work on those curtains I started back before the political crisis consumed eight months of our lives. (See my very first article for almost this same exact view from 8 years ago. Interesting!)

If you look closely to the right of that taller post, you can see a worker on top of the 40 foot trunk chopping it up by hand with an axe (I think − but maybe it is a machete, which would be more typical). I hold my breath every time they start chopping. One of the falling 40 foot (12 m.) trees came pretty close to our muro, not to mention the power lines.

As a point of interest, these guys have an interesting work schedule. They come around 7 a.m. every morning, chop down one or two trees, and then leave around 9 or 10 a.m.

You may notice the flower bed covered with fresh mulch. We've had Carlos (a former worker from our construction days) and another guy here doing some major garden clean up. Carlos cleaned up that area a little more than I wanted − and I thought I explained it so well! The garden looks so fresh and neat with new mulch. Now that we are entering the dry season, the mulch will help to keep the soil moist and cooler.

And in case you were going to ask: No, Honduran birds do not like my Purple Martin house. Once a dove made a nest on the 'porch' outside but that's about it.

This is more than I intended to write − time to get back to CSS and HTML and PNG images. Ugh! If this doesn't tide you over the weekend, check out some of those older articles and let me know what you found.

A terrible thing happened last Wednesday

Pancho, 2 years ago

A terrible thing happened last Wednesday.

We didn't find out until Thursday afternoon. I was feeding the chickens chopped up boiled egg (their favorite) and I noticed that Pancho, our main rooster wasn't with the hens. I panicked because he's always with at least one of the hens and they were all there.

He's a gentleman and will stand guard while they eat. If I throw him some egg, he'll check it out, then cluck for a hen to come and get this treat that he has for her. If a hen doesn't come, he'll pick it up in his beak, toss it down, and cluck some more until he attracts one of the hens.

We had some workers coming in and out of the gate spreading mulch and I was afraid that he had wandered out and had been stolen or run over by a car. We searched the yard, and El Jefe finally found him. He called me and gave me the sad look, saying, "Pancho is dead".

"Oh, no! Did he get run over?", I asked. "No, he's over there," pointing to an area near the front porch. I went toward him and just then Chloe the Rottweiler came running over to sniff Pancho. Pancho squawked and weakly flapped his wings.

"He's not dead!" I screamed. I ran over to get him. He was soaking wet and cold and his eyes were rolling back into his head. It had been very cold the day and night before and we had 3.5 inches of rain (9 cm.). Not only did we have that much rain, but he was in a spot where roofs on three sides poor rain into that area. He was probably floating in cold water at least part of the time.

(Sorry, but this is pretty graphic....)

I found that his ankle had gotten tangled up in some roots. The worst part is that he apparently tried to chew his foot off to free himself. Chickens have three long toes facing front and a small one facing back. He had chewed off the small back toe and the other three were were bleeding badly. We could see the bone and tendons on the bottom of his foot. Two of his front toes appear to be broken or maybe just inoperable because he had chewed the tendons or nerves or something.

We felt so badly that we hadn't found him sooner. I can't imagine why he or the hens wouldn't have squawked to alert us, but maybe they were afraid to attract the dogs. I felt so guilty that I hadn't noticed him missing.

I took Pancho inside and washed him up with some warm water, then blow dried him and wrapped him in a towel to try to warm him up. I slathered an antibiotic ointment all over his foot and loosely bandaged it. I didn't know what else to do. In this photo, you can see how pale his comb and wattles are.

The first few days, I really didn't think that he was going to make it. He was so weak and wouldn't eat at all for the first day. I started feeding him yogurt (which is another chicken favorite) thinking that would at least get some liquid and some protein in him. He wouldn't eat much. This photo is from Saturday. His foot it covered with cream.

Gradually he has improved somewhat and is even doing a weak crow reply a couple of times a day when he hears the teenage roosters crow outside. I roll a towel around and under his chest to keep him propped up a little. He can't stand and it isn't looking like his injured foot is going to be functional, though it is healing and there is no infection.

He's living in a big box in a closet and I feed him several times a day. He does occasionally help himself to the yogurt and cracked corn and scoot around the box on his chest a little. I can tell when he eats because it leaves a dried 'Got Milk?' residue on his beak. When he eats the corn, he ends up with a corn crust stuck to the yogurt on his beak.



Here is a video of his pitiful crowing.

But now I don't know what to do! I'm wondering if trying to save him was the right thing to do? If he won't be able to walk, there is no way that he can survive. It's not the first time I've done something like this. I once kept a blind chicken in a box in the studio for seven months, at night anyway.



Update: Pancho the Rooster recovered fully! He limped for a long time but now walks and runs completely normally and is back to ruling the roost.

Desperation, hers not mine

Sitting bantam hen

This hen is feeling the nesting instinct. The evil giant featherless monster (me) has been daily removing her eggs and the eggs that her friends kindly lay for her, much to her frustration.

To show how strong that instinct is, the poor desperate girl is now sitting on a couple of rocks hoping for the best! I know those rocks were not there the day before this photo was taken. After removing the hen and eggs, I was admiring the little nest of leaves and it definitely was empty. Today − wallah! − the hen has laid two rocks and is keeping them warm and cozy.

One of the reasons that we all have eggs year around and they don't cost $1 per egg is that over the years, breeders have bred the nesting instinct out of most chickens. Hens naturally lay less when they are molting, in very cold or very hot weather, or when daylight hours decrease, and not all when they become broody or for several weeks afterward. Unnatural conditions of egg factories and breeding out certain characteristics solve most of those problems.

My hens, being more closely related to the original red jungle fowl, have other ideas, though. Bantam hens are the absolute worst at going broody − always wanting to sit on eggs (for three weeks) to hatch them rather than laying eggs. So my hens, rather than becoming egg making machines, have taken it upon themselves to try to increase the chicken population of the world....or at least of La Ceiba.

When we first got chickens, I had visions of magnanimously giving out farm-fresh organic eggs to friends and family. Nothing could be further from the truth. Despite feeding 18 chickens, we are still buying eggs!

To be fair, right now most of the chickens haven't reached the egg laying stage so we should see some improvement. But invariably, we have had one, two, or three hens (of four or five) in the broody stage and the others laying their eggs in precarious spots where the dogs can find them.

This hen has decided that it's time to increase the species again and I've been trying to disabuse her of that desire by removing her from the nest. I make half-hearted attempts to try to break their broodiness − like by dunking her in a bowl of cool water − but I don't like to upset them too much, so I usually give up and let them have their way.

Update: a week after I first wrote this, the hen is still sitting on the rocks.

Chicks can't share

Two broody hens after a yogurt break

These two silly hens both went broody at the same time. They began laying their eggs in this little jardinera (planter box) outside the hall window. This jardinera gets too much shade for anything to grow so the hens started using it for their dusting box. Hens roll around in a dusty area to rid themselves of insects like lice and mites. (Apparently that works.) For whatever reason, and much to my annoyance, the hens quit laying their eggs in the coop several months ago.

I thought this was very smart of them to lay their eggs in an area protected by the rain. It was also very handy for me, since I could just open the window and gather the eggs for the day. Nice! I moved the little nesting bowl out there for their convenience and mine. Not to be discouraged by a lack of eggs, both hens shared the nesting bowl with only one egg.

I had a thought that it might not be such a good idea as my hens don't like to share their chicks, but I didn't do anything to try to "break the broodiness" of one of the hens. They seemed fine with sharing. So they sat and sat and sat side by side, until finally about 10 days ago their little chick hatched. (See the close up in the photo below. The chick is peeking out between the two hens.)

Things seemed to be going okay until about the third day. Because the jardinera is about two feet high (60 cm.), I had to help the chick to get back in each afternoon. As I was returning the chick to the jardinera, I noticed one of the mother hens' head was all dirty like it had been digging into something head first. When I picked up the other one, I realized that it wasn't dirt, but was dried blood and one of the eyes of the other hen was swollen shut. So, the two mother hens apparently had a fight over the chick. Not good.

I decided to remove the hen who had gotten the worst of the fight and leave the chick with the stronger one. I put brown-headed one out with the other chickens for the evening and she settled in with one of the roosters. I didn't know for a couple of days whether her eye was going to be alright, but I soaked with a warm, wet cloth and eventually it opened and seems to be okay.

However, the next morning when I was feeding the chickens, I saw the orange headed hen and there was no chick with her. I rushed to the jardinera, thinking that the chick must have died but there it was, with the other mother. Since that time, the 'weak' mother and the chick have been inseparable, while the 'strong' mother has gone off for amor with one of the roosters. The mother hen squawks and squawks every afternoon about 4 p.m. because she can't get her chick back into the jardinera and I obediently go out, often in the pouring rain, to catch the chick and deposit her back into the little nesting bowl.

I couldn't put the chick and mother in the chicken coup because that is being occupied by another mother hen with five older chicks. That hen also chose a jardinera for her clutch of eggs, but it was very difficult to catch five chicks every evening to put them back in their jardinera, especially since all the commotion attracts the dogs who think chasing chicks into hiding is a great game to play.

So, after catching the chicks one evening, I locked them into the coup for a couple of days with their mother (and food and water, of course) until they learned that was their home. They now obediently go inside every evening for safety − very important right now because we have had some cold weather and very heavy rains for the past couple of weeks. In the way of chickens, the older chicks or their mother would attack the younger chick so I have to keep them separate, at least until the chick gets a little bigger.

Chickens roosting on the terraza railing

Eventually I want to teach all the chickens (again!) to go into the coup at night. The others currently roost on the terraza railing at night which makes for a not-so-nice mess on the terraza floor. What a minute! Didn't I say that six months ago?

Smart chick

Baby chick, rescued from the jaws of drool drowning (Chloe)

A bucket of chicken

Not your everyday bucket of chicken.

A bucket of chickens.

Don't worry, the chicks were only in there momentarily for transporting outside.

No chicks were harmed in the making of this blog.

Don't cluck, don't tell

Hiding that baby

NY Times article about the (sometimes illegal) return to raising backyard chickens.

Almost month-old chicks

Chicks playing on their jungle gym

This is a little big update on now month-old Easter chicks. (I can't seem to do a little anything.) El Jefe built them this cute jungle gym in their pen. They love fluttering around on the perches. You can click on any of these photos to enlarge them in your browser.

We are just about ready to put them outside. The constant cheep-cheep-cheeping is driving us nuts! For the past couple of weeks, the mother hen has been spending her days outside but comes back almost every night to stay with the chicks.

I did a couple of the old wives' tale tests on the chicks and I think we have one cockerel (rooster) and four pullets (hens). We'll see, won't we? If that proves to be true, then I think that the old wives' tale about the pointy eggs being roosters is pretty accurate, too, since we should have had three roosters out of the original six if I hadn't removed the pointy eggs. Only time will tell.

I was showing El Jefe the tests and realized that all this was pointless because what was I going to do? Wring the little bugger's neck? No way! I wanted all hens, but the day after we gave away our two excess roosters, we found out that nephew E's rooster disappeared. So now we are hoping that we do have a rooster to give him along with the new hen we were planning on surprising him with.

They have been outside a couple of times in their pen − turned upside down so they can scratch in the dirt and eat grass. We keep it in the shade or place the bottom tray over the top to keep them out of the sun so we don't end up with fried chicken. If Chloe the Rottweiler was very aggressive, this wouldn't work because she could easily tip over the pen or get in from the top.

The cardboard around the pen was to keep the chicks inside since they can easily make it through the bars of the pen. I put a little dish of yogurt in there just in case they didn't find enough to eat on their own. They love yogurt! It is the only thing that keeps them quiet. I sprinkle cayenne pepper on it because they say that it can prevent coccidiosis in chickens. Chickens either can't taste the heat of the cayenne or they like it.

What I've been thinking of doing is keeping them in the pen outside during the day and then putting them in the coop at night so they will get used to sleeping in the coop. I need to retrain all our chickens to use the coop. I'm still a little worried about the dogs, especially Chloe, harassing the chicks if they were free-ranging. This photo shows the curious chihuahuas right after we moved the chicks outside.


I really don't think Chloe intends to hurt the chicks, because obviously with one bite, the chick would be gone if that is what Chloe wanted. She likes to play with them like squeak toys and, of course, they are too delicate for that. The full grown chickens have no problem with the dogs.


Another reason that I want to keep them contained for awhile longer is that I have to feed them many times a day. They scratch their rice and corn all over the place so I only give them a bit at a time or it just gets wasted. They also eat chopped up boiled egg and ripe banana. Not exactly a balanced diet but I've had bad experiences with the chicken feed here in La Ceiba. It usually smells rancid and my chickens won't touch it.

Sadly, the little white chick didn't make it. I was so hoping to have another Blondie, but she was just too weak and wouldn't eat or drink on her own. I helped her for a couple of days but it became evident that she wasn't going to survive.

The one chick that hatched from the original clutch of eggs (before the other eggs were eaten) is still doing fine. She is inseparable from her adopted mom. I have no idea how this is done, but the chick somehow gets up to this 2-foot high railing and spends the night under mom's wing. So, all in all, a successful hatch so far.

Here is a short video of the chicks busy hunting food outside in their pen. Don't let that sweet peeping fool you. That is not how they sounded inside the house!

Evicted

Evicted from the coop

I was walking through the garden with my camera when I noticed all the newspapers pulled out of the chicken coop. We put newspapers at the bottom to make it easier to clean and then cover up the newspapers with wood shavings which absorb the moisture and hold down any odor problem. The hens like kicking it the shavings around to make their nests.

"What the heck? Why would the chickens do that?" I wondered. Rounding the corner, I spied a wide-open door and a happy pink tongue peeking out the darkness. Chloe the Rotten Rottweiler. She even seemed proud of herself.

Currently she has a cushioned vinyl mat on the terraza on which she sleeps. She was very happy with that when I first gave it to her. She likes being on the terraza because she can see/hear us while still doing her guarding duties. She can stay cool and stay out of the rain. Plus from that vantage point, she's in the perfect position to guard the chickens, too.


El Jefe has been talking about making a dog house for her ever since he made the chicken coop. I kind of pooh-poohed the idea because I didn't think she would use it and I thought a dog house would get too hot. On second thought, maybe she would like her own house.

This new development might also explain why I haven't gotten any eggs in two weeks. So now, not only does Chloe have her own private residence, but she also has room service. Eggs on demand just waiting for her. Bad, bad dog.

Chicken stories: The chicken murder

A long time ago, we gave one of our bantam roosters to my nieces and nephews. They later got a regular-sized white hen to keep him company. While the main reason for wanting chickens was for the eggs, the kids treat the chickens like pets. They can hold their arm out and call the rooster and he will jump up on their arm and wait to be petted. They love those chickens!

I told you the story about how they brought their rooster with them when they visited because they were worried about him being stolen.

Eventually, they wanted another hen which we promised to give them. Little E said, "will you bring it tomorrow?" We said we would try to catch one. "If you can't bring it tomorrow, will you bring it on Sunday?" Yes, we'll try. "If you can't bring it on Sunday, will you bring it on Monday?" Yes. "If you can't bring it on Monday, will you bring it on Tuesday?" We laughed and said we would do our best.

Unfortunately, we couldn't catch the wild tree chickens (another story) so it was quite some time before they came over again and helped us to catch one. It took a good 30-40 minutes of all us running around the yard, trying to corner a hen before we finally got one. The kids were so happy.

They did as we said and kept their new hen locked up in their little coop for three days so hopefully she would know this was her new home. Being a wild tree chicken, however, at first chance to get out, she flew up into a tall tree and that is where she insisted on sleeping every night. Eventually, the roo abandoned his life-long partner and began sleeping in the tree with the new babe.


The kids loved their pet chickens. They feed and take care of them. They play with them. They display them to visitors. When they go missing, the kids search high and low and are very, very sad until they come back. Once the white hen disappeared for a couple of weeks. Apparently she had been stolen by a neighbor but made her escape and returned to her loving home where she was happily greeted by her family.

One day, a neighbor's dog got out and chased the chickens. Nephew E heard the commotion and ran outside. The rooster and large hen flew off, but the dog snatched up the bantam hen. E screamed at the dog to let her go, but the dog viciously gnawed at her and then flung the bleeding body to the ground − all right in front of 9-year-old E.

His mom took the hen inside to see what she could do for it but it was too badly wounded, her chest was ripped open. He was devastated and cried and cried at the horrible fate suffered by his beloved pet. Somehow, if the dog had eaten the chicken because he was hungry, that would have been easier to take than outright murder.

Later he sadly told the neighbors (the dog's owners) about what happened and they laughed and said it must have been the chicken's fault.