Still Life with Chicken

We got a new adult male turkey on Sunday to replace the one that got eaten by coyotes earlier this winter. The hen seems happier. He was apparently getting picked on by his brothers, so he also is no doubt grateful. He’s incredibly skinny compared to the males that we raised, which is strange because he’s about the same age that they would have been. He came from a flock of over 100 birds, so maybe he just couldn’t get any time at the feeder. We’ll see if he starts bulking up any now that he’s got no competition. I got him for free from a lady in Dallas, Oregon who breeds the Black Spanish turkeys — I found her on the internet of course. I don’t see how people managed to farm without the internet. Not only can you buy your chicks online, replace your adult birds if needed, there is all this information and community support out there that someone like me who was not raised on a farm couldn’t do without. I suppose pre-internet, you just had to grow up on a farm in order to know how to do things correctly. That’s not to say that it still doesn’t feel like a little bit of trial and error with things. Like, hey, maybe you should teach your turkeys to sleep inside in the winter, cause the predators will be more bold then. Soon I suppose I will learn the wisdom of letting a duck start sitting on eggs in the middle of winter. The white muscovy duck, after about a week of waffling about whether she was going to get serious about sitting on the eggs, has resumed her post for good now. We moved some food and water closer to her nest under the woodshed so that she wouldn’t have to go far for it. It’s been super cold – Is about 19F as I write this. I think if she spends too much time away from the nest the eggs will freeze solid.

Even though it’s less than a month into Winter, I’m already getting antsy for spring. This year I decided that due to our impending massive house remodel, I would not have a vegetable garden, and restrict our poultry raising endeavors to whatever the chickens/ducks/turkeys decided to do on their own. Then I spent the entire month of December designing a garden that looks like a mini-versaille, complete with cutting garden, baby orchard, tiny vineyard and a living fence made of filberts and various types of edible hedges. And I found an old greenhouse catalog I’d been saving and plunked one of those down in the middle of my new garden plan. Along with a new tool shed. I told myself it was “just for fun”, that I was just passing time while the power was out due to the winter storm. But then January came, along with the seed catalogs. I decided to pick out a few seeds from my favorite catalog, figuring I’d pick out everything I really wanted to get, and then edit the list down to a select few things that I’d plant in our smaller garden. Today I decided to just order everything, deluding myself into thinking I was getting the seeds “just in case” and probably wouldn’t plant them all. I should get them in a few days. Which is a good thing, because according to the garden calendar at Portland Nursery, I could be planting things already. Don’t want to get behind. And I’m going to have to hide the McMurray catalog – am already fantasizing about which chickens would be the tastiest to try this year in my quest to find a meat bird that isn’t as frighteningly blobby as the meat-on-legs cornish cross.
It seems I’m not the only one feeling springtime a’coming. Our female muscovy duck disappeared this morning. We thought maybe she’d been dragged off by a coyote, as we’ve been having a rough winter with predators (lost 1 chicken, 1 duck to a hawk, 2 turkeys to a coyote). But, I found her underneath the woodshed porch way in the back, sitting on some eggs. I can’t reach her to move her. I suppose we should just see what happens, although it seems a bit early to me to be hatching any ducklings. Muscovies take about 5 weeks to hatch out their eggs. So, I suppose it will be almost march when the little fuzzys would come out. I’ve got my doubts any of those eggs will hatch.

I love New Years — it always feels good to start a fresh year. Every year I must resist the urge to make resolutions. This year I caved in and made one despite my best intentions. Time elapsed before New Years resolution broken? Less than 24 hours past New Years day.  So, I’m not going to say that I have resolved to keep a blog this year — I’m just going to do it and see how long it lasts.