Family Fun

Having some beautifully warm spring days, Plan473 took a break from all things work and went for a ride. About an hours away is a national wildlife refuge with the bay on one side and tree filled marsh land on the other.  There are miles of hiking paths if one is crazy enough inclined to fight mosquito swarms and all roads are bike friendly. Since this is a Texas coastline, all paths are flat. Nice.

This time of the year, the marshes are filled with nesting birds, both native and migratory, deer, pigs, salt water tolerant fish in the deeper marsh waters, ducks of all kinds, and alligators with the young-ins.  While enjoying one of the quick hikes to a bird watching station, the path crosses a deeper marsh known for housing sun bathing gators.  However, being the protective mother season, hikers must be on the look out as to not startle mothers.  Normally preferring non interaction with visitors, mamas can quickly turn hostile if threatened.  With her mouth open and eyes constantly watching, all hikers admired this mother and her four yellow babies from a safe distance. Safe is best. Admired for her beauty we moved one with our travels.

At the end of the main drive, there is a 40' observation tower overlooking the marsh and bay estuary.  The walk up the observation platform is just as amazing as the view itself. Birds of all species and various four legged critters use the platform as landing stations and their diet contents can be detailed.  Today we found berries, tiny hollow bird bones, and skull fragment, and various non discriminate fragments.  On warm days, the droppings can be caustic in smell but luckily it was still chilly today and investigations were not altered.  Having observed, we moved on to the inner marsh land loop. Having came to see feral pigs, taking this less popular trail would be our best bet.  With less traffic also allowed the Kid to travel ahead on his own safely.

 Okay, so not so safely afterall.  It was not five seconds after I freed with him with instructions that he turned a corner out of sight.  When I came around the corner myself, I could ahead he was freaked out and my mommy instincts kicked in.  Of course when I came to realize why he freaked, the protective mommy calmed and the calming mommy took over.  Riding in Kidland, the Kid did not see this massive aligator until after he passed by it at the roads edge.  Kid to gator distance was less than 10' feet.  Good reasoning for a freak out.  This mambo jambo, however, could have given two figs less about the three of us as he was sunning and enjoying his day.  The Planner and I took several passes by to get pictures and never once did the gator bat an eye.  He was impressive all the same.

Moving on we finished the 16 mile bike ride, ate lunch under the several 100 year old oak tree that wasn't destroyed by Hurricane Harvey, and took off for home.  Having been invigorated by our ride, I wanted to so some yard work on this still fabulous sunny warm day.

Plan473 has great intentions for their landscape.  All natural.  Only native plants, trees, shrubs, and flowers.  Having bought this native orange lantana months back, it is now covered with drated aphids and looks like hell.  It was doing so fantastic and then all of a sudden, it is knocking on deaths door.  As a last ditch effort, I am transplanting this sickly lantana from a bucket to the ground. All the lantana bushes planted at various locations around town that are covered with brightly colored flowers are all planted in the ground.  Maybe the lantana is root bound. The lantana was planted directly left of the deck under the oak tree that fell over with Harvey.  The tree made this nice arch and the chickens and the dog like to dig there and make a dust mess.  To deter against this, the lantana will be planted there and then caged in chicken wire to keep all creatures from digging up the bark mulch water ring.

Another transplant was the red hibiscus.  I know for certain it is root bound and will thrive once settled.  Needing lots of space to grow big and tall, it was planted in front of the shower and to the right of the yellow esperanza. As added benefit to transplant in the shower region is the extra amount of watering will allow for even more brightly colored flowers.  And flowers are the reason for all plants and trees as they bring birds, bees, and butterflies!  As with the brooding hen, only time will tell. 

One my favorite words of wisdom saying is "can't see the forest for the trees".  It is days like today that reminds Plan473 of its life plan. So yes, I would say today reminded Plan473 to see the trees or in this case the bay.

Queen Brooder

Brooding: showing deep unhappiness of thought. Setter: a person or thing that sets something. Truer words have never been spoken about brooding hens, especially this hen. Brooders. Setters. One in the same in the world of chicken as they both have the same end result.

A brooding hen can either be good or bad depending upon if 1) the hen is knowledgeable in this matter and 2) your desire to have little peppers.  Having thought I had a broody chicken before, I now know I was wrong.  B.U., our newest half way house resident, is a classic book definition of a brooding chicken.  In her broodiness, she is a devout guardian as she only leaves her clutch to eat, drink, and poop (which takes less than 10 minutes).  Upon setting she easily deters other hens from entering to lay eggs. Two chickens in a nesting box usually results in an broken egg.  With her broody clucks, she safe guards her work.  Inevitably, when she leaves to do her thing, a has hen entered her domain and results in a fight. The lesser hen leaves, sometimes with a few feather missing, and she proceeds with her duties.

In fact, she so rarely eats, drinks, or poops, that when she does her droppings are sometimes four times the size of normal droppings.  Perfectly normal in brooding chickens, large poop is usually used as a tale-tale sign of a brooder.  Taking pity on her, when the remaining flock is let out for free range time, the coop will be closed off allowing her free time to stretch her legs at her leisure.  Of course, being a strong setter, she has yet to leave her clutch of seven eggs for free time.

When eggs are collected at the end of the day, sometimes I give her a tidbit of corn and some pellets, both of which she ferociously devours.  This food acts as a buffer to allow me to remove any new eggs that have been added to bunch.  Not wanting to waste eggs, this is important otherwise the eggs will be at different stages of development. Brooding eggs have been marked with an X, of course, making them easy to distinguish.

From start to finish brooding takes 21 days.  Today, through candling, we determined her eggs were viable. Candling is a learned skill but thankfully with detailed explanations and pictures from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, it was accomplished.  Now we just have to wait 10 more days for little peppers.  Hopefully. Maybe.

Overrated Groundhog

Groundhog Day.  Punxsutawney Phil, Seer of Seers, Sage of Sages, Prognosticator of Prognosticators, and Weather Prophet Extraordinary has been predicting the spring forecast since 1886. People have been planning their crop plantings and livelihoods on the decision of a rodent with a brain the size of a cashew. A rodent whose batting average is less than 40%.  A rodent who is given credit for something he has no control over as it is his "handlers" who determine if there was a shadow or not.  A rodent whose handlers are not meteorologists, scientists, or climatologists. What a phenomenal waste of energy in todays climate of global warming.

Spring has been evident for weeks.  No rodents were needed to tell me this.  Of course, Plan473 never had winter.  Daily temperatures have been in the upper 60s for some time now.  But still, groundhog day. Idiotic at best. Having planted a rescued palm tree from the drainage ditch in the summer of 2017, the once scraggly plant is now two foot tall and three foot around.  Hoping to create a grove of palm trees where the spray field lies, four more palm trees were rescued from various ditches.  With high tide and high water tables, the ground is constantly moist allowing for proper growth.  After the initial transplant shock and chickens scratching at the mulch, two of the four have survived.  As these are nonnative and take years to grow, this is a long term investment.  Two down, ten or twenty more to go.

The bottlebrush has been preparing for blossoms for weeks.  The plant starts with buds, then progresses to pods, and then flowers emerge.  Bottlebrush are fantastic bug attractants.  Especially yellow jackets. Not normally concerned with yellow jackets are they are prolific mosquito eaters, this new found love between yellow jackets and the bottlebrush could be an issue as the plant sits directly adjacent to the deck and it walked by/brushed by a thousand times a day.  Yellow jacket stings hurt.  Might have to consider moving the brush. Guess the temperatures in the low 70's was great weather for both the plant and the pollinator.

Other than the bottlebrush, the only potted plant blooming is the coral honeysuckle (pictures can be seen on the Egg-celent post).  All of the other plants blooming are wildflowers for whose name I don't know.

Many of these wildflowers are new yet again this year to Plan473.  It seems every year new wildflowers pop up.  What causes wildflowers to vary from year to year.  Is it the rain/lack of rain?  Is the winter/lack of winter?   Is the spreading of wildflower seeds from various pollinators from year to year?

Some wildflowers are so tiny they are almost invisible to the naked eye.  Take these purple beauties.  They are smaller than the size of a pencil eraser yet they have such a strong scent.  Lasting only a few days, they are bumblebee attractants.  Funny to see a bumblebee on a plant so small.

Brambleberry flowers take days and days to open and then remain open for days and days.  Unlike other flowers, they do not close at night and have been seen with spiders on their peddles at night.  Bright white delicate flowers with bright green eyed spiders is a fantastic sight. 

Other flowers, such as these clover flowers, are here today gone today. They are bright yellow and green and are in direct contrast to the dark green hibiscus it grows under. As the days get warmer and warmer more and more flowers are making their appearance.  Whose knows what will appear tomorrow or next week with these warming days.

Or not with the warming days.  As mentioned in previous blogs, early blossoms worry me as it to not too late for cold snaps.  Yesterday it was 70, sunny, and gentle breezes.  Today it is not yet 40, damp, and windy. Absolute layer weather.  Layers and layers.  Kids and parents all looked like the Michelin Tire man there were so many layers.  I had on two thermal shirts, a t-shirt, a fleece jacket, and a hoodie. The poor Kid had on ALL of his sailing gear.  Three long sleeve athletic shirts, two athletic pants, one layer of outside neoprene pants, neoprene shoes, two beanie hats, and a fleece vest.  To sail, he had yet another layer of dry gear to put on along with thick gloves to wear over neoprene gloves along with two full face masks.  Tomorrow the weather is supposed to be sunny and 60. Good grief. 

Egg-celent

Raising chickens in warm humid environments can be challenging.  Especially if the hens are egg layers.  The longer they sit in the nesting boxes, the hotter they become.  To ward off heat, hens will pluck off chest feathers.  With extreme heat, hens pluck off feathers under wings and from around backside.  Add an additional hen inside the nesting box with the high heat and anger issues arise.  With anger comes hens plucking feathers off each other. As a result of all this plucking, naked hens.

Plucking feathers is common with nesting hens.  Plan473 hens are not nesting, they are just taking to damn long in this oppressive heat to lay an egg.  This picture is from way back in April 2018 before the hens got really bad.  By mid-summer, some of the hens only had feathers on their top half.  Trying to rationalize with a hen that she needs to get in an out of the nesting box quickly is wasted breath.  They only bok bok at you.  Does bok bok mean ok or does bok bok mean ok no?

Did you know that hens do not molt their first winter? Chickens molt several times when growing from little peppers to adults but once that passes in the first few months, they will not molt again until they are 15-18 months old.  This means most chickens do not molt their first winter as they are not old enough. Molting is important for the health of a chicken both inside and out.  Outside they look fluffy and shiny again.  Inside they are preparing for egg production again. Egg production is halted because a hen cannot produce enough protein for both eggs and feathers.  Once the molted is completed over a two-three month period, the hens will return to egg production.

After cooler temperatures and months of molting the hens are finally looking like an egg-celent flock again.  Not having to set inside warm nesting boxes for hours on end really does wonders to the general well being of a chicken.  With decreased agitation, they squawk less, pluck less, and fight less.  Old feathers (what's left) have fallen out and new fluffy feathers have grown and the hens are starting to return the business of egg production.  This is egg-celent as having to eat store bought eggs is just not the same. It has only an egg here and there and with inconsistent sizing.  The two blue eggs are Americana eggs.  They both should be the size of the middle blue egg.  Don't know why the top egg is extra large as the birds are extra small.  The bottom speckled egg and the singular egg were from B.U. the newest hen.  Guess she is old enough to lay eggs too.  Or maybe she was just going through a heavy molt when we obtained her.  Will have to wait until this coming winter to see if she molts or not to help determine her age.  Needless to say, her eggs are egg-celent in structure, shape, and form.  Nice job B.U.

The egg-laying flock and original rooster are looking fine in form.  Yes, the rooster molted too as he lost all his sickle feathers and the hens were constantly pecking his loose feather off him. What is not fine is the outcasted rooster.  It has been months since his arrival and his still on the outs with the flock.  He is not allowed to roost with the flock and is forced to sleep in the trees to avoid being attacked by the neighborhood cat.  Sleeping in a tree is becoming a problem as his mess is mounding up and spilling over. If it was any other location no one would complain. However, this is the clothesline tree and he is just one branch over from the line.  The day might come when the rooster gets to boot from his perch. Once again, outcasted.

When the flock is let out of the coop/run he follows behind them.  Not with them.  Not sure of the safe distance, but too close results in still being chased by the original rooster or one of the hens.  Outcasted is not fun even you are a chicken.  Nature tells him he should procreate.  Attempts are thwarted by agitated hens who won't hold still causing a ruckus resulting in an attacking rooster three times his size.

Outcasted.  Lonely wanderings as the flock is not let out until the evenings.  Outcasted and following the dog-o around for companionship.  It is a sad sight to see a chicken following a dog around like a puppy on a leash.  Or maybe, just maybe, he likes being an outcast.  Living a lonely life having no responsibilities or cares.  Eating when you can eat.  Seeping when you can sleep.  Hmm, thoughts to ponder...  Either way, all chickens are healthy and ready for the summer.  Now, Plan473 can prepare for new little peppers as Valentine's day is coming quickly.  Egg-celent new little peppers.  I CAN'T WAIT!