Pajamas, Books, and Chickens

Posted on April 21, 2020April 21, 2020 by Crystal Sands · 1 Comment

On Loss, Teaching Writing, and Losing My Ability to Cry: Or a Day in My Life

Little Miss was one of my oldest hens, and she passed away this weekend. She was a beautiful girl, a Blue Laced Red Wyandotte, but she had health problems very early on. She would always pull through, and over the years, I realized that she was a tough girl. I came to learn that she was just going to live her life to the fullest, and I just needed to support her when I could.

She was our only Wyandotte to ever go broody and become a mama. She was a pretty terrible mama in many ways, but she did her job–aggressively–but still. Her single baby was raised up healthy and happy. Her baby’s name is Nugget because she was just a tiny little thing forever. Nugget went through a lot. As a mama, Little Miss had to have things her way, and when Nugget wasn’t doing things “just right,” Little Miss would let her know about it.

Screen Shot 2020-04-21 at 2.54.37 PM — This was Little Miss with her baby, Nugget. Aren’t they beautiful?

I love observing mama hens with chicks and studying their behaviors. I’ve seen some patterns of behaviors that result in certain behaviors in the chicks when they grow up, but I have still never seen a mama quite like Little Miss. Interestingly, her baby, Nugget, grew up very well and went broody for us last summer. She raised three babies and was very nurturing as a mama.

In the last couple of months, I noticed Little Miss was really tired. She started laying again in the spring, but she was not herself. Last week, I could see we were really close to the end, so I started pulling her away from the flock at night and keeping her in a giant dog crate where she could have her own water and food.

On Saturday morning, she didn’t want to leave the crate. I figured today was the day for her. I had a ton of work to do, but I kept her in my mind and would go check on her every little bit. Finally, about 2:00 PM, I had it in my head that I just needed to stop everything I was doing and go get her and hold her. So I grabbed a towel to wrap her up in for snuggling and scooped her up.

I took her to the rocking chair and just rocked and talked to her and rubbed her ears. Almost all of my chickens love their ears rubbed. I talked to her and told her it was okay to let go, to go see Poe, that Poe would help her. Little Miss just leaned into me for about five minutes; then, I saw the death spasm. It was weak and soft and quick. Little Miss was gone from the world.

I’ve always been a big crier. I recently read some research about it, and it really is a thing. It’s how I deal with my emotions and let them out. I keep so much in my head and can never speak it all out. All my ideas and thoughts just get all jumbled in there within the anxiety and will come out in a cry. However, since the COVID-19 pandemic and our time in isolation, I don’t cry so much. It actually worries me a little.

So I didn’t cry much for Little Miss. I did have a few tears, but I was mostly thankful beyond all reason that I had the urge to go get that chicken and be there with her when she passed.

Then, my phone rang. As an aside, that very morning, I had been duck sitting with a cranky duck in our guest bathroom who has a hurt foot, and I was looking for a cool classical ringtone for my phone. After much research, I landed on the BIG part in Dvorak’s Ninth Symphony. It’s loud. The horns are big. My ringtone is epic.

So, as I am sitting there with Little Miss, I hear epic horns going off from my phone. It was an awful disruption from the silence of death in the room.

I was like, “I’m gonna have to change that ringtone.”

Then, the phone rang again. I knew it must be a student. Then, I heard a ding with a text. I knew it was a student who really needed to speak with me.

So I got up from the rocking chair with Little Miss still in my arm. I read the message on my phone; it was one of my graduate students stressing out. I could tell she was in a panic, so I called her to help calm her down. Part of being a teacher is being a therapist, as any teacher will tell you, but since this whole COVID thing, my students are more on edge than ever before. I mean, of course they are.

So I called my student. Her voice was shaky, and she asked me how I was doing. I knew, if I told her what had just happened in the last five minutes, she would never tell me what was really going on with her, so I told her I was fine. And, with my dead chicken in one arm, I listened for a good 20 minutes about what all she was struggling with, and I talked to her and calmed her down.

You see, I teach writing, and one thing I have learned for sure over the years is that people can’t write well when they are anxiety ridden. If I am going to get my students to grow as writers, I need them to feel some level of calm. It just works better.

So I did my best, and it helped. I could tell. I could tell she was going to be able to keep writing and finish her Literature Review for her dissertation.

But my student kept talking.

She told me how thankful she was for me, how this was her first semester of her doctoral program, and how I had kept her going. She told me she was so thankful to have a professor who truly understood writing and was also so kind about it. She told me that she was forever thankful to me. I don’t hear things like this very often.

Normally, this would surely make me cry. It didn’t. My cry is gone for now, I guess, but her words touched my soul. To be honest, there are times it’s hard to keep going as a writing teacher. The pay is low, and the hours are long. In fact, one of the reasons we farm is help make my professor’s salary go a really long way.

But, after hearing these wonderful words from my student, I was reminded exactly why I do what I do. If I help even just one person, then I am making the world better. And, for real, that is really all I want in the world–all I want for my life–to find some way to make this world a little better.

As I sat there with my sweet Little Miss dead in my arms, I thought I had done alright this day.

Posted on April 8, 2020 by Crystal Sands · 1 Comment

On Chicken Coops

In my series on raising chickens self sufficiently, I will be offering advice on how you can establish a symbiotic relationship with your flock–where you take good care of them and they take good care of you. I will teach how to minimize your costs and how to take full advantage of the resources chickens provide.

But in all of that, the reality is that a chicken coop is going to be a big, upfront cost for people, so we should probably address coops early on.

There are many options for coops. You can buy them, build them, covert a shed, but you really want to keep in mind five basic things when it comes to coops:

You need to be able to provide shelter from the elements, whether you live in hotter or colder climates.
Your coop needs to be sturdy enough to provide protection from predators. Now, there is no such thing, I think, as a 100 percent predator-proof coop, but you do want to do your very best.
Coops need good ventilation, and we have found, over the years, that we need to adjust our ventilation depending upon the season and the number of chickens we have, so need vents you can open and close.
As a rule of thumb, you want to aim for at least three square feet per chicken in your coop.
You will need to make sure your coop has room for nests and roosts.

Buying a Coop

There are pre-made coops you can purchase online that range a great deal in price. There are coops for as little as $200 and as much as $900. There was even a $100,000 coop I saw once, but it had a crystal chandelier, and you probably don’t need that.

I have seen mixed reviews on the pre-made coops. Some people curse them; some people love them. Just be sure to do your diligent research and read the reviews before you buy any pre-made coop online or from a store.

You can also purchase smaller coops from local builders. Here in Maine, we have Facebook forums dedicated to all things chicken, and people who build coops will list them for sale. The price might be a little higher in some cases, but I have seen some really sturdy-looking coops for sale for $400 to $600.

Building a Coop

If you are handy or know someone who is, you can also simply build a coop. There are free plans online for building chicken coops, such as those listed at this site, at the Backyard Chicken Project.

You can also purchase coop plans for a very reasonable price on Etsy, and I like this idea because a lot of the excellent plans there include reviews, pictures from folks who have built the coops from the plans, and excellent information on the cost of materials.

This coop plan is one of my favorites because the coop seems really sturdy and covers all of the basic elements I think someone needs. The cost for building materials for this one is $700 to $800, but I am convinced it can be done more cheaply. One of the things I am seeing right now is a lot of people trying to help each other out. Get into your state and local farming, chicken, and homesteading Facebook groups. I am seeing people sharing materials and donating extra materials to others. Sometimes, the kindness in humanity is profound to me and gives me so much hope.

Converting a Shed

This is the option we took on our homestead because we wanted a big coop as cheaply as possible. If you convert a shed to a coop, you will need to add a small door for the chickens (at least this is preferable), nest boxes, roosts (which can be built from tree branches), and in an ideal world, windows for extra light. However, I know a lot of people who were not able to add windows and do okay. I think they would be a preference though.

Screen Shot 2020-04-08 at 10.13.52 AM — This is inside our coop. It’s not fancy, but it works very well. We have lots of roosts and six nest boxes for the 20-25 hens we have at any given time. Of course, they all still want to lay eggs in the same nest box.

Other Considerations

Coop Placement

You want to place your coop away from woods and easy access to predators. We have ours close to our house for that reason, but, in the summer, when the windows are open, the chickens are quite loud–even the hens–especially the hens. Ask me sometime about the egg song.

You also want to make sure you place your coop on good ground that is high enough not to be flooded.

Runs and Free Ranging

I will write about about the pros and cons of free ranging in another post, but, at the very least, you will need a run or some kind of fenced area for your chickens. If you plan to let them completely free range, there are risks to your birds and risks related to neighbors.

Food and Water Placement

Some coops are not large enough for food and water to be placed inside the coop. In those cases, you can place the food and water outside in the run. However, if you have a coop large enough, as with our coop/shed, you will have to decide whether or not you place the food inside. We place our food and water inside because, in the winter, our chickens stay in the coop, but if you have a run you can protect in the winter, you may not need to place food and water inside.

There are pros and cons to keeping the food inside. I like the easy access, but we did have rats in the coop one year and had to trap for several weeks to get them all.

I hope this is helpful enough to get you started. If you have any questions, post it in the comments section. I will do my best to answer questions!

Posted on March 22, 2020March 27, 2020 by Crystal Sands

On Getting Started with Baby Chicks

I hope I’m wrong, but I think we’re looking at a future in our country that looks different than what we have been used to. We will get through this, but our economy might struggle for a while.

With that in mind, I am starting an educational series on chickens and gardening with an eye toward doing it as frugally as possible. You see, my husband must be one of the most frugal and efficient humans in the country, and over the last six years, I have learned from my husband and he has learned—from both research and by following his intuition—how to create a cycle of homesteading that is highly self-sufficient.

And frugality and self-sufficiency are what we are probably going to need for some time.

So I’m starting a series of instructional essays on how to get started with chickens and then how to use them to help create a little homestead that is as self-sufficient as possible.

This week, we start with how to prepare for baby chickens. I’ll start with a list of supplies and offer notes and links on each one below.

Supplies

Some kind of brood box

Some kind of bedding material

Baby chicks

A chicken waterer

Chicken vitamins or electrolytes

A food dispenser

Chick starter

Heat lamp or chicken heater

Temperature gauge

Some kind of brood box

To be frugal on this, my husband built a brood box out of scrap wood, but we also have one that is just a giant plastic bin from Walmart. They are pretty cheap. In fact, you may have one at home already. I just recommend getting the biggest one you can get, depending on the number of chicks you plan to start with.

When the chicks are really little, almost any kind of big box will due. Just keep in mind that the babies will grow quickly, so while you have them in a brood box, be planning for the next stage for when the chicks feather out (get their feathers). You will want a safe coop for your chickens, but I will talk about that in a separate post on coops and coop options.

Some kind of bedding material

You can get a bag of pine shavings, which will work great, for about $6.00 at Tractor Supply. But you can get by more frugally than this even. If you have trees and have dried leaves, you can just crumble those up and use them. Then, there’s no cost for this.

The key is to not use something like newspapers or paper towels. You want something with “give,” so your baby chicks do not get splay leg. Think about the goal as to recreate a baby chick just being on the earth. There’s grass and “give,” so you want something like that, but it doesn’t have to cost you anything.

You will just change the bedding when it gets poopy.

Baby chicks

You have options on this too. You can order chicks online, find them in the spring at farm and feed stores, or get them from a local chicken lady.

The thing you will need to know is the difference between a straight run and sexed chicks. If you live in an area where you can’t keep roosters, you want to get sexed chicks and make sure you just get girls. If you get a straight run, you will get a mix of boys and girls, and baby boys do turn into roosters.

However, with issues of self-sufficiency coming to the forefront, if you want to be able to make your own chicks (another post on this coming soon), you will need at least one boy.

A chicken waterer

You need an official chicken waterer because you don’t want your babies to drown in a big bowl of water, but, thankfully, waterers are cheap. You can get this one at Amazon for less than $15.00, and if you have a small amount of chicks, say 10 or less, you can just get this small one for $8.00.

My best advice for you is to be very diligent keeping the water clean. It helps so much in the long run, as dirty water or lack of water leads to health problems that are easily avoided by just keeping the water clean every single day.

Chicken vitamins or electrolytes

Some say these are not necessary, but I am a believer in this, as I think getting chicks off to a good start is going to help so much in the long run. Plus, they are cheap. You can get a bottle for less than $10.00, and you don’t even have to use a whole tab per gallon as directed if you want to stretch things a bit. But one bottle will last a long time and will cover several rounds of baby chicks. It can also come in handy later when your chicks are all grown up. I give our adult flock the electrolyte tabs in their water on hot summer days.

When you clean the water every day, just dissolve a portion of a tab into the water. It’s easy, cheap, and does a lot of good.

A food dispenser

You will want to use something other than a bowl or plate for food because chicks poop a lot, and they will poop in the food. They will also spill the food. And you don’t want any food to be wasted. You can get a plastic feeder for around $5.00.

Chick starter

You will to get some baby chick food as well. This comes in bags and can be found online and in feed stores. You will see both medicated and non-medicated chick starter. We have used both, but I recently learned from a vet that, if you are just running a small backyard flock, the non-medicated is all you need, so we have stuck with that the last couple of years. But some people want the medicated, and that’s fine too.

A 50 pound bag of food will cost about $17.00. How long that lasts depends on how many chicks you have, of course, but a big bag like that should last a while.

Heat lamp or chicken heater

Without their feathers and without a mama, baby chicks will need to be kept warm, so you need some kind of heater. Because I have a fear of fire, we now use a more expensive plate heater, but, for real, if you are careful, the heat lamp is just fine for a good while. Just never put it in the coop! More on that in another post.

A heat lamp and brace will run you about $10.00, and the bulb will run you another $5.00. Just be sure to get the red bulb, as white light will keep the chicks from sleeping, and you don’t want that. Babies need rest, of course!

Temperature gauge

Finally, you need to know what the temperature is in your brood box, so you will need some kind of inexpensive temperature gauge. I found one online for about $8.00. These are temps you want to aim for.

Weeks 1-2 = 95-100 degrees

Week 3 = 90-95 degrees

Week 4 = 85-90 degrees

Week 5 = 80 to 85 degrees

After that, you can judge based on where you live. If it’s really cold, you may want to keep a heat lamp going, but mostly people brood in the spring, and when the chicks get feathers, they are usually fine without heat.

One thing I can say after seeing a mama hen raise baby chicks is that the babies are tougher than you think. If your temps are a bit off, it’s better to be a little cooler than a little hotter. And watch the chicks. If they start desperately staying away from the heat lamp and drinking a lot of water, it’s too hot for them.

One last tip I have: If you are keeping baby chicks for the first time, just know some of them are going to sleep like they’re dead. It will give you a panic every time. Mostly, though, things are going to be okay.

I made a video for some additional support. I hope you find it helpful!

You can do this, and I am going to be here to help. One thing I want to be able to do now is share what I’ve learned with others. I can’t keep enough chickens to give everyone eggs, as I would like to, but I can teach people how to raise their own food.

One thing that’s awesome about chickens is that they begin to produce quickly. Depending upon the breed of hen you have, you will see eggs in as few as 18 to 20 weeks, so your upfront investment pays off quickly.

Good luck, and check out my Pajamas, Books, & Chickens Facebook page for more YouTube videos.

*Please note: I am a small blogger and am not paid for advertising these products listed in this blog post. I simply researched for the best deals I could find online. Of course, you would be able to find these products elsewhere, especially at local feed stores.

Posted on March 5, 2020March 5, 2020 by Crystal Sands · 3 Comments

On Treating Respiratory Illness in Chickens (or My Winter as Chicken Nurse)

It all started, really, with the loss of my Poe. She was a black Easter Egger who had my whole heart. About a month after Poe died, we had our first hawk attack in the whole six years we have been raising chickens. And I came upon it right in the middle of the attack.

It was my worst nightmare as a chicken keeper. One of my original hens, one of my precious Rhode Island Reds, was being eaten alive. I scared away the hawk and scooped up my girl. She wrapped her little feet around me so tightly and leaned into my chest. I will never forget how I could sense the relief in her, the relief that mama had saved her.

When she spit up blood, and we got a good look at her wounds, I realized mama hadn’t really saved her at all.

The second hawk attack was less grim for me because my girl was already dead, but I was still devastated. Honestly, I felt like I couldn’t take any more and was struggling to decide if I could continue to be a chicken farmer.

We have a large fenced area (about ¾ of an acre) for our chickens, complete with lots of trees and many places to duck and cover. In all of our years of keeping chickens, we didn’t have a single hawk attack. When we had two back to back, I started to research heavily. I knew confining everyone to the run was the quickest solution. I read that due to lower than normal numbers of birds in our area, hawk attacks were on the rise. Things were going to change for us, in terms of how we had been raising our chickens.

But I had read in some folklore (and while I am an academic and science lover in my mind, I am a folklorist at heart) that black chickens, which look like crows, can help keep hawks away.

It made sense in my heart-broken desperation, of course. With Poe, we had no hawk attacks. Without Poe, hawk attacks.

So I went online and found a local chicken girl with black Easter Eggers. I was a little worried that the hens, though beautiful, seemed lethargic. We kept them in quarantine for a few days. I was mainly worried about mites. I saw no signs of anything and put them with the flock. I knew I was breaking the 30-day rule, but I had never been able to follow the 30-day rule. We just didn’t have a second coop. I had been lucky so far.

This time, I would not be so lucky.

Within a few days, everyone in the flock was acting kind of strange. That’s the only way I can describe it. I remember closing them up one night and realizing they didn’t talk back to me when I told them goodnight. I was scared about what might be going on. Within a week, my first hens were coming down with respiratory issues, and these issues were pretty epic. If I thought the hawk attacks had been my worst nightmare as a chicken owner, I think the realization that my entire flock had been exposed to a serious respiratory issue ran a close second. It was devastating, and it was my fault.

I am terrible at making a long story short, but I need to. I want to help inform others about what I went through and what worked as treatment—and what didn’t work.

I contacted my vet, and we were not able to test for Coryza, but my flock experienced almost all of the symptoms. Because we are not sure if we had Coryza, we have decided to play it safe and keep our flock closed for the rest of ever. It’s tough. I raise good roosters, but I would never want to risk someone else going through what I went through.

The main symptoms were rales, runny nose, sneezing, and swelling around the eyes and face on some birds. Some also experienced gunky eyes. The only symptom of Coryza we did not experience was the smelly, runny poop. However, I have read that respiratory illnesses can be pretty severe and still not be Coryza, so there is a chance we just had a really bad respiratory illness. Still, I proceeded as if I was treating Coryza.

The rales were the worst, I think. We started out isolating birds who showed signs in our garage, and the rales were so loud some nights I could hear them in the house. It was like some kind of Edgar Allan Poe story where I was being constantly reminded of my sin of bringing in the sick birds, who just so happened to be black. You can’t make this stuff up.

I spent months treating what would eventually turn out to be every single member of our flock. Morning and night, I would do rounds of treatments on my sickest patients. Some were highly cooperative; some were not. Of course, they were grumpy at being so sick. I was bitten and scratched, and, of course, I deserved it all, I thought. I work full time and also homeschool my kiddo, so being a nurse to 30 chickens took a toll for sure. I felt so worn.

But I think the worst night ever was when one of original hens and favorite birds was at her worst. I had been to the vet and had antibiotics, but she had grown very sick very quickly. She’s my oldest hen and my sweetest girl. Her face was so swollen. Both eyes were swollen shut and were bulging. I didn’t know if the antibiotic would work quickly enough, and I found myself researching again, this time the most humane way to kill a chicken, if I had to do it. She lived in our bathroom for over a week and recovered fully, but I remember the dread I had each time I had to treat her because I was terrified of hurting her or making things worse. As an empath, I am a terrible, terrible nurse, but I have found that being a chicken farmer does force me to find strength I didn’t know I had.

In the end, I was treating someone from November 1 to the end of January. Finally, finally, we are down to maybe a sneeze every now and then. The hens are laying and are able to get outside some now. We are now able to stay in prevent mode, which is just a wonderful relief.

Below, you will find a list of symptoms and treatments I used. I am just completely honest here about what worked and didn’t work for me. Others may have different experiences, of course, but I wanted to share what I did, as we did not lose a single hen. I read everywhere that the best thing to do is to cull. I am so glad I didn’t. Everyone made it through, not a single death, (and I have some old hens) and I learned a lot.

Symptoms

Rales (loud noises with every breath)

Runny nose

Sneezing

Gurgled breathing

Swollen face and eyes

Gunky eyes

Treatments

Treatment	How Applied	Effect
Vet Rx	Warmed and applied to nostrils and around the head. The instructions say you can administer it orally, but I chose not to. The instructions also say to put some at the wing, where the chickens tuck their heads, and I did this, only I didn’t keep it to the wing. I noticed where each individual chicken preferred to tuck in and then applied the Vet Rx in that spot. The purpose of this is so the chicken can breathe in the vapors. It’s kind of like an herbal Vicks.	This had little effect that I could really notice—but some. I think it may be helpful with much milder symptoms, but I also think it maybe took the edge off when things were at their worst.
Oregano Oil/Olive Oil	I dosed chickens with 1 ml of olive oil before I got the oregano oil. I used a syringe and put the 1 ml down their throats.	Both of these seemed to do some good relieving some of the rales—at least taking the edge off. I think the oregano oil worked a little better, but both seemed to help.
Oregano	I added dry oregano to food and to nesting areas several times throughout the winter.	It is difficult for me to say if this helped. I can only say it didn’t hurt.
Grapefruit Seed Extract	I added 30 drops per gallon of water every day when I changed the water.	The idea with this is that it supposed to help the immune system, kind of like apple cider vinegar. I couldn’t tell much from this, but my chickens did recover. It definitely didn’t hurt and could have helped.
Colloidal Silver	I gave sick chickens 1 ml of this in the morning, and when things were at their worst, I tried to do the 1 ml in the morning and at night.	This helped more than anything I used, outside of the antibiotics. I found out about it a few weeks in, so I didn’t have it right away. I found it to be amazing at reducing the head swelling and just shortening symptoms overall. I had one hen come down with a very swollen face. I gave her a dose of Colloidal Silver, by the evening, the swelling was almost completely gone. It is supposed to be an immune system booster, and it worked better than any natural treatment I have ever seen. I will never be without it again.
Antibiotics	I took one hen to the vet for help and to get a prescription for antibiotics. Everything I read said to use Tylan 50 for this kind of issue, but it is no longer available over the counter. The vet actually prescribed a different all-around antibiotic. I am hesitant to use antibiotics, but I used it on my Broody Hen because she was in the worst shape. I used it on one other very old hen, who was having a hard time, and one of our roosters. Our other rooster wouldn’t let me dose him.	This worked, of course. Broody Hen’s eyes were so infected I thought we were going to lose her, but after two days on the antibiotics, the swelling was down and she was on the mend. The issue with this is that my vet visit cost more than $200. Also, as I heard and then learned from this experience, the illness can and did come back, just as with other treatments. Everyone who was treated with antibiotics did relapse. But I am glad I had the antibiotics for my Broody Hen.
Clean Dry Coop	As soon as we found out what we were dealing, my husband and I stripped down the coop and cleaned it from top to bottom. My husband vacuumed any dust in the nooks and crannies and in the rafters.	This worked, but it’s critical to keep it up, like forever. You have to make sure you have really good ventilation, and you just have to keep the coop really clean. Recently, after everyone seemed to be healed up and over the respiratory illness, we had some really damp cold weather, like swampy and miserable. The coop got a little damp because we forgot to open up the front vents, and two chickens started sneezing and gurgling again. I think we may be looking at a life-long issue with our flock, though I hope not. Either way, keep the coop super clean and dry for the rest of ever seems to be critical.

I think the moral to this story is to not give up hope, even if your entire flock gets really sick. I have some really old hens who took a long time to get well. Both of my hens who had the antibiotics were older and relapsed pretty hard. They were both sick for nearly two and a half months! But you would never know it now. They are running around, busying-bodying more than ever.

If you have tried and succeeded with other treatments, please share your experiences in the comments!

*Please note I was not paid to promote any of these treatments. I simply research treatments others had tried and tried them myself. My opinions are based only on my experiences treating my chickens.

Posted on January 3, 2020January 3, 2020 by Crystal Sands · 4 Comments

World, Meet Banjo!

I have a story to tell about a chicken, and I don’t even know where to begin.

Banjo was one of our fall babies, born late in the year, even though we really didn’t need any more babies this year. But I was sad after losing Poe and just a tough year on the farm all the way around.

We needed some joy, so we let our wonderful hen, Pumpkin, raise some fall babies. She hatched three: Squash, Butternut, and Banjo. My little boy named all of them.

Banjo was a very dark, unusual looking chicken when she was born. She was so dark that she looked exactly like Poe’s last baby who didn’t make it–Andie. I posted a little about my struggle with her.

But Banjo isn’t Poe’s baby. We don’t know who Banjo’s biological mama is. She just looks like a darker version of a Welsummer, like her daddy.

Pumpkin and Her Babies — This is the best picture I could find of Banjo. This is Pumpkin with Squash, Butternut, and Banjo. Banjo is the darker chick in the back.

All of the babies we let mama hens raise are wild. They squawk and holler when I try to hold them, which always makes the mamas “turkey up,” as I call it, so I tend to just let them be. I put out fresh food and water and keep them in safe areas, and the mama hens do all the rest. The mama hens are so good at it that I try not to interfere too much.

But this means the babies are hesitant of me, and it takes me a good six months to a year to get one of our “wild babies,” as I call them, to come eat out of my hand. And no touchy. Just no touchy!

Banjo, as a baby, was extra wild. I couldn’t even get a good picture of her when she was little. But Pumpkin was an extra good mama. She mothered those babies until they were nearly 12 weeks old and almost as big as her. Still, I had very little to do with Banjo for most of her life.

But, in the last month or so, I’ve noticed that Banjo is EXTRA curious about me when I am around. This winter, I’ve been around an extra amount, and every afternoon on the cold days, I take cracked corn to the coop.

Very quickly, Banjo learned that I would feed her directly, so she started eating out of my hands. But there was something else. She would get really close to my face and study it. This is highly unusual. Highly unusual.

However, after Poe, in an effort to protect myself, I have been trying not to get so attached to our chickens. I have been on the verge of leaving farming for some months now because I am not sure if my heart can take the pain of it. So I have been trying to keep a little bit of distance–still love and care for them and treat them well and with full respect–but keep my heart held back some.

But Banjo wasn’t having it.

One day last week, I was standing in the coop feeding an older bird some cracked corn while the older gal was sitting on the top roost, and I feel this tug at my boot. But it was weird because it was this long, steady tug.

I turn around to find Banjo with the top of my boot in her beak, and she was pulling and not letting go, just like a dog pulling on your clothes. Of course, I turned around and gave her corn. In addition to eating the corn, she got right in my face and looked at me closely, like she was trying to figure me out.

I knew I was in big trouble.

But there’s more. The day before yesterday, I had to bring Banjo to the house for a quick treatment. I forgot to mention that Banjo was born with a wicked beak. It was so long, like a hawk’s, too long. Way too long. So we had to do a quick trim.

We had to do this one time before with another chicken and had no trouble. But my husband accidentally cut too close and made poor Banjo bleed.

I was like, “Really?”

She was fine overall, but this meant time in the house to heal.

Well, immediately, we were shocked at the way Banjo just made herself at home in our house. Most of our chickens are not comfortable at all in the house. Poe was pretty good, and there are a few exceptions, but most everyone else doesn’t want any part of the house. We usually keep them confined to our guest bathroom, which is also the chicken/duck hospital ward.

Not Banjo. It was like she had things to do!

She was walking around like she knew the place, checking things out, saying hello to all our humans, asking for treats. It was bizarre to me. Again, I want to emphasize this chicken was raised “wild” and had never been inside our house before.

I was absolutely taken aback at Banjo’s behavior. But she then took it to the next level.

While I was making dinner last night, I put Banjo in my husband’s office with my husband and my son. They could babysit her while I cooked. After I got my dough in the oven to rise, I took my tea and went back to the office with my husband, my son, and Banjo.

I sat on the floor and took a first drink of my tea. Banjo got really close to my face and then stood in front of me and made the drinking motion chickens make when they drink. If you have chickens, you know it well. They lean down to the water, scoop it up, hold their heads back, and make this kind of gurgle motion. It’s the universal drink motion of a chicken. This is the motion Banjo made for me–like we were playing charades!

I said some swear words.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing! So I got up to go get her some water, trying to remain skeptical.

“If this chicken is thirsty and drinks a bunch of water, I’m going to lose my mind,” I said out loud.

Guess what?

I took a small bowl of water to Banjo, and she stood there and drank for a good five minutes! That chicken was thirsty and communicated it with me!

I’m freaking out about this.

My husband says, “Well, I guess she was letting you know she wanted a drink.”

“I guess so!” I say.

Later, that night, I found Banjo sitting on the of my chair behind my husband watching what he was watching what he was watching on the computer screen.

All of this is both amazing and terrible to me. We can’t keep a house chicken, though I am tempted. But, this morning, our local newspaper, the Bangor Daily News, ran a story about the health dangers of keeping a chicken in the house.

THIS MORNING!

So, today, as Banjo was all healed up, I took her back to the coop. She did alright; clearly, she’s smart. Plus, her sister, Butternut, was kind of lost without her, so I was glad for those two to be back together. But I spent a lot of time in the coop today, and Banjo spent a lot of time at my feet.

I don’t know where this story is going to take me. Right now, as I write this, I feel certain it is going to take me straight to some epic heartache.

But I can’t deny Banjo is special. I think she might be a game changer.

Time will tell.

In the meantime, isn’t she beautiful?

Posted on December 31, 2019 by Crystal Sands

On the Top Chicken Stories of 2019

Every year since I started my blog, I’ve been sharing a post on New Year’s Eve of the top chicken stories of the year. It’s usually one of my biggest posts of the year. In 2019, we had some great stories, and as the popularity of chickens and chicken keeping continues to grow, I love the stories that make the news.

This year, we have some fun stories, some educational stories, and the annual return of an old favorite—CDC warnings about chickens.

I hope you enjoy my list, and I hope you have a happy New Year and a wonderful 2020 with plenty of chickens, eggs, and joy in your life.

Screen Shot 2019-12-31 at 9.51.46 AM — Photo credit: Julian Dutton, Unsplash

Man Accidentally Buys 1000 Chickens

While this story started out as one of concern, it gave us a pretty happy ending, and we had to smile at the headlines. A man in New Zealand accidentally bought 1,000 chickens for $1.50. He thought he was buying just one chicken but soon realized he had purchased 1,000! As you can imagine, he didn’t have room for 1,000 chickens, but thanks to social media sharing the story, as of November, he had found homes for over 700 of the chickens. Sometimes, social media can do really good things!

Chickens Help Fight Internet Addiction

But since social media and the internet are not always good, especially when we’re addicted to them, chickens can save us! I have been telling people for years that chicken tv is real and is the best. I mean, I would so rather hang out and watch my chickens do their thing that watch most things online or on television, but a whole city in Indonesia figured out how awesome chicken tv is.

The city began a program in 2019 to give baby chicks to children to raise in order to encourage them to spend more time raising a chicken and less time on their smart phones. I have used such a program with my own little boy. This spring, I got him involved in raising a batch of baby chicks, and it was wonderful to see him so involved in caring for baby chicks.

And for this story to make national news here in the United States, it’s kind of a big deal, I think!

Chicken People Got a Television Program

When you’re taking a break from real chicken tv, you can now really watch chickens on tv! Thanks to Lisa Steele, a chicken keeper and media personality from right here in Maine, we can watch chickens on television and online. Of course, her program is not JUST about chickens, but chickens are the feature. And how cool is it that we get a chicken lifestyle television program? I think it’s a great sign that chicken keeping is really making it mainstream, and people like Lisa Steele are leading the way and helping to make this possible.

And I am so thankful to her for helping educate people across the country about how awesome chickens truly are! You can learn more about her new program here, as it’s going to be back for 2020!

CDC Warns Us About Backyard Chickens and Salmonella—Again

This story makes my list every single year; unfortunately, the numbers of salmonella infections were up again in 2019, and the CDC points to the rise in backyard chicken keeping. I know this story is always controversial, but I do think we have to use good common sense when it comes to chicken keeping.

I read one woman’s story about her battle with salmonella, and it was a haunting story. I definitely do not want salmonella. In fact, one evening this year, during all the rain and mud we had here in Maine, I was closing the chicken coop door. When I slammed the door, chicken poop flew right into my mouth. I held my mouth open, went straight to the house and washed, but I was more than a little worried.

Please do check out my post with advice on handling our wonderful chickens safely. I have some advice that should be especially helpful to new chicken owners.

Chickens Are “Pet of the Decade”

Finally, we have always known chickens rule, but it’s great when the international press agrees. The Guardian ran this piece listing chickens are the “pet of the decade.” I think you will enjoy this piece, especially since it focuses on efforts to improve living conditions for chickens.

To me, that’s the most important story of any year!

Posted on December 21, 2019 by Crystal Sands · 2 Comments

On a Deeper Appreciation for Winter Solstice

I was never that much of a nature girl when I was growing up, I guess. I always loved animals, but I don’t think anyone in my family would have guessed that I would grow up, quit a hard-earned administrative job, and become a homesteader.

My husband and I have a small-but-growing-more-efficient-by-the-day homestead, and we’ve been working very hard at it for about seven years. During that time, we’ve gone from first having just a small organic garden to raising a very large organic garden, a blueberry patch, strawberry beds, chickens we hatched ourselves, and ducks. And this year we finally added our long-awaited asparagus.

I told my husband, “This is the dawning of the age of asparagus.” To me, planting asparagus means we’re here to stay.

As one might expect, farming things has brought me closer to nature than I ever thought I would be. I hug our Maple tree, talk to the beans and tomatoes, and love hanging out with chickens and ducks. Many of them have fantastic little personalities. Some can be a little rude. In fact, our little hen Butternut just pecked the heck out of me over and over while I was feeding people corn. I don’t even know what she was doing, but I am still thankful to know her.

And I am thankful for this change in myself.

In these past years, I have gone from being the woman sitting through endless meetings to the woman who gets to grade student papers at night and spend her days digging in the dirt, planting seeds, saving seeds, and making jam. I have learned to have so much respect for nature and the way nature works to give us amazing gifts. Humans just have to work some and give nature space to do her thing, but the gifts are there and ready for us.

I’m also thankful for the opportunity to live closely with animals and see how they respond to the world around them, to nature, and I have learned that what impacts our animals often has a direct impact on me.

The winter and our short days and long nights here in Maine give me a perfect example. Some of our hens are older, so they slow down or quit laying in the winter. I can’t blame them. Some days, the weather is miserable. I wouldn’t lay eggs either. Plus, it takes 14 to 16 hours of daylight for a hen to make an egg, so winter is no fun for our hens and means fewer eggs for our family.

But the winter solstice gives me hope for the light—and happier days for our hens and more time in the sun for me. Just as it seems the dark comes so quickly after summer solstice, I love that the light comes back so quickly after winter solstice.

Winter solstice brings the light, and that brings, for me, eggs, happy hens, happy ducks, gardening, fresh berries, and more.

I am so thankful for the solstice. I know the light is coming.

I wish you the very best winter solstice. It seems to me that, this year especially, we all need the light.

Posted on December 17, 2019 by Crystal Sands

On My Favorite Things: Why the Moon Tumbled Out of the Sky

This week, I’m rounding out my favorite things for 2019. I didn’t get to share as many as I wanted, but life has a way of changing your plans sometimes. This “favorite thing” is so personal to me, and I hope you enjoy it.

My husband wrote a collection of poetry for children, and our son completed the illustrations. The collection of poetry focuses on nature and farming, and it features my favorite poem in the history of the world–“The Black Chicken Named Poe.”

That’s right. My hubby wrote a poem for me and my Poe, and I think you will love it. It made me cry the first 100 times I read it, in a really good way though. The picture below was taken right when the book was published, when Poe was still healthy and busy. She really didn’t care a bit about the book. I told her she was famous, but all she cared about was getting more grapes!

But when Poe was passing this summer and lived in our house for a few weeks, she loved snuggles and was a captive audience. I read her poem to her one night, and that night, I believe she listened.

So this Christmas, I am promoting my husband and son’s book and Poe’s poem because I think you will love it. I have been told by dozens of parents that this book became a favorite book for their children, at least for a little while, and I tell my husband, who struggles with his confidence as a writer, that there is nothing better in this whole world for a writer to have their words loved by children!

You can get a copy in time for Christmas from my Etsy page here. We did our very best to keep this hardcover, full-color book as affordable as possible because I wanted it in people’s hands most of all. I am offering free automatic upgrades to priority mail for all orders placed by Saturday, December 21.

And to sweeten the deal and to get in one more giveaway before Christmas, I am going to hold a drawing from all orders placed between now and Saturday. Everyone who purchases a book will be entered to win a set (of 15) of these beautiful tiny mason jars with roosters! I love them so much and reorganized my spice racks with them recently.

So check out this book. I think you will be glad you did. I’ll be back writing more on Solstice because, goodness knows, I am looking forward to that Solstice! In the meantime, sending love, warmth, and light your way!

Posted on November 23, 2019November 23, 2019 by Crystal Sands

On My Favorite Things: Dutch Hex Signs

It’s a week before Thanksgiving, and I am sticking to my plan to share some of my favorite things for the chicken mamas or the homesteaders or the makers out there who read my blog.

This week, I’m featuring Dutch Hex Signs because these signs are fantastic. You can order them for any barn or coop and with any animal on them.

When I was looking for the perfect sign for our duck house house last year, I just couldn’t find what I was looking for. Then, I got a recommendation to check out Dutch Hex Signs, and I am over the moon with the little sign for our duck house.

These signs are homemade to order and come in all sizes and feature all farm animals, including chickens, goats, cows, and more. Most importantly, they come with blessings and instructions on how to give your sign your own blessing. I put my duck sign on the duck house last year, and following the directions that came with my sign brought a tear to my eye. I love our ducks so much, and I love that they have a Dutch Hex Sign of protection now. So far, so good! We even adopted an injured duck this summer, and she is doing so well!

You don’t even have to leave your house to get one of these and can order online here. The artist for these signs is a Maine artisan local to me, JJ Starwalker, but she ships all over the country.

If you take a peek at these, you will definitely see why they are among my most favorite things!

And don’t forget to enter to win the chicken tote from my favorite things collection!

Posted on November 15, 2019 by Crystal Sands · 5 Comments

On My Favorite Things: A Chicken Tote

It’s not a tote for chickens (but it could be); it’s a tote with a chicken on it–along with a clever phrase. And I love it! It’s one of my most favorite things!

I have always meant to share little bits about my favorite things related to chickens, farming, making, and such, but I could never seem to get this part of my blog going.

But I am determined this holiday season to get it going because I want to promote some fantastic small businesses and makers.

And I’m no Oprah, but I want to share my favorite things this holiday season!

Please note I was not paid in any way to advertise any product you see in my blog. I am too small of a blog, but I just want to share some sweet chicken and homesteading items from small business owners that either make my life easier or just make me smile.

To get things started this year, I am sharing my favorite bag, and it only costs about 15 bucks. This fantastic chicken tote is huge! It’s oversized and in a warm cotton canvas with navy blue writing that I just love. It’s perfect for groceries, books, and just about anything else. It’s so big, I can carry my laptop, snacks for the kiddo, winter hats, and books–and I still have room!

If you live in Maine, you can get your own at my most favorite local grocer, Tiller & Rye. Tiller & Rye is located in Brewer, Maine, and sells organic and local food straight from Maine farms. It is also a woman-owned business, and I love this place.

If you do not live in Maine, you are in luck! I am doing a give-a-way with this lovely bag. You can enter a drawing up to three times. All you have to do is follow this blog (one entry), share this blog on Facebook (one entry), or follow my new Instagram page, @farmerishmaine (one entry). You can enter up to three times!

I’m going to run the contest until the day after Thanksgiving, November 29, 2019, at which time I will hold an drawing and announce the winner on my Facebook page Pajamas, Books & Chickens and my new Instagram page!

The winner will also be contacted directly, and I will ship out the bag with free shipping, of course, the next day!

I am hoping to kick off my Favorite Things season in style! And if you are a maker or a small business and are interested in being featured, just drop me a line. I’ll order a sample of what you have, and we’ll see!

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