Ah the joys of farming that are often little talked about. Many of you know that we’ve got birds now of several different kinds, that we’re raising for eggs and meat. We’re raising them as sustainably as possible on our mountainside, which has posed some interesting challenges. Needless to say, after a few months of farming, we’ve got some funny stories to share. Most recently involves 2 of our adult chickens and a mountainside jungle, but I’ll get to that soon.
Most people honestly don’t thing of the real details of farming life because they’re hard to fathom if you’ve not been exposed to them. I did not grow up on a farm; my mother was a gardener of mostly useless and ornamental (often toxic) plants for sale, but never was there a vegetable garden or a chicken coop.
The first time I picked up a chicken or a duck or anything other than a parakeet for that matter was just a few months ago, when we got our first birds. We’ve lost a lot of birds (sickness, weather and accidents) and learned a lot in this process but we have an immense respect for these birds now and what they do for us.
I also understand just how dependant they are on us, which has been an interesting experience. Like you don’t really respect your eggs until you watch your chicken squeeze one out while screeching. All I could do was grab the egg, pet the chicken and thank her.
I ate that egg immediately if I remember correctly, and I savored it respecting what she went through to provide that for me. Many consider harvesting eggs cruel, but most do not realize that chickens often leave their eggs to rot, only choosing to sit on them and produce young at certain times of the year depending on breed. Some breeds like Silkies will literally sit on anything egg shaped regardless of age, so they’re useful to have around when you’re trying to hatch eggs naturally with chickens uninterested in sitting on their eggs.
Since I’ve been raising my own birds, I’ve made a point to not waste my eggs anymore, wheras that was really common to me before. Every time I see a quail sitting in the nesting box with it’s feathers on end and chest puffed out,I know what it’s going through and I feel for it and only a few eggs have gone to waste, only for things like shells cracking. Lucky quail has a nice shaded, protected area to have that daily life experience.
Because we live on the top of a mountain pretty much in a jungle, we have to keep our birds in moveable enclosures both for their protection and to keep them around for now. As the farm develops, we’ll adopt more free range options but this is a small farm in progress and we’re doing what we can with what we have. What matters is regular rotation or they’ll do things like say, dig a hole to escape onto the super fun mountainside. We honestly move around all of the other birds more than those adult chickens, so it was only a matter of time before one escaped.
See, chickens have no issues manuvering mountainsides, they just run around until the time seems right and then they take flight, off down twenty feet below into the dense jungle. We could clip their wings, but that takes time and knowledge that we do not currently have. Sometimes, miraculously they come back.
It all started with a black and red chicken, one similar in appearance to Fro but without a fro. It dug it’s way out and when we tried to catch it, it flew down into this dark jungly cavern on the property near the enclosure, exactly where we didn’t want it to go. We pretty much gave up and called it dead.
The next day while I was alone at the house, the dogs let me know one of our other chickens had escaped from the enclosure. When we loose one, we always fill the hole and check for weak spots, but anyone that’s had chickens knows that they dig some surprising holes very quickly when they want to. The one that got out was a black and white spotted one with a bright red comb on the top of it’s head.
Now these are reportedly docile and nice chickens and once I caught it, I could say that it was. It didn’t peck or fight me at all after it was in my arms. I can’t say it didn’t respond how any chicken should though to me approaching however, which was to run away from the thing trying to catch it. Now I was alone and thought for some reason I could just walk up and catch it myself, completely forgetting the experience we had the day before. I got closer than the first time but nope, it flew into the jungle.
This area, if I remember correctly.
Then I tried to chase it through the jungle, which is full of prickers and itchy rash causing vines. It was staying in an area close to the edge which was convenient for me. I even cut some of the vines back once I had a clear idea of the chicken was, but it didn’t really help. The chickens in the coop, only two left in that one at that time, were making noises, calling the chicken back. A few times it almost walked into my hands, realizing at last second I was there. I finally made a lunge to get it and it jumped up and flew down into the same dark cavern the first one had gone down.
I all but considered it a failure until about a half hour later, when I heard the chicken. It was scratching around the enclosure like nothing had happened. So I went down and basically chased it until it took flight, deep into the jungle below. I thought it was a goner...again. And it seemed like it! We didn’t see it for the rest of the day.
The next morning John looks outside to notice the chicken, back to the spot next to the enclosure. We devised a different plan for catching it and chased it a bit uphill. It dipped back down a bit then jumped up and flew across part of the property uphill, towards the boulder area with the large duck enclosure. John pursued it from below, but I immediately went over the boulders the high way and saw it nearby, next to some boulders in the brush.
Using the boulders as stepping stones, I pursued the chicken. It noticed me and ran, straight for the edge of the property which has a pretty thick fence made of live and dead things ranging from trees to bedsprings. Needless to say it wasn’t so simple for a frantic chicken unfamiliar with the area to master so it kept getting stuck.
This allowed me to basically get on top of it and grab it, carefully pulling it’s head out of the fence so not to hurt it. I smoothed down its wings and hugged it to my chest, much to it’s annoyance. It had been caught, and gasp, I was hugging it against it’s will. We returned it and left it at that. At the time I was a bit too busy to share it with you all.
The next day, John looks down to see another chicken by the enclosure. We thought one escaped until we realized that it had different colored feathers than the one in the enclosure. We have several black chickens with a lighter colored ruff, either a reddish or a silver. This one was reddish and I knew for a fact the one in the enclosure was silver. This was the missing chicken!
So we ran out there with a plan, which didn’t work as this was a clearly smarter chicken. John went from the other side of the property, basically planning to come out near where we didn’t want it to go, in an effort to chase it up. I came from the other side below it, with the intention to chase it into the area with the rabbit enclosure. We managed to do this and as it was corned behind the thing, I let it jump up towards the compost pile and the driveway.
Considering our driveway is pretty closed in and sheltered, this wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened until John chased it over a wall and I chased it back down the mountain where it flew into the jungle. Later on, @modprobe made a visit and we made another attempt with his help. Needless to say it again went badly and the chicken flew into the jungle, just barely missing being caught by John. We have not seen the chicken since. At this point, I can’t decide if it’s smarter or dumber than us. I guess that’ll be determined by if we ever see it again.
Lucky chickens have a nice view! The area they chose to hide was pretty cool too, honestly.
Having these animals is not easy, but it is rewarding. Had I not caught the black and white one, it would have been caught by something else considering it’s domesticated. It spent several hours when we weren’t trying to catch it trying to dig it’s way into the enclosure to be back with it’s flock. Once I caught it and had it in my arms, it relaxed just making annoyed chicken noises. I see it out and around the enclosure, but it doesn’t seem too quick to get out now.
I don’t know if the other one will come back at this point. What I do know is that it’s taught us a lot about farming up on this mountain or any mountain in general. This isn’t easy on flat ground, steep slopes do not help our cause. This is a lot of work, from daily feeding to rescuing dying ducks in the middle of night.
There are no days off but it’s pretty rewarding to go outside to a good harvest of quail eggs or some cute ducks that may or may not have doubled in size overnight. It’s scary to wake up to see half your small ducks dying, but to be able to literally breathe the warmth back into one bringing it from the edge of death. This duck is now much friendlier with me than the others.
Things are always changing and moving and it’s hard to be bored and honestly, there’s value in that. It gets stressful at times, but we wouldn’t go through the trouble if it wasn’t worth the effort. It’s not just about the food, it’s about the experience and peace of mind in knowing we did the best we could for our animals.
Stay tuned as I’ll get around to sharing other stories in the future from our little farm here. As things get busier and busier it gets harder to remember the little things and the importance of sharing them. This is a reminder to everyone that what we’re doing isn’t easy, but it’s damn worth it. Every time I eat one of our eggs without getting a stomach ache(my body was rejecting storebought eggs, making me feel awful if I ate them) , I know it’s worth it.
Stay tuned for a photo story showing some of the places we chased the chicken as well as more shots of the one we rescued. I was going to put them all in this post but they’re worthy of their own post in themselves, as each picture requires special commentation.
Thanks for following and supporting us, until next time!