I expect to walk into the kitchen any day now and find Chareva walking aimlessly in a circle, staring off into space, reciting her own version of a scene from Forrest Gump: “Fried eggs, boiled eggs, poached eggs, deviled eggs, egg stew, egg salad …”
I had scrambled eggs for breakfast yesterday. I had deviled eggs for dinner. I don’t remember if I ate lunch or not, but if I did, it was some kind of egg dish.
Our chickens have become relentless producers, and yeah, we’re getting a little overloaded. A couple of my co-workers are happy, since I shared the largesse with them last week, but I’m starting to feel like we’re living in a reverse Easter egg hunt. Colored eggs keep finding us. Yesterday I opened the fridge to pull out the cream for my coffee, and when I went to put it back, another dozen eggs had appeared on the bottom shelf. Startled, I slammed the door shut, then opened it a crack and peeked in. Four more eggs had already appeared.
So naturally, Chareva and the girls decided we need more chickens.
Sara will soon be taking delivery of 25 chicks as part of a 4-H project. When I responded to this news by bulging my eyes to size of baseballs and losing hair from my head in small clumps, Chareva assured me that Sara is required to auction off some of the chickens at a 4-H event after they’re grown.
“How many does she have to auction off?”
“Five.”
“Oh, okay. That’s not so –”
“But Alana is feeling left out, so I told her she can get her own chicks.”
“How many?”
“Five.”
Alana’s chicks have already arrived and are living under a heat lamp in the basement.
Chareva’s solution to what’s shaping up to be a massive egg overload is to open a roadside egg stand. So she spent part of this weekend doing construction.
The architect/construction foreperson assures me this is just the skeleton of what will soon be a fine roadside egg stand. She built it to fit inside a wagon that we inherited with the property. The tires are flat, so it’s not much of a wagon at this point, but the plan is to get new tires and then roll the egg stand to the road after construction is completed.
Five new chicks already, 25 more on the way … yeesh. Let’s get that egg stand done. We need to start selling.
On the bright side, I’m pretty sure the rooster population will soon be reduced by one. The big, obnoxious rooster I refer to as the Rapper Rooster flew at Chareva yesterday and tried to spur her in the chest. She responded by chasing him around the chicken yard for the next five minutes and basically kicking the @#$% out of him. He didn’t want to be anywhere near her after that, but he seems to have a short memory for these things.
I originally agreed with Sara’s assessment that we should keep him because he’d protect the flock and make lots of baby chickens. But now that the girls are afraid to go collect eggs because of him, we’ve all re-evaluated his usefulness. The consensus is that he’ll be chicken stew soon.
And I suspect Chareva might even enjoy wringing his neck.
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We got our small flock in Aug last year – 8 hens and one Danish Leghorn Rooster. They were about 6 months old at the time. As the rooster matured he has become more aggressive and has attacked me a few times. Of course when he does he get the business end of my boot! My concern is for the grandchildren when they go to collect the eggs. The jury is still out on his fate, but many comments have been made about his future home just might be the freezer or stew pot!
Love your farm stories. We can relate!!! keep ’em coming!
I wonder how many how roosters have ended up in the stew pot for that reason.
My sister’s rooster met his untimely end for the same reason. She couldn’t go into the pen to get the eggs because he was so aggressive. I hope that if you get rid of the mean one, that one of the others doesn’t become mean to take his place. I don’t know anything about chickens, so I don’t know if behavior changes when they move up in the pecking order.
I love farm fresh eggs. They taste so much better than store bought.
The Rapper Rooster will be gone soon enough and nobody will mourn. Sara and I were both out by the chicken barn yesterday and she asked when we can kill him.
My sister’s rooster met his untimely end for the same reason. She couldn’t go into the pen to get the eggs because he was so aggressive. I hope that if you get rid of the mean one, that one of the others doesn’t become mean to take his place. I don’t know anything about chickens, so I don’t know if behavior changes when they move up in the pecking order.
I love farm fresh eggs. They taste so much better than store bought.
The Rapper Rooster will be gone soon enough and nobody will mourn. Sara and I were both out by the chicken barn yesterday and she asked when we can kill him.
I eat a LOT of eggs, they’re so versatile and wonderful. Do keep us updated about the egg stand. We will absolutely come buy some!
We’ll certainly have them available.
I eat a LOT of eggs, they’re so versatile and wonderful. Do keep us updated about the egg stand. We will absolutely come buy some!
We’ll certainly have them available.
Just make a large batch of your eggnog, but instead of drinking it, put it in the ice cream maker. I’ve been wanting to do that since I tried it, but haven’t done it yet. I didn’t use nutmeg so it tasted just like vanilla ice cream to me.
Just make a large batch of your eggnog, but instead of drinking it, put it in the ice cream maker. I’ve been wanting to do that since I tried it, but haven’t done it yet. I didn’t use nutmeg so it tasted just like vanilla ice cream to me.
The most interesting thing I took away from this post is that your drink coffee.
I love it but had to recently give it up because I like my coffee sweet and usually would end up dumping a ton of sugar in it.
I tried to give up coffee once. It wasn’t pretty.
The most interesting thing I took away from this post is that your drink coffee.
I love it but had to recently give it up because I like my coffee sweet and usually would end up dumping a ton of sugar in it.
I tried to give up coffee once. It wasn’t pretty.
“She responded by chasing him around the chicken yard for the next five minutes and basically kicking the @#$% out of him. He didn’t want to be anywhere near her after that, but he seems to have a short memory for these things.”
I predict that your rooster will be somewhat unsatisfactory eating. Charlie certainly was. And with the top-of-the-pecking-order bird out of the way, another will step up to fill the power void.
Simply reinforce the lesson at *every* encounter until your cock-o-the-walk consistently runs and hides whenever he sees any of your family. Won’t take long. Chickens are box-of-rocks stupid, but they understand pecking order really well.
BTW, kicking doesn’t work nearly as well as slapping the side of the head.
I recall that I had to administer one reinforcement lesson to old Charlie. After that, any time I saw him in the yard, I would take a few strides toward him, and he would get scarce. He got good enough at making himself scarce that when it got to be cooking-pot time, my mother had to be the one to capture him. Then, since my mother had not administered the pecking-order lesson, he committed his last act of terminal dumb-ass by taking a running leap right at her.
Like I said in a prior comment, Charlie was nearly all gristle and very little meat. And what little meat he had was tough as shoe leather.
The Rapper Rooster attacked Chareva again, and this time she whacked him in the head — so hard, in fact, he went down and stayed down for awhile. She thought she’d killed him, but he recovered and eventually went back to his box-of-rocks stupid behavior.
“She responded by chasing him around the chicken yard for the next five minutes and basically kicking the @#$% out of him. He didn’t want to be anywhere near her after that, but he seems to have a short memory for these things.”
I predict that your rooster will be somewhat unsatisfactory eating. Charlie certainly was. And with the top-of-the-pecking-order bird out of the way, another will step up to fill the power void.
Simply reinforce the lesson at *every* encounter until your cock-o-the-walk consistently runs and hides whenever he sees any of your family. Won’t take long. Chickens are box-of-rocks stupid, but they understand pecking order really well.
BTW, kicking doesn’t work nearly as well as slapping the side of the head.
I recall that I had to administer one reinforcement lesson to old Charlie. After that, any time I saw him in the yard, I would take a few strides toward him, and he would get scarce. He got good enough at making himself scarce that when it got to be cooking-pot time, my mother had to be the one to capture him. Then, since my mother had not administered the pecking-order lesson, he committed his last act of terminal dumb-ass by taking a running leap right at her.
Like I said in a prior comment, Charlie was nearly all gristle and very little meat. And what little meat he had was tough as shoe leather.
The Rapper Rooster attacked Chareva again, and this time she whacked him in the head — so hard, in fact, he went down and stayed down for awhile. She thought she’d killed him, but he recovered and eventually went back to his box-of-rocks stupid behavior.
“The consensus is that he’ll be chicken stew soon.”
I LOLed for real 🙂