Back Porch Farm

My little Nugget with HER little nugget, “Sweetie”.

The kitchen door opened beside me. Randy walked in juggling 3 cloth grocery bags. “Hi Honey.” I stood to give him a peck on the cheek. Then bent automatically to kiss my daughter Isla who I assumed was in line behind him. But Dot, our house chicken, hopped up on the threshold instead, clicking across the tile floor behind Randy. And THEN came my 3 yr old.

Yes, this is farm life, and it’s spring again here, which means I am working hard on my Poultry Plan once more. And I had high hopes for Dot and her assistance this year. I thought, “Oh, our sweet, sweet Dot…. certainly with her tender personality and loving demeanor she will adopt my feedstore bought chicks?”

HA!

So there were the chicks – 16 balls of down and constant peeping. Five different breeds between 1 and 2 days old. I had just brought them home in the cat carrier. How could a potential mother resist those adorable little nuggets of fluff? Dot hopped through the door and I lowered the carrier down to her height…. expecting…. what was I expecting? A tender moment? A cosmic shift as the love and nurture began to flow? Instead, Dot jumped a few inches into the air with a loud squawk, ran in place on the tile for a second or two before her talons found purchase, then ran bucking and flapping into the playroom and around the corner into the bathroom, skidding out on the slick wood floor! I kid you not! I was disappointed, but still in hysterics! So much for THAT plan of flowers and butterflies. So now we are down to hand raising the little sweeties, which for any of you who have done this before know, is a lot of work. That is why Nature invented broody hens.

1st day with the chicks, after Dot squawked “RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!”

The new chicks love their outdoors play time!

Which brings me to Stage II of the Poultry Plan. Well, we DO have a broody hen. She has been broody since mid January!! But the problem is – Isabelle is a turkey hen, and we need a chicken hen. And since Izzie refuses to get out of “the zone”, she has stopped laying her own eggs. So she continues to stare at the inner walls of our broody box, tucking each chicken egg beneath her massive white chest as the chicken hens leave their deposit beside her and hop out to enjoy the rest of their day. And then afternoon comes and we lift Izzie out of the box, take the chicken eggs she has left toasty warm, sigh heavily, and go about the rest of our chores. Izzy takes enough of a break to get some food and water and then hops right back into her now empty nest. Day after day as Winter progressed and Spring began, her mate, Thomas, strutted back and forth beyond her box, hoping, hoping, for a little action. Because this time last year, this Royal Palm turkey pair had been having turkey sex every morning, Izzy had laid a large clutch, sat on 18 eggs and hatched out 5 poults.

Isabelle mothering last years turkey poults (with a chicken mama sharing the box!)

But not this year. Thomas has lately taken to relieving his sexual frustrations on the pan of scratch, and we are missing our delicious turkey eggs. And what will happen come Thanksgiving with no young poult to harvest for our table? Randy said,”Why don’t you just let her sit on the chicken eggs?” But I feared her weight would be too much – first on the eggs, with their thinner shells, and then on the hatchlings (if any hatched) whose bone structures are certainly designed for tucking beneath a chicken hen, half Izzy’s weight. But it was getting ridiculous as days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, and mating season had arrived.

So I have succumbed to his suggestion. All we can do is try, right? And as Izzy is so darn broody I am sure she would mother a litter of puppies, I am going to try to take advantage. Three days from now, I are going to let her keep her daily collection of chicken eggs… and set. We will mark Wednesday’s and Thursday’s eggs with a marker, and go back to removing any daily donation from thence forth. Turkey eggs hatch in 28ish days – chicken eggs in 21. Hopefully that won’t throw her off too much. I read that chicken mothers hear the peeping of their babies through the shells. I wonder if Izzy is fluent in bukbuk-ese by now and will be able to hear their calls.

And being a thrifty, Scottish, opportunist, I am not going to stop there either. I have chosen this particular date of April 17th because on May 8th, 21 days later, a nearby feed store will receive day old Royal Palm turkey poults… and day old guinea keats. And just to test her mothering skills further, I have a box of day old chicken chicks arriving in the mail simultaneously. Yes, you guessed it. I am hoping that Izzy will adopt and raise 3 separate species of poultry, all within a day or 2 of age, only a fraction of which she sat on and hatched herself. The adoption aspect has worked a few times before with broody chickens. I have successfully tucked store bought chicks under the wings of moms who have just hatched a chick or two of their own. I pray to the patron saints of poultry parents that it will work with Izzy too.

And my business plan? Well, I tried last year but was foiled 3 times. 1st the 18 rare eggs I bought and shoved under a broody hen never hatched (actually, were never fertilized as I cracked them open when they were overdue to check). Then I ran out and returned home with 17 store bought babies who were successfully adopted by that mom, but all eaten by a gray fox 5 days later – the mom included. Then another broody hen sat on a clutch of our eggs. At the same time I ordered chicks through a woman in the midwest who promised she’d get the eggs in the incubator on the right date and airship the hatchlings to me. But she never got the eggs going, and never let me know. So we ended up with one chick last year, from our own flock’s eggs, and 4 adult layer deaths. It was a bad year for our birds.

Our one 2012 chick, Noche, who now sports a gold neck ruff and lays a wonderful olive mocha egg!

My seemingly simple goal has merely been to add more layers and create a more colorful carton for selling. At least these hand raised chicks are doing well. I have 3 Cuckoo Marans who will lay chocolate brown eggs, 4 Auracanas who will lay blue-green eggs, 3 Anconas who will lay white eggs, 2 Welsummers who will lay a dark terracotta reddish-brown egg, and 2 Rhode Island Reds who will give me a dependable supply of light brown eggs. (These will be added to the 2 Americannas and 10 light brown eggs layers we currently have.) Isla has been enjoying the chicks’ company in her playroom, and it’s been great fun watching them explore and exercise in their outdoor play pen. After this next week of cold temps have passed, I plan to move them outside permanently with a house and a heat lamp attached to their pen.

And on May 8th we will find out if turkeys make good adoptive mothers. If not, I guess I’ll be quite busy mothering the second batch by hand. In addition to the poults and keats, the mail order will include 2 Partridge Rocks, 2 NH Reds, and 2 Speckled Sussex – all light brown eggs layers to offset our aging current flock. Also 6 Dark Cornish roos and 6 White Giant roos for meat.

I think you will all agree that Izzy is going to be one busy bird.