Sometimes a Sensitive Mama Clucker

I’ve had my first experience with trapping over the last week or so. I always wondered why the farming stores had so many live traps and, in my city mindset, had this romantic ideal that farming folks trapped the critters just so they could take them to refuges or some other such oasis and let them live their lives out.  

I couldn’t have had thoughts further from the actual truth – at least, most of the time.

Following the slaughter’fest that happened with the small breed chickens, I wanted to find the culprit predator that caused such a major loss. I wanted to rebuild and didn’t want to put birds back into a situation that would result in the same outcome.

I did what any city girl would do and enlisted the help of a neighbor who has been in farming for generations who immediately suggested we set up traps to catch the offender and, he noted, get rid of it.

It didn’t take me two rooster crows to figure out what he was talking about. He was talking about getting RID of it. Like, dead; deceased, to the big forest in the sky, all the prey they want, dead. The city gal in me wanted to scream “Oh hell no,” but the budding country voice (which isn’t always the loudest) whispered “you know he’s right.”

This neighbor was right. Predators don’t belong around barns and having all-you-can-eat buffets of chicken and whatever else is picking around the yard. Predators have a place in the woods and far from civilization.

Now, before you start calling judgement and saying that predators have been pushed out of their wooded homes by other residential developments and therefore belong on my property to pretty much take whatever they wish, I have to respectfully disagree though I do agree that there has been a surge in development recently and this is disheartening.

Most of the time, I live in harmony with the nature that surrounds me. I have moles that are doing some serious damage to the yard and will need to be taken care of sooner or later, but for the most part the critters stay away and I get to put my chickens out to enjoy the day and then lay super tasty eggs.

Things had changed though, since the predator attack and something needed to be done.

So, the neighbor graciously traveled over with his ATV and dropped 4 live traps at various places around the property. He told me that raw meet would attract the most action and unwrapped four frozen slabs of ribs that he said were too old (2016).

I remember laughing just a bit that this was considered “old” for meat. I’m pretty sure I’ve eaten frozen meat that is somewhere in the 5-10 year range. Again, difference in city-gal and country folk. I’ll get there.

The first morning I went out to open the coop door and check the traps and found a very young opossum looking at me cautiously from the confines of the metal wire cage. I knew what the neighbor had said, “that we would get rid of them”, but this one was young, small and far away from the barns. I knew that this wasn’t one of the culprits to damage done around the barn and worked to free the critter – remembering to keep my fingers free from any teeth.

The second morning found another opossum in the same wire trap, though this one was bigger, and a skunk in the trap located in the barn itself where the small breed chickens used to be.

Again, the opossum got to roam free and I returned to the trap in the barn – knowing what the fate was going to be for this creature.

I accept that some folk will relish in the fact that they get to kill a creature, but that’s just not who I am. I knew that there was no way that I could release this fellow and something had to be done.

Under a hazy moonlit night a few hours later, the neighbor came over with his .22 rifle to dispatch the creature humanely. It was a lot quicker than I thought it would be. Only the “snap” of the gun and a small turning of the critter and it was gone.

I remember remarking how much more peaceful that was than to watch a chicken in its final seconds.

Death is never easy and should never be taken lightly. In a sense I see it as power and perhaps that’s what makes me struggle with it. I oftentimes see it as me saying that I am more powerful than whatever I am needing to kill and why should I get to live and the creature at hand has to die?

This being said though, the neighbor reminded me that I needed to think of the other things that need to live on the farm to make it work and that this one skunk could very well wipe that out.

Again, he was right.

That soft country voice is growing louder as I spend more time on this farm and every experience I have, whether good or bad, is a step in the path to becoming a full-fledged farmer. I don’t know that I will ever be comfortable with killing and death and perhaps I don’t want to be.

I have to think that there are others out there just like me. 

A Somber Coop with a Glimmer of Hope

The past week or so has been very trying on this small farm. First, the barn cat that I have had since moving here about two years ago, Sassy, died. The decision was solely mine to have her put humanely to sleep so that she would not have to survive another brutal winter as she did last year. She also was around 16 years old and constantly missing the litter box - putting loose feces not only on the floor, but on tables, tools, and lumber in the barn and also messing in her sleeping spot.
She was not well and was putting up a brave front, but I knew that the kindest thing to do was ease her out of this world while she was still able to mostly get around, still eat and had not gotten to the state where euthanasia would need to be an emergency.
Then, just a few short days later, I arrived home after work on a Friday evening to the pole barn where my small breed chickens, a cross between silkie and cochin breeds, were housed to find not a trace of the little birds left. I continued to call them, cluck to them to get them to come out of their hiding places, but was met with silence.
As the brutal realization set in that there were no birds to be found, I walked out of the barn in a daze to find small piles of feathers in random spots in the yard where the birds were killed and then carried off. My head was absolutely whirling, I thought I was in a dream. I started to repeat the word "no" and with each word, it became louder as the horror of what had happened set in.
I had let these birds free range during the day all summer and had not had a problem with predators as the birds had always managed to get back to cover if they were threatened while out of their coop.
This day, there was a problem.
Nine birds total were killed that day as they roamed around the grassy area that they were allowed to move about in. The entire flock. Two hens, named Blue and Top Hat, who had hatched three clutches of eggs this year and one beautiful rooster, who was extremely protective of his flock, named Jaxby and the 6 chicks that had hatched from the last clutch were all gone.
As I walked around the barn that evening, hoping, praying, yet knowing the answer, I strained to hear a peep, any peep from the flock but was met with only the whisper of the pine trees that stand on the west side of the farm. My flock of small birds, my whole flock of small birds, were gone in one 8 hour period at work.
I grew angry quickly and smacked my hand against one of the support posts in the pole barn, bruising my hand pretty good, and kicked a sawed in half 55 gallon barrel that was also in the barn. The tears began to flow quickly as I realized that there would be no survivors from this attack, no second chance. My hope for these birds to be a money maker for the farm was gone.
I immediately took to Facebook and penned a post that was filled with anger, disbelief, grief and hopelessness. I had heard of friends who had flocks that had been attacked but at least a couple birds survived. Not in this case.
The hens and the rooster were so protective of their babies that I'm sure their end was a brutal one as they tried to keep whatever was attacking the chicks away. I could tell from the feathers remaining where each of the adult birds had met their end and picked up a small pile from the ground as I sobbed at the loss of my flock. This grief was mine, not shared with anyone, not understood by anyone.
In the days that have followed this loss, I've found it hard to go back to the small coop where the hens raised their families and Jaxby would announce morning with a trill in his crow. I listened so hard the first two days after the attack for any sound of survivors but again, only met with silence. Even the sound of the barn swallows and sparrows caused me to stop as I tried to listen for any sign of the small chickens.
Well meaning folks have said, after finding out that I still had birds remaining, that at least not all of the chickens were attacked and yes, I am truly thankful for that. That being said, the grief that I've felt was not only from an emotional investment that I'd had with these birds (remember that I had been there for each of their hatchings, and watching them grow), but it also equaled a financial investment. The chicks that had hatched from this last clutch could have brought around $60-$70 and the adult birds around $50 or so. It was a huge loss that day.
I will need to begin again with this endeavor and try to get where I was before, but I know that there will be no more Blue, no more Top Hat, and no more Jaxby (who had a great little rooster attitude). I can only hope that the next time I try with small breed birds I get hens as attentive and broody as these gals were. I cannot express the joy that I felt when they would hatch chicks and I got to see brand new lives begin right in front of my eyes.
I pray that I will get to feel that joy again some day.
In the meantime, I prepare the farm for winter. Working out strategies to protect my average size birds from an attack from a revisiting predator and working out how I'll get water down to them when the temperature turns to freezing. This is the way of farming,
I write about these things not to depress my readers (thank you for reading my ramblings by the way), but to maybe tell those who are in the farming world and might be brand new that this is the raw truth. Yes, you will lose animals and it will hurt. I have to think that those farmers who maintain a stoic stance, sneak away when everyone is gone to the dark corners of the barn to mourn, to cry and to wonder "what next".
A wise classmate told me that as farmers we are constantly figuring out how to rise from tragedy and rebuild when things happen and she could not be more right. As the winter chill sets in, I'm already planning on a better run, and a more protected run so that maybe I won't have to go through this again. Farming is ranked high for depression and I can absolutely see why.
The trick is, though, how we respond to that depression and rise from the ashes.

Don't Clucking Judge Farmers

Farming has probably been my most demanding, emotionally draining, rewarding job I’ve ever done. I’ve never cried so much, laughed so much, felt frustrated so much nor felt so much pride within one season. I’ve cussed at animals that just days prior I was carrying back to the house to nurse back to health. Sometimes being successful at it and other times – needing to do what had to be done to ease their suffering and keep the farm rolling.

I’ve poured over finances, trying to grow the farm into a small business while still managing to work a 40+ hour/week job, carrying eggs, dog treats, other items made by the farm to my regular work to drop off after those work hours and get a few dollars to put a tiny back for what I have spent; and I have spent quite a lot in the last year trying to grow this crazy dream that I’ve started.

Chicks have developed to my amazement in eggs that weeks before I could have either sold or eaten myself and I’ve cracked eggs open from the incubator of those chicks who began to grow, but for whatever reason, didn’t see the outside of the shell alive.

The farm has been in existence for two years and already I’ve had to bury so many creatures that I wonder if this is why farmers in their later years are viewed as calloused and unfeeling. Perhaps it’s just too painful for them to deal with the amount of loss that is the frequent occurrence on a farm.

I am cautious to never brag that things are going superbly because the moment that pride shows itself – reality gives a sharp jerk and I am brought back to the knowledge that even though I may think I have a handle on things, I actually don’t.

I’ve, at times, felt like I’m “playing God” in deciding who will get to live and who needs to be sent to greener pastures. I’m sure I’ve been judged by others because I’ve needed to decide that the chicken with the crooked foot who was hobbling along (and would never recover) needed to be humanely dispatched even though it was still eating. Or, and I could hear the tone in the vet’s office receptionist’s voice, being judged for needing to put a barn cat down who was elderly, not relieving itself outside the barn and rather deciding to defecate all over where its food was, in its bedding, random places in the barn, and also generally acting like it didn’t feel well.

I wish that I could say that I had piles of cash to be able to treat these animals with the top veterinary care, but I don’t. I give them food, places to rest that are away from drafts, and the opportunity to live the best live that they can. If they are not living to their potential – the kindest thing to do is to end their life.

I was actually told by some well-meaning people that I should take a sickly cat out to a remote location and leave it there than to have the cat put to sleep and have it pass warm, safe and calm. I can’t imagine a crueler thing to do to an animal who is used to the safety of its home and its owner.

I think that as a society we have become so removed from what reality is that people are spending hundreds of dollars treating chickens, thousands on dogs and cats and for those of us who don’t do that or can’t do that – we are often treated like we don’t care.

Because I’m not willing or able to spend a thousand or more on a beloved dog doesn’t mean that I don’t suffer with my decision any less than someone viewing it from the outside and judging me. People like myself suffer more because we don’t only deal with the loss of an animal or needing to put an animal down, but we also have to work through the attitudes of those around us who sometimes say things like “well, it doesn’t matter how much it cost- I would treat my animal even if it bankrupted me…” or the popular “that animal has given you so much love – how can you just ‘put it down’”.

I hate it, I know others hate it and it’s never easy. You can show compassion to those of us struggling by offering a listening ear, assuring the person going through that situation that they are making the right choice not just for the animal but for themselves as well. At the end of the day, we as farmers have to make the choices that are best for the farm and for the welfare of the animals. Please, if you must judge – keep your opinions to yourself or to your close group of friends. We would so appreciate that.  

Nonprofit Work is a Lot Like Farming - Who Knew?

In 2001 I was working for a non-profit agency as an administrative assistant. Not too stressful, predictable hours, the adoration of everyone in the office when I fixed the copier jam for the 20^th time that day, and able to spend a lot of my time putting together craft project like giveaways to recognize the volunteers that the development staff worked with. Pretty smooth gig.

Then, in 2008, I decided to upset everything and join the ranks of the development crew in this same nonprofit agency. Looking around every corner for the next funding opportunity, hearing the word “no” more times than I like to count, working obscene hours and driving for miles – it was a fun job but after so many “no’s” I started to despise what I was doing. A few more hops and skips with some other nonprofit agencies in the development field and I entered doing database work for yet another agency.

That lasted a whole three and a half years behind a desk. I missed being out in the community and doing “boots on the ground” work, but I didn’t want to hear the word “no” again. So, after an opportunity presented itself back in my hometown to work more closely with the clients being served – I said “yes”.

In between all of these job hopping opportunities, I started the farm and suddenly realized that the salary of a nonprofit employee doesn’t quite cover so many mouths to feed, keeping the lights on, paying the property taxes, fuel, and all of the other expenses that come with having that parcel of land in the country. Thus, Purple Shamrock Farm became a business and I started making I.P.A. Bites dog treats.

The I.P.A. Bites haven’t quite taken off as quickly as I would like, though folks who so wonderfully support me keeping saying that one day they will, but I laugh because now I hear the word “no” again just as before when I was trying to earn that almighty dollar to support the mission work of my employing agency.

Just as before though, I cannot let it get me down and I can’t let that one “no” stop me from wanting to move forward. In my previous work, Executive Directors would offer me a goal and then watch to see if I would make it or not. If I did, I was rewarded with praise and if not – offered the chance to try again and come up with an alternate plan to meet that goal. 

While I don’t have an Exec. Director to help lead me in my quest to make the farm a success, I do have my friends and family to urge me on and my own critical thinking to realize when I don’t meet the goals I have set. I still hear the word “no”, but now it’s a different mindset – one that I’m in control of and you can bet that I’m going to try my hardest to make it a success. The farm’s future depends on it.

The Biscuit Story - Or, How the Biscuits got their bite!

In the late summer of 2017, I was rejoicing that I had survived a full season on the farm. The heat had somewhat subsided and I was starting to settle into a groove. Having worked hard all season, caring for birds and attempting to grow a garden, I decided to join some friends and attend the annual fundraising concert put on by Our Hospice in Columbus, Indiana, during Labor Day weekend. My thoughts were to sit back in the picturesque landscape of Mill Race Park there in Columbus and perhaps enjoy a few adult beverages with no worries for a few hours. 

As my group arrived, we dug into our coolers and began to lazily sip beer beverages – waiting for the headliner band that night, Blue Öyster Cult to take the stage. Funny now to realize that the band’s name came from an anagram of “Cully Stout Beer” after reading that the origins of that name came from a 1960’s poem written by their manager, Sandy Pearlman. Little did I know in those brief moments how much my life would change.

Have you ever seen the movie “Back to the Future” where Marty McFly’s parents have to attend the “Fish Under the Sea Dance” to fall in love and thus produce Marty? Yeah, it was kind of like that only without the whole Biff thing. If I hadn’t been where I was at that specific time, I wouldn’t be telling the biscuit story.

I was settled quite comfortably in my lawn chair when a friend walked up and asked if I had met this guy who was going to be brewing beer in Seymour in just a few weeks. I said I’d love to meet him and then found out that he wanted to know if my chickens would want the spent grain for extra feed. Knowing that this would absolutely help my feed bill and also be a pretty cool thing to be a part of, I said yes and he and I started talking.

He, Ritch, told me that the pizza place in town, Brooklyn Pizza Company, was going to be opening Seymour Brewing Company in just a few weeks (after the red tape of the licensing passed through) and that he’d love to give me the spent grain to feed to the chickens so that he didn’t have to throw it away.

We chatted for a bit and I found that his wife was one of my very good friend’s kid’s pediatrician and also that we were in the same high school class in Seymour. After some additional pleasantries, we both headed back to our respective groups and I anxiously awaited the text from him that said that the grain was ready for pick-up.

Two weeks later, I got my first notification and arrived at the back of the restaurant/bar to find three 5 gallon buckets that had to have weighed 50/60lbs. each. Curious, I lifted the lid of one of the buckets and saw the grain. Cool! The smell that accompanied the grain wasn’t unpleasant as I’d heard others say it was – it was earthy and warm. I guess that was a good thing now that I think back- as my car started to carry a hint of the smell and started to stick to my clothing. Needless to say, that made me not so popular with the office that I was working in at the time. Haha.

I took the buckets home and carried them to the chicken coop. Knowing that three buckets would be WAY too much grain for the 5 birds that I had, I gave one bucket to the birds who eagerly started gobbling it up and took the other two buckets to the garden to start composting into the ground for next year’s yield.

A few days later, Ritch contacted me again with another three buckets available. I was now faced with the dilemma on figuring out what I was going to do with this grain as the chickens hadn’t eaten but a portion of what I had dumped in days earlier.

I couldn't stop accepting the grain because I didn’t want to lose that relationship with being a part of something that was going to be huge in my tiny small town. With this determination I took those three buckets and put them on the garden plot.

My garden is quite large so it definitely can handle the leavings of a small brewing operation, but I wanted something more for the grain.

One morning, as I was getting ready for work the idea hit me. Hey, can’t spent brewing grains be used for doggy treats? I grabbed my phone as I was brushing my teeth and went to Google to search.

Sure enough, there were recipes available that worked the pungent grains into treats that dogs loved and that were good for them. I decided on a peanut butter recipe and that night went to work creating the first batch of spent brewing grain dog treats.

My dogs went crazy for them that first night so I took treats to work the next day and had those coworkers try them on their pooches. The reports came back that the pups loved them. Thus, I.P.A. Bites were born.

After a few more trials and a lot of errors and the challenge of coming up with a name that was catchy and tied back to its roots of beer (the term "pupper" was one of my favorites), the I.P.A. Bites are now in local stores, had their first showing in Indianapolis this past summer and were sold at the Indiana State Fair and, most exciting, were recently recognized by a well known public state figure. That's right, the Governor of Indiana's dog, Henry Holcomb, has enjoyed these treats. It's honestly one of my favorite pics. that I've received.

I've since increased the flock to allow me to feed all three buckets of spent brewing grain to the birds at one time, several times a week - but I still hold back a small bit to make the well liked treats. It's good for the environment and helps pay those farm bills that regular work just can't do.

I.P.A. Bites - Incredible. Pupper. Appetizers. - your dog's own Happy Hour! 

A Mother Clucker Has to Do What a Mother Clucker Has to Do

There aren’t any human children at the farm. A lot of you parents out there probably think – well heck, you don’t have a clue what it’s like to stay up late at night worrying about a sick child, cleaning up unending messes, never having enough time to get everything done that you’d like to while stepping around the little inhabitants of the house/farm, or not being able to take a much needed vacation for time away. While I recognize that attitude that some may have, I have to respectfully disagree that I haven’t felt a lot of the same emotions or had the same frustrations that these parents have.

I’ve stayed up late at night worried about my big dog, Ozzie, as he ate something that caused him to become so lethargic that I thought he may pass away through the night. I’ve nursed some chickens back to health from a respiratory issue, removed infections from their feet and then had to gently ease some out of this life into the next. There really isn’t a veterinarian around these parts that would doctor a chicken and really, why would they?

I’ve been able to take one overnight vacation (for 2 nights) in the last year and as the farm grows – that one luxury may be fading too. Anyone know of a good farm watcher?

It’s not that I’m bitter about it, I’m truly not, but there are multiple sacrifices that have to happen on a day to day basis with growing, running and maintaining a farm by oneself. My friends try to be understanding when I bow out of a much needed evening out at 8PM, my need to run home and feed everyone, collect eggs, and lock everyone up for the night so they don’t end up on the coyote/raccoon menu, taking precedence over partying. There’s nothing quite like knowing that the things that you are raising are constantly under threat from being eaten. Imagine that with human children for a moment.  

The mess they leave behind

There are still 19 chicks in my basement at the time of this writing and I can only imagine what the parent of a human teenager feels like as I raise these little ones. They eat voraciously, are incredibly noisy and are absolutely making a complete mess of their inside brooder. It will take days if not weeks to eradicate the dust and the tiny first feathers that they shed to make way for their adult plumage. My “free chicks” that I received from a friend for raising said friend’s birds as well, have totaled well over $50 so far in feed and growing. 

That being said, when these birds “leave the nest” as teenager birds and go to the large coop – I will worry for the first few days that they’re eating enough, that they’re staying warm enough, and that they’re not being picked on too much by the larger adult birds.

No, they are not human children but I think that parents of human children would worry about their teenagers in much the same way. Granted, these human children don’t typically need to worry about getting “eaten” by a hawk or other ground predator – but there are other dangers out there that a teenager has to watch out for.

I may not be a human mother, but being the Mother Clucker that I am – I’m going to raise these little ones and the other animals to the best of my ability and hope that they grow up well and are nice to one another. I'll take their sass and clean up mess after mess just because I love them. When things get too rough and I need a tiny amount of time away, that, dear friends, is why I have a great relationship with the brewery in town. Just know that I'll have to be home by 8:00PM. J

Chickens can be Really Bad Mother Cluckers

As I’m sure most already know, chickens are the closest living relative to the Tyrannosaurus Rex. Apparently some research team stuck a long tail on a chicken sometime back and watched the way the bird moved to have an idea of how big, bad, T-Rex would have moved. Welcome to Jurassic Park?

No surprise then, that the chicken is basically a reptile – the scales replaced by feathers and possessing the mentality of a cold blooded killer/hunter, all wrapped up in a fluffy, seemingly docile package of feathers and crazy movements. Who could guess that these creatures would think nothing of ripping a mouse to shreds, or, in some cases, picking on one another to the death? 

When I’m down in their coop I’ll hear their noises that resemble growls, chirps, and downright noises that sound like they’ve come from the very depths of hades. I’ll watch as a group of hens pick quietly at scattered cracked corn one moment and then the next, look at their flock mate and peck at their eye. Growling as they do it. Chickens are just sometimes downright mean.

I’ve watched ruthless chasing from the current flock as the new birds are introduced and watched with horror as the newcomers huddle in a corner, terrified to make a move as their older counterparts size them up, hissing and threatening to take them down in a flash of beak.  It’s a game of roulette every time I have to introduce birds to the big flock and not something that I look forward to doing. It’s stressful for the birds, it’s stressful for me, but it’s a necessary part of flock keeping and one task that must be taken with a very watchful eye to ensure that the new birds make it to adulthood.

Surely you’ve heard the term “pecking order” and it is chickens that this phrase came from. There is an absolute hierarchy established amongst the flock and each bird knows its place in the group. The lead hen (or rooster), gets first dibs on good food, the best perching spots and the first access to the best dust bath sites. The others fall into their respective places and when a new bird or birds are introduced to the flock – it upsets that balance for a time. No one wants to be put on the low pole and so any new birds that are brought in are usually picked on sometimes to the point of their death. It’s barbaric, but that’s the chicken way. They are bad muther cluckers sometimes.

Unfortunately, recently, a friend who is new to chicken keeping found that out with a bird that was introduced to a flock of hens. All seemed well at first, but as the evening wore on – the established birds had enough of this intruder and brought him down. Sadly, he was found the next morning – having been sent off to the big nest in the sky.

I think of all of these things as I watch my birds peacefully peck around grass and grain on a warm afternoon. They seem so docile, so friendly, so scared, but pushed to the test and when it is broken down – they are really a force to be reckoned with. After all, isn’t it the T-Rex who ends up surviving in the movies? J