What I Learned About Chickens on my Summer Vacation

No, really. These are not edible.Our chickens are nine weeks old, and it's been a lot of fun so far. There have been a few startling things I've learned in the process, which I thought I'd share:

1. They really are "chicken."

They startle at the slightest noise, including the sound of a garden hose, a motorless reel mower, or a nine year old practicing his cello. To save themselves, they will run into a huddle behind their water can.

2. Instinct is amazing.

We raised these baby chicks from one day old, in a cardboard box. At one or two weeks old we began to offer them various foods to try, most of which were initially rejected. And just like a toddler, they will have a sour reaction to some foods, actually wipe their beaks off on the ground if a food displeases them.

But the first worm that my husband fished out of the compost heap for them inspired the most amazing reaction. It was as if Willy Wonka's Golden Ticket had just been dangled over the edge of the box. That wiggling shape set off a primal riot of desire, and one chick grabbed the worm, then ran all around the box looking for a place to eat it in peace. She was attacked by her neighbors, who took turns grabbing the worm and running in circles. Eventually it was pulled apart and gobbled down.

I'm told that spagetti will set off similar ardor, but I have not tried it yet.

3. They will peck at toenail polish! 

Note to self... wear shoes.

Yay, Parasites!

My view of parasites is largely informed by letters home from my children's school. "Health notice" in the subject line of an email from the school is the equivalent of unexploded ordinance, right? While I'll probably still dread any mention of lice even after today, I've discovered that there is such thing as a good parasite.

See this guy? This giant green Tomato Hornworm (cool people also know it as the Manduca quinquemaculata) was attempting to chow its way through our Big Girls and Brandywines. Now, see all those white things on it? I thought they were eggs.

They're not eggs, they're the larvae of my new best friend, the Braconid wasp. The wasp larvae are eating the hornworms, helping to guarantee a new phalanx of soldier's for next year's fight, too. Go, little white squirmy parasites!

Squirrels & Woodpeckers & Spicy Food... Oh My!

This is a Downy Woodpecker.  (Photo by Wolfgang Wander.) Mr. & Mrs. Downy (and their cousins Mr. & Mrs. Hairy Woodpecker) love to eat suet cakes.

First, my husband made a homemade suet cake by pouring bacon fat over a tub full of sunflower seeds. When the fat hardened, we suspended this tasty concoction in a suet cage from the maple tree outside our kitchen window.  It was an instant success. The woodpeckers, who could never be enticed to visit our other window, showed up hungry.

This worked well until the first warm sunny day of spring, when the bacon fat melted, dumping suet in greasy globs onto the grass below.  But hey, I can spring for a $3 suet cake from the food coop. Because I'm big like that. I bought one of the peanut butter flavored cakes and hung it up.

This proved so attractive to the local wildlife that a raccoon climbed up there, unstrung the cage and carried the whole thing away. 

So, back to the store. Hubby bought a new cage, made of wrought iron! Unless the neighborhood raccoons are doing 'roids, they won't be able to budge it.  The commercial suet cakes were once again the talk of the town. But one very wiley little red squirrel heard about the party. He (or she?) would sit up there, stick his little nose between the bars and gobble down the food. Worse, the squirrel chased the birds away.

Then my husband discovered hot pepper suet cakes. The squirrel took a few bites, fell from the feeder as if stabbed, and ran away "never to be seen again" as they'd say in a fairy tale.

And it's worked for weeks: happy woodpeckers, no squirrels. But I do wonder... Either this is a miracle solution. Or we're sending a lot of woodpeckers to the gastroenterologist.  I do hope it's the former and not the latter.