Back in November, I wrote a post about the new chicken pen: a fenced-in space at the bottom corner of our hillside that we gave over to the hens. It continues to be a great space for them to wander around, peck in the dirt, take dust baths and dig like crazy with their long claws. In fact, they have been such aggressive scratchers and diggers that they completely eliminated all the weeds and ground cover previously growing in that section of the backyard. The only things that survived were some bigger bushes and one little pine tree we planted many years ago.

This poses a bit of a problem because, as I mentioned, our backyard is on a hill. Plus, it I'm not in love with the idea of 1/6 of my yard being a giant dirt patch. So, we planted some bushes over the last several months.

The key to their survival is that they must be enclosed in a circle of fencing. If not, they are immediately defoliated, dug up and destroyed by the hens. In fact, we went away for a couple of days several months ago, and while we were gone the fencing circles around some small rosemary plants were knocked off. When we got back, there was no sign of those bushes--not even a stick or a root ball.

We also noticed that some plants are tastier to chickens than others. They don't seem interested in eating sage leaves. That's good news, because there are many lovely varieties of sage, and most require very little water to thrive. So, they are a perfect choice for our chicken landscape.

At the moment, the whole area looks pretty scrubby. Most low-water-use plants start off pretty slowly, and we're at the start of summer, so it should look that way for a while. But, I expect in another year they'll bush out and fill in the space.

This coming Fall I also want to plant a small tree, maybe a Crepe Myrtle, to add a little extra attraction and some additional shade to the space. Just because it's a chicken free range zone doesn't mean it can't be kind of pretty.

In positive chicken landscaping news, the Vanilla Trumpet Vine I planted a few years ago on one side of the run has really filled in. It's covering a good part of two sides of the run and bloomed really nicely last month. So, that worked out well.
When I originally got it five years ago, I thought the vine would have purple flowers for some reason. It turns out they are kind of a creamy white--vanilla-colored, I guess, which makes sense. They smell good, too.

Well, I'm afraid Linda continues to live at the bottom of the pecking order. I've started calling her "Baldy," because she's still got a red featherless spot on her head where the other girls were picking at her during the worst of the bullying. It seems to have healed up okay, which is a relief, but I'm not sure if the feathers will ever fill back in. I hope so.

The new chicken pen has definitely helped with the aggression problem I was having since it allows all the hens plenty of space during the day. But, at night Linda still sleeps out on a perch in the run. Somehow, Doris, the White Rock, finally managed to get an invitation to sleep inside the coop. I'm not sure if it was bravery or some recent broodiness that caused her to sit in the nesting box for several days. Whatever it was, Doris made it into the cool group, leaving Linda all alone. Poor Baldy.

Since the climate is pretty mild in Southern California, I don't think it's that big of a deal that Linda has to sleep outdoors every night. BUT, we've recently had some raccoons lurking around. The other night Dakota even caught one hanging out right outside the coop. So, I think I may need to figure out a way to help Linda get inside at night. Do they make anti-bullying pamphlets for chickens?

When you have one nesting box and five hens, sometimes they have to share. Luckily, Janice and Doris don't seem to mind laying side-by-side, or at least they seemed perfectly content when I found them like this a couple of weekends ago.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, my younger hen Linda was getting brutally bullied by some of my older girls. My temporary solution was to let Linda, and often her buddy Doris, out to free range every day, leaving the other three girls in the run. This let Linda's head wound heal, but it resulted in some collateral damage.

This is what happens when chickens get free access to your strawberry plants.



So, yea, it was pretty clear that if I wanted to have any kind of garden--container or otherwise--we needed to find some way to keep the hens away from the plants.

Initially, I was thinking of some series of wire mesh cages to go over my containers. That seemed rather complicated and elaborate. Plus, I have garden beds and containers all over the yard. I'd have to make the whole place a crazy fortress in order to keep the hens away from all my different fruits and vegetables. Clearly, the easiest and smartest solution would be to fence in the chickens. I'm not sure why I didn't think of that sooner, like three years ago.

Luckily, our chicken coop is situated in a part of the yard that's free of garden beds and largely unlandscaped. Even more luckily, I have a husband who is good at building things. Thus, our new chicken pen was created in only 2 short days.

Dakota used the same nice heavy gauge wire fence that he used in the run, and some green metal fence posts, to build a spacious enclosure in the bottom left corner of the backyard. Here's the fence that starts at the left side of the run and extends to the fence we share with our neighbors. I planted a few rosemary bushes just below this section to help hold up the hillside, and I'm going to plant some lavender on the uphill side this weekend.

After the fence was complete, he built a nice gate out of wood right near the door to the run. We kept the coop itself outside the fence, so we can still easily get to the nesting box, and I can re-plant the green roof (for the third time) without the worry that the chickens will destroy it immediately.

The new pen setup is working really nicely. We go downstairs every morning and open the door to the run, and all the girls head out into their free range area to dig and frolic to their hearts content. All our fruit trees and most of our plants are on the non-chicken side of the fence, so they are now safe from chicken claws and beaks. The hens all seem really happy with their new contained freedom, and Linda's head is completely healed.

I feel good knowing our hens have lots of space and fun stuff to do while we're away from the house. After all, the whole reason we got chickens was to get eggs from happy, healthy, free range chickens.

My newest chickens, Doris and Linda, have been integrated into the flock since June, and, sadly, things are not going very well. Linda, the Langshan, is being pretty brutally bullied by the older hens. The weird thing is, they lived together fairly peacefully for the first several months. Then, in early October, I came home to find that Linda's head was bleeding.

Over the next couple of days, the older girls managed to give her a pretty nasty wound on one side of her head, just behind her left eye. We added some additional perches to the run and put a second feeder up high, so that Linda didn't have to eat at the main feeder with the older girls. And we tried to free range everyone as often as possible. But, they kept picking on her. Her injury started to look really bad and I was very worried--although, happily, she didn't show any signs of distress beyond a general (reasonable) fear of her coop-mates. (I was worried about them pecking her brain, but she seems to be mentally okay--as far as I can tell.)

Our eventual solution was to let Linda and Doris out of the coop on their own every morning. I put out food and water for them in the yard and they free range all day, while the mean girls stay inside the run. Then, everyone free ranges in the evening after we get home from work. This method has allowed Linda's wound to heal somewhat, although it's still vulnerable to bleeding if one of the big girls gets at her.

Linda seems okay, though. She's even laying brown eggs, which is great. But, the daily segregated free-range doesn't seem like a perfect long-term solution since it leaves my garden completely vulnerable to Doris and Linda's sharp claws and voracious appetites. Plus, when it rains this winter, they're going to want to go inside the coop. And I don't know what we're going to do next time we go out of town.

I'm not sure what I can do next, beyond expanding the run so everyone can spread out more. I think part of the problem might be that they older girls don't want to give up any of their space. A bigger run would definitely help, but that takes time and hard work from Dakota. I don't know when he'd be able to get around to a project like that.

Tina is getting kind of old, so I imagine she'll die of natural causes pretty soon, and that will help with the space issue. Her death might also reshuffle the pecking order a little. Linda and Doris are big and hearty. If they would just stand up for themselves, I think the other girls would stop bullying. But, unfortunately, I can't give a chicken the "punch the toughest guy in the prison yard" pep talk. Maybe she'll figure it out on her own.

So, how's the flock integration going? Well...

Let's just say the new girls spend an awful lot of time on this ledge.

Interestingly, Betty, the Easter Egger, is the main aggressor among the older girls. She's the smallest of the adult hens, so maybe she's just reveling in having two smaller ones to boss around. In the pecking order, I actually think Betty comes ahead of Janice, the Cuckoo Marans. Janice is my biggest chicken, but she's also a little slow and dumb, so she gets bossed around more than you'd think. Tina, the oldest, tends to stay out of any scuffles. Betty is smaller than Janice and Tina, but she's tough.

Once Doris and Linda are fully grown, they'll both be bigger than Betty. I wonder how that will change the dynamic between them. Maybe it won't. I just hope the new girls eventually feel comfortable coming down off their ledge.

Last month, I finally settled on names for the new chickens. The White Rock is called Doris and the Langshan is Linda. My father wanted Susan, but we have a good friend by that name, and I didn't want anyone to get them confused (ahem).

In May, I also started letting Doris and Linda outside, first in the tractor and then the yard to free range. And, of course, I began introducing them to our three big hens. That went... okay. But, a weekend camping trip was approaching, and I didn't want to leave the pullets in their box or in the less-secure chicken tractor for two days. So, full integration became necessary.

I felt the girls were big enough to take some minor bullying, and fast enough to escape too much nasty pecking from the hens. So, I put Doris and Linda in the big coop and then hung out for a while to make sure it didn't get too brutal in there. There was a little of the usual pecking but nothing too crazy.

I briefly considered doing that thing where you put the new girls inside the coop late at night while everyone is sleeping and then they all wake up together without realizing there are two new chickens in their flock. But I don't think my chickens are that oblivious.

Integration is going somewhat well. No one is bleeding or missing major feathers. But I would be lying if I didn't admit that Linda and Doris live with a certain amount of fear. Most of the day they are perched up high in the run, away from the three big girls. I try to let everyone out as much as possible, just to give the little ones a break.

Doris and Linda are growing up nicely, and I see them eating, so they should be fine in time. In fact, they should get just as big as their older sisters before too long.

So the chicks are over three weeks old, and we still haven't settled on names. I blame this mostly on our busy schedules and the fact that I wanted to give my son a chance to name them. He hasn't really responded when I asked him what we should call the baby chickens, although that shouldn't surprise me. All his favorite stuffed animals are just called what they are--Donkey, Big Bear, Little Bear, Lion, etc.--except for one stuffed shark inexplicably named Felix.

Some names in the running: Doris, Marcy, Rhonda, Sheila, Vicki, and Phyllis. Any votes? I plan to name them by Tuesday at the latest.

Other than their lack of name, the chicks are doing great. They're putting on new feathers almost every day and scratching around in the shavings of their brooder box with vigor. It'll still be a while before I introduce them to the big girls, but I think I'll start taking them outside shortly for some dirt scratching and sunshine.

Guess what I brought home last night? New chicks! Look at these fuzzy little peepers, all little and sweet. It's fun to have new ones after several years with just the grown hens.

The little girls don't have names yet, but the yellow one is a White Rock and the black and white one is a Langshan. I have never owned either breed before, but both are supposed to be pretty good layers of eggs and fairly good tempered. I got them from someone who posted on the Los Angeles Urban Chicken Enthusiasts message board. She had ordered 15 chicks from McMurray Hatchery, but ended up not being able to keep any of them. Since I was looking for just two chicks but needed them sexed and vaccinated, it worked out perfectly for me to take two of hers. I originally asked for a Rhode Island Red and an Australorp, but sadly those two chicks didn't survive their first night at the woman's home.

These two chicks seem pretty hardy. They peeped their little heads off the whole (long) drive home, and they have settled in happily in our old brooder box. I've got a big bag of organic starter-grower crumble from Centinela Feed in Burbank, a thermometer and a heating light, so they should be all set for quite a while. I'll keep them apart from the big girls for at least 8 weeks, maybe longer. I don't want them to get beat up.

Of course, these are the first chicks we've gotten since my son was born. As you can imagine, he's pretty excited about the baby chickens. When he woke up this morning and saw the box, he shouted "Hi chicken!" over and over for several minutes. We let him hold both chicks today and did a good job being gentle. I think it's going to be really fun to raise these chicks with him. We've been gardening, too, so he'll be an expert urban farmer before he's even in elementary school--or at least as much of an "expert" as I am.

When Dakota first built our coop back in 2008, one of the many cool features was its green roof. After doing his research, he built a multi-layered system to make sure the roof had good drainage and the right soil mix. You can read that original post and see photos here. It was a really cool idea, but, unfortunately, the original green roof pictured below did not survive.

I blame a combination of squirrels, blazing sun and infrequent watering. You know, the usual.

Recently, I have really wanted to re-plant the coop's green roof. It's still a great idea, and the drainage system still works. All I really needed was a way to keep the plants from drying out in the summer and keep the squirrels from digging up their roots. My solution was simple and obvious: burlap.

I had some burlap left over from my son's birthday party decorations. So, I added additional soil into the green roof "bed" and then stretched the burlap across. Then, I used a heavy-duty staple gun to secure the burlap around the edges of the roof.

There was one plant still alive in the old roof, so I cut a little "x" in the burlap to let it through. Then I cut a bunch of additional slits all over the burlap to add more plants.

I pressed the burlap back around the base of each plant for maximum protection and water-retention. The plants I chose this time are a variety of succulents--some taken from cuttings of existing plants and some purchased by Dakota. Several are aggressive spreaders, and my hope is that this new burlap mulch idea will allow the plants to grow and fill in the spaces in between. It should. Burlap is pretty permeable.

So, here's the newly re-planted green roof. I'll let you know how things progress this time. I promise to water more frequently this time around.

At the moment, I have 3 chickens. Two of them, Betty and Janice, are 3 years old this week. And the third, Tina, a black sex-link, is 5 1/2. That's pretty old in chicken years. She's basically a grandma. But, despite her age, Tina is still going strong.

In fact, she even laid an egg last week. And the egg looked good--no bumps or weird shell formations--just smooth and pink and lovely. Now, that is an impressive feat for such an elderly chicken. Tina has always been a consistent layer. In the spring and summer, I've gotten as many as 5 eggs a week from Tina.

Unlike Betty and Janice, and her hatch-sister, Peggy, who died several years ago, Tina has always let me hold her. I particularly appreciate this trait now that I have a son who likes to pet a chicken from time to time.

As you can see from the photo above, Tina is still looking good. Her black feathers are nice and shiny, and her comb is healthy and red. What I'm trying to say is, Tina is the best hen I have ever had. She is smart and pretty and healthy and productive. Tina is a super-chicken.

So... Cheers to you, Tina. Enjoy those sunflower seeds I just put in the coop. You deserve them!

The other day, I was talking with my mom and sister about adventure playgrounds. Specifically, the playgrounds full of scaffolding, piles of wood, old tires and rusty tools that were popular in England in the 1960s through 80s. (If you've ever seen the awesome documentary series 7 Up, they use the kids playing at an adventure playground as a framing device.) My mom, sister and I were laughing about how those playgrounds were weirdly dangerous but also extremely fun. I never really played at one, but apparently my sister really loved to use the saw at the adventure playground she went to when we briefly lived in London as children.

These days, most playgrounds are super-safe and rusty-tool-free, which is good, I guess. But I also think kids need to be able to scramble around and fall down and have "adventures" when they can. Happily, I think our backyard is turning out to be a private adventure playground for my son--and possibly his more rough-and-tumble friends.

As my son gets older, he's starting to really love backyard playtime. In fact, today he ran right to the back door as soon as I suggested it. And why wouldn't he love it? There are rocks and pebbles to collect, stairs to climb, sticks to swing, buckets of dirt to dig in, plants to smell and hills to scramble up (and occasionally fall down). And, of course, chickens!

Yesterday, my son made his way around the yard while I tried to clear our some weeds so I can plant the awesome wildflower seeds my sister gave me for Christmas. It was really fun to watch him explore, and when he's just a little bit older we'll be able to spend even more time out there digging, playing and learning. I can't wait.

In the past, I have posted about my troubles rounding up chickens. If your hens don't want to go back in their coop after a session of free ranging, it can be pretty damn hard to convince them to do so. Chickens are fast and they can be surprisingly sneaky.
It's almost always a bad idea to chase an uncooperative hen, particularly for me, since my backyard is on a hillside. I'm more likely to fall on my butt than I am to actually nab one of my hens. But I don't want to have to keep the girls cooped up because they can't be trusted to return to the safety of their fenced-in run when I need to go to work. Luckily, I have come up with a new technique to herd them that I wanted to share.



All you need to execute my newly discovered Hose Technique (patent pending) is a good, long outdoor house and a spray nozzle. With these tools, you too can herd your hens right back into their run in a manner of minutes. Here's how it works:

Stand in a location that allows you to see your chickens and their run. Then, start spraying short bursts of water behind them. This will startle them a bit, but it won't hurt them, even if you accidentally hit them in the butt with a little water. Basically, the water will annoy them, so they'll run in the other direction. Using their desire to avoid getting wet, you can herd the hens with water the way a dog would herd sheep. It takes a little practice, but it works really well for me, because I can spray a stream of water much more quickly than I can run back and forth shooing my hens.

In fact, now that I've used Hose Technique a couple of times, my hens start to head back towards their run as soon as the first spray hits nearby. They know that as soon as they get in the run, that weird water will stop showing up.

I know some folks may not enjoy startling their pet chickens, and this technique is not for everyone. But for me, if it's a choice between very rarely letting my girls free range and using the Hose Technique, the hose wins.

I know I tend to be kind of a chicken proselytizer, always playing up the benefits of chicken-keeping and how easy it is to have hens as pets. Well, there is a darker side to backyard chickens, which I will share with you now... Chickens are jerks.

Okay, much of the time chickens are perfectly nice, and maybe even funny or interesting. But, sometimes, they can be real a**holes, like when they break through fencing boundaries and dig up a bunch of your garden even though they have the whole yard to run around and scratch in and all you're asking is that they stay out of this one space!

Yes, the dirty little secret about backyard chickens is that they can be very destructive to your plants and vegetables. Last week, my hens somehow managed to break into the only two fenced-in areas of the yard and destroy several carefully-tended squash plants. Considering how minimal my garden is this year and how late I started growing things, this was a crushing loss.

When it happened, I was pretty furious. I mean, honestly, they have a HUGE amount of space for three hens. They have weed patches, dirt patches and lots of bushes and trees to hide under. But that wasn't enough for those girls. Oh no! They had to break into my garden.

I guess the moral of this story is that chickens are very curious. When they see a nice green plant surrounded by straw, they really want to get at it. So, build your fences well and watch those chickens closely, or you may find yourself in your backyard one evening shouting swear words at three clueless hens. (This may or may not have happened to me.)

Hope you enjoy a beautiful Spring day.

I apologize for all the gloomy chicken posts lately, but I'm afraid I have some distressing news: Peggy has passed on to that great chicken coop in the sky. We had some crazy times, me and the Peggster, and she will be missed.

I'm no chicken doctor, but I believe Peggy died of natural causes. Several weeks ago, I found her lying dead in a corner of the run when I went down to give the hens their morning scoop of food. There was no sign of foul play (ahem), and, honestly, it looked like she'd just keeled over while sitting on a perch. Hopefully, she died happy, clucking away with her sisters.

Peggy was one of my older chickens, at a little less than 3 years old. Tina, who is the same age, is still laying eggs and seems quite vigourous, but Peggy hadn't laid for a year or so, and seemed to have slowed down a little. She is my first chicken to die of old age. We gave her our traditional viking funeral.

Well, it's been almost a week since Rita the hen disappeared, and I think it's time to admit she's not coming back. It's hard to believe a chicken can just vanish into thin air, but I am pretty sure that's exactly what happened. Hawk attack just seems like the most likely scenario.

It's sad to think of Rita meeting her end in such a sudden and scary way. I just hope the hawk killed her quickly, and that her life in my backyard was a happy one. I think it was.

There is some good chicken news this week, though. Perhaps to cheer me up--or perhaps because they don't want to "disappear" like Rita did--three of my hens have started laying!

Tina was the first to start up again. She's the oldest and has already molted twice, but she's still laying big, nicely-shaped pink eggs. It must be her hearty mutt genetics. If you're looking for a consistent layer, Black Sex-links are the breed to choose. Tina was soon followed by Janice, laying dark brown eggs, and Betty (I think) laying green ones. It's possible the green eggs are from my other Easter Egger, Peggy, but I doubt it. Peggy's also an older girl, and she hasn't laid in ages.

Production has been excellent for the last week. I've even had a few 3-egg mornings. Hopefully the hens will keep up the good work, and I'll be back to gifting eggs to friends and neighbors in no time.

The flowers pictured above were grown in our back yard. It's been a great year for the iris patch. They're blooming like crazy, despite--or maybe because of--this winter's weird weather.

• Sprayer hose: You need a good, hard stream to spray the poop off any of your detachable coop parts (perches, removable floor, food and water containers)
• Metal dust pan: This is great for scooping up dirty straw and shavings (and dumping them on your compost pile)
• A cheap metal wall scraper: This tool is extremely handy for scraping off dried-on poop and gathering up shavings hidden in a corner
• An old metal barbecue brush: If you really need to scrub a dirty perch or coop floor clean, these can work great. Just make sure you mark it so no one accidentally uses it on your grill.

I went down to the chicken coop this morning to feed and water the girls, and when I opened the door to let them free range a little, only four hens emerged. Rita, my Silver-Laced Wyandotte, is missing! (That's her on the right in the photo below.)

After confirming Rita wasn't inside the coop, I searched the whole yard, checking under every structure and bush and in the overgrown ivy where the chickens sometimes hide. Dakota and our son came down to look too, but there was no sign of her--and no sign of a struggle. No pile of feathers or blood trail. Nothing.

I looked over the neighbor's fences and into the no man's land below our back yard, and Rita wasn't there, either. To be honest, I highly doubt she jumped a fence or squeezed through a hole in the gate. The chickens have never shown any interest in leaving the yard or getting too far away from their coop, even when I've (stupidly) chased them.

The last time I saw Rita was last night just before sundown. She was with the other hens, scratching around in the dirt near my garden. My son and I even spent some quiet time watching the hens free range and shooing them away from the artichoke patch.

After dark, I went down to the coop and closed the door to the run. I didn't check to make sure everyone was inside, because the idea that one of the chickens would have stayed out after dark never occurred to me. Even now, I doubt that's what happened. There would be no reason for Rita to stay out when all her chicken sisters were already settling in for the night. Chickens do not have a taste for the nightlife.

My current theory is that Rita was carried off by a hawk sometime yesterday evening. This is hard to believe--Rita is a full-sized chicken--but I have seen hawks eyeing the girls before. Once, a hawk tried to swoop down and grab one while I was in the yard with them. That attempt was unsuccessful, but maybe this time the hawk got lucky. I hope not.

Has anyone lost a chicken to a hawk before? Would there really be no sign of a struggle? And wouldn't I have heard something? I was up in my son's room, which overlooks the back yard, at the time I suspect she disappeared. I feel like there would have been a screech or a loud cluck or something if a hawk suddenly grabbed Rita. Wouldn't the other girls have made a fuss--or been skittish this morning when I let them out? Still, a hawk attack seems like the most likely scenario.

The only other explanations I can think of are (1) escape and (2) theft. These both seem pretty unlikely. I keep hoping Rita will just suddenly show up, and I haven't ruled out posting a "Missing Chicken" sign or two. I guess she might have wandered off. Maybe? Poor Rita. She is/was so young.

As you may remember, my new hens--Rita, Janice and Betty--have been somewhat disappointing in the egg-laying department. For a long time, none of them were laying. Then, Janice stepped up and spent a couple of months regularly laying lovely, dark brown eggs.

Unfortunately, after two months of good production, Janice suddenly stopped laying. Perhaps she was put off by the shortening of the days, although that never bothered any of my other chickens. My older Black sex-link hen, Tina, kept laying for a while, but then she started molting. This is Tina's second molt, so I think her egg-laying days may be over.

With Tina out of commission, that meant we had five chickens in the coop and zero (ZERO!) layers. Sigh. This situation went on for about a month, with no eggs from the younger girls, despite both treats of squash guts and chard stems and threats about chicken soup. Then, happily, Betty, the all-white Easter Egger, stepped up.

Dakota found a large, light green egg in the nesting box about three weeks ago, and Betty has been a good little layer ever since.

We're getting about five eggs a week from Betty, which is nice, although I really wish at least one more hen would lay. Now that the weather has turned cold, it's baking season, and I've had to buy eggs at the store so we have enough to use in homemade brownies, cookies and cakes.