Marblehead Hens

Two Girls, One Nest

2010-04-24T10:31:00.001-04:00

I'm hoping this becomes the next Internet sensation.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Chicks Eating Watermelon

2010-03-24T20:57:00.003-04:00

A little snack before bedtime ...

Live Coop Cam is back up

2010-03-15T10:56:00.000-04:00

After a few days offline due to some weather-related issues, the live coop cam is back up and running. You can access it from the top of the page.

Breaking even? Ask again in 2015.

2010-03-12T15:01:00.000-05:00

Getting lots of questions about if/when these hens will start paying for themselves. Here's my best guess:

Including coop, feeder, waterer, feed, etc., it costs about $1300 to the date of the first egg. From here on out, let's assume two dozen eggs per week. Ari tells me that the free-range, cage-free, organic, eggs we buy are $4 / dozen. That's $8/week and $416/year. Assume we spend $10 per month to feed the girls and $30 more per year on other stuff (including more hens when these stop laying), so our costs are $150 per year, and our "profit" is $266 per year. So it'll take 4.88 years to break even.

4.88 years from March 3, 2010, the date of our first egg, will be Sunday, January 18, 2015.

After that, it's free eggs forever. If I live to age 90 -- I'll save more than $13,000 (2010 dollars).

First Egg!!!!!

2010-03-03T17:09:00.002-05:00

164 days after hatching, the girls have laid their first eggs.

We were supposed to fly to Florida today, but Jackson started throwing up at 4:30 am (Talia got the silver medal by throwing up at around 12:30 pm). As I was on the phone with the airline canceling our flights, Ari and Talia heard a big commotion out in the back yard -- lots of clucking and squawking. I followed them outside to see what was going on, and I immediately noticed a small egg in the sand in the run. We grabbed it, admired it, then cooked it up. Jackson got to try it first.

An hour later I went outside and found an egg in the coop. Then I removed the chicken wire that had been keeping the chickens out of their nest boxes until they were ready to lay. Within 30 minutes, an extra egg appeared in the middle next box along side the 5 fake eggs that were already there.

That's it. Three small, perfect eggs. I think Penny laid the first one, Juliet the second, and Henrietta the third, I can't be sure.

Jackson and Talia fill up the feeder

2010-01-19T08:34:00.000-05:00

Girls Night Out!

2010-01-11T10:46:00.000-05:00

I accidentally locked the chickens out of the coop last night -- the door to the run must have swung shut when we were at my parents house, and I forgot to check when we got home. It was about 15 degrees when I went outside to check on them at 5:15 this morning, but fortunately there was little wind. Zoe was walking around the yard, pecking at the grass that was sticking up through the snow and ice, and the other three were roosted in the windows of a wooden playhouse we have in the corner of the yard. I put them inside the coop, but they went right our into the run, completely unharmed and unfazed. I gave them some raw oats and went to the gym. They were still outside when I got home around 7, so I think their night out didn't cause any harm.

Washington Post: D.C. residents fight to raise poultry in the city

2010-01-06T16:05:00.000-05:00

By Adrian Higgins
Thursday, January 7, 2010; GZ04

It sort of began as a kindergarten science project. Caryn Ernst got three dozen fertilized chicken eggs to incubate so she could show children the miracle of chicks chipping their way into the world.

One dozen eggs went to Peabody Elementary School, another dozen to Watkins Elementary School and the third to the Capitol Hill home of Ernst, her husband, Josh Silverman, and their two daughters, Leah, 7, and Ada, 5. The girls attend those schools.

The family ended up with eight young birds. The intent was to keep three hens once their sex was determined; the rest would be sent back to the farm in Fauquier County where they got the eggs. With their cousins, Leah and Ada built and hand-painted a chicken coop in their small rowhouse back yard, alongside a fenced run.

Their supportive next-door neighbor has a long and public side yard that became the perfect spot for the growing chickens to stretch their legs and peck for bugs. Each had a name, including Lightning, Peep and Yellow.

One afternoon in June, Ernst was folding laundry when she heard a dog barking. She ran outside to see if the chickens were all right, only to find a police officer declaring the fowl illegal. He had summoned animal control to pick them up, and when that officer showed up, along with more police, a neighborhood scene developed. Inside the house, the girls "were pacing and sobbing," said Ernst. The animal control officer "was originally going to take them then. We were trying to negotiate a better deal so we knew where they would go," she said. He gave the family 10 days to find a home for them and so the chickens went back to the original Fauquier County farm.

Determined to bring them back, lawfully, Ernst called the city's health department, but "no one seemed to know what the law was." A spokesman for the D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs told me in May that city law doesn't permit the keeping of chickens. But Ernst came across municipal regulations for animal control that in theory would allow the keeping of chickens if certain requirements were met. The trouble, said Ernst, is that the regulation requires a coop to be set back so far from neighbors that you would have to have a least an acre of land, which effectively denies chickens to city dwellers. Another provision also prohibits coops within 50 feet of a home, another deal-breaker in a rowhouse neighborhood.

Ernst then found an ally in her D.C. Council member from Ward 6, Tommy Wells. He has introduced legislation that would allow residents to get a permit to keep chickens if they have the written consent of at least 80 percent of the neighboring property owners.

Wells said that when he looked into the issue, he found other cities across the country relaxing bans on keeping poultry. Typically, they allow only hens, not roosters, and the chickens are raised for their eggs, not meat. Wells said the law would also require coops to be kept clean, dry and sanitary. He has asked the city to adopt the changes administratively, at which point he would withdraw the bill.

Ernst's neighbor and fellow chicken champion, Amanda Cundiff, last week presented Councilmember David Catania (chairman of the committee on health) with a petition signed by 130 people supporting measures to allow chickens in the city. "Eggs hatch in February, and it would be nice if people could raise chickens this year," she said.

Ernst is also hopeful the measures will come into effect. Hens, in contrast to roosters, cluck quietly and don't need a male bird to lay eggs. She is looking forward to reuniting three of her hens with her daughters, but that probably won't happen until the spring, assuming the law is changed.

"I told [the farmer] that if they're still there we'll take three of them back," she said. "If not, we'll probably hatch new ones."

Wells said he has no plans to keep chickens, but for those who do, the hobby goes hand in glove with raising your own vegetables. Both practices are instructive to children and restore a sense of connection to agriculture that has been lost for most urban dwellers.

A few hens and a small vegetable plot will not stop you from buying food, but they offer a huge symbol to people who feel they have lost control of their food chain or who believe that industrial agriculture is environmentally unsustainable.

"You do see young people who are far more open to the idea of locally grown food," said Wells.

As the District comes round to this, it would be good for other urbanized jurisdictions around the Beltway to look at easing their restrictions. Most have similar setback rules that effectively deny poultry to anyone who doesn't have an uncommonly large property.

Higgins wrote about keeping chickens in Montgomery and Calvert counties, as well as in the District, in May. Read that column and view a narrated slide show on the topic at http://www.washingtonpost.com/home.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/05/AR2010010502909.html

I'm so sorry, but I couldn't resist ...

2009-12-23T20:03:00.000-05:00

Don't ask

Robert Kraft gets henhouse on Chestnut Hill

2009-12-23T11:57:00.000-05:00

May be old news by now, but New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft has received permission to house 12 hens on his property in Brookline.

Robert Kraft gets henhouse on Chestnut Hill

Robert Kraft gets henhouse on Chestnut Hill

By Gayle Fee and Laura Raposa | Wednesday, December 16, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | The Inside Track

Photo by Matt Stone

Robert Kraft scored his own personal fowl yesterday after Brookline health officials declined to throw the flag on the Patriots [team stats] poohbah’s plans to move his flock of chickens to a new locker room in Chestnut Hill.

Brookline Public Health Commissioner Dr. Alan Balsam sent word that the birds, which now reside at the family’s summer place in New Seabury, are welcome to winter at Casa Kraft in the toney town. However the barnyard biddies must be exiled to Cape Cod in July and August.

As we told you weeks ago, the Super Bowl biggie’s peeps petitioned the town for permission to bring the chickens home to roost during the cold months. But some of the Krafts’ neighbors were squawking because they didn’t want to be disturbed by the clucking fowl.

Balsam, who told us that three other town residents also keep chickens, had no problem with the request, but reserved the right to slap some restrictions on the pigskin poohbah’s whole back-to-nature experience.

According to a letter sent to the Krafts on Monday, the gentleman farmer must have both an enclosed shed and a pen - so there’s not a Chicken Run through the neighborhood. He must also feed the birds inside the shed and properly compost their waste. Roosters, which are ever so noisy, are not allowed.

Neighbors who cried fowl over the Krafts’ request, reported that the family already has a shed and workmen were seen adding onto it yesterday.

“As far as composting, they are either going to use one of our composting bins or something else they buy at Home Depot,” Balsam told the Track. “However, it will be inspected by the town.”

Balsam’s chicken cops will make unannounced visits to check on Kraft’s coop, and Farmer Robert will have to submit a pest control management plan as a requirement of the “Keeping of Animals” permit.

File Under: Wishbone Formation?

The girls are back outside!!!

2009-12-21T12:01:00.000-05:00

I've been pretty nervous since we got about a foot of snow overnight from Saturday to Sunday. Due to the way the wind was blowing, the run filled with about 2 feet of snow. If I had thought of it, I could have protected the three open sides of the run with some scrap ply I have. But, I didn't think of it.

What was making me nervous was the change in the girls' routine. Normally, they head outside as soon as I open the door in the morning to eat and drink. But, they refused to go outside Sunday morning. The heated waterer is outside, and I kept bringing fresh water inside the coop, but it didn't seem like they were drinking at all. They have food inside and outside, but I wasn't sure if they were eating either. The same thing happened this morning -- they did not go outside and didn't seem that interested in the food and water inside.

HOWEVER, I checked the live feed a few minutes ago, and the girls were outside, eating, drinking, and pooping (the pooping should help melt the snow!). I am very relieved.

Winter is here

2009-12-12T13:44:00.003-05:00

Winter is finally here. Temps dipped into the high teens last night, and, for the second night in a row, the chicks water was frozen in the morning. Earlier in the fall, I bought a heated waterer for just this occasion. It's got a 100-watt heating element built into the base. To conserve energy, it's controlled by a thermostat -- however, it doesn't say what temp it comes on at, so we'll see how efficient it really is. It holds 3 gallons, so should last at least a week, as long as it stays clean. As you can see from the picture, an extension chord plugs right into the base. Due to the shape of the base, I only had one extension chord that would fit. Unfortunately, it was a 50-foot medium duty chord. Doesn't look great, but does the job.

Meanwhile, the girls don't seemed to be bothered by the cold at all. They ran right outside this morning and have been out all day. It's 10 degrees warmer in the coop, but the appear to prefer the sun, even though it's below freezing outside.

More pictures from the hens first snow day!

2009-12-06T20:07:00.000-05:00

Snow!

2009-12-06T07:20:00.000-05:00

We woke up this morning to about 2 inches of snow.

The girls were a little wary at first, as you can see you from video below. But they soon decided that a little snow wasn't going to keep them cooped up for the whole day.

More video later.

Pats Owner Bob Kraft Petitions City for Permission To Keep Chickens

2009-12-04T07:42:00.001-05:00

http://www.bostonherald.com/track/inside_track/view.bg?articleid=1216447&position=0

Brookline clucking over Robert Kraft coop
By Gayle Fee and Laura Raposa | Friday, December 4, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | The Inside Track

Photo by Stuart Cahill
Robert Kraft’s football team laid an egg down in New Orleans earlier this week - and now the New England Patriots [team stats] pooh-bah wants to keep chickens in his Brookline backyard!

The Krafts’ caretaker Rodney Buttry appeared at a recent Brookline Health Department meeting to petition the town to allow a dozen barnyard biddies to take up residence at the Krafts’ Chestnut Hill homestead. The birds would be relocated from Casa Kraft on the Cape.

Word is, Robert and Myra’s grandkids are big fans of the fowl and enjoy the whole back-to-nature experience. Not to mention the tasty eggs.

Anyway, the town building department has given the gentleman farmer the green light, but Health Department Director Dr. Alan Balsam is holding off on making a decision for 10 days.

“At the meeting I outlined my concerns, including what the structure will look like, if it’s enclosed, if it has a roof, and if the chickens can get out,” Balsam told the Track. “I don’t want roosters, and the chickens should be limited to 12. Most importantly, I would like to see a rodent-control plan and would like to know how they are going to compost the chicken feces.”

Ew.

Which leads us to the Krafts’ neighbors, one of whom is clucking about potential noise and smell as well as the wild animals the chickens might attract.

“As an elderly resident, I am concerned for our health, welfare and safety as well as that of our small dog,” wrote Robert Usen, whose property is 240 feet from the proposed coop.

“I am considering their concerns,” said Balsam, who added that three other Brookline residents keep chickens on their property.

Apparently, chicken-keeping is a new celebrity rage. The Krafts’ pal Donald Trump is rumored to keep poultry on his spread in Bedford, N.Y. And, of course, The Donald’s Bedford neighbor, Martha Stewart, is always squawking about her flock, and “Desperate Housewives” gal Felicity Huffman’s kids get a kick out of their coopful.

File Under: Chicken Dance.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/track/inside_track/view.bg?articleid=1216447

-- Post From My iPhone

The coop cam is now outdoors!!

2009-11-27T13:03:00.004-05:00

Hi everyone. I updated the website and moved the coop cam to the chicks' outdoor run.
Lots more action now. Check it out!!!

Chickens feast on pumpkin on Thanksgiving

2009-11-26T10:22:00.002-05:00

Thanksgiving is our favorite holiday, and, for this year at least, the chicks are enjoying it too. I went out early this morning, let the chicks out into the yard, cleaned the coop, and hung a pumkpin in the run. The chicks were wary at first, but, once ~~Penny~~ Zoe started eating it, they all joined in.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Chicken Nipples

2009-11-20T14:11:00.002-05:00

Some of you may have noticed the new waterer hanging in the middle of the coop on the coop cam. It's called the Avian Aqua Miser, and it provides water to the chicks via a small push-in nipple that the chicks peck at.

The animated gif on their website summarizes it pretty well:

The advantages of this type of watering system are many. Unlike the open-trough style waterer I was using before, the chicks can't get wood shavings and poop in this waterer so their water stays clean. And that means that they stay healthier, and I don't have to change the water as often. Further, because it's a closed watering system, the waterer can be removed, refilled, and replaced, with zero chance of spilling, and that means that the coop stays dry, and I don't have to clean it as often.

It took the girls about 10 minutes to learn how to use it. The trick was to get one of them to use it, and the rest followed suit. The only one in the coop when I first installed it was Henrietta, so I held her head underneath and pressed up on the nipple so that the water dripped on her. She figured out how to get the water pretty quickly, and, ten minutes later, the other girls came inside to see what was going on and joined right in.

The Avian Aqua Miser cost $30 (shipping included), but it's really just a dollar store plastic pitcher with a $2 nipple installed in the bottom. If I could do it again, I would buy a nipple and pitcher and install it myself.

We are Front Page News!!!

2009-11-16T11:04:00.004-05:00

There's a story about our chicks today in our local paper, the Salem Evening News, and guess what?

They made the FRONT PAGE!!

Here's the full text:

'Coop cam' offers a live look at Marblehead family's hens

By Alan Burke
Staff writer

MARBLEHEAD — Want to see four young Marblehead chicks strutting through their daily routines on the Internet? There's plenty of drama, including watching statuesque Zoe establish her dominance over the shy Henrietta.

Imagine the emotion. Imagine the feathers flying. Imagine the eggs.

On second thought, you don't have to imagine. The whole feathered soap opera is available on Joe Selby's Web site, http://marbleheadhens.blogspot.com/. In fact, a webcam monitors his backyard chicken coop and four stars, including Juliet and Penny Henny. It's "The Real World" with chickens, and none of the fowl language is censored. There is no sound, but lip readers — make that beak readers — will have a field day.

Accompanying these glimpses of chicken life is a blog that covers the history of the birds since their arrival at the Selby home (by mail) as tiny chicks in September.

Joe and his wife, Ariana, have three children, Jackson, Talia and Nathan, ages 5 months to 5 years, who are also featured on the blog. The family hopes to reap a nutritious harvest of eggs — up to half a dozen per day. The excess will be given to friends and neighbors.

"They'll start to lay eggs when they're 20 weeks old," Joe says.

Yet, with their online claw print potentially attracting viewers from all over the world, you get the feeling there's more involved here than subsidizing the family budget.

Joe Selby, 35, is a tax lawyer who grew up in Swampscott. He rejects the stereotype of the staid attorney consumed by numbers and legalisms.

"There's a whole generation of young lawyers where some of us aspire to do fun stuff with our families," he says.

The kids love the hens, agrees Ariana, a Marblehead native — although they loved them a little less when they realized you can't play with them. Instead, Mom sees the backyard coop as a chance to teach them a no-nonsense lesson about where food comes from before the packaging.

In addition to his passion for poultry, Joe is a bit of an electronics enthusiast, which led to setting up the camera, taking it online and even arranging some advertising with Google.

Of course, his ad earnings will amount to chicken feed — at least that's what he's hoping.

"Joe is doing all the work," Ariana says, "because I am busy with the three kids."

Having chickens was something the pair had long discussed, and she believes their little coop harkens back to a time not so long ago when Marblehead still had small farmers.

"I imagine my grandparents had chickens," she says.

Meanwhile, the birds, two Plymouth Rocks, a Rhode Island Red and an Orpington, are developing personalities and establishing a pecking order.

"Zoe is the biggest bird, and she certainly appears to be the head hen," Joe says. "Henrietta is not the smallest, but she appears to be last in the pecking order."

The Selbys won permission to put the chicken coop in the backyard of their Clipper Way home by explaining things to the Board of Health. Neighbors raised no objections.

"We promised no rooster," Joe said. "We live on a quiet street."

The ultimate fate of the four chickens remains in doubt. Joe Selby explains that once you name an animal you can't eat it. Ariana isn't so sure. After all, there's no telling how hungry a growing family can get.

"We're tough," she adds.

Free ranging in the backyard!

2009-11-15T16:22:00.006-05:00

FLOCKS A-PLENTY: A tale of three Jewish chicken coops

2009-11-14T07:57:00.002-05:00

From the Baltimore Sun.

The notion of raising chickens is foreign to those of us raised in suburbs in the past half-century or so. Most of us only know eggs from the supermarket refrigerator aisle and are unfamiliar with the particular variety of chicken that lays them — until recently.

Read more ...

Look what I won!!!

2009-11-12T12:26:00.005-05:00

http://plainoldchickens.blogspot.com/2009/11/twenty-followers-cool.html

USA Today Article About Backyard Chickens

2009-11-09T08:57:00.000-05:00

Chickens come home to roost in backyards around the USA

By G. Jeffrey MacDonald Special for, USA TODAY

PORTLAND, Maine — For months, Daniel Strauss has looked out the window of his home on busy Stevens Avenue and noticed as many as six chickens pecking at the soil of his backyard.

The hens' owner, Jennifer Rudin, wasn't sure at first whether her city neighbor would appreciate the chickens' free-ranging, which has become routine for them since Portland approved backyard chicken farming earlier this year. But having seen how adaptable chickens are, Strauss is planning to get a few of his own.

"They eat insects, they fertilize the yard – I don't really see any downside to them," Strauss says, adding that he'd also welcome fresh eggs. "The more food you can get from your own backyard, the better."

Full text after the break

A trend in backyard chicken farming is taking hold as urbanites, eager to scoop up flavorful organic eggs, discover how easy it is to get started. A simple coop, a pen and a little feed are such a low entry bar that people are flocking to try their hand at keeping chickens in a tough economy.

About 150 communities have launched Meetup.com networks of hobbyist chicken farmers in the past two years, says Andy Schneider, host of Backyard Poultry With the Chicken Whisperer on blogspot radio.

"It's not that complicated" to raise chickens, says Dave Belanger, publisher of Backyard Poultry magazine, which has seen subscriptions climb 42%, from 62,000 to 88,000, in the past year. "It's hard to mess it up."

Easy entry to the world of chicken farming, however, may turn out to be a mixed blessing. Though it means fresher eggs and closer ties to nature for some, critics say it can create headaches for others.

Iowa City Mayor Regenia Bailey opposes efforts to allow backyard chickens in her community. One concern: University students often leave pets behind, she says, and the city –home to the University of Iowa – would need to develop facilities to shelter abandoned chickens.

Another problem: Small Midwestern farmers are increasingly trying to raise a diversity of organic produce beyond corn, oats and soybeans. But that movement faces an uphill battle, Bailey says, when locals who are passionate about high-quality eggs bypass their local farmers.

"We have a lot of small farmers around here making chickens and eggs available for sale," Bailey says. "My fundamental question is: Why aren't we supporting the regional economy?"

For some would-be chicken farmers, the life has turned out to be harder than it first appeared.

Ruth Hoffman keeps chickens in an Atlanta-area community where she says it may not be legal. She says she adopted three from a neighbor after the responsibilities, which include cleaning out manure and arranging for coverage before overnight trips, got to be too much for him.

Yet for Hoffman, raising seven chickens has become an easy way to get eggs from hens that she knows eat a natural diet and don't receive excessive medications. Fetching breakfast in the backyard, she says, is far more convenient than traveling to buy from a local farmer who meets her standards.

"To go through the whole process of finding a CSA (community-supported agriculture program) or a farm nearby, that's really not practical right now," says Hoffman, who has been raising chickens for a year. "It's a lot easier for me to do it myself."

The Rudins' chickens enjoy woodsy accommodations, complete with chain-link pen and two coops – one a tall shed with sloped roof and framed glass windows for summer, plus a cozier plywood structure for winter.

They have routines. Late afternoon means wandering through neighbors' yards and munching fat worms, among other treats. They don't cross Stevens Avenue, Rudin says, though cars sometimes wait for them on a side street. By dusk they're back home, safe from raccoons, foxes and other predators.

Outfitting chickens costs about $200 for lumber, plus $5 a month for feed. Chickens earn their keep by offering many benefits, Rudin says, including a tick-free backyard and lots of fun for her children, Ted, 9, and Finnian, 5, and her husband, Jon. What's more, they make free-range eggs an affordable part of the family diet.

A low entry bar for chicken farming helps explain why some communities, such as Caledonia, Wis., have blocked recent campaigns to permit backyard chicken farming. Among the concerns: Negligent practices can lead to odors and attract rodents.

But Schneider, the backyard-poultry-show host, insists the risks are no greater than those associated with owning dogs.

Some observers believe that concerns about undercutting farmers are overblown, too.

"People who have chickens or who farm in their gardens are more interested in getting to know where their food comes from" than those who don't, Heike Mayer, professor of economic geography at the University of Bern in Switzerland, said in an e-mail. "Those who have chickens will be more likely to buy a piece of meat from the local small farm."

Meanwhile, organic eggs from local providers are commanding high prices. Joseph Heckman, a Rutgers University soil scientist and proprietor of River Birch Micro Farm in Monroe Township, N.J., gets $5 a dozen for his eggs. But in terms of backyard agriculture, he, too, would like to become more self-sufficient.

"I'm going to get a cow," Heckman says, explaining that he favors unpasteurized milk, which is illegal to buy or sell in New Jersey. "Then I'll have my own little dairy with a cow to produce the milk I need for my family."

Warm November Sunday at Appleton Farms

2009-11-08T11:18:00.000-05:00

A calf at Appleton Farms in Ipswich, Mass., the oldest continuously operating farm in the United States.

http://www.thetrustees.org/places-to-visit/northeast-ma/appleton-farms.html

Saturday morning

2009-11-07T14:35:00.000-05:00

Nice day for a dust bath and to get your little helper to clean the coop!!