Sam-I-Am's Blog

Au revoir Henry
We said goodbye to Henry yesterday. He had started to anticipate the dawn and his crow was only getting louder. The day it woke both myself and Kelley up we knew we had to find him another home - nevermind the neighbors - pregnant women need sleep.

He should be settling into a new life on a farm by now, thanks to a generous offer from a Travis master gardener.

A rooster named Hen
While out working in the garage this weekend I heard a strange muted noise that sounded almost like a cock-crow. Sure enough as I approaced the chicken coop "Henrietta" stretched out her neck and crowed at me.

Kelley and I had discussed this possibility a week before - and I'd maintained that her much more developed comb and waddle was just a variation in the breed. A week makes a big difference, and she/he now had the long legs, drooping tail - and apparently something to crow about. Very sneaky - she's not exhibited any rooster-like herding or beady-eye-meeting at all up until now (at about 4months old).

This leaves us in a bit of a quandry: we live in a regular suburban neighborhood where the quaint rural sound of a cock crowing from 3:30am onwards might not be appreciated (which was why we stumped up the extra for sexed pullets.) Not to mention we now have 5 potential layers instead of the 6 we'd planned on.

We'll see how that crow develops. If he behaves we might even call him Henry.

Grown up chickens
The young chicks made the move into the large pen with the other 3 older hens a week or 2 ago. Ever since we've been going in there at night and perching them on the branch with the other girls (they huddle in a corner otherwise - not safe and very damp in the recent weather.) Tonight when I went out there, the two black australorps (Henrietta and Dorothy) were perched all by themselves. Buffy (the buff orpington ) had gotten as far as the nesting box before giving up.
It was a sweet scene - they're almost there. I better hurry on the new nesting boxes, they should be laying by the fall and might start any week now.

New worms
Our new composting worms arrived from Territorial Seed. They are installed in the worm bin (we got it cheap through a city program in Berkeley) and settling in. I have high hopes for them - I just hope they handle the transition

I did call the local bait shop btw on a tip that they were a good source for the same, where they go by the name "red wigglers". They wanted $2.50 for a "handful" - about 20 worms the guy estimated. Territorial charge $33 for 1000. I don't think anybody's really counting, but there's certainly hundreds in there.