The Long Saga of....the Chicks, Oh, the Chicks

Around the early part of March, just as we were starting to hear the words "Coronavirus" and "Covid 19" an awful lot but still were completely, blissfully unaware of what was about to come and kick our butts, we decided it was time to get baby chickens again. I guess it was right as schools sent kids home and everything was totally abnormal, but it was still just ramping up. I do remember going to IFA and being totally surprised that people were all crowding around together and pushing in tightly to check out the chicks, and that no one seemed to have any sense of giving each other any space. It was definitely at the beginning of the COVID days. I also remember that when we went to get our chicks we weren't able to get the kind of chicks that we wanted - Silkie Bantams. This was a big year for backyard chickens, so it would seem. It was hard to track them down! We ended up getting 5 of a new breed - a d'uccle. We had never heard of them but they were the only bantam breed at this IFA so we nabbed them and headed out. The next day the girls and I tried a different IFA and got three silkies and one of another new breed - the crested Polish bantam. 

Let's see if I can remember all of their names - the d'uccles were Muffin, Kermit, Marbles, Miss Medda, and Stinker. The silkies looked too much alike so I don't think we named them. Oh wait, yes we did. We just called all three of them The Scoops. The Polish guy had several names but I think we finally landed on Vlad. We lost Muffin early on - some chicks just don't make it. But the rest did very well, even though I did have to monitor closely for pasty butt, the bane of a growing baby chick and its owner. But we got them through and were so excited to have them. We especially adored Kermit, who had a little bit of a cross-beak deformity, but it wasn't enough to cause a problem. It was just adorable. We turned out to love the d'uccle breed - they have very fluffy feathery legs and little tufts of feathers sticking out from their faces like little wolverine sideburns.

After the great chicken disaster of October 2019, we spent a lot of time reinforcing the existing chicken coop and run area so that when the chicks were finally big enough to move outside we would feel safer. We slowly started letting them spend more and more time outside and eventually in the warm spring we let them start living out there. Nine chicks outgrew our brooder pretty darn quick. We were a little nervous but things seemed like they were going well. We were watching them grow with pleasure. Sadly, as always, we ended up with some roosters. We had to give three away - two of the d'uccles, Stinker and Miss Medda were boys, and sadly Vlad, the very tall and feather-headed Crested Polish. 

Miss Medda the Rooster

Stinker the Rooster

I hate leaving roosters at IFA. I feel like I'm abandoning them.

That was a heart breaker. I'll have to remember to never get just one of a new breed before - it's too sad to lose it to roosterdom. I think Vlad must have been the big protector of the group because the night after we returned him to IFA was the night it happened. Again.

It was our neighbor who came and got me and told me there were chicken parts in her back yard again. How can I possibly express the heartbreak we felt when we realized that our flock had again been attacked? This time the loss was not complete - there were two remaining chickens - both were silkies, white and fluffy, and one alarmingly larger than the other. We were so glad we had those two still, but we were absolutely devastated at the loss of the others. What was so strange was that we could not figure out how on earth an animal got in there. We couldn't see how it got in, and we could not find remains of any but two of the chickens. We just have no idea how it happened, and it was infuriating and so tragic for us. 

We realized right then and there that we were at a crossroads. We had to, at that moment, decide if we were going to have chickens or not have chickens. If we were done trying, that would be it. Clearly one of our two remaining animals was a rooster, which we would shortly have to give to IFA. And you can't just have one chicken. It isn't good. So, we either needed to commit to the chicken life, or we needed to get rid of them. Romney is not really an animal person, and was pretty luke-warm on the whole idea, and maybe even would have preferred to get rid of them. But the rest of us, even including Troy and myself, realized that we really truly wanted to live the chicken life. We made the commitment and began an absolutely heroic effort. 

First of all, we needed to get more chicks. Like I said, you can't just have one. Also, we couldn't figure out what the weakness was in the old coop or what was getting in there, so we knew it was time to make a real coop and make it now. I found out that IFA was all done selling chicks until the fall. (Who buys chicks in the fall?) Luckily I did some searching on the local classified listings and found a couple of backyard farmers who were still selling chicks. No silkies, sadly, but a long day in the car with the kids led us to American Fork and West Jordan, to two very interesting back yards (seriously, someone was doing taxidermy on a black bear in one of the driveways), and we came home with two boxes containing eleven chicks - four cochins, three one-day-old frizzled bantams, and four sebrights, which were a little older and bigger. We put the sebrights right outside - in an unbelievable turn of events, right before we bought this new flock of chicks, our silkie rooster got eaten by a raccoon. This time, the raccoon had clearly ripped open the side of the coop where some chicken wire was stapled in place. Oh the fury! Along with chicks we bought a raccoon trap, which has remain baited ever since, but we have yet to catch one. So, we were down to one remaining chicken. Luckily it was a sweet little silkie hen that we have named Sissy. Sissy immediately got along with the four sebrights. We named all four of them Chris, in honor of the four Chris's we love so much. Hemsworth, Evans, Pratt and Pine. The rest of the babies ended up back in the brooder in the garage where they got along swimmingly and became a sweet little flock. That very day we screwed plywood over any possibly openings in the coop and locked the outside birds up every night.

The one-day-old frizzled bantams

Now that we had our new flock, it was time to build them a coop. Troy and I began the most exhausting stretch of work we have done together ever. We, from that first moment, spent every single bit of free time we had getting this coop built. Troy and Romney had started the actual coop the year before, and it was already up and standing with three walls and a shingled roof. It just needed a forth wall with the nesting boxes. But we decided that we needed to start with the run. We had a deadline too - we were going on a trip in July and really needed a safe place for the chickens before then. So every Saturday we were up at 6:00 and were to Home Depot by 6:30 or 7:00.  We put in 14 hours every Saturday and worked on it every night after Troy got home from work. What the kids and I could do during the day we did. It was Herculean, if I may say so myself. Some people may say that we went slightly over the top as far as securing it, but hey, you try losing your flock three separate times and see how you feel.

We began by burying a foundation of concrete blocks. That was probably the hardest and longest Saturday, and that was just the start! Getting everything level was my job and it just about killed me. After that we bolted down a pressure-treated wood layer, then we began building the walls up from there. Each wall is a series of frames, each filled with hardware cloth (no more chicken wire for us!) that is all screwed and glued in place. We got mocked a little bit. I mean, this run was built to LAST. We pretty much think that if another earthquake comes we can move into it if our house falls down. We made a lot of jokes about future owners of our house not being able to get rid of the coop if they wanted to. I bet there are a thousand screws in it, not to mention the over two pints of gorilla glue. It is absolutely amazing and I give all the credit to my husband who is a genius. His brain just knows how to build things and do it well and right.

We finished the run about a week before our big trip. How happy was my heart when we moved our chickens in! The last thing the run needed was a door - we hadn't really been planning to make it that last Saturday, as we had taken until about 5pm to finish getting the roof on. But we just pressed on and made a door. That night Troy connected a small little latch on it with plans for a really cool homemade latch. Before he could get to that I accidentally locked myself in. That made him hurry up on the latch. Look at how gorgeous.

We love this latch so much we come to visit it multiple times a day

During the process of building the coop we sadly had to take three of the four sebrights to the rooster drop-off. Seems like we have the worst luck. The last sebright is no longer worthy of the name Chris. She's pretty mean, it turns out. Definitely a bully and a biter. So I renamed her Mean Francine. We are pretty sure at least one of the little frizziest are a rooster too - let's see, Emma named them Cupcake, Penguin and Tico. I can't tell them apart though. The four cochins are so sweet and fluffy. They all appear to be hens. Their names are Bigs, Pip, Dipper and Mable. Of course I can't tell them apart either, so it doesn't really matter. I love the names my kids come up with.

So here we are, with a beautiful run for our chickens. And NOTHING can get in. They are safe as can be. We are starting work on the actual coop this week, and in the meantime the chickens sleep under the coop that we made accessible to them. It's really an awesome space and I'm very proud of us. 

I'm also very proud of our minivan. During this whole construction project, plus another one I'll get to in a another post, our land cruiser Inigo was out of commission so we had to haul everything - literal tons of material - in our minivan. It has been a total CHAMP. Here we are packing TWELVE-FOOT panels into the back - they went all the way to the dashboard. I love our minivan. Go Jarvis!!