When I got this land, I said I was going to quickly build a house
and get some chickens to get my soil fertility going and for the
eggs. Yesterday, a year and a half later, I brought home the
chickens.
Shad reminded me of my deposit placed on these eight hens and said I should take them by August 20th, with the birds around two months old and already through the most vulnerable period of their lives. A couple days before that, Shad asked me last minute to teach the Earthworks section of a Permaculture course that he offered out through the gift economy.
This bumped back the chickens again. The course ended friday. My plan was to visit Nancy and her son Joe in San Pedro saturday morning, get my Jacaranda tree, go to market to stock up for a few days and come home and do the final wiring in the chicken area and get the chickens sunday morning. Invoke Murphy's Law here: Friday night began one of what I call my 24-hour giardhias. I visited the bathroom in the night a couple times, something I do maybe quarterly.
I did go see Nancy and Joe, but I was too sick to my stomach to really buy food at market. I went home with a nice papaya (helps a bad stomach), a pineapple, an orange and some bread from my new friend Luis the baker from San Pedro who comes to Tzununa to sell and he invited me to his house to make pizza. Then I was too tired to do the wiring.
Sunday morning I realized I was nervous about the chickens. I stalled a little about doing the wiring and I realized I was just delaying finally getting the chickens, so I said "Fuck it, I'll go get the chickens, put them in their area, and I'll have all day to hang out with them and finish their house.", and that's what I did.
I grabbed a costal. This is a large, fairly durable, plastic bag. This is the type of bag bulk goods come in, maybe we would call it a sack in the US. It's this type of bag they use for 50kg of animal feed, sand, lime, corn, etc. In the US, people carry these on their backs much less than in Guatemala, and maybe for this, they don't have any specific name that I know of, but here they are called costales.
In the new chicken palace, we started grabbing birds, at maybe 1.5 pounds each, and stuffing them in the bag. Animals can breathe ttrough a costal. We grabbed a mix of big and medium birds, our thinking was that the biggest birds will eat more, but not necessarily lay more eggs. Mostly, it seemed like eight random nice birds from the lot of about 140.
Birds in bag, my adrenaline began to flow. We chatted for a moment longer and I set off for seventeen minute walk home. The load was easy, but by the end I was switching hands pretty often. I thought, "In less than seventeen minutes and counting, I will have chickens. They will not be in this plastic bag for long because I'm going to dump them out in their new run and I will finally have the chickens and I can probably stop being anxious soon."
Dry mouth and heart beating from the climb, I tipped the costal so they would exit right by their coop. They came out one by one slowly, but after a moment I grabbed the bottom and shook out the bag to allay my fear of one chicken coming out smothered and dead. All eight birds seemed fine, looked around a little and commented to each other about how nice the new surrounings were and began about normal chicken behaviours of scratching and pecking in the dirt and eating low-hung plants to chip away at the slow and steady task of feeding themselves.
Chickens like people. While I cut the chicken wire from the doorway, rehung the door, and added wiring for the propped open and locked closed positions, the chickens worked in close at times, and at times I would grab one for a closer look and to introduce myself. I got pecked a few times; it's nice to know that among my whole day of being poked, stabbed, bitten and stung, a chicken peck ranks low on the pain scale.
Photos and more info to follow in Parts II and III.
- Breed: Leghorn
- Hen Count: 8
- Rooster Count: 0
- Color: Red Orange with variable amounts of white plumage near
the egg butt
- Birthday: June 15, 2015
- Advertised Production: 300 eggs per year
- First Eggs Expected: November 2015
Shad reminded me of my deposit placed on these eight hens and said I should take them by August 20th, with the birds around two months old and already through the most vulnerable period of their lives. A couple days before that, Shad asked me last minute to teach the Earthworks section of a Permaculture course that he offered out through the gift economy.
This bumped back the chickens again. The course ended friday. My plan was to visit Nancy and her son Joe in San Pedro saturday morning, get my Jacaranda tree, go to market to stock up for a few days and come home and do the final wiring in the chicken area and get the chickens sunday morning. Invoke Murphy's Law here: Friday night began one of what I call my 24-hour giardhias. I visited the bathroom in the night a couple times, something I do maybe quarterly.
I did go see Nancy and Joe, but I was too sick to my stomach to really buy food at market. I went home with a nice papaya (helps a bad stomach), a pineapple, an orange and some bread from my new friend Luis the baker from San Pedro who comes to Tzununa to sell and he invited me to his house to make pizza. Then I was too tired to do the wiring.
Sunday morning I realized I was nervous about the chickens. I stalled a little about doing the wiring and I realized I was just delaying finally getting the chickens, so I said "Fuck it, I'll go get the chickens, put them in their area, and I'll have all day to hang out with them and finish their house.", and that's what I did.
I grabbed a costal. This is a large, fairly durable, plastic bag. This is the type of bag bulk goods come in, maybe we would call it a sack in the US. It's this type of bag they use for 50kg of animal feed, sand, lime, corn, etc. In the US, people carry these on their backs much less than in Guatemala, and maybe for this, they don't have any specific name that I know of, but here they are called costales.
In the new chicken palace, we started grabbing birds, at maybe 1.5 pounds each, and stuffing them in the bag. Animals can breathe ttrough a costal. We grabbed a mix of big and medium birds, our thinking was that the biggest birds will eat more, but not necessarily lay more eggs. Mostly, it seemed like eight random nice birds from the lot of about 140.
Birds in bag, my adrenaline began to flow. We chatted for a moment longer and I set off for seventeen minute walk home. The load was easy, but by the end I was switching hands pretty often. I thought, "In less than seventeen minutes and counting, I will have chickens. They will not be in this plastic bag for long because I'm going to dump them out in their new run and I will finally have the chickens and I can probably stop being anxious soon."
Dry mouth and heart beating from the climb, I tipped the costal so they would exit right by their coop. They came out one by one slowly, but after a moment I grabbed the bottom and shook out the bag to allay my fear of one chicken coming out smothered and dead. All eight birds seemed fine, looked around a little and commented to each other about how nice the new surrounings were and began about normal chicken behaviours of scratching and pecking in the dirt and eating low-hung plants to chip away at the slow and steady task of feeding themselves.
Chickens like people. While I cut the chicken wire from the doorway, rehung the door, and added wiring for the propped open and locked closed positions, the chickens worked in close at times, and at times I would grab one for a closer look and to introduce myself. I got pecked a few times; it's nice to know that among my whole day of being poked, stabbed, bitten and stung, a chicken peck ranks low on the pain scale.
Photos and more info to follow in Parts II and III.
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