Its never boring around here....goodbye Baby rabbit! raccoons? MORE peahens?

Life is definitely not boring around here!

An update on the baby rabbit we found...we let it go that evening and it disappeared into the bushes.  I would have loved to keep it but keeping a wild animal just didn't seem like the right thing to do and it seemed to be OK.  It moved around after we put it in our tank so was just frightened by all the noise and commotion when we found it.  Once the yard men, peacocks, chickens and dog was put away we let it go.  Hopefully it is doing ok now.

Lately we've been having a bit of a problem with keeping bird food in the bird feeder.  We have a Droll Yankee flipper that usually does a good job of keeping the squirrels off our feeder.  Its battery powered and the perch spins when a squirrel tries to get to it (which is quite entertaining to watch too!). It usually lasts quite awhile before we have to recharge the battery.  Lately though its been dead after one day.  I've been complaining to the company that they have been sending me defective batteries. In fact, I got fed up with it and bought a different type but now I think I know what has happened.

Yep, we saw a couple raccoons hanging on the feeder when was dark a couple days ago but yesterday this guy decided he was too hungry to wait for dark and came out in broad daylight!!  I don't think the spinning bird feeder expected to have to handle the weight of a couple of raccoons!  I'm ok with them eating the bird food but will have to get rid of them if they happen to find the fish pond I have by the front door or they cause problems with my chickens and peafowl.

Speaking of peafowl, when I walked out back today I found 4 peahen instead of two on my back porch.  I had to look twice because they look so much like my girls.  One had a white chest like Curly but had a bit more tan underneath and the other was a chubby version of Larry.  Both had been around people because they were not afraid of me at all and they were definitely BFF's since they stayed pretty close to each other all the time.

Unfortunately though, these two kept following my Curly peahen around which seemed to annoy Curly to no end.  That's Curly in front of the other two following her and Mr Blue showing off in back.

With Curly being in a such a foul mood (or should I say "fowl" mood ;-) ) she decided to take her frustrations out on the chickens by pecking them every chance she got.  Larry peahen, on the other hand, likes to hang with the chickens (that's her in the back keeping an eye on Pinkie and Goldie)

She actually started beating up the outsider peagirls ...Way to go, Larry!!

The chickens are totally confused with these two being here and Mr. Blue peacock just can't show off enough.  Now and then one of the girls will let Mr Blue have his way with her.  Yes, I have peacock porn going on in my backyard :p

More to come tomorrow!!!

A baby rabbit!!!! What a cutie!

So as my husband was sitting on the back porch having is morning ice tea and reading the paper, he notice some movement to the left and thought a mouse was running down our breezeway.  When he got up to investigate what it was it ended up being a baby rabbit that ran behind our wicker couch and caught the attention of our peahens.  Apparently the yard man frightened it out of its garden hiding spot.  

We figured it would run away if we got close but surprisingly it let me just walk up and pick it up.  I read that they often are frozen from fear so I am guessing that's what happened.   We have a fish tank in the house that used to hold a snake but is now empty (except for all the pine shavings left over from the snake) so we put him there for now until the yard men leave and we can let him go.  It's in a lot of danger from the host of predators we have around here including our chickens and peacocks who would have loved to play with it, but not in a good way.  

Wow! What a storm!

We had a huge storm here a couple days ago that blew down a 1 foot in diameter branch from one of our huge oak trees.  I walked out to look at it in the morning and could see why it fell.  The inside of the branch is rotted out and has been occupied by a large bee hive!  I felt so bad for them since half the hive is now on the ground and half is still on whats left of the branch on the tree about 50 ft up.  They are so confused.  I covered the hive on the ground with a sheet to try to keep predators out until my bee expert can get out here to take a look to see if they can be saved.  I'd love to keep them and put them into one of my hives but the branch is hard to get into.  I'm afraid we might end up having to use a chain saw to get it out and that might hurt the hive worse.  What a mess!  Oh and the branch took out half of my 50 yr old fig tree.  Bad news all around!

Pinkie started laying a couple days ago.  She is one confused chicken.   She's decided that her favorite spot to nest is in one of our open shed full of chicken wire, bee equipment, wheelbarrows, etc.  Not a great place for her to go.  When I shoo her out she just puts up such a fuss.  She's persistent though.  She goes back as soon as I leave.  Crazy chicken.

Come on weather....make up your mind!

I've been absent from my blog for a few days....too much to do, too little time!  On Friday, Lucy came out of the coop limping severely.  My poor baby girl.   Her and Roo do not get along and I suspect that he beat her up.  She's staying in my chicken infirmary (actually a cage in my kitchen) for now and I've had to learn how to give her antibiotics.  Shoving a syringe down a chickens throat is not an easy task.  A lot of patience is needed and I'm always scared that it will end up in her windpipe since they are both in the same area.   If I don't do it though, she will for sure not make it.   Since Lucy is out of the coop, Goldie started hanging with Roo.  She's pushed off Pinkie to be Roo's BFF.   Such a follower she is.    I took Lucy out to peck around in the grass when the other chickens were out and Roo again attacked her.   This is not a friendly, "hey, I'm a guy, your a girl, let's get together" type of approach.  He scares the living daylights out of her.   Anyway,  while she is on the mend we have taken Roo to the feed store to be sold.  He's a nice friendly rooster but I cant have him hurting my hens.  It's amazing how the hens have calmed down now that he's gone.

It's been pretty rainy these days.  Cool one day, warm the next.  Typical for Houston in the spring. And spring is definitely here.    All the citrus trees are in bloom and the backyard smells amazing!  My bees are going crazy with all the orange, grapefruit, peach and apple blossoms.  We started planting the vegetable gardens too.   Tomatoes, pepper, yellow squash, zucchini, basil, sage, parsley, fennel, mint, and bush beans so far.  Now let's see how many make it through our summer! These are great days to do that since it's nice and cool.  I bought a flat of milkweed plants for the monarchs who come through every year.  I've created a Monarch butterfly cage to protect the caterpillars until they can become butterflies.

  Every morning I check the milkweed plants for baby caterpillars.  If I find one I put it in the cage so they are not bothered by the multiple predators
that we have around here.  The wasps and lizards are the worst but if I can get out there early enough I can save the baby caterpillars before they get to them.  Last year I was able to release 15 butterflies.  I figure that's 15 more than we would have had otherwise.

There's always a pecking order ...

I currently have 6 chickens.  I say currently because even though we are in the middle of Houston we have a lot of predators that have given me cause for a broken heart over and over again.  Over the years I have learned a lot about the sounds and hunting practices of hawks, raccoons, coyotes, feral cats, and owls.  I’m always on the lookout, especially for hawks.  The picture below show 3 hawks chowing down on a rabbit they caught in my back yard awhile back. They have taken out more of my chickens than I care to remember.  OK so this discussion is depressing me so I’m moving on…. 

 I love watching my crazy crew of animals and how they interact with one another.  They each have their own personality which surprises a lot of people when I talk about them.  Here’s a quick list of my current chicken crew: 

• Marilyn (named after Marilyn Monroe), who is my Welsummer mother hen.  She’s 5 years old and is my oldest which is attributed to her being a really smart chicken.  She’s at the top of the chicken pecking order and very patient with the younger chickens but always puts them in their place if warranted.
• Peeper,  a Barred Rock hen, who is next in the pecking order.  She’s about 3 years old and a little smaller than Marilyn.  She’s the bully of the chicken coop.  I’m sure this is due to the fact that she’s always been on the bottom of the pecking order until the other chickens unfortunate demise occurred.  When the new girls came along she was determined never to be on the bottom again hence the bully reputation.  All the little ones are scared of her and that’s just fine with her.
• Lucy, another Barred Rock hen that I just started raising from a chick about 4 months ago.  Lucy has learned well from Peeper and has made sure she is next in the pecking order by keeping any other smaller chickens in their place with a good peck on the head when they start getting a little uppity.  Lucy’s named after Lucille Ball.  She’s always curious and getting into things. 
• Goldie, she’s my Ameraucana who I raised from a chick with Lucy.  Goldie and Lucy are buddies.  Goldie is barely hanging on as the next in the pecking order which is mainly due to her being buddies with Lucy.  Lucy always has her back and Goldie panics if she can’t find Lucy.  She follows Lucy everywhere.  She now and then tries to play tough but ultimately backs down and runs behind Lucy for protection.
• Then there’s Mr. Roo….this one is a bit of a mistake and I’m not sure he will be around long.  My neighbor had a hen that hatched a bunch of chicks about 2 months ago and asked if we wanted some so we took 3 not knowing what we were getting.  Two of them were hens and one is Roo.  We know this because Roo has just started crowing.  For those of you who have not heard a young rooster crow, it’s a pretty pathetic sounding noise.  He’s working on perfecting it though and as long as he is nice and crows only during the day we might let him hang around.  The jury is still out on that one.  Roo continues to challenge the 4 older hens and continues to get pecked back into place.  These hens don’t take any crap from anyone. Least of all from some little rooster who thinks he’s a big deal!
• Last but not least of my chicks is Pinky so named for the feathers on her hair that looks alot like the singer Pink’s hair style.   Unfortunately for her, she is on the bottom of the pecking order.  She is the youngest hen and has such a sweet disposition.  Roo and Pinky are buddies since they were raised together before going into the coop and are chicken mutts, the result of a Polish hen and a Barred Rock rooster.

As I mentioned earlier, in addition to the chicken clan we also have my peacock gang.  I call them a gang because that is pretty much how they act around the chickens.  We have two peahens, Curly and Larry, and one peacock, Mr. Blue. Yes, he was going to be named Moe but the name Mr. Blue stuck since he’s such a beautiful shade of blue.   Interestingly enough they are also part of the pecking order even though they are not kept in the coop. 

•  Ms Curly is the bully of this group.  She bullies everyone…. chickens, peacocks, squirrels, birds, cats, even hawks… except Mr. Blue and us of course.  She’s smart enough not to bite the hand that feeds her.    You can always tell when she is getting perturbed and is going to go after someone.  She walks up looking sideways at whoever is her next victim.  I’m convinced that that’s where the term ‘looking sideways’ at someone comes from.  
•  Mr. Blue’s next in the pecking order of the gang.  He doesn’t really bother anyone though and spends most of his time showing off his feathers. He only gets cranky when there are treats to be had and someone is too aggressive for his taste.  He’ll give them a good peck to let them know who’s boss and who gets the treats first.   
•  Larry is on the bottom of the peacock pecking order and is even below Ms Marilyn.  She loves hanging with the chickens.  The first year that she started laying she ended up with an egg impacted in her and we had to have her operated on to take it out.  She was relegated to the chicken coop while she recuperated.  From then on she kind of bonded with Marilyn and will hang out by the coop most days.    She gets picked on by Curly on a regular basis.  

 We also have a bee hives in the back of the property.  I just think beekeeping is so neat and watching the bees is so fascinating.  More on this later....

Welcome to my Houston Urban farm!

Hello, welcome to my blog about my Houston urban farm.  For years I have told stories to my friends about the crazy things that happen here and have continued to be told that I should write them down. So here goes…..I hope you enjoy!

To give you a little background, I live in the middle of the city of Houston, TX on 5 acres that back up to Buffalo Bayou.  Our neighbor has chickens and offered to give us some chicks which is what got us thinking about raising chickens.  Our house has a horse stall in the back of the lot so we converted one of the horse stalls into a chicken coop and were on our way to getting fresh eggs every day!  Here's a picture of the first set of chickens we raised.   That's our dog, Angel, and Ms. Marilyn when she was a chick on the far right.  You'll hear more about them later. 

Also, in our neighborhood there are wild peacocks (peafowl actually) roaming through it although in our part of the neighborhood there were none and my husband would lament that he wished we had peacocks.  So one day when the feed store had some peafowl chicks, I bought them and raised them by hand and in doing so we now have extremely domesticated birds.  We have two peahens and one peacock to be exact although when I bought them I had no idea what we had since I knew nothing about peafowl.  We have since learned that the brown peachicks are female and yellow are male. 

We also have Angel, our 14 year old dog, so named because that’s exactly what she is.  She is probably the most laid back dog I’ve ever had.  She’s a wonderful mutt that we think may be part German shepherd and part Rottweiler and has the sweet disposition of a Shepherd. (Of course I’ve never had a Rottweiler so really don’t know what their personalities usually are.)  All I know is she is the sweetest animal I’ve ever owned (and I’ve owned A LOT).    To round things out, I also have a bee hive that is pretty fascinating to watch.  More on that later...