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Muddy Valley Farm

~ Life on a tiny west coast hobby farm

Muddy Valley Farm

Monthly Archives: March 2018

Mink!

29 Thursday Mar 2018

Posted by Jodi in Chickens, Farm Life, Wildlife

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 So I’m out on the deck with hubby when he exclaims “Oh! Won’t you look at that!” I look down the outside stairs and there’s a mink, halfway up, staring at me with one paw on the next stair, as if considering whether to keep coming. I growl, he turns tail and runs down the stairs, across the lawn and into the creek, where he disappears, heading downstream.

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Concerned for my flock, I pull on my boots and start down the valley, following the creek to the coops. Me and the dogs hang around for a while, fill a few waterers, watch some chicks play, etc., but no mink shows up. After about an hour I head back to the house to grab my phone.

As I cross the bridge leading into the back yard I look up at the deck stairs. That damned mink is half way up again! This time, staring at me off the side of the stairs! I growl, the dogs run, and the mink bolts down the stairs and into the creek again, exactly like before.

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I do not know why I growl in these situations, just that it seems appropriate.

“Hmmmm”, hubby says, “S has been hearing scratching above her room (which is under the deck) but nothing getting caught in the rat traps. I wonder if that mink is living between the deck rafters?”

I think he may be right! We might be playing host to a mink den. Oh boy. This could get interesting.

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Lovely Girls

18 Sunday Mar 2018

Posted by Jodi in Chickens, Uncategorized

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One of last year’s customers got in touch with me the other day. “Hi Jodi! Do you have any more Black Copper Marans? I just love your girls!!!”

I love my BCM girls too, so I know how she feels. With their gorgeous dark brown eggs, bright orange eyes, neat red combs, gentle personalities and classic hen shape, they really are lovely.

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Her comment got me to thinking about their lines, a blend of Island and Sunshine Coast breeders, plus one lovely little wild card.

A few summers ago, before I closed my flock, I used to watch the local online classified ads site like a hawk, hoping for “good deals” to feed my growing chicken addiction. One evening I saw a poorly worded ad for blue and black Copper ‘Murans’ at point of lay for ten dollars each, a ridiculous price.

A point of lay pullet around here goes for anywhere from $20 for a mutt all the way up to $100 for a finely bred rare heritage bird, so ten bucks was a real steal, even if spelling and grammar weren’t this seller’s strong points.

I immediately emailed, indicating I wanted two blue and two black. And could I pick up in the morning? An affirmative reply including address had me excitedly hustling out to East Sooke the next day, cash in hand and empty dog kennel in the back of my SUV.

When I pulled into the yard, I was waved down a faint track across a gentle slope carpeted in wispy, fine, mid summer brown grass, that ended up in an open field below the house. There was a crew of mostly barefoot small children with two young women waiting, another vehicle like mine filled with empty cages and a smallish old travel trailer shut up tight. No chickens or chicken paraphernalia or even chicken pens were evident, as far as the eye could see.

A spare young woman greeted me disconsolately, and invited me to step into the trailer, which, as it turned out, is where the chickens were hiding. She had my four shut up in the bathroom, all ready for me. The other lady was her neighbour, who was taking the rest of the birds off her hands.

I stepped inside the trailer and looked around, and at least 25 shapely young purebred hens – all different breeds, stared back at me. They were perched on the table, and along the backs of the benches and on the counters and in the sink and standing around on the floor looking bored. Streaks and mounds of bird poop were everywhere. It looked like the trailer had been not cleaned for weeks, if ever. There was zero food, one filthy water fount and not a lot of fresh air. It was a warm day, and stifling in there. But the birds looked surprisingly good despite their living conditions. They must have received regular rations even if they weren’t fed free choice.

I didn’t spend long inside; I couldn’t. Retreating to gulp down some fresh air, I grabbed my kennel and waited outside by the door. The young woman disappeared into the bathroom, emerging four times with a bird held tightly in her arms, and as she handed each to me, she explained sadly that she had hatched every bird herself, from eggs she had gone on long waiting lists to acquire. She hated to see them go, especially since they were finally starting to lay, but her husband was fed up with the cost of food, and the bird poop everywhere from their free ranging. Her and her husband didn’t like that the children kept stepping in the poop either. One of the kids had gotten worms, and the doctor had mentioned the chickens. So her husband was making her sell them. Such a pity I thought, when a chicken pen would have made all the difference.

She had posted the ad, to which only I had responded, before her neighbour got wind of the situation and offered to take them all. I glanced at the neighbour, who stood watching me with a malovent glint in her eye that left me with little doubt she coveted my birds too. So I tucked my four in the back of my vehicle, handed over $40 and got out of there.

My new girls spent the next month one field over from the barnyard, in quarantine, and it soon became apparent that one of the blacks was a boy. Not only that, but the two blues laid light brown eggs, not the dark brown I was aiming for. One of the blues was a loud mouthed broad too, and I can’t abide a whiney chicken. So it wasn’t long before the boy went to freezer camp and the blue girls went up for sale.

I charged the university students who came to pick up the blues for their shared household $20 each, a great deal for purebred heritage hens, and then I was back to even on the money side of things. But really I was ahead, because I now had one very nice looking black Copper marans hen who laid dark chocolate brown eggs.

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🎶 just a coal miner’s daughter…🎶

My trailer hen went missing last summer, but not before I had a couple seasons to hatch a bunch of her eggs. This year I have four nice black Copper Marans hens in my coop who echo their mother and grandmother’s lovely shape; and a few of my lucky customers have some too.

I often get asked, when I am selling hatching eggs or chicks, about the birds’ lines. It’s the prudent chicken keeper who pays attention to diversity in their flock, and I always do my best to pass on all I know. But for my Marans, I can only say they are from three lines; farm xyz up island, farm abc on the Sunshine Coast, plus one lovely mystery girl who grew up in a trailer in East Sooke. Maybe I will call it the Loretta Lynn line.

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Pratfall

12 Monday Mar 2018

Posted by Jodi in Chance, Chickens, Equines, Seasons

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Sitting peacefully in the barnyard, chickens scratching and pecking, equines dozing, dogs on casual guard duty, soaking up the early spring sun.

A curious Welsummer hen walking along the tops of a row of metal garbage cans steps on a loose lid, up it tips and down she goes into the depths of the oyster shell bin, the lid clattering down like a trick trap door.

I jump up, lift the lid and out she flies, protesting loudly. Her panic triggers a general alarm. Everyone dives for cover, all the roosters screaming “Warning!Danger!”.

Dogs stand at alert, scanning the area. Silkie rooster, his hens and chicks safely in their coop, stations his brave little self just outside the coop door, ready for battle with the unseen enemy.

The barnyard is empty now, even the baby grow out pen birds, at 3 weeks old fully understanding the seriousness of the situation, hiding inside their coop.

As the minutes tick by and the enemy fails to show, the warnings slow, then stop, and silence ensues, for a minute.

Then the roosters start crowing. Claiming the barnyard for themselves again, warning the enemy off. First to sound off is David Cassidy the Swede, then Mr Wyandotte, then Mr Marans, and so on down the seniority line, finishing up with Mr. Barred Rock, the youngest adult male.

And ten or so minutes after Welsummer’s pratfall, the barnyard is back to normal. Everyone is relieved, except disappointed dogs who found no one to chase.

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