Wintering Over
The first snows have fallen in New Hampshire, and I'm feeling nostalgic. I'm pulling out some old friends, chapters from my first book, one of those books that was best left on the shelf and categorized as a learning experience. Bits of it are solid, most of it is training ground. I will be posting my favorite chunks this month, starting with a piece befitting this cold winter morning in New Hampshire.
I’ve been dreaming
about little hats for frostbitten rooster combs. I think my brain combined my
son Finn’s desire to learn how to knit (his friend Ellie can knit, and he’s
jealous) with my quest to find a cure for my rooster Dewey’s case of frostbite.
If I knit small hats, would they stay in place with tiny strings or would he Dewey
able to untie the knots with his knobbly talons? Do I have to knit them in the
shape of his comb or would a simple dome work? Would wool be too itchy on his
comb? Maybe polar fleece instead…
New Hampshire is
in the death grip of an Alberta Clipper, and the temperature has only made it
above zero a couple of times this week. I noted on Friday that the temperature
on the thermometer outside my office at Crossroads Academy was registering -22
or -23 at nine in the morning. I have a heat lamp on the chickens but even with
that supplemental heat source, Dewey is suffering from a rather unsightly case
of frostbite on his comb and wattles. The tips of his comb are black and there is
a big white blister on the top of it yesterday. His Ladies are fine; they sleep
with their heads tucked into their back feathers, but Dewey can’t possibly
shove all of his rather impressive and ostentatious ornamentation under the
warmth of his plumage. He does suffer for his beauty.
I have filled
their coop with shavings and an abundance of straw in order to give them warm
nests, but they huddle together on the roost just below the heat lamp. They
like to keep their feet tucked up in their belly feathers and only come down
from their perch to eat, drink, and lay. The laying has been infrequent this
past week due to the stress of the cold. Chickens don’t lay well when it’s too
warm or too hot, and my biddies clearly think it's too cold for their embryonic
chicks to be lying around the frigid coop floor.
The chickens would
prefer to stay in all winter long, but I force them outside into the sun when
the days warm up a little. There are about three feet of snow on the ground
right now, so I shoveled a large run for them and rotated the dirty litter in
their coop outside, which just happens to be on top of my raised kitchen
gardens. My chickens hate the feel of snow under their feet and simply refuse
to go outside unless I spread something on the ground. Even with the shavings
to insulate their tender feet, they stand, flamingo-style, on one leg or the
other, obviously disgusted by the chilly and inferior footing. Nevertheless,
their natural urges soon take over, and they quickly get down to the business
of scavenging. They peck about in the litter and wipe their beaks on the ground
like a proper Victorian women dabbing their lips with napkins at tea. Once my ladies
have been shooed out the door, I empty a bale of fresh pine shavings in to the
coop and the smell instantly takes me back to the horse barns of my youth. The
only smell I love more than shavings is that of fresh straw, and the nesting
boxes always get a nicely fluffed layer on top, just for good measure.
The chickens
seem to enjoy being out in the sunshine. They stretch their legs behind them,
like sprinters on starting blocks, shake and rearrange their feathers, and
Dewey takes advantage of the extra room to maneuver by mating with all of the
hens in less than an hour – always striving for a personal best, it seems. He
usually mates with each of the hens at least once a day, but never in such
rapid succession. It’s amazing what sunlight and fresh air can do for the
libido.
Unfortunately, the
recent frigid temperatures have kept them inside on even the warmest days. Egg
production is way down, their water freezes in less than an hour, and the
chickens are literally climbing the walls. I caught Dewey roosting high up in
the rafters of the garage this morning. I have been filling their trough with
hot water in the morning and afternoon – I like to think of it as chicken
teatime – and they seem to like that. They gather around the hot bowl like
women receiving a steam facial at the spa.
My new cold
alleviation strategy involves warm breakfasts. No, wait, it’s not crazy – stick
with me for a minute. I was up at Farm-Way in Bradford, VT, for shavings, layer
pellets, Bag Balm, and a new pair of insulated Carhartt work overalls the other
day, and I ran into my neighbor, who also keeps a flock of layers. As soon as
we got the pleasantries out of the way, the conversation immediately went all
poultry. She boasted that her coop is insulated, but in order to keep her hens
warm, hydrated, and laying, she makes them a hot corn mash every morning before
they begin to lay. She claims it keeps egg production up to reasonable levels.
I’m on day two of steaming hot, coop-service porridge breakfasts, and while I
have not seen an increase in egg production yet, I’m giving it some time before
I pass judgment.
The Bag Balm I
mentioned is also for the chickens. I read that a daily massage with Vaseline
or Bag Balm can do wonders for a frostbitten comb. The massage helps stimulate
the circulation and a protective layer of petroleum jelly and lanolin helps
protect their combs from the cold. The poultry books and magazines made it
sound matter-of-fact – just massage the rooster’s comb with the ointment.
Simple. But if you have ever met a rooster, let alone my rooster Dewey - you
know that capturing, holding, massaging…all of these elements are much easier
said than done. I was able to capture him because he was in the coop, but he’s
strong, and he hates being held.
I try to hold a
rooster cuddling session once a week or so in order to get him used to the practice.
As soon as a rooster’s spurs begin to grow, at around eight weeks, the
countdown to an oncoming surge of testosterone begins. Just about the time the
spurs – bony, sharp protrusions off the back of the legs – get to full size, a
rooster’s body ramps up testosterone production to full volume. This surge can
trigger hostility and dangerous displays of dominance, and, not coincidentally,
this is when most roosters get the axe. I’ve told my kids that Dewey gets to
stay as long as he remains docile, but the minute he launches himself at a the
kids or the dog with his spiky spurs, his tenure in our flock is over. I figure
that if I hold him once in a while, I can teach him who is boss and stave off
any aspirations he may have for world domination.
So back to chicken
massage. I managed to catch Dewey, and held him tightly while my city-slicker
husband Tim scooped big gobs of Bag Balm out of the tin. He mashed it around in
his fingers and smeared it on Dewey’s huge, waxy comb. The cold made the Bag
Balm solidify, so big globs solidified on the blackened, frostbitten tips of
his comb. In an effort be gentle while he massaged what must be very painful
lesions, Tim was tentative, and I suppose he failed to inspire the rooster’s
confidence. Dewey struggled fiercely, mortified by this indignity, and in his
thrashing, bits of the petroleum glop went flying everywhere. His eyes rolled
up into his head and his pink, pointy tongue jutted out of his open beak. Tim
did the best he could with the stiff, sticky balm, and I tossed Dewey out into
the sunshine with his hens. He shook his gloppy head and rubbed it on the
ground. Straw and feathers stuck to the goo, and when he lifted his head back
up again, straw stuck out from his head in every direction, a feather adhered
to his wattles, and layer pellets dangled from his big white earlobes like
gaudy costume jewelry. Oh, the indignity. His hens helped him return to
normalcy by pecking the debris from his face. In under an hour, the hens had
removed all but the tiniest globs of balm from his face, and he was feeling
himself again. He even made the rounds and inseminated the entire flock in an
attempt to restore order to his world.
His comb looks
better this morning, and the thermometer is reading temperatures just above
zero. I hear we may actually hit the upper twenties by afternoob. My friend
Jim, a farmer down in Massachusetts, noted that spring is just around the
corner in an email this morning. I pointed out that it’s still January, and the
official planting date in my neck of the woods is Mother’s Day, 114 days from
now. Apparently, his definition of “just around the corner” is a little more
optimistic than mine – even in the relatively temperate climate of his zone 5
valley, he’s a good 65 days away from what could remotely be called Spring.
We got another
four inches of snow yesterday, so I will head out and rotate the old shavings
to the backyard run and open up another fresh bale of shavings in the coop. But
first, I have to deliver their breakfast of hot corn mash with raisins and
kitchen scraps. In return for my efforts on their behalf, I can expect a big
fat tip. Over easy, with a dash of salt.