Sharing a Summer Watermelon

Watermelons always remind me of my Uncle Lee's watermelon patch at the other end of Springhill Road from where I grew up in Swartz.  He and my Grandmother Murphy always had a huge garden, but Uncle Lee's specialty was watermelons.  I remember my sisters and I going and picking out a watermelon that we were too small to carry.  Usually we would just drop it a few feet from the patch and eat it right there.  Just scooping out the juicy heart with our dirty fingers or biting it from the rind and letting juice run down our chins.  It actually took me a long time to like watermelon cold; since I grew up eating it right out of the garden.

So this summer I have shared watermelon with the grandkids, goats and chickens.  The first time I cut it, it is room temperature.  The remaining slices are saved for the next day so they are ice cold. There is an advantage to cold watermelon when it is 108 degrees outside.  I have learned to enjoy those slices as well.  I'm glad my grandkids like it.  My children and their dad never really acquired a taste for the red juicy melon.  I think the red ones with seeds are the best.  I have never seen the kind my uncle grew.  He called them Sugar Babies.  They were round and very dark solid green.

I've discovered that Dottie Belle will not eat watermelon cold. At first I thought she just didn't like it, but when I offered her a warm piece, she gobbled it up.  Gypsy will take it anyway I give it to her and she will even jump on the table and take it away from me. She only weighs about 40 pounds now, but she is going to be a force to be reckoned with when she is grown and 70 pounds of pure determination.

Omelet is eating while Little Ace is waiting.  Dottie should just leave.

I find it very interesting to watch the 4 hens and rooster, Big Foot sharing a slice.  This is where the pecking order really comes into play.  Big Foot, of course, gets all he wants.  Hens #1, Omelet, and #2, Little Ace take turns in that order. 

That leaves #3 Dottie and poor #4, Sunny with not getting any until I let them out of the coop by themselves. I try to even things up around here.

Chicken Review 6-26-2011

Mostly good news for the chicken

3 of the baby chicks

Cracker, the Sultan

coop.  About 2 weeks ago, I could not take the smell of the 4 little chicks in the house anymore. The crate would stink right after I cleaned it.  So I decided they would move into the coop where they were born with Little Ace, their surrogate mother and Cracker, the nanny hen.  That is what caused the bad news for this update.  Actually, chickens are not nice animals.

I've really never been partial to birds, but chickens are interesting and provide eggs, so I have pet chickens.  I put the 4 chicks in the hutch part of the coop and Little Ace and Cracker where down in the run.  I went into the house to remove the crate and when I returned the smallest chick had jumped down into the run with the grown hens.  But Little Ace did not recognize her baby chick.  In fact, she had beaten it up pretty badly.  The top and bottom parts of its beak no longer aligned and one eye was closed or gone.  I put it back up in the hutch and closed the door so they could not get down in the run with the hens and the hens could not get to them.  I really expected to find the youngest badly hurt chick dead the next morning.  But it has been 2 weeks and it is still the most energetic chick of them all.  After a couple of days of keeping the chicks and hens separated, I just moved Little Ace into the coop with the other grown chickens.  Cracker and the 4 chicks seem to get along quite well.  Three of the chicks have tripled their size.  The smallest one still has a misaligned beak and only one eye, but she is doing great.

One eye and crooked beak.

The 4 hens in the other coop definitely have their pecking order worked out.











Of course, Big Foot, the rooster is top chicken. Trinity and his family came over a couple of nights ago and we twisted off Big Foot's spurs that had turned into small knives.  It was rather interesting, but I forgot to video it.  Trinity grabbed Big Foot by his legs while he was asleep, held him upside down and simply twisted off the spurs with a pair of pliers.  The rooster was paralyzed upside down so he was no problem.

Omelet

Omelet, a Plymouth Barred Rock, is the #1 hen.  That means she decides where she is going to scratch and peck at the dirt and no other hen had better challenge her for that spot. She is the only hen I have left from the original 4 that I got from my sister, Lenora, in March of 2009.

Little Ace

Little Ace, a Copper Maran, is hen #2 in the pecking order.  I got Little Ace with the order of chicks that included Big Foot and Cracker in June 2010.  So only Omelet can challenge her for a pecking spot.

Dottie

Dottie, a  Silver Laced Wyandotte, is third in the pecking order.  She mostly stays away from Omelet and now Little Ace.  I was surprised that Little Ace was able to be second since she had not lived with the others for so long.  But maybe they understand seniority on the property.

Sunny

 




And Sunny, the green egg laying Ameraucana, has to keep her distance from all the other hens.  When I let them out of the coop to free range, she runs in the opposite direction of the others.  Usually, she goes to the Ligustrum hedge along the back fence.






Big Foot sometimes has to step in to maintain the peace between the hens.  When I let them all out, Big Foot will do a "Broken Wing Dance" around the hen that he is particularly interested in.  It is very strange looking, but he does it every time.

Chickens may not be nice to each other, but they offer an interesting study of basic animal interactions.