Kate Willyard
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Personal Blog

My Life Outside the Office

Meet My Chickens

12/19/2016

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A while back we purchased our chickens. I was unsure, because I have never really liked birds, but...

I LOVE MY CHICKENS!!!!!

​They are really interested in people and each has their own personality. We have two barred plymouth rock chickens, five buff orpington chickens, two ameraucana chickens and one ameraucana rooster. 
Let me tell you more about them!
​

Meet...

Freebird

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Freebird is a buff orpington chicken. She is pretty curious and the most friendly of all the chickens. When we first got her, she was the one that would most freequently figure a way to get out of the designated chicken area. However I didn't mind so much because she likes being picked up, so I didn't have to chase her around to put her back in the pen. 

Batman

Batman is  also a buff orpington chicken. She is the most curious out of all the chickens. When I sit outside while working from home, she is the first to jump up on the table and check out what my fingers are pecking at. 
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Superman

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Superman is a massive buff orpington chicken. Although everyone has equal access to food, she is by far the biggest chicken. When I feed the chicken treats, she is always pushing her way to the front. Not only is she massive, she also produces massive eggs. Some of her eggs are too big to fit in an egg crate!

Skull

Skull is a loud, scaredy-cat, and as a result, she ends up beind bullied by the other chickens. Anytime someone moves near her quickly, she screams and runs away. She wasn't always like this. It is a sad story, really. She would not submit to the cock, so he ripped out a bunch of her feathers on the back of her head, and kept singling her out and pecking her. I have tried to keep them seperated, but he will jump over every once in a while. With their new cage and the numerous perches inside it, she has figured out a way to hide during the few times he does break into their cage.As a result, her feathers are starting to grow back. 
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Flower

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Flower is a really funny buff orpington chicken, but she is a bit of a bully. She will often unnecessarily peck at the other chickens. She is really funny though. She will often get caught up in what she is doing and the flock moves on. When she realizes it, she gets all skiddish and then runs across the yard to rejoin the flock. 

Princess

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Princess is a bold barred plymouth rock chicken. However, she is not a huge fan of people. She likes to pretend she rules the roost. She is pretty popular and friendly with the other ladies, but get in her way and she will set the pecking order straight.

Barbara

Barbara is a barred plymouth rock chicken. She seems really meek when everyone is huddled around me eating treats. But in reality, she is a scavenger who loves to steal other chickens' treats after they get them from my hand.
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Amelia

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Amelia is an ameraucana chicken. Like all of the ameraucanas, she is pretty smart. But not only is she smart, she is the most adventurous of all the chickens. She likes to climb on fenses and into our neighbor's lawn. No fense can hold her! She loves to fly!

Bernadette 

Bernadette is also an ameraucana chicken. Like Amelia, she is adventurous, but she likes people more. Bernadette will see me doing something elsewhere in the yard and she will immediately hop over the fense and start following me around. I think she is the prettiest chicken. I love her poofy cheeks! 
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Elvis

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Elvis is an ameraucana cock. We purchased what we thought was three pulleted female ameraucana chickens, but we ended up with one male- Elvis. Elvis is pretty and brave, but he picks on Skull, so I have to separate him (although Bernadette and Amelia will often fly over to hang out with him during the day). He makes a lot of noise crowing in the morning (in our urban area), so we put a no-crow rooster collar on him. His crow used to sound pretty, but (with his collar on) now it is more like a gurgle. It is sad, but we had to do it because our new neighbors keep complaining.
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Fall Gardening in Texas

9/11/2015

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After a lot of work, we finished putting together our fall garden.
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We still have quite a few summer vegetables in the ground: hot peppers (habaneros, jalapenos and serranos), sweet peppers (red, yellow and orange bell peppers), banana peppers, sweet potatoes, eggplants and Malabar spinach. 
In addition, we recently planted cucumbers, tomatoes, winter squash, summer squash, carrots, and broccoli.
We plan to plant sweet peas this weekend. Growing vegetables (especially things like sweet peas) in Texas may be tough, but with good timing and hard work, we are able to grow vegetables all year round. 
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Introduction to Rabbitry

7/17/2015

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For Christmas, Tai bought me 4 Californian Meat Pen rabbits (three does and a buck) and built rabbit hutches from recycled materials. They live off fresh water, garden clippings and food from the local coop.
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 We use their waste for our compost pile. Additionally, we plan to use them for meat, or discover we don't have the hearts to be socially responsible meat eaters. Once we get the operation going, we will also be selling our adolescents and teaching others who are interested in rabbitry. 

We bought our rabbits from a local breeder. We keep them in four separate cages. Tai built the hutches from some 2x4s, crates, screen, wire, sheet metal roofing, an old grill, nails and a staple gun.  Our original cage had just two compartments: one for the does, one for the buck (you have to keep them separated). The door of first two cages is made out of an old grill. It makes it look like bunny jail, but it is much more effective than the screen doors on the two new cages. Underneath the cages, we wedged the sheet metal roofing so that it is a bit easier to gather the rabbit waste to add to our compost for the garden. 
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Once the rabbits became breeding age, we expanded the cages, one cage for each of the four original rabbits. In the female cages, we built nesting boxes out of wood. We give them tons of hay so that they can nest accordingly.
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We recently started breeding the rabbits. Now the cages are filled with baby bunnies, bunny parents and pregnant bunnies. They have been a lot of fun to care for, but I do not look forward to having to say goodbye. It has been a fun learning experience and so far we have had a lot of success with rabbitry. 
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One Person’s Trash Is Another Person’s Treasure

7/1/2015

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When looking at our backyard garden, it is crazy to see how many things have been reused. I am lucky because my husband, Tai, works in landscaping and irrigation. As a result, he drives around all day doing service calls and often picks up items discarded on the side of the road. When I was little, my dad used to do the same thing. I would get so irritated and embarrassed, but now I understand the social value of this type of behavior. For instance, look at our rabbit hutches:

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Tai built them from left over crates, sheet metal and a barbecue pit found on the side of the road. 

We also built our tomato supports from fence posts collected from when our neighbors rebuilt their fence:

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We just moved the fence posts next to our row of tomatoes. We drilled holes in the posts and draped cotton string every foot. I weave the tomato limbs between the strings so they are held up off the ground.

Tai also has a deal set up with fellow garbage collectors. He trades random metal pieces for iron fence posts. We use these, along with bamboo we harvest from a neighbor’s yard, to hang the netting for beans and crawling spinach:

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So many things in our garden come from other people’s trash. It just goes to show so many things people throw away can be used for productive purposes.   

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    Author

    Kate Willyard is a political and economic sociologist interested in human organization and the environment.

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