Please Can I Have a Treat?

"If I come sit in your lap, can I have a treat?"

"Or maybe I'll just peck at the threads of these holey jeans."

"If I look really cute can I have a treat?'

I'm training the chicks with treats. It works just as well with them as it does with dogs. The only problem is that they are picky eaters. They are curious about anything I give them, but only get excited and devour a few favorite treats. At the top of the list is a chopped up hard boiled egg. I've given them this since they were a few days old. (Adam thinks this is wrong on so many levels). Egg is their first food though. They absorb the egg sac when they are born. This provides all the nutrients they need for three days (which is why you can ship day old chicks). So eggs for chickens is like milk for us. They also will eat yogurt mixed with chick feed, but don't like it's messiness. They spend more time wiping off their faces on the grass after they are finished than they do eating it. When I gave them grapes they had more fun playing "chase the guy with the grape" than actually eating them. I throw an occasional worm in the pen and they play with it but don't eat it. They have not been interested in spinach, green beans, strawberries, or sweet potato rolls. They did devour a plate of field peas cooked with ham. And they will eat offered chickweed which is a weed with lots of nutrients, named so because it is a chicken favorite-like catnip to cats.

Anyway, in my attempt to lure them back into their pen after their nightly free range, I started to put a dish of a chopped, hardboiled egg inside the door while yelling "treats!" Rudy, who seems smarter and more aware than the girls, caught on quickly and now follows me when I go inside to get the treat, waiting by the back door for me to return. After three days of this, they all now come running when I holler "treats" and follow me straight to the pen.

Mirai Corn

I tried a new variety of corn two years ago and was totally blown away by its flavor and tenderness. You've probably not heard of it or seen it in stores because it is so tender that it cannot be mechanically harvested, making it impractical for commercial farmers. In Japan however, it has captured 35% of the corn market. The word "mirai" is japanese and roughly translated means "taste of the future." Why is this corn so great? Mirai is a combination of all 3 types of sweet corn - supersweet, sugary enhanced and normal, so it captures the best taste, flavor and texture of any sweet corn. It also holds it's sweetness longer than other sweet corn, lasting up to ten days in the fridge. Mirai is about two weeks earlier to mature than Silver Queen.

Up north they say the corn should be "knee high by the 4th of July." In these parts we like to serve it up by Memorial Day.

Herbs

For an avid gardener and cook, I don't grow a lot of herbs. In the past I've grown sage, rosemary, and oregano, but don't bother anymore as I don't use them in any of my dishes. I interplant basil with tomatoes because it is supposed to be a good companion plant, but don't use it often. Complex recipes, seasoned with multiple herbs have never appealed to me. I do use quite a bit of garlic, either fresh or as garlic salt.

The two herbs I use a lot of are parsley and chives. Parsley is great because it is so underwhelming. It just adds freshness and greenness. It is the perfect addition to chicken soup, or cooked carrots, or spaghetti sauce. Chives are ideal when you want onion flavor without the texture of onions. I snip them over baked salmon and deviled eggs, and into potato salad and white sauce that I toss new potatoes with.

I use parsley and chives so often that I have a pot of both just outside the front door, easily accessible in bare feet while cooking.

Both herbs like cool temps and wilt and die in the garden sun and heat. This pot gets afternoon shade and they hang in through the heat of summer.

Rudy the Roo

"What do we have here? Oh, it's a ...red thing!"

"I think I'll get a little closer and check out this...red thing."

"Yikes! I think it just moved!"

"Hey, you've got to come see this red thing!"

Some interesting trivia-It is a myth that bulls charge a cape because it is red. They are actually color blind and are drawn to the movement of the cape and not it's color. Chickens, on the other hand, are attracted to the color red. This explains why their feeders and waterers are generally produced in this color. It also explains why poultry with a sore or injury are so unmercilessly picked on. This also shows why Rudy was so fascinated by this red object on the driveway.

Rudy is definately a cockrel as we have guessed since he was just a couple of weeks old. He is later to feather out than the girls, but has a redder and more developed comb. Also, when he sees a stranger he attempts to crow. It is not cock-a-doodle-do, but a er-er-ooo. A adolescent attempt at the real thing.

It's a bit amazing because reading through the chicken forums I frequent these days, it seems roosters generally start to crow at 16-18 weeks of age. Rudy is just a six week old pup. I also see people posting pictures of months old chickens asking for help in identifying pullets and cockrels. Rudy, although smaller and later maturing than the girls, has been all boy from the beginning.

He is protective of his flock, as any good rooster should be. When I let them out to play recently, he ran to the door to let me know that one of his girls didn't make it out before the door swung shut. He comes running when he hears one of his girls squawk.

We had originally planned on 6 laying hens with no rooster, but I'm happy now that we will have fertile eggs in a few months so we can hatch some more babies!