Category Archives: chickens

It’s Turkey Lurkey Time

Well it is round 2 here at Paradise Acres!  Round 1 consisted of receiving our chickens and building a coop for them to hang out in.  Round 2 as I have started to call it started with receiving our turkeys in the mail.  I have to give the Rincón Post Office credit here, they have always gotten us our birds in a timely manner and we appreciate it.  With this particular delivery we even received a Facebook message from the post master letting us know that the turkeys were here!

Turkey Poults Poults in a Box

Round 1 involved a lot of setup work as far as clearing a place to put the coop, then moving all of the wood piece by piece from the old bathroom to the new location.  Hey, at least it wasn’t an uphill move!  Round 1 also involved a learning curve from our previous 6 chickens from our backyard flock to 25 here on our homestead.  Having that many more chicks presented a space problem that occurred VERY quickly, more so than with just 6.  We thought that having the bathtub would be good enough for them for a while which in hindsight wasn’t big enough for much more than a week.

Having 15 turkeys is going to be an extension on that.  The breed of turkey we got, Royal Palm Turkeys, are at least not as large as the traditional breed of turkeys that are raised for meat production.  These guys will only get to 10-12 pounds in size.  They are one of the only breeds that are not selected primarily for meat production, though they will make a fine meal when that time comes. These are heritage breeds meaning they can reproduce on their own and are not the commercial standard that just sits around and eats all day long. They are active and beautiful birds.

The poults so far have been about the same as chicks.  Some of the differences we have noticed is that they have already had a tendency to imprint on us.  When we walk around and a poult is out with us it will happily follow us around.  We have heard this is a turkey trait in general.  It’s cute.  The poults also seem to be just a bit more chill than chicks are.  They aren’t as frantic.  They are pretty amusing to watch.  The males (we think) already poof up and try to act tough.  As poults they look a lot like chicks except for the little unicorn horn above their beak. They also all huddle in a corner when it is time to sleep.  Just a big ball.

Royal Palm Poult
Thanksgiving Dinner

Poults in Yard
Thanksgiving and Christmas Dinner Playing in the Yard

Round 1 with the chickens also taught us about hawks.  The hawks here are becoming a nuisance to what we are trying to accomplish.  A hawk took one of our polish hens and attacked another chick that had escaped.  Yesterday when Cassie and I came down to work in the yard I saw a hawk fly from the coop to a tree elsewhere on the property, I was like……”WTF”.   That is when I noticed another hawk sitting on the ground in the middle of our path.  I am thinking that we may need to introduce another animal into our plan that will protect the chickens and turkeys or at the very least just scare/chase the hawks.  Not sure if this would be a dog or if the roosters and Toms will be able to handle that when they get to full size.  I mean seriously, the hawks were trying to get at the chickens that are INSIDE the coop!  I am glad I made it super secure.

Rooster
Grow Rooster! GROW!

We only let the chickens range when we are present and watching.  I tried to let them out once when I was just in the yard working, but a hawk made an attempt at them so we had to change our strategy so that we are watching them closely.  We have seen as many as 4 hawks in the sky above our property.  Wikipedia states that they rarely prey on standard sized chickens, I have my doubts about that.  I have a feeling they will always be there and always be making attempts.  Because of that our turkeys will be under lock and key until they reach a good size.  The toms should make for good protection when they are big enough as well as the roosters.

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Face to Face with a Hawk and Our Food

The other day we had a chicken escape from the coop.  We can’t catch 1 chicken easily at first.  It takes about 10-15 minutes for them to start to miss the flock at which point I can grab one of the other chickens to use as bait and then the escapee will just walk over to me and I can pick her up and put them both back.

We went up to the cabana for a while and I decided that I should go put the chicken away before we forget.  I walked down and as soon as I turned the corner I saw a huge hawk standing at about 2 and a half feet tall on the ground next to the coop.  It took my brain a few seconds to realize what was going on.  As I looked I saw that the hawk is probably the ugliest monster I’ve seen out here so far.  It was actually shocking at first and I think that is what took my brain the longest to react.  “What the hell is that?!?” On the ground they are not the soaring majestic creatures they are in the sky!

I finally figured out what was going on, that the hawk was on top of our stray chicken and was staring at me and giving me that “What are you going to do, human?” look. Well I grabbed the biggest rock I could find, threw it while yelling at the stupid thing.  I missed with the rock, and it tried to fly away with the chicken.  The chicken was too heavy and it fell into the brush.  I yelled for Cassie to come out and she showed up happy to see that I was ok, but she was confused as to what was going on.  I gave her a short version of the story “Hawk, big, I scared it, it flew away and dropped the chicken over here somewhere!!” she helped me to find the chick and when we found her she was still alive.

It didn”t take long to figure out that the chicken couldn’t walk.  She could move her neck and her legs, but sat mostly sideways and couldn’t stand up.  We have read that the hawks know how to paralyze their prey and it appears that is what it did to our chicken- or immobilized her at the least.

Hawk Chicken Attack
Chicken In Sick Bay

We waited a day and it just wasn’t doing any better.  She just layed there on her side and looked unhappy.  Not eating, not drinking.  I decided that rather than having it suffer and die in the house, it was an opportunity to learn how to butcher a chicken, something we haven’t done yet.  So I got my supplies ready, read up on how to butcher and skin a chicken and did the deed. We skinned her rather than pluck her because there is so little meat on a 8-9 week old chicken.

BK First Chicken butcher(2)
Preparing an Old Stump for a Chopping Block

It was fairly easy to actually kill the chicken once it had been decided. The hardest part was that we didn’t actually want to cull her; we were caring for her and were hoping for her eggs! But we were doing it because it was necessary. We thanked the chicken for her life. There was very little blood and it was over very quickly. The skinning and removal of organs was very quick as well. Within 10 minutes after the first chop we were grilling the small amount of meat that resulted. Talk about fresh!

After we ate the little meat that there was we reflected on the entire event that had unfolded.  We, for the first time in a long time, came face to face with the fact that when we eat meat, we are eating a formerly living breathing creature. That life must eat life to live! The chickens, the hawks, us! We all are in a cycle of life and death. We also reflected that we are so far removed from that basic fact that it seemed so strange to kill and eat our own food -or even grow it for that matter.  Shouldn’t it be the other way around?  Shouldn’t it feel weird to NOT be connected to the food we eat?  The food that incorporates into our body and forms us? I have eaten a lot of chicken, but this was the first time I felt that I understood the emotion that is involved with taking a life to feed ourselves.  The chicken we buy in the stores is totally sanitized of life, even though it too is killed.

I can see why people raise factory chickens and buy butchered processed meat.  It’s easier.  It is easier to raise a chicken in a 100% controlled environment where hawks and predators cannot get them and the chicken itself can’t get away.  It is easier to not be faced with killing, with death.

Chicken Dinner
Our Small Meal

In the factory model, part of the plan is to remove us from the killing.  Another part of the plan is to control the chickens’ environment as close to 100% as possible to avoid hawks, skunks, foxes and whatever else may want to kill and eat them from doing so.  It removes the emotion so that we can treat life like a sterile factory component instead of the full down and dirty details that make life, life.

I can’t treat chickens like that.  I can’t leave them cooped up all day, they LOVE to peck and forage in the dirt for their food. We only let them out when we can watch them and protect them from hawks until they get bigger, but occasionally they might escape like this unlucky chicken. And I suppose this means that a hawk or me, might catch and kill one of them from time to time.  So be it. The chickens live a life worth living and I have a meal worth eating that I appreciate so much more than those factory chicken meals.  I am glad that I was able to learn and prepare my own food and I am glad this chicken got to be outside often and forage for food and do what a chicken does.  We are learning a lot out here and are growing as people. As for the other chickens, our hope is that as they get bigger the hawks will leave them alone and the roosters will do a good job of protecting the flock. It is all a big learning curve.

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Spring Update at La Finca

We figured it might be a good time to post some updates on the progress we have made on various projects that we’ve written about.  Looking back it becomes apparent that we have made quite a bit of progress!

Gateway now
Overgrown -Shortly after we moved here

Cleared
Cut Way Back -Now

There are quite a few royal palms, mango and almond trees hidden in the background that we are still working to uncover.  Huge beautiful trees that are simply buried by all the growth.  Below is a picture of a small royal we finally got to after taking down countless other trees that sprung up over the years.

Logs
Small Royal Palm

The area that is over grown is super cool to walk around because you get inside the jungle and under the canopy.  We aren’t going to continue cutting down too much further except to expose some of these hidden gems.  We want to keep the forest in tact as much as possible and make pathways thru it, plus some plants and trees we want to grow thrive on the shade.  The turkeys will like it there too.

Jungle Path
Path Into the Forest

Jungle
Shaded Area


Turn the sound up to hear all the birds/sounds!

The gardens we have planted all seem to be doing pretty good.  The lettuce is doing well and we’ve been able to start eating it.  The giant pumpkins we planted are flowering and growing all over the place.  The amaranth is just now starting to take off and the corn seems to like it here.  Pretty much everything is growing that we have tried.

Amaranth
Amaranth

Cilantro
Cilantro

Corn
Pop Corn

Romaine
Romaine Lettuce

Pumpkin Flower
Pumpkin Flower

Lime Tree
Limes on our New Tree

Jobo Blossoms
Jobo Blossoms

Peanut
Peanuts

We also finished up the coop and moved all the chickens into it.  They have lots of room.  Cassie and I also decided to build a porch on the front so we can sit down after working in the yard.  It is nice to have somewhere flat and shaded to park some chairs.  We’ve gone full hillbilly.  I just need a banjo.

Coop Front
Porch on the coop

Coop Side
Side view

Almost all of the chickens are doing good.  I say almost because there was one incident where our little friend Mohawk got taken by…A hawk.  Maybe we should have named her “Lesshawk”? Polish hens are well known as being ‘hawk bait’ because they have poor eyesight especially from above.

We had been letting the chicks out and they were foraging for food behind the coop.  We were sitting on the deck and out of nowhere a large red tailed hawk swooped down at the chicks.  Most of them ran, but poor Mohawk didn’t run.  Mohawk: “Huh, where did everybody go?”

Lesson learned.  It’s too soon to let them out.

I think the hawk is going to be the most formidable opponent to our chickens.  We want to let our roosters grow up as we have read that while a red tailed hawk might attack a full sized hen, it would have to eat it on the ground.  The roosters would attack the hawk.  So it might be a deterrent.  The other option is to make a chicken run but we really want to free range them.  We hope that when the chickens are full size, the hawks won’t prey on them (often).  I might need to scare them off with some firecrackers and other assorted toys (R/C airplane?).

We did get a few roosters and one that is a Jersey Giant and should grow to 10lbs +.  Google them, they are HUGE birds.  I mean…Huge.  Hopefully it isn’t too mean to us..lol.

Chicks Chillin
Chicks Roosting in the Coop (Chicken guessers, what breed is the front chicken?(hint: 5 toes)

All in all things are shaping up as we planned and we are having a lot of fun in the process.  We have lots of mangoes falling on the roof of the cabana and can’t wait until they are fully ripe so we can start eating them!  Spring in the tropics is much like the warmest days back in CO except that you will never be surprised by a random winter blizzard.

We bought a lawn mower to help keep things under control.  I do think I’ll need a riding mower someday but we will see how it goes.
Mower

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Ag Fair in Mayaguez =4 More in the Flock

There was an agricultural fair going on in Mayaguez this past week and our neighbor who is a student there encouraged us to meet him there and check it out. It was really fun and right up our alley. They had lots of exotic plant vendors, the USDA, and other agricultural organizations. They also had farm animals in one of the tents as well as fair food and crafts.

Ag Fair in Mayaguez

Univ of Mayaguez Pigs

I was like a kid in a candy store and was so excited about all the different plants and animals. We picked up a large lime tree that was already producing limes. We also saw a huge pen full of dyed baby chicks that they were selling for $2.

Colored chicks

The practice of dyeing chicks colors is generally safe as long as they use food grade dyes. However, there are some concerns  about the practice most notably that people often will buy a baby chick like this as a novelty item not intending to actually raise the chicken and so they get thrown away. We didn’t buy any but it was pretty tempting especially at that price.

Our friends, however, also visited the fair and they knew we were set up for chickens, so they bought four of them and played with them for the day and then brought them to us. They are so small especially compared with our now 6 week old chickens. We weren’t sure how they would work all together adding in such young ones, but they are fine! Because there are some older pullets in the flock that are watching out for them, we don’t even need to put them under a heat lamp. They just huddle under the older birds’ feathers at night.

Colorful chicks
Our friends named them already: Grinch, Tanner and Smurf shown here. Also not shown is another one called Black Eyed Peep.

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