Walking the dog isn’t always a peaceful outing. Sometimes there’s actual danger out there, both for your dog and you. When thinking about this, you probably tend to worry most about other, more aggressive dogs.

But if you live in farm country, there’s another aggressor species to avoid running into, at least at certain times of the year: cows.

Yes, cows. In Britain, they’ve trampled four dog owners to death in the last two months, Reuters reports.

Robert Sheasby of the National Farmers Union says  the cows are going after the dogs rather than deliberately attacking the humans, but, of course, “there’s a high chance they will get the walker too”.

Why do these placid farm animals turn violent? We’re used to the idea of Mama Bear as a creature to fear, but Mama Cow? We’re also used to the idea of bulls being aggressive, but we’ve come to expect more self-control from the female of the species. (Though my mother has told me that, as a farm child, she hated the chore of bringing the cows home from pasture because, if they met another herd, they would fight.)

Motherhood is what does it, the NFU explains. In summer, as well as fall, many cows have one- or two-month old calves around, and they’re feeling very protective. When they see a carnivore running toward them and their children, they don’t know if it’s there to herd them away, hunt fresh veal, or just take a stroll, but they don’t take any chances.

The NFU advises people to let their dogs off the leash when they go through a field of cattle. This should at least make it easier for the human to escape if needed. Maybe the safest option for both is to stay away from cows altogether.

Well, as one of the Kuegler Mini Farm farmers, I have seen some of the girls more recent antics. . .and THEY’RE NUTTY CHICKENS!!

First of all, there is now a very defensive mother in the coop.  She is one of the Black Wyandottes, and if you go near her when she is on her egg, she squawks loudly, flaps her wings, and attacks you.  Also, she is very nervous when around humans.  To get some pictures for this article, one of my sisters and my brother had to coax her out while I photographed.  Well, she is being a good mom.

The chickens are loving the warm weather, but this summer has, so far, been the rainiest ever.  This is causing excessive mud in the coop.  The mud, though, is actually a mud and chicken feces mix (Eww!).  The chickens don’t mind it, and they will even eat food out of it.  The mud is covered in chicken tracks that creates an interesting pattern.

Recently, I did some research on chickens and learned a lot. The eye of a chicken can focus on large items no more than 160 feet away. That’s why most chickens do not like to go more than that distance away from their coop.  Also, chickens are able to express over 30 different sounds and have an excellent sense of hearing. This can with be observed in the “talk” between hen and chick. The chick chirps with long, high sounds, and the hen answers with a deep, soft voice.  Our chickens talk a lot, especially after laying an egg.  They cackle loudly, as if to say, “Look at me, I laid an egg.”

The girls also are staying up later and later and getting up earlier.  They are going to bed at nine or later and getting up around five thirty.  Once, I heard one at four, which surprised me, but she was fine!

So, the farm moves on, with our fifteen lovable chickens and their caretakers.

A few minutes ago, literally, I was watching a deer ramble through my backyard.  In New Hampshire, the deer is on the pinnacle of our very interesting, and diverse, wildlife.

Our yard has a variety of features that attract the local animal populace.  First off, we have a good-sized yard (one or more acres). We live along a river, so the back end of our yard meets the river.  The other feature is that we have a mini-farm of fifteen chickens (to read about their latest antics/cuteness, read Spring Is Here) that tend to attract many unwanted guests.

We have many guests due to the first two features (yard size, river, etc…).  For example, that deer was probably ambling up from the river.  More than once we have had random animals run through our yard.  Once, my mom was reading on the back deck, and a coyote sprinted through the yard without a glance, stopped, and ran to the river.  We believe that the coyote dens are down there.  Also, because of our yard size, we will have flocks of up to twenty turkeys fly though or land in our yard throughout the spring, summer, and fall.  Last summer, some beavers who lived in dams in our river or in offshooting streams, entered our yard and chewed down a nice line of trees marking our property and providing privacy in a few, quick nights.  We also have a very large chipmunk, squirrel, and raccoon population.  Finally, we have occasional visits from deer and other large animals.

The chickens also have a habit of attracting unwarranted guests.  Once, last summer a fox broke in and killed one chickens and had another in its jaws when my parents scared it off (the jaw-trapped chicken lived).  Just today, we also had the neighbor’s dog in the yard, who was amused with them, but not aggressive.  Finally, a variety of other animals (small children included) enter and are highly interested in the chickens.

So, no matter how diverse some yards may be, if I might say so, we have an incredibly diverse yard!

A letter to the editor in the morning paper got me thinking about dog licenses. (Also feeling sympathy for the letter writer, but I’d sympathize with anyone who’d lost their pet or been suspected unfairly, let alone both.)

Return home to find in the mailbox a notice from City of Toronto — a pet license request. A warning that Big Brother “has reason to believe that you have an unlicensed pet …”
Our beloved 13-year-old German shepherd died two months ago. She was licensed.
Toronto: broke, filthy, crumbling, violent. But the Pet Gestapo is looking out for our safety.

What’s the idea behind dog licenses, anyway?

They began as a source of money to reimburse farmers whose livestock had been killed or injured by dogs. A law passed in Virginia in 1752 says, “dogs frequently ramble from home and destroy great numbers of sheep”. That can’t be much of a problem anymore, at least not in urban areas. So, why do governments go on collecting dog license fees?

The City of Toronto’s website says license fees help it provide food, shelter, and medical care for strays, return lost pets, and “provide public education programs”. These services weren’t expected back in the days when some people let their dogs “ramble” and others worried about the safety of their sheep.

Toronto doesn’t say whether it has any funding for these services besides license fees. Some jurisdictions – Pennsylvania, for example – don’t.

None of this excuses the city if it’s neglecting problems like violent crime while focusing on unlicensed pets. It doesn’t excuse bureaucrats from thinking of possible reasons an aging dog’s license isn’t renewed.

The point is just that, while dog licenses are a nuisance, there always has been, and probably always will be, a purpose they can serve. So, they’re  not going away.

While thinking about the question of urban chickens (and the danger of urban coyotes), I came across an interesting book Starting Right with Turkeys by G.T. Klein.

It was published in 1972, based on an earlier edition from 1946, and ultimately goes back to The “Have-More” Plan, a 1940s back-to-the-land manual by Ed and Carolyn Robinson.

The Robinsons believed everybody could raise their own poultry, fruit, vegetables, and even goats, and this book says, “Yes, you can successfully raise turkeys in your backyard.”

But if you think it’s just like raising chickens, G.T. Klein sets you straight,“You will be badly disappointed if you attempt to raise turkeys as you would chickens.” Feeding and disease control are handled differently – though it seems turkeys can catch infections from chickens, and if you’re raising both you’ll have to keep them carefully separated.

On the plus side, most of the work of raising turkeys is over when they’re eight weeks old. They make less noise than chickens. Your neighbors shouldn’t have any reason to complain as long as you keep the poultry house clean. “Yet, in spite of their good points, you will be disgusted with their dumbness. It is extremely difficult to teach them to eat.”

This is supposed to keep you from getting too attached to your turkeys and having any trouble when you get to the chapter on “Killing and Dressing”. I’d have trouble with that part anyway, in spite of the helpful line drawings that show you exactly where to cut.

Turkey eggs are good, it says – too good for us, in fact. Anybody with more than a few turkeys should be selling the fertilized eggs to breeders.

Even if you don’t want to raise turkeys, this book gives you an interesting, upbeat look into their world.

This year my family decided to undertake the adventure of raising egg-laying chickens. In February, we went to the local farm store here, in New Hampshire, and ordered a dozen egg-laying chickens in three breeds:

• New Hampshire Reds
• Black Wyandottes
• Black Sexlets

This week the 1 day old chicks arrived! I went to the store on the 15th and picked up the dozen new additions to our household. While I was there the clerk mentioned that she had a few extra of two other varieties (Aracuanas and Silver-winged Wyandottes), so we decided to take 2 of each of those, bringing us to a grand total of sixteen chicks at at our home.

They are currently living in a large plastic bin with a heat lamp to keep them warm. All of the family members find themselves speaking to the chicks during the day, and one of my daughters enjoys picking them up and holding them. This was, of course, until her new found pet decided that going to the bathroom on her was also fun!

The chicks are ferocious eaters and drinkers and spend their time doing a lot of both of those activities. Throw in a little sleeping and you have a pretty good picture of what a day in the life of our chicks is like.

During March and April, my future father-in-law and I built a chicken coop (see photos). I still have to finish the roof, but will complete that in the next few weeks before the chicks are ready to move outside in the middle of June. The kids also have to paint the outside, which in itself will be an adventure.

In coming months on Feathers, Fins, and Fur, I will keep readers up-to-date on the chicken adventure and our family’s progress on being chicken farmers.

Photos:

The nearly completed coop:

The chicks: