[The] Baking Is For the Birds

Now, I realize that some of you are going to think I'm off my rocker. I can't say as though I blame you. I've been doing all sorts of weird things with food lately, (like using them in the bathroom!) but now I am baking for my chickens. {insert eye roll here} This endeavour in the kitchen is not a labor of love, but of necessity.

See that hen up there in the picture. Let me introduce you to Bigfoot. (We have monster truck fans in the house!) Bigfoot and 3 of her flock mates have recently taken up residence in our basement. It seems as though the rest of the flock (that we not-so-lovingly refer to as "the jerks in the coop") were bored during our last cold snap, and decided to peck at some of those lower in the pecking order. We lost 1 hen to this horrible behaviour. My DH had gone out to the coop one evening to check their food and water, and discovered our dead hen. She was laying half in/half out of a nesting box. We had no idea how she had died (at that moment anyway) but she had been pecked. Whether this had occurred before or after the time of death, we were unsure of. (In case you are wondering, we are currently thinking of opening our own Chicken Scene Investigation practice. Kidding! :0) We chalked it up to the inevitable fact that livestock die, and moved on.

The following week I was alarmed to have Teddy Bear come screaming into the house that he saw "meat" on one of the chickens and he was very upset. I ran out to investigate, and discover not 1, but 2 very injured hens. So we set up chicken triage quarters in the basement and have been making the jerks in the coop go out in the run every day. We still ended up with yet another injured girl, but fortunately my DH discovered her early.

I did quite a bit of research on line about why chickens turn to this disgusting behaviour, and there are many. I'm pretty sure that the answer to our riddle is quite simply boredom of being cooped up. (No pun intended) So I looked for suggestions to help this. Most of the articles I read suggested offering the chickens something else to peck, rather than their fellow flock mates. I remembered seeing a Purina Flock Block at our local Tractor Supply Company, and thought that that would be a great idea for the chickens. But it would be a very bad idea for our budget! So I went about finding a recipe for a homemade "flock block". It was not easy, I really had to sift through a lot of links that the search engines brought up, but I finally found 2 different links, both on message forums. Here they are: Alberta Chickens you will have to scroll down a bit to find the recipe. Backyard Chickens I've read quite a few of the other pages from these links and found many other good ideas, and some really bad ones (like the one where a neighbor suggested giving them Styrofoam to peck at or putting Vick's Vaporub on the injured birds.)

This is what I did to make my own "flock block".

And here is my recipe:
2 C. oatmeal
4 C. birdseed
1 C. cornmeal
1/4 C. olive oil
3/4 C. molasses
1/4 C. water
1/2 C, honey
1 small apple, chopped
1 egg, shell crushed and added as well

I mixed the dry ingredients well in a large bowl.

Then I added the wet ingredients, and the apple. I also added half of a peanut butter sandwich that my middle child did not eat at school yesterday for his lunch.

Using a rubber spatula I spread and packed the mix into 2 very well greased loaf pans. (I used Crisco, but lard would be a good choice, too, if you have it.)

I used a bamboo skewer to make a hole for hanging before I put these in a 300* oven for an hour and a half. Then I turned off the oven and let them stay in there for another 30 minutes. I then removed the blocks from the pans and set them on a cooling rack. Unfortunately, one of the blocks broke in half despite my efforts to carefully tip it out of the pan.

I put the flock blocks back into the oven to dry further and left them in there until the oven was completely cool. Now it's time to give one of these to the jerks in the coop. I put an old shoelace through the hole of the block that was not broken and headed out to the coop with it. It broke in half. {sigh} So I hung up the half with the shoe string and put the other half on the floor of the coop by their feeder.

The Jerks in the Coop.

I couldn't wait around to get pictures of the chickens pecking at the block, but by the next day, it had been completely consumed! They liked it! I kept the next block for if we have another cold snap or (dare I hope!) a snow fall where the chickees would be confined in the coop again. We had snow (for all of 2 days!) earlier this week, so I put half of the second block in the coop. My DH had also built a shelf in the coop to give them some more room. These two measures seem to be helping.

I left out the sugar, salt and reduced the baking soda for the chickee's corn bread.

Above is Star, chowing down. Pictured below is Flower, who for once was quiet!
(Can you guess who named these girls? I mean, really! Star and Flower?)

And now for some more gratuitous photos of our kitty cat Merlin. She was absolutely fuming that I was making those bird brains a treat and won't even bothering to open her a can of tuna!

"Is that for me?"

"What do you mean "NO"?!!!???!!!"

Watching from the top of the basement stairs as the girls in the
basement chow down on corn bread.

"Just leave that cage door open for a minute and I'll get my own chicken treat! MWAH-HA-HA-HA!"**





*I do honestly realize that all of this pecking is a part of regular chicken behavior, as horrible as it is, and not a matter of chicken personalities!
**I really have no idea what Merlin was thinking, but I think it's a pretty safe bet that I'm pretty close!


I'm hoping this is helpful for all of my fellow chicken owners. If you don't own chickens, though, and are fond of feeding wild birds, this would be a great idea to make for them as well. Have a lovely day, Friends!

Blessings,
Kelly