Sunday, September 27, 2009

Hi, Wanna Play?

"Hi there, little Wyandotte!"
Morgan came into the pen to check on me while I was cleaning up after the mess the chickens had made of their feed and molting feathers all over the place.
"Oops! Good Grief, what did I do?"
That Wyandotte is all puffed up and out of sorts.
I'm outa here!
Poor Morgan, she was so upset she went through the little chicken door.
"And Stay Out!"
Gee! That is one bossy hen! You can see the basket in this photo.
"... I was just standing there, and then the hen chased me."

Kristine comforted Morgan and listened to her sad tale. Poor Morgan, she had a bad experience and after she takes such good care of the hens and keeps the coyotes, raccoons, bears and foxes away. She doesn't get any respect from the girls.

I had a bad experience with my paint trick. Freezing the paint brush with this new non-smelly paint does not work!!! The way it is supposed to work is the paint unfreezes and I can start painting, but not with this new paint. When the brush unfroze, the paint was all sticky and dried out looking. Yikes! It took me a long, long time to soak and scrape the paint out of the brush. Well, that sure didn't save me any time. I did get one side of the doors and wood piece painted.

I even read the directions, well, the drying instruction say that the paint will take 30 days to dry. 30 days! I quick went and checked on the drawers I had painted last month and sure enough they were stuck. They did pull loose when I tugged hard and thankfully the paint did not pull apart. I will have to leave the drawers open for another month and see what happens. I think I will get some felt bits to stick on the inside edges of the drawers to cushion them.

The hens have made such a mess with their corn that I have left it shut up in the barrel. I want to see if the chickens will eat up the corn and seed they have scattered over half the pen. Kristine said she thinks the hens are looking for certain seeds in the scratch and knock all the rest of the grains all over while they are going through the feed. Well, I'll wait a few days and see what happens. I put new straw in their nest boxes and raked up the pen and swept out the coop. I nailed the little basket down in a new spot. Hope I get an egg in there tomorrow.

[4 eggs today]
Smiles
~:>

5 comments:

diane b said...

Poor Morgan.

Gus, Louie and Callie said...

Poor Morgan, those chickens can be so mean..
30 days we have never heard of that before...


Big Sloppy Kisses
Gus, Louie and Callie

Callie Brady said...

diane: I know. Some of those hens are naughty.

Gus, Louie and Callie: The paint says to wait 30 days before washing with water, so I took that as 30 days to completely dry to a stable state. I love the paint because it doesn't have an odor.

flowerweaver said...

Thanks so much for visiting my blog. It's nice to meet another chicken lady!

Chickens and sheep get along well together. I just have to make sure the sheep can't get to the chicken feed as the copper in it would harm them.

Usually cracked or "scratch" grains are not given in a feeder, but are fed to chickens by throwing it across the ground to encourage them to scratch for bugs. That's probably why your hens are making a mess with it, as they want it on the ground to scratch around in.

We put out only what they will eat that morning, and give ours free access to a balanced chicken kibble the rest of the day. Of course they always prefer the bugs in our creek when they find them! But it's been so dry the pickings have been slim all summer.

If you are feeding scratch inside make sure they have access to grit so they can digest it. Outside they will find enough gravel on the ground that you don't have to add the grit.

I plan to check out more of your posts. Hope you will visit again!

Tanya said...

Poor Morgan! She does look abit upset about being chased by the chicken. The chickens may not appreciate her but tell her your blog fans do!