Saturday, February 06, 2010

Get Along Little Chickies!

Morgan doesn't really chase the chickens, what she does do at times is run around them and through them and break up their little gatherings. In this photo she does kinda look like she is herding the hens. I wish I had trained her to do this and herd the chickens into their coop.

Morgan has a built in automatic response to herding that translates to her always staying on the opposite side from me with the chickens in the middle. When I am trying to get the chickens in the coop, this means that Morgan is standing in front of the door. My plan is to work with Morgan on a long 25' lead. That way I will be able to correct her and have some control instead of yelling at her, which doesn't work at all. Me: "No! Stop! Sit! Arrgh! Oh, for petes sake, No!" Morgan: "Huh? What? What do you want?"

I found out a way to get rid of the annoying underlines that show up under the text in the Blogger editor sometimes when I'm moving photos and text around. The undo arrows didn't work and I couldn't find anything in the edit HTML to change, and I didn't want to retype everything, so I copied the text and pasted it into TextEdit to try and remove the underlines there. When I clicked on the underlined text in TextEdit, up popped a new blank browser window. Ah, ha! The underlines were really a link gone wrong. So, I went back to the blog editor, highlighted all the goofy underlined text, and then clicked on the Link icon as if I was going to make the underlined text a link to a web page. When the box showed up I typed some x's in the URL space and clicked on test this link. Naturally, it didn't work, so then I clicked on cancel and the underlines went away. Phew! There must be other ways that work, but this is the only way that works for me so far.

Well, back to chickens and eggs... while searching around for information on chicken feed I ran across this page, about Beneficial Farm, that I thought was kind of interesting. The article is about a farm that decided to try and raise and adapt some chickens to their harsh environment and feed local feed from local farmers. It is a long piece, so I don't recommend anyone read it unless they have some time to become engaged. I especially liked the chicken facts at the end. I like to learn about stuff like this. I wish there was a farm like this near me. Maybe?

The weather is weird. The rain is coming back around from Nevada. It is supposed to go East, not West. I wonder if the big storm in the East is bumping the weather back this way?

Thank you for sharing the way you handle eggs from your chickens. Very interesting! I appreciate it!

[4 eggs today]
The hens and Morgan got out for half a day.

Peek at the Past
(February 7, 2009)
I need to rake up the leaves again
and the solar fountain didn't happen yet.
The quilt is still calling to me.
But, I'm fighting off a sore throat.
It's raining... that's my excuse.

Smiles
~:>

11 comments:

Becky's Barnyard said...

At least Morgan gaurds the chickens. I wish Skylar would herd or even gaurd my chickens. She said no, I do horses.

Anonymous said...

Seed starting is strangely addictive... and it will take over your house for 6-10 weeks, maybe more, so be careful before you rub the lamp!

:-)
Ali

Gus, Louie and Callie said...

Morgan you are so thoughtful to help mom with the sheep. You do need to learn to drive the sheep though. Come on over and we will show you..
Oh the planter. Well Dad got some 4x4x8 inch posts and screwed them all together. He is now adding top soil that he got from Home Depot. He is putting in leaves and of course the sheep treats.. Hopefully this will make some great soil for tomatoes, cucs, onions, beans.... He just using the garden hose to water it..
Mom has already gotten her one cherry tomato plant and her onion sets so Dad needs to get busy.. hehe
Hope this works for you. Sounds like you have lots of leaves for compose...

Big Sloppy Kisses
Gus, Louie and Callie

Toni aka irishlas said...

My three shelties, who should be herding my girls just want to eat them! Yikes! So, I keep them separated.
What a good dog your Morgan is!

John Going Gently said...

it can take a while but eventually hens bore dogs!

~Kim at Golden Pines~ said...

What a great dog Morgan is!! One of the reasons I don't have chickens is because I know what our Goldens would do to them--Okay, that and my husband won't let me! ;-)

jaz@octoberfarm said...

i came really close to getting chickens last year and now i am so glad i didn't get them. i wouldn't be able to get to them and more snow is on the way! i would have chickens on ice!

DayPhoto said...

Snowing and blowing and very cold here today. Nothing pretty to photograph and I'm very tired of it all.

Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com/

lisa said...

Morgan is soo good!

Gill - That British Woman said...

Callie thanks for popping by my blog and commenting..

I am still on the fence when it comes to getting chickens here on the Acreage....

Gill in Canada

Hönsflocken said...

Thanks a lot for the comment! Your header is really cute, I like the hens!