Lost and Found Hen

Look what Kristine found on her way to work! She drove past the chicken and had to make a turn and come back, but the chicken was still there and didn't try to make a get away into the bushes. Kristine walked up to it and said, "Boy, you're a mess!" and the chicken just sat down. Kristine said the chicken sat on her lap as she drove back home. Our neighbor agreed to take the chicken. Pretty neat! She has a lovely cool dark barn where this poor frazzled bird can have some quiet time to recover. The chicken has feathers missing on one wing, so maybe there was a dog attack?

Later on the way to work, Kristine said she saw a bunch of dead chickens on one of the side streets. But she said those chickens look like they had been dead for a few days. Strange, because they weren't there yesterday. Hard to figure out exactly what is going on in the chicken world. We would have like to have kept this pretty chicken but our 18 hens would have given her a hard time and she looked like she has had enough trouble.

These three hens crack me up. They are the early roosters. The rest of the hens are still out in the woods, by the side of the pen, or inside the pen eating a late snack, but these girls want to make sure they get a spot on the top roost. Nothing like camping out early! On the left of the roost you can see where I opened this side of the nest box by cutting the chicken wire away. I will have to cut the opening a bit larger next time I have the power saw hooked up. Or not. Depends on if they get in the box or not. Some of them like little spaces.

Today I spent more time in my little garden with Morgan helping as I brought in a wheel barrow full of chicken dirt and put it in the other planting area. I got this area cut back so now I can see the bird bath my little fake stream.

Morgan is a wonderful dog. She is 3/4 Border Collie and 1/4th Australian Shepherd. The first dog I remember having was a blue spotted Australian Shepherd. Morgan is a mix of all the best characteristics of both breeds. She was named snow by the breeders, but she has slowly developed her black spots. Here are two links to information and photos about Border Collies and Australian Shepherds.

[6 eggs today]

Smiles

~:>

Good Night

Tonight I waited until it was almost dark before I went to lock up the chickens because I wanted to check and see if some of them were sleeping in the nest boxes. First I strolled down to the gate. I love my gate with its night light. Since we are at the end of the road we keep the gate chained and padlocked. When my brother lived here he had people blasting through this property on old dirt roads and knocking down his fences. The area is much more built up now with houses so we haven't had that problem, but some people seem to want to open and drive through unlocked gates, especially at the end of a road. I stood by the gate listening to the neighbor's dog barking at me. It is a good watch dog. Barks at any noise. Then they yell at their dog. I'll post the video I took of the dog barking sometime. Fascinating.

Then I walked back to the chicken coop to check the girls. I think I woke them up. They just sat there clucking at me. It was totally dark in there, so when the flash went off they were startled. My brother had tree branches for the hens to roost on, but I couldn't find any that fit this space, so I used old handles from rakes and shovels. The hens don't seem to mind. I liked the tree branch roosts.

Then I went around and checked this side and found these two hens on top and one in the middle nest box. Tomorrow I will check and see if these are the same hens that are there in the day and if so I will chuck them out of their cozy nests. They need to get out and eat and get a drink. I remember reading that if you want to break a broody hen you need to cool off their tummy. I really don't want to cage these hens so that when they sit they have air circulation under them. I admit it. I'm lazy.

I found an egg in the middle and one in the bottom nest box, but no hen down there.

Kristine's throat is better, but now she has gone to bed early with a headache.

Hope she feels better tomorrow.

Kristine took a photo for me to use in a post, so I'm saving it for when I totally run out of ideas. Thanks for leaving a comment, Kathleen. Thanks you to all who leave me comments. I never thought anyone would read this blog but my family. As soon as I feel a bit better I will answer the comments that have been left. The deal was I was going to make a blog and post on it with at least one photo for every day for a year. And I'm at the half way point already! Time flys. The other part of the plan was that I was going to have the blog printed. I still have to figure out how I want to do that.

[8 eggs today]

None in the dirt!

Smiles

~:>

PhD?

I read today on a blog

that Phd means

Project half done.

Well, my Japanese quilt isn't even half started.

I'm still working on the layout.

But these scraps are almost going to be done.

After I sew the bits together,

I will cut out some blocks.

I believe it is called stash busting.

Something like that.

After I worked on the bits and pieces,

it was time to go out and rake leaves.

But I was missing my dirt rake.

Ah, I remember I left it in the chicken coop,

where I used it last raking out the coop.

Big mistake!

I should never have gone  to the chicken coop

because I was captured for almost the whole day

doing chicken stuff.

(click the photos)

So, I left the strips and...

Went out to the coop and found

that the chickens had dug themselves a dusting pit.

So I put a good sized rock in the hole

to slow the girls down.

My daughter saw a coyote this morning

walking along next to the house.

The coyote can dig his own holes

and doesn't need any help from the girls.

Then I filled the hole up with dirt

and stomped on it a few times.

I found the rake.

I'm done right?

Wrong...

This is a view of the top of the chicken coop pen

without

a covering of leaves.

I used the hose to squirt off the leaves.

It was kinda fun to see the leaves go flying away.

Now the sun can shine into the coop

and warm the girls bedroom up.

That anchor fencing across the top

keeps the bears and the raccoons

out of the chicken coop at night.

A bear got in once, but that was because

my daughter didn't lock the door.

We were gone and she forgot.

Oops!

The bear story is another post.

Then I noticed that the girls had decided to roost on the edge

of their nest boxes and poo in them.

I have spared you photos of that.

Here is a photo of me cleaning out the boxes

and taking the wood shaving away.

The boxes are empty!

And there is a big bag of nice new wood shavings.

I would rather have straw

but we couldn't get a bale of straw in the car.

Well, we could but it would make a mess of the car.

Nest box full of clean wood shavings.

Now what to do about the poo problem?

I know! I will lower the roosts!

Here you can see the roosts are now lowered.

Thank goodness I used screws when I built this thing.

And thank goodness for power screw drivers.

I also strung wire across the top of the board of the nest box

to try and convince the girls to use the roosts.

We'll see how that works.

The eggs you see in the nest boxes

are wooden eggs.

I put them in there to fool the chickens.

They are not too smart

and I guess they think they have already laid an egg

and so they don't... lay an egg.

The chickens were molting and looked terrible

without feathers but they were still laying.

I wanted them to grow feathers instead of laying eggs.

Hey, it worked!

It is getting late and I'm still out here!

I cleaned the waterer, filled the feeders with lay and corn,

raked out their pen and

put oyster shell in a little pot under the feeder.

This pen would be too small for all the chickens

we have if they had to stay in it,

but they are out running around

most of the day in the woods.

So, it works out OK.

I had a little time left to rake

but I only raked halfway across the driveway

before it was time to quit

and go lock up the girls.

Here are the happy campers!

Good night girls!

Smiles