Merry Christmas Eve!

Merry Christmas To All

Thank you to all who comment and read this blog.

I wish you a joyful holiday!

I took this photo on Monday.

I like the old street lamps.

[1 egg today]

It was an Orpington egg!

Smiles

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Treading The Boards

Today I got the broody Australorp to go go outside! I had to pick her up three times and carry her out the door, but she is finally hanging out with her two sisters. I opened up the nest boxes so they are not dark and cozy. I hope she will give up the egg hatching plan. John here warned me to be careful of broody hens getting sick in the winter cold. It was good that he did because I usually just pretty much ignore them except for complaining and worrying about them.

Do these girls want to go on stage? No. I think they just like the boards because they have soaked up some warmth from the sun. But, I got to thinking about the trained chickens I have seen performing at county fairs and went to take a quick look on YouTube to see what I could find and came up with this. Chickens aren't so dumb!

I have trained dogs and once even got a third place in obedience with one of my Dobies at a benched Doberman show at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. The dog's scores were only a half point apart with the winner getting a perfect score. Yes. I'm blowing my horn. This blog is supposed to be a record of stuff that happened. I haven't used a clicker or whistle to train except to use them to get a dog to come for a treat. I save the clicker and whistle for times when the dog won't come and I'm desperate.

I wonder if I could clicker train the broody hen to give up sitting in a nest? I guess I could distract her for awhile with treats, but I don't think I have enough of an inclination to pursue chicken training. Training chickens to lay an egg when they hear a click? Now that would be worth the effort. I wonder?

I only got a little bit of path raking done.

Morgan wouldn't hold still for a photo.

The window I replaced yesterday was the top right window. It may have cracked because of the freezes and the wind rattling the windows around or maybe a chicken flew up and bumped the glass when they were all penned up in the coop. I was reading about farmers who use three sided chicken coops even in snowy weather. They did say they had winter hardy chickens. I guess the hens become acclimated to the situation where they are living. I like this set up here especially the idea of composting the wood shavings and chicken poo in place.

[no eggs today]

Smiles

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Cleaner Coop

Nice new clean straw! (fake egg) I pulled out all the old straw from the nest boxes and raked it out into the pen. After the rain? we are supposed to get this weekend, I'll be able to tell how the straw will perform as a mud barrier. I can always put leaves or wood chips on top. Kristine said she had to take the back roads home because the freeway was packed with people headed up to Tahoe for a snow weekend. Snow? I don't see any rain forecast.

Some of the hens came back inside to investigate the straw. I caught Morgan eating the new organic chicken feed. She was licking it out of the feeder. Bad girl. I placed flakes of straw around in the coop so they would block drafts and give the chickens places to cozy up and keep warm. If it gets really cold I will block the exit under the windows with a big 4x4 at night. I have done that before and it keeps the wind from blowing in. I have to find the heat lamp tomorrow and have that handy if we need to put it in the coop.

I really like the snow. I just don't like having the worry of Kristine and other people having to drive in the stuff. I wonder if all those people headed up to Lake Tahoe have insider weather information because all the sites I check say there is not much chance for precipitation (20%) this weekend. Maybe they are staying for the week?

Kristine brought home a bag of cranberries to add to the mandarin oranges she bought the other day. My plan tomorrow is to use Suzanne's recipe and make some homemade cranberries. No canning. We plan to eat them up!

There was a lot of smoke in the air. I don't know if it was from smoky wood stoves or from people burning leaves, but I know I don't like having to breathe smoky air.

If you are voting for Suzanne, click here.

Click here to check on the voting.

Gee! Just three more days of voting.

[3 eggs today]

I washed the fake eggs. Hope the hens add some more.

Smiles

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More Lettuce, Please?

It's OK, Curly, you can have the lettuce. Curly the Cochin is so cute. I think she thought I was going to throw some more lettuce out on the porch. No. That's it. There's more over there and tomatoes to the right out of sight. One of the Light Brahmas came in the house to get a piece of lettuce I dropped. Brave hen. I love having chickens on the porch. I wonder if I put nest boxes on the porch by the slider if they would lay their eggs up here. Something to try next year.

These two hens (a Light Brahma and an Australorp) were talking to me quietly and following me on my walk. I know they want more lettuce. They weren't excited though because I didn't have any plastic bags with me. If I had plastic they would be jumping up and pecking at the bag and making a lot of noise. They make the softest cooing clucking sounds. So soothing.

To help winterize the chicken coop I finally covered the screen door with an old plastic corrugated panel. This year I was smart and remembered I had put the screws back in the holes when I took it off in the Spring, so when I went to put the plastic up I didn't have to go hunting for screws. Sounds like a small thing, but I was happy. The panel had fallen over and was covered with leaves and dirt. I knocked off the worst and put it on the door. At least the plastic will keep the wind from whistling through the coop. Morgan was happy I was outside spending time with her and doing stuff.

While walking around I thought I would take a photo of the heavy acorn fall that has been happening the last couple of weeks. The ground everywhere under the oak trees is covered like in the photo. Since people around here seem to think that all these acorns mean there is going to be an extra cold winter I went searching online for some confirmation and came up with this Wilderness Way site and this Farmers Almanac page. Acorns are on the list. We'll see.

Kitchen update: The end of the counter is 80% finished! Hope to finish it up tomorrow and start on the rest of the finish work ...sanding and painting. Yea!

[3 eggs today]

I just came back in from the chicken coop feed shuffle.

A very slight light rain has started and stopped

so I put the chicken feed inside the coop.

I hope it really rains!

It is supposed to snow tonight up at 7000 feet.

Smiles

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No Egg And An Attitude

I was doing a little bit of my continuous building/sawing/drilling and oops fixing (fixing carpentry errors) today and got to crawling around in the back of some areas under the island I put together (that's another post) and found my goat. I must have put it back there a few years ago because I had forgot it and wondered where it had got to. Yuk! After washing off lots of dust I put it up and hung some kitchen stuff on the hooks. There used to be a kitchen cupboard on that wall, but it stuck out so far and made it dark, so I took it off and built it into the island. I would like a few shelves on the wall where the goat is to hold glasses and cups. I figure I can always move the goat over. I used to have it holding dish towels in the Santa Cruz Mountain house. We had dairy goats then and I was very happy to have found this little tin goat in a gift store, so, I bought it for me! Nice me! It used to have a sticker on it that said it was made in Haiti. I think that was it. I remember the clerk said they had lots of goats on the island. Anyway, it's cute and it makes me smile. I miss the goats, but I don't want to worry about them up here and bear attacks. I'm chicken. :)

There were no fresh laid eggs for my breakfast this morning. This Buff Brahma lady is holding out on me. Imagine? I had to use eggs from yesterday. I fear the days are fast approaching when the hens will decide it is time to stop laying and take a vacation. I'm not too sure what the girls are up to? Kristine said they did full body molts last year and did it late. Yeah... I kinda remember. I don't/didn't want to remember, so I didn't file much of that info. I really don't like looking at "naked" chickens. Poor things! Maybe they will just do a light molt? I'll talk to them about it.

[5 eggs today - late afternoon]

Smiles

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Happy Chickens

Today (the 9th) I spent most of the day painting and then watched a YouTube Sherlock Holmes movie. I was enjoying the movie when I noticed that I missed my daily post by about 45 minutes. So there will be two posts for the 10th. I'll get some photos of my painting later.

I found some great paint at Home Depot that doesn't have an odor. Kristine has asthma and I have been putting off much needed painting because the paint fumes make her ill. I have the first coat on the walls and will put on the second tomorrow... well, later today.

This is a video I took yesterday of the chickens and Morgan.

[9 eggs today]

Smiles

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Checking For Eggs

Several times a day I go out to the coop to check for eggs. In the morning I'm looking for eggs for my breakfast and the other times I am just looking for eggs to put in the refrigerator. I don't like leaving the eggs around because the hens might break them and I don't want them to turn into egg eaters. That sounds bad.

I like being around the chickens. I like their antics and their cooing clucking hen noises. Chickens are fun to have around.

This afternoon while getting a lemon out of the frig I noticed that there was one moldy lemon in the middle of the bag of lemons. So, there was a moldy thing in the frig. We didn't notice it because all the other lemons were just fine. I will have to trust Kristine to sniff out any bad things in the frig.

[12 eggs today]

I noticed yesterday that Tom was collecting eggs

and putting them in the cartons.

This was throwing my count off.

Tricky

Smiles

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Cool'n Under the Porch

The hens have found a nice cool spot under the porch on the east side of the house. Pretty smart chickens. I wondered where they went off to during the hot part of the day. I spotted the girls leaving their cool spot this evening when I went to make another check for eggs. I bet there are lots of eggs under the house. If so, there must be critters coming around for eggs.

Today I worked in the chicken coop and pen. These are the tall nest boxes. This used to be a bookcase that I found at a flea market. I added the roosts and boards to hold in the straw. Since I would like the hens to lay their eggs in a nest instead of in the dirt I am going to turn this around against the roost area and hope they will lay eggs in a nest.

I love power tools! I took the roosts off and cut away

the chicken wire over the bottom open area

so the hens will have access to the nests.

Then I cut an opening so the hen can get in the bottom nest. Hopefully, the hens will not stop and lay their eggs in the dirt. I spent a long time with a pitchfork and shovel getting chicken poo and dirt cleaned away from under the roosts. And I took the branches away. They didn't work to stop the hens from laying their eggs in the dirt. I hope the girls will be lured into the nests by the comfy straw. Maybe?

Here it is turned facing the roosts. Tomorrow I need to make an opening of some kind so I can reach in the nests and search for eggs. And figure out something to block the light from leaking through that opening. One reason I think the hens are laying their eggs back there in the dirt under the roosts is because it is dark. Well, it was dark. And it is cool back there too. So, I need to block the light. Or not. If the light is on the dirt, that should be a good thing. I need to make the nests dark. Duh.

I hope I can come up with some great ideas tomorrow. Maybe I will even turn the gate in the pen around. Maybe? If I can figure out how I can remove the hooks that the gate hangs on. I'll need to find a really big pliers or wrench or something like that. I would like to be able to get the wheelbarrow in the pen to remove the old chicken stuff and to bring in some new dirt to make a new clean surface for the hens to scratch around on. Taking the chicken poo and dirt out a bucket full at a time is great exercise, but boring. I would much rather use the wheelbarrow.

[9 eggs today]

Smiles

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Recovering?

The hen was still alive this morning when I let the chickens out of their coop. So, I moved the hen in the carrier back into the feed shed where it is warm all day. Today the hen drank water, she even spilled it a little and ate all the corn and some feed. Eating is a good sign. Then she turned herself around so she is facing the back of the carrier. ?

Tonight I moved the carrier back into the coop for the night so she can be locked up where critters can't get her. I would like to leave her in the feed shed but it is not safe. Too many openings that I can't close. I covered the carrier to help her retain her body heat. Hope she is doing better tomorrow morning. It is still cold, well, in the 50's tonight. I gave the hens some corn to help keep their energy and temperature level high.

I would like to just put her in one of the closed nest boxes but I am worried that the other hens might start pecking on her because she is weak. Don't want that!

[5 eggs today]

Having the weather go from the high 90's back to the 40's

has thrown the egg laying awry.

Smiles

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