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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Ouch!

Friday I was playing around on the computer when Kristine came up and stood beside me. I thought she was waiting until I was finished to tell me something. As I turned to face her I found a chicken foot in my face. It was Buff Brahma feather foot wound up with string.

Kristine said she was looking out the window and saw a chicken fall forward and lay there on our decorative rock pile. The hen had string snagged around both feet and the string had caught on a rock and tripped the hen onto her face. The hen managed to get herself scooted around, pecked away at the string around the rock, got it loose, and got back on her feet and hopped and shuffled away. I guess she had had to deal with the string long enough to learn how to get unhooked. Kristine said that even with the hens feet hooked together it was still hard to catch her.

Kristine brought the hen to me so I could help cut the string off this foot and also so I could take some pictures. Duh. She had to remind me. One of the hens toes was a little swollen and had a mark, but luckily there were no cut marks from the string. Kristine said the hen just clucked a few times when she put her back on the porch and walked off clucking quietly. The hen hadn't made a sound in the house or even moved. I hadn't noticed the string on the hen earlier in the day. Maybe it happened after I unlocked the coop? Tom said it looked like string from a feed sack. Maybe. But I always throw the strings away in a feed sack I keep in the shed just for trash.

Today I found two more dirt eggs. I am getting a basket full of dirt eggs that I don't really know what to do with. The last time I tried to bury them in hopes of adding nutrients to the garden soil. I dug a deep hole, but even so, some critter dug them up and made a mess. I think I will try again to bury them, but I will dig an even deeper hole and role a tree trunk or something on top. Or I could just send them to the dump. It just seems like such a waste. We don't have a rooster so I can't try to hatch them. I need to turn the tall nest box around in the coop to face the roosts and see if the hens will go in it instead of in the corner to lay eggs.

More remodel stuff to do in the chicken coop. I do like building stuff!

[3 eggs today]

2 in the dirt

phooey!

Smiles

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Dorsal

This is a photo of the left side of the chicken coop. This is how the chicken side looked before I added the white metal door. I took off the metal panels, added some more 2x4's to make a door and window frame, hung the door and window and used some left over siding to make up the wall. I planted grass seed in the left pen last year and it was so pretty and green, but that only lasted a few days before the chickens tore it all up. I sometimes think about spreading grass seed around the place after the rains start, but then I would have to worry about more fire hazard. The leaves are bad enough. It is terribly dry in the woods. Not pleasant at all.

The temperature only got into the high eighties today, so there was no shooting down of cobwebs. Instead I walked around in the woods with the chickens to see if they did anything different in the hot weather.

Maybe they hide in the shade when it is in the hundreds, but today they did the regular chickens stuff: dusting, scratching, running around and sitting in the nest boxes. I was out under the trees behind the chicken pen when I heard a chicken sounding off. At first I thought it was Hen/Roo, but Kristine says it is Dorsal. Yep. It is Dorsal. The comb is small and the tail sticks up. Kristine named her that because her tail sticks up like a dorsal fin on a fish. I thought Dorsal was trying to crow, but Kristine says that is the sound the hens make after they lay an egg. I am so bad at chicken language. So where is the egg? Maybe she is the dirt layer?

[5 eggs today]

5 minus 1 in the dirt

Smiles

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Bad Girl

"Did anyone lock up the chickens?" I hear Kristine ask. Tom's watching tv. Kristine's watching a show on her computer. I'm posting photos to my blog. Soooo, into the silence I said, "I'll go lock them up." Tom says, "Check in the corner. A black hen has been sitting there most of the day." Ah! Photo OP. I grabbed my camera. It is 9:30pm and it is dark. Very dark. That light speck in the photo is the moon shining through the trees. I can't even see the trees. Well, I made it out to the coop with the help of a flashlight.

Surprise! There was a Dark Brahma roosting all by herself in the front open nest boxes.I went around to the roost side so I could get to the back wall corner and sure enough there is an Australorp hen in the corner. That is a Dark Brahma on the roost above her. You can get a glimpse of the other Dark Brahma on the front side.

Oh, and by the way, I'm doing all this in the dark. The flashlight doesn't add much light at all. The best light I get to see by is the flash from the camera. So, I manage to get myself scrunched up and bent over and grab the hen, pull her out and put her in the middle nest box with a Buff Brahma. She is not happy! Neither one of them are happy! And then I have to get my old bones to an upright position so I can climb back out. Phew!

Then I go back to look and see if there are any eggs. Oh, yes! There are four big beautiful eggs that I will have to get rid of. Phooey! Phooey! Phooey! She is a bad girl. But she didn't lay four eggs today, so there are some other hens on my list, but I don't know which ones. She wasn't there yesterday. I checked.

Since I was out there I counted the chickens. Yep! There are still eighteen chickens. So now what? The branches don't work to keep the hens away from this corner. I think the hen is broody and she just wants a quiet place to sit. I added the bottom nest box under the middle nest box because there were hens laying eggs in the dirt there. Maybe some hens just like dirt? I could add a nest box in the corner, but that area is under the roosts and that wouldn't work out very well. Oh, well, small problems. I'll see what I can come up with tomorrow.

I deleted the photos I had uploaded that I was going to post and then posted this little adventure. I suppose climbing around in the coop is good exercise for me and I should thank the girls for keeping me limber. Cluck, cluck girls!

[9 eggs today]

and 4 eggs in the dirt

Smiles

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Just Sit'n

This is what I see during the day when I check the nest boxes for eggs. I think some of the hens are getting broody because I catch them just sitting in the straw. I hope they don't go broody because then I will have to go through breaking them of that cycle.

Here is another one! This is a Buff Brahma. Maybe I should borrow a rooster from someone, but we don't really want anymore chickens and I don't like bringing new chickens into the flock because I worry about introducing sickness. 

The sick hen is still the same except now she is clucking. I suppose that is a good sign? She ate and drank and moved around a bit more. I kept her in the carrier again today and tonight. Hope she is better tomorrow.

[7 eggs today]

+ plus one in the driveway

Smiles

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Woodshed

(you can click on the photos to enlarge them)

[8 eggs]

I'm going to start an egg count everyday and keep track for awhile of the girl's egg production. The hens have started laying again after the winter slow down. Yesterday they laid 11 eggs.

This morning I went out to the woodshed (see photo on sidebar) to pick up some firewood to put in the wheelbarrow. I am so puny lately that instead of wheeling the wheelbarrow over to the wood I just carry a few pieces of wood at a time over to the house and fill the wheelbarrow. How pathetic is that...  Anyway, I noticed that we only have one course and a small amount of wood left stacked against the far wall. To make it through the winter we need to start with the woodshed at least half full. We will have enough wood, after all it is Spring, of course it just snowed, but we will have enough. It is dark in there so I had to use the flash which made the colors of the wood very light. It works out best if we can stack the green wood in the summer so it has time to dry, which makes for much better burning wood. 

The woodshed was originally built as a place to store building materials during the time that my brother built this house. The right half of the shed is still for storage. That is where we keep the chicken feed, paint, garden tools, dog crates, etc. The other half of the shed was turned into a place for a horse. You can see the left door opens in the middle, up (see photo on sidebar) and out so a horse can stick its head out and look around. At that time they kept the horse feed in the right side of the shed and there is a cut out in the adjoining wall so the alfalfa flakes can be shoved through saving a trip around the outside to the horse feeder. 

Then I went out and picked up the eggs. Egg! There was only one egg, but there was one dark Brahma hen laying, so I have hopes the hens will come back and lay after they have run around for a bit. Yesterday, they laid 11 eggs, which is quite good for the 16 hens that I think are laying. There are two hens that have taken up the idea that they are roosters, so I don't count them as layers. That's what happens when there is no rooster. A hen or hens will take the roosters place

in the flock. They don't crow, but they sure do make a loud crowy cackle kind of noise. Silly hens.

I think the dark Brahmas have such pretty markings. This hen was not bothered at all by my taking the photo even when the 1st photo was with the flash. (I forgot to turn it off) The Brahmas are such calm, gentle chickens. The Brahma roosters we had were such pets. Unfortunately, roosters don't last very long around here. They rush in to protect their hens and they are the ones who disappear first when there is a predator attack. We have decided not to have anymore roosters for awhile. The hens are much more settled without the rooster's attentions and we really don't want to have to worry about the crowing bothering the neighbors.

On the way back to the house I snapped this photo because everything looked so clean and bright from the snow and rain. Soon the oaks will leaf out and everything will be green and shady. I hope we get some bees this year. I don't remember seeing

any last year and the fruit trees didn't have any fruit that set. Of course that could have been from the late snows and frosts. 

I still haven't got up on the garage and gone after the leaves. My excuse is that they are too wet and I'm waiting for them to dry out so they will be easier to get off the roof.

I called Jean yesterday and she was having another of her bad days. I'll call again today before lunch and hopefully they will have her medication regulated better. Dear sweet Jean. I hate to think of her hurting. Tom is supposed to come home tonight.

[I called Jean just before lunch and she said she is doing better today. She was in her chair when I called and had done about half the work to get there. When she tried earlier in the week she couldn't do anything she was so weak. Her arms must be getting stronger. Tom and Dolores will be there to be with her while she has lunch and to visit. Sure hope the medication keeps on working and she continues to feel good. I told her she had well wishers from Japan and Texas and that cheered her up! Thanks.]

[Tom called and he won't be coming home until tomorrow]

Smiles