Organic Chicken Feed Experiment

Six chickens at the feeders eating organic feed. Six! The other nine checked out the feeders and then lit out for the woods.

I put these feeders out this morning and this is the response to food? I expected the chickens to be hungry and chow down like little pigs.

Last night I locked up the feed so I could keep better track of the feed levels in the feeders. I wanted to find out how much of the organic feed the hens were eating (and perhaps how much the wildlife was eating.) Kristine has seen some cute little mice stuffing their cheeks with chicken feed. We must have very healthy mice around here.

I'm going to continue shutting the feeders up in the feed barrels at night. I'll put them in the pen during the day where the hens have access and can eat as much as they want.

I did manage to put some trim boards on the bottom of the shed, but they don't make the shed look much better. I would love to paint it, but I don't have any exterior paint. I have lots and lots of cans of interior paint.

I painted the shed about eight years ago with the leftover paint my brother left behind and used it all up. Wish there was more. My brother and Dad built this shed in the '70's to hold building supplies when the house was being built. It is holding up pretty well considering the weather and lack of paint.

The chickens sure are messy. They scattered feed all around the feeders. I swept it all up and put it in the pen. I'm not going to put the feeders down here again.

I wonder if they would waste less feed if I moistened some in a bowl and gave it to them? Anybody have any tips on how to get chickens not to be so sloppy and wasteful? They do love the corn and will eat it right up.

It is supposed to rain tomorrow. Maybe Morgan will get a day off and the chickens will have to stay in their pen. Sometimes the predicted rain misses us so it is hard to plan. We'll just have to wait and see.

Peek at the Past

Photos of the kitchen island being built.

(September 18, 2009)

[3 eggs today]

~:>

Smiles

Living In The Sticks

Got no check books, got no banks.

Still I'd like to express my thanks -

I got the sun in the morning and the moon at night.

~ Irving Berlin - from Annie Get Your Gun

I'm thankful for being retired up here in the mountains.

Iphoto is being weird today and hiding the photos I took today in yesterdays group and leaving today's date group blank. By the time I found out what happened I had already loaded some other photos from days gone by. I think the date thing got messed up when I charged the battery. This is another lookout view. I'd like to see some snow on those mountain tops in the distance soon.

I like gate pictures. There is something about gate, path or road photos that capture my imagination and bring back memories. I've made up a few stories about them. Sometimes I think that bloggers are writers at heart and blogging is a way to soothe the need to create.

I took this photo this morning after another light rain. I was trying to capture how the rain had caused the leaves to reflect their true colors instead of the dusty brown I usually see. Lots of pine show up in this photo, but the oaks are there. They are just way taller than the pines. I cut out most of the underbrush and still need to carry away fallen branches. I'll do that when they stop falling out of the trees.

Kristine brought home a big bag of organic chicken feed that will hopefully provide better nutrition for the molting hens and help them grow their feathers back. The organic feed is over twice the cost of the regular lay we usually buy. The feed store must have just started carrying the organic feed because we have asked for it before. Hope the chickens like the new feed. The instructions recommend feeding only the organic feed. So, we'll try that and see how it works.

[4 eggs today]

Their pumpkin is in small pieces.

Smiles

~:>