Chickens – Page 8 – This Old House 2

Holy Heatwave, Batman

I didn’t think , after the winter we’ve had….

.. that I’d be complaining about the heat.

But here I am….and it’s hotter than Hades.

My flowers are wilting.

The chickens seem to like the heat

and I make sure they’ve got cold clean water and cool lettuce from the garden to pick at.

They’re starting to look like real chickens!

Dear Hunter of Florida – this is Giselle below!

And up above, first chicken on the right is Gracie, your mom’s choice!

Remember my lofty ambitions regarding

pimping the chicken coop?

This is as far as I got.

My horse barn is taking shape!

Where ever you call home, I hope you are staying cool or dry or not too wet and you’re getting enough rain but not too much and it’s warm but not Hades-like and you find yourself far out of the path of any tornadoes or floods or water spouts and there are no earthquakes anywhere on earth any time soon, Amen.

The one where she’s really random….

Can you believe these guys? They’ll be ready to fly the coop soon!

This is my favorite chicken… Dorothy

She is the wisest, calmest, friendliest chicken of the girls

and she’ll be the biggest – a Black Jersey Giant

Ask me how much I love peonies…

And this color combo in the patio pots…..

Glorious weather here today…

Can’t stop thinking of all those people who have lost their homes

and loved ones in that series of tornadoes…

The destruction is just devastating to see, let alone live..

and I’m not even gonna post a picture of that hideous

Casey A*thony trial.

If the story she is spewing isn’t true…

and I doubt it is, for she has lied a thousand times..

..then she is just pure evil.

I hate knowing people are capable of

inflicting this level of horror on each other.

ENOUGH said.

Miracle Grow

I am amazed at the amount of growth I’m witnessing

among the chicks-to-chickens and baby birds-to-Robins.

Chicks four weeks ago…

And just four weeks later – feathers, chicken shaped body… quatrupled in size.

By the way, chickens are very hard to get a decent picture of.

They are constantly worried or curious about you and move perpetually.

Hence – crappy pictures.

Baby robins just six days ago…

Now that’s pretty amazing.
It actually looks impossible! But this is truly six days growth.
From that tiny translucent skinned creature that emerges from the egg,
it takes just 14 days for a baby Robin to grow a full body
of feathers and be able to hop around and flutter it’s wings.

Farm Updates

This Old House is now officially a member of the Connecticut Farm Bureau. We received our metal sign the other day…

See the four Robin eggs up in the header?

They hatched overnight…this is what BEN found this morning.

They just look so naked and exposed.

My Rock garden at the side door has filled in some

with a little help from perennials I bought at the garden center (too expensive)

Opie’s shoes at the gate.

Front door urns filled…

and garden cart made from recycled house parts…

This is the color combo I used around the house this year…

100 year old cast iron plants are back out on the porch…

I pimped the chicken coop just a little…

And they moved out of the house

and into their new pad.

He’s exhausted from planting this ginormous garden…

(what. was . he . thinking)

but it is an awesome garden and we will reap many rewards…

and a sore back.

My blueberry, raspberry and blackberry bushes…

The chicken sh*t did the job it was supposed to do…

the hay this year will be fantastic

The little backyard garden is very happy…

ancient lilacs in full bloom..

Kate of Chronicles of a Country Girl gave me a tip on cut lilacs

They don’t last long.. but if you smash the woody stem a little,

they last longer in a vase of water.

I’ve filled my assorted pots…

The dogwoods on the edges of the fields are just beautiful right now…

..and the rain keeps coming…

but that’s OK… because we’re GREEN again.

Amen.

And then there were four….

So, momma bird has been sitting on her eggs in the industrial side of town….

And I had to do something to help her out,

seeing as the dogs run by her little nest every five minutes.

A little privacy and protection from driving rain was needed.

When I checked on the nest yesterday…

there were FOUR eggs, not just two.
Why do women always make things harder for themselves,
I wanna know.

Speaking of baby birds…

the chicks are about two weeks old now and

with the exception of loosing Ethel,the barred rock chick, on the second day…

all are doing well and GROWING FAST…

I doubled the brooder space by putting two boxes together

and have put shavings in the bottom instead of paper towels, which I was changing

twice daily. Fun!! They get an occasional cooked egg yolk or oatmeal treat.

I’ve also raised the heat lamp so that they will begin to acclimate to outside temps

and their feathers will grow in properly.

Ask me how much I love my chickens already.

The guys are outside this morning trying to create irrigation for the ~~mud pit~~ garden.

We’ve had so much rain, the water table is very high in the lower fields next to the house.

This kind of mess always puts Mike in an awesome mood.

Happy Easter from my Peeps to yours!

Peeps!!!

My chicks from chickensforbackyards.com have arrived! The box actually read “Randall Burkey”, so that’s the hatchery they are originally from. As promised, the postmaster called me when the came in, and I was down there within 15 minutes. Those poor babies hadn’t eaten or had water since they hatched!

Meet Dorothy, Sophia, Blanche, Rose, Gracie, Giselle (hello Sallys girls)

Lucy and Ethel

They all look pretty healthy and are eating,
drinking and pooping with stellar performance.

So far, so good.

They ate the grow gel (green stuff) and chick crumbles

and drank more water than I thought they could hold

I did check for eggs this morning,
nothing yet.

🙂

Rude

I drove five hours –with my mother!- to go pick him up from his birth place in Pennsylvania. Each Way! We’re talking a 10 hour car ride – with my mother!

When we finally got there, he was brought into the exam room and literally leaped into my arms, which was quite an accomplishment because he only weighed about three lbs at 10 weeks old and didn’t know me at all! My mother said it was a sign that he was meant to be mine, he just knew I would be his mother. Or something.

We intended to call him Chandler – I couldn’t tell you why. But Rudy was brought up as a possibility and I have never been drawn to the name, but for some reason it seemed to fit him.

I shoulda read into that sign.

He barks incessantly, he has bitten, he is a wuss when the wind blows and he pees on everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING. He drank Christmas tree stand water once and was poisoned so badly he spent two weeks at the veterinarian looking yellow. $1,000. later his liver was fixed. Merry Christmas indeed.

Chicken Coop complete!

Rudy does his thing…

Apple and pear trees planted…

Rudy’s keeping up…

Since we’re talking potty talk here…

Remember the pile of chicken sh*t in the back field? Well, half of it’s still there

because the manure spreader died right before the snow flew.

The remainder is being spread this coming weekend if weather permits

and we will NEVER EVER EVER get chicken sh*t for fertilizer again.

Ever.

However…. take note of Exhibit A below…

The field on the left of the stone wall has not yet been fortified with chicken sh*t

The field on the right has.

In this case, the grass is definitely greener on the other side.

**********

Mrs. N.’s cabin on the hill – a very charming place and she’s agreed to another tour –

Despite the cold rainy days, things are starting to green up and the trees have

their red bud haze….

My blueberry and raspberry bushes arrived…

And soon the garden plot in the lower field will have a cedar post and mesh fence to keep deer out –

He is a pisser.

Coop Progress and baby onions

This photo here shows you the proximity of the chicken coop to the rest of the homestead. You’ll see the garden shed way over to the right… and my coop behind the barn/garage on the left. Mr. Chicken Heart can’t get past the fact that someone told him rats like chicken feed. Why he never thought of this in the twenty years we’ve had horses and their barn in very close proximity to our other house is beyond me. Horse feed rats are more horrifying than chicken feed rats, apparently.

Have a great weekend – let’s all think SPRING.

Randomest Post Ever

The Coop came yesterday! … We decided rather than ~~kill each other~~ attempt to build the coop ourselves, what they were offering at chickensforbackyards was reasonably priced, so we bought one from them. It’s perfect for our eight-chicken needs.

Plenty of nesting box room and the interior is roomy with perches too.

Initially I wanted the coop on the other side of the garden shed behind the house… you can see it off in the distance here.. However, Mike got a bit of information from one of his farm buddies that rats are attracted to chicken feed, and next thing I know, the coop is on the other side of the barn/garage. …..Chicken.

These are the chicken yard panels and green roof, next thing on the to-do list.

We’ll be able to run power from the back of the garage to the coop.

Unrelated! ….I’ve said earlier that I’m a half-breed, and what I meant by that was I’m half Italian and half Irish-German. Yes, that’s a nationality because I said so. I was born a few minutes after midnight of St. Patricks Day… not quite a leprechaun. So today a dear friend came by to see This Old House bearing house warming and birthday gifts. She fortified my kitchen chicken collection (say that three times fast) with these adorable things…

..a beautiful Rooster cookie jar!