If you read my last post you know what a difficult couple of years I had with my chickens. I think I read too much. I have read so many horror stories about varmints getting into coops/runs and destroying every single bird inside. And my birds did so well roosting in the apple tree in my fenced yard in our mild clime with my Labbies on guard much of the evening that I didn't figure that cooped birds had it any better. And another thing, I only had a few bad runs with my chickens, I would go for months at a time with them running around free range without loosing any of them. I figured my losses were fairly low despite a couple bad spells. But the animals drawn to our place by the drought, devastating my flock in a short period of time, was the last straw that convinced us to try something new and fix them a proper coop and yard.
Our chicken run behind the garden shed is coming along well. The frame is all but done. Now all we need is the caging and to figure out how we will finish the bottom edge so that determined predators can't get in while we are sleeping, and to install a roofed roost, and doors and nesting boxes inside the shed. Then, we hope to get a new garden shed so I can use the old one for a chicken coop.
Our friend, Miguel, has been helping Steve build the frame and last weekend they poured a concrete step to rest the door on. It's very nice. I drew a little hen in the corner of the step in the wet concrete. (I can't see concrete mixed and formed without thinking of the Romans.)
My last, lonely little hen, Miss Sparrow, is still doing well and lays several large green eggs for us every week. If we don’t get any pullets this fall we will surely get some chicks this coming spring.
I bought some pansies and violas to take the place of the tomatoes and cucumbers in the garden this winter. I wonder if herbs will last all winter here in north Alabama. I would like to plant them too. I like to keep parsley, rosemary and chives. now we have added dill to the fresh plants we use in our cooking.
The farrier came out again for the second time. I don't think it's a fluke, I really like her work and her way with my ponies. Anjee was her typical spoiled self, testing her with every little trick she could think of. Humans, to Anjee, are nothing more than a source of entertainment. I tried to raise her properly, to respect us squishy, little humans, but somewhere along the way I missed the boat! But the farrier handled her most excellently and actually got her to stand quietly for a while.
I also got all the ponies properly groomed: beards and other shaggy places clippered, tails and manes combed out and neatened up, and bot eggs scraped or clippered off. They are so cute now! ~I must get photos~
I have been asked to draw a little design for name tags for a meeting for my ponies breed club. I have a few drawings finished that I like a lot. I hope they are happy with them when I send them in, and I hope the size of the drawings is usable.
I finished Bernard Coldwell's book "Sword Song". I love the series it belongs to, 'The Saxon Novels'. I also love his 'Grail Quest' series and 'Warlord Chronicles'. Coldwell could be my very favorite author. In between other novels I am slowly re-reading all of the Harry Potter series. I am enjoying them more this time than the first time I read them. And Steve and I are of an age that we figure the number of books we read the rest of our lifetime is so limited that we are usually loathe to reread anything ... but Harry is one exception I will make! (I sure hope he grows his shaggy hair back out for the last movie!) Waiting in the wings on my night stand is Ken Follett's "World Without End", the sequel to one of my all-time favorite books, "The Pillars of the Earth".
I am hoping to find someone to ride Bankhead with on a regular basis. I am not one to go out adventuring on my own on a horse. It looks to me like this fall is going to be long and lovely. It would be a crying shame to spend it cooped up in the house with fat, out of shape, pasture-potato ponies out my window!
That's about all that's happening around here lately. We are enjoying the change in the weather ... warmth and coolness at last, hopefully no more HotHotHot this year!
Monday, September 22, 2008
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Late Summertime and Chickens
Tadpoles in the horses water trough. Having already eaten so many delicious homegrown tomatoes and cucumbers that you wrinkle your nose in anticipation of having to eat another. Wonderful, cooler evenings. Horses already shedding their summer coats and growing their winter coats although the days are still Southern summertime hot! Late season wildflowers blooming.
Steve and I have been busy getting the yard neatened up before the cold weather comes and getting a chicken coop built while chicken breeders still have cockerels and pullets for sale.
My history with chickens has not been pretty. My first batch was from McMurray's. I purchased light Brahmas, New Hampshires, buff Rocks and Easter Eggers. I raised them and loved them. I found a home for 15 of them. I found homes for my Brahmas. Although I enjoyed their looks and personalities, the red clay soil looked awful on their white feathers. Many of the other pullets went to another home. 25 chicks (one shipping order of day old chicks) is too many for me. All was well for many months. I knew I would loose some to free-ranging, and I did have some losses, but not many. Most of my chickens had names, even some of the ones I gave away: Chester, Angus, sweet Cuddles, Precious, Pearl, Sparrow, Sister, Lucy, Petula, Penelope, Rosey, Coco, Little Brown Hen, Tiki and beautiful Buffy. So it hurt whenever I lost one. I was lucky, all my chickens had wonderful personalities, some were downright affectionate. They make amazingly good pets. They are beautiful to see. They make endearing sounds that is music to my ears when they putter about the yard eating bugs and things. And they make wonderful, delicious eggs! It amazes me that a couple of sweet, pretty, quiet, egg laying hens aren't in everyone's back yard!
Of the 10 chickens I didn't send off to other homes 8 survived to adulthood and 6 made it to the next spring. When I lost dear little Tiki, my favorite little pet chicken, I decided to get some more. We went all the way to East Tennessee to get 12 chicks from an excellent breeders lovely flock of show-bred Ameraucanas. They were the most beautiful chicks I ever saw and they grew into birds that took my breath away they were so lovely! Most of them made it to adulthood despite the fact that the coop and run I had planned to build never materialized. My first batch stayed near home and spent most of the time in my fenced yard with my Labradors on guard. This second batch roamed more and were rowdier. They all roosted in the apple tree at night. I found a home for one of the roosters. I wanted to keep all the Ameraucana pullets, they were everything I had hoped they would be, and their eggs were a clear robins egg blue that were a joy to find in the nesting box. They were growing up and the boys had started fighting amongst each other. Then the drought hit and the predators started coming around for the water in my pond. I lost a few, but I still wasn't worried. For a while I was gathering dark brown, light brown, olive green, green, blue and pink eggs from their nests. Then we went away for a week and the devastation started. 6 were taken in that one week ... it was positively shocking. My pet sitters found two of them dead in the fenced yard with no feathers plucked or anything, just killed for sport or perhaps they got into something poisonous. And it continued when I got home. I was torn apart with grief and frustration when my most beautiful Ameraucana hen, Muffy, was killed by a juvenile red-tailed hawk that flew into my chickens feeding station to catch her. 6 more were killed that week when I found out that the neighbors dogs were contributing to my losses. I was down to 3 chickens from both years batches ... horrible, horrible. Longshanks, my stunning splash wheaten Ameraucana rooster; Sister, the prettiest of all my Easter Eggers; and Sparrow, my darkest Easter Egger, were all I had left. They stayed home and didn't create a lot of noise or commotion, so I thought they should be safe, and they were for several weeks. But the drought continued, the neighbors dogs still came around, and then all I had was Miss Sparrow.
Sparrow is a wise old girl and keeps a low profile. Her dark mottled color helps keep her from catching the eye of animals passing by. She also has a big bubble zone and never was one for trusting or cuddling, that part of her personality has probably helped keep her alive. I pray she survives to teach the next batch her wily ways. I plan to get young ones and only two or three at a time so they will learn from Sparrow before they take off on their own.
Anyhow, I am almost over the shock of the loss of my flock of chickens. Sparrow is lonely. So, Steve and I are building a large fenced and netted yard with coop to keep chickens in. Hopefully we can make it predator-proof. If I can keep them up all night and through the early morning when critters are most likely to come by looking for food or sport, maybe my next batch will be a successful flock. Unfortunately, I feel like I have already lost the best chickens ever. I can't even look at photos of them without it bringing a tear to my eye. That was definitely a lesson learned the hard way. No more chickens without proper housing. =(
Steve and I have been busy getting the yard neatened up before the cold weather comes and getting a chicken coop built while chicken breeders still have cockerels and pullets for sale.
My history with chickens has not been pretty. My first batch was from McMurray's. I purchased light Brahmas, New Hampshires, buff Rocks and Easter Eggers. I raised them and loved them. I found a home for 15 of them. I found homes for my Brahmas. Although I enjoyed their looks and personalities, the red clay soil looked awful on their white feathers. Many of the other pullets went to another home. 25 chicks (one shipping order of day old chicks) is too many for me. All was well for many months. I knew I would loose some to free-ranging, and I did have some losses, but not many. Most of my chickens had names, even some of the ones I gave away: Chester, Angus, sweet Cuddles, Precious, Pearl, Sparrow, Sister, Lucy, Petula, Penelope, Rosey, Coco, Little Brown Hen, Tiki and beautiful Buffy. So it hurt whenever I lost one. I was lucky, all my chickens had wonderful personalities, some were downright affectionate. They make amazingly good pets. They are beautiful to see. They make endearing sounds that is music to my ears when they putter about the yard eating bugs and things. And they make wonderful, delicious eggs! It amazes me that a couple of sweet, pretty, quiet, egg laying hens aren't in everyone's back yard!
Of the 10 chickens I didn't send off to other homes 8 survived to adulthood and 6 made it to the next spring. When I lost dear little Tiki, my favorite little pet chicken, I decided to get some more. We went all the way to East Tennessee to get 12 chicks from an excellent breeders lovely flock of show-bred Ameraucanas. They were the most beautiful chicks I ever saw and they grew into birds that took my breath away they were so lovely! Most of them made it to adulthood despite the fact that the coop and run I had planned to build never materialized. My first batch stayed near home and spent most of the time in my fenced yard with my Labradors on guard. This second batch roamed more and were rowdier. They all roosted in the apple tree at night. I found a home for one of the roosters. I wanted to keep all the Ameraucana pullets, they were everything I had hoped they would be, and their eggs were a clear robins egg blue that were a joy to find in the nesting box. They were growing up and the boys had started fighting amongst each other. Then the drought hit and the predators started coming around for the water in my pond. I lost a few, but I still wasn't worried. For a while I was gathering dark brown, light brown, olive green, green, blue and pink eggs from their nests. Then we went away for a week and the devastation started. 6 were taken in that one week ... it was positively shocking. My pet sitters found two of them dead in the fenced yard with no feathers plucked or anything, just killed for sport or perhaps they got into something poisonous. And it continued when I got home. I was torn apart with grief and frustration when my most beautiful Ameraucana hen, Muffy, was killed by a juvenile red-tailed hawk that flew into my chickens feeding station to catch her. 6 more were killed that week when I found out that the neighbors dogs were contributing to my losses. I was down to 3 chickens from both years batches ... horrible, horrible. Longshanks, my stunning splash wheaten Ameraucana rooster; Sister, the prettiest of all my Easter Eggers; and Sparrow, my darkest Easter Egger, were all I had left. They stayed home and didn't create a lot of noise or commotion, so I thought they should be safe, and they were for several weeks. But the drought continued, the neighbors dogs still came around, and then all I had was Miss Sparrow.
Sparrow is a wise old girl and keeps a low profile. Her dark mottled color helps keep her from catching the eye of animals passing by. She also has a big bubble zone and never was one for trusting or cuddling, that part of her personality has probably helped keep her alive. I pray she survives to teach the next batch her wily ways. I plan to get young ones and only two or three at a time so they will learn from Sparrow before they take off on their own.
Anyhow, I am almost over the shock of the loss of my flock of chickens. Sparrow is lonely. So, Steve and I are building a large fenced and netted yard with coop to keep chickens in. Hopefully we can make it predator-proof. If I can keep them up all night and through the early morning when critters are most likely to come by looking for food or sport, maybe my next batch will be a successful flock. Unfortunately, I feel like I have already lost the best chickens ever. I can't even look at photos of them without it bringing a tear to my eye. That was definitely a lesson learned the hard way. No more chickens without proper housing. =(
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