Chicken Update

It has been a while since I have spoken of our beloved pets.

Our chickens.

I would like you to meet our oldest chicken.

The last of our 4 original.

Her name is Hunter.  If we ever have work to do in the yard and we come across lots of bugs (crickets mostly).  We get her and know that she will stay by our side till every bug is gone!

She is also at the top of the "pecking order".  I think she has earned it.

Hunter is the one on the right.

This is the run we built, oh it must have been a year ago now.

I have written in past posts about the problems we have with the doves.

They love that we have chickens, they LOVE their food.

The doves in our area are very FAT!

I do not like the doves.

We were buying a $15.00 bag of food probably every month to feed, the DOVES.

We came up with a plan to put a top on the run.

Pa put hooks on the tree and on the posts of the run, then rope, then the net.  It is just plastic birds net from Home Depot, fairly inexpensive.

The big FAT doves cannot get in.  The baby doves get in under the gate.

We now go through probably one bag of food in 2 1/2 to 3 months.

Since this has happened I have noticed that doves love to sit on our "problem" neighbors roof top.

They have purchased a fake owl that the doves adore.

We have purchased 10 more baby chicks of all different breeds.

It was a struggle to teach Jacob to love them and not squish them.

It took him about a week to learn what "Too tight" means.

I love this photo because these two chicks are about a week difference in age.  The one on the right was about a week old and the one on the left is about 2 weeks.

With our six chickens that are currently laying eggs we get about 4 to 6 eggs a day.

Minus what ever the kids drop on their way in.

Our Pets Take on Our Personalities

I have noticed that when ever I have a pet it will take on my or a family members' personality.

Even chickens!!

(By the way we only lost 2 chickens)

I have noticed Emma's chicken has been the one that tries to be in charge, it tries to be the leader. It is the meanest one we have.

Although Emma is a very sweet girl and I think the world of her.  She is the oldest and she has a role as big sister to uphold.

This morning Emma was out with the chickens feeding them her crust from her toast, when she heard a baby chicken cry (oh, we put them together about a week in a half ago.).  Emma spotted her big chicken being the one that pecked at the baby.

When Emma came in she said, "Mom, my chicken is like me.  It likes it's space.  It made a baby chicken cry.  She (the chicken) said to the baby, ""Back off, I need my space, I need to be alone!!"" -Ma

Sweeping Dirt

Yep, that is what I did this morning.  

We had another chicken pass away yesterday.  It was Big Mama.  We have been reading about different diseases that chickens can get.  I read about a disease called ascites.  But we don't think it is that.  Because it has something to do with gaining weight quickly, this hasn't happened with ours.

Pa is thinking that it might be coccidiosis.  This one makes more sense.  It is when the chickens eat other birds poop.  And what I get from it is that a parasite gets into the chicken and it takes 4 to 7 days for the chicken to die.  You can tell that something is wrong because they wont eat as much and their egg production is fewer.  Both of these things have happened.

So, today I swept up a lot of the dirt in the chickens run just to get up the little bird droppings.  I hope this save the last two big ones that we have, I don't want them to be in pain. -Ma

That's Weird!

Yesterday I looked out our kitchen window and noticed that all the "big" chickens were in the coop.  Just sitting there.  I thought it was odd because they don't just sit in the coop.  Unless they are sleeping or laying an egg.  I thought it was strange but that was it.  I didn't feel the need to go into the heat to find out what they were doing.

When Pa got home he wondered how many eggs we got that day.  I don't think anyone checked. So he went out.

We have a chicken that we call No Tail.  Because the other chickens pick on her so much she doesn't have a tail from all of their pecking.  Our plan as you know from a previous post was to butcher all of the big ones in the near future.

Well No Tail past away yesterday.  Not sure why, it didn't look like there was any foul play she was in a corner by a bail of straw.  Big Mama, one of the chickens, she was the nicest to her. She just sat there by No Tail.  After we disposed of No Tail, Big Mama went and sat where No Tail was, then she went in and sat in the coop where No Tail would sleep.

The kids dealt with it fine.  Emma wanted to call her Friend Megan.  David wanted to look and touch No Tail (I let him for closure purposes.).  Abby said in a cute sad voice as she handed me the telephone, "Mom, can I call Grandma Norgard?"  She did and they talk for quite some time. Then all of the other kids talked with her too.  I am thankful to have a Mom who takes the time to talk with her grand kids.  They sure do love her. -Ma

Chickens for Dinner?

When we first got our chickens they were just the cutest little things.  I never thought that we would kill them so we could eat them.  I thought, "How could ANYONE do such a thing?"

Now they are big.  And, well they just aren't cute anymore.  I am grateful for the eggs they give us. Grateful that I am able to work outside more.  (Really I like to work outside, lots more than in the house.)

A problem we have with these older chickens is that they are mean.  I think it is because David needs a dog to play rough with.  He played rough with the chickens, they are mean.  He is learning and I am so glad that he can be taught.  This will prepare us for the day that we do get a dog.  So we can have a nice dog.

So thankfully they are chickens and they can and will nourish us.  I still have a hard time thinking of killing our own meat.  Pa will do that and then we will can it.  We will let it sit for a while so we can forget a little bit.  Then we won't be so grossed out when we cook up the pets.

This will take place when our baby chickens start laying eggs.  That should be in another 2 or 3 months.

The kids are excited to "kill" the chickens because we told them we could get more babies when the older ones are gone.

Then Emma goes out today to get an egg.  One of the chickens was in the nest laying an egg. Emma goes in the coop and the chicken stood up and gently pushed the egg over to Emma with her beak.  Emma was so excited that the chicken would be so nice.  I am very impressed with the chicken.  However we don't want to make relationships with the birds right when we decided to have them for dinner. -Ma

Chicken Run

We have wanted to take a good photo of the chicken's run.  This is it!  We are very proud of ourselves for building it by ourselves.  

When I Get Big

David found a sticker with Mr. Clean on it.

He said, "This is what I am going to look like when I am big."

I said, "Really?  That is cool."

As he was walking away he said, "Ya, it's because I eat lots of banana's, I am going to have big muscles."

-Ma

I Love Spring Time!!

I love it when spring time comes.  I just feel so happy and the beautiful things come out in the world.

The apple tree is blossoming.

This is very exciting!!  We will get Apples this year!

And here are some lemon blossoms.

Grape vines always seems to look dead, but I hope they survived the cold.

There are little white buds on them...

I think that's promising.

Last year I had a hard time not looking at the beauty of the green leaves.  They are beautiful!

I love our banana trees, after the leaves turned brown when they got too cold, I cut them off.

It seems that the one closer is bouncing back quite well.

But the bigger one, there is no sign of growth.  But there still is good color.

I am thinking that I need to chop off part of the top.

And it looks like we will get oranges this year too!!

New little animals are so fun!

And the big ones are just gorgeous!

Yep, that is a compost pile in the background.  -Ma

Little Chicks Meet Big Hens

Our first 4 chickens are 2 Red Stars and 2 Black Stars, this time we got 6 (I will have to come back to this when I remember.)

We couldn't tell what the hens thought of the little chicks.  I think the hens wanted to peck at the chicks and then there were times that it seemed that they just wanted to try the food.  It is always about the food!!

This should be fun.  I hope they get along when we put them together in the next few months.

-Ma

Happy Valentines Day

I am not really a big celebrator of Valentines Day.  However it is fun to do special things with the kids.  This year we made a heart pizza, it was very tasty!

And we got 6 more chickens.  They are about 4 weeks old.  So in about 4 to 6 months we will have an abundance of fresh eggs that we would like to sell... so we can pay for their food.

The kids love the new little chicks, and I am grateful that we didn't get a puppy or a kitty.  I am always amazed at how they are so self reliant.  We just give them food water and a heat lamp and they take care of themselves.  I don't have to wake up with them during the night or anything.  Great pets to have.  -Ma

Chickens and EGGS

About two months ago I noticed that the biggest chicken of the groups was acting very unusual. She was over by the banana trees fluffing her feathers. However I noticed that she was acting stranger than the normal feather fluffing. This is what she would do. It seemed that she was in labor she would fluff then roll to one side then she would fluff and sit up right then fluff and roll to the other side, this went on for a good 10 to 15 minutes. For a while there I thought that she was hurt, so I went over and she appeared to be fine. Now I was thinking that she could possibly lay an egg but at the same time she was so big and the comb on top of her head was so tall we thought that she could have been a rooster.
The next day Pa was outside, he found a beautiful brown egg. And the cool thing is, she didn't lay it under the banana tree she did it in the coop!!! And a cooler thing is, she is a hen not a rooster!!
So, you ask how many eggs do you get a day??? We get 3 eggs a day, once we got 4 but the 4th egg was very small and I think it came from a chicken that was accidentally stepped on as a chick.

Oh, I need to let ya'll know that the fence for the chickens is DONE, there wings have been clipped and the strawberry plants are trying to recuperate. We will probably have to plant more. Oh well, at least they are contained! -Ma