In the Coop

On our fourth year of having chickens I finally feel like I am getting the hang of it. We have our routines down and everyone is getting on well. I have a few people that buy eggs from me. Not for much but it does help to offset my chicken feed bill. We were up to 22 girls and two roos this year. Lou Lou La Roo has been the most amazing rooster ever. He is so patient, sweet and protective of both me and the chickens. His eye mostly healed from Frank's attack but he will never fully regain his sight. Flower was our first hatch here and he was the cutest snuggliest little rooster. More on him later...Our resident brooder "Momma" Cuddles hatched two babies last fall. I named the first one Pumpkin because she was soooo tiny! Art named the other Baby Spice. Pumpkin just wasn't strong enough and didn't make it but Baby Spice is one of our most adorable bantams. Her Daddy is Flower and her Momma is Cuddles. They were a nice fall treat. This year I had her sitting on some leghorn eggs but when we went camping our pet sitters unknowingly took the eggs away just shy of their hatch date. Cuddles is mad and won't sit again so I am not sure if we will have any new fall beaks hatched here.
Baby Spice at five months. Super sweet and snuggly.
We got a turkey for Thanksgiving from a our local farmers. It was a 36 1/2 pound beast! I brought poor Flower in to pose with it. He was a little nervous- can't blame him!
This spring I placed my order from My Pet Chicken early. We got the babies in late March. It was still really cold so I set them up in our shower stall. Everyone got a big laugh out of that but I loved having the adorable little beaks right there! I was also able to introduce Zdeno to them and teach him to lay down and be calm around them.We spent hours playing with the chicks and he would always help feed and clean their space :-)
I spent a great deal of time taking him into the coop on a leash and teaching him to be calm around the chickens. He is pretty good now. I won't take him in without a leash yet but he is good at letting them be. He does have a special relationship with one of our Andalusians- Ashleigh. She will go right up to him and peck around his toes and let him sniff her. It is pretty cute.
It has been a really sunny and hot summer so I thought I would try letting the chicks out to munch on grass in the shade of our yard. It worked great for a couple of months but then someone moved into the brambles behind the greenhouse. We live in a pretty rural area so we frequently have predators. We thought it was a fox at first so we loaded the gun and went on the lookout. He had taken our primary girl, a RI Red named Rhonda and also one of our new babies. Next he took sweet Flower. Also both of our baby Leghorns. The next day Art saw a Bobcat run across the road. We can't do anything about that. They are protected and someone in town told me that chickens are considered fair game for them.
So everyone is in lock-down in the greenhouse. I pick weeds to bring in to them. We are re-doing the front of the greenhouse to make a parking space for the (machine) Bobcat and the tractor. After that is done I will be able to put up their fence again so they can go outside. Turns out the fence wasn't to keep them in it was to keep the predators out.
I am hopeful that Cuddles will get broody again so I can hatch more leghorns but if not I will probably go to a chicken swap in September to try to get our group back up to at least 20 and try to get another rooster. We have too many predators and poor old La Roo just can't see as well as he used to...

Fall in New England

Where does the time go? As I watch the leaves falling outside my window I realize that another year is coming to a close. It goes by faster each year!

Most of our time and money went into the business this year but we did replace a rotting and leaky slider with windows at home. This has been a hard year. We were distracted early by renovating and moving our business but our sales have continued to slide down as a result of the warm weather and soft economy.Outside our new shop

Inside

We did a little traveling this year but not much.


We lost our beloved Polar this summer not even a year after losing our feline friend Zoicite last fall. One day in late July he stopped eating dry food. It was such a bloody hot summer we didn't think anything of it. Within a week he was only eating one meal a day, then the next week only a bite or two. He spent a week in the vet hospital on fluids and for testing. He had liver failure. We took him home, made him comfortable as possible, and loved him and lavished attention on him until he passed away in his sleep a little over a week later. Heart-breaking. Still fighting back tears...

We did have some new additions to the family as well. We got new chicks from My Pet Chicken this spring, and Cuddles hatched three eggs this year! Our first hatch was a frizzle leghorn mix named Flower. He ended up being a rooster so his name was upgraded to Flower Power. Her second was a Buff/Leghorn mix and was given away to someone who wanted to use him for breeding. The third is a cochin frizzle mix. Baby Spice, who is two months old is most likely a hen... I'll get back to you on this though. Cuddles does not have the best track record for laying hens instead of roosters!
New silkies. They are adorable and sweet! Tiffani, Milli, and Iffi
Baby Spice hatched with her sister Pumpkin. Pumpkin died within a couple days :-(

We are also working with a dog rescue to try to adopt a new pup. More on that later hopefully! My brother has started dating Julie, a wonderful energetic vibrant person and we have enjoyed her and Harrison's addition to our family. Art's parents are doing better this year. We had a mini-scare with Bud when he had a blocked carotid artery and needed surgery, but he is on the mend.

Chicks, Man!

The time has finally arrived! It's chick time! Well, time to order them, anyway... I was actually a bit slow on the draw. Silkies were high on my list but I should have ordered them in January.I would have had to wait until June to get them. So I will try to find a couple at local chicken swaps this summer instead.
Our current crew is working out really well. The two bantam roosters are a perfect combination. Lou Lou La Roo is top dog, and Sexy Frank is a good balance although he still has a bit of a Napoleon complex.The little girls are good layers and Little Miss Sunshine is just adorable and cuddly through and through. Cuddles is usually right beside La Roo or between the two roo's so I don't get much snuggle time with her. The older girls are sweet as ever and laying like champs!I am adding 13 to the roster this year. Five layers are good for our house and a few to give away, so I am hoping that by upping to 18 layers I can provide the family with farm fresh eggs!We are getting 3 White Leghorns. Sexy Frank is a bantam leghorn but these gals will be full size. If we get a boy we will have to name him Foghorn...
I really wanted some Polish chicks but they were backordered into May. So I am getting a mixed rare breed and hoping that I get one of these, a Frizzle, or a Favorelle. Looks just like a little Elvis chick!
We got 4 rare breed chicks. We are excited to see who comes!! A Frizzle chick looks like the little lady above. TOO CUTE!
I love my Aracaunas. Dorrie is one of my sweetest birds. I also love their blue/green eggs. So I got 3 more of these.
This is my exotic purchase. Three Appenzeller Spitzhaubens. Their are almost as cool to look at as their name sounds! We'll have to come up with a few good Bavarian names for these little cuties!
They arrive at the end of the month!! I can't wait to show pictures of the real cast! Stay tuned!

Pets are not your lunch! but they do give us breakfast.

Seriously, what does one have to do to explain to the furry ones in our home that the birds are cohabitants of this household not a snack! The dog was let off the leash while we were painting the other day... no big deal. He's eleven for crying out loud. He takes fifteen minute to get up for dinner! HA! We turned our back to do some ladder work and {poof} he was gone. Just a few minutes later he comes trotting up to his porch with my beloved Bobbie in his mouth! Terror! Hubby puts the dog in the basement and I run out to check the rest of the girls. He also got our new baby Roo Killer. Sad day. The next day we found a pile of little white and blue feathers in the living room. Bunny was no longer in her cage... Blizziemonster was the only one in the house while we were gone! Geesh! Welcome to Slaughterhouse number five!
I moved the couch so that Beaker was further out of reach and took down the bird bath that left a crack big enough for a bird to get out (or a paw to get in). Outside in the greenhouse I sured up the outer door, and fixed the latch on the inner door. Polar will always be chained up or leashed outside. Period.
Not to be deterred we went to a chicken swap on Sunday. I got a couple of black silkie chicks and 3 Canadian Chantecler chicks. We were then out of bucks so we headed out. We barely made it out of the parking lot when we decided to hunt for an atm. We found one and headed back to the swap to see if anyone else had shown up.
We looked around, not really anything new, but they did have a beautiful white silkie Roo. Nah, The day after Killer was sacrificed my sweet Isabel Silkie crowed for me. Alas, she was re-christened by Art and now her-mmmm- I mean his name is Igor...)
We were about to leave the swap when I noticed a new van with a couple of boxes. I went over and out peeked a cute little red headed beak, then another. We asked what he had and he said he wasn't sure, but we could take the box for twelve bucks. Someone else came up and the guy said, "not to worry" he had another box with three of them in the back of his van for him. So we took the mystery box of chickens home. I was guessing there were five girls inside.
We got home and sprung the girls packed into the box. Four New Hampshire Reds. They look like they are about five or six months old. He wasn't sure who was laying yet or not, but he said they were close or laying...
I put the babies in with Igor in the back coop and let the bigger girls in with our other four. Dorrie (former low girl on the totem pole) went to town on them. Man, chickens are Mean! Mean! Mean! The four stuck together and held their ground though. At four days in Abbie has switched 'teams' and hangs out with the reds now. The others are still prone to the occasional snit fit but the reds don't seem to mind. They are the most social birds we have had yet :-)
They flock around me and love to be held and fed! Abbie always did too so I guess she blends ;)
I thought for sure I would not be able to tell them apart but they actually look very different and have varied personalities.
Olga is the lightest one, Pennie has a little white on her tail, and a white and red alternating pattern on her neck, Queenie is the lighter of the dark reds, and Rhonda is the reddest.
The next day I went out in the morning and had two eggs from the older girls and a new darker colored egg! Yippee! Then when I went out later that day I found a whopping four more eggs! Two from old girls, two from new! Then when I went out to close up the coop for the night I found another from the Reds! Eight eggs! Happy Happy Joy Joy!The little Silkies had to fight for every scrap of food they ever got I have a feeling. They were sopping wet when we got them (rained the day of the swap and their owner had them in an open pickup bed...) When I set them in the coop they ran for the feeder and ate and ate and ate and ate! They still camp out by it and I have to make sure that others get a turn to eat! I think they are easing up a little now that they have gorged themselves for several days!One of my (twin) neices asked me to name a chicken after her when I got to her letter in the alphabet (we are going in alphabetical order to better keep track?!). Problem is I can't remember which neice asked! LOL! Anyway, I named the older 'new' silkie Lexie, and the smaller one Mollie.The Chanteclers are a beautiful and very hardy bird. They are for both meat and laying but we will be using them strictly as layers. One is two months old, and two are one month. Suzy (the older one) has elected herself adoptive Momma of the two little ones- Tori, and Natalie. They are shy birds and have set up camp behind the box we brought them home in.
Little Igor is the king of that roost! He is so proud :-) He has lost two BFF's in his short life but he is only stronger for it! I think he and Suzy may work it out and be good buddies, too.
Now we have one big happy coop with Abbie, Corrie, Dorrie, Frannie, Lexi, Mollie, Natalie, Olga, Pennie, Queenie, Rhonda, Suzie, and Tori!

A Chicks' Life

I got my first set of baby chicks last year. Eight little beaks with seven chickens and one Roo. I got my first egg on my birthday last year. All through the cold winter the girls gave me four to six eggs a day. I spoiled them feeding them warm oatmeal with apples, and a special mash made with cracked corn and whole oats. My philosophy was (and is) I feed them well, they feed me well.
By spring Elliot Roo was quite a handful and by summer I was at my wits end. He was so big and could be so aggressive. He would attack our poor gardener every time he bent down to pick a weed or plant a seed. He would strip the poor girl's backs he was so fiesty. He would lunge at me randomly and I did not turn my back for a moment! Although if you caught him he would happily snuggle down to be patted, and he loved it when you hand-fed him anything!
I made a fence outside for the girls so they could free range on bugs, grass, and weeds. Elliot got to me (and the girls) one too many times so I put him outside the fence for a couple of days to give us all a break. I would let him back in at night when he was calmer. After the third day he had had enough. He left. The next day I went looking for him. I could hear him but did not find him. The day after I looked again and thought I saw him at a neighbors. I had to go to an appointment but vowed to come back with Art later to get him since he was still hanging around. I really thought he would eventually just come back to the coop... The next day he was gone. I assume that someone took him. He was a big beautiful Roo for those who can handle him in all his glory!
We lost our first chicken to illness. Poor Ginny got sick inexplicably and died while we were out of town. We lost her sister Hallie to a fox. This prompted us to put a gun out in the greenhouse in case he came back. I also hung a predator "eye" outside. The fox has not returned.
We got our baby silkies by a fluke. I went to Tractor Supply to get chick feed and they were having a chicken swap. I bought two beautiful blue/black silkies that were about a month old. They were so snuggly and adorable. But so shy. They clung to each other and even when I brought them out to munch on grass they would never be more than six inches from each other.
Two of my birds went broody this summer. Ironically, they did it just after Elliot left. Not sure if they were trying to replace him or what but both Dorrie and Abbie were out of commission for a month! Corrie was hoarding eggs but would not always sit on them and once they were taken she would forget about them for a week or so. Still, she was brooding off and on for about two months. All told I think we 'lost' two dozen eggs to brooding behavior. Maybe next year we'll have some baby chicks in the coop.
The other day I was absolutely horrified when I went outside and saw that my dog had gotten one of the baby silkies. HORRIFIED! I think the dog is getting nuts in his old age. He killed a squirrel the other day and brought it into the house, too. He has never ever ever done anything like that before! Scary. So the dog is on restriction. I won't let him off his run outside, all guests are warned to give him space, and he can't be inside alone with Blizzie. I was bit by a dog when I was small and I have zero tolerance in that department. I love Polar but it would be unforgivable if he bit a person! I cried and cried. Between losing Zoi and losing Jezzie all within a week I was a mess.
We did get a new little feathered friend. We adopted a little Cochin Bantam born in June. He was a little sweetheart. He has made friends with Isabel who has been very sad and lost without her sis Jesabel. He does have spunk. Jumps right in there and tries to make a place for himself. Of course, he runs right behind me when they peck at him. Too funny! Izzie and he are in the little coop away from the big girls who are pretty aggressive toward them. Hopefully, when the Roo grows up a bit it will be a smooth transition.His name? Well, I told Art a long time ago that he could name the next Roo. We are going alphabetically and the next letter was K so he could pick any K name he wanted. Yeah, he picked 'Killer.' It sounds more like Killah since he says it with a Boston accent but all the same... I call him 'Baby K' because Baby "Killer" is way inappropriate.
I hope we are done with loss and on to happier times in the hen house!

Longest Week!

We lost our beloved Ginney this week. She was always low girl on the totem pole but she was also very sweet. She loved to be cuddled and enjoyed it when I would hand feed her or fend Elliot off. She was sick for a while and I knew that but it is still sad...
We have also been going through tough times with our now thirteen year old cat Zoi. This is the little one they told us to euthenize last fall because she would not live for more than a week or two. Well our stubborn little kitty showed them. But, she now is extremely incontinent and thus is outside or in a room lined with a tarp for her frequent mishaps. It is so frustrating when she piddles mere inches from her cat box. Her balance is a little wonky but otherwise she seems fine. She can run to the door or across the field just fine.
Then Tuesday came... After a long night with Zoi I discovered that Elliot Roo had run away. Very strange because even if he hops or is let out of the fence he stays very close to his girls and food bowl. Today he was gone. I walked all around the woods (through the poison ivy thank you very much!) to try to find him and I swore I could hear him when I called out to him, but I could not find him... Two days later I found that a neighbor had put him in their fence. So now I have the conundrum of whether I should let him stay there and let the girls live free of this tyrant or do I bring him back home?
We went through a stressful morning getting a "proper" commitment letter from the bank for our property purchase, then ran down to the store to try to finalize an advertising program with the local aaa baseball team, and then went through a six hour review with one of our guys. SIX hours! He is the second of six. This could be a long summer!
Then the bomb. Toward the end of the review Art's cell phone rang. It was his eldest sister. I told him to take it so he left the table for about twenty minutes. When he came back we wrapped up and dropped our guy off at the shop.
Art's Mom has been doing so much better this year, walking several feet at a time and feeling and looking better than she has in a long time. We were almost feeling comfortable. We weren't even thinking about Dad. My father in law had a vein burst in one eye and now he is blind in that eye. They also fear that the other eye will soon do the same. This is devastating. This man lives to carve and read. He is also very active and the primary caretaker in the house.
My Mil and I were talking last week because her driver's license is coming due. At her age she would have to take a driving test to keep it. She hasn't driven since going in a wheelchair and her eyesight is not that great anyway. So when I asked if she was going to renew she laughed at me and told me there was no way she could drive anymore.
The siblings all coordinated to see who could get them to their necessary doctor's appointments in the coming weeks. Art called to try to get them to Mass Eye and Ear for a second opinion. They stubbornly refused help or a ride down there insisting that Dad could still drive just fine with his one good eye. They also sprung on us that since Dad's other eye is in peril Mom is going to get hand controls and renew her license. What?!? This is where we are at...