What sensors do you use? I lost a hen to a coyote last night (while I was out with them!) and want to make sure it doesn’t happen again, to the best of my ability.
A beautiful evening last night and I let the girls out while I was weeding my berry beds. They went into sparse trees up the hill a bit when I heard a squawk, then silence. Five girls made it back to the coop, but Mama Cass (one of my top two favorite chickens) did not. By the time I got there...
Lo and behold, when I went to check butts again this morning, I noticed fresh red blood on my sleeve—my favorite hen has a broken toenail!
I may have overreacted and set up a chicken clinic in the garage where she’ll spend the day. Seems like every time I’d move her around after applying...
I have a small flock of six Australorps, almost two years old.
About two weeks ago, I started noticing some blood on a few eggs. (Photo attached.) It wasn’t a lot, but I’d never seen it before. A friend suggested since it was a minimal amount, maybe there was some pecking going on in the...
I live on 4 acres in a rural area and we’ve always had coyotes. But we only hear them at night, and far off.
Today, however, my husband spotted one sneaking toward the coop at 10 in the morning! Broad daylight! He was scoping out our house, too. Just one, so I wonder if he is scouting for a...
I wonder if adding a tarp or poop board under your roosts would minimize moisture in the coop, as long as it was scooped out every couple days. That way the poo isn’t gumming up the bedding!
The girls got a lot of garden time in the last couple days, between cleaning up beds, leaving behind a little compost, and eating spreading out cover crop seed.
What’s cuter than black chickens against a backdrop of fall color? Nothing, I say!
Ella, queen of the woodpile.
Mama Cass - is...
This month has been so crazy with work and traveling and whatnot! I haven’t even thought about Halloween, really. But when I get back home on Friday, that’ll be a different story…
On that note, any ideas for last-minute, buy-nothing costumes? 😆
So, in hindsight, probably not the best idea to get six identical-looking girls as my first flock. But now that their combs have come in, I can finally tell them apart! And as such, the flock has been officially named…all after dark-haired vocalists. Besides the obvious ones, can you tell who? 🖤🎶
Update here: Ella is a-OK! Two days after I posted, we took her into the garage and, as gently as we could with a big awkward squeeze bottle, rinsed her eye a couple times with saline solution. We were going to isolate overnight just in case, but she was NOT having it, so we put her back with...
I celebrate Samhain with:
🍂a final harvest and big ol’ chicken-led garden cleanup
🍎a dish of pork with apples and onions (which will be completely locally sourced for the first time in the seven years I’ve made it — wooo!)
🖤a little space in my home with candles, family mementos, and sweet...
The Silmarillion is SOOO GOOOOD! I’m a mythology nerd so I loved getting to learn the “lore” behind Middle Earth. I hope you love it.
Right now I’m reading Common Sense by Thomas Paine (realizing as an adult that my history teachers were terrible, so doing some self-educating :)) and after...