Thistlewick Smallholding - Chickens & Sheep (for now)

[thistlewick]

French Marans from France.
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:O :O :O SO PRETTY

 

[wrathsfarm]

French Marans from France.
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Beautiful...

 

[TwoCrows]

@thistlewick Congratulations on your new Friend Badge!

 

[wrathsfarm]

@thistlewick congrats on your new fancy badge !!!

 

[thistlewick]

I cannot believe it honestly, I'm rather prickly sometimes

Yesterday evening I just was feeling a little frazzled. Apparently I'm not done with menopause (I really thought I was) and a wash of some kinda hormones has flown back in the past week and it just messes with my state of peace, I swear. Brain is scattered and emotions run a little high. I'm so over it!

So the cure for that? Sit out with chickens. They just *exude* peace. Even if they are running around like crazies, it's fun to watch.

Ayu, calming down now that she is laying. She is sprightly and lithe and *beautiful* She also knows her name, or at the least, when I'm talking to her. She always responds now with a little coo when I walk by and say "Hey Ayu!"

She drinks

Dora in the background of those photos lolol I LOVE DORA - she's the head hen, if we actually have a head hen - I am not quite certain we actually do. There is really only peace amongst these ~60 chickens. Free ranging on a giant property is.. excellent. I am very grateful. She is calm, gentle, authoritative and very docile -- but NO ONE messes with Dora. Everyone respects her. But she is gentle and sweet. No attitude from her. She loves to be 'head inspector' whenever we do anything.

Francoise drinking from the duck pond (bin, really lol) chickens are gross. She is 18 weeks old and looking like a right proper hen. Dora coming to make sure there is no poop in that water...

Lil Peep again, this elusive chicken is supposed to be friendly - Brahmas are right? This one doesn't want to have a thing to do with us. lol It's ok, we can admire her from afar.

Dulce - just one example of our many Easter Eggers. I LOVE them and their little poofy faces. Dulce has saddle feathers, but Dulce is 18 weeks old and is a girl. It's okay, she looks lovely with them <3

Wanted to show our updated roosts in the outdoor part of the hen house. This was at 8:45pm and it was dark - the Pixel camera is outstanding, seriously. It has a 'night' mode so you have to hold it still but it just exposes the photo for longer to draw in the available light.

So we have some of the Lollipops out here (on the left) but mostly its the 'teens' They are in a different configuration every night.

This is the inside:

THE LOLLIPOPS UP AT THE TOP BWAHAHAHAHAHHHAHAHAHHAHA



I did NOT NOTICE UNTIL I LOOKED AT THE PHOTO THIS MORNING
ROFLMAAOOOOOOO well, that was the first night they did that - they are usually on the front end of the poop table. I guess they got pecked at and eloped up to the roof soffits there LOL

They can do that if they want, they won't be doing it for long.

we think it's kind of cute how they huddle under the sections of roost that have a roof. They don't really like the tall open ceiling, I think it makes them feel insecure. We have thought about covering over the roosts there with some OSB or plywood to make them more comfy.

But any and all building projects are on hold until the Fall. The heat is NO.

 

[thistlewick]

Oh I forgot;

love a good lawn mower;

Tilly and SOPHIA of all chickens; she was kinda thinking about going broody and kinda still is acting weird and I haven't seen an egg from her in 8 days but she isn't acting sick or egg bound or anything.

I don't know what's going on but here she is, trying to mama with the babies and I think it's her hormones going bonkers a little.

I really need to hazmat suit up and go in the hedge and do some nest hunting.

I really don't want to -- Black Widows are everywhere. Orb weavers I can handle but I really don't.. just no...

I took this photo from under my well head (one of those fake stone cover things) and there were 6 of them, with HUGE egg sacs.. last year. NO THANKS. IT IS RIGHT BY THE HEDGE -- NO THANK YOU AT ALL.

Also, omg aren't they gorgeous?

 

[thistlewick]

Lots of chicken shenanigans as always. Probably going to remove/rehome Heath as he just chases the ladies horribly and he's too big already anyway. Also I don't need a brown egg layer.

I've been told he's a Wyandotte but his comb isn't right for it. It's a weird one, not pea, not straight, not rose, he's a mix.

It's sad though - he is a loner and hangs out with the babies all day in and around the hen house -- Oscar, and all the rest of the younger Cockerels are welcome to hang out with everyone. I think no one really likes Heath too much. That tugs at my heart strings.

We have a bunch of stacked straw by the barn and today I saw Ginger nesting in it; no eggs in there lol

Just took a bunch of photos today before lockup; it was humid and hot but I was away all day at a BBQ so I missed them.

Some people in another thread were talking about how 'chickens must not like tall grass because predators can lurk in them' and how their chickens always avoid tall grass.

I do not know what the HECK they are on about. My chickens free range over an entire natural chicken range (300 feet radius circle from hen house -- this has proven to be *entirely* accurate from whatever journal I read it in) but they have all that space, and more, to do whatever the hell they want to do, all day long, dawn to dusk.

Anyway, the only predators in the daytime are hawks. Long grass is *cover* from hawks. My chickens LOVE it and will forage in it. Do they love the cut grass? Of course! Because it kicks up the bugs and makes life easier for them to find bugs, but they seek out the tall grass, too.

They REALLY love hedges and bushes though. I need to get a good current photo of my giant chicken hedge lol

Cracker, being SO so pretty. 12 weeks old, almost 13 \o/ He does not crow yet.

Batman, one of the Lollipops, a little Cockerel, who is coming up on 7 weeks old, has been crowing every morning for 3 days now! I need to get it on video!!! ITS SO CUTE.

Two of my friendly lollipops, Whoopie with her hackles and then Chuck Jr who doesn't have any, but has a red comb. Chicken genetics! I know Cockerels aren't supposed to jump up on you, but these Lollipops are different. They just are. We also aren't keeping any of the Cockerels other than Batman. Cocoa, Miss Pecky and Chuck Jr will be re-homed I suppose.

A real quick reckoning of Cockerels;


Chuck (the only Rooster)
Oscar
Heath
Cream
Cracker
Miss Pecky
Cocoa
Chuck Jr
Batman
then a variety of cockerels from tilly's batch, bator batch and welsummer/ameraucana batch.

We will see how it goes with 5-6 adult Roosters in a flock of 70 But we need to let the Welsummers/Ameraucana grow up and get that assessment.

My Bielefelder Millie - who almost never has her tail up but otherwise looks gorgeous. She is 16 weeks old.

Ayu's teeny tiny eggs compared to 1 regular size LOL

we ate all those today, I made devilled eggs from my own eggs and they were yum.

This was yesterday - but the sky over our pastures is magnificent on a regular basis

This closer pasture has since been bushhogged LOL

 

[thistlewick]

I have a sheep photo today. They are the worst lawnmowers I need about 12 more sheep to affect any change on that pasture LOL NO. 4 is fine.

My brooder is OVERSTUFFED with chicks, this is WAY overcrowded. I am unhappy but, I have nowhere else to put them.

If I could only decipher who are cockerels and pullets now but 4 more weeks -- they will be moved down stairs soon.

I opened the downstairs for the bator batch crew to run amok today -- with the small doors open. They loved it! I had to help 4 chicks back up into the hen house for lock up, but much to my surprise, they let me pick them right up. I did not think that crew was very hand-friendly but they weren't scared of me at all.

I don't need any of these 17 chickens but I haven't managed to make it down to the auction and now I'm just thinking I'll get more for them if I just wait and sell the pullets.

I went nest hunting today in the hedge, not a single possible nest site in sight. Anywhere, I went through way more than just the main chicken hedge. I went into three or four thickets. Nada. The shed? Nada. Just girls are barely laying or stopped for the heat of summer? Who knows.

The old shed/barn/leanto, I dunno its an antique building, the only thing I didn't tear down --- it had an old tractor tire just laying there, so I dug it out and rolled it down to the extension. We will eventually bury it vertically but for now it's just sitting on it's side and it was a big fun hit. Everyone came to check it out.

Ruby had a little sit.

Here is the giant chicken hedge. It's about 80 feet longish. Other than the carolina roses that line the front of my house, which are huge, dense and low to the ground, the chickens spend their entire day in here -- this extends off camera to the left up on the other side of the driveway -- the hedge itself grew along an old fence line -- deep inside is an old old old old barbed wire fence that is 95% fallen down -- we have removed a lot of the barbed wire from there.

There is also a rivulet that flows from up back left off camera down through the hedge and on to my pastures, all the way down to our creek, which flows into a very large river nearby.

The oak tree on the right of the photo is the start of where we want a second hedge to begin to grow between the trees, we just aren't going to mow it. It's North Carolina -- it will be a thicket hedge in a couple years lol

 

[thistlewick]

After putting that tire in the extension, instead of just Custard and Misserschmidt being outside (they fly out) about 7 chickens were! Bwahah - adorable!! We have an automatic door that opens at 7am to the extension. I never come out to open the doors until about 8-8:30 if some want to fly out they are welcome to. We will get around to putting a roof on, but no rush.

Cream crowed for the first time this morning, it sounded hilariously god awful. He's 14, 15 weeks old? Sounds like an old car trying to start LOL

The little 7 week olds Batman and Miss Pecky crow better than he does

That pile of straw under the lean-to? This morning Ginger and Sophia went to sit there and 'nest' on the top. Right next to each other it was so cute, I really am mad I didn't bring my phone with me but no pockets in my nightgown

The littles in the downstairs brooder got let out yesterday; about 7 or so of them were brave enough to venture out yesterday but this morning when I opened the door, BAM all 17 were running around everywhere like it was the time of their lives. They are 3 weeks old (two of them are 4 weeks old) and little zoomers. No one was fussing them, even Pepper.


Because the hen house faces a pasture, right outside of it is no cover. So we realized something yesterday - when the teens were coming up we had the tractor out parked in teh pasture as we often do, right in front of the hen house - and it offers perfect cover for them to learn to foray out into the world and be able to see what the big hens and flock is doing during the day. It's a necessary thing to help them learn to leave the safety of the hen house as wee ones.

They are 7 weeks old and quite capable of being out foraging all day but within sight of the hen house, like the teens learned (I need a new name for them, they're fully grown and hang with the big girls now completely but for some reason I just cannot think of them as my originals -- this is a me problem!)

So we're leaving the tractor out for awhile in the pasture every day between mowings so they have somewhere to go to.

Today is a mild day, cool wind and not very hot. What a blessing after weeks of horrible heat!

 

[thistlewick]

Got some pics today;

Coffee, sitting a nest very prim.

CROWDED BROODER!!!!!! This stresses me out lol

7 week olds and 3 week olds hanging out. Also Misserschmidt, who is woefully small for her age, but is sweet. (Cross beak)

ALL those 3 week olds will be sold/auctioned. Though, they are very sweet.

Whoopie and Ruby, my two sweet Lollipop darlings <3

Rain today, the lean-to next to the barn is a favorite dry spot.

They did indeed, deem it lay worthy lololol LOVE it, cute as heck

Perfect opportunity to have a Spa day in the permanently dry dirt here hahah