Busy day- I did morning chores and then went out to look for a finishing piece for my DILTB's birthday; I'm sincerely appreciating how considerate my son was, choosing a young woman whose birthday is right smack dab in the post-Christmas clearance period. I'm hoping she likes the items I picked out and paid ridiculously little for.
Elvis, however would have preferred that I stayed home and talked to him; he's just not so sure he is all that thrilled living in a place where he can run back and forth without flying and jumping up and down, I think, and then there's the fact that Maggie is
bossy and not at all ready to let a mere boy get in line in front of her at the feeder or the water fountain. I went out to check on them and he was perched with his ladies, but came to the end of the perch to talk to me instead. All of the Hamburgs are just ridiculously tame and social- for allegedly "flighty" birds mine seem pretty mellow.
I've got hanging feeders in all three runs now, amazing how much less waste. Amazing also how much time moving Elvis in with his ladies has freed up- possibly because getting in to his coop to feed him involved eight bungie cords!
I'm on an efficiency kick when it comes to feed- there's just nothing good comes of spilling chicken feed, hay, and alfalfa pellets on the ground, and a whole lot bad (alfalfa pellets are apparently infinitely slippery; there's one patch where I spilled them in September which is still as slippery as reindeer slobber). If I get any dry weather tomorrow or Thursday, I'm going to rake everywhere that's got spilled feed/bedding/wet hay and pile it up on cardboard and feed sacks on top of the stupid creeping buttercup, which is getting dosed with ag gypsum first to raise the pH. I'm putting lemon balm and various mints everywhere come February; the chickens like it and it seems to be the only thing that can take over from the buttercup, even with the help of a calcium source. Not to mention that it smells good, feeds bees and butterflies, and discourages fleas and mosquitos.
Running on fumes, though- I forgot that beer keeps me awak when I had my New Year's tipple, couldn't get to sleep last night because I got hung up on where I'll move the sheep pen next.