Hercules has figured out what chicken chow tastes like, and now has a distinct preference for it. He started tearing off the coop cover - right in front of me - to see if he could get into the chickens' food ( Read more... )

On Sunday morning, I moved the chickens into the girl pasture. They immediately started digging up and eating earthworms. I'd rather that they were eating flies, honestly, but just digging up the matted old hay is good too. There is a lot of fallen hay along the upper fence line because that is where I hang hay baskets in good weather for the goats ( Read more... )

I just got a pair of year-old production red crosses this morning. They are pretty chickens, in my opinion, with deep red-brown coloring and black tips to their tails. I bought them off of the next door neighbor's landscaper, so the transaction was done in my painful Spanish. I'm glad I only got two, because these girls are major foragers. In just ( Read more... )

This entry should have been written on 10/15/2014, but for some reason I never finished it. I grabbed it out of draft during a phone call, and so hopefully this isn't too disjointed.

Now that spring is coming, and chickens are in the plan, here is my self-promised report on chicken egg production and costs. ( 1 Year of Chickens: report )

It's been a week of record cold here at the farm. No shit, it was 4 degrees when I got up this morning. Combine that cold with the usual Presidents Day Week snow, record wind chills, and my chest cold, and it's been miserable to go outside. The boy's water spigot has frozen off and on this week, so I'm back to hauling water from the kitchen. ( Read more... )

For those of you playing along with the farm game, I regret to report that the three chickens have met their end. The various explosions of feathers in the front yard are my main evidence; the lack of any chicken coming home is the supporting evidence ( Read more... )

Someone (something?) was harassing the chickens overnight. One of the solar lights lost its base and was sitting upside down (and therefore still glowing) a few feet away from the coop. There was a membrane-only egg and a completely shell-less egg inside the coop, and one on the ground outside. Ick. I got to clean the coop this morning so that ( Read more... )

( farm babble )

There are three main reasons to always wear sturdy, closed-toe shoes while working around farm animals.

1. Shoes protect your feet from accidents (from dropped or forgotten items, nails sticking out, hay poking at you, etc.).
2. Shoes protect your feet from being stepped on by animals who don't notice or care that your feet are underneath them.
2. ( Read more... )

I gathered up my 4th double-yolk chicken egg this morning. (6/3, 6/6, 6/21, 6/24) Apparently, a chicken who lays double-yolks is usually genetically gifted for ovulating too rapidly (sending a new yolk into the oviduct to soon after the previous), on the large side for the breed, and very well fed. ( and so on )