Happy Harvest Blog
OMG KEETS!!!
I went out to feed everyone lunch and got stopped in my tracks by a tumble of new keets! A whole new cast of characters. I think there's 13. They're hard to count. Little white ones and brown ones! The white guinea hen is back with a hugely successful brood! I've been seeing her at the food trays occasionally the last couple of weeks wolfing down food, at off-hours, so I've wondered.
The rain in Spain is totally insane
It has rained hard and steady for ten hours straight and isn't done. There is more standing water than dry land right now. The chickens were all wading over their ankles and the chicks in water up to their feather pants. The rain gauge was over 120mm when I last checked. That is insane! The chickens spent the day in their coops and rain house; I didn't even open them for eggs and risk letting the rain in.
Privacy Stalls
I finally got around to a simple fix to make higher walls on the nest boxes - just cardboard. Two of the nest boxes never got any use - too exposed. They all squabble over the corner office box and it gets vociferous. I hear them whining- complaining, indignant, offended, self-pitying, insulted, according to their chickenalities. I've been holding in an egg here for ages, and she just barged in here! Get off of me, I was already in here! Take a number!
box princess
There are three sets of chick/s running around at the moment, that I see have yet to be introduced, my bad...The other White Chocolate hen, sister to the loaner, has three chicks; the shirt chick was adopted; and this little Silkie hen has three- two Cheeklings and a Silkie chick (got rescued into the greenhouse on rain day). This particular hen's quirk (they all have at least one), is that she does not, ever, want to go to bed in the coop.
Excuse me, it's morning.
The little door has fallen off the viewing window in the side of the coop. Now there's just a little grill, and in the morning, a chicken can eyeball me through it, impatiently.I can see the sun is up. Let us out already.
The most beautiful time of year.
The apple tree blooms are past now (they were prodigious, and they was no terrible frost this year, so we have reason to expect plenty of apples!), but the hawthorn stays white a little later. This scrappy placeholder hawthorn tree by the house I allowed to live (until I replace it with a fruit tree), is happy to be becoming quite attractive. I've got my decorative birdhouses back out too.
Eggs, beautiful eggs
A pastel rainbow of eggs! The ladies are laying about 2 dozen a day now, so I have eggs for sale (locally)
chickens lounging in the sun
They do love a good sunny day. This one started it all (Cream Puff). Oh, that looks like a good idea. Whatcha doin'? Then the participants change. What's even happening here? (There are three hens)Then everyone's in on it. There's also a dust bowl a little ways from the sandbox. The guineas like to lie in the grass in the sun.
Floods
Today was a torrential downpour in the morning. When it rains I run around like a mad person trying to catch or use it all. I filled several barrels today. I'm expecting a long stretch of rainlessness this summer, and that every rain we get maybe the last for a long time, although it keeps coming and coming. All the birds rushed under cover when it came thundering down, except the little Silkie mama with three chicks.
Phi kappa peck
The boys came trundling out of their new house in the morning to start a long day marching up and down along the fence separating them from the girls like they were picketing Jericho. The girls are inside the orange fence, the roosters are inside the white fence. All-day, back and forth. In one day they tamped down a groove in the dirt along that fence. They took breaks for shade, and food, but barely. On the girls' side, it was all How's the serenity?
Frat house
Of course, I should have taken a pic or two while building it, and didn’t. I just got it in place in time for the night and the rain I wasn’t expecting until tomorrow. Coop building is becoming a standardized activity. I’ve got my pattern down. I have not yet landed on a design for making a freakin’ heavy box of chickens readily portable, though. The Silkie box with the axle works, but it’s still heavy. Not something you look forward to.
The loaners
Two hens are on loan to another family who needs some chicks. They are sitting on eggs and will return when their chicks are grown enough to not need their moms like Cream Puff did last year (with a boyfriend in tow). Broody hen rental service. The hens, one Silkie, and one standard got boxed and transported at night, installed in their brooding accommodations, and after a day to adjust, they have settled in extremely well. I visited.
Seriously. Not again!?
Pansy swarmed AGAIN. This time I got pictures. I heard the roaring sound again and looked out. Pansy?!! What's it been, five days? Since a giant contingent of the bees just departed from Pansy, I had a hard time even believing what I was seeing, although, a swarm is pretty unmistakable. Not possible. There aren't enough bees left to split again. There were. I was completely expecting Violet to swarm. The Violet hive is huge and strong.
A thorough bee day
I had a big bee day, doing all things bee. Building frames and parts, hive inspection, expansion, and more. They needed all kinds of things, including a yard cleanup. I doubt I would have lost that swarm if I was on this a few days earlier, but what's flown is flown. Now all the hives are set on concrete pads, all the wood scraps are cleaned up, and the bee yard looks more classy bee apartment structures, less bee shantytown.
Rain risk vs worm reward
The pig house (pig-less this year) is repurposed as a chicken rain shelter, and they LOVE it. When it's pelting down, almost the whole flock crowds in there, and the guineas come running in too. The hens rock the rain pretty hard, but when it gets too heavy they jog for shelter. Rain makes the worms come up, but they don't like to get too wet either. It's a chicken risk/reward analysis. Adding the laundry rack was one of my finer brain waves.
A nice nest
One doesn't think of chickens as being nest builders per se, but they definitely do nest construction. Guineas, ground nesters like chickens, craft quite beautifully careful nests, if extremely minimal ones, out of a few blades of grass. It's more of a saucer than a bowl - a slight bank to keep the eggs from rolling out, I suppose. When I set the Silkies on eggs, I think I form a perfect nest in advance, but no.
Well they're gone
I had a hive swarm yesterday (What is that roaring sound? Oh.) They went up in a big pine tree, and while they landed on a nice 3″ branch that could be sawed off, they were 40’+ up, and very much out of my reach this time. I quickly prepared a bait box (inviting new home, move-in ready), with that new hive smell (lemongrass, honey, and old comb). They ignored it. I prepared a second one, too, in another location.
The first chick of the year
Let's try this again. I had a hen go broody. Try as we might to break her up, she was determined. Kick her out of whatever corner she was trying to warm eggs in and she'd march around in full turkey mode, every feather flared and growling until she could sneak back in another coop. Then Cheeks started making eggs again, and I could give this hen something to do. What does she do? Halfway through the process, she jumps up off the eggs, bursting out of the coop one morning and not returning.
Knock knock?
Cheeks progressed to spending all day outside. She started eating from the trough with the other hens, then started laying her eggs in the nest box of the coop! I hardly saw her from the morning post-yelling eviction until the evening. She would still come to the door of the house at bedtime, or if it rained heavily. Hello. I still live here. And I'd put her back in her banana box for the night. I can't reach the handle. Ah!
Instagram.
I may not make a blog post every day, but at least I Insta.
Bite size.
