Wild Bird Wednesday

Well, it IS Wild Bird Wednesday, and these birds aren't exactly wild. LOL
I have chickens and sell eggs, and last weekend I traveled to Ohio to buy some Splash Cochin Bantam chickens to add to my hobby chicken flock. Bantam chickens are very small about 1/2 the size of a regular chickens, and their eggs are also very small. The little hens might weigh just over a pound when fully grown. I don't depend on their eggs to sell, but instead we eat them so we can save the larger eggs for our customers.
The picture above is the rooster Christopher, and I also got 3 hens.

This is one of the three hens yet to be named, and she is a ball of soft fluff...
Sorry I don't have any new shots of wild birds this week. I think migration is beginning here, so maybe nest week I'll see something interesting.
Have a good rest of the week, and click on http://paying-ready-attention-gallery.blogspot.com to see lots more birds. Thanks to Stewart for this cool meme.

It's Sunday and an update on the chicks..

As promised here are some pictures of the "baby chicks" from the first week we got them till today. If you remember the story I posted back in March about the day old chick that became trapped under the 1 gallon water for over 16 hours, and lived to tell the story. We named her Crush, and here she is with the X above her head. We put a black dot on her head so we could tell her from the others.

The next month Crush is doing just fine, and a bit lighter in color so we can easily pick her out from the rest.

In May she is growing normally, and has forgiven me from setting the waterer down on top of her.

Jumping into July, this is the first time the "baby chicks" were brought together with the older hens at Steve's house in a bigger pen. There was some arguing but as of today they have seemed to know where everyones place is.

A couple shots of Crush as a young lady this morning. These hens are Rhode Island Reds and will be laying nice sized brown eggs.

Just this week we began getting our first eggs from these girls, and they are quite small at first. These eggs in the carton are from the chicks, and I put in an extra large egg on the right bottom for comparrison.
Hens lay their first egg of the day early in the morning, and then will lay 1 hour later each day until about the 6th or 7th day when it will be around 4PM. The next day they will skip laying, and then begin early again the next morning all over again. They also go through a "molt" mostly in the  Spring and early summer when they will get new feathers. At this time they can go for 5-6 weeks without laying. Thank goodness they don't all go through this at the same time. Another interesting fact some breeds of chickens desperately want to be mothers, and will decide to set on eggs for weeks at a time hoping to hatch them. At this time they will cease to lay also. You don't have to keep a rooster to have eggs, but you do have to keep a rooster with your flock if you want baby chicks. We have no roosters and therefor any of our hens that become "broody" aren't bringing in any egg money. Sometimes we will put them in a pen by themselves where there is no nest in which to set, until they give up and start laying again. This usually will take a few days.
OK, I've taken up too much of your time. Hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend. We did get more rain today, and the dried up grass is beginning to come to life again.

Sunday

I still have a few Pine Siskins that haven't left for the North country yet. Must be they like the eats here.

We've had a couple unfavorable days with wind, rain, and much cooler temperatures, so we haven't been out and about much.
At home the Goldfinches are here every day, and I keep an old used Christmas tree for the birds to land on next to my main feeder.. In the background you can see I still don't have my garden all planted yet. :~(

One minute sun, then clouds, and then lots of heavy rain. Quite windy too. Our youngest granddaughter Jalyn, managed to get a Pee-Wee baseball game in Saturday before the rain settled in too. They WON 10-1. High fives "J" She got 4 hits!! Her Dad told her to swing that bat like she was mad at her sister. LOL

With the cool temps, the Bumble-bee wasn't moving very fast. This one stayed on this Zinnia for a long time.

Last but NOT least I have been waging war lately on all the critters that raid my feeders at night! My latest victim was this highly ticked cat! My goodness was he/she mad! I went out early at dawn to release it, and he hissed, snarled, and growled at me. Jumped at me from inside the trap too. I was concerned he might come after me when I let him out, but thankfully as soon as I opened the door, out he flew and at warp speed too. I've checked with the neighbors and can't find an owner, but at least he didn't come back last night. So far in the past 2 weeks I've caught 5 raccoons and 1 skunk. I still have yet to catch a possum I saw out there and another skunk. These animals carry diseases, to say nothing about the devastating results they will cause if they get at my chickens. A nursery ( and that is what a group of raccoons is called) will wipe out the entire flock in a very short time if they should get in the chicken coop. We love our chickens and want them to be safe! ♥ 
Have a good rest of the weekend everyone...

It's Monday

Look what we got in the mail early this morning! The post office called and said they had peeps for us. Actually they are going to Steve's house when they get bigger, but for now they will be camping out in a brooder in our basement. 16 little adorable balls of fluff. The girls will be so excited when they get home from school today.

Mrs. Cardinal calling for her mate..

Here are a couple shots of my greenhouse. It has lots of beautiful Orchids in bloom right now. Last year we had lots of flats of pumpkin seeds growing, but they will do just as well when planted in the ground.
A weather alert says we will get a freeze tonight! Not looking forward to it, because many of our trees and flowers are in bud.
Have a great day all.

Gorgeous day!

It appears like it's going to be a beautiful day. Happy Sunday everyone.
The Goldfinches definately are getting the color change. I haven't had many birds this morning, but the air is filled with their wonderful songs.

Here is the Waning Gibbous moon around 7AM this morning. Last night it was orange for a while but I didn't get outside to photograph it.

The skies are already busy too. Lots of contrails throughout the day yesterday.

This is Tweetie. She was the one and only chick that survived 2 years ago from her Mom Snowflake. I'm not sure what happened with the rest of the eggs in that clutch, I don't think they were fertile, but Tweetie is a good girl. She gives us lots of tasty eggs, and I just love her feathered legs. Her Mom is a pure white Silkie hen and her Dad is a multi colored Silkie rooster.
Hope the weekend is going well for everyone.

Sunday

I don't have much to add for today. The weather has been less than perfect for pictures, and I spent part of the day counting birds for the Great Backyard Bird Count. I've had no new birds except the regulars that visit every day, but I welcome them any time..

This winter has been strange in another way in that the maple sugar folks are boiling sap already. They say early sap is sweeter.
Have a wonderful day everyone.

One last note:
   One of my original Bantam hens, a very small and feisty gal, Miss Oprah, died last night. I  had her for 8 years, she was such a cutie, and she gave us many tasty eggs... I still have 2 left from my original Bantam flock and so far they seem very healthy, but their time is getting shorter I'm sure..
RIP little one.

Macro Monday

Happy Macro Monday from another one of my laying hens, and although I don't have names for all of them, this gal is a favorite. Her black feathers shimmer with iridescent green in the sun. She actually lays green eggs too. 6 days a week she gives us a beautiful pastel shade of green , and this her first year to produce. I also have some young hens that lay a very dark shade of brown. They are called Copper Maran, and as soon as they start to lay, I'll post some pictures.
Click on over to http://lisaschaos.com to see more close-ups.

Ruby Tuesday

For Ruby Tuesday I'll introduce you to all 8 of my Bantam chickens. They are mostly a hobby of mine, but their eggs are quite tasty too. They all with the exception of Chicklet my rooster weigh less than 2 pounds.
Happy Ruby Tuesday, and click on http://workofthepoet.blogspot.com to see what Mary/the teach has done with this cool meme.

A Rescue Story

As many of you know we have a small "farmette", and over the years, I have had everything from donkeys, llamas, rabbits, a pony, a horse, many goats, milking and pygmy, but through it all I have kept my favorite-chickens. This is where the latest adventure comes in. This past summer we, with the help of our son, have enlarged the chicken roost, with the intent of getting more laying hens to supply our customers that love  free range, fresh eggs. Before I go any further, for any of you that buy your eggs from a grocery store, you might want to Google battery chickens (http://www.all-creatures.org/articles/egg-battery.html )  It will go into great detail the horrible life that these poor girls live. Not wanting to give away the info, and going on with my story, this past week I was quite satisfied with my new flock and not planning on getting any more chickens, but our son had a line on some chickens that really needed some big time help and soon. . There were 12 young laying hens being kept in a 6ft x 8ft wooden building for the past 7 months with only one window near the top. No ventilation and no access to the outside. We drove to take a look last evening, and were told we could have the hens. When we opened the door to the coop, the smell was over powering, and we noticed the waterer was completely dry! It didn’t take us long to gather up all the hens into a big dog cage and head home. When we got here we offered them water right away, and I can’t tell you how thirsty they were. It took them 15 minutes and 3 bowls of water before they quit drinking. I took 7 and our son took 5. I wish you could have seen them this morning when I let them out on grass for the first time ever. They really didn’t know what to do. I threw some scratch feed and apples on the ground, and for a minute they just stood there and looked at it. They never had seen any of this. I am sure they are so much happier now, and I certainly am for them to finally get to be real chickens.

Shrooms

On a recent drive to get critter feed, I found all these mushrooms growing beneath a large evergreen tree. I just had to stop and take some shots. Some were 6"high.

A few of my "girls" basking in the afternoon sun.

I found this small caterpillar crawling ascoss the road. Don't know what it is.
I hope everyone is having a good week. Finally some sun!

Ruby Tuesday

As I walked around the pasture this afternoon, I saw one of my Light Brahma pullets peaking out from the weeds. I have a young flock, mixed with some older hens and it shouldn't be long now before the youngsters begin to give us some eggs.
Happy Ruby Tuesday, and do click on over to http://workofthepoet.blogspot.com
to see more red.

Macro Monday

Two weeks ago I bought 5 Light Brahmas laying hens and along with them came this handsome rooster I call Cogburn. They are a wonderful addition to my egg laying flock.
Happy Macro Monday and if you'll click on http://lisaschaos.com you can see lots more close-ups.

YES, IT'S STILL RAINING :~(

Here it is mid week, and we haven't had any sun in about 6 days. There is promise for some tomorrow, and we'll gladly welcome any at all, but time will tell.
During a trip recently to the lake, the winds whipping around and made for some rough waves.
Even with dreary days there remains some color in the leaves. I just hope it holds out till this rain moves out.

Lots of spider webs around.

I got new chickens yesterday. I've had more requests for fresh eggs, and needed more hens in my flock. The white ones are the new chickens, and are called Light Brahmas. They lay brown eggs, and came with a beautiful rooster. I think I'll call him Cogburn.

It's been a busy week so far. I'm so sorry again that I haven't been commenting lately, and now it's time to get the wood stove ready for winter. It needed re- bricking and our son was putting them all in place when he noticed at least 2 cracks in the cast iron around the door. Now it will have to have the bricks taken out, be taken to the shop, welded, brought back, re-bricked again and all wired up. Trying to get it up our cellar stairs will be a feat. The stove will probably weigh around 400 pounds. Anybody in the area on Saturday feel free to stop in and give us a hand....

Just kidding.

Around Home

Well, 3 days and counting till the chicks hatch. Mama has been so patient. I bet she is tired of sitting there all day. I'll post pictures of them as soon as we can see them. A really large field of Mustard, and I wish there was something good to do with Mustard.. New beginnings, on the Blue Spruce trees.

This is Japanese Honeysuckle. An invasive plant that we have many of on our trails. These blossoms aren't fully open yet and will turn pink.

Mr. Hummer looks like he has a turtle neck sweater on...I bet they'll be cold tonight. Right now it's 28º outside. Sunday 10:50PM..

This is Cow Parsnip, and when it's fully grown it will measure sometimes over 6 ft and have large white flowers..

A patch of Violets down by the water.

It's been a busy day. We got all the gardens rototilled, and ready for planting. Now we just have to wait for warmer weather. Have a great week all.