I have two hens that are broody… claiming eggs, setting, pecking me when I steal them from under their warm feather bellies. Since both of my roosters met their fate a month or more ago, I kept trying to explain to the hens that being broody was simply a waste of time. Neither believed me….
Category: Chickens
Looking a Little HeiHei
Have you seen the movie, Moana? If you don’t have young kids or grandkids, you may not have seen this Disney movie. I’d honestly recommend it to anyone. If you get a chance, one of these cold evenings, go ahead and rent/stream/view it! One of the characters in Moana is a little, very… simple minded……
Surprise x 2
The thing about free ranging your chickens… on occasion, you’re short a chicken when you count them roosting at night. Oh, well. Score one for the eagles or hawks or coons or skunks or dogs or cat or whatever manages to take a bite out of a chicken that day. It’s not the end of…
Chicken Ears
I’m taking a short break from talking about calving… to answer a question many of you had after my last “Ten Things You May Not Know About…” post. Of course, it was on chicks and eggs… and many of you became fascinated with chicken ears, of all things! Luckily, Victoria FINALLY made it over the…
Ten Things You May Not Know About… Chicks/Eggs
Yes, chickens lay eggs without the presence of a rooster. However, the eggs will not be fertile and therefore will not develop into chicks. An egg starts to develop into a chick when it gets to the temperature of 86 degrees. Most chickens’ temperature is 102 degrees. Female chicks are born with thousands of ova,…
Pip
On time, 21 days after my egg tragedy, I was prepared for a new strategy. Since moving the hen and eggs a day before their due date didn’t work, and leaving them alone last year only gave me a small survival rate, I was ready with a new idea. The plan is to let the…
Eight Cold Eggs
Colorful metaphors. Best intentions. However you want to describe it… I had a horrible failure. I mentioned with my video of the chicken laying her egg, that I thought it was my broody hen. Well, it wasn’t, of course, just an interloper adding to the nest. But I had been watching my broody girl… and…
Chicken & Egg
Feeding my hens this morning, I noticed what I thought was my broody hen standing above her eggs, rear end facing out, with that zoned look in her eyes and a pulsing muscle near her tail. I knew the signs. I pulled my camera out of my pocket and punched the button. I figured she…
Lost
She was lost. Stranded in Brandon’s three sided hay shed, this hen had made a home. Ignored by Brandon when he fed the bulls… chickens come and go in the corral… she had made a nest behind the bales. Once he had fed almost all the hay, she came squawking and fluttering from her hidey…
Fodder
I’ve been trying an experiment the past few weeks… I’m growing fodder for my chickens as a supplement this winter. My chickens free range all year round… of course, their pickings are not near as good this time of year. I bought some plastic containers from the dollar store, and a 50# sack of barley….
I Suppose…
I hate to say it, but I suppose it’s time to put away my rain barrel for the season. If there’s one thing that makes having chickens easier… it’s not having to haul them water every day! With the smidgen of rain that we get in Wyoming… my rain barrel off the coop roof was…
Moving
Change of scenery for my not so baby chicks… It’s a handy place to start baby chicks… out my front door a few steps… but they’re almost a month old, and they’re ready for more space. Into the dog crate they go for their short journey. They’re a mix of Red Sex Links, Buff Rocks,…