My Araucauna pullets

I bought 3 new Auraucana (sp) pullets to bring my production back up and reduce the average age of my hens. I wasn't getting the numbers that I had been getting. I talked to a guy at the county fair that just ended and he said hens best production is only about 18 months. My hens are well over the hill by that standard. My leghorn lays very infrequently and she's the only one that I'm sure of as far as age is concerned. She was my first so she's well over 3 years. Anyway, I tried buying some Rhode Island red hens but the kids showing them didn't seem interested in selling this year.
I don't know if the economy is causing the lack of participation or kids aren't as excited about raising animals as previous generations. I know the rainy weather we've been having the last 3 weeks put a damper on the people showing up at the fair.
Oh well, I have new "Easter egg" layers. Got my first blue eggs the day after I brought them home.

Wet and rainy

It's been a really wet summer here. I was looking at my chickens the other day and they were huddled in the coop trying to stay dry. I got to admit, they are NOT stupid. Whoever thought they were just doesn't know his chickens.
We are over 16 inches above average for the year and more to come. I guess global warming is doing its dirty work everywhere. No rain (about 6 inches only) so far in Washington state where adding a sundeck to your house is considered a poor investment because it rains so much you'd never get to use it.
Back to the chickens. I was giving them some water with the garden hose and decided to see what would happen if I sprinkled them. They headed straight for the coop. Chickens obviously have enough sense to get out of the rain. Unlike some of the people I know.
I had to cut the wing feathers of one of the hens. She decided my garden was a better place to scratch than the space allotted for that. She's the first to "fly" the coop so when I saw her out scratching I thought I might have left the gate open. If I had, I would have had ALL the chickens in my garden. Red usually keeps them close to home so her taking off was not to be expected.

End of June

Here 'tis the end of June already. My chickens are getting back into the laying mode. They took time off to brood. Unfortunately, the eggs I gave them to hatch were infertile. Too many hens for Red to do justice to all. Maybe next year...

The weather is hot and I have set up 3 water tanks for them to drink from. I understand that a chicken may just die of thirst if it is too far from a water source. Since I had increased the size of the pen I decided that water at both ends was a good idea. Chickens look like dogs when they are hot. They stand around with their mouths open and their wings spread away from their bodies. Feathers must be hot

They also enjoy dust baths as the temperature soars. I would too if that's all I had. I turned the garden hose on them trying to give them a break and they ran to the coop thinking it was starting to rain. So quit that as a bad idea.

Hot! Hot! Hot!

Seems this year we went from winter to summer in 60 seconds. I don't think we had a Spring. My chickens are dusting themselves off by rolling in the dirt and hanging their mouths open. I guess they don't sweat like we do. They have drank an inordinate amount of water daily. I can hardly keep the water pail filled.

My eggs didn't hatch so I guess Red wasn't as fertile as I thought. I have too many hens for him to "do" everybody I guess.

He got sick so I took him to the vet. What a shock when I got the bill! I guess vets think chickens are like the family dog. I told them that was the most expensive chicken and dumplings I ever had. Just to forewarn you- vets are not free.

Its still raining and my chickens are beginning to develop web toes.

Two of my hens decided that they wanted to hatch eggs. One let everybody onto the nest and the eggs kept coming. So I remove those eggs daily. The other hen would let no-one on the nest and she was trying to hatch a golf ball, I decided she needed a reward for her effort and so gave her 3 eggs to hatch. She immediately let all the other hens into the nest so now I have to check daily to see that there are no new eggs in it. You just never know with chickens. What is really interesting is the fact that I can handle them when ever I like and get no bites or aggressive behaviour ever.
Chickens are the best animals to raise if you're looking for ease of effort and no stress. The rooster keeps them home and 'happy', and I keep the eggs. So far I've been selling out in the middle of the week and don't have any to sell on my corner that I was merchandising at every Sunday. Its like 'found' money.
For those of you still not sure about raising chickens, it's a daily thing so if you don't have a job that requires a lot of travel, I say go for it.

Spring! Finally! What? Its raining cats and dogs?

It finally happened, Spring arrived and went immediately to Summer. 90 degrees and then the rain started. It feels like Noah and the flood. I am not complaining other than I can't get any more vegetables planted because of it but I don't have to water the plants I do have planted.

The snails are coming out and so my 'good' beer is going to give them a real party that they won't recover from soon.

My chickens are getting frisky. Red is doing his best to take care of all the hens. At least they are still laying and the eggs are better than ever. The 'poop' is going into the garden as soon as it 'matures'. I have to let it decompose before adding it to the plants otherwise it will burn them.

My corn is coming along, the tomatoes have blooms (to get more fruit from them, shake gently until you can smell them). My lettuce was coming along fine until I found snails had been feasting on it hence the beer party.

My waterfall and fishpond are finished other than piping the fountain and the sprinkler so that they don't drain the pond every day. All my fish survived the winter so that is a good thing.
I will include pictures of my pond next time.

Recycle all the stuff you can and don't use plastic bags to carry your groceries. Kroger has some really nice bags that are roomy and sturdy for sale.

Good luck with your own chickens and garden.

Low man on the totem pole or "Why ME?"

This poor chicken is obviously the low man in the pecking order. She has been almost completely stripped of her feathers. Red doesn't seem to mind as he jumps her bones more than the others (which probably explains why she doesn't have any feathers on her wings and back side.)

She looks like a vulture with all the feathers pulled out of her head. I feel sorry for her but "chickens is chickens". I'm hoping that with Spring here she'll get her feathers back and someone else will take her place as low man.

She lays as well as the others so having no feathers doesn't impact her productivity any.

Wow is it cold!

The weather has been up and down. First, real cold then warm, then cold again. Right now the temperature is at 60 deg. going down to 29 tonight. For the rest of the week, it'll be in the low 20's at night and mid 40's during the day.The chickens have been doing their best to keep laying which usually slows down during the winter. I keep a heat lamp on at night so that they get the mandatory 10 hours of daylight that keeps them laying.

I painted a mural on the back of my neighbor's garage to hide the ugly stucco. I put Red in it because he is just gorgeous. He's also a funny chicken. Some Rhode Island Reds are mean but he's a pussycat. When I close the coop up for the night they all get petted and reassured that I will return in the morning.