Here Chickie...chickie

As you can see, happy bug eating chickens.

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Hens and chicks

These little hens and chicks fortunately do not lay eggs.




However, on the other hand these little girls are seriously becoming broody and wanting to sit on their newly laid eggs. They get quite irritated to see me checking in on things! Notice the tail feathers? Those ruffled feathers mean "stay away" or I will try to peck you if you come any where close to my eggs. And no I didn't move her, but I will get her eggs this afternoon. No little chickies this go, unless of course you all want them.

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Procrastination 101

I am having a hard time getting motivated this morning. The weather is a little on the chilly and gray side, so I am not really wanting to go out and move my raised beds as I had planned. Pair that with Aaron's attention to March madness and I can just about hang up getting anything accomplished today. As I write he is watching the Fla.St. and UNC game. Oh well.

On another note my chickens are laying again to the tune of 4-5 eggs a day. I had planned on taking in 3 dozen to work to sell and dang if I didn't forget them yesterday morning. So now I am going to have to "float" them again before taking them on Monday. The theory is if they float, they are bad and if they sink, they are good. I don't take any chances and chunk them if they if remotely stand on end rather than sink and lay on their sides at the bottom of the bowl. Pretty high tech- huh?

Aaron identified a Pine Siskin at the bird feeders today. Monty and I had seen one the other day but we thought we were looking at an immature Goldfinch. We should of looked in our bird guide. They are only similar in the fact that both are yellow and black. Just read in the paper this morning about how Salmonella is killing the pine siskins and gold finches. So tomorrow I am going to wash the feeders with a bleach solution and refill them. Don't want to take a chance and spread it among my feeders.

Supposed to rain tomorrow so I think I'll finalize my order to the seed company and get that out in the mail on Monday. Time's a wasting.. so I better get to the laundry at least. More later.

Toodles!

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Ahhh....a new year!

Well today got me thinking about the upcoming months and what I need to do now to start getting ready!

1st thing I need to do will be to move my straw bale raised beds to another location.
2nd thing I need to ponder is whether or not I am going to get a few more hens for Trev's egg selling business.

More people have been asking for our eggs and we simply cannot keep up with the demand. People really want a healthier egg. Free range eggs. So I need to start researching what kind of hen would be the best fit for us.

I've always liked the Rhode Island Reds and the Barred Plymouth Rocks so they are my top picks. The Hardware store will get them in the spring and I'll need to be ready by then.

Kinda of exciting. No roosters - just hens. Seeing how I already have a very feisty bantam mix rooster who is most unpleasant 99.5% of the time unless of course he's hungry. I'll try to get a picture of my flock - they do look so cute out in the yard scratching and meandering along!

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