Batchelor Pad

Well the young roosters were just too frisky for the hens. They now have their own pen and will go up for sale after the holidays. Only Rockie and Tonto are with the hens now.

LANCE GETS TO STAY HOME

Well Mr. I can't make up my mind strikes again. Now we are keeping Lance. Now The Lone Ranger and Incredible Hulk are showcased on Craig's list. lol

CRAIGS LIST

Well Lance AKA Lace is on Craig's list. Marvin came in ready to take the roosters to the auction. I said Hold on let me try and sell them, you will get nothing at the auction for them.

IMAGINE MY SURPRISE

We have been waiting for Henreitta or one of her chicklets to lay an egg. We were expecting it to happen any day not but we were not expecting it to be BLUE.

Out of the 9 chicklets there are 5 roosters. Lance(aka Lace before the sex change lol), Incredible Hulk, The Lone Ranger and Tonto oh and Featherless. Now it seems ourchickets are Araucanas and or Americanas. (Unless someone can tell us something different .  Only Lance is a Bantam the others are full size roosters, which we will have to sell at least 4 of them.

TIME TO RELAX - I THOUGHT

After spending another long day in the kitchen day, I made a drink  took it outside to relax and watch the chickens scratch. WHEN out of the blue Simba galloped by me (its like having a pony in the yard) there was a screetch and one of the fugative rats flew threw the air by me. YIKES , he grabs it shakes it and throws it again. Marvin comes running in the yard yelling "Get it Simba,, Get it". I am by now standing on my chair, but its not like standing on a kitchen stair is lawn furniture for goodness sake and not so stable. Marvin chant has changed to "Kill it Simba, kill it.

So as Simba proudly marches up to the burying field with his prize and Marvin with his shovel, I say oh while you are out there could you pick some corn, just another day on the farm LOL

MORNING COFFEE

So this is how our morning conversation went yesterday.

Me "Why is there a gun beside the broom?"

Marvin: "I killed a rat"

Me: "A rat, is that what got our chicklets?"

Marvin: "No Simba got them"

Me: "NOoo, he can't get into that field"

Marvin: "I let him in"

Me: "WHAT"

Marvin: " I couldn't sleep so I got up and went back out to the coop, I shone a flashlight under the coop and saw beady eyes staring back at me. I got the gun and shot one the other two got away. There were no signs of a struggle so since all the others were locked up I let Simba into the field and told him to find the chickens. Eventually he stopped at a tree and kept starring at it. I couldn't see a chicklet in the tree but I climbed the tree and found it. Simba still would not leave the tree so I climbed back up higher and found it."

So all is well that ends well.

Simba was very tired all day after all that excitement. It is quite amazing he knew what he was looking for and that he could smell them since they are in that area all the time.

NOT A GOOD NIGHT

When Marvin went to lock the chickens up last night, two of the chicklets were missing. They were there at 6 last night. The two missing ones are the 2 little brown ones.

TIME TO LEARN WHEN TO KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT

Lance is the brown one.

The other day Lance the ugly rooster who started out as a pretty chicken named Lace but things changed. Anyways he is the first chick to identify himself as male by making an attempt at crowing. His mom ran and poked him in the head,, he tried again, she poked him again, he got mad and poked her back. This went on for a bit and he ran away peeping.
We thought this was odd and have decided she is protecting him from Rockie. Who happens to be 10 times bigger than Lance is. She probably told him to shut up lol

THE LONE RANGER

The Lone Ranger is still up to his old tricks. Now he has decided to hang out on  the big chickens roost and not on the chicklets roost.

CHICKLETS ARE GROWING UP

Hulk Holgan may be going to the auction sooner than planned, he picks on the other chicklets.

Tonto and the Lone Ranger still hang out together. We are disappointed that Tonto is a rooster. He is very different all black, including his legs, comb and eyes.

TONTO'S TURN TO GO WILD

The Lone Rangers side kick Tonto is at it again. If the Lone Ranger does something, Tonto will soon follow him.

While he was walking on the wild side, one of the hens found a worm and they were all running around trying to get the worm from her. It was a Gong show and poor Tonto was in a panic. When he was caught and put back in the chicklet pen he sat in a corner far from any action. LOL

THE LONE RANGER

Well if you met the Lone Ranger earlier this month you will recall that he is very independent. He just may be a she, time will tell but its looking that way at the moment. Here is his latest trick although once he performed it he was sorry :) Rockie was either checking him out or protecting him. When we put him/her back into the chicklets pen he ran and stayed put beside Henrietta.

CHICKLETS GET A NEW TOY

They sure were fun to watch play on this

TIME TO MEET SOFIA AND ROCKIE

Sofia is the white hen, you see her on the front page of the blog. Rockie is our only rooster if you forget about the chicklets.They have lots of green stuff to eat, which makes their egg yolks really bright yellow

CHICKLETS ARE GROWING UP

Well the chicklets are growing up and are not as cute as they were when we first got them

We named this one Lace because she was so cute but I think she has turned into a he and he is really ugly. The photographer made him look better than he really does.

CHICKENS GET MORE COMPANY

My friends Kate and Janice came over today. Kate cut up vegetable scraps to bring the chickens, her husband saw this and was horrified he thought she was bringing it for our lunch LOL

Janice is camera shy. We spent the day outside working on some crafts, I forgot to take pictures. It was a fun day

CHICKLETS HAVE ANOTHER VISITOR

Dakota came over to visit the chicks and collect the eggs. I am anxious to know which ones are male and female but I just can't tell.

TIME TO MEET ANNABELLE

Bert takes a wife. What is odd is that I have that same outfit but I can't find it . LOL

ITS TIME TO STOP SENDING OUT ALERTS

I am no longer going to send out emails when I have added to my blog. I don't want to become a pain in the butt. You guys now have an idea what it is about and if you are interested you can go to the site by clicking the dewdropin at the bottom of this blog and the site will come up. You can then subscribe to the blog and post any comments that you want onto it. If you are not interested then at least you won't be getting pestered with the alerts.

:)

RANGE EGGS

Production for the month of June was 177 eggs which means they cost us 4.06 a dozen. We sold some for 3.50 a dozen. It definitely not a money maker, wait until you see the cost per dozen this winter. Feed has doubled in cost since we started raising chickens a year ago. BUT we didn't do it to make money, we did it because we wanted the superior eggs.

We have 10 chickens and one rooster. 6 Hens are a little over a year old and 4 hens are about 2 I would guess. We had two other hens but they died last winter (not sure why, maybe they were just old).

I am not counting Henrietta and her chicklets.

The chickens run free all day and are locked up at night to keep them safe.

TIME TO MEET THE LONE RANGER

We have been enjoying a few days of really warm weather. Its great. Henrietta and the chicklets have been living with us for a week and I think they must have doubled in size. Henrietta is a great mom she lets the chicklets go out to play but when its too hot she takes them inside to a cooler area,, well all except "The Lone Ranger" This little chick does not like to come inside. When she finally get it inside,,it turns around and scoots out again. We have to help get him /her inside at night.

SCARECROW

The crows were picking the radishes so DH built a scarecrow. Only a retired mechanic would make a scarecrow that looks like this. He forgot about it and first time he turned the corner to go to the garden is scared him and the dog lol

TIME TO SPEND MORE TIME WITH SIMBA

I was worried about the old chickens being jealous of the new guys but I guess I should have been paying more attention to Simba. He took to digging in the back yard. He has never done anything like that before. I walked into the back yard and there was Simba crouched down like he was expecting the beating of a life time. We have never hit him at all let alone beat him. We got him from the pound so guess this is a carry over from a previous life.

So we felt so quilty that he got to sleep in the house upstairs last night.

TIME TO NAME THE MAMA

We sat out by the chickens last night and had a martini and toasted and named the mama hen :)

She has been named Henrieta after the bantam hen that my sister in law had when she was little. My brother says I have to teach her to ride on my tricycle handle bars like hers, she was 5) did but times have changed and I don't think I could find a helmet small enough for Henrieta LOL

TIME TO PLAY OUTSIDE

The chicks have a new safe place to go outside. They were so excited. Once mom got the area checked out and felt the chicks were safe she dug a hole and rolled around in it cleaning herself. This probably was the first time she had alone time for about 6 weeks. It was like she was really enjoying herself and having some ME time.

This only took place after she had some run ins with the big hens I am worried what will happen when we let them loose in the big pen but that's not going to happen in the near future.

Just as I am typing this a large coyote just ran across the front lawn. I hate those critters. I ran and locked Simba up.

FIRST VISITORS

While were loading up our hen and her chicks at the auction a lady came up to us and asked if she could buy some from us. She used the "but I have grandkids, do you?" ploy. It didn't work I had no intention of breaking up the family. Marvin said I have grandchildren too. So here are a couple of them with their cousin.

FIRST NIGHT

Well it was pretty funny. We got mama and chicks into their new digs ( a separate cage within the coop). So it was time for the gang to go into the coop. They would look inside and it seems the peeping of the chicks scared them and they would not go into the coop. It was quite a circus here trying to catch 10 hens and Rocky and get them inside the coop and get the door shut. We could hear all sort of scrambling around and then all was quiet. We peeked inside and they were all up on the roosts but normally they face the back but not this time. They were all sitting there staring down at the new guys on the block.

DEWDROPIN

Well lets see this is my first blog. June 21 2008

After failing dismally at incubating chicken eggs. I don't think it was our fault I think Rocky the rooster was a dud rather than a dude. None of the eggs were fertilized. We spent 21 days of turning the eggs every few hours, yup in the middle of the night too. We worked so hard keeping the humidity and temperature in line.

Well like I said after failing we went to the auction today and came home with a Bantam hen and 9 chicks. They are in a box in the kitchen right now and there is so much peeping going on. D/H is out in the chicken coop making arrangements for them to have their own section and run area.

There are 4 yellow chicks, one pure black one and 4 that look like chipmunks. Moms all brown. I have to come up with a name for her.