WANTED: Dead or Alive

WANTED

DEAD or ALIVE

LWC aka "Little White Chicken"

Description:
1. Little
2. White
3. a Chicken

Wanted for the theft and wanton eating of one "Boo Kitty's" krunchies from his food bowl on a regular basis.

Reward if captured alive.

NOTE:  There's really not a reward.  Kill my chicken and I'll punch you in the face.

Who wants to snuggle?

Boo Kitty is indifferent of chickens.

Chickens are not indifferent of Boo Kitty.

They especially hate it when he rubs up against them and purrs.

*cluck cluck CLUCK!*

FOILED AGAIN!

Operation "Don't poop where I stand" is in full effect.

Conclusion:  Great success.




.

All we need are some fuzzy dice and a disco ball

Easter Sunday, we decided to make a loop.

You know, make a loop... visit people in a big old circle roundabout.  We visited Gene's youngest granddaughter Bailey (a surprise visit), then off to visit Gene's parents, but we all decided to just meet at his brother's house instead and chat for a bit.

In that one hour-ish time frame, the talk of grandma's car came up... again.  Gene's grandma's car had been in his parent's garage for a decade.  Grandma has long passed.  Basement needs to be shifted to fix some foundation work.  Grandma's car needs a new home.

voila.

Gene, never a man to turn down a freebie challenge, he got with his brother and crafted a plan to bring the car 2 hours north to our house.  Gene will fix it up and it'll be his back up commuter car.

A week or so later, in rolls Gene's brother Steve.  He's the Jewish brother.  You know, the one that doesn't eat pork.  (psst, he's really not Jewish)

Ever hear a tall tale about a guy that doesn't like bacon?

Hello everyone, meet Steve.  Short of his bacon deficiencies, he's a really nice guy and has been a wonderful brother in law.  In fact, all my BILs are pretty great.  I lucked out in that department.

Anyway, delivery payment was some t-bone steaks and big fat baked potatoes.

In return, Gene has yet one more summer project to work on.  I'm thinking orange flames.  Who's with me?

50k original miles.
the true "grandma car"

In the meantime, it's being put to great use!

It's like a nightclub for chickens. 

They call it "Studio LTD"

I bet this is how they get cornish game hens

I think it's safe to say I am sooooo over chickens in the house already.

I think it's time for a long term chicken vacation, and not just one to the back yard for a few hours. Sadly it's a few more weeks before they can go into a more "outdoor assignment" since they don't have all their feathers yet.  They are officially awkward ugly-teen-stage birds.

They also stink.

And they try to fly out of their playpen "bedroom".  (I caught two sitting on the edge of my dining room table.)

Hey, but look at the bright side, the second wave of chicks will be here tomorrow.

Shoot me.

chick chick chick chick

It's that time again....

BABY CHICKS!!!

This means lots of peeps and squawks. Pecking and sleeping. Heat lamps and special chick feed.

And chicken snuggles!

Another local photographer had a special mini easter shoot and wanted someone to take the chicks when she was done - because she's a responsible person, unlike the girls I saw carrying baby ducks into the wallsmart.  Something tells me they'll be snapping turtle food in about 4 weeks.

:(

Anyway, yep, you don't need to clean your eyeballs.... they are colored.  She colored them herself carefully with some food color.  They are ok - don't fret.  They'll lose all this color once they lose their baby downy feathers. 

In just a week, they are a good 30% bigger.  Soon they'll outgrow their tub which is in my dining room.  We'll set the playpen up again and watch out, it'll be a real treat.

Watch this space for more photos of chickens than you ever wanted or dreamed of.

In semi-related news...

RIP Daisy Chicken.

*sad face*

Tanner found her next to the lilac bush.   Poor Daisy.  No idea what happened to her.  I've had several chickens die recently unexpectedly.  From what I understand, chickens are really good at hiding when they are sick so you don't know what's up until it's too late.  Thinking back, I haven't really seen much out of Daisy the past few days.

She was such a good chicken, and was the one I'd go find when a kid wanted to hold or pet a chicken.  She was docile because my neice Tayen packed her around like a kitten the first 5 months of her life.

She was also a little bit dumb, which I have found makes for a pretty good pet.

Don't tell Jingles I said that.

I know some people think it's "just a chicken" but she was still a living creature that lived here and we got much enjoyment from - much like other people's dogs and cats.

We'll miss Daisy Chicken.

Have a barrier of trash around the house isn't ALWAYS bad

I still have a lil' critter that hangs out at my house.  I haven't talked Gene into letting him be an inside boo kitty yet, but considering my last post, I feel we're closer to that point yet.

*evil*

Even though he's kind of a little guy (it's all relative, my other cats look like small panthers compared to boo kitty), he eats a lot.

No.
a. lot.

I couldn't figure out why he was eating so much.  I commented he probably had a tape worm the other day as I went inside to fill his bowl of water.  Before I could get back outside the cat food bowl was teaming with chickens!!!

So he had kind of a tape worm - 15 of them and they were all chicken shaped.

To keep them out I finally  had to do this:

They are so confused, but there's less chicken poop on my deck now!

Dear Tanner,

You have excellent gate making skills.  You are also my very favorite 17.5 year old in the world (he had a half birthday yesterday).  Your first job this spring is to make me a gate to keep the chickens from eating the cat food.

And pooping on my deck.

deck poop is bad.

That there is some pretty plain air - but it smells like chicken crap

As I said a few days back, I've taken up watercolor painting. In that, comes a flurry of purchases that I probably really didn't need, but wanted them anyway so I did it. :p  Something I'd been wanting to do, almost from day one, was plein air painting. 

Plein air means "in the open air".  I love watching videos of people finding awesome little spots and painting on the fly.  It's called "watercolor sketching".

So I assembled my purchases - a moleskin (actually, this isn't the official moleskin, I have one of those too!), my watercolors (totally random placement), a water bowl (which is the blue bunny ice cream container and the perfect size), a pencil and two brushes. That's what those gold things are.

See how pretty those brushes are?!
These are escoda kolinsky sable travel brushes.

Have I told you that brushes are ridiculously expensive?  Some of them each hair is laid in BY HAND.  No lie.

I saw a brush that was $1100.  *one brush*

I said "wow, a brush for $1100!"
Moving on.

Here is my cheap water bin from a single serve ice cream container.  I couldn't afford anything else after buying brushes. LOL. 

Please note the seashell I found in my yard.

How did a seashell get in my yard?

Anyway, after sitting outside for about 12 seconds, I realized it was pretty farkin' cold!  Don't let those sunny 47 degree days fool ya.  That's still cold.

Unwilling to just give up, I decided to just sit in my jeep and paint something I could see.  My waterbowl is in the console. 

I decided to paint the view of the big tree in the back yard, which isn't terribly exciting as it's still pretty brown out, but it was a good exercise in restraint.

As I put the painting on the dashboard to dry in the sun for a few minutes, I hear a "thump thump thump".

What was that?

"Thump thump thump" again.

What in the world?

that's when I see this:

A chicken, with her wee little brain with 7 tiny neurons flashing, decides it's a great idea to jump up on the bumper and peck all the bugs off the jeep.

Did I mention that the radiator is fairly exposed in a jeep.  yes, it's a really stupid design.

And I had a chicken pecking at it.

She fled as soon as I came around the corner.

And with that I say, every pain in the arse chicken I've had so far is one of those damn black barred rocks.

Something tells me I have chicken noodle soup in my future.

And a car repair bill.

How to get a chicken to stop crapping on your deck.

One of the down sides to having chickens is the poop. Yep, if you let them range, they're going to crap a lot.  It's like having 16 small dogs at times.

Throw scraps off your deck and after a while they'll start to associate the deck is the magical place where all food comes from.  Especially the good stuff like bits of t-bone steaks and red cabbage.

(Yeah, that's what I thought too).

So anyway, in the process of going on explores looking for food on my deck, they have a tendancy to crap there.  It makes going in and out the door interesting - kind of like a treasure hunt. 

Or walking off a plank.

Gene finally discovered the one thing that will keep the crap off the deck.

The yellow broom. 

No, not for sweeping (well, that too), but when a grumpy glass man swings it around his head and it makes a "woooosh" noise (and it flies out of his hands and hits the house), the chickens freak OUT *bwaaaaack* and will run until they are out of breath and can run no farther.

Which is about 50 feet.

Then, leave the broom on the steps and the dirty little buggers will never approach the deck again.

So when you visit me, you'll have to jump a broom.  But be happy because that means you won't have bird crap stuck in your favorite pair of sketchers.

How to make a munchkin omlet

We have just come out on the other side of our first molting season with the chickens. What this means is that the chickens will grow a new set of feathers, or part of their feathers. They might even get nearly nakie in the process (brrrrr). However, ours did not. Just your standard naked chicken backs.

In the process of growing a new set of feathers, the chickens have to save most of their energy for feathers, not much left over for eggs.  It was a frustrating couple months as our egg production went from 10-12 a day, down to 1-2 a day.  We almost lost our our egg clients!

So finally a few weeks ago, our daily egg count started to rise again, which is almost as egg-citing (har) as that first egg.  But kind of like that first egg that you'll get, sometimes a little weird one will pop up.

This time it was a super mini.

It was about 1/4 of the size of a regular egg, not much bigger than my thumb.  I felt confident there was no yolk in there.  Of course, I couldn't sell it to someone else, so we saved it until it was time to have Saturday morning breakfast.

Yep, no yolk.  Not much of a breakfast either.

Only a couple months until chicks show up!  Nope, we're not hatching our own this year (well, if they want to maybe).  We're going to buy chicks again to raise a new set!  Yay!

Boo chicken dust and chicken poop in the house.
:/

I'm feeling broody too... I mean... moody

Last week I told you that I had a hen that had gone broody and a promise that I'd share some updates with you.

What is "going broody"? Well, a hen pretty much decides on her own when she's going to hatch out some chicks and when she's not. (Too bad some humans can't get this down pat lol). One day, she'll just plop down on a herd of eggs and defend her little nest until she hatches out some chicks which takes approximately 3 weeks for the type of hen that Momma chicken is. (she's a barred plymouth rock).

We are now at the beginning of our third week, so soon, if she did it right, we should have some wee little chicks soon.



This video shows you how Umm... irritated a momma hen will get with you to defend her nest. Don't worry, she's actually pretty easy going. LOL. (no chickens were harmed in the taping of this video).

I'm probably doing this all completely wrong, and will have to do some scrambling to accommodate a bunch of new chickens, but hey, what's life if you don't fly by the seat of your pants right?

Anyone?
Hello?

Cocka-a-doodle-Roooooooo

You know, I think we did a-ok in the rooster department.

This is Rufus, or maybe it's Roofus. I mostly call him rooster, or Mooster like my niece Tayen does. He's pretty easy going, no pecking feet, toes, legs, arms or eyes - all good things. He crows, but not so much that it's annoying. He is protective of his girls (all 18 of them) and quick to break up any arguments - or maybe he's just running over to watch. (you know how guys are wanting to watch girls fight over them. sigh).

When he thinks he's found something interesting to eat, he makes a little gutteral noise in his throat and everyone comes running... he always lets them eat it first. ALWAYS. I know the noise so well, that even I go and look to see what's on the menu.

He just has one downfall... He can't help it that maybe he's a little rough in the horizontal Chicken Dance, he can't help it if he has really big....
talons.

;P

I mean look at him...

What's a happenin' hot stuff.
{name that movie}

No wonder the girls crow over him... I mean.. swoon. They'd crow if girls could crow.

DIY Chicken Saddles - Part 1

I have a couple naked ladies at my house. Well, more than a couple really, more like 6.

It seems that when Mr. Roofus the rooster likes to "do his business" (aka the horizontal chicken dance) with the ladies, that sometimes he gets a little over zealous and pulls out some feathers.

MEN!

So what happens is, a few of his favorite girls will get bare backs. (you can kind of see above). This is not good because Mr. Roofus' talons are pretty sharp. When he comes back for round 17, he could potentially harm the hen by puncturing her skin as she has no protection. This can lead to serious and sometimes life threatening damage. Plus, I've noticed that the girls that have exposed backs are getting sunburned pretty badly. They tend to hid out under the jeep or under the apple tree most of the day. That can't be really all that much fun for them.

Really the only solution is to create a chicken saddle for them. This allows them time to regrow their feathers, without having to be removed from the flock. It also protects their back from rooster talons and other hens picking at the new pin feathers that will grow in.

I've been doing a lot of research to find the perfect saddle. Thing is, I can sew. I can sew very well. In fact, I can design my own patterns and be in the chicken saddle business by 6 p.m. tonight.

I just don't want to!

So there's the rub. I don't want to do all those things. Eurethra! I mean, Eureka! I found someone on the internet that made a simple saddle out of fleece. I found a cheap fleece blanket at ikea. $2.00 for a large lap throw that was very thin. I didn't want it to be big thick polar fleece as they have to wear it in the summer. Plus, it needed to be a nice light color to reflect heat. Super simple, easy peasy, no sewing, just a pair of scissors.

Oh hey, I have scissors (I had to look for 10 minutes but I did have some).

I gave it my first best shot, just going off some internet measurements:

9" long, 7" wide and 2 holes for wings.

The result?

One pissed off and humiliated chicken.

It's too loose, so I will need to adjust my pattern, plus I think I need to make a hole for the tail feathers to go through since the wind seems to blow it around a lot.

I imagine the conversation in the yard goes something like this:

Humiliated Hen: What is it!? Get it off get it off!!
Best friends: bwhahahahaha
HH: No really, get it off of me!
BFF: *breath* bwhahahah
HH: Get it off!! *distracted* Oh look, a bug.

Pardon me!

Why is it, that every time I get this view of a chicken, I feel a little like I'm looking up her skirt?

They stick together like chicken poop and flip flops

Today was horrible. Windy, wet and rainy, and kinda cold. However as long as the rain has let up, the chickens want to go outside. I took a little break in the weather with the intentions to check up on the robins, but when I came out the back door, I saw this:



I'm not sure about the mentality behind this. "OMG it's cold and windy, let's stand beside this very small bush and pray. We're gonna DIEEEEE!"

"um.. guys? The coop is like 9 feet to the right."

"We'll never make it out ALIVE!!!"


I totally get where the saying "Birds of a feather flock together" comes from now.

********

Speaking of bad weather. Our prayers at this house are heading straight towards Joplin, Missouri right now. Joplin is a wonderful town and I have so much faith that they will pull through this.

What an egg with no shell looks like

Please file this under "things you don't see every day".

Some people don't know that sometimes chickens lay eggs with no shells. Heck I didn't know until chickens showed up at my house. What causes this? Well, mostly likely it's a lack of calcium. To fix the problem, you give the chickens oyster shell and it makes their shells harder and thicker. We don't seem to have that problem, but I will up their oyster shell a bit. We mainly feed their own shells back to them as their main form of calcium, and suprisingly, they love it!

I thought I'd share a few photos of what this egg looks like.




This is a case where it's hard to translate what it's like, with just a photo, so I decided to share a little video with you. Excuse that it's a little out of focus, I have a tendancy to get too close. :/

(this is why I'm a photographer and not a videographer)

Mana from heaven!

In my back yard, I have 2 bird feeders. One for the goldfinches, which are my favorite birds (behind chickens of course). The other birdfeeder was a gift from Seth and Tanner for my birthday (I think!) last year, and it holds sunflower seeds. I don't get quite as many birds interested in that, so the feed goes slower.

Especially since Seth bought me like 30 pounds of the stuff.

Well, *someone* figured out, that if you visit this magical place in the morning, you'll find mana from heaven all over the ground in the form of sunflower seeds.

It's like a herd of tiny claw footed elephants, as I open the coop door every morning, rushing the bird feeders.

I think the Chickens have put "sunflower seeds" on my birthday wish list again.

stupid chickens!

I have a smart chikin.

'Allo, I am Daisy Cousteau.

Today, we are exploring ze rough terrain of ze Cease Fire Ranches. We vill travel 200 meters from ze coop in search of undiscovered flora and fauna.

We vill be doing some experimental research on the echolocation abilities of millipedes. But first, let me tell you about how I carried out underwater archaeological excavations in ze Mediterranean, in particular at Grand-Congloué

You would be vewy interested to know that....

Oh Look!
A bug!

Chicken Haiku

We named her Daisy
The jeep is her happy place
Beep beep Miss Daisy


OK, one more time.

Little white chicken
Tiny bossy drill sergeant
Yep she is sassy


oh man, I'm gonna have to write a chicken Haiku book now. I'll be famous! I'll make tens and tens of dollars! *cross fingers*

Catchin' Rays

Just for the record, you're not the only one that is enjoying the sun. The chickens have been in heaven and it seems like every time I go out the door, someone is taking a dust bath, eating my hostas (grr) or spreading their wings catching some rays.

The downside to this, is my chickens with bare backs (blame the rooster) have sunburns! Please don't tell me I have to go out there and put sunscreen on their back 3 times a day.

Cuz I'll do it.