Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Update on the Chickens

I'm frequently a day ahead on posts.  I wrote this post on Tuesday night.  Generally that works fine, except when something really big changes the whole landscape, like today.  But ... since I had some investment in writing the below post, I'm going to go ahead and post it and you can read down to the end to see what's up now.  Without further ado ...

Well, everybody seems calmer now, after 3 days of the chickens being at chez Blueberry Hills Homestead.  I'm not terrified of every little thing anymore.  The hens are calmer and realize that I'm the source of food, so they move forward when I approach.  That's so nice.  The dogs aren't trying to get in to the henhouse every single minute.

I've come home from work early both of the last two days because I had ineradicable visions of white feathers flying all over the porch and Maggie with a big bird in her mouth.  That means the dogs and the birds were alone together for about 5-7 hours each day. 

On Monday I came home to see the door to the playhouse not quite open.  But Maggie had given it her best shot!  The hook was unlatched and the top part of the door leaned out.  Thank goodness I plopped a concrete block in front of the door at the last moment before I left Monday morning.
So Monday night I attached a piece of wood to the top of the door to add to the safety.  It's not really solid, but it's the best I could do on short notice, short of another concrete block.
Tuesday when I came home, Maggie was in the yard and I could see that she'd been moving some sticks around, evidence that she hadn't spent the entire morning trying to get into the hens' playhouse.  She's showing signs of calming down about this whole new animal thing, and I'm happy about that.

I finally read a bit more about laying hens and realize that it will likely be weeks before I see an egg.  I can probably stop visiting them every two hours!

That was the world then - this is the world now...


And another picture

Think I can frame this egg like stores frame their first dollar?

6 comments:

  1. Yay! How exciting! Congratulations on your first egg harvest!

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  2. time for a chicken party!! I'm glad you didn't have to wait too long. I'm thinking you could frame a nice picture or a collage complete with a portrait of the chickens...dated...matted perhaps and signed with some 'chicken scratch' and maybe some little chickie footprints...see, I am SO the person to think up things for other people to do!!

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  3. I suppose framing them wouldn't be a good idea. You could, however, blow out the insides of one of them and save it. At Four Green Acres (another blog I love) their children did that in remembrance of one of their hens that died.

    So glad for the update. When I saw the door cracked open at bit at the top, I admit to being a bit worried about the outcome. Glad all was well.

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  4. Yea! Congrats on the beginnings of egg-dom.

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  6. Some other bloggers save the eggshells, dry them, crush them and then give them back to the hens. I'm not that organized ... yet. Now I'm getting used to the idea of giving them all my kitchen scraps, which is extremely cool.

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