Happy Hen-oween!

Hello, all!

I'm afraid to say that our beloved Bobbie has passed away, but she will forever remain in our hearts. Such a sweet old hen she was.

On another sad note, I have bad news about our special, courageous rooster Sweetie, who has also passed. Sweetie was a truly special rooster, and it's going to be a sad, empty place without him. He lived for quite awhile, after going fully blind, but in the end something neurological went wrong and he died peacefully in his sleep that night. 

However, the coop lives on. Sunshine and Ginger have moved in with the big hens, and are fitting in well. We are currently working on wintering up the coop to get ready for the colder days.

We also have a new edition to the barn--

Conturnix Quail. We got 3, one male and two females. The male is Button, and the two females are named Banbury and Alice.

They are a bit more tricky to winter, as we are still working on their coop, but it's coming along. Plus, it's rather rewarding to be able to carry 2-3 gorgeously brown splotched eggs back into the house each day.

Oh, and though it's a bit late, Happy Halloween! This year was quite good, and we just took down the decorations this morning. We'll be putting up Christmas lights soon.

Meanwhile, enjoy some pictures!

Some pumpkins we carved for Halloween.

A rather handsome-looking chicken statue we received from a friend.

 

A curious duo watching me take pictures intently. Ginger hasn't been enjoying the colder weather and tends to fluff up he feathers and stay still more often.

Embroidery enjoying a dustbath.

Stumblefoot keeps a close eye on me by the fence, while Blu picks about and tries to gain Stumblefoot's attention.

Button the quail in his cage,

And last but not least, Banbury and Alice in their cage. The picture doesn't have very good qaulity because the two wouldn't stay still. Alice is the white one in the back and Banbury brown one in the front.

~Cream

Tiny Chickens and Tiny Eggs

Hello! Haven't been on much, have I? Well, not much has happened since I was on last. For example:

Sunshine and Ginger are now at a normal, starter layer hen age. Even though, they are still very small of course. 

Ginger here enjoys perching on my hand. She has very good balance, you know.

And she sure is gorgeous. 

Blu is very jealous that Sweetie gets to be in the pen with her, but Sweetie wouldn't know that. He is half blind, of course.

Sunshine is very nice and fluffy, practically round if I say so myself. 

All the other chickens are fine. Other than Noah... Our poor Noah unfortunately died. She was a sweet hen. Very special. 

She got some disease, we're not really sure what. Perhaps Mareks. Suddenly she just stopped walking, and started to get very ill. She was fine for awhile, not suffering. But then she just passed away... 

Oh well. We won't forget you, Noah.

On the brighter side of things, all our other hens are happy. They are very hot, of course, with all this heat. 

Best of all, we discovered this in Sunshine, Sweetie and Ginger's pen. 

Two tiny eggs.

From a tiny chicken.

~Cream

Chicks and Ravens and Goats, Oh My!

Hello! Sorry I haven't posted in so long!

So, I'm not sure I mentioned Buffy's death- caused by Wry Neck, but anyhow, we decided to get some chicks. We got two; 

First, we have Sunshine the Buff Silkie,

Then, we have Ginger the BB Red Bantam hen.

Right now they are living with Sweetie in a small enclosure. 

Speaking of enclosures, I haven't spoken of the Ravens yet. 

The Ravens are horrible creatures. Well, the ones that live around here, at least. Next door, our neighbour has chickens. The Ravens came and killed a couple. There's two ravens, and they seem to know how to work together. That's how they get the chickens. They heard them into the corners, then pick them off. It's horrifying - gruesome. A few weeks ago, one of the Ravens dared come after our chickens. Well, I sure put him on the run, but if I hadn't been there, there's no way he wouldn't have killed one of them. He was already hopping towards Henrietta when I saw him. 

So, to end this problem, we covered our entire chicken coop with fencing. It's usually used for berries and crops, but it's specifically for keeping ravens out, so I think it will do. 

And it seems to have. I have once seen one of the Ravens fly up into a tree above our coop, look at the chickens below the fencing, then fly away noisily. I was pretty happy. The chickens love it, too. Because of which they can be in the big pen, now. Before, they had to live in the smaller pen of Blu's, because there was nothing covering our big pen. So now they're free, and the run is green again. One of the best parts includes that we used an old swing set to hold the fencing up, and now there are bars for the chickens to sit on - and swings for me to sit on. It's quite wonderful anyway. 

So, that's about all that happened. Oh, did I mention the goats? They are gone now. We decided to give them back because they were too much work, and because they would be healthier if they got bred. So now the chickens can free range through their back pen, and in the barn. 

So, now I'm pretty much sure I've mentioned everything. Enjoy!

~Cream