little chickens

moved outside

Silkies continue to enjoy life

busy bees

not literal bees but us ....

put up a garage in a box ... always a fun project - our last one made it through one winter before collapsing - so we were very careful with this one ...

got Silkies set up in their permanent yard ...

watched meat chicks grow and dogs play ...

I'm exhausted!

The Sikies are here; the silkies are here!

These little chicks are growing fast . They are nearly 11 weeks old and it's starting to be possible to see who is a hen and who isn't.

one group is not going into their house at night - silly boys!

the others are much smarter about tucking themselves away in the dark - their coop is designed so they always have access to just a little bit of outside ..

Looking forward to watching them grow!

Thanks ....

Vareharri blog's first award ever ... from Lisa Lynn over at Little Homestead

1. Favorite color: tougher than it should be - dark green or blue probably

2. Favorite animal: truly impossible- dogs, cats, horses- I'm an all species gal tho!

3. Favorite number: something elegant about 7 when written with the extra line

4. Favorite drink: Diet Coke 

5. Facebook or Twitter: facebook tho I'm using twitter more lately 

6. Good Book or a Good Movie: book

7. My Passion: agility - with a side dose of gardening and teaching 

8. Giving or getting presents: giving when it's the perfect thing!

9. Favorite day of the year: wow - what a question any lovely spring or fall day when i can be outside 

10. Favorite flowers: black eyed Susans, purple coneheads, hyacinths, hydrangas ...come to mind fastest

10 Blogs that bring me sunshine .. and sometimes sadness but that's ok too 

1. Sara's Blog - mostly her dogs

2. Project Jessie - the rescue we foster with 

3. The Other End of the Leash a neat look at animal behaviour and her own little farm

4. Maggie's Farm -one of the first blogs I found ...  

5. A Northern Life - a neat story unfolds every time I visit

6. Tamarra's Travel Adventures - she's about to depart for a year usually very entertaining things happen on her journeys! 

7. Mutts and a Klutz- dog adventures again ...with many cool other blogs listed ... this blog opened me up to many blogs -in fact I think I got a blogspot id thanks to one of her original blogs!

8. Fibre on the hop - local rabbit, fibre, wool blog - keeps me inspired!

9. The dogs really are in charge - another dog blog  - from someone who works with service dogs

10. Can't pick one of them -2 more mostly dogs blogs kept by wonderful people I actually know!  Helen's Homeworld  and The Furry Piano Keys 

there - that was fun ... many other blogs bring me sunshine  - beehaven, word from willow garden, milk and honey, farming in the shade ... but the ones above are this mornings picks... enjoy  - and if you won (or didn't but want to play anyhow) feel free to play along!

Horsin' Around ...

First up - the lovely Lynn  and  her month old foal Farrah

Zoe 

Ancient Solo and baby Rosie

Silly Kenny

The lovely Gwen - a yearling now 

5 days of growing ...

funny little things!

Sad update

We set up the chicks on Wednesday and went to the land for less than 2 hours... when we came back they were peeping and piled in one corner. I presumed they were cold or hungry so tweaked things a little and went to pull garlic. I checked them a little later and they were still piled in the corner so  I decided I'd better pull them out and see if there was any reason for their stress behaviour (the temp was 90 which should be just fine).

At the bottom of the pile there was one little chick with blood on his back. WEIRD. I felt carefully around the brooder - no edges, nothing apparent that could do such damage. I thought about it while looking at the chicks and suddenly realized the chicks were taking up less room than they had earlier.


I counted them. Including our injured boy there were 13 chicks. Where on earth had 8 chicks gone in 2 hours? And how?

Still not positive but strongly suspect either a rat or snake got into them somehow. We were shocked and sad but glad that for most of the chicks the death was probably fast. (The injured chick also died)

The surviving chicks were a little traumatized for  the day but, have been moved to the enclosed front porch, they are recovering nicely now. It's amazing how fast they grow.

here a chick, there a chick

everywhere a chick chick

it's late but it's that time of year

we picked up our chicks this am and Big T was very useful - I appreciated his help enormously!

We are doing a couple of things differently this year:
we have day olds instead of started (2 week olds)

unsexed run (last year was all hens but we have some people who'd like a bigger bird)

trying keeping them in the house shed rather than the house itself!

Finally!

got rain yesterday! The garden is not spectacular but hard work and help from Dad and Jean has saved much of it from disaster ... tho the rabbits cleaned out the onions!

We are getting ready to make the big move down here for the next 13 months (+ likely).

Chickens start arriving this week - both the Silkies and the meat chicks should be settled by the weekend so somebody will be here every night.

Lovely walk at the farm today ... the pond is pretty much a mud slick tho ....

hopefully more rain will fall soon and save the trees and maybe get us one more hay crop!