Mental Farmer

That is what I have been crying.  My showy little Sumatra, Snapdragon got eaten a couple of weeks ago.  😦  RIP Snap.  We miss your bitchy ways and your beautiful paint job.   Then poor Clara Barton came home with a draggy wing and feathers missing from the back of her neck.  She recovered, but […]

My hen Snapdragon is at least part Sumatra.  This makes her a bit wary, not as social as our other hens.  She hangs back from the flock, keeps her distance, doesn’t like being petted or fussed over like the others.  Sumatra hens tend to lay fewer eggs, one every 3 days or so.  In Snapdragon’s case, […]

Remember this guy?  He was in the coop with an egg in his gullet when we got back from our trip to the Outer Banks.  He came back; again he was coiled around the nest boxes in our coop, egg in gullet.  This time, John found him.  John carefully lifted him with those plastic, long-handled […]

The other day, I was talking about using a faux egg to entice my hens to lay inside their coop and not out in the brush.   A woman I work with, Hillary, crocheted this egg in about 3 minutes.  Isn’t it adorable?  Can’t  wait to show it to my birds! And wouldn’t a rustic bowl […]

Clockwise from top:  Sweet Pea, Snapdragon, Poe, and Clara Barton. Like I say, they’re getting along pretty well.  The girls were happy to roll in last  year’s mulch and freshly scratched dirt in the warm sun today.  They had chopped pear and strawberry and banana for a treat, and I cleaned the coop and changed […]

Meet Clara Barton.  John named our nurturing bird after the Red Cross founder.  The girls (still females as far as I can tell) have settled in nicely.  They seem to be getting along better.  Less bickering, fewer squabbles. Poe and Snapdragon tend to hang out together and seem to have forgotten about Mama and their other […]

Each day this past week, I’ve spent a little time feeding and tending our new pets. I named three of the four birds this week, as their personalities became obvious. (Yes, chickens do have personalities!) The 4th remains nameless, but my Facebook friends and my husband are providing suggestions. Feel free to offer up ideas. […]

This past week John and I prepared for our birds to come home to roost.  Dana and Paul (my sister and bro-in-law) gave us their small coop, since their new chicken tractor arrived this week.  John went over to pick up the coop on Thursday, and we got it all set up with an attached […]

LOOK WHAT WE ARE GETTING!  We are beginning to build the dream, a little biddy bit at a time.  See that chick with the black and white wings?  That’s our new Plymouth Barred Rock. (The others belong to my sister.) See that little bald eagle?  She’s coming to live with us too, along with two iridescent […]