a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

Category: About My Chickens

  • My Farm Workers

    SadMimosaBlossoms

    The overnight rain has made the mimosa blossoms look like sad creatures in a Dr. Seuss story. A little rain doesn’t stop me from preparing a vegetable bed for cabbage transplants. A freshly dug patch attracts the attention of a mother hen and her chicks. It’s a prime spot to teach her chicks how to find and catch earthworms. Over and over she picks up earthworms and drops them for her chicks. They grab them and run off to eat them without being hassled by the other chicks.

    SharingWormsB
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    SharingWormsA
    SharingWorms1

  • Love Continues

    BillyAndImeldaA

    Scientists don’t like to use words like love when describing the relationships animals have. But it’s a word that seems to fit the special relationship that Billy and Imelda have. They spend much of the day together. They aren’t monogamous by any means. But of all the hens, Billy seems to enjoy Imelda’s company most. And Imelda seems to like the attention.

    Billy is already five years old, so he may not be around too much longer. I will miss him a great deal when he is eventually no longer around. In the meantime, I get my heart warmed whenever I see Billy and Imelda together. Also see Old Love Birds and Cloud of Dust or The Sex Was Good.

    BillyAndImeldaB

  • Tucked In for the Night – Five Week Old Chicks

    TuckedInForTheNight

    Chicks grow a lot in five weeks. Here they are, five week old chicks tucked in for the night with their mother. And below is how they looked soon after they hatched. They are all feathered out and looking more and more like adult chickens. They’re no longer the cute little baby chicks. It won’t be long before they are on their own.

    TuckedInForTheNightInJune

  • Where Chickens Like to Roam

    Tree

    Chickens are fond of trees. The forest is a favorite place for them to find food and shelter. Can you spot the mother hen and her chicks in the picture below?

    MotherAndChicksInBrush
    ChickensOnABridge

    They also like hanging out on bridges. Maybe they are hoping a frog or field mouse will pass by below that they can nab. They also love vegetable rows, not so much for the greens, but for all the creatures that live in the ground. I added 50 feet of fencing to keep the hen and her chicks out of the fields. I have another 100 feet to go. Digging post holes and hanging fencing is great exercise. Why settle for a thirty minute or an hour workout in a gym when you can tone your muscles all day long building fences?

    CornPatch

  • Museum Quality Eggs

    Eggs140809A

    This morning’s eggs are almost too beautiful to eat. They belong in a museum, maybe in a hands-on exhibit. Let the visitors arrange them in any order they would like, from lightest to darkest, smallest to largest, most random, most beautiful. After each visitor has arranged the eggs to their liking, photograph that arrangement, and at the end of the exhibit, display all the different arrangements the visitors designed. Also have photographs of all the people who arranged the eggs, and let people guess who did which arrangement. Or show photographs of each chicken and give out prizes to those who correctly guess which chicken laid each of the six eggs.

    Eggs140809B