Today's prompts from Eden Hills are: Starts with J, Car, and Outside.
Starts with J
I have decided that one of the red hens is named Juniper. She is blind in one eye. I don't know how that happened - she came to me that way. It does not slow her down and she is a lovely hen who doesn't seem to mind sitting on my lap for a while for cuddles.
The hen on the right is Juniper. The little bantam on the left is Sienna.
Car
So, how to incorporate "car" into a chicken themed picture?! Well, since the chickens arrived on September 4 (Monday), we have had 10 eggs. That's 10 eggs in 6 days, which is not bad, especially since the silkies are not yet laying. How does this relate to car? I lined up all the eggs on the edge of the sun roof on my car! My car is a 2001 VW Jetta. It is my 4th Jetta and I have loved them all.
The five brown eggs are from the brown hen that isn't Juniper, but she hasn't told me her name yet.
The four white eggs are from Sienna, the little bantam hen, although for a banty, she lays fairly large eggs. The egg on the far right is Juniper's first egg since she has been here.
Outside
A little more work was done outside today. I was so happy today to have my coop-building guys return to help put up a frame around the coop fence, and install some wire mesh on it (combination of fencing I had laying around plus some chicken wire). Here you can see that they built a raised framework above the fence so that the wire would be at a suitable height for me to walk around inside the coop yard.
This means that the little flock will be safe from hawks, but will be able to enjoy the outside environment. I am not entirely sure if any of them had been outside before.
They did not seem to know how to scratch around in the dirt, except for Sienna - you can just see her in the picture above, next to Juniper, already with her eye on the dirt area. The guys lifted a row of patio stones for the chickens to have an area to make their dirt/dust bath. By the end of the afternoon, the red hens had caught on. The silkies are still bewildered. I think they have been kept in a cage for most of their life so far.
7 comments:
I like your chickens, Claire. Are they rescue chickens or did you buy them. I didn't know you could buy full grown laying hens. We raised ours, either from eggs or the chicken hatchery, sexed or unsexed. We ordered the unsexed. Then we had a special chicken house for the little ones.
The idea of having then screened in but they still can come out is neat. When ours were large enough we let them have free range of the farmstead. It was my job to use the chicken catcher and bring the ones in who thought they should sleep in the trees.
We put the pullets in the 'new chicken' house and the roosters stayed in the little chicken house. When they would get big enough we would sell all but those we would eat, every Sunday and for company, during the year. Mom sold eggs, several crates a week, to the produce house. Sometimes I would help her clean them late at night. We talked a lot doing that. Even when I wasn't cleaning.
TMI makes for long comment, sorry.
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Oh, how adorable! A lap chicken would be perfect! Maybe they'll all figure out how to be chickens soon. What a nice set-up you have for them.
Fresh eggs (same day) are fine eating! Your ladies look lovely, and the hawk-safe enclosure makes a good place to congregate and cluck the afternoon away!
...and here I thought that you were going to say that it is so hot that you can fry an egg on the hood of your car!
What a beautiful little home for your chickens! How nice that you gave them the opportunity to live inside and out....and they can learn how to do normal chicken things. They are very lucky!
The chickens are awfully lucky to have come to live with you. They are very pretty girls. I'm glad you are getting to have some animals again. Thanks so much for joining Friday's Hunt. Hope you have a great rest of the week!
Now I want some chicken too ! They are so cute and apparently not stupid at all ! Unfortunately where I live it's not allowed !
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