This is our busiest time of year at work and it has been really hectic the past month or so. Although I feel like I spend every waking moment at work (and Gator works way too much) , we are still managing to get some things done around the farm.
I ordered some laying hens from the local co-op and they came in a couple of weeks ago. They are still too young to lay eggs, but hopefully they will start laying in the next month or two. We are lucky to have a coop with a hen house already built, so at least we didn’t have to deal with that. We did do some reinforcing around the bottom of the pen to discourage predators. We know we have a raccoon in the area and we have heard they are very persistent about getting to the chickens. We also have motion detector lights around the outside of the building – hopefully they will fend off the riff-raff!
The chickens didn’t know to go into the hen house at night, so we’ve been going down there at dusk and putting them to bed for the evening. Three of the four have figured it out now, so the last two nights I’ve only had to put one in the hen house. The good thing is that they are getting used to being handled and they no longer run away when we try to pick them up!
I would love to be able to get to the point where I can let them out into the yard during the day. Their coop is plenty big but it would be nice for them to be able to get out, roam around and eat bugs and things in the yard. I’m not so sure that is going to work out, though. A certain black lab is way too fascinated with them! I’m don’t know if she would intentionally hurt them, but she loves to chase everything and I really don’t want to take a chance that she would catch one. Oh well, that’s not a decision that needs to be made now. Maybe she will lose interest in them over time (hah!).
I am starting to be able to tell them apart. They look very similar, but one has a few more white tail feathers than the others, one is a little darker and another is a little redder than the rest. I’ve been trying to come up with names for them. I was thinking about an Old Hollywood theme – maybe Ginger, Audrey, Doris and Marilyn. Any suggestions?
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