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Flock Swaps
I was warned that this chicken thing can get really addictive. The eggs are great. Planning and building the coop was fun. Problem solving is challenging. What is addictive is walking across the yard and realizing two chickens are following at my heels, I stop, they stop and scratch around in the dirt. I walk, they walk. I stop and turn around, they scratch at the dirt. I have a fan club now thanks to a treat called Crackleberry Nugget Treats. What is also addictive is hearing the panicked peeping of the newest addition at dusk, then hearing the panic change to happy chirps as I place her in her…
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An Update on Betty White
I spoke to someone at The Urban Chicken about how to tell if the bullying has gone to far. Obviously if there is bleeding, the bird needs to be separated as chickens are drawn to the color red and would potentially peck it to death. The other dangerous sign is if the bird stays off by herself. This would mean the chicken has been rejected by the flock and it isn’t trying to rejoin. The fence divider in the run only lasted a day and a half because I was curious how Betty would do after spending a day with Luna. She was eating and moving around well, so I…
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Chicken Updates
It has been so hot and humid — yet with no rain — here in Raleigh that I’ve bottomed out on summer morale. I’m doing what I can to keep the plants from drying out and the chickens from overheating, but mostly I’m waiting on rain. This afternoon we finally had a short shower with more supposedly on the way. It’s expensive to keep watering the plants, but many of the perennials and shrubs are in their first year and need the extra water to get established. We had three days of a heat index over 100°F, so I directed a box fan into the chicken run and kept the…
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Meet the Chickens!
Last weekend we drove up to The Urban Chicken for their Annual CHICK DAYS Celebration and FLOCK SWAP. I had never heard of this before, but just happened to check their Facebook page an hour before the event was supposed to start. Initially we thought we might wait until the kids were on Spring Break as the coop and run weren’t complete, but word slipped out we might get chickens that day, and the kids were so ecstatic, there was no turning back. Under drizzling rain, we loaded up in the car with a cardboard box and drove to The Urban Chicken with the goal to learn exactly what supplies…
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Treehouse Chicken Coop
For the past several mornings, I’ve woken up with what I refer to as “fire fingers”. My fingers tingle, and the numbness goes up to my shoulder. I’m covered in scrapes, and my hands feel like sandpaper. My husband now has the neighbors thinking he’s a professional carpenter. We haven’t been to the gym in months — we haven’t done anything social. We haven’t signed up for spring soccer. We skipped THE BIG chess tournament. We have worked our patooties off so that just in time for the first day of spring, we were ready for outdoor living. The treehouse chicken coop is complete with a hammock to boot. Thank…
