MnKHarden: May 2012

Thursday, May 17, 2012

A boy and his Chicken

Jack & Mojito

Jack loves holding the chickens, I guess that's his reward for catching one of them. They really are not that hard to catch. I have started letting them roam around the yard when I'm out with them. They really enjoy scratching around in the flower/weed beds. They all stay pretty close together, I think they are afraid one of them will find a big juicy bug so they have to be right there to try and steel it. The dog is not a problem, the poor thing is afraid of the chickens. He will turn and go the other way when he sees them. I only put them in their play-pen when I am cleaning the coop since I can't keep an eye on them.

I have planted to vegetables in containers this year (for us, not the chickens) Tomato, Green Pepper, Buttercrunch Lettuce, Chives, Cucumber, Jalapeno & Cilantro, now I just need some onion and I'll be set. The chickens do think it is for them so I have to shoo them away from the containers. But they will have a nice surprise in a few weeks. I planted "Chicken Salad" from MyPetChicken.com It is a seed mix of some different kinds of greens that chickens like.

The Stand Off of Stella & Cookie

We also started working on a pond for the back yard. It's a small one, about 55 gallons, with a little water fall, fountain and squirting turtle. I love to listen to it, I can hear it at night through my bedroom window.

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Supervised free range

I purchased some scratch grains for the chickies, they seemed to enjoy them. I also let them check out the yard a bit, they were very interested in the deck. My freshly cleaned deck.... What do chickens do? Eat and POOP! lots of poop. Had to hose of the deck. That's OK they had fun.

heading back to their coop after checking out the yard

"Did you Say BBQ Chicken??"

Chicken Scratch

"make sure you poop on the clean deck before you leave"

enjoying the chicken scratch

Must have more
Scratch

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Spy Chickens

Tried the night vision tonight. Not too bad considering I really didn't know what I was doing, and was leaning over aiming the lens through the window.

I really suck at trying to get these pictures lined up....urrr

Finished up the new and improved chicken play-pen tonight and let the girls out in it for about a half hour while I cleaned up their coop. They really liked it but I could tell they wanted to get back to their hen house because it was starting to get dark. I have learned that chickens are night blind so they really want to be in the safety of their hen house before it gets dark. I'll have to get them out earlier tomorrow so they can get to bed earlier. It was close to 8pm, that's latest they have been up since moving out of the brooder to outside.

I bought some mustard greens to give the the girls. I will put it in the suet feeder tomorrow so they can peck at it and keep themselves entertained. I forgot I bought them a "chicken toy" It's a ball that you put treats in and they roll it and peck at it to get the goodies.

I also bought a product to try in the run and in their hen house called "Sweet PDZ" It is made for horse stalls but I've read of some people using it with chickens. It is supposed to control order and moisture. So far I haven't had any issues with orders but with the coop so close to the house and the lovely humid weather we get here I thought it couldn't hurt

Chicken Butt

Not too good with the chickens, but you can see the drops of rain on the Day Lilly leaves

Baby Chick Time

Stella 2 Weeks 5 Days

The chicks are doing well and growing so fast. They are practicing to fly, with a long running start they almost get off the ground. Stella is the flight instructor, she's a good teacher Cocoa is kind of getting it. Cookie not so much, her wings are not as big as Cocoa's are so maybe that has something to do with it. I think Cocoa's wings are bigger that Stella's.