Baby it's cold outside...

It snowed on Tuesday but it wasn't a wet snow that would allow for snowmen and snowball fights.  It sure does a good job of covering the dirty property and making things look cleaner than they really are.  :)

Schools have been closed because the roads aren't safe enough for cars and the sidewalks aren't safe enough for kids, so we've been trapped inside for the most part.  I'll let the pictures do the talking...

Going into hiding

It's snowing.... and not everyone  is happy about it.

The goats actually tried going under the new coop.  Apparently that's better than their houses.

The Chickies are Roosting

I heard a lot of chirping coming from the small coop when I was locking up at night and this is what I saw when I looked inside.

Perhaps they're more grown up than I though they were.

Painting toe nails

I've been wanting to figure out what color egg each of my bird lays for awhile, but haven't put the time and effort in to the project, until now.

I've been putting one bird in each of the two cages we have and I leave her in there with food and water until she lays an egg.  So far three girls have laid light brown eggs, which wasn't what I was expecting.  Right now I've been checking the black and white speckled girls that came from Clyde's hatching last spring.  They all look very similar so I needed a way to be able to tell them apart once I figure out what color eggs they are laying.

It only seemed natural that I go with a finger nail painting method until I find something that's more long-term.  I tried white polish on the first girl, but the next morning I could barely tell which one she was, so I had to go to something a little more bright.

Just another adventure on the farm.

The Completely Unexpected

Wednesday afternoon I saw an email from someone asking me to call them.  I had no idea who they were, but I called anyway.  A woman asked me about the original Nokesville rooster and about how it was painted.  She tells me that an animal control officer saw it in the next county over, behind someone's house.

After a few phone calls, two visits from the police to my house, and the deputy going back to the house it was seen at, I received a phone call telling me that my rooster was in their custody!

A few weeks after he was stolen, I had given up hope and figured I would never see it again.  The next day, the deputy brought the rooster back, in his animal control truck!  It was only fitting that he was bringing me a rooster. :)

I was a little too excited to have my rooster back.

The new coop

I just found the pictures of the new coop that was built a couple months ago.  Apparently I never posted them.

I was pretty proud of my nest boxes this time.  I will probably add some curtains just to make things cute.

The roost bars are three bars that are each about 8 feet long.  I think this is plenty of space for them to roost.  I got smarter and have them spaced a little further apart so they won't poop on each other.  :)

I've noticed some birds have trouble getting up to the higher two bars, so I'll probably add a ladder to the lower bar at some point.

We're at it again

I shared with some people that I wish I could get some more hatching eggs, and a fellow chicken farmer offered to give me some eggs just so she could test the fertility of them.

We already have too many birds, I know this, but it's addicting, and with our recent loss to the foxes (two this week), I think I just want to be safe and have birds laying like crazy this spring and summer.

So I accepted.  We met up today and she gave me 18 eggs.

They are pure bred Dominiques, pure-bred Buff Orpingtons (we actually bought a few chicks from her last year and the three that survived the foxes are gorgeous), a pure-bred leghorn,  and two pure-bred Polish eggs.  I'm not a fan of the Polish birds because they look funny, but I know it wouldn't be hard to find someone to take them if they hatch.

I decided to throw all of my green eggs that we got from the coop today (and three that we got in the last few days and have been sitting on the counter) into the incubator as well, in the hopes that maybe the chicks would grow up to lay olive eggs, which are pretty popular among the chicken crowds.

That's 10 of our eggs plus 18 of hers, which makes for a very full incubator.  I'll candle them in a few days to see if there are signs of life.  This is so exciting. :)

Chickie Problems

We've been wanting to move the chicks out of the basement for a few weeks, but with those frighteningly low temperatures last week, that plan had to be put on hold.  Last night we cleaned up the chick area and moved NormaJean and the babies into a smaller crate that we could take outside.  They had to be stuck in there overnight, but today I moved them out to the smaller coop.  

They'll be in there until they're old enough and big enough to be outside in a run.  I think I will need to put a heat lamp in the coop for them this week, but they should be okay otherwise.

The bad news was that I noticed two of the chicks have something wrong with their vents.  One looks much worse than the other.

I brought both of them in the house and gave them a bath in warm water.  They actually were settling in to it and closing their eyes to rest.

They weren't as happy and relaxed when I got their backs wet and cleaned off their vents.

Once we got them cleaned up, we rubbed some Preperation H on their vents as I had that from last year when we had the guinea keet with the vent issues.  We set them in a tub with hand towels while we got things ready for them and they didn't seem to mind.

For now, they're in the living room with a heating pad under the tub and a heater pointed at the tub to keep them warm and get them dried off.  They're moving around and eating and drinking, I just hope that whatever is wrong will heal itself so I can move them out with the other chicks soon.

Faith is determined

Faith received some treats for the holidays but we have to ration them so she doesn't get sick.  

She doesn't understand this.

Licking a bag of dog cookies?

Climbing on the chair to reach the bone on the mantle?

Grow Chickies Grow

The chicks are getting bigger and have a lot more feathers now.....