Too young for mommy-hood

A few weeks ago one of the chickens disappeared.  No sign of feathers or anything.  A couple weeks ago we got rid of our last rooster because he kept chasing people.  Sometime between last night and today another chicken went missing (thanks to the son not propping the coop door open and the birds all getting locked out at night, during a storm until I found them after 10PM.

So I went looking.  I was determined to find evidence of where this one went.  I finally saw something, and from a distance she looked like a bloated dead bird.  I thought maybe she got hit by a car and this was her body on the side of the road, wet from the storms that keep coming through.

I was scared to even touch her, well really I was grossed out.  I was scared she'd be cold and dead and gross.  But her eyes were open, not blinking, for a solid two minutes and I thought a bird wouldn't die with it's eyes open, would it?  I finally reached down and poked her and she turned and started attacking my hand.  So I reached down with both hands to pick her up.

These were all of the eggs under her!  I handed her off to the boy and gathered the eggs.  She'd been sitting on these eggs through the storms!  All but two were warm, although I'm not sure if any are fertile since we got rid of the rooster.  She was not happy but we moved everything into the coop.  They're all the same color so I suspect she's been laying in this spot, by the road for awhile now and then decided, during the storms, it was time to sit and become a mom.

Great Neighbors

Our neighbors asked to borrow some salt one day, and later they handed me two beautiful jars of canned beans.  I don't even want to open them, they're so pretty.

He said he wanted a purple wall

The youngest boy has been asking to have a purple room for over a year.  He finally agreed to have a purple wall.  So while he was away at summer camp I got to work.

I added several large super hero pictures to complete the room and he came home with smiles on his face.  Three layers of paint!  So glad that it was only one wall that I had to do. 

Eggs Eggs Everywhere

The chickens are laying pretty regularly now, we got five today!  They're still cute little eggs at this point.  The bad news is that they keep laying them on the ground.  I think I need to build new/better nest boxes.

Not as Lucky in the other bedrooms

I pulled up the corner of the carpet in one of the other bedrooms.  While the floors look like they have so much potential, they definitely need to be refinished and can't be uncovered and temporarily enjoyed until the refinishing starts.  This will definitely have to wait until next year.

Roaming too far

Our birds don't seem to understand that there is plenty of other space to roam near their coop... going completely around the house and down to the basement door should not be an option.

And trying to come to our back door should definitely not be an option.

Our Flock

Perhaps we should have broken down our flock sooner.

We have :

three Australorp - one of them is a rooster that's been nice so far (all black)

three Barred Rock - one of them is a rooster that's not very nice (black and white ones)

three Buff Orpingtons - one seems a little "special" (beige/tan ones)

two Silver Laced Wyandottes (black and white ones)

one Gold Laced Wyandottes (black and tan/gold)

two Rhode Island Reds (dark brown)

two ISA brown (lighter brown)

From left:  Australorp, Buff Orp, Silver Laced x 2, Rhode Island/Australorp/Buff together, Barred Rock x2, Rhode Island

From left: Rhode Island, ISA Brown, Buff Orp, Silver Laced, Australorp rooster

In the coop from left: ISA Brown, Silver Laced, Buff Orp from behind, Australorp, Barred Rocks, Rhode Island in the dark shadow

Barred Rock in front, Buff Orpingtons giving you "the eye", and an ISA brown behind her.  The two black ones are Australorps

You don't belong here

We had guests over yesterday that said one of our chickens was down by the road.  I was surprised that one would be alone or that they would be very close to the road but didn't think anything of it since all of them were safely in the coop at bedtime.

Then this morning my youngest son called me outside.

Our closest neighbors have 4 barred rock hens, no roosters.  The next closest neighbors really aren't that close.  We have no idea where this guy came from.  His neck looks like it's been plucked of feathers and his tail is a little beat up.

I went out a few minutes later and he was gone, no idea where he's run off to.

Our first eggs - again

I found out first eggs last night!  They were laying on the coop floor (not cool chickens!) and were so tiny and cute!  

Penny for scale size

We have several breeds and they all lay brown eggs, so that doesn't help us to figure out who might have started leaving us breakfast treats.

We've been flocked

Our community does a Library Fundraiser where people pay money to "flock" someone's house.  The Flamingo flock arrived at our home for a few days.