Can You Trust Your Dogs With Your Chickens?

Do your dogs get along with your chickens?

I wasn't sure mine would, but I worked with them from the day I brought my first pullets home and before long, they were all getting along just fine.  Molly, my large Golden Retriever mix, and Jethro, my Jack Russell Terrier, could be trusted in the yard with the chickens at anytime.  With a little patience and plenty of supervision, your dogs and chickens can get along well too.

Read more:  Will My Dog Eat My Chickens?

Ok, Who Did This?

My nine hens are still laying a good number of eggs, I'm getting anywhere from 6-8 a day, and have even had two days where I got 9-for-9 last month! They normally lay very large eggs, some that don't even fit in the egg carton, but every once in a while I'll get one that makes me say 'huh'?

Here are three that I picked up the other day  The two eggs on the side were normal size, not overly large, and they still dwarf the center egg.

Who was responsible for this?

I asked the girls which of them was responsible for the egg that wasn't much bigger than a robin's egg, but none would own up to it.  I suppose to fess up would mean signing their own death warrant, seeing as the new chicks on the block will start laying in a couple of weeks.
Can't blame them, I suppose.

What? No Eggs?

For the first time in the year and a half I've had chickens, I don't have a single egg in the house.  How could that be?

For a while I had an overabundance of eggs as no one was stopping in to buy.  Then boom - a week or so ago I had a lady say she wanted a dozen and when I opened the carton to show her, she said they're huge,  I'll take two.  An hour later another lady drove up and said she wanted two dozen, looked at them and said I'll take five if you have them.  She had to settle for the four I had left.

That same lady stopped in yesterday and said they were the best eggs she'd ever eaten and wanted another two dozen. The girls were done laying and I had just washed the eggs and put them in the carton, so I had eggsactly that - 24 eggs.

My girls lay some pretty eggs

I had to settle for peanut butter toast for breakfast this morning.

Naked Chicks Celebrate World Naked Gardening Day (WNGD)

Who knew that there was such a thing as World Naked Gardening Day?  I'm here to tell you there is and it's today, May 14th.  I'll not provide the link because it does contain some nudity, but if you've no problem with that, give it a google for a giggle.

I've lots of work to do in my garden, but I won't be tossing my clothes aside today to do it.  My contribution to WNGD is to share a few photos of the other naked chicks in my backyard.

Amberlink Chicks 

Golden Comet and Amberlink Chicks

Nobody Likes Me, Everybody Hates Me ...

Can you guess what todays post will be for W-day?

Worms!

Worms are great in the garden as they provide a bit of aeration to the soil as they go about their business, and they leave bits of themselves behind which enriches the soil as well.  When it rains (and we've had lots of that lately), they rise to the surface and provide a tasty treat for my chickens too. #Winning!

Photo by pennylayn

You can even have a worm garden and harvest them to hasten composting or to sell to other eco-minded people in your area. The worm most widely used in vermiculture (worm farming) is the red worm, not your garden-variety earthworm.

There are numerous places online where you can buy red worms and the simple supplies needed to start your own worm composting farm should you want to give vermiculture a try.  When maintained properly (which takes little effort), there is no offensive odor.   I don't want to link to any specific site as I don't have a personal testimonial for any of them, but a quick search should return dozens of options from which to choose.

I've got enough to do with the rest of the critters and chicken farming, so I don't think I'll be adding worm farming to the mix any time soon, but I'm not ruling it out for the future.

Nobody likes me, everybody hates me ...

Click here to join in on the new Z to A in May Blogging Challenge.

S is for Sisters Sharing

Yes, even chickens share.

Production Red Pullets Sharing a Dust Bath

Bertha & Bessie Sharing a Nest Box

There We Go, That's Better

Golden Comet Chicks Taking a Nap in Their Feed Dish

I'm taking the A-Z Blogging Challenge, where I will post something from each letter of the alphabet on the corresponding day in April, except for Sunday, on (hopefully) all four of my blogs. You can see my other blogs in the sidebar - More of Marie Anne.

Meet Ophelia

Ophelia is one of my first six hens that I got in December 2009 as young pullets just coming into laying age. She is a black sex-linked chicken, a cross of Barred Rock/NH Red I believe.  Poor Ophelia has gone through some trials since she's been here and more than once I didn't think she was going to make it, but she matched my perseverance and pulled through.

Ophelia, Summer 2010

The first malady to hit Ophelia was an impacted crop.  I'm not positive as to what caused it, but I believe it was because I had let the girls out onto freshly cut grass that was still moist, which caused it to clump together when eaten.  It took several days of force-feeding her with a needle-less syringe, poking oil down her throat and massaging several times a day before it seemed to be cleared up.  Ophelia wasn't real happy with it all, but I think she knew I was helping, so tolerated my doctoring.

Ophelia is also my only hen that went broody.  She would tend to all the eggs she could get her beak on, even somehow scooting them over from one nest box to the other.  I had to coax her off the clutch to eat and drink at least a few times a day for two weeks or more before she finally realized her 'babies' weren't ever going to hatch and hopped away without looking back.

Bumblefoot went through my little flock and Ophelia wasn't spared there either.  It took months of medicating and chicken foot surgery to finally eradicate it, but I think all of them are completely clear of it finally.  I do not want to go through that again, so I check my girls' feet frequently.

Next up was the molt.  This wasn't an ordinary molt and I don't know what triggered it, but Ophelia lost pretty much all of her feathers and was naked down to the skin.  It was horrible to watch her losing more and more feathers and since it was December in Ohio, I couldn't leave her out there in the cold.  She stayed in the coop quite a bit, but if she got out, she didn't even have enough wing feathers to support the flapping and short hop to get back in.

I fixed the dog crate into a temporary chicken coop and brought her in the house for about 10 days.  Ophelia looked pretty rough and I thought sure she wouldn't pull through this one, but I finally started to see new growth.  She was still very skinny, but I didn't want to keep her in the house too long as I thought she might have trouble reintegrating with the rest of the flock and I was right - it was a good two months before she was fully accepted again.

She's really a nice hen and when not sick or broody, gives me a pretty brown egg almost daily.  I'm glad I didn't give up on the ol' gal - here's Ophelia today.

I'm taking the A-Z Blogging Challenge, where I will post something from each letter of the alphabet on the corresponding day in April, except for Sunday, on (hopefully) all four of my blogs. You can see my other blogs in the sidebar - More of Marie Anne.

What's in a Name?

I need a name. Well of course I have a name, but I need a name for my little acreage (can almost an acre be considered acreage?).

I've got dogs. I've got cats. A year and a half ago I added chickens so now have the nine laying hens and the six new chicks I picked up last month. I want to put a sign on the chicken coop and call my little piece of this earth something, but what to put on that shingle?

Since I have quite a conglomeration here, I was thinking Marie Anne's Menagerie, or perhaps shortened to MA's Menagerie. Menagerie is derived from the French ménagerie, management of household or farm. Sounds like a good fit to me.

The more modern menagerie means a place where animals are kept and trained especially for exhibition.  Well my critters aren't very well trained, but everyone's welcome to come look at them if they want and I won't even charge admission.

So what do you think?  What sort of name do you think fits me and my mess?

I'm taking the A-Z Blogging Challenge, where I will post something from each letter of the alphabet on the corresponding day in April, except for Sunday, on (hopefully) all four of my blogs. You can see my other blogs in the sidebar - More of Marie Anne.

Keystone Kops and Katzenjammer Kids

Do you remember the old Keystone Kops movies, where the unkempt koppers ran amok across the silent screen? I never understood how they didn't run into each other and hurt themselves, but they were good for a laugh.

With six new chicks, I'm treated to my own version of the Keystone Kops in my living room daily.  They're of an age now where they've got the 'shiny thing syndrome', where one will pick up some small bit of nothing thinking it's a great prize, and the rest will give chase trying to grab it.  Six little buggers peep-peeping and running willy-nilly sets the dogs off, so they pick up the chase around the outside of the cage.

Think Keystone Kops and Katzenjammer Kids.

I best enjoy it while I can as they grow so fast.

Golden Comet Chicks

Of the six new chicks I picked up a week ago, three were Golden Comet and three were Amberlinks. The Golden Comet hen produces a good-sized brown egg and the breed is tolerant of colder climates so is a good choice for Ohio winters.

These little gals, only a few days old when I brought them home, thought the kitty food dish was a nice place to snuggle up for a nap.

As they mature, the fuzzies will be replaced by feathers, but they should retain the golden brown color as adult chickens.

This picture seven days later shows them already feathering nicely.  They grow very fast and are already flapping wings and fluttering around their temporary home.





The gender of sex-link breeds can be identified at birth by their color, so these three should be female.  The Golden Comet pullet (hen) will be buff/red, and the cockerel (rooster) will be white at hatching.  (The white chicks in the photo are a different breed - Amberlinks).

I'm taking the A-Z Blogging Challenge, where I will post something from each letter of the alphabet on the corresponding day in April, except for Sunday, on at least one if not all four of my blogs. You can see my other blogs in the sidebar - More of Marie Anne.

Fun!

What do chickens like to do for fun?

Eat apple on a stick ...

Supervise construction ...

Get in the way of construction ...

Dig for worms ...

Torment the dog ...

Take a dustbath ...

Or a footbath ...

Or just stretch out in the sun.

I'm taking the A-Z Blogging Challenge, where I will post something from each letter of the alphabet on the corresponding day in April, except for Sunday, on at least one if not all four of my blogs. You can see my other blogs in the sidebar - More of Marie Anne.

C is for Chickens!

I suppose it's no surprise I'm writing about chickens for the letter C since this is my chicken blog, after all.

No lengthy post today, just random shots of my chickens.  If you're thinking about keeping chickens in your backyard, do some homework before buying the bib overalls and announcing yourself as a chicken farmer.  My article, Straight Poop on Keeping Backyard Chickens, can get you started.

Last Year's Production Red Pullets

Starting to Feather Nicely

All Grown Up, and Catching Some Sun

Of the six 'pullets', two ended up roosters
This is Herman

The old gals playing in their sandbox

I'm taking the A-Z Blogging Challenge, where I will post something from each letter of the alphabet on the corresponding day in April, except for Sunday, on at least one if not all four of my blogs. You can see my other blogs in the sidebar - More of Marie Anne.

B is for Bertha, Bessie and Blue Belle

I couldn't let B get by me without talking about Bertha, Bessie and Blue Belle, three of my hens.

Bertha is one of the group of my first six chickens that I got as pullets a year ago December, just as they were starting to lay. She established herself as the matriarch of the bunch right away. Bertha is a black sex link hen, a NH Red/Barred Rock mix and is the biggest in my flock. I endured nuns for eight years of grammar school, and Big Bertha reminds me of one of them in particular (who appropriately enough, was named Sister HENrietta).

Bertha giving me 'the stare'

Bessie was another of the original six and while the same breed mix as Bertha, she got more of the barred characteristics and had much lighter colored feathers.  Sadly, Bessie died last October from unknown causes.

Bessie and Bertha

Blue Belle is one of the six chicks I picked up last spring. They were supposed to be Production Red pullets (NH Red/RI Red mix) but two ended up being roosters.  Of those four pullets, Blue Belle is the feistiest and constantly taunts Jethro whenever they're outside together.  She will chase him and peck at him relentlessly, and Jethro loves the game and will chase her right back.  Jethro can pick her out of the flock immediately and it's quite comical to watch them play.

I've tried to get video with my cell phone, but they're too quick to catch a decent shot.

I'm taking part in the A-Z Blogging Challenge, where I will post something from each letter of the alphabet on the corresponding day in April, except for Sundays.  I will be posting on at least one of my four blogs daily.  You can see my other blogs in the sidebar - More of Marie Anne.