Rest In Peace.....Lucy

I lost one of my favorite hens yesterday.....Lucy our Araucana who laid green eggs.  She will be so very missed.  She had enough personality for 10 hens!!!  She always greeted me at the door when I went to feed them.  She also was known to fly up and sit on my shoulder when I was in the pen.

Lucy 2-20-13

Out of all the chickens we have I would have never thought that she would go first.  We have a Silver Spangled Hamburg hen named Spottie who is going to be 9 yrs old in June, she is the one that I looked for her to pass first.  She's still alive and kicking!

Lucy was so gentle and liked to held and loved to be pet.  The night before Lucy's passing she did as she always did and greeted me at the door, came out of the coop and hopped up on the bin with the food in it and started eating!!!  She was so funny!  I am surely going to miss her.  I never got a really good picture of Lucy so this one will have to do....Sleep well little girl!

Ice Skating Chickens

On Sunday it was pretty warm out the entire pen was standing water from the snow melt.  The chickens were not impressed with their new swimming pool and didn't really venture out.  On Monday they had themselves a skating rink!  What was standing water the day before had transformed into a thirty foot skating rink!  Between the frozen pen and the ferocious winds the poor things were slipping and sliding everywhere!
While Dr. A thought it was funny (I did not probably because I'm a "mother hen" so to speak (pun intended) when it comes to the chickens) to watching them try to run on the ice. Thankfully they didn't hurt themselves.  Hopefully today it will warm up and get rid of the ice rink!

Battle Royal

Ok, I know that 6 roosters in the same coop could be a problem, but for the most part they all get along with a squabble here and there but either last night or early this morning Chub-a-lub a banty rooster and Big Red a full sized rooster when at it but good!  At first I was feeling sorry for Chub-a lub until closer inspection.....he beat the stuffing's out Big Red the poor rooster's comb was black and blue, as well as his waddles he has no tail feathers and blood on his beak...it's really kind of sad.  Usually they face off and go at each other a couple of times and then things are fine for months....not sure what happened today.  I think that being cooped up for more than a couple days  makes them stir crazy....at least I hope that is what is going on.  After all this is my first winter keeping the chickens so it's on the job training.!!!

Can It Get Any Colder

It has been absolutely the coldest winter that we have had in several years!  When I went to work yesterday morning it was -8 below!!!  Of course the first thing I did when I got to work was to check the temperature in the coop, it was a balmy 32 degrees, we decided to put a space heater in for the day hoping that our roosters combs don't get frozen off.  We have not let them out unless the temps are close to 32 degrees.  I am going to have to surf the net to see what I can find out about rooster combs freezing off, I know for a fact that one of our old hens had frozen off her toes....the guy that takes care of them in the winter brought her back like that.  I felt so sorry for her.  We didn't get her back the last time they went to the farm for winter.  The guy does take good care of them but he does let them out even in below freezing temps.  All of  his chickens are free range.

I have learned so much about how to winter chickens that I will have a better plan in place for next year.  I do love the new grit and shell dispensers that my hubby put up in the coop.  I got the idea from Grit magazine  I tweaked their idea a bit to work for what I needed I use a two in pipe, and a four in cap for the dish and found a flat top cap instead of using a regular two inch cap. They work great!  I will have to get a picture of them when I go to feed them today.

I'm still having problems with the waterer, for whatever reason they like to kick up the straw and it gets in the waterer, or the other problem is they get on top of the waterer and poop in the water, it's so frustrating!!!!  Why can't they keep the waterer clean?  I know it's like asking why a kid won't keep their room clean!!