Chickens - Tips and Hints

So my chickens had not been laying eggs for a couple of months. My friend Rene reminded me that by using a heat lamp - it would help the chickens start laying again. Then later I was talking to a friend that we hardly ever get to talk to mentioned that she gives her hens - black oil sunflower seeds in the winter months so they get more protein and that it usually helps as well. So I implemented both of these things and sure enough thankfully some of the girls started laying again. 

One morning when I let the chickens out of their coop/dog run area one chicken went running away. This is so weird - because I had just tossed out kitchen scraps for them to eat - usually they eat stuff I throw out first before they run off. So after I had the chickens taken care of I decided to do a little investigating - it took a little bit of time but look what I found! 

Thankfully I was able to gather the eggs and they have not been using that area to lay. I am hoping that she decided to use the laying boxes again. I put out another fake egg or 2 to help lure her there. 

*Chickens like to lay where other chickens have laid an egg!  

I wanted to share another important tip with anyone who raises chickens. I am doing this because there is some bad information out there. Just a week or so ago I was watching a youtube video where a lady had just went and gathered her eggs- she had not gathered for a week or so - so she had quite a few eggs. Then she began to wash ALL the eggs with a hose outside. 

So you may wonder what is wrong with that/ Well - the eggs have a special coating on them that helps preserve them. They last longer with this coating on the eggs. If you do not wash the eggs you are able  to keep your eggs on out kitchen counter or in your pantry. Once you wash them you must store them in the fridge- and like I said that the eggs don't last as long. SO I was surprised that she washed all the eggs. I figure she was doing it for the camera -for content- so people could see what all she did. 

But I wanted to share with you all that if you have chickens - and you gather fresh eggs- IF you want them to last longer - don't wash them. You can wash them before you use them. Or you can wash up a dozen at a time and put them in the fridge. And you don't have to wash them at all. Some might find that gross but eggs are quite clean, if you have healthy chickens. 

*Fresh laid eggs last longer when you do not wash them.

Lucky for me I found this great ceramic egg holder at the thrift store - I paid 50 cent or 1.00 for it. 

I love it because I keep eggs in it so they can be easily accessible. 

I hope these hints and tips help you in raising your own chickens! :O) 

 

The Decoy

So today I wanted to share something that we learned and implemented years ago. Chickens like to lay eggs where other chickens lay eggs. So it is a good idea to have a few eggs out in the chicken coop at all times - to lure them to lay eggs there, especially if they have recently been given more freedom and there are plenty of other places they could lay eggs.  I have heard them "brag" in other parts of the yard and have hoped they are not laying elsewhere. 

So we have put out ceramic eggs here and there in the coop. I like to draw smiley faces on them so I will know it is a fake eggs, they are so realistic. 

I may have told you all about my experience last year. I had several of my ceramic eggs stolen - by a snake. But luckily for me - he brought a couple of them back. Unlucky for me - I found one of them shortly after he brought it back - because when I picked it up - it was still wet...ewwwwww 

I have had at least one egg stolen this year, hence the nice clean ceramic egg in the nesting box. 

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Be sure and come back this week we will have a Freebie Friday post! :O) 

 

I Found a Better Way

Today I wanted to do a bit of a review about something that I use with my chickens, just in case someone coming along can get some use from this information. I wish I had have figured this out much sooner than I did.

 

I started out using these galvanized chicken waterers. They cost a lot of money - like 25-35 dollars each. And when you have a large chicken yard - you need more than one.

 

About a year or so ago I was at TSC to pick up a new waterer. I ran into one of my husband cousins and thankfully she told me about using these plastic waterers. When I looked at the price I was sold on at least checking them out and seeing if they would work for us. For less than 10 dollars - and I am thinking more like about 6.99 area it was worth trying out.

 

Not only is this plastic one cheaper - there are some other great things about it. First of all - it is much easier to keep clean. Every couple of days or so I bring them in and I clean them with soap and water and get the chickens fresh water. The other great thing about these is that they don't do what the galvanized ones do - and that is rust. After a while they would rust and get holes and leak. And when you pay so much for them you really want them to lost longer than they did.

So I have bought 3 of these plastic one - plus I have a bucket that I have full of water. And I have a hard plastic - swimming pool for the chickens. For this I use a safety drain pan for a washing machine. This only cost 18.00 at Home Depot. Sorry for the tiny photo all I could get. But you get the idea.

 

 

 

Anyway I hope that this information is helpful to someone. I know I am thankful that I finally changed over to these things. :O)

 

These are photos that I have borrowed from the internet and this is a review only to give information. It is not for any gain for myself.

The Garden is Coming Along

Hello everyone! I hope you all are having a good week-end. Ours is going pretty good. Last night my sister and I went to 2 Goodwill stores for the Midnight Madness Sale they had going on- it is a 50% off from 8pm - midnight. Lately since we are being more selective of what we buy and going down several sizes - we were in need of some clothes. I was blessed with 1 pair of jeans, 2 capri's, a tee-shirt for my husband, and about 6 tops or so for me. Two of those are for church - I am so thankful since I was getting pretty low. I think I spent about $26.00 or less for all the stuff I got.

Last night my husband went and bought us a rototiller. Today he has been tilling our garden area. I am working at getting our garden boxes cleared out and ready to plant things. We are taking a lunch break right now and will go back out and work after a bit. I am so excited to see the garden take shape. I am praying that God will bless our efforts. With gas prices going up - it is very important for us to be good stewards of our land and this is a way that we can do that. Here is our new toy:
Here is our new garden area. This is after the first tilling!

And I just had to share few photos of my Chickie's enjoying the grass that we would throw to them. I am going though the garden area and trying to pull out a lot of the grass with root systems. As you can tell we are having a bit of an over cast day. The sun peaks out ever so often.



Ok- I better get back to work. :o)

My Chickens

I really enjoy going out to take care of my chickens. They always come running!! And how they like to talk to me!
I decided to get a little water for their "creek bed."

They love to walk through the water and see what treasures they can find!

And as you can tell it does not take long to attract more chickens to the water.

I thought I would share this photo because I think it is funny how the chickens will lay down and just relax. They really know how to live. They work hard looking for food - then take time to relax.

They also like to make themselves a nice little dirt hole to lay in and take a dirt bath in. I thought it was so cool that I was able to get a photo of all of the chickens - kind of looking at the camera!

Well I hope you have enjoyed my chickens as much as I do! I also hope you all have a wonderful week! :O)

It's going to be a busy day - plus Advice needed

Well normally my Fridays consist of cleaning the house, getting groceries and running errands - along with all the normal things around the house. Well not this week - not exactly- this week is different. My husband and son left yesterday afternoon to go on a camping/fishing trip. So I ended up having to cover a small shift for my son last night and then today I have to cover his shift - helping my MIL with the grill. So That is added to my day - then I will run the errands and get the groceries that I need to get.

Last night I actually got to be earlier than I have for a long time - at it was like 10:30pm still. But it was great to get to bed at a decent time and not only that but to be able to sleep past the normal alarm going off at 4:41am. Yep -that is what time the alarm goes off for my husband to get ready and get to work on time. So this morning I was able to sleep in some and still woke up quite early. It was ONLY 77 degrees outside when I went out to let the chickens out. I also watered their creek bed, watered all my plants. I had to give my plants in our new raised beds a good soaking. As I stood outside and watered - I felt light sprinkles hit my skin. That was so refreshing - just a little bit of sprinkles but it was great!

Since my husband and son are gone for a couple of days I think this evening I will work on some posts that I have had on my mind for some time now. Sometimes I do so much better with getting the posts together in a nice quiet house.

Ok - before I close - I want to ask for some advice. As I have mentioned before we have 5 cats ~ 4 indoor cats and 1 that goes in and out. Anyway our oldest indoor cat is a large cat. Well one of our two newest cats that are now about 2 years old - are much smaller cats. This is Tiggy - the BIG boy!

And this is Stewie. I know it might be hard to tell but there is at least a 6 pound difference between these cats. Stew is about 12 pounds and Tiggy is about 18 pounds -I think.

Anyway these two cats do not get along. And what scares me is that with Tiggy being SO much bigger than Stewie - that Stewie could get hurt. So my question is - does anyone have any information or advice that would be helpful. I really like to have peace at my house and when these two are at it - it really disrupts my peace. We are thinking we may have to get rid of Tiggy. We are just hoping that we can find a good home for him - if we have to get rid of him. So also could you pray that we could solve this problem or find him a good home. Thanks so much.

I better get off of here and get on with my day - it will be a long one. I hope you all have a great day! :o)

Week-end Wrap Up

This week end has been busy for us. There was some time for rest and relaxation though and that is good. Yesterday evening my husband and I went out to the lake and fished for a while. Actually too long of a while. I fished for a while - I caught two fish. Below is a photo of one of the fish that I caught! Then I read some in one of my gardening books. It inspired me to want to start an herb garden. And gave me a lot of helpful information. It was a good thing that my sister called me because my husband ended up fishing till almost 10:30pm. And can you believe that it was 93 degrees at 10pm?! At least there was a breeze now and then. You know how in the Little House books - Laura talks of a creek running past her house. Well we have a creek bed in our back yard. Not actually, but the way that the land was cut- if it rains a good amount or if I set the hose out - there will be a creek. I love it! And my chickens love it. I try to make a little creek at least during the hot days. They enjoy picking things out of the water and then they really like the wet cool earth after the water has been absorbed. And it really does not take very much water to make them happy campers.

I transplanted my strawberry plants into the washing tubs that I found last week. I had been nervous about doing the transplant because the containers that we had the strawberries in were pretty big and I just did not know if I could handle the holding the plant gently and then turning it all over and all the jazz. Well thank goodness I had not watered it for a couple of days cause it came right out and it was not very much trouble at all. I had to go shovel up some dirt into a bucket and bring it to finish filling up the tubs. I had to do this several times each. Even though I had already shoveled up dirt to fill the tubs half way. When I was done - I watered the thirsty plants. They are already looking a little better than they were. One of the plants was looking pretty bad.

I also shoveled out about 6-7 buckets of stuff out of the chicken coop. I had worked on it a little earlier in the week and did not realize there was that much more to get. Boy was I hot! Sweating big time! It is nice to have the job done though. I do need to just plan on doing it ever so often and that way it is not such a big job.

I cooked a big roast and we invited our son and his wife and baby(of course) for supper. My husband helped Oldest with pulling the engine out of his VW Bug. They will be working on it off and on this next week. We are hoping to get it running since right now the only vehicle that they have is a Dodge truck and he has to drive and he has quite a drive to work. So we are hoping that the bug will help save him some money and wear and tear on the truck.

Oh- and if you did not think that my week-end has been fun enough so far - this evening after I write this; in fact, I will be putting the sealer down on the grout in between the tile on our bathroom floor. Then this next week I will spend some time sanding the tape and bedding that has been done in our sun room. I decided that I needed to just take over some jobs and that way it could move along faster - if I could get some of the things done while he was at work ~or fishing :O)

Well I hope that you all have had a great week-end! And that you made Father's Day a special day for those Father's out there!

I Love Baby Frogs and More

Today I was watering our flowerbeds in the front yard and I had a special surprise! I found several baby frogs. I LOVE baby frogs. I always have. They have a special place in my heart. I was about to get a photo of two of them!

Boy - it takes a lot of energy to get photos of this little guys that don't want their picture taken. Along with some tall grass in the way, it was quite a chore but I just had to get a photo of them.

I also spent some time today cleaning out the floor of our chicken pen. Ever so often we have to shovel stuff out of there - you know what I am talking about so I will just leave it at "stuff." LOL :O) I will probably spend a little bit of time out there finishing it up tomorrow. Today I had to go to work and I have several errands to run after work.

I decided today that I need to be more organized. One of my errands today was to run by the store to get cards - for Father's Day. Well I will need to start taking care of those type things the week before - not a couple of days before. Now the card I am sending to my Dad will more than likely not get there till after Father's Day. I will try to call him sometime this week end. It just really irritates me when I do things like this. It is like all of a sudden a holiday will sneak up on me. And when I wait till the last minute to take care of that type of thing it is not as fun. So I am going to do my best to be prepared for the next holiday.

Ok - I have a little pet peeve. Today I was getting gas and a guy came up to me wanting to sell me something, some cool thing for Father's Day. Well this really bothers me. When I am getting gas - I do not want someone to talk to me unless they know me. And what really irritates me is that they can not take a hint when you tell them - no I do not have time. And then they continue to press until I had to tell him - NO I am not interested. If I want something - I will come to you. If you come to me - I will more than likely tell you no. Is this a pet peeve to any of you ladies? Or would you like to share what your pet peeve is?

I Love Old Photos

When my husband's Granddad passed away, the family was trying to get things moved out of the house. And we were lucky to get a couple of small boxes of photo's. We have had lots of fun going through them. What is so sad is that we have NO idea of who half of the people are. So if you have photo's it would be doing your family and future generations a big favor to write names of people and also dates. I say dates because that makes the photo even that much more interesting. Below is a really cool photo that I just love. Of course, the fact that I love Chickens really adds a lot of importance to this photos.

Now this photo below intrigues me because it is so neat to see the way people dressed and all a long time ago. Here is another example of a photo that I would love to know the year it was taken. And even a story behind the photo would be great.

Anyway I hope you have enjoyed a few of the older photos that I love.

I need to get off of here - the weather has calmed down and I really need to try to get to the store to get some groceries. I was going to go earlier but we had some storms and heavy rain come through and I just don't really enjoy pushing a cart full of groceries out to the car and loading the car with them - in the rain. Not fun. Hoping I have bypassed the worst of it.

This and That... from Monday

Yesterday when I got off of work, I had several errands to run. Well one of my errands was to go by Wal-Mart and pick up a few things. Well while I was there I thought that I would go check out their fabric section to see if there were any fabrics that I would want to get to make some place mats with. Well guess what I found? 90% of the fabric was GONE. A Wal-Mart in another nearby town had their fabric dept downsized a year or two ago, but we were hoping that Wal-Mart would leave this fabric department along. Well I was so disappointed. I do buy most of my fabrics from Quilt Stores- that way I know I am getting good quality fabrics. But I still enjoyed looking at Wal-Mart to see what they had and picking up treasures now and then. I especially enjoyed shopping the fabric department around the holidays. They always had a good selection of holiday fabrics. And do you know why they are down sizing the fabric department? To make more room for Party favors and such. Now I don't know about you but I think they had plenty of party supplies at Wal-Mart. Oh well, I guess it depends on what is important to you.

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As many of you know, I am reading through "The Little House on the Prairie" series. Last night I finished the second book - "The Little House on the Prairie" book. It was sad to read about all the cool things that they planted in their garden and how excited they were as they look forward to the harvesting of these things. And then to find out that they had to move. It broke my heart that they had to leave everything that they had worked so very hard for. And then when I looked at the back of the book and saw that "Farmer Boy" was the next one in line- I thought Oh No I have to leave Laura and her family just dangling for a while. But I am sure I will love this book as I have the others so far. There is something so therapeutic about reading these books. And what is so neat about it is that some of the things in the books that I enjoy so much - I am able to implement into my own life.

As a child we had chickens two different times (only for short periods of time- before me moved again) and I loved them. And now God has blessed us with the ability to have chickens of our own. It is such a blessing to me. To watch them and learn from them has been so valuable to me. And gardening - that is another thing that intrigues me about these books is them working their land. And so I have a desire now to be a better Steward of the land that God has provided and slowly we are working towards using it more wisely. Last night my husband built a small raised garden bed for some multiplying onions that my Dad and his wife had sent. I, so look forward to seeing what they will do. And I also have plans - only in my mind right now but I want to eventually have a Blackberry patch and also a Strawberry patch. We have a couple of Strawberry plants now but I want to build a raised bed or something that they will be able to have room to spread out. Many more plans are in my mind and heart and I am just hoping that this year we will have the chance to work toward accomplishing these plans.

Oh and one of the reasons why I needed to go to Wal-Mart was to get whole milk and heavy cream. This past week-end my husband went to a kitchen store at a nearby Outlet Mall. And while he was there look what he found:

Pure Indulgence™ 2 Qt. Frozen Yogurt-Sorbet & Ice Cream Maker by Cuisinart. And he got a very good deal on it. We had noticed lately how very expensive ice cream was getting to be at the store. Not only are the prices going up - but the size of containers is getting smaller and smaller. What I like about this is that we know exactly what ingredients are in what we are eating and I can make yogurt and sorbet! Another very nice thing is that you do not have to use rock salt. It has a tub in it that is where you put the ingredients to make the ice cream - or what ever and you stick it into your freezer and freeze it before you begin. Anyway we have only used it once so far - The ice cream turned out pretty good but I will have to use it again before I can tell you for sure that it was well worth the money that was spent on it. But it was very thoughtful of him and we had alot of fun making our first batch of ice cream. We made Rocky Road and there is a chance that he used too many marshmallows and that made it harder to freeze - but when we got it out of the freezer it was not very solid- so that is why I say we will have to do it once more to get a better idea.

Lots to do today so I better get off of here and get busy. Ya'll have a wonderful day!! :O)

First Harvest of the Year!!!

Today has been a really nice day here in Texas. Last night we got into the 50's and today I think the high has only been about 76- 78 degrees. The house is still open and I am enjoying this weather as long as God see fit to provide it for us!

I am also so happy to report that we have gotten our very first things out of our garden for the year! Today when I went to gather eggs, I noticed that my chickens needed water so I got them fresh water. Then I went and watered my garden and low and behold - I found a cucumber and some strawberries!! I was so excited cause I had no idea that we had a cucumber this big. I had only seen a few that were about 1 - 1 1/2 inches long. And then to get this one- it was exciting!!

It sure makes all the time that you invest in a garden worth it when you harvest some of your own food out of it. And it is so nice to have the privilege of having a garden and getting some fresh produce from it. Such a blessing that I am so very thankful for.

I have a hen that is sitting. She has been in one box and then moved over to a different box but she has stayed there for several days straight now. We could have baby chicks running around here in just a couple of weeks. That is so exciting and scary in a way. I always worry about those babies. The Mom's usually do such a great job of taking care of them. But - yep there is a but - one time we had a momma chicken hatch out 3 baby chicks and one of those babies was acting like it was not doing well. So I was trying to do what I could for it - I am like that. Then all of a sudden that Momma hen got mad and went after the baby. I just had to leave cause there was nothing I could do for it. I have been told that there had to have been something really wrong with the baby chick and that it would not have made it but it still breaks my heart. Anyway I am praying if we do get baby chicks that they will be safe and that we don't get very many rooster- and if we do - only the nice ones Thank you very much.

After sharing about my A-HA book - I remembered that I had started a journal about memorizing Bible verses. And it was so cool because one of the blogs that I follow had a really good post on it this morning. If you are interested in reading it - look to the right through the blogs I follow and find the one that says Scripture Memorization - I think is what it says. Anyway it really inspired me to start working on memorizing God's word. I have a hard time with memorizing things, but I believe that it is part of God's plan for us to hide His word in our hearts so I have full trust in Him blessing me if I try. What was so neat about what she said was that not only does she memorize a scripture but she studies it and then applies it to her life. That is truly how we are to use the Bible. Anyone can read the Bible but actually doing what it says and applying it to our lives - now that is what our goal should be and what great blessing we will receive when we do this. I think it even says that several times in the Bible.

"Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near." Revelations 1:3

And this is just one example of verses that tell us of the blessing we will get when we do what the Bible says. There are so many treasures in the Bible just waiting for us to find them. May we all search for these treasures and hide them in our hearts.

In the back yard..

Yesterday I spent a while out in the yard. The weather was just gorgeous. The temperatures lately have been fantastic. We still have not turned our AC on. There have been many years - probably about every year up until this year that we would already have our AC on at least by mid April. But lately we have had nights in the 50's and 60's and highs during the day any where from 70 - 80's.

This weather has made it very nice to be able to take care of the chores outside. There is always chores like letting the chickens out in the am and locking them up at night, making sure they have fresh water and enough food.

I am so thankful to have the responsibility of taking care of the chickens and our small garden because it takes me outside more than I might normally be out there. And I really enjoy it.

This Chicken to the right - is one of the chickens that lay the green or blue eggs. We love these chickens. I was trying to get a good photo so you all could see the pretty pattern on her.

Yesterday I spent some time changing out the hay in the chickens laying bins. My husband came up with a great way to do it. It is a lot easier on the back and I can do it by myself. It is fun to work on changing the dirty hay out for fresh clean hay. As I sat there working, I had several of my chickens come in and check out what I was doing. I tried to get some photos of them but my phone was taking weird colored photos. Don't know what the problem was.

And then today when I went to get some great photos of my chickens, I thought I would get a photo of some of the eggs that are in one of the bins. We have a 10 bin on each side of a small shed. So they have plenty of places to chose to lay their eggs. We have been averaging about 18 eggs a day. My husband has found a few eggs in places other than the bins. We have a couple of ceramic eggs that we bought from Cracker Barrel to put in a couple of the bins. Chickens tend to lay eggs where other eggs are at.
Alot of times I hear of people romanticizing the simple life style. I don't know if I would go that far, but I would have to say it is very therapeutic to be out in the yard taking care of the animals and the garden. And it gives me time to think and I think it brings me closer to God as I enjoy his blessings.

Here is a beautiful flower bed that my husband made for me about a year ago. There are rose bushes in the top section along with a few of the same flowers that you see on the lower level. I love the little birdbath that my boys bought me for Mother's Day about a year ago or so. As you can tell I need to get some water in it. I will do that in a few minutes. I have a few plants in my yard that need to be watered. Along with a few trees that we have bought but have not yet planted.

Here is our small garden. We have a long term plan as to what we want to do with our back yard to make a good sized garden but we had so much rain this year that we could not get the big equipment into the back yard that would be needed to do the work. But until then we are blessed to have a few plants that will provide fresh produce for our family.

Look at what I found when I was looking at my plants today?! Lots of yellow squash. We have 2 yellow squash plants. And we have 2 zucchini plants. And I found some baby zucchini's too!

And look we even have some cherry tomatoes. I LOVE cherry tomatoes. They are so good just to pull off the plant and pop in your mouth. Mmm, just thinking about it gets my mouth watering. We have 2 cherry tomato plants and 2 regular tomato plants. Oh and we have strawberry plants as well as a cucumber plant. Next year we are hoping to be able to add more of each of the plants that we have along with some beans, corn and okra. Probably a few more things - just nothing else coming to mind right now. I am sure my husband will want to have some cantaloupe and watermelon plants as well. I think I want to try to grow some herbs as well. We will see though. I don't want to over do it and have more to take care of then I can handle.

I wanted you to be able to see my yellow squash plants and how big their leafs are.

The pole there in the photo is one side of my clothes line. I am thankful to have it as well. I love to hang out clothes but do not hang things out all the time. I do love my dryer. But it is cool to use the line when I can and also when I wash up our quilts.
Well I think I have about talked your ear off so I will close for now. I hope you all have a wonderful day! And I hope that you have enjoyed a little tour of our back yard.

Balance of work and relaxation...

Chickens really know how to live. There is a clear balance between work and rest. A little work a little rest. They can teach me a lot of lessons - and they actually have. I love how they love to take dirt "baths" while at the same time pecking away at what is in the dirt around them. When my life is a bit stressful all I have to do is watch my chickens for a little bit and it just relaxes me. I love to have a chicken haven here in my back yard. God has really blessed us with bringing us to this piece of land that we have room to have our chickens and a garden. The garden is only small this year but we will be working slowly towards a bigger garden.
Today has been a nice day. I went walking with my Mom this morning. I was happy that I was able to get it in before my shower. That way I could feel fresh and clean the rest of the day - after my shower that is. I ran a couple of quick errands while I was out. It was nice to have those things taken care of. Then I came home and have been able to get laundry, vacuuming, sweeping, and organizing today. I really enjoy days that I am able to spend here at home taking care of our home.
I hope you all have had a great day as well!

Busy Day

Ok - I only have a few minutes right now. It has been a very busy day, but we have gotten a whole lot of things done. We were able to get our yard mowed, second time of the season already. We got a lot of yucky limbs cut from four trees in our yard. The trees look so much better now. We will have to keep up with doing that so that they will continue to grow upwards and not just out. Then we were able to get a flower bed weeded and cleaned out and a rose bush planted where one had died last year. We got my 4 "Garden Boxes" (putting quotations there because they are the actual ones) moved to where we wanted them. We went and got some wonderful dirt out of some garden boxes that we had in the area that we fenced in for the chickens. Let me tell you those chickens love the garden boxes. So we are just going to take what ever dirt we need out of there and leave that area for them. We also got a lot of weed eating done around the yard. Oh I love our new weed eater. It is a Black and Decker "Grass Hog" It is light weight and easy to start and use. It is wonderful.

Then we went to Lowes and Home Depot to get plants and some stuff we needed. Then my husband built me a 2 X 4 foot garden box for us to plant our tomato plants in. I think he is going to make me another box later this week. We have not had time to get anything planted. The day ended before we had a chance to do that. Anyway our yard looks so much better. There is more work to be done but we will continue to work on the things throughout the week.

Above is a photo of my chickens enjoying the garden box after Jason took some dirt out of it.

Freedom

This morning my husband and our son were able to get the fence extended out to the back fence. When we took down the fencing keeping the girls in their original pin. Several of the chickens came and lined up right there were the grass was growing and started eating. Before too long several more chickens noticed the others and came to check it out. Not too long after that they started moving out to where a clover patch was. Oh they were happy girls. Life is good for them.
My husband and I walked back to the back fence to check things out and cut a few branches off of some of the trees growing back there and we turned around and there were 4 of our chickens following us out there.
I will leave you with a few of the photos of them enjoying their new found freedom!

A beautiful day..

Today has been such a beautiful day! The sun has been shining and the tempatures have been in the upper 60's. These are the type days that really make me love living here in Texas. I was able to go on a walk with my Mom and that was really nice. I really needed the exercise, fresh air and sunshine.

Tomorrow will be the big day for my Chickies. We will be putting up the fencing so that they can have a much bigger area in which to enjoy life. The last two days we have gotten 5 eggs a day. Oh and we got our first full sized egg yesterday and when I cracked it this morning - I found a double yoke inside! I wonder what causes it to do that - anyone know?

Our Chickens

Last October we decided to get chickens again. So we ordered 25 chickens. Why did you order 25 chickens you ask? Well we wanted to make sure that we only got Hens and it is best to order 25 at a time so that they travel better. Anyway we got them the middle of October. During the first couple of months we ended up losing 4 chickens. Some kind of eye infection got them. We started doctoring any of the chickens that we noticed had the infection and giving them all some antibiotic in their water. And Praise the Lord we were able to get rid of that infection and save the rest of the chickens. There for a while we were a little worried that we would lose a lot more of them. They are now 5 months old. Yesterday my husband and I cleaned out their laying bins and my nosy chickens had to come and see what we were doing.

We have a small shed that we have a 10 box laying bins on each side of the shed. This has worked well for many years. We actually got our first chickens about 8 years ago. We had decided to get rid of them about 1 1/2 ago, but regretted it later. We decided to fence a part of our back yard for the chickens so that we can still have a garden and the chickens can have their own part of the yard.

Last week we found our first two eggs! How exciting is that?!! Our chickens are 5 months old now. And we have been getting anywhere from 2 - 4 eggs a day. Most of them are still small. But as they lay more the eggs will get bigger. It is so fun to go gather eggs. We are so glad that we decided to get chickens again.

This week we decided that they need more space than what we gave them so we have decided to get more fencing and take the fence from the back of the house all the way back to the back fence. That way they will have about 1/3 of our back yard. We will still have plenty of room for a garden and what ever else we want back there.