To everyone who celebrates – have a Happy and Blessed Easter Weekend. We’ll be spending ours having an Easter Egg hunt on the farm for the kids (mine and some of my nieces and nephews) and a dinner in the early part of the evening. I don’t know if all the prep for that will be conductive to us going to church, but if we do, our church has a sunrise service every Easter.
And I may make scrambled eggs for the spoiled birds, because they love it so much.
Speaking of spoiled birds… yesterday marked the Australorps and Orpingtons 3rd week in our care.
IF you click on the image above and look real closely, it looks like I’ve got 4 baby roos and 2 little hennies out of both groups. I could be wrong (hopefully I AM) but some of those combs look very pronounced. Some of them certainly act like roos. They rush each other and chest butt each other. Yeah, there’s roos in this brooder bunch. I’m just hoping there’s hennies as well.
Across the way in the coop, Pip turned 17 Weeks today.
These days, Pip spends a lot of time in the coop, either in the window or in the roosts. When he ventures outside, his papa (Dots, our rooster), chases him away mostly with a look and a growl. They have not butted heads yet (or claws/beaks) but Dots is definitely establishing some kind of New World Order for Pip to follow.
No eating where we eat.
No bothering my hens.
And you can only roost with us at night if you sleep next to your Momma.
*sigh* Yes, the only time Pip sleeps on the roosts (as opposed to the window ledge) is when he sleeps next to Abby. She still tolerates him at night. Abby is a good momma.
Pip,however, is finding it difficult to follow all of his Papa’s rules. He’s developed a bit of a crush/fixation on one of the hens.
This little lady is Riley. She’s the girl that Pip is infatuated with.
He’s made several attempts in the last couple of weeks to mate with her.
They are clumsy, awkward attempts that involve chasing and the pulling of feathers.
She bit him last week after one said attempt. He sulked.
This morning I witnessed him actually make it on top of her, only to wobbly off before something could happen. Mostly because, instead of crouching to submit, Riley stood up and Pip lost his balance. Riley is, actually, one of my bigger hens. I haven’t weighed her with a scale, but I pick up as many of my birds as I can every day, and she definitely feels heavier than most in my arms. At any rate, she’s bigger than him by a long shot.
So Riley stands up, Pip loses his balance and rolls off over the top of her head.
I laughed, because what else can you do? She didn’t bite him this time, but honestly, look at that face? Is that the face of a happily woo’ed woman?
Finally… The Fence Is Happening!!!!
It’s spring, the ground is thawed enough and our income tax money is ours to spend. DH started the fence last week with material we already have, and picked up the rest of it today. Hopefully, it won’t be too much longer and my little birds can roam free without me fearing their lives to the road. Squashed, mangled bodies and bloody feathers floating on the wind is nothing I want to live through AGAIN.
Of course, The Fence means no more ‘free range chickens.’ I’ll have to start calling them ‘pasture raised’ or ‘pasture fed’ or something with a pasture in the name… but that’s a small price to pay to keep them all relatively safe.
There a Chick 