Chicken Blog

Apparently Christen was not happy with the name I gave Petard so she made me change it.  That’s fine because after a few new suggestions that were rejected, I ended up with Carl.  I don’t think she likes that one either, but it seems to be sticking.

In non-related news, our banana plant is flowering.  It’s pretty exciting because we didn’t expect it on this plant because it is much smaller than the plant we have in the corner of the yard. 

That has continued to be their preferred method of exiting the deck.  I guess even chickens like to have some fun and excitement from time to time.

We have EGGS!!!

Eggs in nesting box

We weren’t expecting any eggs for another couple of weeks and three of them laid eggs today! The chickens are 21 weeks old today.  They usually start laying after 22 weeks.  We don’t know which three laid them since the Barred Rock and Black Australorp eggs look the same (light brown).  We can only say that Miss Prissy didn’t lay one.  BA’s lay 4-5 a week and BR’s lay 3-4 a week.  Polish lay cream colored eggs and their laying habbits vary, but they tend not to lay many.

As you can see, the eggs are smaller than normal chicken eggs.  This is common for the first lay.  They will get bigger as they lay more eggs. 

Here are Mom and Dad watching me from the neighbor’s roof

Mr. Jingles had a harrowing experince last week…  Josh opens up their house door in the morning when he leaves for work, giving them access to their fenced-in run.  Well, later that morning the dogs got me up to let them out, so I opened the door and hear Avery bark as she runs out.  I turned back to yell at her to come back in and I see Mr. Jingles about five feet in the air with Avery right behind her.  They were on the other side of the yard from where the chicken run is located.  Well, I was not dressed appropriately to run outside (although the neighbors would have had a story to tell for years to come), so I ran back to my room to get covered up and ran back outside only to find Avery staring into the chicken pen.  I wondered if she ate her quickly or if Jingles jumped our fence and was on the lam in the neighborhood.  I looked into the pen and counted six chickens.  She had somehow gotten turned around and back to the other side of the yard and into the pen in about ten seconds.  After a bit of investigation, I found that she escaped by hopping onto the pullet house and then hopping over the fence.  I still don’t know how she got back in.  At any rate the birds all got their wings clipped that night.

Here they are trying to get the corn

Jaden loves the chicks.  Here she is enjoying watching them walk around her.