October 22, 2009
Out of the 21 Rhode Island Red hatchery pullets I bought last spring, I was hoping one might turn out to be a mistaken rooster. And these ladies are so assertive that more than once I thought I did have a rooster, with the way they spar, and mount each other! But, I finally decided it wasn’t the case- I have sixteen hens left, and no sire amongst them. So, I have been on a quest for a RIR roo!
September 14, 2009
Well, not summer camp exactly. But I just got back from a four-day trip to Corvallis, OR to attend the Katahdin Hair Sheep International Expo and Sale. I really enjoyed it, they had great farm tours, speakers, and a sheep sale. I bought a few sheep too! I’ll try to write about the highlights, as best as I can capture all that I absorbed there.
August 18, 2009
My parents animal-sat while we were on vacation. I didn’t ask them to hunt for eggs in the yard, of course, and had almost forgotten about the two tiny chicken eggs we’d found the week before. But, yesterday the distinctive “bu-KAWK! buck-buck-buck bu-KAWK!” sound of a chicken complaining while laying eggs made me look behind the crawlspace entrance, from where the sound was emanating. There were eleven, still tiny, brown eggs collected there. 
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August 9, 2009
One of our chickens has started to lay, this was the first of two eggs we’ve found. They are usually tiny like this when the bird first starts to lay (the scale of the picture is hard to see, but I have small hands, this egg is about half normal size). We have Rhode Island Red chickens, which lay brown eggs. But this first egg looked funny- the brown pigment wasn’t consistent, so it looked like it had been airbrushed on.
I bought the chickens as day-olds around April 10th. So, this is a bit early for the beginning of laying- I would expect it more around 5-6 months of age. Hopefully that means they are going to be prolific layers!
July 25, 2009
This morning, I witnessed this funny little inter-species drama. The cat had caught a mouse, and was lording over her dead prize. The chicken wanted it. Our chickens can be a bit confrontational, I say, they aren’t “chicken” about anything. Here you can see the chicken is posturing to the cat in a tense and threatening way, and the cat is reacting with annoyance. A few times the chicken pecked at the cat, and the cat swatted back. They were definitely having an argument. (more…)
