The Sun Has Arrived

The Snow has stopped and the Winds have ceased. The Sun is shining at our house and all is well. Our driveway only has one serious drift and it is only a couple of feed deep. We plowed through it with no problems yesterday going in and out of our drive.

My DH on his mail route enjoyed busting through deep snow drifts to deliver the mail yesterday. Unfortunately, the drifts ended up in the back seat. He learned his lesson, you don't plow through drifts at high speeds with your window down.

Collette looks so close to kidding but still no changes in her udder. It is suppose to get down to 6 degrees tonight, so that means 0 or -1 for us. I hope she holds off until much warmer weather.

On the lighter side; I wore some new cologne to Church last night and when my DH got in the Truck with me he asked, "Do you smell Diesel?".

How about some pictures?

Our new $300 hay feeder.

Going to Roost!

The beginnings of a storm.

Thawing Chicken

Awhile back my Hubby thought that I had some missing hens but it turned out that they were all here. This time I hate to say that it is true. On the night of the big snow and ice storm the chickens had been in the barn all day. That evening my DH herded them out of the barn and sent them on their way to the goat/chicken shed. We were on our way to the neighbor's for supper.

They always go to the goat/chicken shed without any problems, so we didn't think to check on them to make sure that they all had made it. I really don't know why they didn't make it to the shed but we didn't know there was a problem until the next day.

My Son came to get one of our blazers and when they dug it out of the snow, started it and moved it into the driveway, a Barred Rock Hen ran out from under it. Her feathers were ruffled and she was covered in ice. My Husband caught her and took her to the shed and placed her on the roost.

A short time later my Grandson was out playing in the snow when he came running into the house saying that Elvis, my Polish Rooster was in trouble, he thought he was dying or dead. My DH went out and found him lying in the snow barely alive. He brought him to the house and he had so much ice on his head that his neck could not support it. He would not have survived much longer.

My Husband discovered that he might have missed his calling, maybe he should have been a chicken stylist.

After Elvis was thoroughly thawed out, he was immediately back to his old self and jumped on a hen.

After the Barred Rock Hen was thawed out with the hair dryer as well, I went to count heads. We were missing a Silver Laced Wyandotte Hen, we searched under everything that we thought a hen might hide under from the freezing rain and sleet. As you can see, it was hard to look everywhere.

I guess that when they had tried to make it back to the goat/chicken shed that night they just chickened out and didn't want to walk through the freezing rain and sleet, so they just hid under something, then the snow that night trapped them.

I counted heads again last night and one of my Golden Comets is missing too. I must have overlooked her the other night when I counted. I guess we won't find them until the snow and ice melts, there might yet be hope if they are under the goat/chicken shed because grain falls through the cracks in the floor.

This morning my Mille Fleur Bantam Hen was bleeding profusely from her toe. I brought her in the house and her toenail as well as the tip of her toe was hanging loose. I tore it the rest of the way off and tried to stop the bleeding but it was hard to get stopped.

The temperature was -10 here this morning. I am thinking that her foot must have gotten frozen to the roost last night. After about 30 minutes of bleeding I finally got some cobwebs, wadded them up and applied them to the toe and that did the job.

-10 this morning and 45 degrees this afternoon, this must be Indiana. Angus is doing very well, he has a wonderful appetite now and I am trying my best to keep him from scouring. He keeps wanting me to play with him and I am just not up to it.

A Day Off

My DH had a rare day off today, so the neighbor and I put him to work. We were barely out of bed this morning when the neighbor called for some help with a large dead tree that was threatening his barn. They managed to get it down without damaging anything but one top strand of a barb wire fence.

I got my DH to move one of the roosts in the goat/chicken shed and to build a bridge for the hens to walk comfortably to all three nesting boxes. We also ran to town to get ten bags of BOSS (black oil sunflower seeds) that we had ordered a few months ago.

The goats and chickens have been without BOSS for over a week and I can tell a difference in egg and milk production. I know that the colder weather will affect egg production but I am anxious to see if the BOSS makes any difference. I am only getting four eggs a day now and some of the shells have been very thin.

Tomorrow is Veteran's Day, so my Husband doesn't have to work tomorrow either. I need to make a list of things for him to do, but I guess I'll give him the day off since he is a Veteran.

Name That Chicken

Here are some pictures of my new hens. I think that I know what breeds they all are, but I am not a chicken expert. Cruella is pretty easy to identify. Can you guess who Cruella is?

I have seven of these lacy chickens:


Four of these young barred hens:


Three of these red hens:

...and only one of these:



She makes me laugh every time I look at her.

My Egg production is really up, we got 9 eggs on Tuesday and 6 yesterday. We are sure that we aren't finding all of the eggs because the new hens don't know where to lay yet. I even found one egg lying in the middle of the driveway.

They are having a hard time figuring out where to roost too. Some of them have been roosting on the tractor, some in the horse trailer, some on the spare tire or the tongue of the horse trailer, some on the kid's toy four-wheelers, Cruella even roosted on the grill one night.

Each night since they have arrived, we have had to go on a chicken hunt after dark to find them and take them to the goat/chicken shed to put them to roost out there. One of the lacy hens has totally eluded us every night, we have not been able to find her, but she always shows up the next morning. There was even one on the passenger side floorboard of my DH's mail vehicle. We had left the window open and she helped herself to a nice safe place, he was a little annoyed about the chicken poo that she left behind.