Hens With Jobs

Here is a picture of the front of the chicken yard. About 10 or 15 years ago I planted some hops to grow over this fence to keep the area cool and hide the chicken wire fence and top. Now the hops grow so thick in the summer the chickens can't see out except for in places I pull the hops away. You can see one little window I've cleared. Each year the plants can grow as much as 15 feet to cover the chicken wire that is over the top of the yard. This works great because in the winter the hops die back to the ground and the chickens get the warm sun.

I really dislike keeping the chickens in a coop. They should be out scratching and picking around the yard. My three little silkies are loose in the yard but I never get any eggs because the Magpie birds we have in the neighborhood eat them all before I have a chance to collect them. In order to get eggs from our new hens they most be confined to the coop. So, like the saying goes, if you can't bring Mohammad to the mountain you bring the mountain to Mohammad.

This week I started a new layer of "stuff" from the barn. I'm almost always cleaning the straw, hay, and sheep poo out of the sheep's side of the barn. So it goes to the chickens to give them something to scratch and pick threw. If it's kept moist it starts to break down.

With all the rain lately the last bunch of stuff I put in here was ready to be cleaned out. Can you believe in a two week period we've had over two inches of rain at our place, and the Reno area gets 7 inches of rain per year on a good year!

The hens have been using their roto-tilling skills to break the organic matter to a fine texture. With the big rains if I dig in the soil the chickens have a new project of finding earth worms and keeping their numbers under control.

At the feed store last week I found a few more pullet chicks that were looking for a home. Sort of left overs, poor gals. There are two Rhode Island Reds, one Buff Orpington and a Wyandotte. There was no place to put them until I discovered an old rabbit cage works great. Scrap hay from around the hay bales on the bottom a bowl for food and a bowl of dirt from the yard so they can hone their scratching skills before they are turned in with the others. By the end of the day the hay and poo have fallen threw the wire bottom and you just start over.

For all the work the chickens have been doing I am blessed with a pile of beautiful compost for our flowers! Not exatly the easy way to get compost but the hens and I are happier about chickens living in a coop.

February

February has been loaded with work, fun and excitement! The most thrilling thing is our new fence! You know the saying if life throws you lemons make lemonade, well here is my lemonade! 3000 feet of five foot no-climb horse fence. This encloses our 10 acre parcel next to us and the 4-5 acres at the top of our property we live on that was never fenced.

A big Thank You goes to Juan Padilla of "Juan's Lawn Service" for a job well done. We would have never done this, but when our Livestock Guardian Dog Jake was "arrested" for being a dangerous dog we went looking for money to hire a lawyer. When Bob's Mom passed away about 8 years ago and we sold her house bought this land and had a small annuity. Well "Wall Street" was spending the annuity for us so we took the money and invested in our own economy and built a fence. Jake has 21 acres to run and the peanut JoBeth can't even get out.

This property has loads of grasses brush and perennial plants to feed my flock all summer! There are also large Poplar trees on the land for shade in the summer and leaves to eat in the fall. The picture below is my new gate from the sheep pen to their new acreage.

Speaking of sheep on February 28, last Saturday there was a large flock reduction happening! David Armer sheared my shetland flock, reducing their size to about half! With the help of my friend Jeannette the three of us spent from 9 AM to 7 PM shearing 28 shetlands. David is a student at UNR and has been involved with llamas most of his young life. Jeannette raises alpaca so I was the only sheep person. We sheared them on a stand. It was slow going but no major cuts happened and they look wonderful.

These picture were taken today, one week later and the temperature is 25 degrees. We got a foot and a half of snow the other day and the sheep are all doing very well. They have straw in the barn and the sun is a blessing in the mornings.

Their little bodies are so darling!

Hattie, below, is just the cutest thing! She does stand square and her shoulders and butt are so broad. She is a coming two year old and should have a lamb or two in there somewhere.

Oma's straight top line broad stance and full of babies. She will be three and this is her second lambing.

This is Pepper like in Pepper Potts "Iron Man's" girl Friday. She is not bred and will be one year old this April.

Now meet Hazel. Also a yearly this April. I completely lost her hogget fleece. Well almost all. What happened? Poor David could not get his clippers threw most of the fleece so he sheared above this tangled mess. There is what looks like about a half inch of fleece that is stuck down to her body. If I sit and pull on it the fleece puffs up to about two inches. Now it is loosening up on its own somewhat. This is her hogget fleece and very soft. We don't get much rain and she was not coated. There is one other ewe, Kess a dark moorit, I have that had a bit of this happen. This is her second shearing.

When the weather warms up I'll need to give them a bath and re-cut their fleeces.

I have some new pullets. They came to live here about three weeks ago. Jeannette traded some of her Egyptian Geese for these young just starting to lay pullets. Five Barred Rocks and one black hen maybe a Black Australorp?

We've been getting two to four eggs per day, I share with Jeannette, and Sally the emu is still making a showing every third day!

Lastly I've been dyeing roving to sell on my new Etsy Store and I must say it is selling very well.

The "Feed the Flock Fund" paid for the shearing. Now with the new land to graze I'd like to be able to save enough money with the sales of my roving for next winters hay.