Backyard Farmgals

How many of you have heard about a chicken tractor?  If you are not in the know, it is a marvelous idea: a mobile home for chickens that you can move around a yard (large or small), giving your chickens opportunity to range without wandering far off.    We have seventy chickens at the farm.  With so many girls, we occasionally get an injured or picked on bird.  These girls need a sanctuary away from the pecking order that can become vicious and eventually deadly for a chicken that isn't quite normal.  These girls that need a little extra TLC end up in my backyard.  If they can rehabilitate they are eventually moved back to the farm.  We have a few that can't go back, and they become permanent residents.  We have a blind chicken named Helen and a chick with hip dysplasia named Dot.  These two girls will stay here forever.  I have a small yard, 0.25-acre, and these rehab girls make a marvelous mess of my little plot.  We als...

Cluckingham Palace is near complete!!!  You can imagine my joy...even more so, you can imagine the chickens' joy!!!  It really is a palace: complete with curtains, photos of the royal family, Union Jack, and writing table with lamp.  Oh!  So!  Spoiled!!!  The girls love it.  Yay!!! They really enjoy their nesting boxes.  They are based on an old Amish nesting box design.  I found and old antique box and the hubby built boxes to match.  The boxes are cozy and warm, and they love to pile in them and squawk and lay and squawk some more!   There is an old antique orchard ladder that the girls perch on while they look at photos of the royal family and mutter back and forth, "God save the Queen" and that kind of talk.  My mom and I made curtains for the coop complete with giant turquoise rick rack.  They are so cute!!!  How many chickens do you know with curtains on the window and a pink chandelier h...

Honey bee taking advantage of the sage blossoms in the garden. Time flies by and our darling baby girls are now teenagers with attitude (I'm not kidding)!  They are getting personalities as well as all of their "big girl" feathers.  They are still on chick grow feed.  At the farm store the other day, I learned that some people actually keep their girls on chick grow until they are about fourteen weeks, then they switch to mash.  After several batches of chickens, I am still learning! Along with growing feathers and such, their smell also grows!  I am having to change their house about twice each week and that still isn't enough.  Lucky for me, I am able to keep them in the garage.  If they were in the house, we would be in trouble.  For such small little fluffy things, they can sure be foul (haha). The building of the new coop, "Cluckingham Palace" (complete with pink chandelier), has been put on emergency status and we have been working on i...