Finally a sunny day. I know it’s early but it feels like spring. I treated the hens to their first watermelon and they loved it.
I tried getting pictures of them but when I am in the coop they are preoccupied with me and would not go to the melon.
These pictures I took while watching them on the iMac. Those silly hens!
The rind was all that was left when I visited them later in the day.
I have two dogs that are on a feeding schedule. If I’m running late, they will follow me around. Will paw at me, might whine, or dance about. Reminding me that it is time for them to eat. The hens are the same way. If I am running late, they pace back and forth in the run. They charge me as I enter the coop.
Once feed, the dogs are content. They will go lie down, lick their chops, groom themselves, and take a nap. The hens are the same. After eating they will roost, preen, maybe have a dust bath and a snooze. I suppose they are like us humans, content after a full belly.
Overnight we had wind driven snow fall of about 18″ and it is still coming down. I watch the hens on the in-house cam as they paced about and wondered where I was. By late morning there was a path shoveled out to the coop. I bring out their fresh vegetables and greens. I open the door (they normally fly out) but they won’t come out. They look about and wonder what that white stuff is. With the roof on the coop there’s just a dusting on the ground in the run. They won’t come out.
I put their greens in the hen house, close the door and continue to monitor them on the hen cam. Maybe they will venture out later.
They did not come out at all on Sunday. Why should they? They have all the comforts of home in that henhouse!
With my first winter forthcoming and after much research, I finally have the water heater to get us through the winter. There is such a variety out there. I have a small flock and small henhouse so keeping the heater in proportion was critical to me. I purchased a 9″ round galvanized metal fount heater. It requires a 40 watt appliance bulb. It can be used with my existing one gallon plastic fount.
I also bought a thermostatically controlled outlet (Thermo Cube). It plugs into a standard electrical outlet. It will turn on and off according to the air temperature. When the air temperature falls below 35 degrees F, the Thermo Cube will turn on and turn itself off when the air temp reaches 45 degrees F. Pretty cool, huh!
So, as winter approaches, no worries of freezing water. The water heater will keep the henhouse a tad warmer too!
We had a near escape today. It is a glorious day. I was working in the garden all morning, cutting back, putting the fountain to bed for the season and caging and securing my small evergreens for the winter. I collected three eggs this morning but one of the girls did not lay. Mid afternoon the clucking began so I knew that I had one more egg. When I took a break, I brought the girls a treat. You know how they charge me at the coop door. Well, before I knew it, me and three were inside and one girl was outside, looking so pretty and munching the green grass. Bob was at the arbor fixing the gate door. I yelled for him to come help, but as he came about pretty girl ran off. I knew enough to calmly entice and shoe her with treats back into the coop. This episode only lasted seconds, but all I could think about was a coyote or neighbor dog coming out of the woods. I have no pictures to show, but it was another
adventure in raising backyard chickens!
There’s some new gadgets in the coop. I’ve been looking for a proper feed tray and haven’t found anything I like. In one tray I keep the dry food; laying pellets, cracked corn, oats, seeds, etc. In the other tray, I put kitchen scraps; pasta, vegetables, lettuce, etc. The problems been dirt gets into the feed trays when the girls scratch up the sand. That may not bother them but it bothers me.
So, I bought two 9″ round cake pans and my husband grometted them together back to back. It works out perfectly because it gives the tray height, is the right size for the four hens to feed at once and is easy to clean.
There’s a new roost in the coop too. Bob built a portable roost from scrap wood. The hens were a little suspicious until they realized it was for their comfort and viewing pleasure. Yes, the girls are spoiled, but they give us back plenty in entertainment, joy and of course, fresh eggs!
My hens are curious and cautious creatures. If I should bring anything new into the coop they will give it the one eye and cluck about as if to say “What’s that?? What’s that??” They will walk about it and check it out gingerly from a distance. This goes on for hours. Today it was a pumpkin with its top cut off. I removed some of the seed and filled it with cracked corn. I get excited bringing them out something new, so I watch from the window or thru my coop cam.
Finally one girl will trepidly approach the foreign object and discover that it is a good treat after all. She will tell the others and then it’s a hen feeding frenzy. It’s fun to change up their diet and expose them to different food items. With the change in season, like us, they should be eating the freshest crops being harvested from the garden.
The hens are going on thirteen weeks old. I will start the process of weaning them from Gro-Cal mash to Layer pellets. This will prepare them for egg production.