Up with the Chickens

I was up with the chickens this morning; It was a bit chilly there was some ice in the chicken water, but still nice and sunny. It's hard to believe that they (the chickens) have been around for a year now. Jen ordered the 25 (they sent us 26) last year and they arrived the end of April 2009. They resided in our office for a few weeks,(that was an adventure) then were moved out to the old dog pen.

So it's a year later, we are down to 22 chickens - a pretty good survival rate. Two Roosters and two hens died due to "fowl play". We currently have three hen's attempting to "sit & hatch" but I am not really certain of their success. One poor hen keeps changing boxes she's got a complex about the empty nest next to her having more eggs than what she is sitting on; so she moves to the box with more eggs.

This has resulted in extreme frustration for her, since it was decided that with this behavior all eggs found beneath her must be removed. When evicted from the nest she fluffs herself up and makes this pitiful clucking and wanders around complaining. Those of us that get the "baby wants" can empathize with her.

This morning I was attempting to get the garden ready for planting and was removing some planters etc. The chickens were so excited they waited for me to move something then when the moist dirt was revealed they would race to scratch and find what ever type of grubs they could. It is really quite amusing, kind of like watching Australian Rules Football, the way they race around after the one who finds the "goodies" and then chase around trying to steal it from each other.