Monday, July 13, 2015

Chicken Explorers

A couple of days ago I decided to allow the chickens to free range, well, within the confines of the donkey yard.  We can't let the girls wander hither, thither, and yon because of the dogs.  But for a bit of time they were allowed a bit of freedom.

Sheets were hung on the front gate to prevent them from hopping through the bars.
Quite elegant looking, don't you agree?


They had quite the time investigating weeds, but apparently donkey poop was not of interest.


All four girls were totally intrigued with the straw chaff left by three wasteful donkeys.


Ruby Dee, in the back, is our first girl to lay.  Two little eggs are in the frig now.  As I took the second one out of the nest box today she craned her head up to look in the empty box and appeared quite perplexed and, could she have been dismayed?  I felt quite the scoundrel.



A lovely close-up of Golda Meir.

Let me add a little side story here.  After I let them loose, I settled in nearby to do some brutal trimming on one of the lilac bushes.  Its just a few feet from a wild mulberry bush.  Well, golly, now two days later I am covered in bug bites.  And I mean covered.  Rick believes they might be chigger bites.  I read that chiggers like to live near berry bushes.  Hmmm...  
Itching like crazy.  I'm vowing to never trim that goll darn bush again!

5 comments:

  1. I believe that chiggers are the spawn of satan. When we use to visit our grandparents in Oklahoma we'd get eaten alive by them.

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  2. Your little farmyard is growing and looking good. Your hens are so pretty and I love the names you've picked out. Oh, I've been eaten by chiggers before too. Around here people call them red bugs. One of my older hens died this week. It was sad.

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    Replies
    1. How old was she, Melba? I'm already becoming attached to my little brood, can't even think about their relatively short lives...

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  3. Great article, Thanks for your great information, the content is quiet interesting. I will be waiting for your next post.

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