Acceptance...

Life is good on Ranch de la Richter! I have introduced 4 new hens that are 2 months old now to the rest of the flock. The eat, sleep and roost together. As you can see in this picture Ms. Claus, the Araucana, is teaching little Sunny how to dust herself properly and completely obliterate my mulch. The older Aunties are doing so well with the little ones. Aside from a little henpecking at night when they goto roost they are doing great. I think the only problem, which really might not be a big issue, is that the older hens want to eat all of the 'baby food'. I think they are just pigs with wings. Anyway, I am really pleased with the way things are going here. Maxie, our 2 year old Shih Tzu, thinks that perhaps she is some kind of herding dog or a chicken for that matter. Wherever they might end up Maxie is always somewhere in the mix. I don't know if it is the free chicken poop snacks that they leave laying around or if she really enjoys playing the part of a chicken. At any rate it is really cute.

New Family Members/ Coop Ad On

Where do I start. We have been very busy with our little urban farm. Our class project hatched 17 chicks and we kept 6 of them for ourselves. 2 Roosters (the two dark chicks above) from our 6 went to a nice new home today in Rio Rico, Arizona and I am looking forward to keeping up with their lives. So now I am left with 4 new hens. They are beautiful and developing their own little personalities. We also have had a very broody Buff Orpington who was sitting on a baseball. Wow- did that baseball get some big love from her. I think she sat on that thing for a week before I started to feel bad about denying her maternal/hormonal needs so I got a half dozen fertilized eggs from a farmer around the corner and slid them under her. Talk about content and dedication. We ended up with 3 more chicks from her hatch a couple of weeks ago and they are beautiful. Last week we also took in a pretty little chick from another class hatch. Life is good in the chicken department.

To make room for our new family members and to make it easier for Vanessa while we are gone this summer I put an addition on the coop. About 8x12' and used all materials that I essentially went dumpster diving for, alley hunting and freecycling. All but the shade cloth that was so necessary to buy at ACE. Don't want to come out to fried chicken this summer- it will be brutal heat for them but this area was built under a Palo Verde tree (about 30-40' tall) and provides ample shade but you can never be too careful. The shade cloth will also act as a line of defense for any predators. Knock on wood, we have been doing very well with the exception of an occasional annoying pack rat. Snap trap loaded with peanut butter seems to handle that problem pretty well.

Off to bed. Still love being a chicken lady and taking a bunch of crap from my dear friend Brooke in Cape Coral, Florida. Seems like she is awfully hungry for chicken wings on a frequent basis.