Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Gizzard

We now have three ducks running around the chicken yard.  Ping, Sonny, and Filbert.  Or as my mom called her, Gizzard.  So now the duck is eternally Gizzard.  If you read my sisters blog you will see that she has to give the ducks water.  Which my chickens drink.  So I don't have to give the chickens water....  Happy dance!  So Shelby is ticked.  She was told that she would only have to give them water twice a week.  I said twice a day.  I was pretty close.  So now that there are three ducks they will consume 50% more water than usual.  Do the math.  It works.  So guess what?  We got pools.  Little kiddie pools for the ducks.  Son now Shelby doesn't have to haul a 15lb. drinker to the coop, and the ducks get a pool to, poop, swim, splash, poop, and drink in.  Happy ducks.  Here are some duck pics.

Ducks.
"HI!  WE'RE DUCKS!"
I have decided that the ducks scream everything.
They do!

"WATER!"

The chickens checking out the pools.
 
Parker

Thursday, March 19, 2015

Chicken fence

If you have had naughty baby chickens you know one of the reasons we built the fence.  EVERYBODY says that if you leave chickens in the coop for 4 days they go back into the coop on their own.  I am here to tell you that they are WRONG.  Chickens don't do that. Sure they go in on their on eventually.  But not for the first week.  Oh no.  The first week it is a crusade of chasing little rebellious teenage chickens through 47 acres of land.  Fun.  I don't know why but for the first week they hate the coop.  Last time we let out new chickens into the world we spent half the night chasing them all over a briar infested hill.  Fun.  So that is when, yours truly (me), gets to put up the makeshift fence.  Fun.

So that is one reason we are putting up the fence.  Another is so that Dad can grow grass without the chickens eating all the seed.

But this fence is going to be nice.  A real gate!  Posts!  Were talking permanent!

Parker

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Pooping stump

One day my siblings are up at the cow barn playing.  The girls are playing some kind of pioneer game and my little brother (4) is off doing whatever he does when no one is talking to him.  (Probably talking.)

Later my little brother walks up to Shelby (2) and says, "Hey Shelby, Want to see my pooping stump?"  

She said, "One. No. And two.  You have a pooping stump?!"

It turns out he does have a pooping stump.  I have seen it.  There is no cover around it.  It is a free standing stump next to a tree and completely visible to the house, cow barn, half the driveway, and the front and side yard.




Fast forward six months.

We are at the ball field for a practice.  My little brother decides he needs to go to the bathroom.  We try two bathroom areas.  Boys and girls bathrooms.  A total of 4.  All locked.  I ask him if he has too go number one or number two.  Number two.

"We're hosed."  Then I notice some woods.  I ask him if he can go in there.

He asked, "Are there any stumps?"

Now if there were stumps all would have been well with the world.  Though some bushes would have been nice too.

But I say, "Probably not.  Why can't you just squat?"

He says, "Last time I did that I got poop in my undies."

Lovely.  But there wasn't enough cover in the woods anyways.  We go back to my mom and tell her all the bathrooms were locked.  She asks if he has to go number 1 or 2.  2.  Great.  But some nice people pointed us in the right direction to a bathroom and we were all happy.

Parker

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Shade

I got a new cat.  How you may ask?  Well my Mom and I were at the barn when I saw this black fluffy cat.  We tried to get close but she ran off.  Later my Mom saw the cat go near the chicken coop.  I went to check it out but of course I couldn't get close to her.  So I set a live animal trap with sardines. At first she was just scraping them out and eating them.  She wouldn't go in the cage.  So I made a trail leading in the cage and it worked!  She went in the cage and the door closed behind her.  Instant cat!  My Mom and I took her back to the house and put her in a dog kennel for the night.  She had food and water.  The next day we brought her in and gave her a bath.  She did not enjoy that.  Afterwards the vet came and vaccinated her.  She even got some de-wormer.  Now she is living in the house until she gets used to us.  But she is already really friendly.  As you might be able to tell from the title I named her Shade.  I currently don't have any good pictures of her right now so I'll need to get some up.

Parker

Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Baby Peepers! Again.

Ok so I am at home and I get a call from my mom and she says,  "You might want to prepare for some new guests."  I ask her if they are chickens and she says she got six. 
baby blended

So I go out to the barn to get hay and supplies so we can keep them in the house away from the cold.  I walk in the house.  I see two chick holders.  There should be one.  Turns out Mom got 4 chicks and........  Wait for it..... The suspense......  Is it killing you yet????  Here it is........  2 baby ducks!  Ping and Sonny.  Shelby has Ping and my little brother has Sonny.  I didn't name the ducks.  The duck lovers did.  Ping has adopted Shelby as his mom.  So Ping follows Shelby everywhere. 

ping13
Especially since they put a diaper on the duck and let is run around the house.  No offence to you people that put diapers on their fowl but....  Weird.  So the house has been invaded by ducks.  I think baby chickens are cuter.  You decide!

Ping.
ping 1

Or chicks.


baby chick 3
My cat still isn't sure about the duck.
ping8


Parker

Snow

We have 6 or more inches of snow outside.  It has been there for over a week.  Now the surface is frozen so we can walk on top of it.  Though it makes chores a little harder.  Like how the ATV gets stuck at every turn!  Ugh.  The chickens are slowly overcoming their fear of snow.  I might just have to go and put them in it.  I did that with one chicken and now she is used to the snow.  1 down 17 to go.

Winter break was last week so we had a laid back week of school, snow, fires, and movies.  Though I am glad that doesn't happen every week.  It is a little overwhelming.  And the -22 degree weather.  Well..... -22 with wind chill.  But still cold enough to give you frostbite.

Crumple and Faith are seperated again.  Crumple is NOT having fun.  We are back to pacing the fence and mooing.