Chickens

All posts tagged Chickens

Rainy day projects

Posted by kenleighacres on March 21, 2012
Posted in: Chickens, Farm Life, Fiber, Jacob Sheep. Tagged: , , , , , , . 6 Comments

I have been singing ‘Rain, rain, go away…come again another day’ all day long, but it doesn’t seem to be working.

Today is the first day of Spring, but it feels more like a good ol’ NW winter day…cold and gray.

Part of me would like to crawl into bed and stay there until the sun is shining again, but that really isn’t an option, so I am trying to keep myself busy with fun stuff – inside!

I set two fleeces aside for myself to work with and washing them sounded like fun.

Here is one of the fleeces…

Byeburn Hector is the donator.

Here is his fleece separated and washed.  I still have the mixed section, black/white, to wash.

Infiniti’s is the other fleece I washed.  Here is her mixed section…

and her black fiber in the sink.  I am starting to run out of places to dry them!

Another product from our sheep – horn buttons!  My husband cut a bunch for me and I sanded them, sprayed them, and drilled holes in them.

Here is another type.

He also cut some bigger pieces and I was experimenting with what I could do with them.  I’m sure someone who is good with wire could do something very cool, but it was fun!

 

I also started laying out my Black Sheep Gathering Fiber Art project.  This is my pile of goodies that I bought at the Spring Fiber Sale last weekend.  I don’t usually buy much at the fiber shows, but I had a list of colors I was looking for and I was delighted to see that Dicentra was there with her beautifully dyed Bluefaced Leicester roving.

I used some of her roving for the background of this wall hanging.

For my Black Sheep Gathering projects, I chose…

Maritime and…

Sienna.  These colors are vibrant and bright and different than outside today – just what I wanted 🙂

These poor little guys need some sunshine to play in, who knew the lambs born in January would have nicer weather than the guys born in March!  They seem quite happy to romp and play inside.

 

I think the chickens are starting to morph into ducks…they don’t even seek shelter from the rain anymore and I found them in the creek eating tadpoles and little snails.  True northwest chickens!

Glorious mornings

Posted by kenleighacres on February 25, 2012
Posted in: Ducks, Farm Life, Jacob Sheep, Lambing, Llama, Photography, sheep. Tagged: , , , , , , . 9 Comments

We have woken up to a couple glorious mornings and nothing makes me happier than to open the blinds and see the sun shining!

It makes the sheep happy too!

My goal was to get an updated picture of all the lambs, but they had other things on their mind.  These lambs were munching on the blackberry leaves.

This group of lambs was enjoying the grass with Magoo.

This lamb was being a funny guy 🙂

Luckily, I can always count on Maelstrom to pose for me, thanks little buddy.  Their horns are really starting to grow.  After a bit of work, I did finally get new pictures of all the lambs.  They can be seen on our website – www.kenleigh-acres.com

After accomplishing that goal, it was time to go for a little walk and enjoy the morning.  Azera was enjoying the grass while her lambs soaked up the warmth from the sunshine.

 

The chickens were scratching for goodies…

and having their morning dust baths.

My favorite little birds on the farm, the quail, were out and about and in the mood to have their picture taken…doesn’t happen very often.

I said ‘good morning’ to the pair of ducks living on our pond.

The pair of geese that have been hanging out here thought I got a little too close for comfort and off they went.

The boys were doing what they do best this time of year…hanging out.

I’m glad we all enjoyed it while it was here because it is now pouring and supposed to continue for the next couple of days.  Hopefully the rain with trigger the next ewe to have her lambs!

A whole lot of excitement!

Posted by kenleighacres on January 20, 2012
Posted in: Chickens, Farm Life, Jacob Sheep, Lambing, Photography, sheep, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , . 4 Comments

Between the rain and the lambs and the flooding…yesterday was a crazy day!

It started at 3:00 when Wren had her lamb…

She was very proud of her new baby.

 

Her name is Zesty and it matches her lively personality!

My next trip to the barn was for Queenie…she finally lambed!  She has looked like she was about ready to lamb for days now!  She had two beautiful, little ewe lambs.

Fanfare – A loud flourish of brass music.

Ballyhoo – flamboyance.

Queenie has a bit of flamboyance and has a royal air about her, so these names seemed very fitting for her girls.

 My third trip to the barn was for morning feeding and to check on Liberty, what I found was a bit of a shock…water in the barn!  The snow we had at the beginning of the week melted and our area has been pounded with rain since.

The ditch in the pasture was over flowing into the ditch next to the barn which was over flowing into the barn.

The water was quickly headed towards our hay, so I grabbed what I could and diverted it until we could do something about the ditch along the barn.

I knew there was a reason why I hadn’t taken the trash wool to the dump yet!  Along with a couple straw bales it did the trick and gave me some time to call for help.  My brother headed over and we cleaned out the ditch and dug it a little deeper in places.  It started flowing along the barn and headed to the creek…most importantly it stopped flowing through the barn!

While we were digging trenches and getting soaking wet, Liberty went about having her lamb…

Here they are shortly after birth.

Poor mama, he was born with BIG horn buds!

His name is Bodacious – remarkable, noteworthy.

Along with the rain, came high wind and we lost the tree in our ram’s pasture.  The boys really loved sitting under it, they are going to miss it.

This morning is much calmer and the chickens are very happy to get out!  I was a little leery to let them out during the heavy rain because they really are bird brains and stand out in it and get soaked.  My husband had to rescue one of them from the creek a couple weeks ago!

Feels good to shake off the dust after being cooped up for a couple of days!

Chickens, Ducks, and Quail – oh my!

Posted by kenleighacres on August 15, 2010
Posted in: Chickens, Ducks. Tagged: , , , , , . 3 Comments

Our baby chicks are now 4 months old. 

They don’t look like babies anymore!

We bought a variety of breeds – Lakenvelders, Silver Spangled Hamburgs, Blue Laced Red Wyandottes, and Cukoo Marans.  We decided to keep the Blue Laced Red Wyandottes (BLRW) and the Cukoo Marans, mainly because of temperment.  The Hamburgs and Lakenvelders were very flighty.  The BLRW and Marans fit in nicely with our little banty and Rhode Island Red.

I LOVE the BLRW!

The pattern on their feathers is so pretty.  They are docile and laid-back….

unfortunately, 3 of the 4 looked like this – yep roosters.  I knew there was a good chance I would get a couple roosters because they are only sold as straight run (not sexed).  I was really disappointed to see that 3 of them were roosters.  I decided to keep one of the roosters and my brother took the other two.  I should have had crowing try outs before I decided which one to keep – this guy sounds terrible!!!  I hope he gets better with practice 🙂

Too bad he can’t crow as good as he can dance.

The baby ducks are also growing up and starting to fly everywhere. 

They were all supposed to be mallards, but as you can see in this picture, they are not all the same size.  We have 3 GIANTS!  They are the same color, but have to be a cross between a mallard and a much bigger duck. 

They have the run of the property and since the pond has dried up, they have made themselves at home going wherever they choose.  If we are late bringing dinner, they come looking for us and almost came in the garage one night.  Ducks are so entertaining 🙂

This is one of my favorite summertime sights – little covey of quail and their babies.  This picture was taken from the floor of our garage – the door was open a couple inches and it was the perfect place to get close.  They are very flighty.

Dad was watching closely for any danger.    

Time to go outside!

Posted by kenleighacres on May 3, 2010
Posted in: Chickens, Uncategorized. Tagged: , . 2 Comments

That is what I told the chicks this morning.  They have started roosting on the side of the brooder and I found poop on top of one of the dog kennels. 

They are in the ugly duckling stage 🙂

I LOVE the colors in these chicks.

The blue laced red wyandottes were only available in straight run (unsexed) and it looks like there is one rooster.  That is better than I expected and hope it stays that way!

I think they enjoyed exploring the big pen and tonight is supposed to be pretty mild temperature wise and the dog room smells SO much better tonight!

Look at who else was outside this weekend!  Two VERY protective parents and their 4 babies.  These are at a friend’s house.

The weather was beautiful today and it was nice to enjoy the outdoors again!

I find chickens…

Posted by kenleighacres on August 5, 2009
Posted in: Chickens. Tagged: . 3 Comments

web IMG_4171

to be fun…

web IMG_4134

a little scary looking at times…

web IMG_4163

downright bizarre…

web IMG_4147

and so serious in a silly way that makes me laugh!!!

web IMG_4155

It was all about the chickens this morning.  My brother brought a couple silkie cross roosters over that I’m not really sure we needed, but they have really cool markings and are very friendly.

web IMG_4185

Our other rooster left a little while ago because he did this to my poor hen.  She had such pretty feathers!!!  Hopefully they grow back before it gets too chilly or else I’ll have to knit her a sweater 🙂

web IMG_4161

The new boys are handsome and my favorite of the two has some interesting colors.  His feathers are half blue, half red.

web IMG_4158

web IMG_4175

web IMG_4159

I love the colors and patterns.

After we got the boys settled in, we went over to the neighbors where there were a couple unwanted roosters.  The dad was ok with putting them in the stew pot, but the little girls who raised them from cute little chicks weren’t.  I am so used to our banty and banty cross chickens – these guys were HUGE!  My brother agreed to take them and I was even happier with our little guys. 

web IMG_4190

My brother also helped me open up the other pens out front so the chickens can go exploring in the jungle.  Everyone was roosting in the barn tonight and all seems well with the new arrivals. 

Is ‘she’ really a ‘he’?

Posted by kenleighacres on January 11, 2009
Posted in: Chickens. Tagged: . 6 Comments

Calling all chicken experts… 

My chicks hatched last July and are now 7 months old.  At what point do roosters start crowing? 

I thought that all the ones I had left were hens, but now I’m not sure. 

web-img_0011

My little black chick, that I thought was a hen, looked like this for a long time.

web-img_3438

This is what she/he looks like now. 

web-img_3446

The comb and waddles are a lot bigger than my other chickens and she/he walks around all puffed up and macho.  I haven’t heard any crowing though?  I really didn’t want a rooster in my small group, but I really like this chicken.  Any opinions?

The chickens get a new yard!

Posted by kenleighacres on October 2, 2008
Posted in: Chickens, Farm Life. Tagged: . Leave a comment

My brother made me a wonderful barn for my chickens a couple years ago,

but I haven’t had a good chicken yard.  I had regular sized chickens and then switched to bantams this year.  The yard was adequate for them, but didn’t give them a lot of room to stretch their wings.  Thanks to Craigslist, I have some great poultry pens now and the chickens are the proud owners of one of them.  The pens were owned by a big game farm and they recently sold all of their birds.  The pens were taken down and sold as panels.  Each panel is 6′ high by 20′ long complete with netting for the roof.  The chicken yard is 20′ x 20′ and the chickens love flying around! 

They also like to come and go as they please.

This chick has found a bug it is about to pounce on.

I love the banty girls – this one reminds me of the banty hen I had growing up.  Her name was Henny Penny and she would let me carry her around everywhere.  She was a very neat chicken.

This girl is the queen bee and referees everyone – no one is allowed to have too much fun.  Party pooper!

One more project I can check off my to do list 🙂