Come From Away

It was a “rain with sunny periods” day today. After dinner there was a fabulous rainbow over our barn.

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We finally put the first chicks that we hatched in the barn a few weeks ago. They were in the chick cage that G and J built, but since Fluffy needed a safe place for her brood, we moved the chicks out and into the main coop.

I have wanted to have a tame chicken- and really they are all tame and nice – but I kinda wanted a pet chicken (haha the locals would think I am absolutely nuts!). Eleanor was my pet chicken while we had her and would come when I called her and let me pick her up, and would follow me around; but she died suddenly a few weeks ago, which was really quite sad. It was depressing to go out to the coop after she died, as she would always follow me while I did my chores and cluck away and otherwise keep me company.

Yesterday when I was checking on the broody hens, I had bent over to check on Sorcha and all I hear is flapflapflapflap and suddenly there is a chicken on my shoulder – Strippy (named by D because he hatched out with stripes and he couldn’t say Stripey). He flew from the other side of the coop to get to me. I tried to put him back on the roost, but everytime I put him down he would fly back to my shoulder. He even tried to get into my coat to go to sleep. So finally I have a pet parrot chicken! G thinks I should change his name to Polly, but I think D would be a bit upset. He is so excited that he has his own rooster. We are always hoping for hens, but D wants them all to be roosters.

This blog seems to be all about chickens! I used to think they were disgusting, stupid and stinky, and now they seem to be our hobby. They are actually quite lovely creatures. There is something nice about looking out your window and seeing a flock of free range chickens scratching around in the grass and foraging. They are quite pretty. We have tourists stopping at the side of the road everyday to take pictures of them and the peacocks, sometimes of the house. It all seems a bit unreal that we live in such a picturesque place that people want to take photos all of the time.

The weather here has been fantastic. It is that perfect temperature, where you are completely comfortable in jeans and a sweatshirt. Warm enough that your hands never get cold, but cold enough that the bugs don’t come out. You can lie in the sun and be warm, but never hot. I wish it would stay like this all year! Sure beats the heat waves of Montreal.

Hilly and Oopsie are doing well. Hilly has been lovely to ride. She is a bit green (but then again, my riding is a bit rusty), but is a pretty honest horse and willing to try. Oopsie has gotten over trying to stomp me flat, and is back to being sweet again. She always comes over to the fence for a scratch and a visit. I put the saddle on her back the other day, and even did it up. I walked her around and she didn’t seem to mind it. Just kind of looked at it like “hmmm- what’s that thing? o well…” Next step is to tighten it up, and see how she does. After that I have to get brave and hop on! At 16.2 hands and growing it is a long way to fall! She is looking so fantastic, here are before and after pictures so that you can see what actually feeding a horse and giving her a clean stall can do. Funny that.

Business is growing by leaps and bounds. Word of mouth on the net is a fantastic thing. G and I are starting to fall into a work routine, and are becoming more efficient, which is good as sales are growing. They are up by about 30-40% this month from last, and I thought last month was pretty good. Getting the Canada Post thing automated was very helpful. G is in charge of shipping and accounting and all systems stuff. I do customer service and the actual production. It seems to be a pretty good balance. Now if we could just hire a maid, we’d be set.

Speaking of which, off to work. The commute is so long!

3 weeks ago, Fluffy started sitting on three eggs in the nest where some of our chickens were laying. When she started sitting on the nest, Sorca (another chicken who was using the nest) would be waiting next to the nest all the time as if she was waiting for her chance to jump on and lay her egg there… After a few days, I scooped up Fluffy and she had 10 eggs under her and was having a difficult time covering them all. Only one of the eggs was was actually Fluffy’s.

We candled the eggs to see how they were doing and sadly Fluffy’s egg was not growing. We were unsure of one egg (they are thick shelled green eggs and hard to see through), so we stuck it under Sorca who was now sitting as if nesting on the floor right next to Fluffy. Now Sorca had an egg of her own and Fluffy was hatching eight others.

Yesterday one of the eggs under Fluffy hatched and another is hatching right now – Fluffy and Baby.

Normally, chickens only sit on their nests after they have a bunch of eggs in a nest and they all hatch at once. Since Sorca was adding a new one every day, it means that all the eggs should hatch one day after another. Fluffy will need to get up and take care of some chicks soon, so we moved a couple more eggs under Sorca.

Today K moved some chickens around again to give Fluffy and chicks some alone time. She put them in a cage that a friend and I built and placed some food and water in the cage near where Fluffy was nesting for both Fluffy and her chick. She tells me that the chick would run out from under Fluffy, do a few laps to grab some food and water and then duck back under mom for some warmth.

I mowed the lawn. It took 4 hours and there was another hour’s worth left. We went to Sears the next day and bought a Lawn Tractor.

It arrived today.

(Note the new metal roof on the barn in the background)

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Check it out

Our favourite chicken died today. Eleanor was fine yesterday, but this morning she was sitting in a cardboard box that I had put in the coop for the chickens to nest in. She looked like she was getting broody and wanting to sit on her eggs. When I was out there at lunch time she was definitely very ill. She could not open her eyes and had no strength at all. A couple of hours later she was dead. I quickly disposed of the body and the box she was in.

What made Eleanor special was that she would come when you called her. She would run across the barn yard to greet you when called. This was probably because, we used to give her treats when we first got her a few months ago.

B cried and cried when I told her and she said she did not want to be a farmer anymore. I quietly took her out to the barn and let her play with the chicks that are living in a home made cage out there. She felt better and changed her mind about giving up on chickens, but was still sad about Ellie.

I hope that this is not a sign of things to come in our coop!

We took the kids to the beach down Stewart road after school today and walked up and down looking at the shells, snail and hermit crabs.

• Beach1
• Beach2
• Beach3
• Beach4
• Beach5
• Beach6

Then we all went out to dinner at a little restaurant called Brehaut’s. The food was great and reasonably priced. Good pie!

Our eggs that were shipped from Quebec hatched last Saturday. Out of 36 eggs only 9 chicks hatched. 12 of the eggs candled clear after two weeks and the remaining 24 all looked like they would hatch, but only 9 made it. The others seemed to die right at the end. perhaps something happened to the box during shipping. We also noticed one morning that one of the kids must have touched the incubator and turned it up a tiny bit, so it was too hot.

Our two Silkie eggs also died

The plus side is that we probably did not have enough room for so many chickens. Especially if they grow up to be monsters like the ones we saw at the bird show.

Here’s a picture of them when they were only about 4 days old.