Appetizer

So you may be wondering what I feed my chickens.

Well, to be honest I don't feed my chickens. God does.

I do admit to throwing them a small handful of corn now and then as a treat, but...

Everything they need to eat is present here from April to December. And the other thing is that my birds are closer to wildtype than most breeds, which mean they are smarter than most 'stupid' chickens and know where and what to find to sustain themselves. They spend a daily total of about 3 hours foraging, and for the rest of the day the just 'play' or 'lounge'. 



Nelly



Lazarus



I do need to give them water, although they can get some water from the food they eat, most of it they need supplied to them. They also steal a good bit of water from the heifer (who's water is closer to there favourite foraging spot than the waterer I give them). 

Frosty, the...

We've been having quite cold, frosty mornings here.

My hens have proved extremely hardy so far. Mary and Martha, due to there little size, aren't as hardy as the others, but the others cuddle them up at night to keep them warm.

Looks just like an artificial Christmas Tree, doesn't it

Breeds of Chicken

There are some 900 chicken breeds. And if you think I'm gonna sit here for 13 hours listing them all, well then your wrong. Because it would in fact take 17 hours. But, seriously now, I don't feel like listing them all, so you should go to Barry Koffler's Feathersite to see the list... 

Breeding Plan

      *Due to the unknown gentype of Nelly, the below results are only 1 possibility...

**Lazarus is not Cream Birchen, so there will be no Buttercream penetrance... 
***There might not be any feather-legged birds...

In this post, I'll explain to you what my breeding plan is, and what the expected results are...

Lazarus

  And

Nelly





 

Should produce offspring that are all colored the same, but there should be three leg variations.

1. Clean Legged

2. Half-Feather Legged

 

3. Full-Feather Legged

These are the two I'll want to breed...

They should produce...

1. Cream Birchen (like Lazarus)

2. Gold Birchen

3. Ruddy (like Nelly)

4. Buttercream

Garden Party

This is what a Garden Party is like in the country.



Cultivating the Strawberry patch



Controlling aphids in the broccoli patch



Testing the strength of  the tomato trellis 



Flirting around the garlic





Notice:

The introductory Posts now all have photos.

Post for Molly

Post for George

Post for Sullivan

Post for Emily

Post for Sally

Post for Lazarus

 Post for Mary

Post for Martha

Post for Nelly

Post for Becky

Post for Annie

Little Chickens in a Big Land

I should have posted this yesterday, but I forgot to. Yesterday, I removed the fence around the bantams, partly because I felt they could be finally trusted to go home on there own every night, and partly because they needed food (My animals aren't 'fed', but rather forage all of there own food. This is good, too, because they can tell what they need to eat, and how much they need, rather than having it dictated to them.) Speaking of which, the longer I have these chickens, the more I realize how smart they are. For example, there favourite food is honey-type clover. They have been able to identify it from quite some distance. They also clean up the wastes of other creathers, too. Like bits of undigested grain in patties, or spill corn where the turkeys once were. In about an hour, the chickens are too stuffed to eat another morsel, so they go find something else to do, like lay an egg, or annoy the heifer etc... The ducks, judging from there poo and there behavior, seem to get more of there food from seiving mud than anything else.

Martha enjoying her sudden freedom

Of course, like most things, freedom has it's costs. And the cost was...

Isn't that pretty? The lowest living branches on that tree are approx. 4.5ft high. I cut all branches on all trees that were lower than this. I had to do that to prevent the now-free chickens from climbing up and roosting in them (Like they did once before).