Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Bok, Bok, Bok!

We are NOT used to the girls having grow up vocalizations! It still throws us off guard. Little Mabel is really getting close to matching the adult chicken noises. She still is a bit peepy though!

I took some photos of the girls today, they are starting to roost more during the day. At night they still snuggle down in the coop on the floor together.

This is Madalyn our Black Star on the roost, check out her comb and wattle coming in! She's starting to look like a real hen.

I love this shot of our golden laced wyandottes, Pippi & Lacey since it shows what they look like from the front and back. These two love each other and like to hang out together.


Miss Madalyn is very curious and likes to peck on me while I'm trying to take photos. Here she's inspecting where the best spot to peck my sweatshirt might be. She likes the zipper.

Chicken Update

Elaine has been very busy so I'm guest blogging today about our chickens! In case you don't know me, I'm Jessica, Elaine's partner in crime and fellow founder of Aroo Studio. We've been slammed with a huge wholesale collar order, and just got back from camping in Humboldt County. Elaine's Dad was nice enough to stop by twice daily while we were away to let the chickens out in the morning and close them in at night. They put themselves to bed at dusk now, so all we have to do is shut them in, so easy!

The chickens are continuing to grow, they are about 3 months old now. Last week they started making real chicken clucking noises, well, all of them except Mabel who is still peep, peep, peeping away. They've also started to roost more, and yesterday all 5 chickens were in a row on the little roost we made in their run-too cute.

We'll get some photos up soon, we had a bit of a camera meltdown and lost our photos last week. I can't wait to show you how their wattles & combs are coming in. We switched their food to crumbles too, no more chick food for these ladies. When we run out we'll be starting them on laying food! We are already starting to save our empty egg cartons for when they start to lay (most likely in about 3 months time, though Madalyn, a Black Star, may start a bit earlier).

More to come soon, and I'll try to guest post when Elaine gets too busy since I know we have a few followers who have been missing us. Would love to see comments from our readers too!

Monday, June 1, 2009

We Did It! ( finally)

So this weekend was the now or never for us to get our butts in gear and build a passageway to and from the coop to the yard. I have to say, it was ridiculously easy! Just a few snips of wire and some staples - now our lives will be much easier as will the girls trips to and from their house. What shall we do with our new found time?

Now the pullets can come and go as they please, Imagine that!

:)

Mabel investigating some wild horseradish.

Saturday, May 23, 2009

This is how we do it.

This is how we get the girls into the chicken yard every morning. We have been so consumed with work that making a walkway to the yard from the coop has fallen to the wayside. I hope we make the time to build a passage way for them this weekend because this is just silly!



First we take the back wall of the coop off


by taking the bolts off


then we put all the girls in a plastic bin (this is their old house from the sewing room)


once they are all in


we carry the bin over to their yard


once in the chook yard we set them free where they stay until dusk

Monday, May 18, 2009

Backyard Beauties

A few photos of our young ladies enjoying their new yard over the weekend.



One of the wyandotte girls Pippi or Lacey.



Coraline



Madalyn is showing off some wattle.



After eating her strawberry tops Mable looks like a raptor after the kill.



Thursday, May 14, 2009

Good Bye Violette



Jessica & I agreed to give Violette away to her mom for mothers day. We both think one less chicken will be a good thing. I had become quite attached to her but know she will have a good life up in Petaluma with her other hatch mates that her mom had picked up at the same time we got our chicks. I will miss her and hope to go visit soon.