Chickens

Yep more about chickens. The hubby and daughter are sick of hearing about them already so I gotta tell somebody.

Here’s the crew together. You can see their vitamin/electrolytes water in the background. It’s soooo hot here now I decided to give it to them a couple days in a row just to help them.

Dust bathing below.

They made them a little hole and they all piled up in it dust bathing.

I got tired of them wasting SO MUCH food until I made them this gutter feeder. I put the gutter guard over it and just cut out little holes for their heads. I got it just a bit too high for them so I put the little things for them to stand on to reach their feed.

After this shot was when I decided they needed a lift so they could reach their food better. THEN I decided I’d have to put wire over their feeder to keep them OFF the feeder since they wanted to climb up on it. They don’t need poop in their feed. SO I came up with this idea to keep them off it. They have just enough room to get their little heads in there to eat.

See in the next photo how they wanted to climb on the feeder to eat? I was like no now this can’t work. Ya can’t be getting ON the feeder but they wasn’t listening.

This is part of their run they are in on the next pic. This part is cover by tin and then the other part on up on the pic where you can see sunshine, it’s covered in wire on the top. The pen to the left in this pic will be where their nesting boxes will go. It’s not opened up to them yet since they’re not laying yet.

They are growing like weeds! A couple evenings ago we we went to a friends house to pick some string beans. Was going to be back by dark so I let them stay in their run figuring they would all come in the roosting area by night time. They’ve been really good about doing so.

So I figure I’d just let them stay in the run and then when we got back go inside their pen and shut the back gate that opens out into their run. Their run is completely covered in wire so nothing can get inside to them.

So I get back home from picking the string beans to find most ALL of them on their roost! They haven’t been sleeping on their roost! It was so cute I fell out laughing because you couldn’t put one more up there on that top rung of their roost that night. I told them what GOOD little chicks they were to! I was totally surprised to see them on it. Anyway then last night with camera in hand I went out to take pix before it got too dark. I’m telling you I have these things spoiled already!

Every last one of them wants the same board to roost on! There are still about 10 of them that are wanting to sleep on the ground.

This evening I let them outside their pen to free range. They LOVE free ranging.

Then this next picture is about how most of the pix I take of them are. lol They almost are never still so they are blurry.

Then tonight there were more on the roost and everyone still wanted the top roost. The things on the wall back there are dryer sheets stuck in the chicken wire to help keep away mosquitoes I hope!

This is the pile left on the floor that’s not using their roost yet.

The ones on the other board are wanting up on the top board with the others. They will even jump up there on top of the others when there’s no where for them to get. They are a  hoot.

By the time I left out there this evening that top board was totally jammed packed full. lol

So far the food they love are yellow crook neck squash, cucumbers, and they dearly love chops (corn crushed), and they really like zucchini squash even better than they do yellow squash. I fed them some cornbread I’d mixed in some flaxseed meal into and they loved that to. I sit and cut up grass in their pan of water in the run and they will fish the grass out of the water and eat it. They see me coming and they run to meet me thinking I have them food every time.

OK I think that will give you an idea of how spoiled these babies are. I’m sure I will be back posting more pictures soon. So stay tuned.

Rose