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Chatterbox: Down to Earth
Hey
everybody! I have some awesome news!
Moonfrost and I have to do a summer project so we don't spend the entire summer
on the couch reading (XD), and I decided to do something I've always wanted to do:
Start a buisness! A chicken buisness!
So, (and this is really really awesome, if not slightly off topic) in the last
few weeks of school we learned that the people who lived in our old house were
selling their chickens. Now, we actually left them some of our original
chickens when we moved three years ago. And two or three of the ones we left
them, as we found out, were STILL ALIVE!!! So when we went back (it was very
nostalgic going back to our old house...) we recieved a bunch of new rare breed chickens and got our old ones back!
Which is super exciting! After we got those chickens and added them to our
flock, we had like a million chickens, (just kidding, but we do have a lot) and
I figured I had plenty of chickens to breed.
Anyway, I've kept our lavender orpingtons together for almost three weeks and
throughout the last week or so I've been collecting their eggs, and also I've
saved a bunch of other eggs that are mixed breeds (since they have a lavender
orpington father and an unknown mother) and I put them into the incubator
today! So in about 21 to 22 days, I'll tell you what happens.
I really hope these little guys hatch! I might even post pictures of them if they do hatch! 'Cause chicks are just so super cute!!!
submitted by Micearenice
(June 22, 2016 - 4:44 pm)
(June 22, 2016 - 4:44 pm)
Aww....CHICKS!
That sounds great, Micearenice!
(June 23, 2016 - 7:45 am)
It must be so cool to live on a farm! What's it like?
(June 23, 2016 - 1:12 pm)
Well, it's a lot of work, that's for sure. But it's really fun, too! We've found all sorts of cool animals, like the six-foot rat snake that lives in our barn and sheds its skin once a month. (The skins keep getting bigger and bigger...)
We also have a sort of kingdom of our chickens, with the first king being Alvin the Great, then Roger the Twisted, then King, then Dum-Dum, then Fang, then the rooster who goes by the name 'The White One'. (You see, we've had a lot of kings because a fox kept/keeps(Perhaps?) killing them. By the time we realized it was a fox, it had gone on a shopping spree and killed half our chickens in the same day.) Nowadays the chickens live in the field with the sheep, but we had to move the sheep away because they were addicted to chicken food and almost trampled us to get to it--(long story!).
Except now the chickens are getting hunted again! :( :( :( By what we haven't figured out. But we as of the day before yesterday, we have to keep an eye out on the pasture all day long just in case the mystery predator reappears. (It could be a hawk, an owl, or the same fox that's been giving us grief for almost half a year.)
But there are good stories, too! Definitely. I think I have more fun stories than sad stories. Like how I found a baby mockingbird who fell out of his nest, and I hand-raised him until he flew away! I actually saved his life--if I'd put him back into the nest, he either would've fallen out again and starved or gotten eaten like his siblings did. (I used to chart his growth by watching the rest of his clutch grow up outside, but one day I went out and all that was left were some downy feathers.) I miss him, though. It was sad when he flew away. I named him Oliver.
We also got to play epic capture the flag a few weeks ago. My dad cut a maze of pathways in the tall grass and he also cut a big space between them, and we had our youth group over to play in them. It was sooo fun!
I have a million more stories to tell! If you ever want to hear one, I'd be happy to tell one to you.
(June 23, 2016 - 5:12 pm)
Please do!
(June 23, 2016 - 5:30 pm)
That sounds so cool! If you want to, tell me another story!!! I'll read it. :)
(June 23, 2016 - 6:01 pm)
this is so awesome, check out my "Ducks!!!!!!" post in inkwell plz!
(June 23, 2016 - 5:46 pm)
Yayyyy! I love chickens SO MUCH YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH I LOVE CHICKENS OSHMIGOSH! AND YOU HAVE BIDDDIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!!!!! LUCKY DUCK/MOUSE!
(June 23, 2016 - 7:15 pm)
Aw, I love chickens. Yes, I'd love to see a picture when they hatch.
(June 24, 2016 - 12:58 pm)
Here's a funny story!
So, when we first got our two guard dogs, we kept them in with our two sheep so they'd get used to them and bonded and all that good stuff. Well, one day, we were walking the pups around the field, and we heard some crunching.
We somehow knew that the sheep had found the dog food.
We ran back to the dogs' pen and wrestled the sheep out of it. Yep, they'd been snacking on meat treats. We couldn't believe it! And guess what! Those crazy sheep actually liked how it tasted! From then on, we've had to sneak around the sheep to feed the dogs. It was commonplace to see a sheep sneaking into a dog house in those days. Thankfully the dogs are old enough now to live outside of the sheep pen, and we don't have to go through that anymore. ALTHOUGH...
Up until a few days ago, the sheep, chickens, and goats lived together in harmony. Well, almost harmony. There was always Amber the baby goat who snuck into the chickens' coop and ate all their food. And of course there was Paula Dean, her mother, who would jump onto portable chicken coops and steal the chicken food we'd stashed up there to keep it away from the other animals. And how could anyone ever forget how Milk and Honey, the afforementioned naughty sheep, (along with their children) would literally jump on you to get to the chicken food you were holding if you didn't scamper out of the way in time. (Thank goodness we never got trampled!) I call that time the food war. I'm glad it's over--the sheep are away from the chickens now. But it's so funny to think what a sheep or a goat will go through to get a meal!
(June 24, 2016 - 11:06 am)
Niiice. Chicks are always fun to have.
We're rasieing three pullets this year, we had five last year. A day ago we put our year-old hens and the pullets together, but one of the chicks got rather beat up. The skin on the top of its head has been torn off, we're not sure who exactly did this to it. The pullet is mostly fine, its now locked up in a bird cage and acting pretty normally. It looks, however, disgusting.
(June 24, 2016 - 1:24 pm)
*Cringes* Oh, no! Poor little pullet. That's the pecking order for you, huh! It can be pretty rough sometimes. If the size difference is too great between two groups of chickens, it takes a loooong time/forever for them to get used to each other. Once, we tried merging two groups of small chicks together, but the little ones were just too little I guess, and one of them ended up bleeding after a while. So we reunited them with their mother, and tried again once they were older and ready to leave their mother--(which was about last week)--now they can handle the pecking and they're doing great.
(June 24, 2016 - 6:53 pm)
Yeah, the pullets were probably too small. We didn't think it would be a problem because all of our hens are very tame and not the silghtest bit agressive, but yes, chickens have their pecking order.
(June 25, 2016 - 12:54 pm)
Awww, poor thing!
(June 25, 2016 - 7:56 am)
That's awesome! #OrpingtonsAreDaBest
(June 26, 2016 - 7:23 am)
That is great Mice! Hope I can see them!
(June 26, 2016 - 10:23 am)