Chicken current events
So I bet you're wondering about the chickens.
The chickens are doing great!
All six of those big girls are hale and hearty, though a chickenhawk did try to fly off with the Rhode Island Red last week. She fought the good fight and won, and came away with only a little blood on her comb. I made a few adjustments on the chicken run that Jim and I built, and they've been safely cooped up since.
The black ones are smartest. Red is lucky to be alive.
Yes, you heard that right. Jim is now down with the chickens. The man who swore he had no interest in raising layers was caught last week hand-feeding them his own homemade bread. I am not embellishing this story. I think Jim finally realized they weren't going anywhere, and gave in.
In the past month, we moved the coop to a better windbreak in the yard, put up winter insulation, and built that chicken run. My dad just built some laying boxes for us, because those birds will be laying within the next month (if they know what's good for them). This is the only thing that Zadie has consistently included on her Christmas list. "For the chickens to lay eggs!" in 7-year-old scrawl. Let's hope Santa (and all 6 chickens) deliver soon.
Zadie models Grandpa's laying boxes.
In case they don't get the picture of what they're supposed to do with the laying box, I put a few golf balls in there.
Mother: Just trying to be helpful
I hope it's not a bad sign that this morning, one of those golf balls was all the way across the chicken run, as if it had been physically thrown out of the coop.
