Superpaige's Pad

The Trials of a Busy Mom

Category: pets (Page 1 of 2)

Kind of a roller coaster

April 30, 2015 / / 2 Comments

This week was hard for me. Monday, especially. Monday and Tuesday were auditions for a summer show at the Sera theater. I’ve always loved “Joseph and the amazing technicolor dreamboat”,even before Donny made it his own. Even though there aren’t really any parts for women, I wanted to audition. But when I accepted this relief society calling, I told Ryan that I would probably have to give up community theater for a bit. I didn’t say forever. When I looked at the dates for that play (and two others) and looked at my rehearsal schedule for bells (every Wed night, three Saturday mornings and a couple other nights thrown in before our concert in June) and the other things the family has already scheduled, I realized that no one would cast me in a show that opens July 2, even if I did audition. But it made me sad, still.

I couldn’t find my favorite chicken again. She doesn’t like to go into the house at night, and we usually have to pick her up and put her inside. When I went to put them away one night, I couldn’t find her anywhere. Couldn’t find her again the next day. She did this once before, and after disappearing for a day, she magically came back. I figured she was just on another walk-about. But, as I was out in the orchard area of the yard, spraying weeds, I found her. Or bits of her. Only her feet and a wing were there. Something had come into our yard and eaten her. Sadness enveloped me as I cleaned up what was left of my favorite chicken. A thought came to me that if I cared this much about a chicken, imagine the sorrow that a parent, or our Heavenly Father, feels when a child is lost. It put things into perspective a bit, but I was still so very sad.

On Tuesday, I read on the freecycle email that someone had two Americauna Chickens to give away. The same kind as I had lost, they lay green eggs, and are very friendly. Tuesday night I went to go pick them up. Even though I only lost one, I picked up those two and brought them home to our flock. I hope they adjust well soon. So, that was good.

Wed I got to sub in Kindergarten. First time I’ve had a little one throw up in the classroom, and let me tell you, I don’t need to experience that again…ever.

Bells rehearsal was a lot of fun. LeAnna was gone and Larry was a little bit more casual and fun. Since we had just had a BIG long day on Friday, it was nice to take it a little bit easy and have the pressure off.

The deadline to get Natalie registered for the National Debate competition has been looming. While we want her to have a good experience, this trip just doesn’t seem to be working out. Only 3 kids from Lone Peak Qualified, and there were no chaperones, except the one boy’s mom, from what I could tell. We as parents got NO communication from the school or the debate coach, even though I emailed and asked questions. Natalie’s friend is her duo partner, and I kept asking her mom if she knew anything. Last week I realized we would have to do all the arrangements ourselves, and I called to see if we could reserve a room at the hotel where the competition is being held. I thought if I went with them, that would put me at ease. Sold out. Wait list. Looked at flights, not terrible, but still, we would want to book those soon.

I’ve had this unsettled feeling about the competition. How would these girls find anything? Where would they stay? Take a taxi? What 16 year old knows how to do that? I’m not a seasoned traveler, so these things make me nervous, maybe I was projecting that feeling onto this situation.

I heard in a meeting the other day, that if you have a little feeling and you wonder if that’s from the spirit trying to tell you something of if it’s a thought you had in your own mind, 99% of the time, it’s the spirit trying to tell you something. I’m trying to live closer to the spirit since my RS calling, and I just couldn’t get this nagging annoying feeling to go away. I prayed and asked Heavenly Father to please help me figure out what to do. Then I messaged Natalie’s debate partner’s mom and just told her what I thought. She said she would not hold it against us if we decided to pull Natalie from the competition, even if that meant her daughter wouldn’t be able to attend. It would simplify their lives as well (she would be missing half of a family vacation).

When Natalie came home, I braced myself for some drama, but as I explained how I felt and what we were thinking, she was very calm and I think she understands. I told her how much we love her and that we want her to be happy and successful, but we don’t think this is the competition for her. She called her friend, who already knew what we moms were thinking, and they told the coach to put the alternates in, that they wouldn’t be going. (Sure, SHE can reach him, but he won’t answer my email? Whatever)

I feel a bit more peaceful now that the decision has been made.

I had kept today and tomorrow open because my friend Robin had wanted to fly here from AZ and go to women’s conference with me, but she decided at the last minute that she’d better not. Even though she feels pretty good at home, her white count is down, and who knows how the altitude and the flight might affect her (she’s undergoing cancer treatments). So, while I could have gone to Women’s conference, I spent the day doing Relief Society things instead. I made muffins and went to visit two older sisters in our ward. They are both primary care takers for husbands suffering with Alzheimer’s. It was good to visit with them for a few minutes and let them know that we care and we are available to help, if they want that. I also worked on my lesson for Sunday a little bit.

So, you can see, the week is full of ups and downs. That’s how life is. Ups and Downs, highs and lows. You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have…….I’ll stop now.

Sundance

May 25, 2014 / / 3 Comments

Anyone who has ever been to our house knows that we have birds.

And one special bird is Sundance.

When Ryan and I were first married, Sundance was given to us by a friend of a friend. I have always loved birds but hadn’t had a cockatiel before. We were happy to take such a friendly and cute bird. Of course, we weren’t supposed to have pets in our apartment, but I think the manager looked the other way.

He loved to sit on our shoulders and nibble on crackers and would whistle the theme from the Andy Griffith Show.

Sundance had been a member of the family since before our first child was born. He moved with us to Illinois and back (which was quite a production, including a vet visit in order to take him on the plane, and staying in the hotel with us for a week before we could move into our house).

Later on, we added other cockatiels to the family, including Zuzu (the only one I ever bought), and Linus and Popcorn. People started giving us their birds when they couldn’t keep them any more.
We’ve taken in Churt, Simon and Guido, and most recently Jack. Some bird have gone on to other homes or died. But we still had Sundance.

Sundance has been so gentle and sweet. When Megan was about two, I found her in her room with Sundance. She had pulled out all of his tail feathers. I couldn’t believe he didn’t even bite her.

Because he’s so old (at least 21 years old), I’ve often worried about him when I come home and can’t find him. Afraid he had died, I would call for him and go looking. I always found him.

Lately he’s been getting old, and we can tell. He doesn’t fly much, and walks slowly. Not grouchy, but an old bird.

Today, after church, he sat on the bottom of the cage, and we knew his time was near. We picked him up and petted him, and tried to make him comfortable. All the kids got to hold him, and they were all standing around him crying. I encouraged them to take Sundance outside, that maybe he would like to be outside one last time. I told the kids (and Sundance) that it was ok for him to go. He has been a very good friend to us, and we knew he was not comfortable, so I just wanted him to stop trying to hold on. All four kids were sitting outside on the grass holding him, tears streaming down their faces. They weren’t out there more than ten or fifteen minutes before they brought him in. He was gone. We all cried. We made a little coffin for him out of a kleenex box, but had to wait to bury him until after dinner, as we had invited over the new family who just moved in behind us. We had to put our sadness on hold for a bit. John wrote a letter to Cole to tell him the sad news.

After our guests had left, we were in better spirits, but still sad to bury our friend. We had a little funeral and burial in the back yard.

We are really going to miss that bird. Not many families get to keep a pet for over 20 years, and I know we were lucky to have such a sweet and gentle bird be a part of our family. When I think of all the conversations he has heard, all the family time he was a part of, it really is like losing a member of the family. For 20 years, he was a fixture in my kitchen. He would sing to me, share my lunch, and snuggle with you when you were sick. He really has been a friend.

Thank you, Sundance. We will never forget you.

Eggs. Lots of eggs.

February 21, 2014 / / 1 Comment

At the grocery store today, I came across a 5 dozen package of eggs that was slightly damaged.
012

Two packages, actually. Can you read that price there? 25 cents.

021

Normally I don’t buy eggs at the grocery store, since we have 11 chickens who are supposed to be not just entertaining us, also laying eggs for us. By supposed to, I mean that they are each laying one egg about every other day. So, we get around 4-5 eggs a day. Which is enough for us, and extra to sell a dozen or so a week to my friends who love fresh eggs as much as we do. If everyone were pulling their weight and it were warmer, we might get 9-10 eggs a day, and could therefore sell or give away more.

But for a total of 50 cents, I got a whole lot of eggs.

016

Of course, some of them were broken, and I had to wash them all to get the egg goop cleaned off of them, but I am used to washing eggs, and I have no trouble throwing the broken ones away. We don’t often have white eggs.

And, I have lots of spare egg cartons because people that I give eggs to will often save their cartons, so I just washed them, and put the cute little white eggs into new cartons.

017

When they were all washed and put away, I had about 8 and a half dozen. For 50 cents. I don’t know WHO you are, but that’s a bargain right there.

So, I’m going to get crackin’ (literally) and we’ll have eggs for dinner tonight. Just don’t tell the girls that they didn’t come from them.

023

Tomatos, Zucchini and Eggs–Oh, My!

August 28, 2012 / / 14 Comments

It’s harvest time in the garden. You may remember me telling you about Ryan’s garden system with the pots and the self watering and all of that. Even though we got kind of a late start, I would say it’s a success.

Those big bushy plants are the tomatoes. We are now getting quite a few ripe tomatoes every day. More than we can eat!

The huge zucchini came from the garden boxes, not the buckets, by the way. It’s nice to have both, because some plants spread out a lot and do better on the ground than in the buckets.

You like those sassy pink shoes, do you? We have a bunch of “chicken shoes” right outside the door so that when we go out to the chickens, we don’t wear the same shoes that we are going to be wearing in the house. Even if you are careful where you step, you ALWAYS seem to track stuff back to the house. Hence the shoes.

And speaking of the chickens, a friend of ours gave us three more chickens this week. She has just TOO many chickens and doesn’t like spending so much money on feed, so she invited us to come and take as many chickens as we wanted. We chose three, even though they urged us to take more. So now our little flock is up to nine.
We have these three buffs, who rule the roost,

These ones who we got as chicks this year. They are now full grown and laying eggs on their own!

And these three, who didn’t really want to pose for photographs.
I picked out this pretty Barred Rock hen.

One of the kids picked this big white hen with fluffy feet. I wonder if she’s too old to lay, actually. I don’t know what kind she is or how old she is, but the kids liked her. (Jenna took these pictures for me, so I can’t complain too much about their quality, right?)

John picked out a little spitfire of a chicken. She’s brown but has white ears, and a big floppy comb. There she is through the wire.

She’s a runner when we let her out, and the kids have named her noodle head or just Noodle.

This very morning, my husband,(who didn’t even WANT chickens, if you recall) said, “That coop isn’t big enough for all nine of those chickens. We will need to get a new coop before winter.” I agreed with him, and then he had to qualify that I was NOT to go and buy a coop. NOT. Does that mean we’ll be building our own coop? Hmmm. We’ll have to see.

So, if you need eggs or tomatoes or zucchini, come on over and I think we can set you up.

Almost all grown up

May 23, 2012 / / 8 Comments

It seems like the chickens are happy with their new arrangement. The big chickens’ house is attached to the 14′ by 14′ enclosure that we made from the two dog runs. The smaller chickens’ house is inside the enclosure. During the day, we open their doors so that all the chickens can move freely from house to house, and they have plenty of room to explore. I didn’t expect them to spend so much time on top of the red house, but that’s one of their favorite roosting places.

I don’t know if they just like to be up high, or if they feel safe from the big chickens up there.
(That weird looking yellow fabric draping there is my sad attempt at providing them some shade. I tied the fabric on, but then the crazy wind whipped it around so that it was just sad and hanging there. Oh, well. It’s a work in progress, right?)

While I can’t say that they are best of friends and all the chickens get along famously, I don’t worry about the big bossy chicken pecking at them anymore. She makes a move toward them, and they run away.

And since we covered the whole thing with chicken wire (oh, that was hilarious, by the way) and attached the wire at the sides, I don’t worry about them flying out or other creatures getting in. Yes, there is the occasional magpie that gets in there and eats their food, but I don’t think a cat or a hawk could get in.

Now there’s just the question of the one black chicken who looks strangely rooster-like.

The black one standing in the back is a little bit bigger than the others, and she already has her comb. I’m worried about our little Oreo (that’s her name), and I hope she doesn’t start crowing, as then we would have to find a new home for her (or him). But we’re still hoping she’s just an early bloomer and that the others will catch up with her soon.

And yes, we did dress them up in little shirts the other day. I brought home some little free shirts from a t-shirt company at the PTA convention. I thought the kids would have fun putting them on their stuffed animals. Well, even MORE fun, I guess, is putting it on a chicken. Not all the chickens appreciated being dressed up, I can tell you.

And what’s that? Who is holding that chicken and petting her like he likes her? Yep, it’s the chicken skeptic of last year. The man who said no to chickens over and over and over again. Now he likes them, and even said to me, “do you think we have enough chickens?” Shocked! I’m shocked, I say.

And just one more picture, because I think it’s so cute. When given the chance, the big girls LOVE to go digging in the bishop’s weed close to the back of the house. Now the plants are so tall you can hardly see the chickens in there. I’m not sure if they like the hiding in there, or if they are just busy looking for bugs.

Our little chicks are almost all grown up!

Jenny Matlock

Linking to Jenny Matlock’s for letter A

Chicken update

April 17, 2012 / / 3 Comments

Remember those chicks that we got back before Valentine’s day?

They looked like this when we got them.

Soon they were to that awkward teenage phase and looked all gawky, but in a cute kind of way.

When they were about a month old, we started to take them outside for outings. We had to move them from the basement to the garage, because they were oh-so-smelly. Even then we had to change the paper in their box every single day, or we couldn’t stand the smell. They seemed to be more and more chicken like every day.

Although this little girl looks very hawk like, doesn’t she?

Once they were about 6 weeks old, I started taking them outside and letting them stay in the outside coop during the day.
But then I had to put the bigger chickens in a different pen to keep them from picking on the mini chickens. So that involved me carrying all the little chickens outside to the coop, moving the big girls to the run, etc. Then if it got too cold, I had to move everyone back. Spoiled much? Yes. They are.

When we went on vacation, I spent a good deal of time worrying about the best way to house all of my chickens. If I move the big chickens out of their pink coop, then they could use the old crappy red coop with the attached run. The pink coop is a little bit more protected and should be warmer, so I could put the little chicks in there. But what if it snowed? Would the little chicks be warm enough? I realized this is the first time I would be leaving my chickens, since we got chickens! Our last family vacation was last year before we started our great chicken project. I really don’t think I’m supposed to spend this much time and energy worrying about my little feathered friends.

We did get everyone settled, although I didn’t know if my girls would lay in this other coop. They really like to lay their eggs in their OWN box in their OWN coop.

Even if I moved their lay box into the other run, they wouldn’t go in there, and if they did lay an egg, I would just find it on the ground. Ugh.

Well, we DID leave them, and they made it through. Well, most of them did. We came home to find one of the little Americaunas dead in the coop. Not sure what happened because we had a girl coming to feed and water them, and they were apparently all ok the afternoon before our return. We are sad to have lost one, but I am trying to teach the kids (and myself) that these things happen with chickens, and we should be happy that four of the mini chickens and all the big girls made it.

Now my job is to acclimate the two sets of chickens. They have two side by side runs that I can put them in during the day, but I still worry about putting them all together.

Look how big they are getting! Almost like real chickens! And they are starting to sound more chickenlike and less like cheeping chicks, too.

The kids love them, and so do I. Even my husband, who a year ago was anti-chicken, has said how much he likes having them.

Hopefully within the next few weeks we can get things settled, and no more separatism between chickens. And we’ll settle into a summer routine and get back into our egg laying.

Yes, we love our chickens.

(Ok, we’re not to this stage, but we do love them)
And I’m not dressing them up in chicken clothes. Not yet, at least.

Linking to Camera Critters and Fresh From the Farm Friday>

Winter..whenever it comes

March 2, 2012 / / 2 Comments

We’ve had an odd winter this year. Not much snow in December or January, then we get pounded the end of Feb and beginning of March. I had a white knuckle drive to Salt Lake on Wednesday night. I was going about 10 miles per hour for quite a stretch on the freeway, just hoping I could stay in my lane and eventually get downtown for rehearsal. Thursday night’s drive home from SLC was not bad until I hit Utah county, and then it was pretty blizzardy.

After the wind all night, what snow we had is now in waves and drifts.

And when I look out at the chicken coop, I see this.

It looks cold out there. I don’t want to go out and feed them, and I’m pretty sure they don’t want to be let into their run, since it’s all snowy and their little feet would be very cold.

Speaking of cold little feet, I told my kids that today was definitely a BOOTS day, with hats and gloves and COATS (not just hoodies like they usually wear). Some of them found those articles, some did not. But off to school they did go. Through the snow.

I was quite enjoying our “California Winter”.

Just a reminder that you don’t want to miss Sunday’s Music and the Spoken Word Broadcast. We will be playing three songs! Two with the choir and one by ourselves, and it’s a majorly hard song, so I hope it works ok.

Now, I’m off to go make Eagle cookies.

Because when I was at the scout store (again) I couldn’t resist this cute Eagle cookie cutter. So, if any of you find yourself in need of an eagle cookie cutter, let me know, I could totally lend it to you.

They’re so FLUFFY!

February 20, 2012 / / 1 Comment

It started with a typical Saturday; cleaning the house and running errands. Jenna has asked if I would take her to Hobby Lobby for some new knitting needles. Natalie heard Hobby Lobby and wanted to come, too. So we first went to monster craft store, and after a bit of wandering, we found what we needed. Natalie even found a chef’s hat and was able to use her 40% off coupon to get it for cheap!

Next was a stop at IFA for chicken feed. While I was paying for my 50 pound bag, Jenna said, “Mom, I hear chicks, can I go see them?”
“Chicks? Ok.” I looked at the sales girl and asked, “You have chicks already?”
After I escorted the nice teenager who was carrying my feed to the car, I came back and found the girls by the chicks.

OH THE CUTENESS!

We pet those little chirping balls of fluff and looked at the chart, but we did not succumb to the cuteness. I did, however, send a text to Ryan that said, “Girls are looking at the chicks at IFA. The cuteness is almost more than we can bear.”

WE went off and finished our errands for the day, and when we came home, Ryan said, “I’m kind of surprised that you didn’t pick up some chicks while you were out.”
What? You mean you are on board with that? If you remember, Ryan was ANTI-CHICKEN for a long long time, until I pushed him into chicken ownership. But he’s come on board.
“How many chickens do you ultimately want to have?” he asked.

I said that I thought 6 was a good number.
“Well, then we should probably get 4 or 5 chicks, right?”

Shock. Still can’t believe he’s encouraging me to get chicks.

So, Monday, after dinner, we scooted on over to IFA to pick out some chicks. The fluffiness and cutitude is quite overpowering. We bought 5.
We ended up with two Black Australorps and 3 Ameraucanas. When they are grown up they should look something like these:

When we brought them home they looked like this. We put them in a box with food, water, and a light.

And Ryan, the reluctant chicken owner, seems to be just as enamored with them as the rest of us are.

After a week, we can tell that they are getting bigger. Still fluffy and cute, though.

One thing I didn’t know about chicks was how STINKY they are. I thought I would keep them in my office just to keep an eye on them, but after one day of that, they were moved to the basement. I had originally filled their box with shavings, but now I realize we’re going to have to clean out their box every day, and a friend told me that newspaper is easier. We have one little black chick (the kids are calling her ‘Penguin’) who likes to jump, and she can be frequently seen on the top of the water dish. We’ve already switched them to a bigger box, but we need to take other measures to keep that one from jumping out.

Ryan called me down today to see that chick was standing on the edge of the box, contemplating her escape. It was then that Ryan fashioned a ‘cone of shame’ to put on top of the water feeder so that if she gets up there again, she’ll just slide off.

So, keep on tuning in to see their progress!

Fabulous Friday Frivolities

October 28, 2011 / / 1 Comment

I have a few random thoughts to share with you today. Not enough for their own posts, so I’ll just combine them in a random fashion.

—We’ll start with the chickens. The new chickens seem fine in our backyard. I can’t really tell if they are happy with their new arrangement or not, but I’ll assume they are. But they are so much LOUDER than our last group. The first day we got them, I kept thinking something was wrong or that the nasty dogs had wandered in and were terrorizing them. I would run to the back door to check on them, or go out and see. Their previous owner had said that they were very proud when they laid an egg and that they got pretty loud in sharing with the world about their accomplishments. So, I would hear them cackling and think there must be an egg waiting. Nope. They are just loud. I looked them up online and think that they are New Hamshire Reds

In the description it says they are “Friendly,Easily handled,Bears confinement well, Noisy, Docile” Loud. Great. Thankfully our neighbor’s houses aren’t right next to ours, and there’s only one neighbor that I’m worried about hearing them, but now it’s getting cold so our windows will be closed. Won’t have to deal with the loudness till spring. Hopefully. And hopefully I won’t worry about them constantly. And about dogs.

I am a little concerned about keeping them warm enough. We’ve got to get their windows covered with plexiglass or plastic (or make them some cute shutters or curtains…wouldn’t that be cute?) and I’m going to look for a heated water dish and maybe hook up a light in there to keep them a little warmer. The forums are split on heating their coops, though. Some say they need to get used to the cold, others mention that they can get frostbite, so… But we definitely can’t have them out there with open windows.

—Our Japanese exchange student experience is going well. Except that all the fun things I have planned have not worked out. Thanks, FAMILY. “I have volleyball”, “Basketball starts tonight”, “Don’t forget about pack meeting,” “I have to work late to take a conference call”, “My friend is having a party, can I go?” Even my plan for Saturday’s outing isn’t going to work unless we flake on two volleyball games and a basketball game. Ugh. But we have managed to take him to the Dinosaur museum, to OraNGE lEaf for some yummy frozen yogurt, and to Wendy’s for fast food.
We’ve taken him to basketball and played Wii. Tonight is our ward party, and we’ve told him we are all dressing up in Halloween costumes. I think he’s excited about it (or maybe nervous, now that I think about it) because this morning he asked, “Is today Halloween?” and I told him that yes, it was the Halloween party. Let’s hope we don’t scar him too badly.

–I’ve entered a contest (of course I have) and would appreciate your votes. I could possibly win an I-pad. Wouldn’t THAT be cool?! You don’t have to register or anything, just go to this website HERE and vote for my picture

There’s only 15 pictures entered, but I think you can only vote once per computer, because I keep voting, and my status isn’t changing. Maybe I need to go to the Library and vote from there. Or YOU could vote, right? Thanks!

–Halloween decor. Megan and Ryan (mostly Megan) made these cool window monsters that look really cool at night.

If you were to come trick-or-treating at our house, you would see them in their full glory. Fun! And free!

I’m trying to decide what to dress up as for Halloween. My parents came over and took some costumes for their party. I was surprised that they chose a devil and Nemo costumes. Don’t I have fun parents?

What are YOU going to be for Halloween?

There’s a new coop in town

October 22, 2011 / / 3 Comments

Not to dwell on the bad, but last week a dog got the last of my chickens. The worst part was that I looked out one morning and saw the dog with my chicken in her mouth. I ran out there in bare feet to try to rescue her, but it was too late. I screamed at the dog and she slunk off. I broke down and cried. Actually, I cried a whole lot. She was my favorite chicken. My only chicken left, and I couldn’t get the image of the dog killing her out of my mind. I think because I had not cried when the other ones were killed, but this time the kids were gone and wouldn’t see me crying.

I did contact the dog owner, though. (Not right then, but a day later, when I could speak of it calmly without crying.) They were very sorry and offered to pay for chickens and punish the dog and keep her in their own yard. I can’t say it won’t happen again, but we will reinforce the dog run so that chickens can’t fly out the top when a dog comes barking. We will try again. Even if we are in a neighborhood full of dogs and our yard is not fenced. I don’t want to be the girl who had chickens once. That day I started looking on the internet for “dog proof chicken runs” and “How to keep chickens safe from predators” and looking on KSL.com for chickens for sale.

Because now that we’re all into this chicken project, I was authorized to spend some money instead of just relying on things I could get for free. And I had been complaining about the coop and how it needed this modification and that fixing. Ryan wasn’t thrilled about fixing up what he called a piece of junk coop. Somehow one of the kids suggested I should call my ‘friend’ Nate Berkus
 and ask him to design a chicken coop for us. While that’s not a bad idea, and I am certain that any chicken coop designed and/or built by Nate would be FABULOUS, I don’t really think he’d jump at the chance to do that for his show. But I might just send him an email anyway.

When I started looking, I found that there are a lot of chicken coops for sale! Fancy ones, HUGE ones, little ones, etc. Wow.
I found this ad that had just been put up, and I called.

It seemed sturdy, safe, and oh, so cute! I arranged to come and pick up the coop and his three chickens on Friday. Ryan was off work, so he and I took the truck up to Riverton to pick up this coop. The bad thing was that this coop built out of an old playhouse was wider than the gate, so we had to lift the whole thing up OVER the 5 ft fence. Somehow we managed with the three of us. The coop barely fit in our small truck. It had to sit on top of the wheel wells and was hanging out the back. But we used the trusty tie downs and took it slowly back home. I had the three chickens in a rubbermaid box on my lap. They did not enjoy the ride, I tell you.

We got home and had to muscle it out of the truck and put it in the garden area by the other coop.

Look at that metal roof! No rain or snow dripping on the chickens in that little house.

The little run is quite short, and we still have this dog run, so we want to figure out a way to attach that and give them a little more room to run around in, and still be safe from dogs.

But it makes me happy to have chickens again. And who doesn’t love a coop built from a cute pink play house?! (Ryan says we should paint it barn red, which would also be cute. We’ll see about that.) On their first day here they laid three eggs for us, so I’m pleased with their work, as well. We are returning the loaner chicken to her rightful owner, and going with these three. They came prenamed, so I guess we’ll stick with that, even though I don’t think that Lexi, Juliette and Violet are great chicken names. They even have little colored bands on their legs and a key written on the inside wall of the little house that says which color means which name (Violet is the blue one, etc.) Cute. So we’ll just go with that. If you’d like to come and visit our new little family of chickens, feel free to come on over. We’ll even give you a fresh brown egg if you’d like.

« Older posts

Recent Comments

Categories

Archives

© 2024 Superpaige's Pad

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑