October 10, 2010
Sunday, 11:41 am
Woke up to the sound of Raven chattering and complaining. She usually does this once she has laid an egg and is warning the others to stay away from it, or right before she is about to lay. I went out at 10am and it was already cold. I figured she might be the only one to lay today since Ellie and Goldie both laid yesterday. Perhaps Goldie too who lays almost every day, but I look out there now and Ellie is on the nest, half her behind sticking out of the small box which she insists on laying in even though it is too small for her. So we’ll have two, maybe even three eggs today. Good thing because we sent Brian’s Dad home with a half dozen last night. He has taken to bringing the empty egg cartons to the house so that lets us know they are in need of more, plus I have asked people to save their old cartons so we won’t have to buy any.
I’ve been taking some Project Management PDU’s (classes) since I have been unemployed and yesterday’s classes were about charts and measuring quality. Sooooooooo.............this morning I got the bright idea to create some charts on the laying schedules of the hens. It became easier to do the first chart simply on quantity of eggs laid per hen thus far. Took some aggravation and a bit of time more to plot lines of the times they lay, an estimate since I could figure out how to put the exact times on the axis and used numbers instead of times to approximate, still, it gives an idea of the schedules they follow. After plotting them all on one chart, I broke them down into charts for each individual hen and was done for the day with charts....blech!
The nice clean water I put in the run yesterday is already filled with dirt from the dirt bath party they had yesterday after I raked out a lot of the old dried up weeds. Perhaps I should rake the other side instead and make that their dirt bath area? Either that or it will be a constant struggle to keep the water clean, which it already is anyway.
Ellie’s tail feathers are looking very raggedy lately, not sure why. Could be the way she is sleeping in the coop. Poor Chanel has decided the heck with the coop even though I’ve snuck in a gozillion times now and put her back in after dark. Hawkeye mercilously pecks her in the face and neck and Chanel will eventually jump out and go back to her new sleeping spot on top of the nesting boxes. Poor thing, I don’t know what I will do when it gets cold out. I’ll have to think of something for her. She has a ton of feathers, but not much fat on her yet and I feel she’ll need the shared warmth of the others. They CAN be so cruel to each other at times and I fall back on that is it MY fault for bringing Chanel into the flock. Had her friends turned out to be hens instead of roosters, at least she would have had her own “posse” to hang out with, but then again, 8 chickens versus 6 would have been too many I think. That is the thing with keeping chickens, it is evident quickly where you have made a mistake in strategy. It is a great learning tool and it makes me wonder how much knowledge we have lost as a civilization when so few people farm, grow food or keep animals like this anymore. All the old tricks and tips that were passed down. Animals are such fascinating creatures....sometimes we forget that we are animals too. I’ve always thought that if you adopt an animal, you are responsible for it’s happiness and well-being because it didn’t ask to be adopted by you, you chose to adopt it. I also think animals are God’s angels in disguise, put her to teach us and befriend us. Their loyalty and unconditional love through all types of adversity is amazing. I had a friend once who didn’t particularly care for my dog, but when my dog died suddenly, she later told me, “Your dog taught me to love her.” I think that says it all....
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