Don't mind me.  I'm just hanging out, chewing my cud (with my mouth open) and molting.

 Everyone lined up nicely for this photo.  Well, actually this is only 6 of the 15.

Tomorrow is Poultry Moving Day

I hope to post pics tomorrow after moving everyone around.  Abigail's fair turkeys have been in our starter tub since she received them on March 15th.  They are getting pretty big & tall now and really need to move to larger quarters, so today Dan finished putting the turkey coop back together.  Tomorrow, the four of them move in.

I will clean out the starter tub and then move Rockie and her two chicks into that for awhile.  Chester & Spot are less than a week old, but when they are about 2 weeks old, I'll probably take Rockie back to the coop for two reasons.  Number 1) I hope that she will hatch another clutch of eggs & 2) I hope to have more chicks to put in with them.  Will see about ordering them tomorrow!

Dan is going to expand my chicken coop and I may keep as many as 3 dozen laying hens.  I am very excited about progressing with the eggs business so I need to get moving on it!  Dan will help me fence in a very much larger space outside the barn for the hens to roam....I call it "Controlled Free-Ranging".  The last time I let my hens truly roamed anywhere they wanted, I loved it.   So did the neighbor's dog, who killed one before I knew he was the culprit, and then outed himself by walking away with one of my chickens in his mouth...right in front of me.  So much for truly free-ranging my birds.  I think they will really like their big new pen, though.

Can you see the little one peeking out from under her momma's feathers?

Rockie's First Baby

After 6 years of keeping laying hens, we finally got a broody hen!  When I finally figured out that she was trying to hatch a clutch of eggs, I stopped taking them from beneath her.  A few days before Easter, I made moved Rockie and her 10 eggs to a cage, still inside the chicken coop, with her own food and water.  I knew from talking with my friends who've been through this, that I would need to protect the chicks from the other hens.  I put wind protection around the cage & made it a little dark and cozy for her, just the way they supposedly like it.

When I returned home today, Abigail ran up to me saying, "You know you have a baby chick hatched, don't you"?  Well, no, I didn't ~ and am so happy about it!  We have raised a lot of chicks from one day old, but none of them were born on this farm.  If there would be any way I could tell this first one apart from the ones to come, I would name him "Chester"  or name her "Chilly".

Welcome to Chestnut Hill Farm, little one!  (Please be a "Chilly" and not a "Chester....)

We may only use the tractor tiller once or twice a year, but it it worth every penny we paid. 
Dan gave the garden rows a tilling today, Yea!  There were so many weeds already. 
Whenever Dan had the time to do it in the last month, it was too wet or raining.
I will plant some lettuce in one row, and Dan will probably till the other rows again for me in another two weeks.

This is a blank slate to a gardener and this gardener is ready to get creative!

Abby & Dan just after they were able to remove a neck rope from one of the calves neck.  We did not put it there!  We thought is was out of their reach, but apparently not!  Somehow the curious steer #13 had gotten his head through the loop and I happened to notice it when Violet and I were out visiting Wilbert. 

Since these steers are not tame, D & A had to contruct a small pen with panel gates and get 13 seperated from the others and into the pen.  Slowly, they moved the panels in until Dan could reach through and slip it off his neck. 

Well Done!