Fresh grass :-)

Funny ducks!

My four runner ducks are fascinating to watch.  They trot around the yard looking at everything and usually quacking up a storm, especially when they find something they like, like a puddle. :-)  The other interesting thing is that there are always four of them together, we never see them apart.  Well, today I looked out the window and found only three quacking up a storm in the front yard.  I immediately went outside to find out if someone was hurt and all I heard was one loud quacking from the other side of the yard, so knew that she/he was ok. :-)  Later on I went looking for the missing one.  And I found her somehow stuck inside the other chicken run on the other side of the yard.  It was rather humorous...here she was on one side and the other three were cuddled up in the grass on the other side of the run wall.  Still had to be together!  I tipped the run up and she did run out then, much to the thrillment of all involved... :-)

Beautiful grass :-)

There is a definate difference in the grass that was under the run as it moves through the rows of the vineyard.  The grass in the beginning of the first row is starting to get thick and a darker green compared to the stuff that wasn't under the feet of the chickens.  The nitrogen is taking root, literally! :-)  Way to go chickens! :-)

Straw is essential, evidently...

I have come to the conclusion, after watching egg numbers rocket up, that chickens love a comfy place to lay their eggs.  What they did with them since the last of the straw disappeared from the nesting boxes, a week or so ago, I'll never know...  But since I re-stocked the nests the other day, they have been laying nicely!  I had purposely let the straw run out (and by run out I mean not refill it from them taking it all out or eating it or whatever...?) since I built the nesting box to be a rollaway nest and I figured the weaning period for a normal flat nest was over and since they were laying nicely in there, I was going to set it at a tilt.  (I had read somewhere that chickens may not normally be thrilled about going in a nest with no straw, but if you fill a rollaway box with straw for awhile to get them used to it and then remove it and tilt the nest, they take to the change better.)  The nests would subsequently not have straw in them since an egg won't roll in a nest filled with straw.  But after seeing the difference in eggs, I think I'm going to leave the nest flat and filled with straw.  Whatever they like, I will do... :-)

Where did the eggs go?

My latest dilemma is that the egg count has dropped and I don't know why.  I've also seen yolk on some of them, so I'm guessing that some are being eaten, but not sure on the rest.  I think I have two choices for attempting to solve this - 1)they really seem to like a lot of straw in the boxes, so I'll just add more, and 2)the nesting box I made them is supposed to be a tilted rollaway one, so I simply need to tip it so the eggs roll down safely into the storage area and *voila* no broken eggs.  I will try the extra straw today and see what happens.

Peachicks

Today I moved the peachicks from their warm light bulb outside into the fresh air!  Unlike chickens, these little guys seem to take quite awhile to become adjusted to new living quarters.  They're growing larger too, so soon I'll need to put them into their own larger run.  So far I don't know how many are males and how many are females, so we'll keep watching! :-)

Naughty leghorns

I have previously mentioned how leghorns are naughty and very flighty birds.  There is still one running outside that I just can't catch.  She's very fast even after dark!  Now the fun part will be hunting all over the yard to find her eggs... :-)