| There's a little bit to report about my chickens this week. First off, I think my girls are in the process of establishing their pecking order. Kate, the oldest, has been quite aggressive to the others, although I haven't seen her actually hurt any of them or draw blood. A week or two after she started acting like that, a few of the others caught on and joined her. I think the birds are probably going through a rather normal phase of establishing their pecking order. Kate also went after my poor cat, who was out in the yard prowling around. I can't believe I was worried that the cat would attack the chickens and not the other way around!
Second, it seems that my girls are molting - particularly Kate. She looks like some of her feathers are about to fall off, and I've been finding feathers all over the place in our yard and in the coop. I looked it up and it seems that pullets go through several partial molts before they are mature enough to lay eggs. I don't know how old Kate is but I hope she's close to laying eggs!
Also, I've heard from a friend that he put some golf balls and easter eggs in his hens' nests and all of a sudden they went from not laying to giving him 3 dozen eggs in a week. So I got a wooden egg and stuck it in my girls' nest. If nothing else, it'll teach anyone who tries to taste it that eggs aren't good eatin'. And, when they are ready to lay, it'll show them that they should do so in the nesting box.
And last, I've come up with an idea to solve one of my problems. When I let my chickens out, they eat my crops and poop in places that they shouldn't (and then the dog eats it). Keeping the coop door open for the chickens to go in and out also allows the dog to get into the coop, where he tries to eat the chickens' food and poop and makes a stinky mess of himself (today I'm giving him his second bath this week). But when I keep the chickens in, they don't get to eat grass and bugs!
This week, I used scrap wood leftover from the coop to make a few small trays that I filled with potting soil and planted with grass seed. This way, I'll be able to keep the chickens in their coop and still let them eat grass. I expect I'll still have to let them out some, but this might buy me a bit of time while I try to figure out how to keep the chickens out of the crops. They've already wrecked the pea vines, and I'm not willing to let them take out the strawberries I just planted. |
