‘Tis the season for chicks!

I guess it’s appropriate that my first post of the year is always of either chicks or newly planted seeds. This time it’s both. Our six new Ameraucana chicks arrived yesterday, a day old, and this morning proudly stood for their first portraits. Nearby sat the pots in which I just planted seeds for tomatoes (my favorite heirlooms: Large Red and…

A Very Long Egg-Eating Monster

Once before, I’ve caught a snake in the henhouse, but never in the act of swallowing an egg. Here’s the sight that greeted me a few weeks ago when I went out to collect in the evening. This is an eastern ratsnake: the only snake in Virginia that gets longer than six feet! It is not venomous…

Chicks!

So many people have been wanting eggs from us that we’ve decided to expand our chicken flock, by just a bit. We currently have 15 layers, about half Rhode Island Reds and half Plymouth Barred Rocks. Yesterday morning, we picked up 6 baby Amber Links from our local feed store. This is a breed that was previously…

Lucy dear? I’m already hatched…

From the beginning, my hens have had their favorite nest boxes. They have eight to choose from, and yet more than half of them lay their eggs in the same spot. From the beginning, they have graciously taken turns, and there was never a problem–until one of the hens recently got broody. When she decided…

The Dirty Life

There are not many books I’ve read more than once. My appetite for the written word is voracious–my loved ones might say insatiable–but it’s almost always focused on  tantalizing new territory. Fortunately, this is not as much of a vice in reading as it would be in other spheres of life. But every now and then, a book comes along…

17 New Pets

A month ago, we were put on notice by my husband’s dad that he was going to be giving up his chickens. He’s getting a little older and doesn’t feel up to taking care of them anymore. If we wanted them, we could have them, he said, but we’d have to act fast–he was ready…

Does Your Rooster Taste Funny?

I don’t currently keep chickens, because of deed restrictions in my family’s subdivision. My soon-to-be father-in-law, however, has a nice little property unencumbered by rules against poultry (or any other livestock, for that matter), and he’s been keeping chickens for the last year or so. He’s done it the old-fashioned way: hatching them himself and…