- egg mobile

A couple weeks ago, I posted about another crazy project that I had began.  Well, after a whole lot of work, it is finally finished.   It actually still needs some tweaking; I am not very happy with the feeders I built inside, but it is in the field and working well.  The enclosure is 13' long, 6' wide, & 5.5' tall in the middle (I couldn't make it any higher, because it had to fit out through my garage door.)  I originally planned on have 3 roosting bars on each side, but realized I had room 4.  As you can see I used 9 5-gallon buckets as nesting boxes in at the rear of the trailer.  I wasn't sure how the chickens would like them, but in the beginning they jumped right in and have been depositing their eggs regularly.  I figure my egg-mobile can comfortably fit 220 chickens, though I don't plan on putting any more than 50 right now; it will also house some turkeys and meat chickens.

- juvenile Red Tail

A few weeks ago, I killed an opossum that ventured too close to the house.  Usually a carcass will not last more than a few days around here, but due to the cold weather and some snow it laid untouched for several weeks.  Last week a full size, but juvenile, Red-Tailed Hawk decided to come down and check it out.  Over a period of two days, the same raptor (I assume) spent more than 7 hours eating the carrion. only 30 feet from our window.  At one point a mature Red-Tailed came, sat on the fence, and watched him for a while; it was like mom was checking on him.  This is just another example of why we love living where we do; we have so many opportunities to watch God’s wonderful creation at work.

- a new project

Anytime I start one of my crazy projects I always have pretty good blue-print in my head, but getting it to turn out correct is another story.  A couple weeks ago I bought an old trailer and a few days ago I began another odd-ball project.  I am not going to reveal what I am building, but it should be interesting to see how it develops.

 

- bantams

Last week I was contacted by a lady who had commissioned me, in the past, to build her a chicken tractor.  She informed me that she was moving and could not keep her chickens.  When she asked if I would like to have the birds, I quickly accepted and picked them up a few days later.

In addition to the Barred Rock, Rhode Island Reds, and Black Star hens; we now have 3 beautiful (White Japanese Bantam?) hens who have settled in nicely.  They will be our only white egg layers and, as you can see in the photo, their mature egg size is quite a bit smaller than the typical hen, but it is nice to have a little more variety on the farm.  I'll include some photos of the birds in a future post.

- white-tailed visitors

Deer are not exactly an unusual sight around our home, but they still cause us to stop and take notice when  they get close to the house.  When these two came within 50’ of the house we all simply stood and watched them as they ate a little grass and then moved on.