The Chickens are 16 weeks!

A lot has happened in the last 2 weeks. The Girls have been busy. Yes, I know there are two boys in the group. I still called the flock 'The Girls'.  

The berry field next to us has decided to use sound machines to keep birds from eating their berries. It started as a combination of alien abductions and birds dying. Well, that was just great for 17 hours a day. A week later they added more dying birds and raptor calls. There is now noise... constantly for 17 hours a day.  I get it, birds eat 30% of your crops. Do what you've gotta do, but do it properly. Playing it constantly for 17 hours a day isn't doing anything. Only using sounds without bird netting, scare crows and scare tape doesn't work. The chickens got over the noise in about 2 days, so did the starlings and crows that I watch FLOCK to the berries everyday. That's the down side to rural living, we are zoned for agriculture and "farm noise" is exempt from noise laws. 

We took down their temporary fence, now they have free reign. There is about an acre for them to explore and they, of course, choose the one place I don't want them. They spend a lot of time on the driveway near the barn, and near the house. There is poop everywhere. EVERY WHERE! I put up a bit of chicken fence to keep them from roaming to the neighbors yards, they don't care. 

Fence? What fence? You can't contain us!

One of the Rhode Island Reds is a tiny one. She is about 2/3rds the size of the other RIR girls. I suspect that she is Droopy but I can't tell anymore. I wonder if she'll lay teeny-tiny jellybean eggs. We'll see, hopefully these girls start pulling their weight soon. 

The ducks have decided that they are not runners. They are flyers. They fly from the coop to their chosen foraging spot. Fine by me! They fly about 50 feet, 5 or 6 feet high. I had a dream they flew to the river to be free! We'll see if that happens.

Ragnar has been crowing. Full on Cock-a-doodle-doo-ing. He's got the whole weird stance and everything. He has yet to do the "danger is near" cries. Those will come. He needs to protect his ladies. If I'm too slow in the morning to let them out, he lets me know. 

Faux Roo is an actual Roo. He some how hurt his leg and has been hobbling around a bit. I haven't been able to catch him to inspect without him running away. I don't want him running, I'll have to bribe him with treats and take a good look. I hope it isn't anything serious and he just fell off the roost. He isn't usually standing like that.

We lost one of our Buff Orpingtons, we suspect it was an eagle. All that was left was two piles of feathers right by the field. We've been on high alert since. We're thinking about fencing them in, but thats not really what we want. We're looking at different methods of keep them out of the grasp of predators. The eagles have been out in force. I suspect it has been teach the young

Crazy Legs is our remaining Buff Orpington, her legs stay straight every time I pick her up.

Nancy Drew has lost her tail feathers. A few jerks ducks pulled them out. Those ducks... She's embarrassed.

In the last few days we've seen coyotes in the day time, and they are starting to get closer to the house and The Girls. A few evenings ago, a coyote was hopping around in the field have some mice tapas, and (I suspect) heard or saw the chickens. He scampered closer and closer and Scribs went out to protect The Girls. The coyote skulked around and watched the girls. Scribs skulked around and watched the coyote. The coyote either lost interest or smelled Scribs and lost interest. The kids were still awake, that means it was before 8 p.m. the kids were up. We've been on high alert since, especially since it's been around in the day time, when the kids are out. 

It was back this morning around noon while I was out with Nature Baby. It was in the field, but I wasn't willing to let it get any closer. We watched with binoculars and waited. Lucky for him, he went into the bushes. If he comes after The Girls we will take action. 

You can see Faux-Roo is getting his iridescent tail feathers and he's MUCH bigger than the girls. 

...I've rewritten this 3 times, every time Nature Baby some how erases it. First time was much wittier, I swear! I'm going to do the chicken updates every other week. At this point, until they start laying, there isn't too much going on. I have a ton going on, but they're just kind of doing their own thing.