Today I was out in the garage and I discovered that the Beast has bought several bags of the feed for the chickens and some more of the wood chips that we spread around the floor of the barn for them. It helps because it absorbs their urine and the feces sticks to it. I now must sweep the stuff up every week and then we replace it with more.
The Beast has taken it upon himself (he gets up much earlier these days) to open up the barn so the chickens have access to the fenced in yard. Of course, only a few venture out while the sun is bright and shining on the yard. I don't know why but most of them prefer to bask in the sun that comes into the barn with the doors open. However, they prefer to use the doggie door that we installed to get in and out of the barn.
The Beast has decided that he put the nesting box too high and is going to bring it down closer to the floor of the barn so they don't have to fly up to it (using the taller perch that he made for them). I was surprised at his making it so tall. But then I realized he has no idea that they may not like having to use their wings in order to use it. He has no experience at all with any kind of poultry except for the duck he once killed by accident when it was attacking him at a local park when he was a teenager. But that's another story altogether....LOL.
I remember my great-grandfather's farm and the chickens they had. When I would stay with them during the summer (I was sickly at the time and everyone thought it would be healthy for me *out in the country*). That was my great-grandfather's idea. He once put some warm whiskey in my ear one night when I had a severe earache and, in our darkened house, he would hold me in his lap and rock me. I still can see the kitchen in our apartment with a single light on from our stove and the sound of my great-grandfather singing me Irish lullabies.
Once, when the Beast and I were in Orlando at Universal Studios, we stopped in the Irish Pub that is there for a drink. The Irish group that was playing at the pub started singing something that I sang along with them and it surprised me. I mean that it was one that my great-grandfather sang to me and, even though I didn't think I had absorbed anything, I instantly remembered it. It was a shock to me. I told the Beast about how I remembered the words and even he laughed at my surprise. I wish I remembered the name of it but it happened so long ago. All I remember is how I just sang along with it and my surprise that it just instantly sprang into my mind.
Back to the topic....the chickens. I used to go out with my great-grandmother to spread the crushed corn for them and bring them out of the coop so we could check for eggs. They laid them in some surprising areas. We would have to go over every inch of the coop to find them. I thought that was normal until I realized that they didn't have nesting boxes. They had hay on a shelf that was located just about a foot off the floor of the coop with a ramp leading up to it. We would find eggs underneath the ramp, in the hay but with hay that the chickens had covered over them. They were tricky. Some were laid underneath the shelf. Others were in different corners of the coop. It was like an Easter egg hunt without the colored eggs.....LOL.
I tried enticing out chickens out of the barn with the cracked corn but it didn't really work like I had hoped. It was a totally unfamiliar taste for them and then I realized that they had to discover it and have it be a treat for them. That will take a bit of time. I'm just going to have to do it daily for a while before they all develop a taste for it and just be patient.
When the Beast went to close up the barn later in the afternoon (around dinner time), there happened to be about eight of them in the yard. He went to close the doggie door thinking they would just jump up into the barn with the door opened but they were ticked off at the idea of his closing up the doggie door and made a run for it...all eight of them at the same time.
They were pushing and shoving each other and ended up bunching up so much that none of them were going through it. They finally started getting through and the Beast was able to close off the doggie door access. It has a cover plate that slides down over the flap so that no one and nothing can get through it. It will keep predators out of the coop through that opening.
Well, time to post this. Love you all. Be happy. Stay healthy. Most of all, be kind to everyone. We are all fighting battles of one kind or another that we don't always share. Sometimes, an unexpected act of kindness can make our day! ***Hugs***
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