As promised, I am going to try to stay current with my blog entries. It won’t be every day, but I’ll aim for once a week at least. Even if it is just a few pictures or a little blurb of the going-ons at Les Farms.
It was a white Christmas this year. The world DID NOT end.
We’re under storm watch again today. Another 20 CM expected this afternoon and evening. It makes for a difficult time doing chores, but winter chores are typically a pain. With the birds refusing to come out, and my food freezing – it’s just happy joy joy all around. *sarcasm*
Our pathways are pure ice.. ice and poop.. and feathers.. and who knows what else, but it’s all frozen solid. Frozen and slippery. Thankfully we purchased shoe slip treads to facilitate walking and prevent falling.
Like so. I highly recommend these if you slip and slide on your walk to the chicken coop. These babies are fabulous! Best $5.99 I ‘ve spent this year!
The slippery slopes are no match for hungry groupies. The birds don’t mind the ice.. even when they are doing the splits and giving us side pains from all the laughter. The Pennies still run out to greet me. Or mob me. Take your pick. They are most liable to mob me before bed, when it’s their second feeding time. As you can tell, they are not underfed
They sure make it hard to make my way to the barn without tripping over a chicken – which the shoe treads do not help against.
The barn has been winterized as much as it needs to be for the winter. No heat. No insulation. Their down is enough to keep them toasty warm this winter. I have Timothy hay hanging for the geese – as the majority of their diet during the spring, summer and fall is grass. The chickens enjoy swinging from their hay bale.
Have you guys met the bunnies? We have two that are free ranging… Can’t catch them.. They have a shelter under some pallets and a tarp. We feed them and they stick around. Here’s Frankle. He’s a little off. He has poor coordination. He’ll topple over when he’s walking slow. Maybe he has poor vision, or is just old.. I don’t know. He was given to us during the fall show.
Here is Frankle’s girlfriend Wanda. Who is spade. I am not keen on breeding rabbits. I don’t like confining them, and Frankle’s disability would not be a good idea to pass on. He’s happy though, and that’s all that matters.
Things change on a daily basis in my coop.. The nesting boxes were built last weekend and have been moved around a few times. Right now we took one out completely and they share six nesting boxes in the main coop.. The boxes themselves are big enough for two hens to share.
Though Eedie would not approve of sharing.
Our coop received much needed TLC this weekend. Windows were cleaned, cobwebs removed. The storage part of the barn was organized and cleaned. The silkie coop was given a 5 ladder roost, and George received his very own pen. He has been in a big kennel until we fixed this up for him. The girls and boys beat up on him. Especially Penny and Marge. They just hate poor George..
More pictures to come of all the work we did later today!
Meanwhile.. Betty (or Mr. Betty) is enjoying quality time with his mama.
Penny has been driving me up the wall lately with her attempts at escaping the silkie pen.. and shortly after, trying to get back in like an idiot who forgot where she got out in the first place!
So I spent Friday cutting little holes that were Penny sized all around the silkie pen. Two holes weren’t enough. Penny still got out and forgot how to get back in.
So she would just wait around for me to come back and open the door.
That was that. I cut holes in between every. single. fence. post. There. That should do it.
Penny was now free to come and go as she pleased (which was often).
Mama had to free range with them as well. Flora Mae enjoyed the grass and didn’t feel as out of her element as I expected. Seeing as she never met the standard birds before now.
Penny and Penny and Penny enjoyed the crisp cucumbers I brought down as a treat..
The Pennies enjoyed outnumbering the big guys.
Which made Carlton feel a little insecure…
The ducks watched with baited breath. They enjoyed ganging up on a stray Penny. Little brats.. I put them all on time out.
Marge was free to scout out her old dusting spots. She had to show Penny where and how to dust bathe.
Jagger was excited to see Marge.
But I think Marge was much more excited to see Jagger.
However, Jagger was distracted by the possessive silkie who continued to flog him when he stepped near Penny.
So this weekend was busy. We cleaned out the entire barn again. Deep litter is just not for me!
I did get some time to photograph all my babies like I do every weekend. Here are some of my favourite shots from this week! Enjoy!
Scotty Mac – 15 weeks old
Gretta & Phyllis – 15 weeks old.
Everyone loves a fluffy butt pillow!
Skittles <3
Spock – 14 weeks
Lorraine with her brood of 11 (ages are between 3 and 1 week – she takes anything I give her lol)
Black Ameraucana
Carl Jr. Looking mighty fine! They have started to lay already
Silver Laced Wyandotte – 7 weeks
Sizzle – 7 weeks
Sizzle – 7 weeks
Stanley – 25 weeks
Bruce – 12 weeks
Roger – 19 weeks
Brian – 14 weeks
Jaycie – 15 weeks
Tilly & Rosa – 14 weeks (how cute are they?!)
Cochin x BR pullet – 15 weeks
Frilkie – 15 weeks
Betty – 12 weeks – chasing butterfly
Jagger with son (left) This boy is only 15 weeks old! HUGE!
Lots of silkies. They were supposed to be eating some grass.. Instead they just piled up and waited for me to stick them back in their pen of safety :/
Agatha (crooked beak)
Silkie – 12 weeks
Silkie – 12 weeks
Same girl – 12 weeks
Barbara – 19 weeks
Thanks for reading Don’t forget to leave a comment bellow!
First off, let me start by apologizing for being MIA for 2 weeks. It’s been very busy around here. As you may have gathered from my last post, we have expanded to a massive size. It’s just getting bigger by the day. I am loving every moment of it.
Clementine did us proud for the first time last night. Just after midnight, Susan and I were cursing at Koda for barking at what we thought was Dylan upstairs getting something to eat. He continued to bark for five minutes before we started yelling up to Dylan to put his bark collar (citronella spray) on because we needed to sleep. Dylan said that Clementine was freaking out. We are used to Clem barking at night. She barks almost every hour, but it is a distinguishable bark. Not erratic or desperate like this sound we were experiencing for the first time.
Dylan went outside to check what was getting her all riled up. It was a STRAY DOG. Clementine was bouncing off the kennel trying to get at this beagle who was sniffing around the barn. After a few tries, Dylan caught the dog and Susan called our neighbour who was responsible. If I was left to talk to this neighbour, things would have been said. Curses would have been uttered.. Susan is very calm and collected when I am just not.. She explained that this dog can not be on our property because we have livestock and he said Okay. No apologies. Next time the dog goes to the pound. If the dog hurts a chicken, it goes to a pound an hour away. I am not putting up with this shit.
Sorry.. Rant over.. Some people..
Clementine is really starting to grow on me. She is used to the kennel, and gets out daily for a good run. She is not old enough to trust alone with the poultry yet. I need to wait until her puppy energy subsides. She is very playful right now. When we supervise, she ignores the poultry. That is a good sign. It has to be. She has never shown aggression to them, but did show playfulness which is just as dangerous when working with livestock so breakable.
Now on to the County Fair pictures. We took 12 of our birds to a chicken show hosted in Petitcodiac, NB on August 3rd & 4th. We bathed, clipped nails (and beaks) and blew dry most of those 12. Gigi didn’t get a bath, because he was pristine.
We brought:
Carlton.
He was Disqualified for vulture hocks. I don’t see them in this picture, but they were visible (though not stiff like the definition states), so I was a little bummed about that. I think he is beautiful.
Eedie & Lynette – Who were also both DQ for leg colour. I knew they would be, but Jamie said to put them in anyway. The legs are not that hard to breed out if I have a proper coloured rooster. Stanley has slate legs. Hopefully we will get babies with slate legs and pure white. White to white produces white. It should be a worthwhile project!
We brought Phyllis – She won BV for partridge!
We brought Gretta – She won 3rd place – but she was up against Jamie’s GORGEOUS birds.
I mean really.. That’s just not fair!
We brought Skittles – Who WON Champion in her class! GO SKITTLES!
Here she is with her ribbon!
Gigi won Reserve Champion Continental (second place after Skittles).
We took the frilkie boy (right) and he took BV as well, but was the only frizzled silkie, so yeah
We took both Barbaras (We call them both Barbara – and sometimes Brenda if I forget the name Barbara)
The bigger Barbara took best in breed.
We took both Rogers (again same as the Barbara thing).
This Roger took 2nd
This Roger was placed before or after the smaller Barbara.. I am just confusing you now.. Just look at the pretty pictures
That’s it for the show.. We did well for the first one. After everyone admired and commented on our Mottled Houdans, we called up the breeder and bought 8 more chicks. Every single chick he had.
Did I mention that we also bought 7 bantam Ameraucana from Jamie last week? Oh yes.. There is that too..
The cockerel is Blue.
One pullet is blue (my favourite)
Two are black
One is splash.
There are two backup roosters in case anything happens to the best one.
The call ducks are adorable, though a little mean. Especially to anything smaller than them.
Lorraine has a brood of 7 chicks (6 silkies + 1 smooth sizzle).
We had to create a pen for more chicks.. Sigh.. Here is something I threw together pretty quickly. It works really well. We have an unknown # in there. Under 30 I would say.. Yeah, definitely under 30.
The sizzles are looking awfully sizzley
And we got our first blue egg!
Just some pictures from the last two weeks bellow. Hope my blog posts aren’t too overloaded with pictures. I believe in the saying “A picture says a thousand words”.
3 silkies, 1 sizzle (Lorraine had a staggared hatch and I had to incubate her remaining 4 eggs, all hatched despite nearly 2 weeks of high humidity and no turning. I thought they were due way before they hatched.
Sizzle (2.5 weeks)
Mottled Houdan (2 weeks)
2.5 week old chicks.
4 Week old EE
6 week old pullets (SLW & BR).
McChicken (10 weeks)
Again <3
Dustbathing RSL pullets (3 weeks)
Barred rock x Cochin pullet (14 weeks)
Barred Rock x Cochin Cockerel (14 weeks)
Adorable blue partridge girl
Silkie (blue or black? I don’t know..)
I’m going with blue… 11 weeks old
Barred Rock x Cochin boys
Rosa <3
Tilly
6 week old call ducks
Swimming
Sleepy broody chicks..
*exhales*
Okay.. That’s enough for today.. Thanks for reading! Please leave a comment bellow <3
Yes.. I am shocked and amazed with how much our farm has grown over the last little bit.. After Friday’s hatch – we are up to 132 birds total. How is that even possible you ask? Well, Marge and Flora Mae are proud mothers of 21 little munchkins. I bought 19 Pennies (RSLs) to keep up with demand for our eggs. We were even asked to supply a corner store with farm fresh free-range eggs. This is going to be a fun project, but right now there are a lot of ages mixed in together.
You recall the silkie pen correct?
Well now it is the pen where the silkies are, as well as the broodies, and the injured hens.. It’s a big mixture of things.
Dott hurt her hip or leg pretty badly a couple of weeks ago. It could have been caused by the boys chasing her around and mating her, or she could have hopped down from the roosts the wrong way, but it was causing a lot of problems for her with the boys. An injured hen should not be pursued by that many roosters if she is to heal. She now has nothing to worry about, and is limping less and less every day.
She is in the silkie pen with the broodies and the silkies.. and the chicks..
As are Penny and Harriet. Harriet has a growth on her eye and does not fare well with the big chickens picking on her. Penny needs a break from all the roosters as well.. I really need to do something about all those boys! They need a pen of their own!
So total in the silkie pen is: 51.
We’ve expanded it so it takes up this part of the barn as well.
Here is Marge loving her new role as mother. Flora continues to flog her. The babies seem to favour Marge as cooler mom.
Steve still continues to father all the kids. Here is one of my favourite looking ones. I believe the colour is called Calico.
Here is a blue partridge girl.
Phyllis
Various others.
Heheheh..
I have more pictures to go through, so you will be seeing more of all these chicks.. Be prepared. They are adorable overload.
Or Rhode Island Reds for that matter!
Either I am a broody magnet, or my layers are giving me a tough go..
Both Ruby and Marge have been broody for a full 3 weeks. They started sitting only days apart. Marge has hatched out three, and Ruby was left to sit on golf balls – because today I am picking up 10 Red Sex Links for her to raise. How cute will it be to see a true heritage Rhode Island Red have a brood of the fake ones. I think it’s going to be something else!
Ruby all settled on her nest.
Marge taking care of her first two chicks. The other one finally zipped this morning. I haven’t seen it yet, was just informed by Dylan that Flora Mae stole the egg and Marge was in a different nest box entirely. Crisis averted.. He locked Flora Mae in her cage until I get home.
Who is Flora Mae you ask? Oh that’s right.. I didn’t mention her.. She is Lorraine’s mother. I bought her from Hallus for $5. She was already broody when I brought her home.
Right now we have 4 broodies. Lorraine, Flora Mae, Ruby and Marge.. They are all in their separate cages in the silkie enclosure.
*sigh* it’s hard to keep track of all these age groups!
(just got a text from Dylan.. “Miss Jackson is broody..” – Miss Jackson being Janet.. – facedesk-)
We have two frizzled chicks from Harriet & George! Party down!
Oh and did I mention the call ducks yet? Well..
Macy was broody.. Her eggs were starting to smell (not fertile, unless Carlton is really a duck and just looks like a chicken). So I went out and bought her 12 little call ducks to call her own.. She was having none of that! She quickly aborted her attempt at starting a family – excuses were many.. they were too loud.. too many.. too needy.. She wanted out. So I let her out.. She didn’t even attempt to nest again.
Family planning 101: Have a teen that wants to get pregnant at 16? Find twin toddlers to stick with her for a weekend. Teenage pregnancy averted.
Anyway.. They are oh so adorable and perfect! Except they make a HUGE mess.. HUGE. SMELLY. MESS.
Don’t let them fool you.. They are monsters that smell like farts.
SMELLY
But oh so cute…
Also added more chicks that I found on sale.. $2.50 a pop! I got 4 barred rock females and 2 straight run Silver Laced Wyandottes. I bought 20 and sold 14 – making a profit by selling them for $6 a chick (they were 3 weeks old or so). I got paid to keep 6 of them. $40 profit! How awesome is that? I only had the other 14 for 16 hours.
They begged me to get rid of the ducks.. Seeing as they all live in the same brooder.. I figured out a way to somewhat control the mess.. More on that later..
Thanks for reading! Don’t forget to leave a comment bellow.
On to the love of my silkies. I can’t get enough of them.
Here are some pros of keeping silkies/breeding them:
-They make great surrogate mothers
-They eat very little
-They are fuzzy and soft
-They make you laugh
-They make your friends laugh
-They sell like hot cakes!
-They lay relatively well for an ornamental breed (at least mine do)
-They are cute. Come on. Don’t deny it!
-The roosters’ crow is less obnoxious than a standard rooster (in my experience)
Okay.. So who wants pictures?
You all are aware of my trio of breeding stock yes?
There is Steve (daddy)
There is Lorraine (mom #1)
*ROFL*
There is Pearl (mom #2)
And for the babies:
Phyllis
Gretta
Unnamed because he is going to Jaqueline – it’s a little roo He’s adorable!
Unnamed – it’s a frilkie – and it is not related to my threesome.
I’m pretty sure it’s a boy, but I’m waiting to be sure. I do believe he is going to my friend Jason. He has 3 of my silkies that are the same age.
Now for the little ones that are too young to be identified as pullet or cockerel – they are going on six weeks old this weekend (these pictures were taken last week – so they were close to 5 weeks old)
This is the one I helped hatch! She/he is so beautiful!
and we lost one last week It had eaten something that would not pass through the crop. It was so beautiful too.
RIP little guy <3
Here are some cute pictures of Steve being super dad:
*Chick pokes dad’s butt*
Steve: ?
Steve: “Who done it”
I can’t complain – he’s been keeping them warm, feeding them and hanging out all day and all night 24/7 with his kids. His tail feathers are finally growing in and he’s looking much better. Damn you Jagger and your bullying!
There is something about these guys that I love. I kept all five of Mabel & Jagger’s kids from that first hatch. Any roosters will be used as meat. The pullets – I will keep ONE and give ONE to Jaqueline (a very good friend of mine). If there is an extra girl, I’ll probably sell her in September at the sale.
These guys are HUGE for their age, and they are not all fluff either. There is some serious meat growing there. lol
This will be the girl I keep. I love her colour. All of them have amazing foot feathering, just like their Mama!
They are so much bigger than the rest of them. Mabel and Jagger make a great cross!
Bonnie laid her very first egg yesterday! She was EXACTLY 18 weeks old! I was not expecting eggs so soon from this crew! It’s only a matter of time before we have our very first coloured eggs! WOOT!
*happy dance*
Go Bonnie GO! Our youngest chicken to ever lay! It was the smallest little brown egg.. I thought for sure it was a fart egg until I went to open it and it was perfectly formed – yolk, white, shell. The egg was even fertilized. Bonnie was searching for a nesting box this morning to lay her second little egg.
This picture is a couple of weeks old, but anyway.
Don’t forget to leave a comment bellow! 
It had eaten something that would not pass through the crop. It was so beautiful too.
