This week on the homestead was dedicated to chickens. We spent a lot of time thinking about them and working with them. We were either trying to keep them alive, getting more, or working on their living area.
We did lose 2 of our original 8 chicks. The first was one of our Easter Eggers that one of our sons had named Smokey Quartz after his favorite rock. This one had seemed to be one of the larger and stronger, but got sick and died quickly. The other was the smallest of them all, named Little Fluff Ball, and she never grew. She was spunky in spite of her small size and we felt drawn to that spunk right away. She fought to stay alive, and we spent a lot of time trying to help her eat and drink. Unfortunately, she just wasn’t quite strong enough.
The other 6 are doing quite well though. They seem to be starting to get their feathers now and are showing some color.
Chickens seem to be somewhat of an addiction. We keep seeing posts on Facebook from our favorite Ace Hardware advertising chicks. We decided to go back and get 3 more chicks on Thursday. We got 1 Easter Egger to replace Smokey Quartz, she is named Smokey Quartz Junior. We also bought two California Whites as that was the original chicken type we wanted the first time.
I had planned to build my own coop, but a neighbor of ours had one that he wanted to get rid of. It is quite large and sturdy, so we decided to take it off his hands. We are going to be using the part I started to build as a run for them during the day.
His coop was very heavy which is good because it won’t have issues during wind storms. That did make it difficult to move to our house. Once he got it here we had to winch it off his trailer. Thankfully we have a sturdy steel beam near the observatory building that we could use as an anchor.
For something not chicken related, I did see an interesting cactus under a bush. It is fairly well hidden so I hadn’t seen it before. It seems to have flowered already, and might have some sort of fruit on it.
Our apple trees are still doing well, and have many beautiful flowers on them. Today, I saw beetles on the flowers of one of the trees. It looked like some of the pictures I saw for Blister Beetles, but I am not for certain that is what it is.
-Joshua