Daily Chores-Never Ordinary
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| Lucille |
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| The suspicious rooster and gabby duck! |
So my daily outside chores are pretty simple at this point. In the morning I grab the compost bucket to take to the chickens, fill up a water bucket and go open the barn door and fill the feed pan. The duck makes a quick mess of the water so my chickens need fresh water every day. I also feed the cats in the morning. Then in the evening I collect eggs, put Lucille in the chicken house(she gets picked on if she's locked in with everyone and since we only have chickens right now, everyone else get free run of the barn), and shut the barn door. I also work on training our dog each time I walk over. She chases the cats so I make her "sit" and "wait" until I release her with "ok". It's good practice for her and gives the cats a chance to get to the barn before she can pounce on them.
Even though it's routine, with animals there always seems to be something new.
Egg Laying Drama-The Need for Privacy
So we have had some egg laying issues recently. I think the rooster and the duck are being too intrusive and it has made for a decreased egg production. Every time one of the hens gets in the nest box the duck has to rush over and "talk" about it and then the rooster has to come and oversee the whole production because the duck is making such a big deal of it. Yesterday I accidentally left the feed room door open and all three hens went in there and layed their eggs on the hay bale stored there. And when I got to the barn today the Rhode Island Red hen was eagerly waiting for me to open the feed room door to get feed and she charged right in and went straight for the hay bale
. I propped the door open a little for her today but I decided I had better re-arrange the nest box also. So I cleaned it out and put some hay in there(I'm out of clean straw) and moved it to an out of the way spot. The duck and the rooster are still making a big deal of it, but at least it's not in the main barn area, it's over in the chicken house. So maybe they will be less likely to notice... There's always something going on at the barn!
Rhubarb, Raspberries and Strawberries! Oh My!
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| Rhubarb shoots |
On the way back to the house today I stopped to check on our raspberry, strawberry and rhubarb patches and
was happy to see that besides the strawberries, who have had new leaf growth for about a week, the rhubarb shoots are up and the raspberry canes have leaf buds! My mom and dad brought over some raspberry canes from their HUGE raspberry patch last year and I'm excited to see how they do over here. My mom makes world famous, ok family famous, jam and jelly and I'm hoping to have her help me make some of my own this year.
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| Strawberry leaves |
Also, I think the dog broke one of the main raspberry canes off one of the plants so I'm going to attempt to get it to root. I have it in water now but I did a little reading and it looks like I might need to keep it in moist soil in order to get it to grow.
So that has been my daily outside chores! What fun did you have doing chores today?
I'm participating in a blog link-up where you can see what others are up to on their homestead!
So we have had some egg laying issues recently. I think the rooster and the duck are being too intrusive and it has made for a decreased egg production. Every time one of the hens gets in the nest box the duck has to rush over and "talk" about it and then the rooster has to come and oversee the whole production because the duck is making such a big deal of it. Yesterday I accidentally left the feed room door open and all three hens went in there and layed their eggs on the hay bale stored there. And when I got to the barn today the Rhode Island Red hen was eagerly waiting for me to open the feed room door to get feed and she charged right in and went straight for the hay bale. I propped the door open a little for her today but I decided I had better re-arrange the nest box also. So I cleaned it out and put some hay in there(I'm out of clean straw) and moved it to an out of the way spot. The duck and the rooster are still making a big deal of it, but at least it's not in the main barn area, it's over in the chicken house. So maybe they will be less likely to notice... There's always something going on at the barn!
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