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Of Mites and Men...

A few days ago, hubby was cleaning out the basement, getting it ready for a delivery from "Better Choice Foods". He had the chicken coop door open, as usual, and one little hen just kept following him around everywhere he went. After noticing that Kevin wasn't paying much attention to her, she started wandering over by the sand box, the kids, me, the deck, and finally laid down on the deck, right by the entryway. She was laying in the sun, eyes closed, and I really didn't think anything of it, just thought she was super people-friendly.

When Kevin was done ripping out the stairs in the basement, he picked up the hen and noticed the source of her "friendliness". She had MITES. YIKES! Not 10 minutes ago, my son was trying to pick this little thing up, while I tried un-successfully, to get him to leave the poor thing alone!
My first thought was: "Can the mites transfer to humans?!" but hubby assured me that the kids were safe.

So now what do we do??? Ahh..the power of the World Wide Web! If you can imagine it, you can Google it! hahaha Or as I have been doing lately...Swagbucks-It!

We found out that a special powder/dust is needed to treat the mites, and it's probably a good idea to treat ALL the chickens, to avoid the spread of these pesky critters.
Yesterday, Kevin drove to THREE different places to get this "special dust", which is probably something I could have found at PETCO/PetSmart! And spent about 2 hours, if not more, dusting all of 40-something chickens in the coop! LOL! They were NOT happy hens! But hopefully they will be mites-free!

The joys of trying to have a farm!

The Eggville Massacre!

We planned a vacation at the New Jersey Shore for last week. Kevin spent all his free time, before the vacation, securing the chicken coop and the surrounding area. We left on Sunday morning and asked Kevin's dad to come and check on the chickens during the week we were to be away.

Tuesday afternoon, we received a phone call from Kevin's dad, which I was certain was just his idea of a joke. He said that he just got to our house and all of the chickens are DEAD! Kevin could not believe his ears! I got the chills! We could not imagine that our beloved flock of 20-something chickens was slaughtered in just a few days.

Long story short...turns out there was a little corner of the fence, which was not as secure as we thought. Something, probably a fox, got into the coop and killed all the hens.

Kevin asked his dad to take the dead chickens out of the coop, so not to spread any kind of disease. When we got home, Kevin spent the whole day fixing anything that looked like it could be a way in for any predators. And then...are you ready for this? He found a woman through Craigslist, who has a chicken farm, and bought 40-something chickens from her! Unreal, my husband, I tell ya! We don't know if the new chickens are hens or roosters, although some are already displaying rooster-like qualities...like fighting for example. The flock will probably get a lot smaller, once we find out who the real roosters are.

So that's that, ladies and gentlemen....our new flock is here, and hopefully will stay for a lot longer than the last one! It's weird...the other chickens felt a lot more like family than these do, at least right now. Hopefully we will get to know them better, and it will feel different....

No one likes being cooped up!

Our ladies are getting bigger, fluffier, and more curious each day. The chicken run is almost done, but in the meantime we let them roam around, supervised of course.









I don't know what it is, but they are SO fascinated by this boat. They love scratching in the dry leaves underneath it, and we almost lost two of the chickens underneath this thing!
There is a little patch of sun to the right of the boat, and the chickens will actually lay down in the grass, to soak up the sun!

Pecking order

A few days ago, my husband discovered one of the chicks had an open wound from the others pecking at her. He removed the chick, and a few of the others, which are calm, and separated them. Well, yesterday he came home to find another chick dead, pecked by others :(
Kevin says that it's because the chicks are now bigger and it's getting crowded in the brooder. The temperature is also pretty high down there. After dinner, he decided to finish up the chicken coop and transfer the chicks in there.

He put up the wire on the ceiling, around the windows, and put shavings down on the floor. He transferred all the chicks, except the wounded one, and everyone seems a lot happier now!

Let's hope this does not happen again!

RIP little Black Star!