I’m not sure I can really call them chicks anymore. They’re not full-sized, but they have all of their feathers, and they hardly resemble the sweet little balls of fluff they were a short five weeks ago. This week, the plumes around their legs flare out, making them look much more grown up. The chickens…
The chicks wander further from their coop this week. They stay together, pecking grass, eating weeds, and scratching dirt. They discover the shed, and spend hours in there eating spiders. One evening, we come outside, and they’re lined up on the pole to my husband’s old wash-tub bass. They’re sleeping. I rush in to get…
The chicks seem crowded in their cardboard box, so we move them out to their coop. They’ll still need a heat source until they get all of their feathers in three or four weeks, so we hang the brooder light from the eaves. It casts a red glow over the plywood floor. I check…
When you type the phrase “American consumers” into Google, you get 976,000 results. That two-word phrase is mentioned 1,494 times in Google News stories just today. I don’t know about you, but I’m a little tired of hearing about American consumers. I’m all for supporting farmers, booksellers, manufacturers, craftsmen, bakers, and artisans with my dollars…
The first week of May is cool and rainy. The chicks spend most of the week in their box under the brooder light. It feels like I am changing their water and refilling their food bowl constantly. On Friday, the sun finally makes an appearance, and I tote the chicks’ box out to the yard….
It seems like everyone’s brooding chicks these days. Three of my friends are building coops, and I hear hens clucking and squawking all over the neighborhood. We inherited a stately hen chateau when we bought our house last February … and we couldn’t think of a reason not to take the plunge this spring and…