Gardens, chickens, and folk music.: The Critters

Meet the critters of the homestead!

The first introduction will be the herding group. I have a short little blog entry that you can read about here.

Sadly, we lost Shane on March 1st of this year. He was 15 years old when he crossed the bridge.

Shane the Ruler

Finnegan with his big brother Garrett

Finnegan all grown up

Fionnghuala with her big brother Finnegan taking a rest. No spoiled dogs in this household!

The Laying Team

Hi! My name is Nellie and I'm going to tell you all about my chickhood and growing up with my sisters.

Here we are just coming to our home. It was warm and comfy and we hadn't any worries.

We grew up to big pullets in no time at all and soon we were put into an even bigger home that we got to decorate.

You can read all about our trip to the new "chick pad" here

We were a little scared, but, it didn't last long. We had a big area to scratch around in and look for bugs.

Here we are all grown up into the beautiful hens we were meant to be.

Our chicken mom always says nice things to us and gives us treats.

In return, we give her these. She gets really excited about this and always thanks us profusely.

New Pullets 2011

Hi again. Nellie here to reluctantly tell you about the new additions. More like a bunch of huge pains in our fluffy butts!

Six new little peep came home and used our comfy brooder. I wasn't too thrilled with this, but, the chicken mom was sure to get a surprise out of this bunch!

Here they are again starting to grow wings.. yeah, yeah, cute bundles of fluffiness...

Chicken mom named this lot. Queen Maeve, Fiona, Mrs. Doyle, Orla, and Oonagh.
It's an irish thing...

Turns out Queen Maeve wasn't a queen at all.

This is the one she calls Orla. She is the bravest of the new bunch and is not too afraid of me.

Here's the surprise going to his new home. When chicken mom found out Queenie was crowing and having fun with the ladies she re-named him Chanticleer. She said she got the name from a song about a cock and a hen. In the song, Chanticleer gets the axe for being a rooster which would have happened here, but, a large farm decided they would take him and spare Chanticleer's life.

Chicken dad made this portable tractor to keep the young uns' separated from us hens until they were big enough to come to the big house for hens.

They got to eat fresh grass and bugs everyday, too.

But, as all we mature hens knew, the time had come for these little un's to come with us.
We keep them in line and remind them it's a privilege to come live with us.