Well, no – it’s Thursday, but I completely forgot about writing last night. Just didn’t even come to mind at all. Lots of stuff going on, I guess. So, here’s the Wednesday report a day late.
Sue’s been working on the enclosure for the new little doves. They are so small, even smaller than Maeve. Their nesting boxes only have to be 4″ x 8″ with a little bit of a lip. They don’t like to be completely enclosed like the chickens. Just seems funny to have them so small. If you remember, Sue dug down into the ground to put in the welded wire to help keep predators from digging under to get at the little birds, and added cinder block for a footing. Then the sides were set on top of those blocks and attached to the existing coop wall as well as to a couple of 4×4’s set into the ground. Some corner braces were added and a partial roof that will get fully covered with a type of plastic corrugated roofing. We use it a lot on outdoor chicken things, comes in different colors, and clear. Tomorrow Sue will put on the rest of the welded wire, build a little door for access, and put on the roofing material. We added a branch from an oak tree that fell over after a high wind this year… so they have some different type of roosting materials… we may add some more natural horizontal ones as well. It’s coming along nicely and we should be able to move the little guys into their newest space in a couple of days.
The same day Sue put together the dove nesting boxes, she made another set for the banty chochins on the littles’ side. We have Maeve and Imen on the littles’ side as well, but they really like to lay their eggs in the hay on the ground. They may eventually get the idea to use the nesting boxes, it sometimes takes them a while to get used to changes in their coop. They are skeptical little boogers. Maybe they would like some privacy curtains too. We’ll have to see if that makes any type of difference. Otherwise, they are the same as the biggies, just a bit smaller. 🙂 We’ll definitely need the nesting boxes in the very near future for all the new little ones that will be laying (hopefully) in a few months. Generally they’ll start laying around 5 to 6 months. They may not lay every day, but they are pretty good layers through out the seasons once they start.
Today, Sue kept busy helping out one of our neighbors. Mike lives up the road a bit and he had come to help Sue get the back hoe onto the tractor. He had some digging and earth moving he wanted to get done. She texted me and said, “kinda fun!” One of our other neighbors, Mr. Zimmerman, was waiting for the backhoe to go back on as well. They have a goat they want to put down, and have asked Sue to dig the hole for him. I’m thinking there might be a side business in the offing! Who knows? We’ll keep you posted. Until then~ as always,
Thanks for reading.
Today’s weather: Sure feels like it wants to rain. At least that’s what my body and head are telling me. Clouds are up there, but it’s still awfully warm. 76° at 6:27, Sun is well below the horizon. Keeps happening earlier and earlier. Tomorrow sunset is supposed to be at 5:59! That means we might be able to start making the Vespers service again on Wednesdays, since the chickens might be talked into going to bed earlier and earlier.
Egg report: Yesterday was a really low egg day; only 12 chicken eggs and 3 duck eggs. Today we had 21 chicken eggs and 3 duck eggs. Sue says the ducks hid their eggs quite well today, she had to dig around in the hay to uncover them. Silly ducks; that’s how they get stepped on!
Cool Sighting: We had a very cool sighting yesterday while working on the dove enclosure. A beautiful Sonoran Coachwhip Snake (that I thought at first was some type of Rosy Boa) ran – I guess slithered – away from the chicken yard. It happened so fast, we didn’t get a photo of it ourselves. I did find one that gives a good idea of what we saw. We know that we have little mice around the coop area, and I suspect he makes a regular patrol for them. We surprised him on his rounds. As you can see – they are pretty docile and not harmful to us humans. (Although, you probably won’t see us trying to pick them up!) They will eat smaller baby birds though – like house wren baby size, so it’s good that Sue has is using the small welded wire for the doves.
Wing and a Prayer 