How are you all doing in your corner of the world? Summer is here in full swing. Today we may even have entered into the monsoon season at last. There are showers all around us, but never really quite reaching us here. Lots of virga… the heat keeping the moisture in the air. The extremes have taken a toll on all of us here – seeking relief from the heat has been our pastime of late. We’ve already talked about a few things we have doing to help the chickens beat the heat, there are other issues – though – that we have to think about due to weather.
Because it has been so incredibly dry – we’ve been trying to save water. Once of the ways we’ve been doing that is rotating the cleaning of the duck/geese ponds. They always have one clean pond, but we do not do them all each day, as we have been. Everyone enjoys “the changing of the pond”. The ducks and geese like the clean water, but the chickens enjoy the cool areas left behind after we drain the pools. Sue snapped this photo yesterday afternoon. She had just cleaned one of the pools, the clouds had come over giving some relief from the sweltering temperatures, the chickens hotfooted it (so to speak) to this little area by the hay bales and started to bathe in the cooling dirt there. We try to provide them with little cool areas to find rfeleife as often as we can.
This morning, after chores, we took some time to figure out where we’re going to pasture the littles in the next week. We’re thinking of keeping in the shade of the walnut, apple, and pomegranate trees over by the dinky house. With temperatures the way they are – we need to give them some solace from the sun. We want to keep them from dying of the heat, like the three we lost in the first batch. These little meat birds just run so dang hot, naturally, that they don’t do well in the heat of summer, at all.
Things have been so hot around here that its beginning to affect egg productions. I had to send a note to Tom the Baker and his wife, Kathy, today as a forewarning that I may not have 10 dozen eggs for them by Wednesday. We’re still getting quite a few that I would classify as medium, and those are too small for him. They are bigger than they were in the spring… but out of the 8 dozen we do have, a dozen are banties, probably 2 are mediums, and at least 1 is made up of duck eggs. I posted a photo on our Facebook page the yesterday morning, showing the “sorting”, as of today, we’ve hardly added many more. Guess it’s just been a wee bit hot. Today in the RCW, it was 108° at chore time. Soon after the clouds began to roll in and the breeze picked up, so that was the hottest at that point. Those chickens have been staying under the trailer and in the shade, but they still go in to lay their eggs. Mostly in the morning, or in the cool of the evening. Poor dears. Perhaps, if the weather stays cooler, they will make up the numbers. I guess we’ll all make it through this rough patch. Hopefully the rains will come and we’ll be back to our cool summer temps.
We’ll let you know how next week shapes up. Until then, as always~
Thanks for reading.
Today’s Weather: It was 107° when we went out to do the chores today. An hour later it was 98°. Currently, at 7:50 p.m., it is 89° 26% humidity, a 10% chance of rain and winds are nnw at 6mph, pressure is 29.86 inHg. Sunrise today was at 5:18 and sunset was at 7:28. Looks like our overnight low will be around 67°.
Egg Report: Friday – 33 chicken, 3 duck. Saturday – 37 chicken, 4 duck.
Wing and a Prayer 