Everyone is finally settling in at the ranch. All the chickens seem to get along fine now that they’re free ranging. And a sign of this happiness was we had a three-egg day today, the first since Lacy Legs passed a few months ago. I’m grateful to whichever new pullet is finally laying!
New hen, Bertie, and Fancy Pants!
They are tons of fun to watch outside, and are friendly as heck. I gave them a big overripe tomato this evening, which led to great joy.
Tomato Party
And little Rip is hungry as heck, which is great.
Mmmmilk
He even sucked on my finger today. He has a cute little black tongue and is quite gentle. I obviously could not get a photo of that, so here are his milky little lips.
Today has not sucked. Chris is back at work on the Pope house, so I got a glimpse of the stair rail progress. Ooh.
Rail in progress.
And I got an awesome mask from my friend Angela in Austin, who knows I love The Who. She made me one like her husband’s. I looked better in the picture where it’s upside down, so you get two pictures.
I look much less tired in the exercise photo.
Plus! Look what I found today! That’s right, one of the “new” hens finally went into production! I think they may all have white eggs, so I don’t know who laid it. But yay.
White pullet egg.
And…it rained a little. Enough to cheer up the free ranging chickens (and guinea).
First, we decided it was time to let the chickens out to eat some bugs. You know, the whole free range thing. Of course the first thing happened was Clarence the super stud went after Bertie with a vengeance. What’s cool is that Bruce came to her rescue.
Bruce is about to go after Clarence for his unwanted advances.
That led to the two roosters going into the pen and chasing each other, flying around and such. All that got everyone in a tizzy. Poor Hedley the little Roo-ish one got chased outside and hid with Henley.
Hedley did manage to get some grasshopper eating in, along with Springsteen.
Eventually the three bravest birds started going after bugs, Bertie, Fancy Pants, and Gray Greta. The guinea just loves her fluffy, white buddy.
Fancy Pants finally has a chick to dote on, even though it’s her size.
They all went out some, but it wasn’t the mad dash to freedom I’d envisioned. Probably because it’s hot outside and the chicken pen has all the shade.
Free ranging, baby.
The part that DID turn out well was that when I got home from horse activity and went to shut them back in, everyone was roosting quietly. And! Clarence had gone to his outside roost! He thinks that’s his house! Hooray.
I’m not always chasing everyone under the henhouse so I can strut around crowing in victory. Just sometimes.
Walking the Calf
This afternoon Chris and I went out around the property looking for trees to potentially transplant near the house. We found some cool Osage orange trees we might take cuttings of, and lots of cedar elms.
Osage orange or bois d’arc (bodark)
We also enjoyed seeing herons and egrets, including a little night heron!
Blue heron and great egret.
We heard shouting. That’s weird around our house. It turned out Kathleen had come home from work and decided to take Rip for a walk after his bottle of milk. We finally saw them. It appeared a lot of his walking was lying down.
A girl and her calf.
We got back to the house and I went to check on them. Rip was ensconced in some tall grass, slowly munching.
I’m camooflaged.
I chatted a while, took pictures of some bugs and plants, and discovered it was time to go see Sara and feed horses. So I left them, right where I found them.
This dragonfly is camouflaged.
Just before I left the horses, I got a text. Kathleen never got Rip to move, so Chris came and got them. He picked up the calf and put him in the back of Hilda the utility vehicle.
My Uber is here.
Chris says Rip finished his milk and went to sleep in Hilda! They had to make him wake up to go back to his pen. Nope, that’s not how Kathleen had planned for their first walk to go!
I may have mentioned that we got a game cam to check on what was attacking the birds. We finally got it going and ran it for a few days.
This shows me and Kathleen sneaking up on the chickens.
I have to say I’m impressed with the quality of the pictures you get. I didn’t save many, but I’ll get more tomorrow. The fun ones are giant chicken heads and flying/stretching. Look at Gray Greta!
Look at my wingzzzz!Wow. This is late at night.
We did get one intruder.
Chris checking for skunks at 9:14 pm. Eek!
You can see they all line up on one branch. Actually most night photos show Bruce on patrol. Good Bruce. I’ll get more to share later. But aren’t the photos good?
Stretch!
Little Rip
I was glad to see our skinny baby bull calf made it through last night. He slept a lot today, but perked up enough to play with Gracie a bit.
Friends.
Like with a human baby, early poops and pees are important. He got in the groove this evening and peed three times. That means he’s hydrated.
A calf has to go when he has to go.
The poor fellow is still a bit unsteady on his legs, so getting up or down is hard.
I was trying to lie down, but I think I’ll get back up.
He really has long legs. Kathleen spends as much time as she can with him, and he is bonding well.
Rip’s shelter.
She even made him a little shade house. Soon he will have a nice place to live, so he will be fine. Can’t wait until he meets Fiona.
That’s supposed to be to the tune of “dude looks like a lady,” which is playing in my head. You need a hen and rooster update. Of course. How are my feathered pets (I say that, because they certainly don’t earn their keep.)
Bruce and Clarence both can crow now. Bonus: you can’t hear them in the house. Look how pretty his tail feathers are, too.
I still have just one chicken laying eggs. Good ole Bertie Lee. Not a great rate of production.
Leave me alone. I’m eating worms (Bertie is the striped one.)
Oddly enough, the fake egg in the nest box disappeared. I do hope a snake didn’t eat it. Chris put bright yellow golf balls in the nest boxes.
Sure, those look like eggs.
The other fowl are all growing away, but no more eggs. Springsteen is developing a comb and wattles than are like black cherry in color. They’re lovely.
I feel pretty.
Even Patti is growing something on her head. Maybe a rose comb?
There’s something up there. And baby wattles.
And Gray Greta, the only remaining guinea fowl, is growing in “her” (who knows) wattles.
See, I have wattles. I also hate skunks.
One issue may be that Hedy the Ancona is not a hen. I guess that makes them more of a Hedley. There are beautiful green tail feathers, and I’ve seen them try to mate. I’ve also seen Bruce jump them. So, gender neutral pronouns for Hedley!
What? I’m not pretty?I was born this way.
We have been working for more chicken safety, so soon we can try for more. With now perhaps three roosters, the ratio is wrong. Clarence is still living outside, to his utter annoyance. So at least the 5 hens only have 2 roosters after them. Let’s hope we can fix that!
Let me in. I’m wanting to do my rooster duty.
And good news, Rip made it through the night! Kathleen is a good calf mama.
I’m still cute.
Let’s hope Miss Fancy Pants starts laying again one day. She still visits the hen house often.
Well, like I figured, we lost Ginger today. She was the most beautiful of our chickens and the friendliest. I loved to feed her.
My chicken friend.
And she was an amazing egg generator. Once she started, she laid 6 eggs a week. They were huge and dark brown. That huge amount of egg laying was probably her downfall, since her breed is prone to egg issues.
She had such beautiful feathers.
Part of ranch life is that there’s a lot of death. But I can still salute the fallen. I’ll miss our Ginger, even if I only had her 6 months.
This started last night. When I came home, my normally energetic hen, Ginger, was not herself. She was listless and full. She even let me pick her up and hold her.
I was immediately worried she had a reproductive problem, since the high egg-production breeds get them. when I set her down, Clarence, the large Rhode Island Red rooster, got on her and would not stop. She didn’t seem to take it as well as hens usually do.
So, that was it for Clarence, and he is now a free-range guard rooster. Thanks to Chris for getting him out.
Let me in!
When I got home today, Ginger was the same, and had not laid an egg. I decided to put her in the old guinea cage where she will be safe from Bruce (who is not very into the ladies yet).
As I went to move her, damned Clarence busted into the pen. I hadn’t closed the door well enough. He immediately jumped on Ginger and she let out a horrible sound. I dove for Clarence, once more forgetting that there is sharp wire partway down the opening between pens.
It’s blurry, but that’s my hair on that metal. We will fix this issue.
After I scraped my head open, I tossed Clarence out rather unprofessionally. I was pretty mad. But, I got Ginger in the pen with food and water, so no one can pester her. I’m guessing she’s egg bound or something. I have no way to help.
Fancy Pants is checking up on her coop buddy.
Clarence has water and food, plus an endless supply of grasshoppers, so he’ll be fine. There’s even a coop for him at night.
Since he flies well, I’m not too worried about him.
Gratuitous picture of the black and white chickens.
And I got the blood out of my hair. The wound was not fatal! Later, I slammed a gate on myself. Stress does make you clumsy, I think.
It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. Lots going on in our little ranch village. [WARNING PHOTO OF DEAD ANIMAL TO FOLLOW]
First, when I came home yesterday afternoon after writing my magnum opus about my mother, there were vultures sitting on our “barn” container. I asked Lee’s brother, but he hadn’t gone over to check on it, so I did. Well, one potential bird killer has been eliminated from the area.
Here’s another post high on imagery and low on content. Because I’ve been out as late as possible lately working with the horses, and because the dusty air has made for such pretty sunsets, I decided to do a fun exercise and take pictures of the barn residents and caretakers last night. Have fun with moody lighting and sweaty masked caretakers.
Excited about photo time.
Sunset and horse and donkey butts.
Hungry Apache.
Very clean Fiona.
Suna unable to get the light adjusted. But cute sloth mask.
Big Red insisted on her own photo. So dramatic.
Socially distant Sara, with Spice and Lakota.
This is how you have fun in the hot Texas summer of 2020.
Allow me to share some bird portraits, along with some brief observations. Chickens really remind me of cats.
Example chickens. Bruce, Hedy, Springsteen, and Patty in the rear.
How? Well, they like to chase things and pounce on them. For chickens, it’s bugs.
Fancy Pants, a Cochin hen, in pursuit.
They also like to rest all curled up with their feet under them (I can’t get a photo of this, because they get up when I approach).
Bertie Lee, a barred rock, is brave. She’s not afraid of her shadow nor me. One day she flew right up to me to get to a bag of treats I had.
The main reason chickens remind me of cats, though, is that their owners find them incredibly cute and fascinating, even though they only have one rather vacant facial expression.
Hedy, an Ancona hen. She says she likes her look and she’s sticking with it.
They all just give you a dinosaur stare.
Ginger is our egg factory, an ISA Brown. She’s also very friendly, even with those dinosaur eyes.
Like cats, they come in many colors but are hard to tell apart. To me, all striped or black cats look the same. Apologies to cat lovers who see many expressions in their kitties.
The good thing about Easter Eggers, like Bruce, is they all look different. Thank goodness. One of him is plenty.
Oh! Let me interject that Kathleen got the game camera working, and it ran last night. I hope all we see is chickens and maybe cows.
The game cam is camouflage, so it’s invisible, right?
I’m glad the guineas are free now. They are so dang fast that they can now escape any attacker.
We lived! And we are fast. These are the Gray One and the Brown One. Trying not to get attached.
Nonetheless, the chickens entertain me a lot. I loved watching them eat popcorn and cantaloupe last night. And the guineas learned to eat from my hand!
Bruce looks pretty funny with his head in the feeder, too.
Cats are easier to care for and less likely to be eaten by owls or raccoons, but since I can’t have cats (Lee has an allergy), I’ll enjoy these ladies and gentlemen.
Another view of Hedy. Same expression. But what an attractive bird.
The Hermits' Rest 