New Chickens,Better Eggs by Savannah Holman

The only chicken left from
the 1st batch, a Rhode Island Red.

I recently purchased some chickens from Atwoods. I was wanting to start a farm of my own. I started off with five baby chicks. They were alot of work but it was alot of fun to watch them grow. I had one dark and light brown Araucana chick, two Rode Island Red chicks, and two Barred Rock chicks.
The Araucana was my favorite one of them all. (You can watch a video of the type of  chicken she was at http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/araucana_americanas.html. It has a breed guide up at the corner )

The only Red Production
left from batch #2.

Later, I also bought two more younger chicks. Our new Chocolate Lab puppy Rocky (or Rocko) killed one of my chicks. Dad punished  him. When we had chickens before, Lucy did not seem to bother them. She almost killed one of them though.

One day  I was checking on my chickens and I discovered something was trying to get to my chickens by digging a hole under the door. Lucky for my chickens (and me), it was not able to get in. I saw a track just the moment before I stepped on it. I thought it was a fox but Mom and Dad said it was probably a raccoon or coyote.

One night, we ordered  pizza and rented Despicable Me. Earlier in the day my dad let my chickens out to roam around. Before we went to pick up the pizza, we did not even think about putting them up. I now regret that because after we finished the movie, I went to go put my chickens up. I was calling for my chickens, but they did not come. I ran back up to the house and told my dad to come help me find them. He brought out the spotlight, and we looked all over, but we only found two of them . My Araucana was gone. I ran back up to the house to tell my mom. At this point, I was crying. We did not find them, but I still had two chicks left.

Rocko - the chicken lover!

We went back to Atwoods and got four more chicks. Two of them were Australorps. The other two were a mixed breed. Rocko again killed two more.  At least I do not have to worry about my little chicks getting cold with my original 2 chicks (that are bigger now) around. They keep them warm.

My Araucana

Our neighbor ordered some Australorps from Atwoods, but she accidentallly got Barred Rocks instead. Yesterday, she let me buy some chickens from her, and I went over and bought six. She also had a full grown Araucana chicken that she said I could have. The  Araucana is already laying eggs.

Right: Store egg
Left: Fresh Araucana blue egg

Araucana eggs have a blue coloring to them.

Today my dad went out and checked on my chickens while I was doing school . He said my Araucana was acting weird, and I should go check on it. So I went out to her coop and there was an egg in her nesting box I was so exited.

The farm egg has a darker color to its yolk
than the store egg.

I decided to do a taste test with store bought eggs versus farm fresh eggs. Since I do not like eggs, I let Mom and J.J. do a taste test. Mom and J.J. both agreed that fresh eggs are better than store eggs.

JJ enjoying his Breakfast Egg
Burritos!

I love my chickens and am very glad to have them.

ATTACK OF THE CRAWDAD!

Yesterday it rained almost all day.  The roads were extremely muddy and the yard resembled a water park in some areas.  We spent the day inside which was good because both of the kids have swimmer's ear and needed to take a break from their swimming pool.  We decided to watch a movie.

The crawdad tank is next to the television so we unplugged the filter to get rid of the extra noise.  We finished our movie and went to bed soon afterwards.  JJ was having a hard time sleeping so he camped out in our floor, but Savannah was sound asleep.  

At 3:45 AM this morning, I heard Savannah scream out in her room. She was very upset.  By the time I made it out of bed, she had met me in the hallway.  I asked what was wrong, and I thought she said, "I have fallen out of my bed."  I figured she had a dream and did not remember where she was so I explained that she had slept on the floor in a pallet in her room.  She said, "No...The crawdad bit me on my finger."  She was trying to show me her "bitten" finger. At this point, I figured she was sleep-walking or something.  I walked her to the bathroom and told her to go to the restroom then I would take her back to bed.  She was not happy with that and said, "NO, I don't want to go to bed...the crawdad bit me!"

She was adamant that something was in her bed and had bitten her.  She said she saw the crawdad, and it was on her finger. Jason was up at this point, and I told him to help me check her bed.  I wanted to make a "show" of checking things out to hopefully calm her down and get her back to sleep.  At this point, we are kind of laughing to ourselves.  (Jason later said that he was afraid she was having a reaction to her antibiotic ear drops and was hallucinating.)  We looked through all her covers and had her set to get up in her bunk.

I looked in the living room, and she was diligently studying the crawdad tank.  She said, "Mom, the crawdad is not in his tank."  I have to admit that I laughed (out loud) this time, but she insisted that it was not there.  I went to help her find it.  IT WAS NOT THERE!

I called Jason in and told him.  He thought we were teasing him and did not believe us.  He checked every hiding place in the tank but no crawdad!  The only thing we could think of was that he got out because the tank filter was no longer vibrating, and he climbed out the open area in the top.  We knew he was in there the previous night because I had mentioned last evening how neat is was to watch him climbing everywhere.  (By the way, he has shed his shell 4 times since we got him a few months ago, and he is getting pretty big - about 4 inches long.)

We began searching the kid's room for our missing crawdad.  Jason finally found him on the opposite side of the room hiding near one of the toy crates.  Of course, Savannah, Jason, and I were all wide awake at this point.  Savannah tried to get to sleep in her bed, but she ended up in our floor.  Jason had to get up for work at 5:00 AM.  Me...I kept thinking about our crazy night of sleep  and occasionally laughing at the thought of our Attack of the Crawdad!

Today, my daughter asked me if I was going to put “Lucy” on the blog.  At first, I thought…no, I wasn’t really planning on including her, but then I realized how much a part of our family “Lucy” really is.  So…

Meet Lucy!

That’s right.  Lucy is our Labrador Retriever.  She is almost 10 years old and has been with us about 9 years and 2 months.  Lucy was a rescue dog that we adopted when Savannah was about 10 months old.  I have to admit that when we first got her…she was not my favorite.  She chewed everything that she could find for about the first 3 years of her life with us. 

However, now I could not imagine life without her.  She is a great dog.  She still chews, but it is not anywhere near as bad as her puppy years.  When we leave our house, she always greets us with such excitement, and she always has something in her mouth from the recycle bucket that she is bringing to us.  It is like she is bringing us a “gift” to welcome us home!

We recently had a tragedy in our life that actually made me appreciate her even more.  We had a second Labrador that became very sick and had to be put down, “Buck.”  It was a very emotional time for the entire family especially my daughter.  She was very attached to her dog and still misses him very much. 

We also have 2 cats - “Twaila” (left) and “Mittens” (right).  “Twaila” was a birthday gift from our neighbor in 2008, and “Mittens” was one of her kittens.   “Twaila” is our wonderer.  She usually just comes around for food and a little loving, and then she leaves.  She was never very fond of us keeping “Mittens” so she just leaves.   “Mittens” is our very playful and mischievous cat.  Right now, our trouble is keeping her from digging in our garden. 

That is it for our animals right now.  The animals are just one of the joys of living in the country, and they are a very fun part of our life here at the Holman house.