Cool corn treats
Hot chicks love frozen corn muffins
Chickens love mealworms, but they really love them frozen in a corm muffin. Today was a hot one. Temps topped 90 degrees. So to beat the heat, I blew up a pool float and put it in a small pond in my yard. I drifted around in about 10 inches of water, my belly looking …
Preening
Egg machines
https://youtu.be/_qT89oIaO6w Someone's singing the egg song! Staying at home since the beginning of March has left me an urban farmer's dilemma: What to do with all these eggs? As I have hunkered down during the pandemic and carved out a space to work in my dining room, in many ways it seemed as if the …
In the run
Foraging
A new beginning
In many cultures around the world, eggs and — in particular — chicks are symbolic of new life and rebirth. So picking up two new chicks today couldn't have happened at a better time. In recent days, I have faced serious struggles. I walked into the heart of the storm, and somehow emerged on the …
Losing Loretta
I've been losing Loretta almost from the beginning. In her first year, she had a short but spectacular laying season. Her rich, deep brown eggs did not disappoint. But midway through the winter break I saw things had gone awry. The feathers on Loretta's bottom, her chest and eventually her legs disappeared. She had already …
Little Siouxsie Sioux
On the sixth day, I found little Siouxsie Sioux crumpled near the front of the brooder. Not knowing how long she had been out of the heater, I worried about her body temperature. I held her close to me, and saw that she was weak. The emergency box, which I had obsessively curated two years …
