I’ve been cooking and crafting like a crazy person this past week, so while I’ve been taking a lot of farm photos and doing a lot of farm chores, I haven’t have any extra time in my day to update you on the usual farm antics.

My friend Sue has a great variety of colored egg laying chickens. She sent me this picture the other day and I just had to show you how lovely they all are.I am DYING to get some of those olive egg layers!

Wow! It's so big out here!

I'm scared!

Hey, it's not so bad out here. It smells better too!

Watch the big barred rock hen. Chickens don't take to newcomers very well, and she doesn't know quite what to think of this little thing.

She's moving in from behind for a closer look.

And of course I missed the shot, but this is where she moves in for the head peck. Poor chick.

Paula Deen, my blue buff cochin, is giving the chicks her "angry eyes". They're scary.

Here's one of the 5-week old chicks out enjoying the sunshine and open spaces.

Friends tend to stick together for exploring.

In and out, all day long.

My trusty dog Bullet is the supervisor of farm antics, and he takes his job quite seriously.

I caught this chicken on the swing this week. I had to take the picture through my window while I had the chance. Of course by the time I stepped outside to take another one she'd hopped down, deciding that a swing isn't a very stable roost.

I had to rig up a pulley system in the chicken coop to raise their feeder during the day. Grace & Kiki are still small enough to squeeze in through the chicken door, and they sneak in there during the day to eat the chicken's food. I lower it again in the evening so the chickens can get to it through the night and early morning. Grace and Kiki and pissed.

India and I cleaned out the goat stalls down to the rubber mats. Fresh pine shavings with a layer of straw over that.

I can't help but admire the entrance to the goat house every time I go in it. The goat house and chicken coop will get painted towards the end of the month.

Now I have about 25 adult hens, but I’m not quite sure that all of them are laying yet. All summer long I have typically been getting a little over a dozen eggs a day. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Since the average chicken lays around 5 eggs a week, this is a little low for the number of chickens, which is what leads me to believe a few of the younger ones aren’t quite laying yet.

Gathering eggs was always fun for me, because I just never knew where I was going to find them. Sometimes they would lay them in the logical spot, the nesting boxes.


But most of the time every day was like Easter morning and I’d have to find them. Here’s 3 I found one day under the hay rack in the goat house.


And here’s one under the goat’s water bucket.


And here’s one in the hay rack of the goat house. They love to lay in the hay rack. Some days I’ll find as many as 6 in there.

But something is happening to my eggs. They are disappearing. Literally. Vanishing.

At first I thought I had some egg eaters. Chickens eating their own eggs is not an uncommon problem, but luckily it is one I’ve never had to deal with over the years. I little over a week ago I did find some of the ladies gathered around something, and when I went to investigate they were eating the remnants of an egg. Sometimes when chickens get a taste of those delicious eggs they start to eat them all the time. Then you’ve got a real problem. Egg eating is a hard habit to break, and you often have to cull the chickens with this habit from your flock to eliminate the problem.

However, I’ve come to decide that this is not the problem. The eggs are simply gone. Or were never there in the first place. I never find a single shred of evidence that an egg has been eaten. No runny white or yolk. No pieces of eggshell. Nothing. There would be some evidence of eaten eggs; raw egg in the straw beds, eggshells laying around. Something.

So my egg count is down considerably. Some days I’ll get maybe 5, and others I’ll get as many as 9 or maybe 10.

This reduction in eggs seems to coincide with the arrival of King Strut. I haven’t decided yet if this is just coincidence or has something to do with the drop.


In case they are feeling a lack of privacy, I read that curtains on the nesting boxes can help. It’s also a preventative measure against egg eating. An out of sight = out of mind theory. So, using some of the fabric left from making the little nesting box valance I stapled up some rough curtains.


And they’re laying in there. I don’t know if it’s helping, but it sure looks pretty!


The reduction may also have to do with the shorter days. Egg production is directly tied to the amount of sunlight a chicken gets every day. To extend your laying productivity in the winter months you can supplement with artificial light in your coops, and I often do. But this was so sudden that I’m not sure that is the answer to the problem either. In the meantime, I’ve got everybody out looking for the eggs. The chickens can’t find them.


Melina says they’re not in the old brooder coop. Why she’s in the old brooder coop I’m not quite sure.


And Princess Kate, Grace and Kiki are doing the lazy-man’s look for the missing eggs. This is closely related to the way my children look carefully for something; scan while slowly turning neck. If the item being looked for is not in direct sightline it is therefore not there.


And Melina was being such a good egg hunter that she got this plastic tomato cage stuck on her head.


Just another day here on the farm.

Chickens don't look good when they're wet.

It rained here in Connecticut today like you wouldn’t believe. I mean it poured rain all day long. We don’t need the rain. Texas needs the rain. A tree fell on the parkway today. Not because it was windy, but the ground is so soaked that the trees are just falling over. The roots are probably rotting for goodness sakes.

And my farm does not like it when it rains. The chickens don’t mind getting wet so much, but they just look so miserable when they are. Unfortunately I couldn’t find King Strut anywhere when I was taking these pictures. He was probably hiding, because he was having a bad hair day. And goats hate the rain. The only reason they will go out in the rain is if you are feeding them, or they think you are going to feed them. Because of this, they get very bored when the weather is bad.

I checked the weather tonight. It is supposed to rain straight through to this coming Saturday. I better get some barn animal exercise videos or something with a TV and DVD player out in the goat house.

The goats just hang in their stalls or out on the covered porch in the rain. That is until they see me and think I might have food - then they leap off the porch mid-photo.

Wet chicken.

The only reason they're all out in a bunch here is I just threw them some food. Normally in the rain they tend to spread out trying to find cover and still be able to free range.

And the only reason Melina and Princess Kate have ventured out is for the food.

I love the way my smaller old coop looks at night. My adolescent chicks are almost fully feathered now and are starting to roost.

These three have given up on getting wet and are settling in for an early evening and a good night's sleep.

Perched in the goat house and ready for bed.

Taken with a flash at night. Forgive the poor photography.

That's her in the back right corner inside the doghouse.

I had more cherry tomatoes in my garden than I knew what to do with, so yesterday I threw them all to the chickens. They just love tomatoes. They looked like my kids in the yard on Easter morning looking for all the hidden eggs. Pay attention here, because for some reason the white chickens always seemed to find the tomatoes.

She's found one.

And now she's being chased for it.

She's frantically looking for somewhere safe to go eat her tomato!

Is there one behind this log?

I didn't name him King Strut for nothing...look at him strutting!

Everyone's looking for a tomato.

I found one!

My barred plymouth rock is still looking for one...

King Strut is too busy looking at the ladies.

And why is Melina so fat? Maybe she's been eating all the tomatoes.

When I’ve been away for most of the day, this is the sight that I come home to. Four very lonely, attention-starved goats and a flock of hungry chickens.

I decided to take the twins up to Kent, Connecticut, for a day trip today. Mostly to give us something different to do and to enjoy the beautiful weather on one of the last summer days before school starts. We had planned on doing it earlier in the week, but Hurricane Irene had many of the roads closed we would have needed to travel on until now.

We actually had several missions to accomplish while up there. First and foremost, I got a cow!


Unfortunately it’s not a real cow. I’m still working on that. But it’s a very cool cow that I’d seen the last time we were up there. I was glad she was still waiting for me. She’s now standing by my back door and seems quite content at her new home.

Our second mission while up there was to get the brother to my daughter, Maia’s, beloved stuffed animal that she had gotten last time we were there. Thankfully he, too, was still there waiting for us.

We bought Luigi today (left), who is brother to Ramone (center), and the unicorn's name is Charles.

Grace is a complete affection hog.

And she's pushy when she doesn't get her way!

King Strut has joined the farm.

Look what I got! I was at the Agway yesterday and they had all of these amazing roosters. Normally the Agway is not known for their poultry selection; you can usually just get rhode island red cross pullets with clipped beaks. These roosters, the guy working the loading dock told me, were all brought in buy a guy that had hand-raised 30 chicks in his basement. As the laws of averages would dictate, he got 15 hens and 15 roosters from this. Those are actually pretty good numbers. Whenever I get ‘straight run’ chicks (when you order chicks that are not sexed) I seem to end up with more roosters than hens.

I cannot have a crowing rooster where I live as it is against the town regulations regarding noise. Roosters do serve a purpose though — they protect the ladies. Their single purpose in life is to watch out for dangers and alert his flock if any is detected. As a benefit of existing in this role he gets to attempt to have sex with as many ladies as allow as often as they allow it. The side benefit to this is that if I get a broody hen (one that insists on sitting on eggs for the purpose of hatching), if a rooster is present there is a good chance that these eggs will hatch!

After my horrible losses of adolescent and older chicks and chickens this spring, I have somehow managed to stay at the same number of hens for almost 2 months — 29 full grown hens. That’s pretty amazing for summertime when so many predators are roaming around with babies to feed and longer days. However, right before I left for Wyoming this last trip my head count was off one night. The next night it was still off by one and I finally figured out that it was one of my blue buff cochins. Not Paula Deen thankfully, but her slightly smaller sister. I have a strong suspicion that a hawk carried her off, which would have been quite a feat since she was a very large chicken. I suspect a hawk because there was absolutely no “evidence”. No feathers. Nothing. She was just gone, which is consistent with a hawk attack as they just swoop in, pick up and leave. A ground predator would leave feathers from a struggle.

Paula Deen's (on ramp) sister is gone.

So I’ve been thinking that I may need to get a rooster to watch over the girls. If he turns out to be a nice rooster who treats the ladies well and isn’t aggressive, then I’ll think about keeping him around. If he starts to crow I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.


I have never seen a chicken quite like this. He’s definitely a polish crested, and I’ve had plenty of those, but his trim figure and blue coloring (grey is called blue in the chicken world) makes me think that he is half blue Andalusian and half polish crested. He’s just stunning. I have two blue andalusian hens. One is not very blue at all and is the only hen that insists on sleeping in the goat house every night. The only one. All alone in there with the goats. The other one is a much prettier blue and although she attempted to roost in the goat house with her sister a time or two, finally gave up the fight and sleeps in the coop with the others now.

Here is the splash blue andalusian looking to jump through the open dutch door of the goat house for the night about a month ago.

My darker blue andalusian.

Since the color blue does not hatch true in chickens and is a diluting gene for black, there are lots of variations in blue that you can get with any “blue” variety of chicken. This is what a true show-quality blue andalusian looks like.


So back to King Strut. There he was at the Agway waiting to be bought. Truthfully there were so many beautiful roosters it was hard to choose. When I got him home I put him in a crate in the chicken coop with food and water so everyone could get acquainted safely. Late this afternoon I felt it was safe to let him out to meet his flock. There were a few initial scuffles, but he handily showed them who was boss and pretty quickly everyone settled right in. He seemed delighted with his new home, and with little encouragement went into the coop with everyone else as dark was falling tonight. I stayed outside to listen in case any feathers started flying in there, but all seemed fine. At last check he was sound asleep up on the roosts with the other hens and doing just fine.



Oh, and the silo is finally finished! It’s covered in this great super heavy-duty wire that will rust over time. We designed it to look like one of those corn silos you see in the midwest that are covered in wire rather than being solid so the air can circulate around corn cobs.

The finished silo

On Saturday Amanda, Evan and I drove up to the Lebanon County Fair after we went peach picking. I was hoping to find a few lovely chickens for sale, as there usually are some available at these things. Some of my favorite chickens have come from county fairs: Sadie, Lucy & Laura, my original buff orpington’s, and Mr. & Mrs. Pocket. However, we were very sad to discover that not a single chicken there had a for sale on it’s cage. There were some very nice looking chickens there though along with some other lovely creatures.

You will never see a cow as clean as when it's ready to go into the show ring. They look fabulous. These yearling cows are washed and ready to go. I love the two different colors.

And there was a camel there!

Anybody that’s known me for a while knows I have a love of camels. I met this one last year at another fair, and have made other camel friends in my journeys. There was my camel friend in Kentucky, and then there was my camel friend up in Maine last year. Just look at those lips! So kissable.


And those eyes!


Jim lives in fear that one day and there will be a camel in the back yard. He might put his foot down at that. They are terrible fence breakers, and I read last year that a woman was killed when her camel, who I guess loved his owner, suffocated her when he tried to ‘get fresh’ with her. Geesh. What a way to go.

Then there were these adorable baby goats. They were saanen nubian cashmere goats. Look at those spots! And wow, were they soft. If Amanda hadn’t been a little grumpy by this point one of them probably would have come home with me. Grace and Kiki would not have liked that.

Baby goats for sale. Oh my. Look at those spots.

A spectacular barred plymouth rock rooster taking a nap

The Barred Rock's exquisite tail feathers

Barred Plymouth Rock

A Black Sumatra rooster. I've bee dying to get one of these, but they are hard to come by.

Check out the unusual comb on this rooster. I believe it is a Silver Lakenvelder. The shape of the comb is called a Rose Comb.

An extraordinary example of a Non-Bearded White Silkie chicken. He was pacing too quickly to get a good shot of him.

This was a terrific Standard Buff Orpington rooster. See his large "single" comb in that terrific deep red color against his beautiful golden yellow feathers. And look at those eyes!

Just look at the colors in this amazing tail.

I have no idea what kind of rooster this was, or what that unusual white marshmallow-like thing is hanging off his cheek. If anyone knows what breed this is, give me a shout out.

Oh, how I love this picture. Grace and Melina having an affectionate head butt.

Things have been humming along here on the farm this week. The animals have settled into their new fenced area nicely after the first few days of grumbling. I need to let them out for a little bit of free-ranging, but it’s been so nice not to have to worry about the babies wandering into the street for a change that I haven’t yet.

Grace, the part gazelle, can now be regularly seen on the roof of the old coop.

A traffic pile-up on the ramp exit.

Interestingly, the chickens for the most part do not fly out of the fenced area and instead choose to stay within the confines of the fenced area. Maybe they feel safer from predators in there? There are a few that fly out for some free-ranging regularly though. The large white buff cochin that had been broody (on no eggs) in the goat’s pen has finally given up and returned to the flock. Perhaps her experience with having the chicks under her cured her broodiness?

The chicks are 2-1/2 weeks old now and are really getting some feathers now. They are doing great and it’s SO nice to have them in the old coop instead of in my basement where I’ve always had to keep them in the past.


I had these small windows I’d bought on eBay that I always intended on putting in the large dog house that the goats lived in last winter but never did. The old coop gets so hot during the day with the full sun beating down on it that I decided to put them in the old coop and see if I could get some cross-ventilation to keep the temperature down. It looks great, and the extra light will help with egg laying in the winter months by providing more light.

The framing of the silo is now complete and construction has come to a hault while we wait for the wire mesh that will enclose the walls of the silo and the metal roofing for all of the buildings to come in.

The silo framing is complete with the addition of the human entry door and roof.

I finally finished the signs I was working on for the houses. I found appropriate artwork on Etsy and mounted them on wooden plaque’s that I got at a craft store after I had stained them. Then I varnished them several times.

One of these days I’ll find a free moment to fill those screw holes with wood putty.

I had bought these tall chicken statues at Home Goods for, if you can believe it, $3.00 each. They were a little chipped up and had a few minor cracks, but for that price I couldn’t turn them down. I filled the cracks and repaired the chips (one large corner was actually missing), and then re-painted the areas to match the original paint. I had originally pictured them as newell posts for a railing, but since we didn’t have a railing in my plans, they will just stand guard on the corners of the goat house stoop to add a touch of whimsy.


and the formica countertop is in! I picked a dark red color that pretty closely matches the color that the board and batten siding will be painted. I think it looks great and will be easy to keep clean.


It has been so hot lately that I couldn’t bear the thought of sitting in the goat house to finish the staining on the cabinets. The heat finally broke today, but somehow I do’t think I’m going to get it done before I leave again for Wyoming on Sunday morning to pick India and Maia up from camp.

I’ll leave you with this picture of Grace and Kiki sound asleep on the ramp today. So sweet.