What Kind Of Crazy Farmers Are We?

Let’s be clear.  We are not real farmers.  We are people who get kicks out of catering to little critters.  Keeps me sane.  Our chickens have been peckin’ on a few chosen ones.  A few weeks ago one of the chickens was sporting blood.  Wet head.  Hardly a feather on her back. What kinda freaked me out was her eyeball seemed to be displaced.  To the infirmary she went.

The infirmary is where chickies go when they are under the weather.  They can take some rest and relaxation time away from the hustle and bustle.   This poor animal was in distress.  I couldn’t see her eye.  It was like a black abyss.    She has been infirmed for several weeks and her eye is miraculously reappearing.   Wonder where it went off to for that time?  It was time to reintroduce her to  the brood.  Not so good it went.   They had long forgotten her and she was a strangaa to them now.   Foreign material.  She was ostracized to the back corner of the pasture.  I tried to get her reacquainted to the coop.  She was blackballed.  Pecked into the corner.   Very very sad.

I then had an ingenious idea.  Let’s move little  eyeless chick  over to the barn and have her live with the barn cats.  Uh huh.  So far this year we have had harmony farmony.  Why not?   Let’s let the birds live with the cats.  How did my farmer mind think that would work?  She packed her suitcase and off she went.

Kitty scratching her claws on barn getting ready for…..

When I got her over there, I decided to bring along another chicken who had been hen-pecked by the bully chickens to keep her company and give her time to grow feathers back.

Feathers? Gone.

Circling curiosity

tastin’ the goods

They all sniffed, tasted, glared and then on about their day.  We are in to the third day.  They have found their little egg nest I made for them.  They have settled in and everyone is happy.  Pretty nuts, eh?  Farmony harmony still intact.

Now, on the Guinea front.  Not so much.  They are laying eggs  out in the middle of plain day.  For everyone to see.  Not very discrete.

Guinea sitting on her eggs.

It is a community effort.  One lies on the eggs and the others protect and patrol the area.

After some time,  the layer will get tired of sitting in one place and be off for some fun.    Little do they know that a one big monster is lurking in the shadows waiting.  Waiting.  Waiting.

I spied through our upstairs window.  I spied the perpetrator.  Miss Virginia has had her fill of eggs in recent days.   The guineas have relocated their nesting to a place they may feel success.  I hope so.  We would love to have more guineas  running the farm.  They provide us with endless entertainment.

Spring is a fun farm time.  Especially as we ready ourselves  to celebrate a wedding and welcome our first daughter to our family.  Yay.  Times are a changin’.

This week at dusk. Wow.

God bless,

Karen