Brooder box mirror fail

After placing a mirror in the brooder box in an attempt to help with their boredom.  I guess really they're probably NOT as bored as I think they are, but they seemed bored.  Fresh Eggs Daily or The Chicken Chick, I don't remember which, had written a post about boredom busters in the brooders, and so I thought I would give it a shot.  Overall though,  after having investigated the mirror, the chicks seem more scared of it now. 

Little Frog needs me & is signing at me asking to nurse, so I need to cut this short, but I'm thinking of using the old milk house as a larger brooder.  The walls are concrete, lack holes and other ways to allow drafts inside, the chicks would receive more "natural" light than they are now in the brooder box, I could use the old concrete milk tank to contain them, then when they start jumping out of the tank, I know it's probably time to start moving them into the normal chicken coop.  Actually in all reality, as awful as it may sound, the milk house would probably be significantly warmer than the normal chicken coop.  But... such is life.  I haven't even opened the door lately to know if it's even feasible to be used as such.  I know I would need to nail a piece of plywood over the doorway to the milking parlor, but other than that, I think it's fairly sound and "escape proof".

Hilarious brooder behaviors

DUDE!!!  Y'all gotta watch this!!  I put a mirror into the brooder because Heidi told me to, and the beepla's went nuts! LOL  So I video taped them.   Video to follow once it uploads.

~  Megs

Unexpected fluffy butts!!!

I had to go to Angola for groceries yesterday, and something told me to stop into Rural King to see what kind of chicks they had.  All the tanks were empty.  I thought to myself "Both good & bad.  Good that the fluffy butts didn't have to live in those stock tank brooders very long, and that they had gone to their new homes, but bad because they're all gone and I don't have any more to buy."   So I went on about my business, figured it wasn't the right time to "fill out" my flock.

I had ordered 3 buff orpingtons, but mypetchicken must have been running short, because they only sent one.  I had told them to "substitute" if they ran short, so they sent one extra australorp, and one extra silver lace wyandotte I think.  Anyway, I want 3 buff orpingtons, so I moved on to TSC to see if they had any.  They did, and not only did they have buff orpingtons, but they had AMERICAUNA'S!!!   I bought 5 A's & 2 BO's to start with, but ended up going back and buying another 6 A's, which was all that they had.  Yup I'm that awesome.  I bought all of the Easter Eggers they had available.  lol. 

The only downside is that it's straight run, so I have no idea how many of the new fluffies are male or female.  All the newbies are straight run. 

The end count for the new fluffy butt's is: 

1  Buff Orpington F + 2SR
2 Australorp
3 Silver Laced Wyandottes
3 Black Jersey Giant (hen)
1 Black Jersey Giant (Roo)
3 Light Brahma
11 Americauna SR

26 fluffy butts!! :-D

Photos to follow! 

Edit:

 "And what do you think you are doing?? "  - Butter Butt - Dad named it

 Butterscotch - Megan named it

 A pretty little Americauna girl. :-D

 Beautiful coloring on this little Americauna. :-D

 Another Americauna.

 One of the Australorps. :-D

 Silver lace wyandotte girl.  I am loving these stripes!

 Another color variation to the light brahma.  This one has a bad case of pasty butt IMHO

 Yes she was really thrilled with me while I was cleaning her up lemme tell you what...

 Such a pretty little Brahma girl

Look at those fuzzy feet!! Aren't they the cutest things!?

They've arrived!!!

The fluffy butts have arrived!!  They got to our post office this morning at 10:00am, and we had them home, in their new brooder by 11:00.  We had to bring them into the house as the barn seemed to be too cold.  I of course have a heat lamp over their box, but there is a draft, and the barn isn't the warmest right now.  I was concerned about this and had asked that I bring them into the house back when I ordered them, but had been told "no".  Well, when the poor dears are all huddled together, terrified and cold I just couldn't bear it so I brought them in the house anyway. 

I thought I had ordered 3 buff orpingtons, but I hadn't.  The list in the shipping box says I only ordered 1 buff orp, so she has been named Sunshine, and is a little beauty of course don'tcha know? 

We've "located" all of the light brahma's, but they don't all look the same so had they not had fluffy feet I wouldn't have known they were all brahma's. And of course the silver lace wyandotte's all look similar, with striped backs, but the australorps & jersey giants all kind of look similar. 

I can't be sure but I think I may have a splash giant instead of black, but I won't mind if he/she's a splash.  It will just make it easier to tell him/her apart from the rest of them... and I'm supposed to have 1 rooster in the bunch, but there is no way to know who he is at this point since they're still so tiny. 

I had talked to one of our neighbors/friends who had ordered chicks through the mail, and they didn't have very much luck with it.  I guess there were some sexing errors and so forth, so they decided to not order them online again, preferring instead to hatch their own.  To each their own, but I don't have an incubator at this point in time, so that doesn't work for me very well.  That, and I would need to order eggs instead of chicks, and I would think there would be a higher probability for failure and eggs being damaged through ordering... I don't know.  This seemed to work for me this time though!  :-D

 Our little Sunshine!  :-D

New chicks on their way!!

I've been informed that I'm going "mother hen" all over my new chicks... they shipped from the hatchery this morning, and I set the account within USPS to text me whenever it makes a change. So due to this, I know my new chicks are in Columbus, OH. Yay!! I expect to get a call tomorrow morning from my lovely little post office telling me they've arrived!! Photos to follow!!

In the meantime, my son is teething and is really cranky.  On the bright side, he has a tooth on the bottom left that has broken through. :-D  Yay.  

Back to mommy-hood!  More new-chicks posts to follow! 

Egg shell art

A friend of mine shared some "egg shell art" with me on facebook a week or two ago, and after my mom saw it, she wanted to try some of the techniques so I've been sent to google to find her a dremel & some instructions.  At first I was incredulous, but the more I think on it, the more I am liking the idea because even though it could be an epic fail, it could also be fun at the same time, so why not give it a try. :-D

There seem to be multiple ways of creating art using eggs, among the types are painting the shells using either brushes & paint, or wax, oils etc. resulting in paint displacement to form intricate designs & the other is carving them either with a dremel, a scalpel or some other type of precision tool.  Within those two types there are so many different examples it's just astonishing to me.

Here are some google images that came up when I searched for "egg shell art"....  The ones below are examples of the various methods.


I wonder how this form of art was done.  Is it paint?  Wax?  I have no idea but it's very pretty.







 




This is an example of an egg painted in the early 1940's.  I believe my great-grandma had one similar to this on her bookshelf.






The one being held over the light by an older man's hands seems to have been made by a gentleman in his late 70's early 80's, which is an impressive feat in and of itself.  His artistry is very beautiful and I've run across several examples of his work as I'm looking at all of these different kinds of egg shell art.  It's all quite interesting really...



As you can see, some of the eggs in the photo above are duck & some are chicken, some may even be swan, I'm not sure, but none-the-less all are very detailed, and designed by someone with a steady hand. 

 
As you can see, it's a brown egg shell, within a white egg shell... I honestly have no idea how they pulled that off.



This one was done using an emu egg, and the use of emu eggs seem to be a favorite, but they are quite striking if I do say so myself. 




Then you have the example below, where someone took the shell of the egg to use as a candle mold.  That was really using their common sense!!



And of course you can't forget this form of art using eggs....

Apparently, in this Ukrainian tradition, the designs on the egg shells are sketched in wax, then the eggs are dipped in various colors of dyes, to create this astounding display of beauty.





 My mind is officially blown away by all of the beautiful art that people have been able to come up with using something so everyday as an egg shell.  It makes me feel rather small and insignificant in comparison!

Pictures of the pets

Henrietta having too much fun playing in the scrap pile

 

Rosie posie being all regal and haughty as if she is saying

"What do you think you're doing taking pictures of my flock?" Lol 

 

Tabitha was in "hen heaven" when I threw out the table 

scraps from lunch for her to scratch through. 

 

My sister's horse (22 or 23) being all flirty & daring.  He would prance around with his tail up, arching his neck and high stepping whenever I would try to get closer to him, then he'd stop and look back at me as if to say "Well come on!  I want to play!"  He and my horse are both trained to stay on the property so he was loose at this point in time, no ropes etc.

 

The females taking dust baths. 

 My husband's guinea's taking dust baths.  The male is "keeping watch".   He's a good roo over-all, as long as no one comes near his hens.

A closer shot at the male.  They all look the same, but hes slightly bigger.