A week of Firsts...

First radishes...

First egg!

First flowers around the pond...

First Rhode Island Red....

But the best first of all...ta-da...a grandson born to son Cody and daughter in law Sherin. No photos yet, but I'm going to visit in two days.

The new hen, Rudy arrived 2 days ago and has laid 2 eggs, putting to shame Mariah and Dorothy who are still slacking off after 2 weeks. So much for the theory of "stressed out due to change of environment". The black hens were quite jealous and possessive of their food and water when Rudy arrived, and behaved like playground bullies. They got the sharp points of their beaks rounded off, so they couldnt do her much damage.

The wood is all put up for next winter...we need more roof!

Happy hens

Two chickens have moved in to the new chicken house, Black Maria and Dorothy. They have had a remarkable week from a hen's perspective...when I found them they were living in a battery situation, each in a one square foot cage, standing on wire mesh, indoors, barely able to turn around. They couldnt walk properly at first, with their legs going every which way like intoxicated fowl, and being intellectually deprived they couldnt figure out the ramp or what the roost was for.

So after crawling in the cage for a few nights and shoving them up the ramp, they caught on and now they go merrily up and down just for the fun of it. They learned how to scratch and dig and discovered worms , and now I hear a kind of anticipatory chirruping that translates "Heads up, the worm lady is coming!"

They have been very entertaining all week, but are yet to lay a single egg. Could be they feel they are in some chicken spa with gourmet food and dust baths and on vacation from work.

There is room for two more, but I'm holding out for a poultry show and sale in June where I hope to find a pretty speckled Barred Rock.