Homesteading with animals...post a pic!

[Beekissed]

My cat's companion got hit on the rode the other day and he has been much more needy now...mooching around and needing more attention. I feel so sorry for him and I've been thinking about getting him another kitten to keep him company and keep him warm this winter.

They do seem to mourn, don't they?

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

Hey, hope ya'll don't mind if I share some pics of some of our new additions! (I know, it's chickens, but that is most of our livestock right now!)

This is Sargeant Pepper and his wife, er one of his wives, Mrs. Buttersworth (aka Butter).

These are the Milles (only Mille not pictured is Grace, who isn't seeming to feel well so I have her separated from everyone else right now).
This is Michael, Gabriel, and Anna

Here is another of Michael and Anna

These two are sisters, I named the girl in the front Ruth, and I have a young Mille cockerel I named Boaz, but he isn't old enough to be her mate yet. Her sister in the back is yet unnamed, I am thinking on Elizabeth for her, but haven't decided yet.

No pictures of the new ducks yet, will try to get those tomorrow.

 

[Beekissed]

Quail, those are beautiful birds! That roo alone should be in a show.....I never knew what the Milles looked like before, so this was educational. Are they banties? Do they lay well?

Your roosts look like mine! I use large branches also...well, they were beanpoles left here by the old farmer that built the place.

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

Yes, those are all bantams. I actually have two flocks, my egg lay-or-you-will-be-dinn-er flock, and my hobby flock, which are the bantam breeds, 4 Light Brahmas, and 5 Blue Laced Red Wyandottes.

Well, can't answer on how well the banties lay, as they are all this years, except Ruth and her sister. The latter two are molting right now, and they are one. The others aren't old enough to lay yet. Just starting out, so I have alot of young birds. (100+ to be exact! and scary thought, almost all are named!! )

The roosts are actually branches off locust trees DH had cut down for firewood. Locust burns forever! I do have a few used 2x4's that we might make roosts out of. The locust works great for my bantam coop, but the layer coop, well the heavy breed girls got to heavy, the roost bowed down, and fell! poor chooks nearly had heart attacks!

 

[Beekissed]

....lay-or-you-will-be-dinner flock...!


Too funny!



That's the kind of chickens I have!! When the egg production gets low (like now, during molt) the boys always tell me, "Mom, yer gonna have to talk to those hens, we only got X amount of eggs today!" Sometimes I think the boys believe that I can influence this! I find myself saying, "Uh-oh, someone is really slacking...time for the chopping block!" to the chickens as if they could understand...

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

I think they do understand! I had a hen named Goldie, lives with my mom now, but got her as a year old hen, supposedly she was laying....two weeks, no egg. I finally got so mad I told her that if she didn't produce an egg within 24 hours she was going in the stew pot! I followed that up with, "I am not going to feed a chicken that isn't laying!"

Next morning I got my first egg

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

You should have seen it last night. Pepper (his rooster ya know) decided to roost in a tree.

E never gives a second thought to MY chickens roosting in a tree, but HIS chicken would have froze to death don'tcha know, so we had to get him out of the tree and put him in the coop

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

Wasn't sure where to post this to share, figured, ok this is the best place as any, as it has to do with our animals, and why clutter up the boards with a new thread, right? LOL

So this morning, before our surprise company showed up, DH and I managed to finally get the 4x5 brooder coop inside my bigger coop done. Once the chicks are bigger, this will be come the Mille Breeding coop.

This is from a couple days ago, when we were putting the wire on. There's my super sexy handy dandy hubby!

Today we framed in the door with some leftover 2x4's.

Then after it was all framed in, I attached the chicken wire (hubby started it, I finished it).

Course, we didn't get to just put the door on it's hinges right away, because a small ruckus interrupted our work...it was the three muskateers, Michael, Gabriel, and Anna....

and they were running from Casey, and believe it or not, this little snot is smaller than them!!

Course then Elroy starts up, so I had to see what his problem was.....he was just demanding some attention!

Finally we were able to move the door into the coop, after chasing these two nosey birds outta the way!

Ah, finally, door is set and the coop is complete!!

Then I took some random pics of the critters....of course, this is Cricket, who's down right angry that I moved him inside LOLOL

This is the layer flock, standing at the fence wondering what in the world I am doing!

This is Gloria, one of my EE hens. She thought she was hiding LOL

They can't let the chickens have something all to themselves! The hens might get something good, ya know, and it all has to have the Royal Palm stamp of Approval before consumption! It's Quality Control!!

 

[punkin]

Oh Quail, your pics are great! Thanks for sharing a part of your world.

 

[Beekissed]

Those are great pics! Your man has made you a nice coop! Very nice to have a partner that works beside you towards the same goal, isn't it?