Coming Up Roses

   One of my favorite parts of summer is having a garden! My Mom loves to garden, but I have my own little garden in our yard.

   My garden is in a raised bed. This is a wooden frame filled with good soil. My mother built this for me a few years ago because my yard in this spot is mostly sand

   This is what my garden looked like before I started working on it. I use the large flat rocks as stepping stones. 

   First I raked through it and loosened the dirt. 

   Then I planted the flowers. I bought two packs of a "butterfly mix" at a local store. These are flowers that supposedly attract butterflies. Most years I plant mostly vegetables, but this year I just planted flowers. 

   The flowers very quickly sprouted...

   I can't wait for them to flower and I will definitely post when they do!

Another Man's Treasure

   Since I first got chickens, I started collecting chicken related stuff. I didn't do this on purpose... it just kind of happened. Now, all over my room is chicken stuff. Some of it was given to me, other pieces I bought myself.

   Today, I am going to show you some of what I have collected over the years... 

1. Tiny Chick Bowl

   I bought this adorable little bowl at a hardware store strangely enough. It was Easter and it was just too cute to resist!

2. Handmade Snow Globe

   A good friend of mine made me this chicken snow globe for me last Christmas. It was so thoughtful! 

3. Straw Hen

   I found this at a consignment shop. I have figured out that those stores are a great place to look for chicken related stuff. Everything in them is usually very unique, like this straw hen! 

4. Chicken Tape Dispenser

   I absolutely love this! It just looks so cute on my desk! I think I found it online at My Pet Chicken. I am not sure if they still sell this, but it can be found pretty easily online.

Update: As many of you have most likely noticed, I have not been posting as much as I used to. With the school year finishing up, I am kind of swamped with finals work. So, at least for a while now, I will be posting every other week. Once Summer starts and I have more time, I will probably go back to the old schedule. I really appreciate you staying with me! See you soon!

Fuss and Feathers

   Once a year, chickens molt. This is when chickens loose all their feathers, then grow them back. This doesn't happen all at once, but the chickens do end up looking scruffy.

   This week, Sleepy started molting.

  

   One thing that goes along with molting is pinfeathers. When the chickens are growing feathers, pinfeathers form. They are kind of hard to explain, but they look terrible. Imagine porcupine quills. 

   On Sleepy's neck, right where that gap in her feathers, are pinfeathers. You can only see this if she moves a certain way, which made it hard to get a good picture. 

You can see them pretty well here...

Here is a zoomed in version. 

   I know... Really gross looking...

   It is going to get worse before it gets better. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, however. After chickens molt and their feathers are all new, they are just gorgeous! 

   See you next week!

Spring has Sprung

   So it is finally Spring! The snow is FINALLY melting and the chickens are so happy to be outside.

   Unfortunately, I don't have much time to write this week. It is the end of the quarter in my school and it is the week of tests. (And essays. And projects.) Also, I just finished celebrating Easter with my family! I thought I'd share a few pictures since this post is pretty sparse.

   I love Eater because everything is chick themed!

Everything from napkins...

...to cookies!

   I always LOVE decorating Easter eggs! My sister and I take time to do it every year. Even if they don't turn out well sometimes, they are still so fun!

Getting the dye ready!

Drying!

The finished product!

   If you celebrate Easter, I hope you had a great one! If not, I hope you are enjoying Spring just as much as I am!

Thank you for sticking with me and I'll see you next week!

Review: Pinless Peepers

   As many of you probably know, we have been having some winter-time problems. (You can go to my last post to read more about it). We needed a solution, and fast.

   About two weeks ago, the chickens went crazy again. This time their target was Daisy, my sweet Buff Orpington. Just like Raven before her, they tore her skin down to the muscle. We knew we had to stop this before it happened again.

   So we ordered "Pinless Peepers".

   This is a small, plastic blinder that was specifically made to stop chicken pecking problems. I had heard of them in the past, but never thought I would need them. 

   They were actually very cheap! We were able to get about twelve peepers and the pliers to apply them for under ten dollars. (Some people say you can do without the pliers, but I found them very useful.)

   So, how you actually get these on a chicken is the hard part. First of all, you need two people. One to hold the bird, one to hold the pliers. 

   You use the pliers to spread open the Peeper. This is a lot easier if you soak the peapers in warm water first.

The two little pins on the back should open.

   Then, one pin goes in each nostril. It is easier to get one in one nostril then get the other over the other. Then you can release the tool, and the second goes in. 

   It sounds easy, but the chicken, unsurprisingly, does NOT like it. 

   We only had to put three of these on. One for Piper. One for Raven. One for Speckles. Some people put it on all of their chickens, but we only put it on the trouble-makers. 

   It only blocks the very front of their vision. They can still eat, drink, preen, and scratch. They just can't see bare spots on the other chickens. 

   We finally had a nice day, but Piper was the only one who felt like posing for me (sigh)...

   She looks pretty funny, but all of the chickens got used to the Peepers very quickly! At first the chickens with them on, shook their heads and wiped their heads on the ground. The other chickens pecked at them a bit, too. 

   Although it is hard to tell since they haven't been on long, the Peepers seem to be working! We haven't had an incident since they have been on and even feather-picking has stopped! Our whole flock (including Speckles) can finally all be together!

   As I said, these were definitely last resort. I would never have used them unless we had serious problems. This is the only time I would recommend them. I definitely thing you should try all else before using these. However, they DO work in serious situations.

   I hope this was helpful to you guys and I will see you next week!


Note: Chicken Blinders are very different than "Pinless Peepers". Other types look like these but have a pin that gets pushed through one nostril and out the other. You have to push this through a membrane that separates them. PinLESS are a lot easier and (in my mind) more humane.

Sure as Eggs

   Some people (like my family) eat a lot of eggs. And I am talking a lot of eggs. Just for breakfast, we each eat two eggs. With four of us that is eight eggs a day. And that doesn't include baking or other cooking throughout the day.

   However, I know some people don't eat as many eggs. Especially if you are in a rush in the morning, it may seem too time consuming to cook up an egg for breakfast. I have the solution to this excuse! My Mom showed me this trick a few years ago and I have been using it ever since.


   So here is my trick for the Easiest Egg Recipe Ever!

First find a small glass bowl. If you don't have one a small cup will work just as well.

Don't forget to spray it with non-stick spray! 

   Then scramble one egg and put it in your glass or bowl. Add whatever you'd like. I usually just add cheese, but anything you like in an omelet would be good!

Put your egg in the microwave for one minute. That's it! 

   The egg will puff up a lot, but will "deflate" after you take it out of the microwave. 

   And you're done! You can eat it like this or make some toast and make it into a breakfast sandwich. Either way is fast, delicious, and easy!  

   I know this post was a little light on pictures, so here are some old chick pictures, just because!

They were so small!

I hope this helps you start your day with a great breakfast, and I'll see you here next week!

   

Review: Molt Muffins

   This winter my chickens have been having a protein problem. I think that might have been what triggered Speckles' feather eating and other evil ways.

   I have been trying to give them lots of snacks not only for this reason but also to keep them from getting bored. (To see my post on fun winter treats click here!)

   However, I have been trying to find ways to give them fun snacks AND give the protein boost they need at the same time.

   That's when I came upon a recipe. It is on a website called The Chicken Chick. (Here is a link to the recipe,  http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2013/08/molt-muffins-for-chickens-during.html ). It is a high protein muffin sized ball meant for molting chickens. (Molting is when a chicken looses then regrows all their feathers. This takes a lot of protein so they often need extra in their diet).

   Here is my variation on her recipe. (Again, it is still The Chicken Chick's recipe, I am just restating it with my own twist).



Makes about 20 muffins.
Oven temperature: 350 degrees
Time baking: 40 minutes (then 10 minutes with the oven turned off; this is for a solid, hard to break apart muffin)

Don't forget to grease your pan or they will be impossible to get out!

1 3/4 cups Mana Pro Game bird/Show bird feed (any high protein feed will do fine)
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup oatmeal
3-4 eggs
1 cup water
1/8 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup peanut butter

Addition mix-ins: 1/2 cup
Meal worms (dried)
Sunflower seeds
Scratch
Anything else you have around

(The original recipe also had 1 mashed banana and 1/2 cup applesauce. I didn't have any in the house so that is why I didn't add these.)

Once you mix all the ingredients, put scoops into a muffin tin and bake! It's that easy!



   These muffins were really easy to make. They didn't take much time at all either!

   One complaint I have about them is that they are very crumbly. It might be that I baked them too long. It is also possible that the banana and applesauce I had to skip would make a big difference. If you make this at home don't forget to try that!

   Here is Speckles enjoying a crumpled Molt muffin.
 

   Another way I gave the muffins to the chickens was in a suet feeder. I packed in as many muffins as I could and hung it with a piece of wire in the coop. They seemed to like it more this way for some reason. 

   When I put the muffins inside the coop, the chickens weren't very excited. I think because of the brown color, they blended into the bedding and were forgotten. When I put them outside, though, they loved the muffins!

Even Nutmeg came outside for a while!

   Overall, this was a great recipe that I think I will definitely try again soon!

    I hope to see you all next Monday! Have a good week!