A gift from my wife.
Early morning feeding time
(EVERY morning and usually before sunrise!)
Dear old Hoot, our flock's leader and my best chicken friend.
Showdown at the OK Corral.
(The chickens won and kitty hit the road)
Chicken art...so much fun!
Cleaning the hen house...not so much fun.
Fresh eggs every morning!
And fresh surprises every night.
I was late to work one morning because I could not get this baby Opossum out of the hen house.
It was hard to explain to my schoolchildren.
Baby raccoons on the hen house. They were cute the first time they did this, but not the next time at 2:00 AM in the morning!
And mamma raccoon broke in 7 different times to steal eggs.
(She never harmed the chickens)
If you look closely, you'll see mamma raccoon.
Letting my chickens out with raccoons was too stressful and the main reason I gave them away.
This was my all time most bizarre memory. The pack rats moved in to the chicken coop and to scare them away, my dad bought this realistic owl.
One night I found a rat resting on the owl.
The pack rats did not bother the chickens and simply wanted the spilled grain.
Suffice it to say, our resident screech owls enjoyed the prospects of more food in the food chain.
However, my wife was less than thrilled.
As we decided to give away the flock, our house was host to a new litter of kittens. It was becoming a menagerie. We kept two of the kittens.
In the end, I learned something very important:
if I had time to only have one hobby (which is more and more the case)
I would keep gardening and pass on the chicken raising.
My admiration goes out to those who can do both.
Happy Gardening & thanks so much for stopping by!
David/:0)
