Wheel...Of...FOOD!

So...what can you make with an old bicycle wheel, some chain, threaded rods and assorted hardware?

Why, a chicken consternation producer, of course!  Just add food!

Thanks to a swivel at the top of the chain, the Wheel of Food spins freely, the treats also spin on their rods when pecked.

...then hang the Wheel Of Food at chicken level from a sawhorse in the chicken yard.  After that, just stand back.

Bloop supervised it's installation.

Although to Zip goes the credit for being brave and approaching the thing while a bunch of the others milled about at CMSD--Chicken Minimum Safe Distance.

But Zip took her time studying the Weird New Thing. It has yet to win chicken-y approval.

Criminy, it's like she's studying the thing for her doctoral thesis.  At this point we sprinkled chicken food beneath the Wheel of Food to tempt them in.

Eventually (think a couple of hours) most of the rest of the flock unhinged themselves enough to go ahead and peck at the food, although there was no shortage of staring.

The rest of the afternoon we were rewarded with the occassional 'Twang!' over Chickam as the food disappeared.  I'm thinking as they get more used to it the Wheel of Food will be accepted more quickly and *maybe* the old ladies will join in instead of sitting huffily in the coop.

Now to figure out how to make the treats bob up and down ala a merry-go-round... 
...and maybe make a clown-horn 'Honk-a!' sound with each peck.

Y'know, nothing too extravagant.

Chickam 2015 Is On!

The first set of hatching eggs are ordered! We'll be having TWO rounds of hatching this year, both planned for March.

I'll set the first group of eggs February 27th & 28th, hatch date will be March 20th & 21st.
Second hatch will be set March 6th & 7th, hatch date will be March 27th & 28th.

The reason I'm staggering the set/hatch dates over two days is so more people have a chance to catch an egg hatching. This will be kind of an experiment, but should work just fine with the ReptiPro since you don't have to do the strict 3 day lockdown with it.

The eggs I ordered today for delivery next month for the first hatch will be mixes:
Frizzled Ameraucana/Silkie
Easter Egger/Silkie
Frizzled & Smooth Polish/Silkie
Salmon Flavorelle/Silkie

So the chicks should be, ahh...'interesting' to say the least. I haven't ordered eggs for hatch #2 yet but I've got my eye on some. I'll put some of our own hens' eggs in each hatch as well. The other day I caught Mushroom the bantam Cochin roo successfully mating one of the Giant Cochin girls, so God knows what we'll get...

As always, after the hatch the camera, with sound, will be on the chicks in the brooder box 24/7 for  the first 8 weeks of their lives so everyone can watch them play and grow up.  Since the brooder box will be located in our dining room in the house (God help us!), you will also hear us going about our daily activities.  We will broadcast the hatch and the chicks on our UStream channel, here:  Chickam2008.  The UStream channel also has a 'chat' feature that we welcome people to use as long as they are polite and follow the rules. As we have been doing throughout the year, between now and then (weather permitting) we will use the UStream Chickam channel for our Saturday broadcasts of the existing flock outdoors.  We like to plan various little entertaining activities for our flock and the new chicks as well during our Chickam broadcasts, usually they involve treats for the chickens provided in hilarious and challenging ways that are a lot of fun to watch.

Hopefully we'll have a broody mama available, Rambo the buff Brahma and Pompadour the gray Giant Cochin are both *just* starting to go broody now. We will of course really start to encourage this nonsense about two weeks prior to the hatch dates and get them all fired up in time for chicks.

DIE, School!

So the kid's binder broke in class the other day, and her teacher was kind enough to lend her a used one until she could get home for us to replace it--like most parents, I think, we have a mini office supply store here at home.

When I first saw the lender binder, I thought, 'Oh, how cute.  Little purple hearts!'

Then I looked closer...

...to see that some enterprising soul had carved the words, 'DIE SCHOOL' into the cover.  CARVED.  That's some seriously deep convictions of your personal beliefs, right there.

I love this thing.

Now that I've switched out her stuff to the new binder I'll have to return it to the teacher with some kind of appropriately smart-ass note, though.  This is just too good to pass up.

Ahh, high school.

The Ghost Of Christmas Past...

...is in my living room.

Yeeaahhhhh...what a mess.  Sure smelled good while it was here, though.  Now to vacuum up a gazillion pine tree needles, and continue to find weird stray ones in impossible places for the next 6 months.

Thing left a trail all the way out to the street, it grabbed onto everything possible in it's wake like it didn't wanna go.

Dog Shaming, v2.0

I was putting together some kusudamas last night--sewing the modular components together--and had gotten up to add more wood to the fireplace.  I had literally gone three steps and turned back to look, even though I was only away from my project for a second and it was on a high table.  I swear that dog sprinted for the damned thing the instant my back was turned.

So, Dusty earned herself a neck sign today.

Damned dumb dog, she's lucky I turned around and caught her.  Also lucky that the needle had fallen off of the thread, which I ended up having to pry her mouth open and go spelunking for.  Nothing like yanking a wad of dog-spit-covered thread out of an unwilling dog mouth while scanning said mouth for a needle.  The kid found the needle on the floor, thank God, so the dog was spared a trip to the vet's office.

The kid insisted on making her a neck sign, though Dusty realized it was not a Good Thing and didn't really want to get her picture taken with it.

It's Christmas!

Unfortunately the kid came down sick late at night on the 23rd, so the three of us are having the traditional quarantined Christmas so we don't endanger my mom.

For a tree, we got a Grand Fir this time.  It smells awesome but is so dense I got maybe 1/3 of my ornaments on it, so it's Christmas Lite this year.  Due to the small, odd shape to our living room and having to position the tree away from the heating vents, the one and only place it can go is here, which means the packages must be arranged so no one trips over them and kills themselves by falling into a Christmas tree.  So the packages kinda wandered down the hall a bit.

The kid gave me some quality teenage eyeroll when she saw I'd been a smartass with the 'Naughty or Nice' markings on her Toblerone, which by the way was the size of a telephone pole.

She loves plastic dinosaurs, when I saw this one I had to get it for her.  Dino jazz hands!

He looks like one of your buddies running up to tell you the greatest joke ever.

 I love his facial expression, I giggle every time I look at him.  I may have to get one of these for myself.

We had a fun, if very quiet, day.  I've stocked us up on Kleenex, ice cream and cold meds, and made a crock pot full of cream of roast chicken soup.  Hopefully the kid will have things as easy as we can make them, especially since we got skunked on the snow they promised us and she's wondering who she can officially complain to about this disgrace.

Merry Chickmas!

Santa hats on chickens!  Time to humiliate the roosters!

I dunno, it's just funnier with the boys.  Bloop is first, doing it wrong since he fits in the hat better in this direction. 

He wanted to kill me.

Then Weedcat the Head Roo.  He clearly did not find it as funny as the kid did.

Weedcat is a big, heavy guy and hard for the kid to hold, so my husband took over.  Poor Weeds humored us.

Instant dignity removal.

Mushroom the bantam Cochin roo wore his hat in style, he  is a jaunty little guy!

Happy holidays from all us chickens!