New little Littles!
6:41 PMAs we are down to 8 fluffy butted Girls, My Beloved thought it be a good time to add a few young ones to augment our flock. I thought so to...
6:41 PM
As we are down to 8 fluffy butted Girls, My Beloved thought it be a good time to add a few young ones to augment our flock.
I thought so too: I mean, really.... who can pass up on a chance for babies?
First things first though: as the new Littles have to be kept separate from the Big Girls until fairly size compatible, a place had to be prepared.
The well shed and a fenced run sits adjacent to the Girls' run and last year we found it to be the perfect place for Littles. That being said, we had to re-install the partition to keep the Littles to the front of the well shed, as we also use that shed for outside storage.
A run to the locate hardware store for some 2 by 2, home to cut and place and screw a couple older, small sheets of plywood as a dividing wall: glory be, well shed ready. Set up water, feeder, shade and we were ready too.
A trip to the local feed store and a happy purchase of 5 Littles, They only had little Littles: no longer the fluffy ball of down, but not quite the teenaged pullet age. No worries: we scooped up 3 baby Buff Orpingtons
and 2 baby Silver Laced Wyandottes.
We popped our little Littles into a box, also purchasing a bale of straw for bedding, a bag of crumbles for food. Got them home, released them into the run.... to find the 2 by 3 square wire fencing was simply a gateway for such little Littles. The little buggers just stepped through the openings and off they went.
Insert very bad words here.
Thankfully, they are still babies: shy, nervous and wont to stay together. Thankfully, instead of scattering to the 4 winds (yes, they get airborne even at this young age), my presence blocking their wanderlust did have them scurrying back through the fence.
Alrighty now.
What had started as a fun morning now turned into 3 more hours of me clipping the roll of 2 x 3 wire fencing to run it sideways, making a 10 inch high mini-fence along the bottom of the 2 x 3 wire fencing. This made the openings trim down to small squares, more or less, which should stop any more escape attempts.
Here is where I add that it was hot: we hit 95 degrees today, and a good portion of my labour was done in the sun, sitting in dried weeds and the dirt, which has been well used by the bigger Girls in the past.
I finished triumphant, if not just a bit sunburnt, sweaty, somewhat bloody from wire pierced fingers, and extremely grubby.
Hit the shower, then off to a lumberyard where my Beloved and I loaded 2 lengths of Hardee Plank siding and really long, pressure treated boards (I've no clue: they were long and heavy): home to unload (new project in the works: not chicken related) ... to find a couple of our little Littles had found a spot I'd not thoroughly secured, had escaped again, and (thankfully) were hovering anxiously near their buddies, wanting to get back in.
I said a few choice words, but was delighted to find the threat of me standing over them urged them to find the escape spot, and they tucked themselves neatly back to where they belonged.
More wire judiciously applied, and I think we're good now.
Yes, I've gone up to check several times. Will let you know. And, yes, I'm tired now.
I thought so too: I mean, really.... who can pass up on a chance for babies?
First things first though: as the new Littles have to be kept separate from the Big Girls until fairly size compatible, a place had to be prepared.
The well shed and a fenced run sits adjacent to the Girls' run and last year we found it to be the perfect place for Littles. That being said, we had to re-install the partition to keep the Littles to the front of the well shed, as we also use that shed for outside storage.
A run to the locate hardware store for some 2 by 2, home to cut and place and screw a couple older, small sheets of plywood as a dividing wall: glory be, well shed ready. Set up water, feeder, shade and we were ready too.
A trip to the local feed store and a happy purchase of 5 Littles, They only had little Littles: no longer the fluffy ball of down, but not quite the teenaged pullet age. No worries: we scooped up 3 baby Buff Orpingtons
Of course, they don't look like that now... they look more like this:
Insert very bad words here.
Thankfully, they are still babies: shy, nervous and wont to stay together. Thankfully, instead of scattering to the 4 winds (yes, they get airborne even at this young age), my presence blocking their wanderlust did have them scurrying back through the fence.
Alrighty now.
What had started as a fun morning now turned into 3 more hours of me clipping the roll of 2 x 3 wire fencing to run it sideways, making a 10 inch high mini-fence along the bottom of the 2 x 3 wire fencing. This made the openings trim down to small squares, more or less, which should stop any more escape attempts.
Here is where I add that it was hot: we hit 95 degrees today, and a good portion of my labour was done in the sun, sitting in dried weeds and the dirt, which has been well used by the bigger Girls in the past.
I finished triumphant, if not just a bit sunburnt, sweaty, somewhat bloody from wire pierced fingers, and extremely grubby.
Hit the shower, then off to a lumberyard where my Beloved and I loaded 2 lengths of Hardee Plank siding and really long, pressure treated boards (I've no clue: they were long and heavy): home to unload (new project in the works: not chicken related) ... to find a couple of our little Littles had found a spot I'd not thoroughly secured, had escaped again, and (thankfully) were hovering anxiously near their buddies, wanting to get back in.
I said a few choice words, but was delighted to find the threat of me standing over them urged them to find the escape spot, and they tucked themselves neatly back to where they belonged.
More wire judiciously applied, and I think we're good now.
Yes, I've gone up to check several times. Will let you know. And, yes, I'm tired now.
