The Halloween pumpkins have gone to the chickens.
My chickens love pumpkin. I made sure to get the pumpkins out to their coop before any mold set in. I hung the smallest pumpkin, and put the others up on the bench, just to keep them off the ground and out of the droppings. Within hours each pumpkin had a hole dug through the decoration into the guts so the chickens could reach the seeds. Now we have a pumpkin grave yard!
No Disney princesses here, just a particularly cold cold snap for Texas. We don’t usually see freezing temps until well into “winter” and heavy frost later than that, but heavy frost is what mother nature brought to us.
I prepared this year: removed the hoses from the outside faucets; brought the sprinkler timers inside, covering the delicate plants we nearly lost last winter. I even tried to save the cucumbers. Then the freeze hit for two nights.
At least I harvested three cucumbers, because the vines did not make it through the frost. I forgot about the nasturtiums and basil, both of which also succumbed to the cold. The lantana in the front looks great, though.
My chickens are loving it. They are all fluffy and active. Their outside water freezes, even with apple cider vinegar added, but once the ice is broken, they drink from it anyway. The coop stayed above freezing, so the water inside didn’t have ice (I don’t heat the coop).
Having vanquished his fears, he strode from the forest bearing the mantle of his victory.
Otherwise known as: Halloween is over, but I was too lazy to take the sheet all the way inside just yet. So… art!
Here is the first image, just in case you forgot:
Our eggs have been averaging about 45g (which is a size “small” in the USA). We have had a couple reach up to 49g, but we were shocked with a relatively huge 61g (large) egg!
We broke the egg open and it had a double yolk! Turns out this is most common with hens that are just starting to lay because their system hasn’t quite figured it all out yet. Or with older chickens nearing the end of their egg production. We obviously have the former.
Based on the camera footage, we think Jade is the layer of the double yolker, using the comb identification method.
from the poultry-geist.
It is the last day of October and the last day of #inktober! Everyday this month I have made an ink drawing using the official Inktober prompts (of course my theme was chickens.) The daily practice definitely helped improve my ink drawings (especially when I decided to use pencil first!). I experimented with different pens, lines, shading, even filling in the background with ink using paintbrushes and paper towels. The practice was good, but ink is still not my preferred media.
Here is my best and the worst, and if you want to see more, hop over to Instagram and search #inktober. There are many amazing artists posting some eye popping work (figuratively and literally). And if you want to see mine, they are at @carynjhall.
Happy Halloween!
