With the rains and the warmth our spring frogs have emerged! iNaturalist app identifies this one as a cricket frog. Last year was a light year for froglets. The year before you had to watch your step. We’ll see how this year plays out.
Update on Sunrise: some time in isolation with no nesting areas seems to have done the trick to break Sunrise from her broodiness. I did not have to resort to a wire bottomed cage. Whew!
I have been saving a bit of my special Roman Olive wood to make something special for my sister who loves Italy. Not a regular spoon, not a spatula, how about a roux spoon? With a taster spoon on the handle? Ok!
Uh uh. Nope. No cats in the hen house. Sophie tried to follow me in like she belonged there. Nice try cat.
Our outdoor/indoor cat Sophie came prancing into the house with a field mouse! A live one. Very live. Amazingly, after praising her for being a good hunter, she let me take the mouse from her. I took the little guy out to the meadow to let him go. Then washed my hands!!
Taking the broody hens off the nest, especially at night, seems to have done the trick for Magic and Cockatrice. They now great me at the door with the rest of the flock, asking for mealworms. It did not work with Sunrise, who seems to have the mothering bug worse than the other two. So I put Sunrise in isolation. We have a large cage that I built into the cupboards to isolate injured chickens, so I set up that area for her with food and water and NO nesting box. She is not happy, but she can see the flock and it is near the open door where she gets some natural light. My book recommends putting broody hens in a hanging a wire cage, which I can do if this doesn’t work. We’ll give it a couple days. It does feel a bit like sending a teenager to her room for excessive attitude.
