It’s been a busy few days on A|C Acres and we’re loving life.
We’ve had a ton of rain lately so everything is a bit waterlogged and we’re waiting for it to dry out before we start any big projects. But that didn’t stop us from venturing out to pick up 4 Golden Comet pullets late Friday afternoon. They all look alike so we haven’t given them names; only one has any distinguishing feature and that happens to be an “underbite” from where the top of her beak was filed down more than the bottom–we affectionately call her Underbeak. Meet the gals!
Pullets are teenage chickens, which means all of their baby fluff has been replaced by feathers, but they’re still under one year old. Ours were 19 weeks and 5 days when we picked them up and, according to the Google, they should start laying around 19 weeks so we’ll have our first farm-to-table food any day now.
We got them home and introduced them to their coop. We put down fresh bedding for them, filled their water, and sprinkled some food for them to scratch around for. They were a bit timid at first, but as I’ve spent more time with them – I go out at least once a day…with food…yes, I’m bribing them to like me – they’ve become more comfortable. At first they would all scurry away when I reached out to touch them, but now two of them will let me pet them for a few seconds before moving out of reach. Soon, we’ll be best friends!
I’m slowly making improvements to their coop and run. The run was a muddy mess which means it became a breeding ground for flies – gross. And I noticed the chickens didn’t hang out in the run much during the day, I think because it was hot in the direct sun. So I’ve added a tarp over their run which should help with:
- keeping the ground dry which, in turn, should reduce the number of flies
- providing shade so the ladies feel more comfortable exploring in the daytime
- sheltering the food and dust bath so they don’t become piles of mush when it rains again
I have a few more plans for chicken “enrichment” (aka toys) to keep boredom at a bay because a bored chicken becomes a bully chicken. Bored chickens also become a bit too curious and can start pecking at and/or eating their own eggs, but WE want those eggs so I will gladly become a chicken-toy maker.
In other non-chicken news, Mom and Dad came up this weekend to (1) bring us a van load of our stuff and (2) explore our new home. They got the grand tour as soon as they pulled up – I didn’t even give them time to unpack, I was just so excited to show off our homestead! After dinner, we headed to downtown Murphy to catch some live music and have a few drinks, then we went to pick up some free pallets (more on those in a minute). Nothing like a Saturday night in a small town, huh? Though, it is a pretty dang cute small town.
Sunday started out pretty low key: chores, church, errands, a bit of gardening. But we ended the night with another tornado warning! Did we move to Kansas?! After our last experience, AC and I weren’t keen on the idea of weathering that kind of storm again so we drove to the casino just a few miles down the road. Mom and Dad hadn’t ever been to a casino so our “shelter” also doubled as a field trip. We wandered the floor, played some slots, and had a drink before we headed back to the farm which was, thankfully, fine despite the tree debris and hail littering the road on the way back.
Mom and Dad headed out on Monday morning and AC and I continued to unpack the house. We also built a compost station out of those pallets I mentioned earlier. I would wager that pallets are a homesteader’s best friend – you can do so much with them! We screwed a few together to create a space to store and cook compost for our garden. We might use more of them as part of the garden fencing…tbd on that specifically, but we definitely have more pallet projects in our future.
I just put the chickens to bed and now it’s time for me to head that way, too.
Until next time,
Charli
Yikes!!! But yay love the chickens! I think one of them looks like a Julie!