Surprise!

My husband and I had noted a marked decreased in the number of eggs we were getting from our chickens.  We figured that some of our older birds were getting ready to molt and the new layers hadn’t started yet.  We didn’t think much of it… until Tuesday morning.

When my husband got home from work he came inside and asked me if I had work clothes on because I needed to get underneath the porch. (DH and I are not small people).  My expression must have said it all because he told me that he noticed some strange noises coming from underneath the back porch. ‘The eggs we were missing are now up and walking around’, he said.

He found eight brand new little ones running around.  One of the hens that our friend bestowed upon us when she moved in June had made herself a little nest and had been hiding out under there for at least a month now.  It was forecast to get down below freezing on Tuesday night.  We proceeded to dig out the feeder and waterer which was put away after our spring pullets, ran out to the feed store to get some growing mash, got out the heat lamp from the workshop, and began assembling a brooder box.  We took a spare cardboard box outside and I began squeezing my not so little self underneath the back porch.  Momma didn’t mind so much that I was coming under there to visit her, she was used to us collecting eggs from nearby nesting boxes in the chicken coop.  It wasn’t until I started removing her new babies that she got really upset with me.  Imagine lying on your tummy in a two foot tall crawl space, reaching in front of you trying to catch day old pullets and having Momma peck at your hands, your head, your shoulders, etc.  The pecks don’t hurt so much, but trying to protect my face from flying dirt and debris while she was dancing around was interesting.

There are still eight more eggs in the nest and she is still sitting on them.  We are watching every day or two to see if any new little ones have emerged.  Fall pullets were not in the plans for this year due to the lack of heat and some repairs which need to be made to the weatherproofing in the chicken coop.  Apparently Creator decided that more laying birds were in our immediate future.

To-Do List Items for the Chicken Coop:

• 
  
  Re-seal the roof
• 
  
  Wash and paint the exterior walls
• 
  
  Remove hay insulation (doesn’t work together with leaky roof – very messy and moldy), wash down inside walls with mold preventative and replace insulation
• 
  
  Fix drainage problem in coop yard (we are hoping this is as simple as digging out the existing dirt and adding some layers of varying sizes of gravel and sand).
• 
  
  Add roof to ½ of coop yard (tarp is getting worse for the wear).
• 
  
  Replace coop yard fence running chicken wire 8-12 inches under soil level to deter whatever has been digging at the side of the coop yard fence and to keep the ducks from hiding their eggs under the coop itself.

Hopefully I will remember to bring the camera along as we attempt these and other fall projects around the house.

Stop taking my picture!

Do you have any interesting fall projects that you are planning to tackle?