The Chicken Chores

Today is another beautiful early fall day in Tennessee.The mercury is holding at about 73 degrees, and there is a slight breeze,great day to catch up on some chores. We had rain Sunday and Monday Yay! Over 2 inches according to my rain gauge, thats good news, we needed a good rain, well good news except for the cotton farmers. The cotton is a little soggy.

        I ended up doing my weekly chores today instead of the normal day, Monday. Yesterday after i fed the chickens and collected the eggs, we just stayed indoors and enjoyed breakfast for supper as we like to call it. We had canadian bacon, which in my book is not bacon, but if im going to watch my fat intake (as the doc says) i guess canadian bacon is better than no bacon at all, biscuits, fresh honey, homemade strawberry preserves, scrambled eggs, and tomato gravy, made with a can of our tomatoes. Mm good! Wait I know what your thinking "tomato gravy?" but man is it good, I know what else your thinking " gravy? didn't the doctor  say lower your fat intake?" Hey, I'm A southern boy, what can I say? It's a sin to have biscuits, and no gravy!

                                                   The Weekly Chores

     Ok, back to todays chores. I started out cleaning the old hay out of the nest boxes, this stuff is like gold, it just needs to compost for a while because chicken manure is high in nitrogen and will burn your plants( yep, learned that lesson the hard way) So I put it in one corner of the garden spot to sit for a while. its mostly hay from the nest boxes and under the loafing shed.

Next I put fresh hay in the nest boxes, to which the girls responded by remaking their nests. I am a little messy with the hay, I just shove it in, and watch them organize it into a pretty little nest.

The roosters came over to inspect their work. My wife would say "typical male." but I digress.

I save all my empty feed sacks, learned that from my neighbor Mike, the real farmer (I'm just a wanna be) these things come in handy for every thing. I have used them to store hay in, line the brooder box, to lay on the ground when I'm workin on a car, store stuff in them, provide temporary shade for rabbits, dispose of the occasional dead bird (learned that one from the neighbor too) I even save the little tags on the bottom as scratch paper, (learned that one from the neighbor too). I'm starting to see a pattern emerging here.

      After that I decided it would be a good idea to feed them, since one of them had not stopped pulling on the top of my boot since I got in there. Guess that goes back to my role as Cheif Chicken Chowline Operator (see workforce page for more info) For some reason when I hear that bird talk in my mind (that's another blog) it speaks with  a spanish accent and says"Yo quiero Purina" kinda like the Taco Bell dog.  I know, weird.

After feeding and watering them, I made my exit thinking "am I forgetting something? Nah" And about that time I looked back and saw the basket of eggs hanging off the corner of the shelter, DUH. Don't tell the boss hehe. (refer to workforce page for Michelle's job description for more Info)