Category Archives: Pets and Animals

Grasshopper Gluttons

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We have a ton of grasshoppers out front in our flower beds. Whenever we walk past the flowers you can just hear them jumping to hide somewhere else. So Britton and I decided we would harvest this chicken delicacy.

When we fed them to the chickens we thought they would go nuts. But no. The chickens liked them, but were not as enthusiastic about them as I thought they would be. It was as if they were saying, “yah, we get those all the time out here”. But they still ate them all! Good protein and omega-3s for our eggs! Circle of life and all that.


Yum! A jar of grasshoppers 🙂

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Tiny Pullet Eggs

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A pullet is a young hen usually who has yet to lay an egg. Once they lay eggs, they usually are deemed hens. However, when young hens first start to lay eggs, sometimes they are not fully developed. In that case, they are called pullet eggs.

Our new 16-week old leghorn has already started laying eggs! Leghorns are often the commercial standard for hens because they are smaller than other hens (take up less room), they begin laying earlier and they lay longer than most other breeds. I can definitely say that the early laying is the case for Omeleto as the other two pullets have not.


Omeleto

Usually the last thing to mature is their comb and you know they are ready to lay. Omeleto’s comb is definitely more developed than the other pullets. However, her eggs still aren’t!


Pullet egg and regular sized egg

The pullet eggs look more like robin eggs! I was curious what the inside would look like, so I made a fried egg with one of each. Check out the tiny yolk in the pullet egg.


What a big difference between the full egg and the pullet egg! You can hardly notice the yolk in the pullet egg

So we still have a little time before we have full-sized eggs, but this is pretty good for only 16 weeks old! The other chickens should start laying at 20-24 weeks or in another 1-2 months.

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Sly Skunk Slinks into Chicken Coop

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Last night we heard a bit of a ruckus. Britton didn’t want to lock the chickens all the way into the little coop because they wake up at 5am (when the sun comes out) and want out into the yard -which means one of US has to wake up at 5am on a weekend to let them out. So we opened the windows at night and figured we’d hear anything if something tried to attack them. Well, we did! AND unlike the last time which coincidentally was almost a year ago to the day, we got a good look at the culprit. It was a skunk!


Skunks move in undulations but are not very fast so we got a couple good photos

You would think we could smell him coming, but we couldn’t! I always thought skunks stunk just in general, but they don’t! Although when Britton was trying to get him to leave the yard and he threw something at him, he did raise his tail -a warning that he was prepared to spray- which made Britton high tail it away from him! He did not want to be taking a bath in tomato juice! The skunk, unlike last year’s predator (who we think was a wild field cat) couldn’t scale the fence and was trapped in our yard.


You can see the skunk next to the AC in the garden with my freshly planted peppers (click pic to enlarge)

The chickens were all understandably freaked out, as skunks are natural chicken predators. Although, I have heard that they don’t usually go after the full-grown chickens and prefer eggs and chicks to a big ol’ hen that they can’t carry away or eat all the way. But, if they can get a hold of them, they will try to kill them and then just eat the head and blood which is what happened to some of my chickens when I was a kid.

So after all the commotion, the chickens were standing in the yard with their heads stretched high and eyes wide open near our back porch. The young ones were still safe in the greenhouse and we managed to wrangle all three of the older ones back into the coop and lock it shut.

At least they are all big, healthy chickens that make a fuss if anything tries to bother them. I think it would be a good fight if it was just one skunk against all of them. But I’d rather not find out!   And I’d rather that our backyard not get skunkified either! 🙂

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Plentiful Peppers (and Other Things)

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An intern at work has a family farm in Evans and he brought in two huge tray-fulls of pepper starts. They all look really healthy and hardy. He told everyone to take as many as we wanted. I took about 30 plants! Britton and I planted them all around the garden area yesterday and in the front flower garden too. I’ve never had too good of luck with pepper plants, but my mom says to just put grass clippings around the base of them to keep the humidity high near them and they will do well. We’ll see! I love peppers, so I hope it works out!


The pepper starts in the garden


One close up


Here are the three not-so-baby pullets under the tree staying out of the rain. We’ve named them: Omeleto (Omelette 2), Barock (the Barred Rock), and Little Foot (the smaller version of Greenfoot).


Flowers are still blooming like mad

 

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