Family Day

Squishy's been getting pretty antsy in her pen so I let her and SoZH come out for a sunny afternoon. I was worried that the other chickens would pick on the chick and that Squishy wouldn't protect him - I kept a close eye on them the whole time. 

The other chickens were very interested at first but Squishy is a good mom; she chased everyone away - except for the baby daddy himself. I think it's unlikely that roosters know when a chick is theirs, but ZH was sure nice with his son.

After scratching around and eating some cucumbers, it was time for a dust bath.

SoZH wasn't sure what was going on at first.

He kept trying to cuddle up to mom and she'd shove him away with her feet. 

Adults only in the spa.

Then he suddenly caught on to how good a sunny dust bath feels.

Pure dusty bliss.

A little splintery, but mostly blissful.

Family at the spa.

Meanwhile, goats were hanging out in their favourite spot.

They go up on that table to sun themselves, chew their cud, groom themselves, wrestle each other...

Abby used to think she was the only table hopper on the farm.

"Wheee!"

"What??"

Speaking of "what??". 

Little Brown (probably the chicken with the most original name of all) seems to be going full kamikaze on Ryan.

Spa Day

Don't worry, not dead.

Just resting after an intense first dust bath. 

The chicks all seemed to discover dust bathing yesterday. Apparently they do it to clean themselves and to get rid of parasites. Our hens seem to spend a large portion of their time at the little spa that they dug out next to a tree. It's pretty funny to watch.

Magpie's name should be Elvis. What is with her head feathers?? 

Abby looking a little too interested in the chicks.

 This is the chicken feeder that I made. I drilled a bunch of 1.5" holes in some 3" pvc. It should theoretically hold a bunch of food and self-fill as it empties, but the food seems to get a bit stuck in the elbow joint. It's still too big for the chicks but the hens use theirs. 

We are 2 days away from fish! Nathan got a test kit yesterday for the water. pH looks perfect at 6.8.

The water gets pumped out of the big green fish tank and into the grow bed.

 As it fills the grow bed, the water feeds the plants (after the nitrogen cycle has taken place on the fish waste water due to bacteria in the grow bed media). The water fills the grow bed slowly and then gets gets siphoned out quickly back into the fish tank due to this very cool (*nerd alert*) bell siphon that Nathan built, causing an ebb and flow effect through the bed.

The water in the tank was a balmy 26 degrees yesterday afternoon. We have to get some shade mesh for the tank - heat might be more of a problem than cold.

Oh, and one more bit of news...we go pick this up this afternoon:

I'm very jealous...but I've been assured that I will get to drive it (and not just from the backseat) as much as I want.