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raising chickens has been really fun.
they are kinda noisy.
they are VERY poopy.
they are funny to watch especially when you have food for them.
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Pan Fry is a lady.
thank goodness.
our family is just having the best time living out here in the country.
every afternoon and evening we are outside.
taking in whatever beauty we can see around us…. sometimes that is through chickens or kitties.
sometimes it’s a huge Heron flying over the yard and landing in our tree!
or yesterday morning there were 21 wild turkeys in the yard while we ate our cereal.
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does anyone reading this want this rooster?
he is a beautiful bantam rooster but we don’t want any roosters.
we just want the girls…. the eggs. no chicks. we have enough chicks.
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how weird are chicken’s feet?!!
creepy.
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i have a ridiculous fear of spiders but i am amazed at the webs.
how could anyone look at that without a sense of awe?
God shows himself in big ways but also in teeny tiny ways… like the thin tiny thread of a spider’s detailed web..jpg)
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they puff up like this all the time when they are cleaning themselves. FUNNY!.jpg)
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it looks like she is at a party with those lights and colors in the background… ha ha ha
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yesterday morning talby went outside to check if the chickens had laid an egg yet.
we’ve been waiting 6 months.
she came back in with a straight face and i said “STILL NO EGGS?” and she smiled really big and pulled out this one small sweet egg.
and laughed at the trick she pulled on us.
OH the EXCITEMENT over the little egg.
Everyone held it and was so proud of the chickens!
we were trying guess which of the girls might have laid it.
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it was a fun way to send them off to the bus.
later that evening Sean said “I’m going to go check to see if there is one more egg from today”
i was cooking dinner in the kitchen and he came in with TWELVE eggs.
i thought it was a joke.
but where could he find 12 brown eggs to trick me with?
well… we were excited about one egg! You can imagine the JOY that came from 12 more!
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And they even found two more that night!
they aren’t laying their eggs in the nesting boxes or even in the house of their coop… they are being stinkers and hiding them under the house which is why we didn’t see them.
i am not sure how to fix this… but maybe it will fix itself.
for now the kids will crawl under to get the eggs.
i won’t.
but i shouldn’t have to with all these kids around.
🙂
seriously… SUCH A GREAT DAY! i smiled a lot.
it was worth the wait.
and of course… omelets for dinner tonight!
tara - all I can think about when i look at those chicken feet is our trip to China to bring Lydia home. every single restaurant we ate at offered fried chicken feet to us. gross.
apparently, chicken feet that are fried are all the rage in china.
Susan W - You won the egg lottery!
So much fun to experience! Love love love the photos!
Tiffany - So exciting! I love country living, and you capture the joy of it and your home through the photos perfectly. The critters around your home now give even more to the fun of your photos.
Rach - We out here in Cali approve of the Cubs shirt by the way. 🙂 Go Cubs Go!
Amy J. - Ditto to the comments about leaving the hens in for the first part of the day. . . they’ll learn soon to lay in the nesting boxes. Once they do you can let them back out for the day at an earlier time. You technically don’t have to get rid of the rooster. He is quite handsome, btw! Chicks won’t develop unless the hens lay on them for a certain amount of time keeping them at the right temp. So if you’re collecting eggs a couple of times a day you’ll be good with no chicks. We have 2 roosters and they are to be butchered soon! I don’t mind the noise but one is terribly mean and attacks all of us but my husband. At first our oldest (who is just 6) named him “Meanie” because he would “attack” the hens, if you know what I mean. 😉 But since he’s started attacking us his name has been changed to “Dinner”!
Roganne - Yay for eggs! Chickens are SO fun! I had a couple chickens last year and they would lay their eggs all over the place and then after awhile, they would eat them if we didn’t get them fast enough :/ Someone told me to put some golf balls where you want the eggs to be laid and then they will lay their eggs there too, it’s weird but it worked great!
Tracy - Congrats on the eggs! Very exciting!
I am always in awe of your photos! They are so beautiful to see. God has given you a gift, Meg! You are so talented!
camilla - Every picture you post with your flowers amazes me! Please share…do you have a secret to getting your planters so full and lush? Do you use a certain kind of soil or fertilizer? They are so gorgeous, and they have me looking at my pathetic planters wondering how I can get them to look more like yours. 🙂
Thanks!!!
Angela - Beautiful photos meg!
Lisa - I enjoy your pictures so much . . . your lovely flowers, especially the lantana, all your pretty colors like the little blue bench under the greenery, the colors of your hens, though my favorite are your KITTENS! I just LOVE the little orange tabby. Whenever I need a little shot of happy, I come to your blog and just enjoy your photos (or to my Pinterest page where I’ve pinned several of your Kansas photos). Thanks for sharing what makes you happy – it makes a lot of other people happy, too.
Whitney - This is going to sound stalkerish, but every time I see photos of your house I always think, “I want all of the stuff in her house it all looks so beautiful! But I will never find any cool stuff like that in thrift stores here!” WELL, today, looking at these pictures I saw that you have the same ALL laundry detergent bucket I have that I got last summer at a thrift store… yay! But why does yours look so much more awesome than mine?! (My husband thinks I was crazy for buying it, btw.
Lori - Hooray for the girls! 🙂
Claire P - Aren’t chickens the funniest? I love watching ours wander around the yard. We have a rooster and find that he’s good at protecting his girls and he’s good at directing them towards food. I saw him looking at a weed the other day, thinking he was going to eat it, but he let one of the girls have it instead. Very gentlemanly haha.
I’ve heard that they tend to lay their eggs at a certain time of day (possibly earlier on) so if you keep them locked up at that time they’ll get used to laying there.
Michelle from Australia - I’ve heard of The Cat In The Hat. But the cat in a bucket? Loved the kitty in the bucket (?pail?) photos!
Danielle Lindberg - We just got chickens this spring too and the way we trained our 12 to lay in the boxes or atleast the coop is to place 5 or 6 plastic easter eggs in the boxes…this shows the chickens that “other” chikens are laying there too and therefore a safe place to lay. This trick worked like a charm! I would do this or any other tips right away so raccoons and other critters don’t get the eggs or chickens first! Good Luck!
Heaven - I have some old, wooden eggs that my kids had in their play kitchen that I leave in nesting boxes to “show” m’ladies where to lay. Works like a charm!
Jenn - Amazing photos!
elma - So exciting!! what we did with our chickens is we kept them in their run and coop and let them free roam after dinner and they all started laying their eggs in the nesting boxes:)
Sharla - I love the pics in this post! I wouldn’t even consider myself a cat person, but if I lived on a farm I would be for sure! Love that pic of the cat walking on the chairs 🙂
Lee Ann - That first egg is sooooo eggsiting!I see lots of people have mentioned plastic or wooden eggs. You can also use their own eggs. But, with free range chickens, you may have to keep them in the coop for the first part of the day (until early afternoon) if you want them to lay in the coop. If not, there are just too many wonderful places to lay out on your little farm.
Marsha Kern - I live in the country too and it is the BEST!
Mindy - Beautiful pictures, as always! You make me want chickens all over again but maybe I can just admire yours from afar : )
katie Skiff - Get yourself a golf ball retriever. Then you can pick them from the hard to reach places they like to hide them. LOL.. Your noisy comment made me laugh – I said no roosters, that coop is way to close to our bedroom window!! 😉
Amanda - Small Home Big Start - What a wonderful experience for you and your family. All the colour, flowers and animals in your photos are so inspiring. I need to find a way to surround myself with things like that that make me happy. You only get one life to live – so why not fill it with colour!
jerusalem - We had the same issue with our first batch of chickens. We just put one egg back in each of the nesting boxes and within 24 hours they were laying in the correct spot. This is where the term “nest egg” comes from. Farmers have wooden eggs that they would put in the nest to train their chickens. So the “nest egg” gets things started!
Happygirl - Yep eggs or balls in the nesting boxes will help. I wish I could have chickens. Jealous
Natalie at Oven Love - Plastic eggs, golf balls or ping pong balls placed in the boxes should do the trick- might take them a little while, but usually they catch on eventually!
Susan - Hi Meg. Can you tell me what camera you are using and do you edit the photo’s and if so what program.Iam always interested in your photo’s and especially the lighting. I am a city girl in the desert so seeing your pics from the country are always interesting.Keep more coming as you are my daily read.
Gina - I love these pictures!! What a fun place to live for your children. I hate spiders too but saw two baby snakes while walking my dogs on the path today so right now I hate snakes worse!! I was carrying a stick to knock down any spider webs at the time!! 😛 Yea for the eggs! 😀
Christy - I read if you put a couple of fake eggs in the nesting boxes it will encourage them to lay there. We have just 1 chicken and I CAN NOT wait for her to lay 🙂
Dena - Awesome pics and hooray for the eggs! check out this site for how tos on chickens:
http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/
Sarah B - Love that story! Last fall our hens were 6 months old and we were waiting anxiously to see eggs. I remember our sweet daughter was SO sick with a throw-up virus but Daddy found the first egg and it made our pitiful girl smile so big. It’s just so exciting when they do!!! I kept telling our “golden girls” how proud Mama was of them! Our buff orpies laid their eggs on the floor of the coop and in other weird places at first, too. They learned soon on their own to lay them in the nesting box. But if they don’t, you can buy some hollow plastic “dummy” eggs and place them where you want them to lay…that SHOULD help them learn quicker. Aren’t hens the most joyful pets?! They’re just so entertaining and adorable.