I was cleaning out my blog pictures file this afternoon and came across these two shots of the chickens that I haven’t posted. Since we have gone from beautiful green fields and blue skies to beautiful winter white covered fields and cloudy skies I thought that I would share them with you.
Oddly enough, I realized that I sorta miss the chickens. They are still here of course since many of them survived the weasle attack awhile back as well as the few “chicken runs” to the butcher, but I don’t get to see them running around my yard since this came …
My days of putting chickens to bed have ended for the season and it seems a little odd. My job of keeping them safe for the night was one of my only jobs around here that I absolutely “had” to do everyday … well, with the exception of keeping Loren fed. :)
This past week however I did have an addition to my “chores”, one that I am not so happy about but that I am growing to accept. We are in the process of eliminating a rodent issue in the chicken coop. That is my nice way of saying that there has been evidence of “rats” in there … yep, rats … I shutter at the very thought of them and to know that they could very well be residing in the chicken coop is enough to make my stomach do a flip or two. But regardless of my own denial, the truth of the matter is that they are there and we have to get rid of them.
One of the reasons why rodents love our farm is because we offer our animals feed “free choice” so when they are hungry they eat which means that the food is always easily accessible. If a chicken can get to the feed then surely a rodent can.
Even though Loren hates the idea of using poisions or chemicals of any kind, he had to make an exception to his ideals and get rid of the rodents. He set up a corner of the coop with traps and poision and baracaded it so that those that travel on four short legs could get in but our chickens could not.
Part of the process in elimination the little guys is that the feed that they have grown to expect and nourish themselves with needs to be taken away in the evening when they get hungry. Since Loren works second shift, that leaves one little lone new farm wife to take care of the chore.
It took a little convincing and a final “you gotta do this to get rid of the rats” statement and I was signed up for the task. It isn’t really too bad of course and I manage to get the job done even though I would rather not. This is week one and Loren said that it should only be a few more days before the poision as taken effect and the coop is back to just being a house for chickens and their uninvited guests are no longer visiting.
My job includes taking out all the feed, which is one long feeder that I pour their flax into from another feeder and taking the feeder down and out that hangs down. I empty the water cans so that they don’t freeze solid and I collect any eggs that may have been laid in the past few hours since Loren collected them. Then I trudge through the snow to put everything in the garage near the house. And that is it … so not too bad. Once the rodents are taken care of we won’t need to take out the feed and then I will just have to collect eggs and empty the water cans and that will be my new job everynight. So I have gone from simply shutting the chicken coop door each evening to actual chicken chores (or a version of them) … huh?, looks like I might make it as a farm-girl after all. :)
