The Great White North....err...South ???

Well, I spent the last week in Alberta, Canada...and the roads were a little icy but not terrible. The temps on the other hand were anywhere from -30 C to +20 C and the winds were from 0 to over 100 kph. Basically it was freakin' cold. However, what I left behind seemed to be worse. In Schulter we received over 3 inches of ice/sleet/snow on Tuesday/Wednesday. But, the chickens all seemed to survive the storm and egg production was actually up for the week, PLUS, we went over the 1000 egg mark in less than a year, WTG girls!

Another one down

Don't know what is getting our chickens but it sure is something! Found another dead chicken in the tractor today, I guess I didn't get all the sides protected enough as I found evidence of digging. Whatever killed it did not eat it, so I don't know if something got into or just reached into the tractor. Maybe it dug enough of a hole for the chicken to stick it's head outside the tractor and then.... Anyway, I hope this week we can keep them warm as it is supposed to be cold and icy! Flock of 9...that may cause a drop in egg production.

A tough Thanksgiving

Although we had a great Thanksgiving holiday, since we have been home things have been a little sad. First of all, our cat of at least 7 years, is gone...she was looking a little poorly before we left and now we fear she has left us for good. We will miss good ol' Mayonnaise! Then, when I got home from work yesterday I found that our one and only Leghorn was dead inside the chicken tractor. There was a gathering of feathers on the outside like some animal had tormented or attacked it and the body was all that was left...so now our flock is down to 10.

Hopefully things are going to be on an upswing from here!

Didn't see any chickens

Now that our computer is back from the shop I feel like I can update the blog a little easier. In our chickens of the world series....here is the best I could do in west Texas...this was a feed lot in Hereford, TX. Anyway, we are now starting to get a few green eggs again, but the short days have reduced our weekly output from the 40's to the 20's. I will get a new pic of our flock to show what our chickens are lookin like.

HMMMM.....

I don't know what has happened but our "Easter Eggers", the green egg laying chickens, have forgotten how to lay eggs...I don't know if they have gotten stressed by something or if the shorter days are confusing them or if they are having health issues. They have not layed a green egg now for 7 days....hmmm....

1st day of Fall

We are still here...I havn't posted any new pics because our lap top is currently out of commision and I guess I am spoiled and don't want to sit here at this desk top! The Flock has made it through thier 1st summer and now we are headed into shorter days...I am told that egg production may decrease a little bit, but we will have to wait and see. The State Fair is starting this coming weekend and the girls are excited to go see the animals including the other chickens...maybe I can get some pics to help identify our birds. We will keep you posted. Oh yeah, I just got back from New Mexico, but I failed to get a pic of a chicken for exhibit here...did some pics of a few cows.

GUSTAV!

What is left of hurricane Gustav blew into town overnight and left a litter of leaves all over my yard...and it has rained almost all day....curious to see what kind of rain fall total we end up with they were forecasting 7". I wondered if the rain would stress the chickens like the heat did to the point where they would not be able to produce eggs...but they were fine...in fact today we hit our average of 7 eggs and the hurricane really kept the heat down today, I think we were in the low 70's. I may have to figure out how to hook up a live web cam so ya'll can watch the chickens 24/7!