These fine ladies and gentlemen helped me do some yard work today!
I'm putting some leaves in our gardens before the winter gets going, and these guys just love to scratch. As soon as I started dumping the leaves in a pile they were running over to see what I had. Right away they all started digging through it and spreading it around. Thanks for the help dudes!
Because of the chickens I didn't even have to remove my door stop for the greenhouse...
Our 3 elderly chickens, far away from the maddening crowd.
Oooh those youngsters scratching for leaves...ain't nobody got time for dat.
And then there's Fluffy...
She doesn't even know what she's doing. Scratching by herself in a different garden altogether. Fluffy don't follow no crowd.
Fluffy actually pissed me off again today hahaha, I found one of her massive outdoor egg stashes. She is so sneaky, she makes us go on actually Easter Egg hunts to find her pink eggs and the worst part is that she has corrupted a few of the other gals...Grace...Dawn King...you know I'm talking about you...
Fluffy. The Ring Leader of the Easter Egg Gang.
Dawn King. Fluffy's second in command. She keeps a lookout for Farmer Lyndsay while Fluffy and Grace lay their eggs outside in the woods.
The Queen, looking fresh as always. She also gives zero fucks.
Buddy. Still super small for her age, and she has a scissor beak and walks super funny, like bowlegged. She's very, how shall we say...special.
Puddle Barometer Avec Chicken
Everyone's favourite chicken: Wingboots.
Back To The Chicken Rakes
They'll make quick work of those little piles, but at least it kept them, and me, entertained for a bit. Chickens just get so excited about the prospect of food, it's really cute to watch.
Darth Layer sends her regards @tremendospercy :)
Jimmy sends his love @phoenixwren :)
*This post is Crazy Chicken Lady approved and verified
Don't ever do what I did and accidentally set your post to 100% power up right now with SBD so high
Hey, Hey, The Darth Layer looking double hard!
How lazy are you getting the chickens to do all the hard work?! 😂
They all look so healthy babe, you're regime of yard work and egg laying is obviously keeping them in shape. ❤️
Aw, thanks for loving "The Babes" (as Eddie calls them) <3 <3 Yeah I'm gonna have to go for a walk today to catch up on the exercise that I've been missing!
What lovely helpers. I have a new chicken house for my gals, and gentleman, and now have to build them a large run. Until we figure out how to keep a local fox away, they are no longer free ranging and I hate it. I loved watching them scratch about and they were always a boon in the garden. Oh well. Do you have any trouble with predators and your free rangers?
It sucks so much to have to keep them penned in, I'm so sorry about that fox lurking around trying to make a meal out of your feathered family. We thankfully don't have any predators around here because we live right on the highway on our front yard and the ocean on our back, as well as a very loud and brightly lit factory across the street from us. Trust me...it's the only good thing about living on a highway across from a factory, no predators! They're too scared hahaha!!
City foxes don't care. City foxes dgaf.
(I say this because we've had foxes in the neighborhood and I live near the cross streets of two of the busiest streets in the state. The foxes were seen cuddling in the bed of a truck parked at the hospital where I worked at the time. A human tried to shoo them and they looked at him like, "Yeah, no, asshole, this is our bed now.")
Omg...that's lit! AHAHAHAA!!
I love the daily Easter Egg hunt! Although I'm sure the novelty wears off pretty quick. How does the song go? I wish it could be Easter...every day!
Is she going broody on those eggs or just abandoning them?
They are just abandoning them out in the brambles. Every time I "bust" one of their secret nests they just move it somewhere else LOL! Today I kept them in their run until the afternoon so that those naughty girls would lay in the coop...got 17 eggs today! Buggers! :D :D :D
So many eggs! I'm jealous!
What are the hens saving them for? Do they want to make an omelette? A breakfast burrito?
My latest hypothesis is that they do it so I will scramble the eggs up for them, because that's what I end up doing every time I find a stash!
lyndsaybowes
That is what I miss a lot being here in Florida. The chickens.
Fresh eggs. I do know the difference. Or I think I do. Ha
They do love to scratch. And they eat less chicken feed because of it.
If they are digging. They can't be eating chicken feed. lol
Francis
You are so right @francisk! Way less food costs if the girls can forage all day.
I do have people tell us there's a big difference between our eggs and the store's.
Ha...this looks like a chicken movie. or um a chicken comic strip. Love that they are helping you.
Good job, chickens! And hi, Jimmy! 😃
I love your chicken commentaries and first person perspective chicken thoughts. LOL
Jimmy was hoping you'd see him <3 Hihihi :)
We are still covered in snow but it is due to clear again in a couple of days.
I was then thinking of putting one of the chicken flocks in the raised beds in the back garden to scratch over, eat the bugs and fertilise.
But I do have some cabbages and kale overwintering there. Do you think I can trust the chickens to leave them alone... or will they be just a little bit naughty and destroy them as well?
I don't think they'd be able to destroy the roots of the kale, mine only eat the leaves and my roots are nice and deep. My chickens don't even eat the stems. But they do have a lot of green grass and stuff to eat, so all depends on your chickens lol!
These are quite young plants overwintering for the spring so they might be a bit too tempting for the chickens. I will have to find a way to net them off I think.
Good idea then if they're still not rooted in very well :) Best luck with finding some netting!
I am sure they will behave if I ask them nicely...
Yes! Make them do the work! They have to do their share of work also! They can't live there for free lol.
That title "Chicken Rakes" made perfect sense to me even before reading your post.
Take care that nobody trips on that 'real' rake though. My dad would have scolded you for having it turned that way ;)
Omg haha! Thank you for noticing that :) You possibly saved someone a black eye! I'll go turn it around today!!
It's a pet peeve of my dad's. As a child, even when I positioned the rake correctly, he would ask me and tell me how to do it and then go look. I think he had some kind of trauma with a rake as a child...
Aw... :(
Most folks don't realize that each animal is an individual complete with its own personality. As a kid we had cows, pigs, horses, chickens and even peafowl, for a while. You really do get to know them. The old peahen was just mean. She'd chase us kids every time she could. She'd even go out of her way to sneak up on us when we were playing. What a hateful bird! But she layed nice eggs. The pigs were by far the smartest animals we had.
Awww, haha sounds like you have some really good memories, and some not-so-good ones too, that pea hen sounds crazy lol!! It's funny though because they lay eggs, we put up with the vicious hens. Hey, maybe she had a rough childhood right?
No doubt she was the only hen amongst a bunch of cocks!