First up, Eastern Phoebes. They built a nest in my milking room and
raised a brood of four.
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Nest of Eastern Phoebes
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The parents were very shy and wouldn't come in when I was in the milking room,
so I tried to be very stealth when taking pictures. I never tried to peek inside the nest, but kept my distance as best I could. At night I left one of
the barn windows open for them, while the rest of the barn is closed up because
of the coyotes.
They fledged one morning when I was doing the milking and feeding the goats. They all found windows and doors to
fly out of and I'm guessing the happy family is around somewhere.
Phoebes are common to my state, but I don't recall seeing them
much.
Also, we have new feathered additions of the domestic kind.
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Buff Orpington chicks, hatched in late April |
We bought them through our feed store because we could get the number and breed of chicks we wanted.
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| about 2 weeks old |
These came about because our current flock is getting pretty old and have not done a good job of providing us with replacements. They sometimes go broody, but quit before incubation is done. So we decided to go with the Buffs, which have been a good breed for for us for broodiness and mothering. The batch is supposedly all pullets (female), but we'll see. Eventually we'll need a rooster.
Rather than put the new chickens in the established poultry yard, we fenced off a new yard on the side of the goat barn.
Several years ago we tried to make this a
yard for new ducks, but they deserted it in favor of the chicken yard. We've tried to keep the chickens and ducks separate, but the ducks insist on being in the poultry yard and chicken coop. Since they squabble so much, we decided to start the new chicks off in a new location, as soon as they're old enough.
For a chicken coop, Dan expanded
our old chicken tractor.
It's heavier, of course, but will be more of a permanent coop for the new additions.
Once they are feathered out and able to stay warm without the light, we'll move them in. To start they'll have the coop area and the protected area underneath, but eventually they'll have the entire yard to roam in.
We think it's best when young are raised by their mother, even chicks, even though they are able to feed themselves from the get-go. It certainly makes the job easier to have a mama hen do it, plus they learn quite a bit from their mother too. In this case, however, it couldn't be helped.
