Around the Farm

I was away on vacation for three weeks. While I was gone Molly started molting. She looks very sad and scraggly. Blackie is still as fluffy as ever. The morning after I got home I was awakened to the sounds of the chickens freaking out. I couldn't find my robe so I finally ran out in a short jacket to see Molly being chased by a damn raccoon. It was a very close thing. The raccoon was just a few inches away from her little tail feathers. I was able to chase the coon away and get the chickens settled down. I'm keeping them in the smaller, more raccoon-proof run on the side yard until I can trap the raccoon. I've been trying to find a trap to borrow but it looks like I'll be buying a trap soon. The girls do NOT like being cooped up in the smaller run.

The bees really calmed down after I put another super on the hive. I have two more to put on top this weekend and that should do it. I'm going to put a queen excluder under the two new boxes, so they will only get honey.I haven't looked inside the hive for a couple of months. I'm curious to see what they have been up to. I need to put something up by the hive to provide a little shade in the afternoon. It gets pretty darn hot up there.

In addition to the raccoon and the skunk in the yard, I also had a squirrel in the garage when I came home from vacation. I was able to borrow a squirrel trap and found a little squirrel in there on Saturday morning. The poor thing had rubbed it's nose bloody on the bars of the cage trying to get out. My plan was to dispatch it, but it made me sad, so I put it in the car and let it out by a park. I'm a little disappointed in myself, but it was just to cute for me to murder it. When I let it out, it flew across the field and into somebody's back yard. Then I heard a little squeaking sound and then nothing. Not sure what happened there, but it sounded ominous.

The Bees Were up to Something Today

My new roommate Laurel mentioned in passing that the bees had swarmed in the yard today. I climbed up and checked the outside of the hive. There still seem to be some bees in there, but I'm not sure what they are up to. The ones at the front entrance seem to just be hanging out and not mysteriously active like they usually are. I guess I'll have a look inside tomorrow after work.

I've been meaning to add a new box to the hive. I was reading that when the bees get too crowded the tend to get more aggressive. I've never had any problems, but my other roommate Amanda tells me she has been chased by bees in the yard a couple of times now. I'm worried, because I don't want my roommates to be scared of the bees, but I'm also confused, because the bees never bother me when I'm out there. I'm not sure how to keep Amanda from being a bee target.

I was doing some reading last night and have discovered that I have maybe been doing the smoking wrong. The smokers are supposed to put out a cool smoke, and in order to get that you are supposed to pack the smoker pretty full of fuel. I have never really paid attention to how hot the smoke was, but from the description of what bad noises the bees make when the smoke is too hot, I suspect the my smoke is too toasty. I'm going to pay closer attention to that in the future.

The last time I opened up the hive was a little hairy. It was too hot out and I was in there too long. The bees were pretty angry, and it was hard to keep them calm. I got stung through my pants three times that day. After that I'm seriously considering buying an actual bee suit. I've just been using whatever, but those three stings really hurt, and they left a mark for a couple weeks. I've never had much of a problem with bee stings before, so I'm not sure what that was about. maybe the stingers broke off in my leg or something. I hate having special clothes for things, but this might be one of these time when I have to break down and spend the money.

The Bees are Tidying Up

The bees have chewed through the rubber bands that attached the cut comb to the frames and are slowly and laboriously tossing them out of the hive.

Bees and Chicken Critters

So I decided that I needed to add some bees to my hidden farm. I've been following the Backwards Beekeepers and doing some other research, and finally the time was right to git me some bees. I keep meaning to write the story of my bee cut-out adventure, but that is a posting all on it's own, and the story isn't quite over yet.

The short version is that I did get some bees and I put them up on my garage. They seem pretty happy up there, but unfortunately there is no queen in the hive. No queen means they will all die off pretty soon, so I had to find a new swarm with a queen that I could combine with my queenless bees. Tomorrow I'm going to get some bees out of a fence, and hopefully I will get a queen this time. Cross your fingers for me.



The chickens were acting extra fussy, so I picked up Molly and inspected her. Blech, she was covered with creepy crawly critters, and so was Blackie. I was relieved to see that they were chicken lice rather than mites. The lice are way easier to get rid of and they aren't as harmful to the birds. They don't feed directly off the chicken, they eat the dead flaky skin. They cause irritation so there is plenty of flaky skin to go around.

The poison that is most popular for treating the lice is poisonous to cats, so I did some investigating and found out that a bath in soap and salt water will kill the lice. Then you have to do it again in 10 days to kill whatever hatches later. So, I cleaned out the chicken house really well and dusted it thoroughly with diatomaceous earth to help kill any stragglers, and settled in to give my poor chickens a bath. I've never done it before, and I don't think the chickens have ever been given a bath either.

I filled up a bucket with warm water and then added salt and some Dr. Bronners. Then poor Molly got stuck in the water for about 10 minutes. She did not take it well. She tried to get out the whole time but when I took her out of the water she just stood there dripping, and didn't go anywhere. She was very subdued for the rest of the day. Blackie didn't like it either, but it didn't bother her nearly as much. It was a little bit cool outside, and they took a while to dry, so I ended up putting them in the bathtub in a pet carrier with a heater blowing on them overnight.

The bath worked really well and they have been critter free so far.

Roosting

The chickens have settled in nicely. I'm getting one or two eggs a day lately. I like to watch them walk by my door in the morning.

I've been working on the run in the side yard. It's full of those "decorative" yard rocks, and also a strange assortment of flotsam and jetsam. I have pulled out car parts, toys, old beer cans, broken glass, and unidentifiable bits and bots. I think it was a kind of garbage dump for previous tenants. It has been raining on many weekends, so I haven't gotten nearly as much done as I would have liked, but I don't think the chickens care. I've also been hauling the rocks out of the back yard. soon I will have a nice little piece of heaven back there.

Tonight I got home before dark. Twilight hit, and it looked like the chickens were off to bed for the night. Molly came running back around the corner and came to stand in front of me. Back when they were little, and back before I traded Typhoid Mary for Blackie, the Big Black Hen, at twilight the chickens would fly up onto my shoulders and perch there until I put them into their coop for the night. It was really sweet, and it was the only time that they really wanted to be near me. Blackie was never into the whole roosting on me thing, and when I brought them back from the country they didn't want to do it at all anymore. Molly seems to miss it though, and every once in a while she looks like she wants to hop up on my shoulder again.

Tonight she fluttered right up to my shoulder and snuggled up against me, until Blackie's protestations called her down into the coop for the night.

Goodnight Chickens.

The Chickens are Back

What? Where did they go? WTF?

It's been a crazy few months. In a nutshell... I thought I was moving out of the house, so I took my chickens to my friend Robin's place up near Castaic. Then, it turns out I decided to stay, so after a somewhat exhausting search for new roommates, I was able to go retrieve my ladies. I happened to go get them during some of the worst rain I have ever seen in Southern California. That is how much I love my chickens!



I made them a new place in the side yard. Unfortunately, the greenery only lasted a couple weeks. They seem to like it OK, although they are still somewhat suspicious of me.



I don't think they liked it very much out in the country. They had to live with a bunch of other hens who constantly picked on them. It took a couple weeks, but I got them looking fat and happy again. When they first got back I only got one really tiny egg. About a week later I started getting eggs, but I'm pretty sure that only Blackie was laying. This weekend I finally saw evidence that Molly is laying and now I am getting two eggs again some days.

Broody

Molly got a little broody last week. It was very strange. She hunkered down in her nest and wouldn't leave it. If I came up she made this very strange screeching sound. Blackie was right in there backing her up. Neither one tried to peck at me but they were both very fierce looking. It was only after I got her up off her nest that she made her egg laying noises. She did it for a couple of days and then gave up. She hasn't been laying much since then. Hopefully she will be back to normal soon.

Blackie has started showing signs of maturity. She should start laying soon, I think.